[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14162-H14167]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE BALANCED BUDGET MYTH
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Longley). Under a previous order of the
House, the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie] is recognized for 60
minutes.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I believe, if I understood the
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] correctly, he was not quite
finished with his remarks. If he would like, inasmuch as I have
something I have to do off the floor for a few moments, I would yield
to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] at this point. Did I
understand correctly that he was not quite finished?
Mr. DORNAN. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, I was not. I
thank the gentleman. If I can do this quickly in 10 minutes, I will not
keep our hardworking staff here after your special order.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mine will not take the full hour. I yield to the
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan].
keeping america's troops out of the baltic conflict
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I can save some of this for next week if I
do not get my conference to meet, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow and plan our
vote, irrespective of what the Senate does, with our great Members over
there. I would like to finish, and I will ask permission to put the
whole article from Time magazine by J.F.O. McAllister, including
interviews with Clinton, into the paper.
Mr. Speaker, one of my sons or daughters sent me the front page of
the L.A. Times. You have already heard me, Mr. Speaker, say today that
I find this the most offensive, and I do not know what they did in the
San Diego
[[Page H 14163]]
Union, Duke, but look at this. This is a staged photograph. This is the
photograph of the Officer Corps of the First Armored Division.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I would
like to make this perfectly clear. When I talk about the radical Muslim
Islamic movement, it is not the Muslims across this world. Just as we
have in any religion radical groups, these are the groups that are
sworn to take blood, to take blood of anyone that does not believe as
they do. That is wrong, but yet, I do not want to make any implication
that it is Christians, Muslims, or any other religious group, other
than the radicals that we are talking about in the 4,000 Mujaheddin.
Mr. DORNAN. To show that I am fair too, and that there is plenty of
guilt to spread around, the map that the gentleman from California [Mr.
Cunningham] was holding up earlier, that takes a nation, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, that looks like an arrowhead, and that is what it was, the
arrowhead, the tip of the spear of Islamic penetration into the soft
underbelly of Europe, stopped up at Vienna and Prague, totally burned
Ottoman empire warriors, the cities of Buda and Pest on the other side
of the Danube, now the capital city of Budapest, Hungary, and then they
were eventually driven back by knights from Austria, from Styria, one
of the major provinces, and there is an incredible armor museum of all
of the Medieval and Renaissance ages of the armored war that went on
between Islam and Christendom, and this was one of the main armories.
The oldest and last surviving armory from that period in Europe is at
Graz in Austria, a fascinating visit for historians and for even
peaceniks to contemplate man's inhumanity to man, with women either
standing by the sidelines crying because they have lost their son,
their husband, their father, their uncle, or they are killed in the
process of men tearing one another apart.
But here is this normal-looking country, the shape of an arrowhead or
a triangle, and it now looks like a distorted amoeba or a Rorschach
test that the Bosnian government in Sarajevo, recognized by us on April
7 of 1993, by the United Nations on May 22 of 1993, it is now cut into
this bizarre shape. You have the Croatians, and Catholic Croatians, in
an uneasy confederation with the Muslim Bosnians, while the Serbs are
in two big globs, held together by a four kilometer little corridor
called Posavina corridor, with Brijco, their main armament source on
the border with Milosevic's Serbia proper, let me look at the 20 miles
here, 20, 40, 60, 80, less than 100 miles from Belgrade, which has been
one of the main problems in all of this.
I look at this, and here is a brand new footprint, just sort of an
oblong glob that is now held by Croatian forces from Croatia, with
Croatian Bosnians, and Muslim Bosnians out of the Bihac pocket up in
the north, the very tip of the Islamic spear. They now hold this area
that they have been ordered to give back to the Serbs.
There are two villages in there, I learned this morning, it is
declassified, called Sipovo and Mrkonjic grad, grad being city, like
Belgrade. These two cities, as we speak, or they are asleep now, when
they wake up in the morning, and that is about another 4 hours, the
Croatian forces, with the total acquiescence of the Muslim forces, are
burning these villages to the ground, because if they are going to give
these villages back to the Bosnian Serbs, they want them to be utter
rubble, because that is what the Serbs did to 3,800 villages on the
other side, destroying every minaret, every town hall meeting place,
burned down all the homes; that if the people come back as refugees
when they get tired of killing one another and a peace comes back to
this land, however tentatively, given its 600 or 700 year history,
2,000 year history, for that matter, they will come back to rubble.
There is no City Hall, no marketplace, no minaret, no church. It is all
gone. It is dirt.
So they turn around and say that that is where my father died, there
is my family home, my sister was raped there, I do not want these
memories, and they go back to being a refugee. So the guilt is on all
sides; the Croatians, who I admired so much in their special forces
training camps down on the Dalmatian coast, they are now burning
villages at this, tit for tat, giving to the Serbs what the Serbs did
to them. So when they open this area up, and this is going to be in the
British sector, the British will have to keep them apart here, the
people come back to villages they fled from in September and the
villages are rubble.
I see the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie] has come back. Let
me ask for a special order, an hour next Tuesday night, next Wednesday
night, and next Thursday night. Hopefully I will have gotten votes out
of my leader, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], my majority
leader, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], and I know the majority
whip, the gentleman from Houston, TX [Mr. DeLay] wants to do this, and
let me put in the Record four articles. I beg, Mr. Speaker, people
listening to our voices here today to read this material that is in the
Congressional Record.
