[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18407-S18431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE BOSNIA ISSUE

  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to speak in opposition to the 
President's decision to deploy ground troops and ground forces in 
Bosnia.
  I first would like to compliment Senator Hutchison, Senator Inhofe, 
Senator Brown, and Senator Thomas as well for outstanding speeches. 
Some of the best speeches that have been made in the Senate have been 
made this evening. Senator Brown just concluded with a very moving 
speech detailing his opposition to the President's move. I agree 
wholeheartedly with their comments.
  I also will make a comment. I have been to Yugoslavia with Senator 
Dole. Some people are saying these resolutions are in opposition to 
each other. I would take issue with that fact. One of the resolutions 
we are going to be voting on that I had something to do with, or was 
involved with, said that we state our opposition to the President's 
decision to deploy ground troops in Bosnia--very clear, very plain, 
very simple. We think the President is making a mistake, and we want to 
be on record of it.
  Mr. President, I will go further. I wish that we would have had a 
similar resolution when the President made the decision to deploy our 
Armed Forces into Haiti. I think he made a mistake. I have heard others 
in the administration say that was a success, and maybe that is the way 
they would define success. But I thought it was a mistake to have the 
invasion and occupation of Haiti.
  I wish that we would have had a chance to debate that and that we 
would have had a sensible debate on it. We did not have that.
  So I am pleased that we are going to have debate on these two 
resolutions today and tomorrow. Some of my colleagues said, ``Well, we 
wish we could have had more extensive debate.'' I would agree with 
that. But the President is going to Paris tomorrow evening to sign an 
accord on Thursday, and not only will the Senate be taking this up but 
the House will be. So it is important for us to take it up today and 
dispose of these two resolutions--maybe three resolutions--by tomorrow.
  Also, Mr. President, I want to make just a couple of comments on how 
we got here and why I have decided to oppose the President's decision 
to deploy these troops.
  In the first place, I mentioned my opposition to the President's 
decision on sending troops into Haiti. Senator Brown commented on the 
President's mistaken mission in Somalia where the mission moved from a 
humanitarian mission into that of peace enforcing, or peacekeeping, and 
a greatly expanded humanitarian role that resulted in the loss of 18 
American lives. 

[[Page S18408]]

  But I want to go back a little bit further. I read in President 
Clinton's book in 1992, ``Putting People First''--then candidate Bill 
Clinton. He stated his administration would ``support the recent more 
active role of the United Nations in troubled spots around the world, 
and pursue the establishment of a voluntary U.N. rapid deployment force 
to deter aggression, provide humanitarian relief, and combat terrorism 
and drug trafficking.''
  That is on page 135.
  In 1993, the President's proposed PDD-13, an expansion of the U.S. 
role in U.N. operations, and multinational U.S. forces under a foreign 
multinational U.N. military command. He proposed creating in the office 
of the Secretary of Defense an Office of Peacekeeping and Democracy at 
the Pentagon, talking about having this post be used to coordinate 
international peacekeeping forces.
  I think that is a mistake. I have debated that and raised that on the 
floor of the Senate in the past.
  Let me talk a little bit about my opposition to the President's use 
and deployment of ground forces in this area. I heard the President's 
speech to the Nation, and he talked about this is going to be a 
``clearly defined military mission.'' I do not see any way that anyone 
can call this a clearly defined military mission. Maybe I am thinking 
in more simple terms. But clearly defined military mission would be 
similar to the Persian Gulf where you had Iraq invade Kuwait, and we 
said that invasion will not stand, and we are going to kick them out of 
Kuwait. An army invaded. We are not going to allow that to stand. We 
are going to knock the army out. That is what we did. President Bush 
said that is what our objective was. It had a clearly definable 
military objective. We built the forces necessary to make that happen, 
and we executed it. Then our forces came home.
  That is not the case in Bosnia. This is a map of Bosnia. This is the 
country of Bosnia. It is under control partly by the Serbs. It is under 
control partly by the Moslems. It is under control partly by the 
Croatians. Each of these areas have different ethnic groups that have 
been fighting for centuries.
  So now we are going to have military forces serve as a buffer all 
around, all throughout Bosnia. That is going to be a very difficult 
goal.
  How is that a clearly definable military objective? We are going to 
insert our troops between fighting factions. But we are going to allow 
people to move back and forth. And then there are all kinds of missions 
and roles. We are going to allow refugees to return to their homes. In 
some areas right now they are not complying with the accord that has 
already been signed. We are going to enforce the Dayton agreement. This 
was a U.S.-led agreement, the Dayton accord. And all three Presidents 
signed it. The leaders of the Serbians, the leaders of Bosnia, and the 
leaders of Croatia signed that agreement. They are not complying with 
it now. But we are going to put U.S. forces in--almost an 
Americanization of this conflict. And we are going to have U.S. forces 
in charge of carrying out the Dayton accord.
  Since that accord has been signed, I hope my colleagues are aware of 
some of the violations that have taken place. Bosnian Croat soldiers 
have defied the peace plan by looting and setting ablaze a couple of 
towns. Those towns are to be shifted from Croatian control to Bosnian 
Serb control. They are burning the town. That is not in the Dayton 
accord, but they are doing it. I guess our troops are going to stop 
that.
  Last week the Croats released from jail Ivica Rajic, who was indicted 
by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. Such action is 
in direct violation of the Dayton accord where all sides pledged to 
cooperate with the tribunal. They released him.

  Mr. President, President Clinton has said, well, we are going to put 
our troops in. Originally, some time ago, he said we would put U.S. 
troops in. Then, earlier this year, he said we would put in troops for 
a reconfiguring and strengthening of U.N. forces in Bosnia. The United 
Nations has had 30,000 troops there in the Bosnia area. They were not 
bringing about peace. All sides continued to fight, to move the map 
around. He said we would commit U.S. forces. He did not ask Congress. 
He said we will commit U.S. forces to redeploy and reconfigure. Well, 
that was a mistake.
  Mr. President, if you look at this goal, are U.S. forces and the rest 
of NATO forces now going to be in charge of policing? Are we going to 
go in and arrest people who are guilty of war crimes?
  It seems to me that is what we were trying to do in Somalia. We tried 
to get General Aideed because he was guilty of some crimes, and the net 
result was, yes, we had troops going in harm's way and we lost a lot of 
lives, as Senator Brown alluded to. We did not provide the military 
support.
  Now the President said, I understand, we are going to send in 
military support. Is that one of our goals? Are we going to be 
policemen? Are we going to go and arrest people for crimes against the 
other sides? Are we going to enforce refugee resettlements? Are we 
going to tell Serbs in Croat homes they are going to have to get out of 
those homes, and vice versa, and use force of bayonets?
  Are we going to use our forces strictly as a buffer zone in dangerous 
areas, targets on both sides, allowing people to move back and forth 
that may have a violent intent either against the other side that they 
have been fighting for years or maybe against the United States? Are we 
going to use U.S. forces to clear mines?
  And I know I have some Oklahomans now that are trained in that area, 
so they are going to go in. We are going to use them to clear certain 
areas for mines. And what if somebody runs away that is guilty of 
firing on our troops and happens to evade them over a mine field and so 
we risk more lives? And what about this idea--the President said, well, 
this is a NATO mission, and I have heard people say this is a vital 
role for NATO because if we do not do it, this is going to show that 
NATO has no valuable purpose.
  NATO was created as a defensive alliance to deter invasion or 
aggression from Russia. And now we are taking NATO troops from the NATO 
allies and saying we are going to put NATO in a peacekeeping force in a 
non-NATO country. Bosnia was not invaded by Russia. It was not invaded 
by other non-Yugoslavian countries. The Serbs certainly did take their 
fair share of the territory and the Croatians are in there as well, but 
this is Yugoslavia's civil war. But we are now putting an expansion of 
the NATO role into moving from a defensive alliance, which we have been 
the leader and the supporter of, that has proven to be so successful 
for the last 40 or 50 years, now we are putting it into a peacekeeping 
role, into a non-NATO country, into an area where the U.N. peacekeepers 
were not successful and so now we are going to greatly expand NATO's 
role.
  I think we need to discuss that and debate it. Is this what NATO's 
mission is going to be in the future? It looks like NATO creep, mission 
creep, to me. And one that I have serious reservations about, very 
serious reservations about.
  Some have said, well, this is important; we need to make sure that 
this war does not expand. There is lots of potential for this war to 
expand as a result of this effort. Now a lot of the Serbian areas are 
going to have Russian troops in them, and a lot of Moslem areas are 
going to have Western troops including the United States. What happens 
if some Serbs happen to fire on some Moslems and we try to interject, 
and so we return fire against the Serbs, and maybe the Russians are in 
that quarter--and so there is the possibility of some conflict between 
United States and Russia.
  I hope that does not happen. I pray it does not happen. But I see a 
lot of potential where there can be some spillover from this so-called 
peacekeeping force.
  Mr. President, we call this peacekeeping, but really what this is is 
peace enforcing, so it has moved a giant step against peacekeeping. If 
it is really peacekeeping, they would not have to be there. If there 
was peace, they would not have to be there. As Senator Brown mentioned, 
they have been fighting for hundreds and hundreds of years. How in the 
world are we going to go in and solve this problem in 12 months and 
then go out?
  And what about the 12-month timetable? Is that to say our military 
objective is going to be totally complete 

[[Page S18409]]
in 12 months or is that a political timetable: Oh, we better get them 
out before the next election. It sounds a lot more political to me than 
it does a militarily definable, achievable objective. Oh, in 12 months 
we are going to be gone regardless of what happens.
  Well, that does not seem to make sense. Is there a militarily 
definable objective? I do not think so. I think we are in the process 
of getting bogged down in a lot of nation building.
  You say, oh, well, how could that be? If you read the Dayton accord, 
it talks about a lot of things. It talks about policing the agreement. 
It talks about buffer zones. It talks about refugees and resettlements. 
It also talks about establishing a constitution and a democracy and a 
revolving presidency, a revolving presidency between the Croatians, the 
Moslems, and the Serbs.
  That may sound nice and look kind of good on paper in Dayton, OH, but 
I question whether that is going to work. If you go back a little bit 
in history in the former Yugoslavia, where you had several republics, 
they were supposed to have revolving presidencies. Guess what. The 
Serbs ended up getting control and they revolved or rotated the 
presidency. They still have it. Mr. Milosevic was still running Greater 
Serbia, and he wanted to expand Greater Serbia. That is the reason they 
moved into Bosnia. So this idea of a revolving presidency certainly is 
nation building, i.e., and that sounds a lot like Somalia. That does 
not sound like a militarily achievable objective, at least in my 
opinion.
  And so we look at the resolutions that are before us. The resolution 
that I am speaking on behalf of as well as Senator Hutchison and 
Senator Inhofe Senator Brown, Senator Kyl, and others says we oppose 
the President's decision to send ground forces into Bosnia to carry out 
the Dayton accord. I look at the arguments for it, and I think if you 
look at this map, it looks like a congressional district in Louisiana. 
And you see a lot of areas. Well, while there are Serbs in this area, 
they have to move back and the Bosnians will have to take control and 
Sarajevo Serbs have control in some areas and they say they are not 
going to give it up.
  Does that mean U.S. forces or other forces are going to come in and 
enforce that agreement? And what if they do not give it up without a 
fight? And on and on and on. And this is throughout. What if they say, 
well, before we leave, we are going to raze it or we are going to burn 
it. And that is what they are doing right now. Or what if there are war 
criminals and they say, instead of apprehending them, we are going to 
let them go, as they just did in one case where the Croatians released 
a person indicted by the international tribunal.
  In other words, there are already big, large, gross violations of the 
Dayton accord, and now we are going to be putting U.S. forces in. Now, 
U.S. forces, or at least a lot of U.S. forces that I know from 
Oklahoma, they will not know the difference between the Serbs and the 
Moslems and Croatians, who are the good guys and bad guys. I tell you, 
there are lots of bad guys around on all three sides, but yet we are 
going to be putting U.S. forces under an American general to be making 
decisions. So we are almost Americanizing this war. But we say we are 
going to be out in 12 months. I do not see it adding up. I do not see 
it working. I do see us risking a lot of U.S. lives and a lot of 
prestige for something I think is clearly not definable.
  Now, look at Secretary Christopher's words. He testified in April 
1993 before the Appropriations Committee. He said four criteria have to 
be met before American troops will be deployed.
  Now, this proves a couple things. One, they were talking about 
deploying American troops 2\1/2\ years ago. Well, now they have been 
successful. But they said the goals must be clear and understandable to 
the American people. Well, that has not happened. That is a big no. You 
ask the American people, what are our goals? Well, we are going to get 
out in 12 months. We want to speak for peace, but if we look at all 
these guidelines where we are going to be the buffer, no, I do not 
think so. If you say we want American forces to be clearing mines, 
something like 5 or 6 million mines, landmines, hopefully we will not 
lose any American troops to landmines, but I am sure that we will.
  And Americans are going to start questioning those goals. ``Wait a 
minute. Why are we there? The chances of success must be high.'' I do 
not think they are high. I hope they are. I hope there is peace.
  But I think just because we have deployed ground forces, what happens 
when we leave? We may be somewhat successful with 60,000 troops. 
Putting them into an area smaller than the State of West Virginia, that 
is a lot of troops for an area that size. Bosnia is a small area, about 
60 percent of the size of South Carolina, a little smaller than West 
Virginia. It has about 4.5 to 5 million people, so it has a lot of 
people. But we are going to put 60,000 troops in there.
  We may successful in restoring some degree of peace for a while. What 
happens when we leave? We said we are going to be gone in 12 months. I 
am afraid the war is going to start again. If so, then I say, hey, that 
has not been successful. If we leave, like we did after Lebanon or like 
we did after Somalia, I would say that is not a success. We may have 
alleviated some of the fighting or some of the starvation for a short 
period of time, but if they start fighting, as they, I am afraid, will 
in this case, I do not think that we have been successful.
  Third, this is Secretary Christopher's criterion: The American people 
must support the effort. The American people do not support this 
effort. I do not believe you should manage foreign policy by polls, but 
I do think, before you commit U.S. ground forces and make a commitment 
where we are going to be committing U.S. forces and lives, you should 
have some support of the American people.
  The American people are opposing this action by a two-to-one margin. 
That has not changed since the President has tried the make his case, 
and the administration people have tried to make his case.
  And then, an exit strategy for getting the troops out must be 
established from the beginning. We do not have an exit strategy. We 
have a timetable that says we are out in 12 months, not that we 
accomplished our objective, because our objective is not that clear, is 
not that definable. It just says we are going to be out. That is a 
timetable for exit, but it does not say anything has to be 
accomplished. Again, I think it is a mistake. Under Secretary 
Christopher's own criteria I think it fails on all four categories.
  Mr. President, I do not think we should send U.S. ground forces. I 
think President Clinton has made a mistake. I think if you look back at 
the statements that this administration has made, even as a candidate, 
as the policies go back for the last 3 years, they have been talking 
about putting U.S. ground forces in international peacekeeping efforts. 
I am afraid we are making a mistake, like at the date in the accord, 
the date in the agreement.
  I see lots and lots of areas that are nation building. So we are 
going to be committing United States ground forces into rebuilding a 
democracy or a government in Bosnia, a government that is very 
fractured, a government that is very divided, with ethnic divisions, 
one where there is a lot of hatred, a lot of animosity, and putting 
United States forces right in the middle. That is not a clearly 
definable military objective.
  Again, I think it is a serious mistake. So I hope that our colleagues 
will support this resolution.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article by Judge 
Abraham Sofaer that was in the Wall Street Journal, which points out 
many of the shortcomings of the Dayton accord, be printed in the Record 
at this point.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    Clinton Needs Congress on Bosnia