The material referred to is as follows:
Resume of Service Career of William Lafayette Nash, Major General
(Commanding Officer, 1st Armored Division)
Date and place of birth--10 August 1943, Tucson, AZ.
Years of active commissioned service--over 26.
Present assignment--Commanding General, 1st Armored
Division, U.S. Army Europe Seventh Army, APO AE 09252, since
June 1995.
Military schools attended--The Armor School, Officer Basic
Course; The Infantry School, Officer Advanced Course; U.S.
Army Command and General Staff College; U.S. Army War
College.
Educational degrees--U.S. Military Academy--BS Degree; no
major; Shippensburg University--MS Degree, Public
Administration.
Foreign language(s)--Russian.
Major Duty Assignments
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From To Assignment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 68........................ Oct 68........... Student, Ranger
Course, U.S. Army
Infantry School,
Fort Benning, GA.
Oct 68........................ Nov 68........... Student, Armor
Officer Basic
Course, U.S. Armor
School, Fort Knox,
KY.
Dec 68........................ Apr 69........... Platoon Leader, Troop
L, 3d Squadron, 3d
Armored Cavalry
Regiment, Fort
Lewis, WA.
Apr 69........................ Feb 70........... Platoon Leader, Troop
A, 1st Squadron,
11th Armored Cavalry
Regiment, U.S. Army,
Vietnam.
Feb 70........................ Jun 70........... Executive Officer,
Troop B, 1st
Squadron, 11th
Armored Cavalry
Regiment, U.S. Army,
Vietnam.
Jun 70........................ Jul 71........... Assistant G-3
(Operations)
Training Officer,
later Assistant G-3
(Operations) Chief
of Force
Development, 82d
Airborne Division,
Fort Bragg, NC.
Jul 71........................ Nov 71........... S-3 (Operations), 1st
Squadron, 17th
Cavalry Regiment,
later Procurement
Officer, Board for
Dynamic Training,
82d Airborne
Division, Fort
Bragg, NC.
Nov 71........................ Feb 73........... Commander, Troop A,
1st Squadron, 17th
Cavalry Regiment,
82d Airborne
Division, Fort
Bragg, NC.
Mar 73........................ Jul 73........... Student, Officer
Rotary Wing Aviator
Course, U.S. Army
Helicopter Center/
School, Fort
Wolters, TX.
Jul 73........................ Dec 73........... Student, Officer
Rotary Wing Aviator
Course, U.S. Army
Aviation School,
Fort Rucker, AL.
Jan 74........................ Sep 74........... Student, Infantry
Officer Advanced
Course, U.S. Army
Infantry School,
Fort Benning, GA.
Sep 74........................ Jun 77........... Platoon Leader and
Assistant Operations
Officer, later
Platoon Commander,
and later Regimental
Plans Officer, Air
Cavalry Troop, 11th
Armored Cavalry
Regiment, United
States Army Europe,
Germany.
Aug 77........................ Jun 78........... Student U.S. Army
Command and General
Staff College, Fort
Leavenworth, KS.
Jun 78........................ Apr 79........... Staff Officer,
Regional Operations
Division, Office,
Deputy Chief of
Staff for Operations
and Plans, U.S.
Army, Washington,
DC.
Apr 79........................ Jun 82........... Aide and Assistant
Executive Officer,
later Executive
Officer to the Vice
Chief of Staff,
Army, Office of the
Chief of Staff,
Army, Washington,
DC.
Jun 82........................ Jun 83........... Deputy Executive
Assistant to the
Chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff,
Washington, DC.
Jun 83........................ Jun 85........... Commander, 3d
Squadron, 8th
Cavalry Regiment,
8th Infantry
Division, United
States Army Europe,
Germany.
Aug 85........................ Jun 88........... Student, U.S. Army
War College,
Carlisle Barracks,
PA.
Jun 86........................ May 88........... Assistant Chief of
Staff, G-3
(Operations), 1st
Cavalry Division,
Fort Hood, TX.
May 88........................ May 89........... Executive Officer to
the Commander-In-
Chief, United States
Army Europe,
Germany.
Jun 89........................ Dec 90........... Commander, 1st
Brigade, 3d Armored
Division, United
States Army Europe
and Seventh Army,
Germany.
Dec 90........................ Apr 91........... Commander, 1st
Brigade, 3d Armored
Division, Desert
Storm, Saudi Arabia.
Apr 91........................ Jul 91........... Commander, 1st
Brigade, 3d Armored
Division, United
States Army Europe
and Seventh Army,
Germany.
Jul 91........................ Jun 92........... Assistant Division
Commander, 3d
Infantry Division
(Mechanized), United
States Army Europe
and Seventh Army,
Germany.
Jun 92........................ Jul 93........... Deputy Commanding
General for
Training, U.S. Army
Combined Arms
Command, Fort
Leavenworth, KS.
Jul 93........................ Jun 95........... Program Manager,
United States Army
Office of the
Program Manager,
Saudi Arabian
National Guard
Modernization
Program.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dates of appointment
---------------------------------------
Temporary Permanent
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Promotions:
2LT........................... 5 Jun 68.......... 5 Jun 68
1LT........................... 5 Jun 69.......... 5 Jun 71
CPT........................... 5 Jun 70.......... 5 Jun 75
MAJ........................... .................. 10 Jun 77
LTC........................... .................. 1 Nov 82
COL........................... .................. 1 May 89
BG............................ .................. 1 Mar 92
MG............................ Frocked........... ..................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
u.s. decorations and badges
Silver Star.