                         (By Abraham D. Sofaer)

       President Clinton has appealed to Congress and the American 
     people to support his policy committing 20,000 ground troops 
     to implement the peace agreement reached between Serbia, 
     Croatia and Bosnia. It is a tribute to the American people 
     that the president is accorded the greatest deference when he 
     calls for the greatest sacrifice. Americans respond, at least 
     initially, to such appeals from their president.
       But Mr. Clinton is exploiting this quality. He has 
     presented the agreement and the American role in its 
     enforcement as an accomplished fact, though the documents 
     have yet to be signed by the parties, and numerous 
     preconditions to U.S. involvement have 

[[Page S18410]]
     yet to be fulfilled. He is consulting with Congress, but he is already 
     sending troops to the area without any form of legislative 
     approval. Indeed, he claims that, while he would welcome 
     Congress's approval, he plans to go ahead regardless.
       Presidents often try to get what they want by leading 
     aggressively. Congress nevertheless has a duty to study 
     carefully the proposed operation and then express its view. 
     The essential first step in that debate is to read the 
     documents signed recently in Dayton. The complex agreement, 
     with 12 annexes, calls for Bosnia to remain a single but 
     divided nation, and all the warring factions to withdraw to 
     specific lines. The agreement covers virtually all aspects of 
     future life in Bosnia, including the division of its 
     governments, the contents of its constitution, the selection 
     of its judges, and the manner in which its police force is to 
     be chosen and trained. Of principal interest to Congress, 
     though, are those aspects of the agreement that create 
     obligations and expectations for the U.S. to fulfill.


                            our obligations

       These obligations, when carefully examined in context, 
     carry to the ultimate extreme the policy of forcing a 
     settlement on the Bosnians, rather than attempting to create 
     an internal situation that is militarily balanced. Most 
     significantly, the agreement makes the U.S., through the 
     ``implementation force'' (IFOR), the military guarantor of 
     the overall arrangement.
       The role of U.S. troops cannot be characterized as 
     ``peacekeeping.'' Even ``implementation'' understates our 
     obligation, IFOR will be close to an occupying army, in a 
     conflict that has merely been suspended. We are likely to 
     have as many difficulties acting as occupiers without having 
     won a victory as the U.N.'s war crimes tribunal is having in 
     attempting to apply its decisions in Bosnia without the power 
     to enforce them.
       IFOR's principal responsibilities are set out in Annex 1(a) 
     of the agreement:
       The parties agree to cease hostilities and to withdraw all 
     forces to agreed lines in three phases. Detailed rules have 
     been agreed upon, including special provisions regarding 
     Sarajevo and Gorazde. But IFOR is responsible for marking the 
     ceasefire lines and the ``inter-entity boundary line and its 
     zone of separation,'' which in effect will divide the Bosnian 
     Muslims and Croats from the Bosnian Serbs. The parties agree 
     that IFOR may use all necessary force to ensure their 
     compliance with these disengagement rules.
       The parties agree to ``strictly avoid committing any 
     reprisals, counterattacks, or any unilateral actions in 
     response to violations of this annex by another party.'' The 
     only response allowed to alleged violations is through the 
     procedures provided in Article VIII of the Annex, which 
     establishes a ``joint military commission''--made up of all 
     the parties--to consider military complaints, questions and 
     problems. But the commission is only ``a consultative body 
     for the IFOR commander,'' an American general who is 
     explicitly deemed ``the final authority in theater regarding 
     interpretation of this agreement. . . .'' This enormous 
     power--to prevent even acts of self defense--will carry 
     proportionate responsibility for harm that any party may 
     attribute to IFOR's lack of responsiveness or fairness.
       IFOR is also given the responsibility to support various 
     nonmilitary tasks, including creating conditions for free and 
     fair elections; assisting humanitarian organizations; 
     observing and preventing ``interference with the movement of 
     civilian populations, refugees, and displaced persons''; 
     clearing the roads of mines; controlling all airspace (even 
     for civilian air travel); and ensuring access to all areas 
     unimpeded by checkpoints, roadblocks or other obstacles. 
     Taken together, these duties essentially give IFOR control of 
     the physical infrastructure of both parts of the Bosnian 
     state. It seems doubtful that the 60,000-man force could meet 
     these expectations.
       Article IX of the agreement recognizes the ``obligation of 
     all parties to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution 
     of war crimes and other violations of international 
     humanitarian law.'' This is an especially sensitive matter. 
     Yet there is no mechanism in the accord for bringing to 
     justice men who haven't been defeated in battle and who 
     aren't in custody. This means that IFOR is almost certain to 
     come under pressure by victims and human rights advocates to 
     capture and deliver up the principal villains. Will it do 
     better than we did in fulfilling our promise to capture 
     Mohammed Farah Aidid in Somalia?
       The agreement makes vague promises about reversing ``ethnic 
     cleansing'' by guaranteeing refugees the right to return to 
     their homes. Since this is in practice impossible, the West 
     will end up paying billions in compensation awards promised 
     in the agreement.
       The agreement contains numerous provisions regarding the 
     manner in which Bosnia is to be governed, with checks and 
     balances built in that are based on ethnic or geographic 
     terms. But Americans traditionally have not believed in such 
     divisions of political authority. We fought the Civil War to 
     put into place an undivided nation based on the principle 
     that all people are of equal worth, and all must live in 
     accordance with the law. It took a Tito to keep the 
     ethnically divided Yugoslavia together. Will IFOR now assume 
     his role of enforcing a constitution based on principles 
     abhorrent to Western values? Even if the basic structure of 
     the government works, what role will IFOR have to play in 
     resolving disputes over the numerous sensitive areas that the 
     parties have seen fit to write into the accords? If the 
     parties don't resolve some matters successfully, they are 
     likely to blame IFOR for these failures.
       Finally, the agreement draws a vague distinction between 
     ``military'' and ``civilian'' matters. Ultimate authority 
     over the latter is allocated to a U.N. high representative, 
     who is to act through a ``joint civilian commission'' 
     consisting of senior political representatives of the parties 
     and the IFOR commander or his representative. The high 
     representative is to exchange information and maintain 
     liaison on a regular basis with IFOR, and shall attend or be 
     represented at meetings of the joint military commission and 
     offer advice ``particularly on matters of a political-
     military nature.'' But it is also made clear that the high 
     representative ``shall have no authority over the IFOR and 
     shall not in any way interfere in the conduct of military 
     operations or the IFOR chain of command.''
       This may seem a reassuring confirmation of IFOR's power to 
     avoid U.N. restrictions on the use of force. Ultimately, 
     however, IFOR's role could be made untenable if it finds 
     itself in a confrontation with the U.N.'s designated 
     representative and the proper handling of a ``political'' 
     matter. What would happen, for example, if the U.N. high 
     representative determined that U.S. forces had gone too far 
     in defending themselves under President Clinton's policy of 
     effectively responding to attacks ``and then some''?


                               either/or

       Congress cannot redo the agreement reached by the parties. 
     But there is no need for lawmakers to accept President 
     Clinton's either/or approach--either support his plan to 
     implement the agreement, or pull out entirely. If the 
     agreement represents a genuine desire for peace among the 
     warring parties, then presumably the accord is not so fragile 
     as to depend on the oral commitment of U.S. troops made by 
     the administration (and which isn't even part of the 
     agreement). Congress can and should consider other options. 
     The U.S., for example, could assist European forces in 
     demarcating the boundary lines, and could enforce peace in 
     the area through the threat of air strikes on important 
     targets. Or the U.S. could offer greater monetary and 
     diplomatic support for the agreement but not any ground 
     troops.
       Whatever happens with the troop commitment, Congress should 
     insist that the agreement's provisions allowing the training 
     and arming of the Bosnian Muslims be rigorously adhered to. A 
     balance of power among the hostile parties is ultimately the 
     only basis for long-term stability in the region. And if 
     American troops are sent to Bosnia, they will be unable to 
     leave responsibly until such a balance has been developed. 
     That would certainly take longer than the yearlong limit 
     imposed by the administration.

  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I listened very carefully to the last 
several speakers here on the floor, and I find myself almost at a loss 
as to where to start. If we go through a factual reality check here, on 
how this situation developed, I do not find it much like what I hear 
being discussed here on the floor.
  One of the speakers this evening talked about our entry into combat 
and equated it with Vietnam, equated it with Lebanon, where President 
Reagan--whose name has not been mentioned here although Clinton's has 
this evening, that is for sure--put 1,600 troops into Lebanon and said, 
``We're going to stabilize Lebanon by making an example there, and that 
will bring them around.'' That is what got us into the trouble, not 
thinking the thing through, and thinking that a little bitty show of 
force would bring an end to what had been very lengthy combat in 
Lebanon.
  So I think we need a reality check here. To equate this whole effort 
as just some sort of a PR stunt does a disservice to the floor of the 
U.S. Senate and to our Government. It was even questioned as to whether 
we would stand behind our troops in Bosnia once they are in there. What 
a ridiculous statement. I find that abhorrent.
  Now, statements were made that we were injecting our people into a 
civil war, we are putting our people into combat. Now, let us get back 
to reality here.
  I agree completely that there have been long and historical 
difficulties in the Balkans. We do not need to run through all those 
this evening except to say some of these problems literally go back to 
the time of the Caesars. They are that old. The ethnic, political, and 
religious differences in that area led one of the Caesars to split the 
area that later became Yugoslavia into the East Roman Empire and West 

[[Page S18411]]
Roman Empire. That is how the orthodox influence came up into that part 
of the world.
  It has been a caldron of problems that contributed to the beginnings 
of two world wars. We have always had an interest in that area. We have 
a lot of people in our own country, a lot of people in my home State of 
Ohio representing the different ethnic groups in that part of the 
world.
  President Clinton said we would send 20,000 people in if--these were 
big ``if's''--if we could get arrangements for fighting to be stopped, 
so we could move in. We are not going to fight our way in. We did not 
make a commitment to actually send them in until some other things 
happened.
  What were those other things? And these are very, very important. 
What happened was that over the past 4 years the war has become so 
difficult for people in that area, that they wanted peace. They asked 
us to broker the peace. We did not suggest fighting our way in there. 
President Clinton has not said we are going to fight our way in there. 
Quite the opposite. They came to us and said they are tired of war.
  My colleagues have asked how can we believe these people who have 
been fighting all these hundreds of years are not just going to keep on 
fighting. Well, the big difference now is that they are tired of war. 
Should we believe them or not?
  Bosnia-Herzegovina is an area about one-half the size of the State of 
Ohio--we are not a huge State; we have about 41,000 square miles of 
territory in Ohio--Bosnia-Herzegovina is almost 20,000, 19,776 square 
miles, about half the size of Ohio. In other words, think of Ohio, and 
Interstate 70 goes across the middle.
  If, in that area down between that Interstate 70 and the Ohio River, 
we had had 250,000 deaths in the last 4 years and we had two million 
refugees in the last 4 years, would we be ready for peace? That is what 
occurred over in Bosnia. Even the most ardent warriors over there have 
become tired of war, of the slaughter and the dislocation of people.
  While every individual may not be signed on, 100 percent going to lay 
down their arms, this is what happened. They came to us. Diplomatic 
channels said all parties seemed to be ready to have us broker a peace 
if it was possible.
  I must commend Ambassador Holbrooke. I think he did a masterful job 
over there, stayed at it, stayed at it, stayed at it, back and forth, 
one capital to another, one group to another until they had an 
agreement to go to another place and try to negotiate peace. They came 
to Dayton. Wright Patterson was selected because the facilities were 
there providing security, some place to live, some appropriate 
barracks, and so forth. So they came to Dayton.
  Let me give my view. I was very dubious of this whole process at that 
point. I thought they would come to Dayton and it would be a short-
lived conference. And what happened? Well, they not only asked to 
negotiate, but they, the parties involved, came to Dayton. They, the 
national leaders, the heads of state, did something I would not have 
thought possible: They stayed at Dayton for 21 days, the heads of state 
stayed there for 21 days negotiating. They finally hammered this thing 
out, and they initialed an agreement there, all of them. And they will 
sign it the day after tomorrow in Paris.
  So it is not our peace, it is their peace, with us making 
suggestions. But they are the ones who initialed it. They are the ones 
who asked to negotiate to begin with.
  What is our part in it? Our part is to help implement what they have 
agreed to.
  Much was made on the floor a few moments ago about what if they back 
out and the fighting starts again? They back out and what happens? I 
will say this, if that happens and if they break the peace agreement 
that they signed, that they wanted, that we brokered, that they agreed 
to, it is their failure, not ours. We are not there, as the President 
has said, the Vice President has said, the Secretary of Defense has 
said, General Shalikashvili has said, General Joulwan in Europe briefed 
us, to enforce a peace by forcing anyone back across a border. If they 
have decided this peace is no longer for them and they are going to 
start fighting again, our commitment at that point is we tried, we gave 
you people your chance at this thing, and we are out of there. We are 
not there to conduct large-scale combat. If that were the case, we 
would be going in with far more than 20,000 people, in my view.
  But let us say they do not back out and peace comes to the Balkans. 
We will have avoided the possibility of this conflict spreading over 
into Macedonia, down toward Turkey, with all that might entail. We have 
avoided the possibility of it breaking across borders up toward Europe, 
maybe into Eastern Europe. And we will maybe, possibly, have peace in 
that area because they asked for it, they wanted it.
  I had doubts when they came to Dayton and I wanted to see two things 
happen. I said this publicly at the time and talked to the President 
about it, talked to the Vice President about it, and talked to the 
Secretary of Defense about it. Two things: First, this agreement could 
not be wishful thinking. This agreement could not be something where we 
say, Well, yes, we're going to go in over there, and, yeah, since they 
want peace we will be able to settle in down there and we'll draw some 
borders once we get there and then we'll provide some peace.
  No, we could not do it that way. I felt that would be a recipe for 
disaster. I would have bet a sizable amount against the parties at 
Dayton really drawing up an agreement in sufficient detail that, as I 
said one night in a meeting at the White House, we have to decide which 
peach orchard is in what entity when you draw these lines. It had to be 
in that kind of detail.
  A second element was that the firing had to have stopped. That was a 
commitment agreed to by everybody. The parties had to see that the 
irregulars also will have stopped firing. And then we go in to maintain 
the peace.
  What came out of the negotiations, as far as detail? I brought along 
a chart. This is a chart they agreed to in Dayton. The detail was to be 
1 to 50,000 scale. This is a brandnew map, just a few days ago. This is 
the separation zone. This area in here is an area that is an interim 
zone which the troops will move out of and back to these lines, and 
that is to occur within a stated time period.
  What is the accuracy of this? An inch on this scale would be 
somewhere around 4,000 feet, and the center line that is the 
demarcation line that we will monitor, shown in the center of this 
zone, accurate on this scale map to within 50 meters, close to 160 
feet. Now, that is pretty good accuracy.
  We have the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina. All of that area has 
this kind of a map. I could not bring all the maps, because 1 to 50,000 
would have an area about half the size of that wall at the end of the 
Senate Chamber. But our section will be up in this area, around Tuzla, 
up in this northeastern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, depicted here.
  This is Tuzla, which will be the American headquarters out of which 
we will operate. We will be operating to keep these zones clear in 
here. Why do we need to do that? If they said that they wanted peace, 
they are tired of war, 250,000 people killed, 2 million refugees in a 
small area, why can they not all just sit down and say, Stop fighting, 
and that takes care of that?
  One very good reason. The previous cease-fires that they have had in 
that area have been broken, for the most part, by what are called the 
irregulars. We were briefed on that when we were over there a few weeks 
ago. At least 20 percent, and some estimates run as high as 50 percent, 
of the combatants in this area are what they call irregulars. They are 
the farmers who go up and shoot, are up there manning a rifle or 
machinegun a few days, go back to their farm and somebody relieves 
them. They are not the people who are used to the usual military 
commands up and down the military structure.
  What has happened on most of the past cease-fires, and they have had 
over 30 of them in these 4 years of war and they have always broken 
down, is that somebody gets up there, triggers off a few rounds, the 
firing spreads and pretty soon the cease-fire has broken down.
  So the situation we find ourselves in is we have an agreement. I 
would not have thought it was possible to reach 

[[Page S18412]]
the kind of agreement they did in Dayton. It is detailed. The borders 
are established. It has been initialed. It is laid out on the 1 to 
50,000 chart right here. In the local areas, they will have charts to a 
bigger scale, of course. The firing must have stopped, and the cease 
fire held while these negotiations were underway, by and large.
  When we go in, it will not be to fight our way in. It will be to go 
in and man these zones that keep the combatants apart. One reason that 
is a 4-kilometer wide area is so the small arms fire cannot be used 
across a zone. There are 2 kilometers on each side of that center mark 
down the middle of that zone.
  We will keep the forces separate. They say--they say, not us--they 
say that they want peace. We have helped them negotiate an agreement, 
and surprisingly, it is in enough detail that you can pick out which 
orchard is going to be where and which road intersection is going to be 
where. It is in that kind of detail. When we get over there, we will 
not go into areas where there is any active fighting that may have 
popped up again. We are not going in to squelch someone, we are not 
there to fight a war on one side or the other. We are there to set up a 
separation zone and enforce it.
  The question was asked on the floor here, what is our military task? 
Military tasks were agreed to at Dayton. The Secretary of Defense and 
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of State 
have repeated these things over and over again. All parties have agreed 
that they will cooperate with us in these things that they asked us to 
enforce.
  Let me add one thing here. Why us? Why do they want our involvement? 
Why did they say they would not go along with just the other members of 
NATO unless we were involved? It is rather simple. They trust us and 
they do not trust the Europeans in NATO, and they have said that. This 
was stated to us in numerous briefings. They do not trust the others, 
but they do trust the U.S.
  Our job will be, first, to go in and supervise the selective marking 
of cease-fire lines, inter-entity boundary lines, and zones of 
separation, which is what we are talking about here. First zones will 
be marked, then military forces will begin moving out of the zones back 
into these permanent areas here.

  Once that has occurred, we will monitor and, if necessary, enforce 
withdrawal of forces to their respective territories within an agreed 
period. We will ensure that they have withdrawn behind the zone of 
separation within 30 days of transfer of authority. That is a clear 
military task.
  Then we will ensure redeployment of forces from areas to be 
transferred from one entity to the other within 45 days of transfer of 
authority.
  Further, we will ensure no introduction of forces into transferred 
areas for an additional 45 days, establish and man the 4-kilometer zone 
of separation, outlined here on the chart, 2 kilometers on either side 
of the cease-fire interentity boundary line. We will establish liaison 
with local military and civilian authorities, and we will create joint 
military commissions to resolve any disputes that there may be between 
the parties.
  Now, the statement was made a while ago on the floor that it smacks 
of nation building for our military in there. That is not true. 
Nationbuilding tasks are specifically not included as I-For tasks in 
the Dayton accords.
  Things that will not be I-For tasks are the humanitarian operations. 
Those will be handled by other international agencies. Nation building, 
economics, and infrastructure will be handled by others, not by our 
military. Disarming everyone is not an I-For task. Moving refugees is 
not a job for our military, nor is policing local towns, and so on.
  So this idea that we do not have clearly defined military tasks is 
just not true.
  Once again, I am still somewhat amazed that everybody agreed to all 
these things in Dayton and has said that they will abide by these 
commitments. If the parties decide that they want out of the 
agreement--we are already agreed, the NATO Ambassadors have said, 
General Joulwan told us during our briefings, and Secretary Christopher 
and Secretary Perry said, we are not there to fight on one side or the 
other. We would say that we successfully did our part. We would define 
our part as being a success if we went in there and manned these zones 
and kept them apart for a period of time, and they will have failed, 
not us. They will have failed the peace agreement that they asked us to 
negotiate, that they came to Dayton for, for which they stayed 3 weeks, 
21 days, and they will sign in Paris the day after tomorrow.
  Now, where does this leave us? Well, it leaves us, I think, with 
reasonable risk. Nothing is without some risk, that is true. Even when 
we have maneuvers in this country, military maneuvers, sometimes 
something happens. Someone slips off a tank and they are hurt. Nothing 
is absolutely safe. It is like an old saying in aviation, ``The only 
way you have absolute, complete flight safety is to leave the airplanes 
in the hangar.'' I guess that is the situation we find ourselves in.
  Will there be some risk? Yes. Will it be tolerable? I think so. If it 
becomes intolerable and forces build up, and there is a push, we are 
out of there. I will not see that as being a failure. I will see that 
as, we did our level best. This year period we are talking about is 
time enough. If they really want peace and they are serious about it, 
then all these other humanitarian groups and nationbuilding groups--not 
our military--will come in immediately after our presence is felt to 
try to help those people get their country going again. Within a year, 
the people of Bosnia are certainly going to see the benefits of peace, 
as opposed to continuing the slaughter, which has been their norm for 
the last several years.
  Can 20,000 troops do it? Yes, I think they can. The 20,000 is not a 
force to come in for a big military operation. We are not going into a 
situation like the Persian Gulf, where we knew we were going into 
combat. It is the opposite. We are going in to help the parties and 
these irregulars to stay apart for a short period of time while we try, 
for the first time, to get lasting peace in that part of the world.
  Now, what are some of these groups that will be coming in? Well, 
those are being worked out right now, as to who will do what. But NATO 
itself will not be responsible--the NATO troops there will not be 
responsible for all the nationbuilding efforts.
  I might add that, as far as risk goes, you know, I wondered one day 
how many people in the Peace Corps we had lost overseas, so we made an 
inquiry. It turns out that through all the years of the Peace Corps, 
which obviously includes many thousands of people and many places 
around the world, we have lost 224 people in the Peace Corps that have 
died overseas in accidents, of disease, or whatever. I think that is 
interesting. I would not have thought it was that high. So we take some 
small risk any time our people move out on any endeavor anywhere in the 
world. But the risks, to me, are minimal.
  The benefits that can occur for the future are huge. NATO, for the 
first time, will have been moving out of their normal area. So, in that 
respect, it is an experiment. What has happened is, our military area 
that we are going to man as part of this force will be up here in this 
northeastern part. The British will be up in here. The French will be 
down around Sarajevo and down in this particular area down here.
  So it is not, as was said on the floor a while ago, that we are 
mixing up our troops all over Bosnia. That is not true. We are 
responsible for manning a certain area, and that is it.
  Now, I was afraid of one other thing. In the Balkan area we had the 
Soviet Union that through the years has had a special kinship with 
Serbia. It dates back a long time, a historical connection of heritage 
there.
  I was afraid that if we went in there, and NATO went in there, and we 
found the Russians having an interest in coming down and supporting 
people over on the Serbian side, we could wind up with us in this area 
here with Russia supporting the Serbs in here. We would have had a 
possible confrontation there between Russia and our forces. That would 
have been a confrontation with the potential for very major disaster.
  Now, what happened? Well, we got the Russians in. The Russians are 
going to be part of this. They will be manning some of this zone here 
adjacent to us, and they are cooperating in this effort. I think they, 
too, realize that if we do not get peace in that part 