Legion of Merit.
Bronze Star Medal with ``V'' Device (with 2 Oak Leaf
Clusters).
Purple Heart.
Meritorious Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster).
Army Commendation Medal (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters).
Army Achievement Medal.
Senior Parachutist Badge.
Army Aviator Badge.
Ranger Tab.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge.
[[Page H 14164]]
Army Staff Identification Badge.
Source of commission--USMA.
SUMMARY OF JOINT ASSIGNMENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assignment Dates Grade
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deputy Executive Assistant to Jun 82-Jun 83..... Major/Lieutenant
the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Colonel
Staff, Washington, DC, as of 23
June 1995.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
____
[From Reader's Digest, October 1995]
The Folly of U.N. Peacekeeping
(By Dale Van Atta)
Sonja's Kon-Tiki cafe is notorious Serbian watering hole
six miles north of Sarajevo. While Serb soldiers perpetrated
atrocities in nearby Bosnian villages, local residents
reported that U.N. peacekeepers from France, Ukraine, Canada
and New Zealand regularly visited Sonja's, drinking and
eating with these very same soldiers--and sharing their
women.
The women of Sonja's, however, were actually prisoners of
the Serb soldiers. As one soldier, Borislav Herak, would
later confess, he visited Sonja's several times a week,
raping some of the 70 females present and killing two of
them.
U.N. soldiers patronized Sonja's even after a Sarajevo
newspaper reported where the women were coming from. Asked
about this, a U.N. spokesman excused the incident by saying
no one was assigned to read the newspaper.
The U.N. soldiers who frequented Sonja's also neglected to
check out the neighborhood. Less than 200 feet away, a
concentration camp held Bosnian Muslims in inhuman
conditions. Of 800 inmates processed, 250 disappeared and are
presumed dead.
Tragically Sonja's Kon-Tike illustrates much of what has
plagued U.N. peackeeping operations: incompetent commanders,
undisciplined soldiers, alliances with aggressors, failure to
prevent atrocities and at times even contributing to the
horror. And the level of waste, fraud and abuse is
overwhelming.
Until recently, the U.N. rarely intervened in conflicts.
When it did, as in Cyprus during the 1960s and `70s, it had
its share of success. But as the Cold War ended, the U.N.
became the world's policeman, dedicated to nation building as
well as peacekeeping. By the end of 1991, the U.N. was
conducting 11 peacekeeping operations at an annual cost of
$480 million. In three years, the numbers rose to 18
operations and $3.3 billion--with U.S. taxpayers paying 31.7
percent of the bill.
Have the results justified the steep cost? Consider the
U.N.'s top four peacekeeping missions:
Bosnia.--In June 1991, Croatia declared its independence
from Yugoslavia and was recognized by the U.N. The Serbian
dominated Yugoslav army invaded Croatia, ostensibly to
protect its Serbian minority. After the Serbs agreed to a
cease-fire, the U.N. sent in a 14,000-member U.N. Protection
Force (UNPROFOR) to build a new nation. (The mission has
since mushroomed to more than 40,000 personnel, becoming the
most extensive and expensive peacekeeping operation ever.)
After neighboring Bosnia declared its independence in March
1992, the Serbs launched a savage campaign of ``ethnic
cleansing'' against the Muslims and Croats who made up 61
percent of the country's population. Rapidly the Serbs gained
control of two-thirds of Bosnia, which they still hold.
Bosnian Serbs swept into Muslim and Croat villages and
engaged in Europe's worst atrocities since the Nazi
Holocaust. Serbian thugs raped at least 20,000 women and
girls. In barbed-wire camps, men, women and children were
tortured and starved to death. Girls as young as six were
raped repeatedly while parents and siblings were forced to
watch. In one case, three Muslim girls were chained to a
fence, raped by Serb soldiers for three days, then drenched
with gasoline and set on fire.
While this was happening, the UNPROFOR troops stood by and
did nothing to help. Designated military observers counted
artillery shells--and the dead.
Meanwhile, evidence began to accumulate that there was a
serious corruption problem. Accounting procedures were so
loose that the U.N. overpaid $1.8 million on a $21.8
million fuel contract. Kenyan peacekeepers stole 25,000
gallons of fuel worth $100,000 and sold it to the Serbs.
Corruption charges were routinely dismissed as unimportant
by U.N. officials. Sylvana Foa, then spokesperson for the
U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva said it was no
surprise that ``out of 14,000 pimply 18-year-olds, a bunch of
them should get up to hanky-panky'' like blackmarket dealings
and going to brothels.
When reports persisted, the U.N. finally investigated. In
November 1993 a special commission confirmed that some
terrible but ``limited'' misdeeds had occurred. Four Kenyan
and 19 Ukrainian soldiers were dismissed from the U.N. force.
The commission found no wrongdoing at Sonja's Kon-Tiki, but
its report, locked up at U.N. headquarters and never publicly
released, is woefully incomplete. The Sonja's Kon-Tiki
incidents were not fully investigated, for example, because
the Serbs didn't allow U.N. investigators to visit the site,
and the soldiers' daily logbooks had been destroyed.
Meanwhile, Russian troop commanders have collaborated with
the Serb aggressors. According to U.N. personnel at the
scene, Russian battalion commander Col. Viktor Loginov and
senior officer Col. Aleksandr Khromchenkov frequented lavish
feats hosted by a Serbian warlord known as ``Arkan,'' widely
regarded as one of the worst perpetrators of atrocities. It
was also common knowledge that Russian officers directed U.N.
tankers to unload gas at Arkan's barracks. During one cease-
fire, when Serbian materiel was locked in a U.N. storage
area, a Russian apparently gave the keys to the Serbs, who
removed 51 tanks.
Eventually, Khromchenkov was repatriated. Loginov, after
finishing his tour of duty joined Arkan's Serbian forces.
Problems remained, however, under the leadership of another
Russian commander, Maj. Gen. Aleksandr Perelyakin. Belgian
troops had been blocking the movement of Serb troops across a
bridge in northeastern Croatia, as required by U.N. Security
Council resolutions. Perelyakin ordered the Belgians to stand
aside. Reluctantly they did so, permitting one of the largest
movements of Serbian troops and equipment into the region
since the 1991 cease-fire.
According to internal U.N. reports, the U.N. spent eight
months quietly trying to pressure Moscow to pull Perelyakin
back, but the Russians refused. The U.N. finally dismissed
him last April.
Cambodia.--In 1991, the United States, China and the Soviet
Union helped broker a peace treaty among three Cambodian
guerrilla factions and the Vietnamese-installed Cambodian
government, ending 21 years of civil war. To ease the
transition to Cambodia's first democratic government, the
U.N. created the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia
(UNTAC). In less than two years, about 20,000 U.N.
peacekeepers and other personnel were dispatched at a cost
of $1.9 billion.
Some of the Cambodian ``peacekeepers'' proved to be
unwelcome guests--especially a Bulgarian battalion dubbed the
``Vulgarians.'' In northwest Cambodia, three Bulgarian
soldiers were killed for ``meddling'' with local girls. One
Bulgarian was treated for 17 different cases of VD. The
troops' frequent carousing once sparked a mortar-rifle battle
with Cambodian soldiers at a brothel.
The Bulgarians were not the sole miscreants in Cambodia, as
internal U.N. audits later showed. Requests from Phnom Penh
included 6500 flak jackets--and 300,000 condoms. In the year
after the U.N. peacekeepers arrived, the number of
prostitutes in Phnom Penh more than tripled.
U.N. mission chief Yasushi Akashi waved off Cambodian
complaints with a remark that ``18-year-old hot-blooded
soldiers'' had the right to enjoy themselves, drink a few
beers and chase ``young beautiful beings.'' He did post an
order: ``Please do not park your U.N. vans near the
nightclubs'' (i.e., whorehouses). At least 150 U.N.
peacekeepers contracted AIDS in Cambodia; 5000 of the troops
came down with V.D.
Meanwhile, more than 1000 generators were ordered, at least
330 of which, worth nearly $3.2 million were never used for
the mission. When U.N. personnel started spending the $234.5
million budgeted for ``premises and accommodation,'' rental
costs became so inflated that natives could barely afford to
live in their own country. Some $80 million was spent buying
vehicles, including hundreds of surplus motorcycles and
minibuses. When 100 12-seater minibuses were needed, 850 were
purchased--an ``administrative error,'' UNTAC explained, that
cost $8.3 million.
Despite the excesses, the U.N. points with pride to the
free election that UNTAC sponsored in May 1993. Ninety
percent of Cambodia's 4.7 million eligible voters defied
death threats from guerrilla groups and went to the polls.
Unfortunately, the election results have been subverted by
the continued rule of the Cambodian People's Party--the
Vietnamese-installed Communist government, which lost at the
ballot box. In addition, the Khmer Rouge--the guerrilla group
that butchered more than a million countrymen in the 1970s--
have refused to disarm and demobilize. So it was predictable
that they would repeatedly break the ceasefire and keep up
their killing. The U.N. has spent nearly $2 billion but there
is no peace in Cambodia.
Somalia.--When civil war broke out in this African nation,
the resulting anarchy threatened 4.5 million Somalis--over
half the population--with severe malnutrition and related
diseases. U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the
first African (and Arab) to hold the position, argued
eloquently for a U.N. peacekeeping mission to ensure safe
delivery of food and emergency supplies. The U.N. Operation
in Somalia (UNOSOM) was deployed to Mogadishu, the capital,
in September 1992. It was quickly pinned down at the airport
by Somali multiamen and was unable to complete its mission.
A U.S. task force deployed in December secured the
Mogadishu area, getting supplies to the hungry and ill. After
the Americans left, the U.N. took over in May 1993 with
UNOSOM II. The $2-million-a-day operation turned the former
U.S. embassy complex into an 80-acre walled city boasting
air-conditioned housing and a golf course. When U.N.
officials ventured out of the compound, their ``taxis'' were
helicopters that cost $500,000 a week.
The published commercial rate for Mogadishu-U.S. phone
calls was $4.91 a minute, but the ``special U.N. discount
rate'' was $8.41. Unauthorized personal calls totaled more
than $2 million, but the U.N. simply picked up the tab and
never asked the callers to pay.
[[Page H 14165]]
Meanwhile, the peacekeeping effort disintegrated,
particularly as warload Mohammed Aidid harassed UNOSOM II
troops. As the civil war continued, Somalis starved. But U.N.
peacekeepers--on a food budget of $56 million a year--dined
on fruit from South America, beef from Australia and frozen
fish from New Zealand and the Netherlands.