[[Page S18413]]
of the world, it is liable to erupt again sometime in the future, and 
that would not be good for them, or us, or anyone else.
  If we cannot begin to see the benefits of peace in a year, then maybe 
it is impossible. I do not know. Maybe those countries go back to 
fighting again. But I think we will have been proud at that time that 
we at least were willing to take the small risks to let peace try and 
take root in that area of the world.
  I would think that some risk now may enhance the long-term leadership 
of the United States toward peace and freedom around the world and, in 
the long run, actually save lives.
  We have not been hesitant about taking jobs on around the world, and 
people trust us when we do this, by and large. We have many examples. 
We stayed in Korea since the Korean war.
  With the Marshall plan, the Truman doctrine, back in the post-World 
War II days, we did not try to take over Europe and make it a 51st, 
52d, 53d, or 54th State over there. We helped them. We had the Truman 
plan, the Marshall plan, all these things to help nations recover from 
war.
  In other words, we have had a history of standing for peace and 
freedom around the world and, really, to take some minor risks to see 
that we encourage peace and freedom around the world. It does not 
always go perfectly.
  Did we lose some people we wish we had not lost in Somalia? Of 
course. I think we probably also in the long run saved a million lives 
in Somalia with the effort that we were willing to make.
  Are we wrong in trying to broker a Mideast peace? We had Prime 
Minister Shimon Peres here not 20 minutes ago on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate. He was here and gave a brilliant speech today. We have helped 
Israel and the Palestinians to bridge some of their differences. We 
have tried to broker peace in that area.
  We did not try to take Japan after World War II. We have tried to 
advance peace and democracy throughout South and Central America. We 
have a lot of budding democracies in that part of the world, Cuba being 
the major exception. We went into Haiti. It was criticized here on the 
floor a little while ago, but I think we are seeing Haiti come around, 
it is up and down, up and down, but generally up. It is a more peaceful 
situation than we might have thought was possible.
  Northern Ireland. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty we got permanently 
extended. We have tried to be a force for good around this world to our 
everlasting credit.
  To those who say we should not even risk going into this area I would 
say--they wanted the peace, they asked us to broker it, they have 
initialed it, they are the ones who will sign it in Paris. It is their 
peace, not ours. We are just trying to help them implement it. So to 
bring up all these what ifs and dire consequences--I think it is good 
to think about those things and be prepared for some of these things. 
But to stay out of that area because some of the things mentioned here 
on the floor might possibly remotely happen, I just do not think that 
should be done.
  We are, indeed, a nation that wants peace and freedom around the 
world. We have stood for that and stayed involved around the world. 
That does not mean at all that we try to take on all the problems of 
the world. We cannot be the world's policemen. I agree with that. But 
where we have an area of such historical conflict and importance to 
Europe, to not seize this opportu- nity--and I do view it as an 
opportunity--to not seize this opportunity to try to help them 
implement the peace that they say they want, I think would be wrong.
  I think we are well justified in going in, and I would not have 
thought this was possible 7 or 8 months ago. I would not have thought 
we would have such a detailed agreement, that I could stand here with a 
chart like this on the floor of the United States Senate and say these 
details have been signed onto by all parties in the Balkans. This is 
one small part around Tuzla, and the total map on this scale in the 
Senate would be the whole size of the wall; 50 charts cover Bosnia and 
Herzegovina.
  What we are doing is providing them a structure for implementing the 
peace they said they wanted and they agreed to. If they decide to opt 
out, then we are opting out, too. We will have done our job. I 
personally declare it a success that we tried. If they are dumb enough 
to break up the peace after all this effort, and all the nation 
building that will be going on in that area, then I must say I do not 
have much sympathy for them from that point on. We will not fight our 
way in. We only go in if all firing has stopped.
  Are we do-gooders, trying to do too much around the world? I do not 
think so myself. We take some risks for potentially huge benefits. The 
rest of the world looks at us as a nation that has no territorial 
designs. They trust us. I think we just might be able to implement this 
agreement and see peace break out in that area for an indefinite time 
into the future. If so, we will have done a great, great service for 
the rest of the world and particularly for that particular area.
  I know we will be debating this question tomorrow here, I do not 
think there is a final agreement yet on exactly how long tomorrow we 
will be debating these issues. But I think if this works out, then we 
will avoid the possibility of an encroachment down through Macedonia or 
toward Turkey. We will not see fighting spread across borders into 
eastern Europe.
  We will maybe have been a real instrument for peace. That is the 
objective here--not another Vietnam, not another Lebanon, not all the 
things that were mentioned here on the floor a little while ago. Maybe, 
just maybe, we can be a force for peace in that part of the world. That 
is the objective.
  I think we stand a very good chance of doing that. I support the 
President's move, and I hope that we can send an overwhelming message 
of support, because I do not want to have the people over there 
thinking that we are a divided nation back here. That would be the 
worst situation that we could possibly have.
  Mr. President, I am optimistic at this point. I think we have come a 
long way. We went through negotiations we did not think were possible. 
They have agreed to it. Heads of state stayed in Dayton 21 days, 
something we would have thought was absolutely impossible. They will 
sign this in Paris. It is their peace. All we do is help them implement 
it. It is their peace. If it breaks down, it is not our failure; it is 
their failure. I look forward to the continued debate tomorrow morning.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am one of the cosponsors of the 
Hutchison-Inhofe resolution. It is a brief measure. It makes clear the 
views of this Senator and, I hope, the majority of this body in 
opposition to the actions and the decision by the President concerning 
Bosnia.
  In clear and unambiguous language, our resolution presents absolute 
support for the men and women of the Armed Forces who are being 
deployed under the President's order related to Bosnia. They are and 
will do their duty, and they have earned and deserve our country's 
unqualified support to meet their needs.
  We also have to support their families while they are away, and no 
matter what we do or say regarding Bosnia, it is the duty of this 
Congress to provide for the security and welfare of the families of 
these men and women in the defense forces.
  Now, virtually every Member of this body, I think, has spoken at 
least once on this tragic situation in Bosnia. What the Senate is doing 
now is to focus on the challenges and the threats involved in this 
Dayton plan for the United States and to determine whether we should, 
for the first time, mire ground forces in this centuries-long conflict 
in the Balkans.
  I have listened with interest to my friend from Ohio. There is no one 
for whom I have greater respect and fondness. I find that we have come 
away from the Balkans--we traveled the Balkans together--we have come 
away with diametrically opposed views.
  I was interested in particular when he mentioned that Bosnia and 
Herzegovina is 20,000 square miles. Mr. President, my State is 586,000 
square miles and we are one-fifth the size of the United States. In 
other words, I think we should focus on the size of the area involved 
in this conflict.
  More than 2 years ago, I spoke to the Senate on the nature of the 
conflict in 

[[Page S18414]]
Bosnia, and I paid particular attention at that time to the remarks of 
General MacKenzie, who was a Canadian and the commander of the U.N. 
forces that were then struggling to end the fighting.
  In an interview about that time, when he was asked what he thought 
about the calls from some in the Congress to take military 
intervention, or at least send a strong military backup to the Bosnia 
area, this is what he said, quoting Gen. Louis MacKenzie:

       Well, what I have to say is that if you're going to jump 
     from chapter to chapter 7 of the U.N. charter and move from 
     peacekeeping to force, then you better get the peacekeeping 
     force out first.
       Mind you, Mr. President, you better get the peacekeeping 
     force out of there.
       Otherwise, you got 1,500 to 1,600 hostages sitting there 
     200 kilometers from the nearest secure border. You can't 
     combine these two.
       And if you're going to get involved in the Balkans, then we 
     better read a bit of history, because we're talking about an 
     area that gobbled up 30 divisions during the last war. 
     Unsuccessfully, by the way, in keeping the peace in 
     Yugoslavia. Unsuccessful in tracking down Tito and finding 
     him in Macedonia. So you're talking about a very, very major 
     undertaking.
       Not only that; when they leave, with the amount of hate 
     that's been generated on both sides, it's going to break out 
     and start all over again unless you come to some sort of 
     political constitutional solution for that country.

  Mr. President, there is no constitutional solution in Bosnia. There 
is no peace, really, in Bosnia.
  It is discouraging that, after the 2 years that this has gone on, and 
the incalculable suffering by the people of Bosnia, the President has 
finally acted. And in my view he has made the wrong decision.
  Two years ago, following a mission in Bosnia with a delegation of 
Senators to the NATO south headquarters and the Bosnia region and 
Croatia, I came to the conclusion that only a military balance in the 
region would bring a permanent end to the fighting. This administration 
consistently opposed that strategy, long advocated by the majority 
leader, Senator Dole. Now, administration officials define a military 
balance as a key component of our exit strategy from Bosnia. How is it 
that aiding the legal Government of Bosnia to defend itself was wrong 
for so long, and now defines success for this deployment?
  American soldiers, air crews, marines, and sailors will now be placed 
in harm's way because this administration failed to do what so many of 
us urged--permit the legal Government of Bosnia--permit the people of 
Bosnia--to defend their country, and their lives. The question now is 
whether we will approve putting the men and women of our Armed Forces 
at risk, to recover from the mistakes and errors of the past 3 years.
  In October, Senator Inouye and I led a bipartisan delegation to 
review the NATO peace enforcement plan, and evaluate the situation on 
the ground in Croatia and Sarajevo. Let me state now that our 
discussions with military leaders at the United States European Command 
headquarters in Stuttgart made clear that our troops have been well-
trained and well-prepared for what they may face in Bosnia. While I do 
not agree with the President's decision, I applaud the leadership 
exercised by General Shalikashvili, Admiral Smith, General Crouch, and 
General Hawley--they have done everything in their power to prepare our 
troops to protect their own lives.
  We may face casualties in Bosnia--every military commander we met 
addressed the risks there. But we were assured that those casualties 
will not be the result of indifference or failures by the Department of 
Defense to do its job to make the force ready. This is a superb force 
that the President has ordered to Bosnia, will bring credit to the 
military, and to our Nation, regardless of the challenges of the 
Balkans, of that I am sure.
  But, if the situation in Bosnia was unique, a compelling case for 
United States intervention might be made. Sadly, the killing, the 
suffering, and the devastation in Bosnia represents only one chapter in 
the growing record of civil strife around the world. Even more 
troubling is that Bosnia may be only a warning bell for severe 
disruption and conflict in other former Communist nations, including 
the former Soviet Union itself. We must not forget the fact that we are 
watching the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
  In Africa, Central Asia, and the Far East, we have witnessed, without 
deploying United States troops, slaughters and tyranny in Ethiopia, 
Uganda, Sudan, Mozambique, and Angola. Where we did intervene, in 
Rwanda and Somalia, our efforts resulted in only a temporary lull in 
the killing, or in the end, completely failed, as when we tried to mix 
humanitarian aid with nation building in Somalia. In Asia, we turned 
away from any responsibility despite the terror in Sri Lanka, in Burma, 
and the decade of killing in Cambodia. In Cambodia, peace was 
accomplished when the parties were tired of fighting, and the United 
Nations provided a framework for reconstruction, led by Japan and 
Australia--key regional powers.
  The former Soviet Union and associated states present an entirely 
separate category of potential future conflicts. Already, we have 
witnessed fighting in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Armenia, and 
Chechnya. We in Alaska watch closely developments in Siberia, and I 
predict to the Senate that we will see unrest and perhaps the 
fragmentation of that corner of the former Soviet Empire before the end 
of this decade.
  Many of these nations are artificial. We should remember that. Within 
the former Soviet Union, within the former Warsaw Pact, and within the 
former Yugoslavia, these are not natural nation states. Today in many 
of the states long simmering rivalries, feuds, and clan conflicts that 
were suppressed by brutal, authoritarian regimes continue to surface. 
People did not accept Communist dictatorships, they lived in fear of 
them. They chafed under that tyranny, under the control of entirely 
different nation, a nation that erased their traditional boundaries. 
And now they are acting on desires for self-determination to try to 
restore the past.