Thousands of yards of barbed wire arrived with no barbs;
hundreds of light fixtures to illuminate the streets abutting
the compound had no sockets for light bulbs. What procurement
didn't waste, pilferage often took care of. Peacekeeping
vehicles disappeared with regularity, and Egyptian U.N.
troops were suspected of large-scale black-marketing of
minibuses.
These losses, however, were eclipsed in a single night by
an enterprising thief who broke into a U.N. office in
Mogadishu and made off with $3.9 million in cash. The office
door was easy pickings; its lock could be jimmied with a
credit card. The money, stored in the bottom drawer of a
filing cabinet, had been easily visible to dozens of U.N.
employees.
While the case has not been solved, one administrator was
dismissed and two others were disciplined. Last summer,
UNOSOM II itself was shut down, leaving Somalia to the same
clan warfare that existed when U.N. troops were first
deployed two years before.
Rwanda.--Since achieving independence in 1962, Rwanda has
erupted in violence between the majority Hutu tribe and
minority Tutsis. The U.N. had a peacekeeping mission in that
nation, but it fled as the Hutus launched a new bloodbath in
April 1994.
Only 270 U.N. troops stayed behind, not enough to prevent
the butchery of at least 14 local Red Cross workers left
exposed by the peacekeepers swift flight. The U.N. Security
council dawdled as the dead piled up, a daily horror of
shootings, stabbings and machete hackings. The Hutus were
finally driven out by a Tutsi rebel army in late summer 1994.
Seven U.N. agencies and more than 100 international relief
agencies rushed back. With a budget of some $200 million, the
U.N. tried unsuccessfully to provide security over Hutu
refugee camps in Rwanda and aid to camps in neighboring
Zaire.
The relief effort was soon corrupted when the U.N. let the
very murderers who'd massacred a half-million people take
over the camps. Rather than seeking their arrest and
prosecution, the U.N. made deals with the Hutu thugs, who
parlayed U.N. food, drugs and other supplies into millions of
dollars on the black market.
Earlier this year the U.N. began to pull out of the camps.
On April 22, at the Kibeho camp in Rwanda, the Tutsi-led
military opened fire on Hutu crowds. Some 2000 Hutus were
massacred.
Where was the U.N.? Overwhelmed by the presence of nearly
2000 Tutsi soldiers, the 200 U.N. peacekeepers did nothing. A
U.N. spokesman told Reader's Digest, meekly, that the U.N.
was on the scene after the slaughter for cleanup and body
burial.
With peacekeeping operations now costing over $3 billion a
year, reform is long overdue. Financial accountability can be
established only by limiting control by the Secretariat,
which routinely withholds information about peacekeeping
operations until the last minute--too late for the U.N.'s
budgetary committee to exercise oversight.
In December 1993, for example, when the budget committee
was given one day to approve a $600-million budget that would
extend peacekeeping efforts in 1994, U.S. representative
Michael Michalski lodged an official protest. ``If U.S.
government employees approved a budget for a similar amount
with as little information as has been provided to the
committee, they would likely be thrown in jail.''
More fundamentally, the U.N. needs to re-examine its whole
peacekeeping approach, for the experiment in nation building
has been bloody and full of failure. Lofty ideas to bring
peace everywhere in the world have run aground on reality:
member states with competing interests in warring
territories, the impossibility of lightly armed troops
keeping at bay belligerent enemies, and the folly of moving
into places without setting achievable goals.
It has been a fundamental error to put U.N. peacekeepers in
place where there is no peace to keep,'' says Sen. Sam Nunn
(D., Ga.), ranking minority member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee. ``We've seen very vividly that the U.N.
is not equipped, organized or financed to intervene and fight
wars.''
____
[From Time, Dec. 11, 1995]
The Art of Selling Bosnia
(By Michael Kramer)
The man whose brilliant head knocking finally produced a
Bosnian peace agreement two weeks ago traveled to Capitol
Hill last Wednesday seeking another miracle: congressional
support for the plan that will shortly land 20,000 American
troops in an area steeped in hatred and skilled at war. ``It
was kind of like running into a brick wall,'' says U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, ``and the
critics weren't just Republicans.'' Holbrooke addressed about
100 members of the House Democratic Caucus and received a
standing ovation. It was ``great,'' he says, ``for about two
minutes. Everyone was polite at first, saying things like
`Blessed are the peacemakers.' And then, one by one, they got
up and shouted, `But I haven't gotten a single call from a
constituent supporting you yet.' It was the most friendly
hostile experience I've ever had.''
The vote the Administration hopes to win will be taken
soon, and the outcome remains uncertain. In the Senate, the
support of majority leader Bob Dole will probably win the
backing that Bill Clinton desires, and Dole's courage should
not be minimized. With the exception of Senator Richard
Lugar, all the other G.O.P. presidential candidates oppose
Clinton on Bosnia--the most vocal being Phil Gramm, who, in
declaring his position even before the President made his
case, showed again that he seems never to have encountered a
principle he won't rise above in the service of ambition.
Dole knows what is coming (``I'll take some hits for this,''
he says), but he, more than most, respects presidential
prerogatives and would like to enjoy them himself in 1997.
In moving to Clinton's side last Thursday, Dole highlighted
an irony. Had the President earlier forced an end to the arms
embargo against the Bosnian Muslims, Dole argued it might not
be necessary for U.S. soldiers to enforce the peace
agreement, an accord whose ultimate goal is to strengthen the
Bosnians so they can defend themselves when the U.S. leaves.
As a consistent opponent of the embargo, Dole had the
standing to complain. But the heart of the matter, he said on
the Senate floor, is simple: ``The troops are on their way.
We cannot stop their deployment,'' and they deserve ``our
support.''
Will that rationale resonate in the House? Early
indications are that Speaker Newt Gingrich will declare a
``conscience vote,'' which means members can do as they
please without regard to party loyalty. ``The problem with
that,'' says Holbrooke, ``is that many Representatives are so
new that they've never had to cast a pure national security
vote.'' Indeed, 210 of the House's 435 members (including 134
Republicans) weren't in Congress in 1991, when it narrowly
voted to support George Bush's war against Iraq. ``Most of
them,'' says Holbrooke, ``don't like spending money on
anything, view all issues as partisan fights and have never
had to wrestle with something like Bosnia.''
The Administration will clearly take any resolution it can
get, even a weak one that says, in effect, ``The President is
sending the troops; we support the troops.'' That there will
be a vote of some kind seems all but certain. Clinton has
asked for a congressional expression. If Congress ignores
that call, it will marginalize itself, which Holbrooke
insists would be a ``dumb'' move. ``It may seem paradoxical,
but the best way to stick the policy on us is to support us.
If we fail, and Congress hasn't voted, they'll share the
blame. If they vote to support the troops in the field, they
can still blast the policy,'' he says.
By pushing an unpopular course, Clinton looks presidential
(a rarity for him), and if all goes well, he could win some
credit on Election Day. In fact, if all he has done is buy
time, that could help too. The President could claim that he
tried, and if the factions delay resuming their war till the
U.S. goes home, he could be saying that from the cozy perch
of a second term.
But far more than the politics of 1996 is involved here. A
``no'' vote by Congress would be ``catastrophic'' to use Vice
President Al Gore's word. It would constrain the Bosnian
operation (both strategically, if the mission must be
changed, and financially, if more must be spent), but the
true downside of a negative congressional resolution could
come later during a future horror. Then, when a U.S.
President seeks to lead, those asked to follow could not be
faulted for wondering if Congress will go along. ``We only
have one President at a time,'' says Dole, and his word must
count. Since other crises will surely come, the question of
who leads in dealing with them will always matter. ``And no
one but us will ever lead,'' says Gore. ``And who would we
want to lead besides us, even if they were willing?'' asks
Dole. ``The Germans? The Japanese? Gimme a break.''
As the drama plays out this week, Clinton may yet again
speak to the nation. ``If Dole says Clinton needs to give
another speech to win the vote,'' says a White House aide
``he will.'' If he does, the President might consider
repeating the lines he used last Wednesday in London: ``In
this new era, we must rise not to a call to arms but to a
call to peace. . . To do so we must maintain the resolve we
share in war when everything was at stake. In this new world
our lives are not so very much at risk, but must of what
makes life worth living is still very much at stake.''
____
[From Newsweek, Dec. 11, 1995]
We're the Ones Who Die
(By David H. Hackworth)
The fog was so thick in Baumholder that President Clinton
had to drive from Ramstein AFB, instead of choppering in.
This miserable spot in Germany hasn't changed much since I
trained here in the early 1960s. It's now the home of the
``Old Ironsides''--as the first commanding general dubbed the
First Armored Division, comparing the inside of his tank to
the famous American warship. As dismal a place as
Baumholder--known as a soldier's Siberia--is, it's a perfect
setting for a pep talk about the grim mission ahead.
Our warriors know what they're up against. I hooked up with
the Third Platoon of Company B, Fourth Battalion, 12th
Infantry, which will move out in mid-December. When I asked
them if they were ``good to
[[Page H 14166]]
go,'' all 23 voices shouted, ``Hoo ah!''--the equivalent of a
paratrooper's ``Airborne!'' or a marine's ``Semper fi!'' But
like all soldiers going into a potential killing field,
they're concerned about the unknown ``Our biggest worry is
the mines,'' says Sgt. Darrell McCoy. The Third Platoon has
been well trained to handle those widow-makers. But that
doesn't make the ``gnawing feeling go away,'' confides Sgt.
Robert Crosbie, ``We're a mech unit, and our Bradleys are
vulnerable'' to land mines, which can pierce the thin armor
like a sledgehammer going through a watermelon.
The division looked formidable as it awaited the commander
in chief. At attention, the soldiers stood like tall rows of
corn when the 21-gun salute sounded. Clinton spoke for 22
minutes. The troops especially liked hearing about the rules
of engagement. ``If you are threatened with attack,'' (the
president said) ``you may respond immediately--and with
decisive force.''
But after Clinton took off, a certain gloom set in. One
soldier complained that the visit was ``a pain in the ass''
because it ruined his Saturday, normally a day off. Some
griped about spending Christmas in Bosnia. Others felt the
president's address reduced them to props ``His talk seemed
more designed to motivate the American public than us,''
groused an NCO. Some of the grumbling was plain old
bitching--as familiar and comforting as an old pair of boots.
But one sergeant, miffed at Clinton's pledge to accept ``full
responsibility'' for any U.S. casualties, expressed a
collective resentment. ``We're the ones who are going to
die,'' he said.