  Bosnia is not the first nor will it be the last of such civil wars in 
former Communist nations. The precedent set by the President on how the 
United States will respond to these conflicts will haunt the United 
States for years to come.
  I do not know how this administration reached a value judgment that a 
life in Bosnia is more significant than a life in Chechnya or Armenia. 
And I would ask, are the threats to Turkey from unrest along the Black 
Sea of less vital interest than the imagined threats to Greece from the 
unrest in the Balkans?
  I really do not know how the President's equation works yet, Mr. 
President. What future commitments has the President made by this 
decision to dispatch forces to this region? Based on our discussions 
with U.S. military leaders in Europe and the hearing before the defense 
appropriations subcommittee, which I chaired, I found no basis for any 
claim that a broader war in Europe could emerge from this conflict. We 
have heard that again here today.
  There is simply no likelihood that troops from this 20,000 square 
mile area will march on Greece, or that Croatia will march on Italy, as 
a result of this centuries-long hatred in the Balkans.
  Any suggestions that this civil conflict will ignite world war III to 
me is farfetched and irresponsible. And I say this with no disrespect 
to Secretary Perry and General Shalikashvili. I told them of my 
conclusions following our trips to Bosnia, in private meetings and 
public hearings.
  This deployment may be more about fulfilling the President's hasty 
commitment to NATO leaders. It may be one to assert a new dominating 
role for the United States in NATO affairs.
  To me, it is not a deployment to prevent the spread of war to 
Southern Europe. I find it very interesting that in the past, many on 
the other side of the aisle scoffed at the domino theory when it was 
raised with regard to Europe, Southeast Asia, or the even the Middle 
East during the gulf war. It is remarkable now to hear that this civil 
war in 20,000 square miles of Bosnia may spill over and proliferate 
into conflict in Greece, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, or Albania. All have 
been mentioned here on the floor, Mr. President.
  Procedurally, there is no basis in the NATO Treaty for this mission. 
The North Atlantic Treaty defines a defensive relationship between the 
signatories focused on mutual defense. This action takes NATO in a new 
and uncharted direction. The President does 

[[Page S18415]]
so now under circumstances where the NATO alliance is described as so 
weak that America choosing not to participate in this mission could 
destroy that alliance. Those are not my words. That is what we were 
told at the NATO headquarters when we visited Brussels.
  NATO officials told our delegation that defense spending cutbacks by 
some NATO members have so reduced their military forces that they 
simply cannot do more than provide token units to the NATO 
implementation force. NATO ministers presented us a stark choice in 
Bosnia. We were either to provide a military force for Europe or see 
NATO collapse.
  I do not see why we should provide a military force for Europe 
because of the threat that NATO would collapse. I think that is one of 
the most remarkable statements I have heard.
  Is it true that our allies that we joined together to defend against 
the monolithic Soviet Union are incapable of containing a small 
conflict in 20,000 square miles of Europe?
  We are the world's only remaining superpower. The budget that I 
helped present to the Senate that the President approved for the 
Department of Defense is a good one, but it does not keep pace with 
inflation. And I say to the Senate that the bottom line is this Nation 
cannot provide for Europe's defense and Asia's defense and the Middle 
East's defense. The American taxpayers should not, cannot, and will not 
shoulder this burden alone. If NATO cannot do this without us, what is 
it that NATO can do now?
  I have probably attended more NATO meetings than any Member of the 
Senate still here today, and I have been a firm supporter of NATO all 
along. But I was appalled to be told by leaders of NATO that if we did 
not participate in this mission, NATO would collapse.
  Mr. President, I will vote for the Hutchison-Inhofe resolution, and I 
am proud to have worked with them and so many of my colleagues to bring 
this matter before the Senate. I hope to be able to support also the 
leader's resolution. I hope it will come before the Senate because I 
think we must not only make a clear commitment to our Armed Forces, 
which the leader's resolution will do, but I think we must have a 
resolution that will go to the President and that he must sign that 
defines not only our role vis-a-vis the Bosnian Moslems, but also the 
exit strategy that we should pursue.
  I do not enjoy finding myself in opposition to any President. Our 
Constitution makes the President the Commander in Chief of our military 
forces, and he has the authority to command. He has the authority to 
deploy these forces. But the Constitution gives the Congress 
responsibility also to provide for our common defense.
  How can we provide for our common defense if Presidents continue to 
send our forces throughout the world for humanitarian and peacekeeping 
efforts to Haiti, to Somalia, or wherever it might be? I believe we are 
weakening our defense every time we use defense money for peacekeeping 
measures, and we will pay the price.
  I only need to point out the number of ships we are able to build a 
year. Figure it out someday, Mr. President. We build about six or seven 
now, and they have about a 20-year average life. How can we possibly 
keep a 350- or 400-ship Navy with the current rate of procurement for 
Naval forces? Or look at the Air Force; it is coming down so rapidly. 
Or look at our tanks; it will not be long until we will have tanks to 
send people to war that were built by their grandfathers.
  The defense budget is not, as the President said, an overloaded 
budget. It is an underfunded budget from the point of view of 
modernization, and that is really the problem we have here.
  I do not believe the American people want our troops in Bosnia. I 
think they want a very good defense force. They want us to be able to 
keep our commitments abroad.
  I do not believe a majority of the Congress should support the 
President's decision to send troops to Bosnia, and I regret the 
President did not consult the Congress, or consider our views--
particularly the views of some of those who were sent to Bosnia to 
bring back a report to him.
  This decision sets a very disturbing precedent for me, Mr. President. 
I do not think the debate will change the policy the President has 
embarked on. I hope that some of our allies are listening, and I hope 
more people question our becoming involved to save NATO rather than to 
defend our national interest. They are not synonymous any longer, Mr. 
President.
  I believe that the debate should cause our allies in Europe to 
recognize that our commitment to NATO is not without limits and hinges 
upon Europe's willingness to act as a full partner in any military or 
political function.
  My hope is that the debate will caution the President also--will 
caution him not to commit us further without closer consultation with 
the Congress and its leaders, and without the support of the American 
people.
  It is my fervent hope that the debate will result in policies that 
will bring these troops home as soon as possible.
  I can only say as I started, Mr. President, that I regret deeply the 
decision to send them there in the first place.
  Mr. THOMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, thank you.
  Mr. President, I rise in support of the Hutchison-Inhofe amendment in 
opposition to the President's decision to send troops to Bosnia.
  I, like the Senator from Alaska, would like to be able to support the 
President in regard to this matter. I think the politics should end at 
the water's edge whenever possible. I regret that I am not able to do 
so. But after extensive hearings in the Foreign Relations Committee and 
others, and after carefully examining all of the arguments and all of 
the information that is available, I have concluded that there are 
several reasons for being opposed to the President's action.
  I do not believe that they have made a convincing case that it is in 
our national interest to take this action. I think that policy rewards 
the aggression that has taken place over the last 4 years in that 
country. But I think probably the most definitive problem, as presented 
by the President's action, is that there is no indication--not only 
have they not carried the burden of proof, in my opinion, but there is 
simply no indication--that this action will meet with any success. I 
think the first thing we have to do with regard to that point is define 
success.
  It was pointed out a little earlier this evening that we would be 
successful even if hostilities broke out before the 12-month period and 
we left. I respectfully disagree with that assertion. Once you think 
about it, it is certainly not that simple. If we were there for 2 
months, 3 months, or 4 months and hostilities broke out, and we simply 
took the position that, well, we tried and the people who we are here 
to help do not want to be helped so we will leave, we would be accused 
of cutting and running as we have been accused of before. That would be 
disastrous, Mr. President, for the United States of America.

  If, on the other hand, hostilities broke out, we were involved in 
hostilities before the expiration of the 12-month period, and we 
stayed, and we were in the middle of those hostilities and engaged in 
those hostilities, we would be in danger of being in a quagmire, and 
Vietnam would be talked about a whole lot more than it has been here 
tonight. So it is not a simple proposition. If this breaks down before 
the 12-month period, it is not a simple proposition for us to just turn 
around and leave. It would be a very big black mark as far as the 
credibility of the United States of America is concerned.
  I tend to believe that with the forces that we are putting in there 
and with the forces that NATO and other countries are putting in there, 
we can probably keep the lid on it for 12 months. I think there is a 
much greater likelihood that the day we leave hostilities will resume. 
They say, well, again, we have tried our best. We will come out all 
right if that is the case.
  I respectfully disagree with that argument. That is not a definition 
of success either. We will have expended lives, Mr. President. They 
talk about the estimate of 6 million mines being scattered around in 
terrain like most of us have never experienced. Our colleagues come 
back and say you cannot even get a truck, much less a tank, in most of 
these places. The terrain is vertical. It is not horizontal. We would 
expend, some people say, upward of $5 

[[Page S18416]]
to $6 billion, not counting what some people believe will be an 
extensive foreign aid package as we leave.
  Now, I think we would have spent something that is equally important, 
certainly more important than the money part, and that is our 
credibility. It would have been in vain. We would have paid a price. We 
would have had another failed mission, Mr. President, at a time when 
the U.S. military does not need another failed mission because of the 
leadership that has been provided to them.
  So with that definition of success, what is the likelihood of 
success? I think that if you look to the past or you look to the 
present or you look to the future, there is very little, if any, 
likelihood of success. These people have been warring with each other 
for hundreds of years. We have had 34 cease-fires before this one. No 
one has made a credible case yet that they are not just taking another 
pause in the hostilities to reinforce themselves during the time of a 
bitter winter when they could not do much anyway.
  Also, apparently, none of the parties engaged in this process believe 
that the other side wants peace. We can never create a peace, Mr. 
President, until the parties themselves want peace, regardless of the 
actions that we take. Historically, they have not wanted peace for a 
long time. With the mass murders that have taken place just within the 
last few months, apparently, over there and the continued atrocities 
and ethnic cleansing that continue to go on, those feelings are not 
going to subside overnight, regardless of what has been put on a piece 
of paper in Dayton, OH. They are still there. They are going to linger 
there. Evidently the Croatians and the Bosnians did not think that the 
Serbs wanted peace. They would not even sit down to the table unless 
the United States was there. Evidently we do not think the Serbs want 
peace because one of the conditions that is being talked about so much 
is that we must equalize the forces. We would not need to be so 
concerned about that if we did not think the Serbs still had aggressive 
tendencies and would exercise those tendencies the moment that we left.
  What about present circumstances? Are there any indications of 
success from this policy under present circumstances? You can just look 
and see what has happened since Dayton and come to the conclusion the 
answer is no to that particular question. We have the leaders over 
here, some of whom probably are trying desperately to keep from being 
branded war criminals, making policies and putting things in an 
extensive document that their very people back in Sarajevo and other 
places in the area are denouncing and saying they will never live 
under--certainly not encouraging conditions.
  We are debating whether or not we are nation building, and everyone 
seems to agree that we certainly do not want to get into nation 
building. I would suggest it is more than that. It is apparently nation 
creating. Apparently the document calls for the creation of a new 
nation, basically divided in half, populated by three ethnic groups 
which have been warring with each other for centuries.
  What is the likelihood that we can go in there and create that kind 
of new government--or not create it. In all fairness, I must say, it is 
not our job to create it, but it is our job to monitor and enforce the 
agreement, whatever that means. Monitor and enforce the agreement. As I 
understand it, one of the goals is to build down, as they say, the arms 
on one side of this conflict and build up the arms on the other; 
presumably those folks who are losing the arms are going to sit back 
and allow that to happen. Apparently we are to monitor and enforce the 
understanding with regard to the refugees. As we know, some of these 
areas and some of these very homes have changed hands. We are going to 
have people in one group being pushed out by people of another group, 
going to courts that are being run totally by one group.

  That is not going to be a very satisfactory resolution to the people 
who are kicked out. And then we are supposed to leave a balance of 
power. If there has ever been an indication where the United States or 
another country has gone into another area and figured this out from a 
piece of paper, got the top help involved and figured out how to create 
and enforce and leave a balance of power, I would like to know what it 
is.
  Nobody seems to ask the other question, too: What does a balance of 
power do? Does that cause people to lay down those arms? Does it cause 
them to say we cannot fight now because we have a balance of power? I 
would not think so.
  Some points that really must cause one to think have been made 
because we are told that this is significant as far as supporting the 
President's concern but also supporting NATO. I think the Senator from 
Alaska makes a very good point when he raises the question whether or 
not this is something that is in our national interest or is it 
something that is in NATO's interest and we have an interest in NATO, 
and therefore it is in our national interest.
  If that is the logic, it is very questionable. For some time now NATO 
has acted as if this particular conflict and the resolution of it was 
not even in the national interest of the countries involved, much less 
NATO. For some time now they have resisted our attempts to lift the 
arms embargo, to try to reach some kind of resolution along the lines, 
as I read it, of what the Dayton accord seeks to do with regard to the 
arms portion of the agreement.
  I think it is important that we have a strong NATO. I think it is 
important that we cooperate with NATO. But I think it is also important 
that NATO cooperate with us. And they failed to cooperate with us. The 
Secretary of State went around to the NATO countries hat in hand and 
asked for support and help to get this policy through that the U.S. 
Congress, I believe, was very firmly in support of, the President said 
he was in support of, and I think the American people were in support 
of. They turned a deaf ear to us.
  Now they have taken the position where apparently they have not seen 
their own national interest and vital interest of these countries very 
directly involved and convinced us in one fell swoop that it is in our 
national interest to send ground troops over there. Not that we do not 
have any interest at all, but is our national interest sufficient for 
us to send ground troops? I think probably what this conflict did was 
catch us in mid-redefinition of the role of NATO and our role in NATO. 
We have built down from over 300,000 troops in the NATO countries to 
around 100,000 or so now. Obviously, we see a different situation now 
that the cold war is over. We do not have that big threat of aggression 
to the NATO countries from the one superpower. It is a different world 
that we live in, no less dangerous world but a different world that we 
live in.
  And the question here is a new one for us. That is, what happens, 
first, when you are engaging in not an aggression situation but a so-
called peacekeeping situation and, second, it does not involve a NATO 
country? It does not involve a NATO country.
  I certainly believe a case can be made that we can become involved 
and we could supply logistics, intelligence, and other areas that we 
obviously have capabilities that some of these other countries do not 
have, without supplying ground troops.
  Should we be the one to initially step forward with a commitment to 
supply ground troops simply because we want to have some involvement or 
support in NATO? I do not think so.
  So it is too late now with regard to this particular venture. But I 
think we are going to have to step back and redefine our role there 
because we cannot afford to let NATO pull us into any kind of conflict 
over there in another part of the world, that if they had done the 
right thing in this particular instance we would probably be in much 
better shape than we are in right now.
  Another argument that has been made, that is pause for concern to 
those of us who are opposed to the President's policy here, is the 
charge of isolationism. And the charge is made that those who do not 
support the President are isolationists and do not see our country's 
interests go past our own borders. That is not the case. That is not 
the case at all.
  I certainly believe that we must exercise a strong role. One of the 
things that can be said positively about what the President has done is 
that he has taken a strong stand. Unfortunately, I think that it is an 
incorrect stand. But I kind of admire the fact that he has taken a 
strong stand. 