While Washington debates the exit strategy, the grunts are
worried about what will happen when they get there. Many
soldiers I talked to think the 12-month mission to cool down
the warring factions is too short a time, a ``fairy tale''
invented by politicians. ``If we don't do this right,''
explains a sergeant, ``we'll end up being the meat in the
sandwich; it will be Vietnam all over again.'' The First
Armored Division now designated Task Force Eagle--will go in
cocked, locked and ready. It can deliver a terrifying punch;
tank M-1 Bradley and artillery fire, Apache and Kiowa armed
helos shooting Hellfire missiles, 30-mm cannons and 50-
caliber machine guns, and infantry weapons and all the
thunder that NATO aircraft can bring. No one's afraid of a
fire fight.
But what about an ambush? The Third Platoon is currently
down nine guys for the rugged, hilly terrain of central
Bosnia. Will the new recruits click with the team during
dangerous and uncertain operations? Lt. Salvatore Barbaria,
the platoon leader with recruiting-poster good looks, left
little doubt about his men's resolve. ``War fighting or peace
enforcement,'' he said. ``That's our job.''
____
[From the New York Times, Dec. 5, 1995]
Europe Has Few Doubts on Bosnia Force
(By Craig R. Whitney)
Paris, Dec. 4.--Except in Germany, the European debate
about sending troops to join the NATO peacekeeping force in
Bosnia was over before it started in most other countries.
Nearly every other European country already had troops there
with the United Nations force, which NATO will replace after
a peace treaty is signed here 10 days from now.
``France has lost 54 soldiers in Bosnia, and almost 600
have been wounded,'' Defense Minister Charles Million said
recently, explaining his Government's willingness to join the
NATO force. France led an effort last summer to give the
United Nations soldiers more artillery firepower and ground
reinforcements, and Mr. Million said that the heavily armed
NATO force was the best chance yet of permitting peace to
take root in Bosnia.
France and Britain, which has lost 18 soldiers in Bosnia,
will provide the NATO operation with about 24,000 troops
together, drawing many of the soldiers from their United
Nations contingents already there. This is nearly as many as
the United States will have in Bosnia and in support
assignments in Croatia.
Both countries were empires until half a century ago, and
are used to deploying troops to trouble spots.
``We have a long history of having an essentially
professional army which was sent all over the Empire to
fight, and that attitude has tended to survive a bit,'' said
Sir Laurence Martin, the director of the Royal Institute of
International Affairs in London. ``Sending troops for limited
operations is something the British take great pride in, and
because of the history of fighting colonial wars, there is a
belief that the British are particularly good at peacekeeping
operations short of war.''
Officials from these and other European countries believe
American fears of casualties in Bosnia are overdrawn.
``If you go to war, you get killed from time to time,''
said Andre Querdon, spokesman for the Belgian Foreign
Ministry and formerly the ministry's liaison officer with
several hundred Belgian troops in the United Nations force in
Croatia.
In most European countries, there is more anguish about
Europe's failure to stop the war in Bosnia in spite of the
sacrifices it has made over the past four years.
Christian Soussan, 22, a student at the Institute of
Political Studies in Paris, said, ``At least these troops
will be able to shoot back when attacked, and they won't just
look on passively at ethnic cleansing.''
Sibylle Dura, a 21-year-old student of French literature at
the Catholic Institute in Paris, said of the lightly armed
United Nations mission: ``They were quite useless in going
just to sit there. They should have been more forceful at the
start.''
France and Britain have made clear that they will pull
their troops out of Bosnia at the same time the United States
does, in about a year.
The Netherlands, whose soldiers with the United Nations
force near Srebrenica were unable last summer to prevent the
Bosnian Serb army from overrunning Bosnian Government
positions there and executing hundreds of Muslim men and
boys, will put its 2,100 troops now in Bosnia under NATO
command.
``The debacle at Srebrenica has made a difference,'' said
Gerrit Valk, a Dutch Labor Party Member of Parliament.
``People are now asking more questions. There are more
reservations about this than, say, two years ago.''
Peter Paul Spanjaard, an 18-year-old Dutch high school
student in Sittard, in the southeastern Netherlands, said:
``I'd be scared if I had to go. But as long as this is for a
good purpose and all the other countries are taking part, I
think we should, too.''
The Dutch Parliament is expected to approve the NATO
mission later this week.
Germany sent no ground troops to the United Nations force
in Bosnia, out of concern that memories of the Nazi
occupation in the Balkans during World War II were still too
vivid even 50 years later. But on Wednesday, the Parliament
in Bonn is expected to give approval to Chancellor Helmut
Kohl's decision to provide 4,000 support troops to the NATO
force. Most of them will be stationed in neighboring Croatia.
``Nobody in Germany or anywhere else would understand if we
said we had to stay out even though all the combatants have
asked us to come in,'' said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the onetime
leader of the 1968 student uprising in Paris and now a member
of the largely pacifist Greens party. ``I am sure that quite
a few Green members of Parliament will support the Government
on Wednesday.''
In the student bars of Frankfurt and Bonn, many young
Germans seem less reluctant to consider military involvement
than the 1968 generation, whose thinking dominates both the
Greens and the opposition Social Democratic Party today.
``I think it is good for German soldiers to be part of the
peacekeeping force,'' said Daniela Paas, a graduate student
in American Studies in Bonn. ``Germany should have taken part
a long time ago. We are members of NATO, after all.''