[[Page S18417]]

  If we had taken a strong stand somewhat earlier in this country with 
regard to this particular area, and others I might add, we would be in 
a whole lot better shape. We would have a whole lot more credibility, 
and so would NATO right now.
  So I think many of us see that we have to exercise a leadership role. 
We do live in one world. We say that we do not want CNN running our 
Nation's policy, and it should not. But CNN is there. It has arrived. 
When we watch atrocities in parts of the world, it affects us. It does 
not mean that we have to be involved in each and every one, but it 
affects us as a nation. And when we see in an area where we can take 
some action, such as lifting an arms embargo, for example, and we sit 
back year after year and do nothing, I do not think that helps us. I do 
not think that helps the United States of America and what we are 
supposed to stand for and what we are as a people. It does not do us 
any good, I do not think.

  So all of that is true. But I feel like the policy here at hand is 
not only misguided, but will wind up fueling the very isolationist 
tendencies that the supporters of this policy decry. Because if, in 
fact, it is isolationism that got us here, because we did not have the 
strong effort by NATO--and we as a country perhaps made some mistakes 
in not having a firmer hand in many different respects with regard to 
this part of the world some time ago.
  But now if, as all indications would point toward, this turns out to 
be a failed policy, if hostilities resume, if we have to leave 
prematurely or hostilities resume after we have left, having spent 
billions of dollars and many lives of our young people, that is going 
to cause people to be very, very reluctant, much more reluctant than 
otherwise to get into the next conflict where we might have some 
national interest.
  So we must husband our resources with a certain amount of wisdom, 
discretion. And the President should not come to the U.S. Congress and 
say that this is a fait accompli, and you should not look to the 
underlying policy. That is what we are faced with here.
  The role of Congress has been rendered essentially a nullity. As far 
as these resolutions are concerned, I feel like it is important that we 
express ourselves. But I think it is even more important for this 
reason. If we express ourselves here and the President knows that we do 
not take to the idea that we are not entitled to look at the underlying 
policy, if he knows that underlying policy will be debated--any 
President--and will have to see the light of day and the details will 
be examined and will not be rubberstamped, even if the troops are on 
the way, then perhaps it will change some Presidential actions in the 
future because those things are going to continue to occur throughout 
the rest of our history, I would assume. It is a much more dangerous 
world in many respects that we live in today than ever before.
  So we have been presented somewhat with two bad alternatives. One is 
to support a bad policy; and the other is to do something which the 
administration would urge might somehow undermine the effort. And none 
of us want to do that. And I do not like that policy. I mean I do not 
like that choice, that Hobson's choice.
  But on balance, I think it is much worse to establish a precedent 
that if a President can quietly enough and rapidly enough make 
commitments and come to the U.S. Congress and say it is a fait 
accompli, the Congress does not have the right or the obligation to 
look into the underlying action, that is a bad policy and I do not 
think we should subscribe to it, and therefore, I will support the 
resolution. I thank the Chair.

  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, from the beginning of the present Bosnian 
conflict during the Presidency of George Bush, I have opposed an 
immediate American participation in it in any fashion that would risk 
the lives of young American men and women.
  From the beginning of that conflict, during the Presidency of George 
Bush, I have favored the lifting of the arms embargo against the 
Bosnian victims of Serbian aggression, on the premise that it was not 
only unfair, but immoral to treat identically the aggressors and the 
victims of that aggression.
  The Bosnians, it seemed to me, as it did to most Members of this 
body, deserved at least the right to fight for their own freedom--a 
right which they have effectively been denied.
  Everything in history and logic and our intuitions told us to oppose 
the kind of action in which the President is engaged in at the present 
time. Even the peace treaty we are there in part to enforce is an 
unjust treaty which leaves the aggressors in possession of most of the 
areas which they conquered and in which they engaged in some of the 
most horrible war crimes in recent history.
  In 1993, some 2 years ago, President Clinton made what appeared to be 
a casual remark to our Europe allies. He promised that American Armed 
Forces, specifically ground troops, would participate in a Bosnian 
peacekeeping effort as and when such a peace were reached. I am 
convinced that then, as today, President Clinton did not understand the 
consequences of that promise, especially as it came as a promise from 
the leader of the free world.
  Mr. Clinton's proclivity to tell people whatever they want to hear at 
the time in which they want to hear it is well documented here in the 
United States. But what the American people will perceive simply to be 
a flaw in the President's character in the rest of the world could 
precipitate a catastrophe in our foreign policy.
  And so, Mr. President, as we meet here this evening, after the 
President's commitment, not only in abstract terms in 1993, but in 
concrete terms just a few weeks ago, the question is no longer whether 
or not we as individual Members of the Senate agreed with that promise 
or supported the President's policies.
  Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post last Friday:

       It does not matter that we should not have gone into Bosnia 
     in the first place. It now matters only that we succeed.

  Regrettably, I find that to be the absolute and incontrovertible 
truth. Let us not fool ourselves that this is an easy task. We are 
going into Bosnia to create or perhaps to preserve in part a pause in 
fighting between bitter, 600-year-old enemies. Success will not be 
easy. But now that we are there, now that we are the leaders of the 
NATO forces in Bosnia, it is absolutely essential for the future of 
this country, as well as for the future of NATO, that we succeed. As a 
consequence, our first task is to define success.
  Are we going to build a parliamentary democracy in Bosnia?
  Of course not. Are we going to reconcile six-centuries-old enmities 
after hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions 
displaced in a 1-year period? Of course not.
  Then, Mr. President, what is the definition of ``success,'' assuming 
that the President keeps his commitment to withdraw our troops at the 
end of a 1-year period? The only possible definition of success, it 
seems to me, is that when we leave, the Bosnians are able to defend 
themselves against further aggression; that a peace, not arising out of 
reconciliation, can at least arise out of a balance of power and a 
feeling that the acts of the last 5 years cannot be repeated.
  It is exactly at that definition of success that the resolution 
proposed by our distinguished majority leader, Robert Dole, is aimed. 
The vague and uncertain promises that the Bosnians be equipped in such 
a way that they can defend themselves in the agreements in Dayton are 
sharpened and strengthened in this resolution by the insistence that we 
assure that these people, these victims, be able successfully to defend 
themselves at the end of a 1-year period.
  If that is the case, Mr. President, and only if that is the case, 
will we and our NATO allies be able to leave Bosnia without an 
automatic renewal of the civil war. And only if we are able to leave 
without that automatic renewal taking place, can either we or NATO 
claim to have been successful.
  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been the centerpiece of 
the foreign policy of the United States since 1948. It has been and it 
remains vital to the peace not only of Europe but to the rest of the 
world that NATO continue and that it be credible. As a consequence, 
even though NATO may have, as I believe it has done, made an erroneous 
and unwise commitment, and even though the President of the 

[[Page S18418]]
United States may have done and has done, in my view, an unwise thing 
in entering into this commitment, we now must honor it. We must honor 
it in a way that protects, to the best of our ability to do so, the 
security of our troops on the ground during the time that they are 
there and gives some reasonable degree of assurance that the war will 
not recommence immediately upon our leaving.
  Mr. President, every one of us in this body knows that the Congress 
of the United States will not and cannot exercise the only full 
authority it has, and that is to cut off any funding for this Bosnian 
venture. A Presidential veto on the assumption that there might be a 
majority in both Houses for cutting off that funding would not be 
overridden. The President has committed our troops to Bosnia. He is 
going to carry out that commitment, whatever the oratory on this floor, 
whatever the resolution that passes this body. We, therefore, if we are 
to be wiser than the President has been, must try to see to it that the 
troops who are there are there under the best possible circumstances, 
as undesirable as those circumstances may be. We must try to see to it 
that they are there for the shortest period of time possible, and that 
when they leave, the world can say that their intervention has been a 
success.

  Mr. President, I believe that the distinguished majority leader and 
those who have worked with him on his resolution have charted the only 
possible course of action that can meet those goals.
  We, as Americans, can have only one President at a time. All 
Presidents are fallible and, I must say, I think this President is 
particularly fallible. As a Member of this Senate, I supported 
President Reagan when he ordered air raids on Libya. I supported 
President Reagan when he liberated Grenada. And I supported President 
Bush when he proposed, ultimately successfully, to liberate Kuwait. I 
must say that none of those decisions was nearly as difficult as this 
one is, because in each case, I believed that the President was doing 
the right thing. But in a certain measure, even then that support was 
granted because the President, who was in charge, was our Commander in 
Chief and deserved every benefit of the doubt.
  I do not believe we can appropriately grant that benefit only to a 
President of our own party or a President with whom we agree. As a 
consequence, as reluctant as this assent is, I believe we must assent 
to what the President has done, at least to the extent of strongly 
supporting our troops who are faced with an extraordinarily difficult 
challenge, giving them the greatest possible opportunity to carry out 
their mission successfully from the perspective of defending their own 
lives and security and successfully from the perspective of defending 
their own lines and security and successfully from the perspective of 
leaving Bosnia at least not as terrible a place as they found it. The 
only way I have discovered at this point to do that, Mr. President, is 
to support the initiative of our distinguished majority leader.
  Our constituents--all of our constituents--are frustrated by this 
venture. It has not been appropriately defended by the President. His 
casual promise of 2 years ago should never have been made. But each of 
these is a bell we cannot unring and, at this point, we must look 
forward and do the best we can for our troops, our country, and our 
alliance. That, I am convinced, we will do by supporting Senator Dole's 
resolution.
  Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Hutchison 
resolution in opposition--strong opposition--to sending American forces 
into Bosnia. I was quite interested in the remarks of my friend from 
the State of Washington. In listening to his remarks--and I know other 
Senators on the floor, Senator Brown, served with me in Vietnam--I 
could not help but think of terms like ``Vietnamization.'' I remember 
the charts, the McNamara charts and the pointers, how, if we would just 
supply a little help, we could be there a little while and the South 
Vietnamese would soon be able to take over the war and fight their own 
battles; if we could just secure the peace, everything would be all 
right.
  Mr. President, 58,000-plus lives later, we gave it back to the North 
Vietnamese.
  I remember then, very much so, as a young man of draft age 
volunteering in the Navy to serve, I remember then Presidents making 
commitments. And although this is not Vietnam per se, the parallels are 
very similar because, as the President must know, and as all of us 
participating in this debate know, and as the American people know full 
well, the majority of the American people do not support our 
involvement here. The difference is that we can stand here on the floor 
and debate this, and we know that, regardless of what we say here or 
what we debate here, the President is going to--indeed has already 
begun--proceed to send troops to Bosnia. So perhaps we are wasting our 
time.

  I think it is important that people understand that, yes, we are 
debating it and, yes, the President made this commitment 2 years ago. 
But there is somebody's son and there is somebody's daughter that, 
probably prior to Christmas, is going to be off somewhere in this far-
off land without the full support of the American people for having 
them go there. They will have the support of the American people and 
this Senator's support when they get there, but that does not mean we 
have to endorse the policy of sending them there.
  I do not take participation in this debate lightly. There have been 
three or four major issues that I have been involved in since I have 
been in the Senate for some 5 years and in the House 6 years before 
that. One was the Persian Gulf war. It is not easy when you stand here, 
knowing the vote you make may cost American lives. It troubles me very 
much to take the floor of the U.S. Senate in opposition to any 
President, including President Clinton.
  I served in the Vietnam war under President Johnson. I disapproved of 
President Johnson's policies. I did not think he conducted the war 
properly. But I was proud to serve in the military and do my duty. I 
never had a second thought about that, as most military people do not. 
But I cannot sit idly by and say nothing and watch our troops being 
sent into harm's way, Mr. President, without a coherent policy and 
without a compelling military mission. And there is no coherent policy 
and there is absolutely no compelling military mission.
  These men and women are not trained to be 911 response teams. Police 
departments do that pretty well. These men and women are trained to 
fight for the national security of the United States. That is not why 
they are going there. So they are going to be put in harm's way, doing 
things they were not trained to do.
  Over the past 3 years, many of us in this body have spoken out loudly 
and clearly on lifting the arms embargo, which has denied the Bosnia 
Moslems the ability to defend themselves. They have a right to do that. 
Bosnia is their country. Those of us who have advocated lifting the 
embargo believe that because it is their country, the Moslems deserve 
the opportunity to defend it, to protect their families, their 
property, their culture, against a Serbian onslaught. Do you remember 
the safe havens? They were not very safe, but they were told they were 
safe. They were herded into them and executed by the Serbs.