Martin Zieba, 21, a law student in Bonn, said: ``If they
are attacked, they should be allowed to defend themselves.
But they shouldn't take the offensive.''
But Klaus Eschweiler, a 24-year-old history student, said,
``Because of our history, it could leave a bad taste in a lot
of people's mouths.''
Walther Leisler Kiep, a Christian Democratic party leader,
said: ``German participation grows from recognition that we
can no longer use our past as an alibi. Our past makes us
duty-bound to step in where genocidal policies or racism lead
to horrible events like the things we've seen in the former
Yugoslavia in recent years.''
operation joint endeavor
United States.--20,000 heavily armed U.S. ground troops,
about 13,000 of them from U.S. 1st Armored Division, based in
Bad Kreuznach, Germany. Other Germany-based U.S. units are to
supply most of the rest, along with 2,000 to 3,000
reservists. Troops are to be equipped with about 150 M1-A1
Abrams tanks, about 250 Bradley fighting vehicles and up to
50 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters.
Headquarters: Tuzla, northeast Bosnia.
Britain.--13,000 troops, incorporating units from its U.N.
contingent already in Bosnia. The force will comprise a
divisional HQ, a brigade with armor, infantry and artillery.
Air and sea forces in the area will contribute to the
operation.
Headquarters: Gornji Vakuf, central Bosnia.
France.--10,000 troops, with about 7,500 in the peace force
itself and the remainder on logistics duty, either on ships
in the Adriatic or at air bases in Italy. There are already
about 7,000 French soldiers on the ground, including about
3,300 with the NATO Rapid Reaction Force and 3,800 with the
United Nations.
Headquarters: Probably Mostar, southern Bosnia.
Germany.--4,000 soldiers, primarily to support logistics,
transport, engineering and medical units. It will also make
available radar-busting Tornado fighter-bombers based in
Italy. Most of the German contingent will be based in
Croatia.
Italy.--2,300 troops, with 600 more in reserve at home.
Norway.--1,000 troops as part of a Nordic brigade.
Spain.--1,250 ground troops, two frigates, eight F-18
aircraft, two Hercules C-130s and a C-235.
Portugal.--900 troops. The government approved sending
troops from the Independent Air-Transport Brigade, including
about 700 combat troops, 200 support troops and 120 vehicles.
Netherlands.--About 130 Dutch soldiers will leave for
Bosnia next week as a preparatory force. A cabinet decision
on the full complement will be made Dec. 8 and submitted to
parliament for approval Dec. 13. The
[[Page H 14167]]
Dutch media say the force will include 2,000 military personnel,
including an armored infantry battalion, a tank squadron, one
Hercules transport aircraft, two F-27 aircraft and 12 F-16
jets.
Troops from Denmark and Turkey will also join the peace
force.
Non-NATO members
Russia.--2,000 combat troops and a 2,000-strong logistical
support unit.
Troops from Finland, Sweden (about 870), Estonia, Hungary
(about 100 technical personnel), Latvia, Lithuania and Poland
will be offered to the peace force.
{time} 2230
Save them from going to their libraries and looking up old Reader's
Digest. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to put four articles into
the Record at this point, and then turn his own time back to Mr.
Abercrombie, or if I could ask unanimous consent to put them at the end
of the special order of the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham]
and myself. That keeps the special order of the gentleman from Hawaii
[Mr. Abercrombie] clean.
As a matter of fact, this article, ``Europe Has Few Doubts on Bosnian
Force,'' which gives the best troop breakdown on our NATO allies, and
how they are not equaling what we are doing anywhere nearly close
enough in manpower. This is by Craig Whitney, and I believe it is from
the New York Times. Another page of facts and figures that goes with it
with the same article.
I neglected to put in the Reader's Digest article last night from the
October issue, ``The Folly of U.N. Peacekeeping With Scandals in
Bosnia, Cambodia, Somalia and Rwanda,'' all of the U.N. vehicles lined
up at the whorehouses with documents saying, try not to put your
vehicles too near the night clubs, they call them.
Then I would like to put in the November article, the ``United
Nations Is Out Of Control,'' last month's Reader's Digest. This will at
least bring American taxpayers to an angry point of saying, if the
United Nations must be saved, it must be saved from itself. It has no
accountability. They treat money like it grows on trees. None of them
pay taxes, nobody is accountable.
Again, I want to close on this picture, a two-page spreadout, the
same one that is on the front page of the L.A. Times, of Clinton in
Bosnia with the troops, our forces there; here it is; and I am all
through with this one last picture, even though it is going to be a
long shot. There is Clinton with all the top sergeant majors, the
commanding general whose biography I would like to put in at this
point, as I am going to put in the history of first armored division
fighting from Algiers, Tunisia, Anzio, Salerno, and all the way up into
the area where Bob Dole was so savagely wounded. How did Clinton set
this up where he said to all of these people, will you follow me? Will
you follow me down this driveway, chin up in the air like Mussolini,
jaw jutted out, neck muscles flexing, and there he walks saying, follow
me, but only as far as the reviewing field. You will go on to Bosnia by
yourselves; I will be back in the White House thinking about a 7-year
balanced budget.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the courtesy of the gentleman from Hawaii
[Mr. Abercrombie], and I would say to the gentleman, what goes around
comes around. I will do it for you sometime, Neal.
____________________