  If the President, President Clinton, had accepted this recommendation 
that many of us made, including the majority leader, here on the floor 
and exerted firm leadership, we would not be having this debate. We 
would not be sending troops to Bosnia. They would not be giving up 
Christmas with their families to go to this far-off land, to be put in 
harm's way. We would not be doing it. Why? Because the Moslems would 
have been able to defend themselves if we had just--we did have to arm 
them. All we had to do was step out of the way and let them be armed. 
But we did not do it. So I am not swayed emotionally or any other way 
by the fact that this President made some commitment 2 years ago to 
NATO allies. I am not swayed in the slightest, because if things go 
wrong, if it looks bad not to go, how bad is it going to look when we 
leave, after things get rough?
  Are my colleagues here prepared to come down on the Senate floor if, 
in fact, something goes wrong--and I pray 

[[Page S18419]]
it does not--and when casualties occur? I remember that, too, in 
Vietnam, Mr. President, very clearly. I remember when there were 2 or 3 
a week, and I remember when there were 350 a week coming home dead. The 
American people then lost interest in the war because they never 
supported it in the first place, and brave young men and women died 
because of that. That could happen this time, and I cannot believe that 
we are allowing it to happen again.
  When will we ever learn from history? A year ago, it was widely 
reported that the President offered up to 25,000 American troops to 
help withdraw the U.N. protection forces from Bosnia. I joined many of 
my colleagues right here on this floor voicing serious reservations 
with that proposal. It is strangely ironic that 1 year later the 
President has committed roughly the same number of troops from the same 
service elements to enforce a peace agreement that, as of today, has 
not even been signed. Maybe it will be signed in the next day or so; 
maybe it will not. But we are already going to send troops, are we not? 
We already made the commitment. We hear people from all sides saying we 
are not going to support it. So we are going to put our American forces 
there in harm's way, without a peace treaty that we know will work.
  Is that our responsibility? Why? Because CNN carries bloody footage 
every night from the war? There are other places where blood is let 
every day, and we are not there--Ethiopia, Somalia. We were in Somalia, 
but we should not have been there either. There is at least the 
appearance that when Congress closed the front door on Bosnia 
deployment, the President decided to sneak around the back door to get 
the American troops involved. That is what he did. He made an incorrect 
decision.
  The President has stated that our troops will only be deployed to 
Bosnia for a year. He has not articulated what the specific mission 
will be. He has not defined a concise timetable or sequence of 
milestones for achieving our military objectives. How can he possibly 
say that American forces will be there for a year? He does not know 
that. Sure, he can pull them out in a year, regardless. All sides know 
that. So if I were an adversary in Bosnia, I would do one of two 
things. One, I would absolutely harass American forces to try to create 
as many casualties as I could and get us out, or I would sit back and 
do nothing and wait for a year. And, in the meantime, during that year, 
how many landmines do American forces step on? How many people die in 
simple motor vehicle accidents, or airplane accidents, or other combat-
related accidents, in the line of duty?
  This is not a safe venture. When you deploy 20,000 troops anywhere in 
one big operation like this, it is a high-risk operation. I am not sure 
the President of the United States, to be very blunt about it, who 
never served in the military, and specifically avoided serving in the 
military, understands that, to be candid about it. The only argument I 
hear coming from the White House spin doctors in support of the 
President's policy is the assertion that President Clinton has made a 
commitment to our allies, and if Congress were to reject this 
commitment, it is going to destroy our credibility and destroy our 
reputation in the international community. That is no consolation, is 
it, to the mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters and kids of the 
American personnel that are being sent to Bosnia? Frankly, I think it 
is a disgrace.
  I hope the President will think, as I am going to think, before I 
vote tomorrow on this. If I have to make that phone call--and I pray to 
God nobody ever has to make it--or I have to look a mother, or a 
father, or a brother, or another loved one in the eye, I have to be 
able to say to that person: Your son, your daughter, your brother, your 
sister, whatever, died for a good reason.
  There was a good reason for us to be there. Can we really say that? I 
sure cannot. I could not say it. I cannot look that parent or sibling 
in the eye and say, ``Your son or daughter died for a good cause, a 
good reason, died bravely, yes, died courageously, yes, or was injured 
in the line of duty, courageous, absolutely.''
  Know why? Some feel sympathy. Some who have never served in the 
military do not understand. They feel sympathy toward those people who 
go. They do not want your sympathy. They go where they are asked. They 
are the bravest, best, most ready military force in the world, and they 
do their duty. They do it better than anyone else in the world. That is 
why we stopped Nazi Germany in World War II.
  They do it because it is their duty to do it. It does not mean we 
should ask them to do it. That is a different story.
  The American forces, the Armed Forces, again, are not to be 
subcontracted out all over the world whenever some crisis erupts. They 
are the guardians of our security, our liberty, our national security. 
We ought not to allow them to be needlessly or recklessly endangered, 
even if the President has boxed himself in a corner.
  What is the President supposed to say to Mrs. So-and-so when she 
loses her son? ``I got boxed in a corner, Mrs. Jones. I am very sorry. 
I made a commitment. I should not have made it, but I sent your loved 
one anyway, to be killed. I am sorry.'' That is not good enough, folks. 
That is not good enough. That is not good enough.
  Bosnian peacekeeping is not an appropriate role for the Armed Forces 
of the United States. It is not what they are trained to do. It is not 
what they are trained to do.
  Now, the administration has also suggested that those of us who do 
not support turning the American military into a Bosnian police force 
are somehow isolationists. I resent that charge very much. The issue 
here is not whether our Armed Forces should be called upon when 
necessary to defend our interests abroad; rather, the issue is, when, 
where, and under what circumstances is it appropriate to deploy U.S. 
military personnel in and out of area operations? That is what the 
military is all about. It is troubling to me that even after 3 years of 
on-the-job training the President still--still--does not understand the 
proper role of our Armed Forces.
  I just left a meeting 15 or 20 minutes before I came here to the 
floor. We were talking about the Defense budget. We were talking back 
and forth, back and forth among Members of both sides of the aisle. A 
couple of comments were made. Well, we do not think the President will 
sign this bill. The President is not going to sign, we are hearing, he 
is not going to sign the Defense authorization bill which provides the 
support, increases the pay, by the way, of our military, the people 
that he is asking to go to Bosnia. He is not going to sign a bill to 
give them a pay raise. That is what is being threatened, hung over our 
head every day. But he made a commitment to somebody in NATO without 
the consent of Congress, without consulting the American people. 
Without consulting anybody, he made that commitment.

  I think he has a commitment to those he is sending that he ought to 
support. If he vetoes a Defense bill, he is not supporting them. 
Anybody that says he did not like everything in it, let me tell you, 
what is in it is the funding for those people that he is sending.
  So when we debated here--I do not want anybody to accuse me or anyone 
else who takes the other side that we are isolationists. I was not an 
isolationist when I served in Vietnam, and I was not an isolationist 
when I supported every Defense budget to support our American troops 
since I have been in the Congress, and when I supported pay raises when 
he would not support pay raises for members of the military.
  We have no military or economic interests--none--in Bosnia. The 
American people overwhelmingly oppose this policy. They oppose the 
commitment of 20,000 ground troops. Everybody knows that. Look at any 
poll. That is the issue. The White House spin does not cut it. Public 
relations gimmickry does not cut it. It does not work. Nothing is going 
to change them.
  Let me briefly, for the benefit of my colleagues, highlight what I 
see to be the critical unanswered questions associated with the 
President's Bosnia policy.
  First, what is our exact mission in Bosnia? What are we supposed to 
do? Are we there to make peace? I ask everyone to listen, are we there 
to make peace, keep peace, enforce peace, or monitor peace? Which is 
it? Are we neutral? Are we evenhanded, or are we realigned with the 
Bosnian Moslems? Which is it: Keep peace, enforce peace, 

[[Page S18420]]
monitor peace, make peace? Are we neutral, are we even handed, or 
aligning with the Moslems? Does anyone know the answer to that 
question? No one knows the answer to that question.
  What is the difference between making peace, keeping peace, enforcing 
peace, or monitoring peace? No one knows the answer to that question. 
The President does not know the answer to that question. It has never 
been clearly delineated.
  Second, why are we deploying for 1 year? Where did that come from? 
One year--we just pick these guys up, 9-1-1 force, send them over there 
for 1 year. Why not 10 months? How about a year and a half? Fourteen 
years, 14 days, 2 years, 11 years--where did 1 year come from?

  Can you imagine if Franklin Roosevelt had said after Pearl Harbor, 
``We will take your boys and send them out for 1 year. If we win the 
war, we will come back in 1 year. If we lose the war, we will come back 
in 1 year.''
  This is not Franklin Roosevelt in the White House right now. He does 
not understand, you cannot make a commitment like that. You do not tell 
your enemies what you are going to do ahead of time. If we do not know 
exactly what the mission is, how do we know how long it will take to 
complete it? What sequence of milestones have we established to 
determine our progress?
  What happens if after this year, this little arbitrary year goes by, 
what happens if we have not achieved our objectives--we do not know 
what the objectives are, but assume we have not achieved them whatever 
they might be--what do we do then? Pull the plug? Leave and concede 
that the whole operation was a waste?
  How about that phone call? ``Mrs. Jones, we stayed there a year, we 
took some casualties. Unfortunately, your son was one. We did not get 
it done. Unfortunately, they still want to fight, so we are leaving.'' 
Maybe Mrs. Jones should know that now--not tomorrow, not after her son 
is injured or killed--today. Maybe Private Jones ought to know that 
now, too.
  Are the antagonists not likely to wait us out and launch hostilities 
as soon as we leave? Is it all for nothing if we have not achieved our 
goal in a year? Mr. President, 1,000 years these people have been 
fighting over there, and we will decide it all in a year. We will take 
care of it all in 1 year. We will come home in 1 year, and that will be 
it. All that fighting will end, all that 1,000 years, century after 
century, we will take care of it in a year. Very ambitious.
  Maybe the President reneges on his 1-year commitment and he decides 
to keep the troops there a little longer. How long is a little longer--
14 years? How many years were we in Vietnam? The Senator in the chair 
knows we went there in 1961 to help the South Vietnamese get control of 
their government against the communist onslaught from the North, and 12 
years later we left. And 2 years after that, the North Vietnamese tanks 
rolled back into South Vietnam.
  We saw it in Somalia. If you do not like the Vietnamese example, you 
think that is too hard on the President, to look at. It is easy to get 
the troops in. It is a little tough to get them out, though.
  The troops are deploying to this treacherous terrain in the middle of 
the winter, dead winter. There is no infrastructure to support tens of 
thousands of soldiers. Towns that are being vacated by the Serbs under 
the peace agreement, told they had to vacate, are being burned and 
sacked and ravaged. Shermanesque; burned. What are they going to be 
living in? Tents? Is there housing over there?
  If they are not going to live in tents, and many of the houses are 
being burned, and we have thousands of refugees that the President says 
are going to come back home, with a shortage of housing, where are we 
going to quarter our troops? Did anybody think about that?
  How are we going to transport the heavy equipment in and around 
Bosnia with very few roads that are in shape to be able to pass on? Are 
we going to have to build those roads and build those bridges? While we 
are building roads and building bridges, who is going to be protecting 
the folks that are doing the building of the roads and bridges?
  The Senator from Tennessee a short while ago talked about this. At 
what point do we get sucked into the role of nation building? Nation 
building? He even used the term, the Senator from Tennessee, Senator 
Thompson, said ``nation creating.'' Arbitrarily, we take a map in 
Dayton, OH, and we say: ``Here is a line here. Here is a line over 
here. If you are a Serb, you live on this side of the line. If you are 
a Moslem, you live over here. If you are a Croat, you live here. If 
three of you live in the same town, we will split the town up a little 
bit.'' That did not work in Berlin and it is not going to work here. It 
is not going to work here. So we are going to have to nation build. 
What happens when we leave?
  What about the Russian brigade that will be serving alongside 
American forces? There is going to be a Russian brigade of soldiers 
serving alongside American forces. I can hear the President now. 
``That's great. We can work with the Russians.'' Whose side are the 
Russians on? Who have they been sympathetic to all these years? The 
Serbs. What have we been doing to the Serbs for the past few months 
under this President's policy? Bombing the blazes out of them. Are the 
Russians going to sit back and allow the Moslems the opportunity to 
achieve military parity? Are they going to let that happen with their 
clients, the Serbs? I don't think so.
  And what happens--I am asking a lot of interrogatories here, but 
there are a lot of lives at stake, and we ought to ask these 
interrogatories. If we had asked them in the Vietnam war, we would not 
have lost 58,000 people.
  What if the Russians do not view us as being evenhanded, and they 
take action to enhance, to boost the Serbs? What happens then? What 
happens when the Russians and the Americans have a flareup over who is 
supporting whom? What happens then? How do we increase the military 
capability of the Moslems without involving or jeopardizing the 
security of American ground forces?
  I remember this debate a couple of years ago. We were talking about 
it during the Bush administration. We were talking about it during the 
Clinton administration. The words ``ground forces in Bosnia'' was like 
raking your fingers across a blackboard. It just sickened you to think 
of. You could just feel how much it hurt just to think about it. I 
never believed that we would get to this point. Yet here we are.
  Even if the U.S. forces are not actually delivering the weapons, and 
even if they are not training the Moslems, how do we avoid being linked 
to the Moslems? The Serbs know we are linked to the Moslems. They know 
that. So, ironically, you have a situation where it could be beneficial 
to the Moslems to instigate some attack and blame it on the Serbs. Or 
vice versa. It could happen. What do we do then? Is this Lebanon all 
over again? Do you remember Lebanon?
  (Mr. BROWN assumed the chair.)
  Mr. SMITH. Another question. What about the thousands--and I mean 
thousands--of Iranian fundamentalists who are already in the region 
supporting the Bosnian Moslems? They are not exactly our best friends, 
Iranian fundamentalists. How do we defend against terrorism or sabotage 
from these professed anti-American forces?
  Do you see what we have put our American troops into? Is that what 
they are trained to do? Is that why they went to Ranger school? Is that 
why they joined the Marines and became pilots and learned to fight for 
the security of their country? Is that what they did it for? Is that 
what they were trained to do?
  Since I have had a lot of ``what abouts'' here, what about the 
Croats? How do they fit into this mix, a very fragile mix? How will 
they view the buildup of Moslem military capabilities? Are they going 
to be supportive? Or are they going to be threatened? Will they be 
emboldened to reignite hostilities against the Serbs, knowing that U.S. 
troops are in their corner either directly or indirectly? Who knows?
  Let me go to the final question. What about the cost, not only in 
American lives or the possibility of lost American lives--and one life, 
one, is too many; one life. We have already spent billions on military 
operations in and around the Adriatic. Navy steaming 

[[Page S18421]]
hours, rescue operations, no-fly-zone enforcement, offensive military 
operations, and now the preliminary ground deployments have been 
enormously expensive. This has been taxing the military over and over 
again. Mr. President, 911 in Somalia, 911 in Haiti, 911 in Cuba, 911 
now in Bosnia. You think those dollars do not come from somewhere? You 
think they do not come out of training? Or housing? Or something? Some 
military equipment? Flying hours? You bet they do.

  What does this President want to do? Cut the defense budget. Do not 
give them the $7 billion; we do not need it. Cut it. Do not sign the 
defense bill. Threaten us. We have been threatened for the last 3 
months by administration personnel here, and I know because I am on the 
Armed Services Committee and I have been involved in those threats. 
``We are not going to sign it if you do not do this or you do not do 
that.''
  The administration estimates the 1-year cost in dollars will be an 
additional $2 billion. How are we going to pay for this? What other 
programs will become the bill payer? How is readiness being affected? 
How will this deployment affect our ability to fight and win two major 
regional contingencies, as called for in the Bottom-Up Review conducted 
by this President? That means two major contingencies. It means, for 
example, if war broke out in the Persian Gulf and war broke out in 
Korea, just to use an example, that is two different regions of the 
world. We are supposed to be able to go right out there and take care 
of ourselves and protect our interests in both of those regions, while 
we are cutting the military, while we are cutting readiness, and 
cutting operation and man-hours. And if the President does not sign the 
authorization bill, even giving these kids a pay raise to go risk their 
lives in Bosnia--we are not talking about a big raise either. The 
American people need to understand that some of the kids who are going 
to Bosnia are probably on food stamps because they do not make enough 
money, so they are eligible for food stamps. It is food for thought, 
Mr. President, before you send them over there.

  I just listed a few dozen of the unanswered questions surrounding 
this debate, and we will not get the answers before we send our troops 
over there because they are already being sent there. We are supposed 
to rubber stamp it. Without substantive answers to these questions, it 
is irresponsible for the Clinton administration to be committing--let 
alone actually acting to deploy--thousands of United States troops in 
Bosnia.
  If you think of the Somalia situation, when we lost a group of Army 
Rangers because we did not even have basic equipment because we did not 
have access to it, we had to ask for it from one of our allies. That 
was a small operation--a small operation. This is a big operation with 
thousands of American troops in harm's way without having basic 
questions answered.
  Do you think that President Roosevelt would have sent troops in World 
War II or President Truman would have sent troops to Korea without 
having these questions answered? Of course not. Of course not. 
President Bush in the Persian Gulf had the questions answered before he 
went. He knew what the mission was. That mission was very simple: drive 
the Iraqis out of Kuwait. And he was criticized for not going into 
Baghdad and killing Saddam Hussein. That is easy to criticize after the 
fact, but that was not the mission. The mission was to drive them out 
of Kuwait, which is what they did.
  Can somebody tell me what the mission is here? Again, peacekeeping, 
peacemaking? What is it?
  I oppose as firmly, as adamantly, as strenuously, and as strongly as 
I can sending American soldiers on the ground into Bosnia. I do not 
believe the President has articulated a clearly defined mission. I do 
not believe he has articulated a rationale. And I believe as deeply in 
my heart as I can that it is a terrible, terrible mistake to send 
America's finest to police this region, to intercede and to take sides 
in a centuries-old conflict.
  And if we get out of there and we do not take casualties and we 
accomplish it, God bless us. I hope that happens. But is it worth the 
risk? And the answer is, no, it is not, and the American people know 
it.

  We are taking sides in this case. We are not going in there as 
strictly peacekeepers. We have already taken sides, just as we did in 
Somalia, and we paid for it when one of the warlords, Aideed, attacked 
our troops, just as we did in Lebanon when we took casualties. In each 
case, we paid a terrible price--a terrible price.
  When are we going to learn from the mistakes of the past? When are we 
going to learn from history?
  I hate to say this, but I like to call it like it is. It is something 
that just makes it worse for me, and people are going to accuse me of 
taking a cheap shot. And I am not; I am just stating a fact.
  This President, when he was called to go to Vietnam, went to Europe 
and protested the war. He now is ordering these people into combat--
possible combat, possible harm's way--without a mission clearly defined 
and without the support of the American people. There is no small irony 
there, Mr. President.
  If we authorize this misguided deployment, and I know we will, or, 
even worse, if we acquiesce in it, and I know we will, we are just as 
culpable for its consequences as the President who sent them there--
just as culpable.
  I ask my colleagues to think it over very carefully. Are you prepared 
to accept the responsibility for what may occur there? Are the 
potential costs worth it in dollars, in lives? What do we gain? If we 
are successful--and I think any reasonable person would say we might 
have a few years of peace, maybe, if we are lucky--we have a lot to 
lose, a whole lot to lose.
  I have two teenaged sons. I can tell you I have weighed the pros and 
cons. They are not of military age yet, but they are not far away. No 
matter how I do the math, no matter how I do the math, each time I come 
up with one inescapable conclusion: We should not be sending America's 
finest to Bosnia. And I have to ask myself, would I want to send them 
there? If the answer to that question is ``no''--and it is--then I am 
not going to send anybody else's there with my vote.
  Bosnia is not our home. It is a terrible tragedy. It is not our 
security in jeopardy. It is not our fight.
  When I think of the blood that we shed for Europe over the years, 
what we did in literally liberating the continent of Europe, half of 
it, how could we be criticized for passing on this one, Mr. President? 
Does that make us isolationist? Give me a break. We cannot afford, nor 
do we have the moral authority, to be the world's policeman. The 
world's leader, yes; the world's policeman, no.

  This is a European conflict. The Europeans themselves ought to 
resolve it, and they can resolve it. It has nothing to do with NATO--
nothing at all to do with NATO. It is a phony issue. The NATO charter 
does not even mention Bosnia. They are not members of NATO. NATO talks 
about collective security, collective response when one of the nations 
of NATO are attacked. It has nothing to do with NATO.
  Do not listen to that phony argument. It is not about isolationism. 
It is not about internationalism. It is about the proper role of the 
Armed Forces in international affairs. That is what it is about: the 
proper role of the Armed Forces in international affairs. It is about 
keeping faith with the men and women who so selflessly serve our Nation 
in uniform day in and day out, deployed all over the world. That is 
what this is about.
  During this century, we spent hundreds of billions dollars defending 
Europe against communism and against fascism. We sacrificed hundreds of 
thousands of American lives in Europe in World War I and World War II. 
Then, after we finished, we spent billions more under the Marshall Plan 
to rebuild it, and then we fought the cold war. We maintained a robust 
military presence in Europe throughout that cold war, and we equipped 
our NATO allies with sophisticated state-of-the-art aircraft and 
weaponry. And they can use it along with their forces to end this 
conflict, if they think they can end it.
  We have done our part. We have done it. How can anybody accuse us of 
being isolationist because we do not support sending American forces 
into Bosnia after all we have done for Europe? We have earned the 
right--we have earned it--to sit this one out. 

[[Page S18422]]

  There is no reason that our allies cannot begin assuming a more 
direct role in European security, and certainly no reason they cannot 
handle the Bosnian peacekeeping mission on their own. It is another 
20,000 of their troops. That is all. And, if not, if this operation 
requires the full combat power of the United States of America because 
somehow this threatens the security of Europe, then we are really 
talking about something much larger than a peacekeeping mission, are we 
not?
  My colleagues, please, consider this very carefully. The American 
people are watching. Lives hang in the balance. Perhaps the moral 
essence of America hangs in the balance, just like it did when we 
deserted our people in Vietnam while they died and we protested in the 
streets.
  They are the ones who will be in harm's way. They are the ones who 
are going to be in the mud and the cold and the slush while we stand on 
the floor of the Senate debating. They are the ones who will be away 
from their families at Christmas, missing their kids--not us. They are 
the ones who will be vulnerable to millions of landmines all over that 
country, put out there by all sides of the conflict. They are going to 
be vulnerable to anti-American fundamentalists roving the countryside. 
They are the ones who are going to be subjected to bitter hatred of 
combatants who have seen their friends and families butchered before 
their eyes.
  Peace and reconciliation in Bosnia is a lofty goal, and I give the 
President credit for wanting it, as we all want it. But is it something 
that American sons and daughters should die for? Is it? Because that is 
the question. There is no other question that we deal with in this 
debate that matters except that one when you make that vote.
  Is it something that those men and women should die for, whether they 
do or not? And let us pray they do not, but the question is, is it 
something they should die for? And I submit with the greatest respect 
to the President, the Commander in Chief, and to my colleagues, the 
answer to that question is no, it is not.
  Let me end on one final observation. I vigorously oppose this policy, 
as I have said. But irrespective of the outcome of this debate, I will 
do everything in my power to ensure the safety and security of our 
troops. Reasonable people can disagree on policy, as many of us do here 
today, but I will tell you one thing, if this President sends them 
there, which he is going to do, this Senator is not going to be silent 
if he hoists that veto pen and decides to veto the defense bill of the 
United States of America.
  No, this Senator is not going to be silent. This Senator is going to 
speak up head to head with this President if he pulls that stunt. That 
is not going to happen without the American people being fully aware of 
what is going on. As Americans, we must support these men and women, 
whether we disagree with the policy of the President or not. If he 
sends them there, we have to support them. But we do not have to give 
him cover by saying he said he was going to send them there; therefore, 
let us vote and give him the cover. We need to make the President 
understand it is a mistake. Maybe he will change his mind. This is the 
chance we have, the only chance we will have. We must support them and 
provide a unified base of support to ensure their safe and expeditious 
return home, not like when I was in Vietnam and read about the 
protests. They have earned it. They are the best.

  That is the sad, bitter irony of this whole debate. These are the 
best, the best of America that are going into harm's way. These are not 
criminals. They are not people who are dregs of society somewhere, 
castoffs, failures. These are the best. These are the people who go to 
the military academies, and I nominate them every year, as do all of my 
colleagues. These are the best that we are sending into harm's way, and 
they will have my support if they go, but I will be doggone if I am 
going to cave in because somebody made a commitment 2 years ago that 
was wrong, that will put them in harm's way.
  Mr. President, in closing, just let me say, I pray that God watches 
over our men and women in this policy that I bitterly oppose, and I 
hope that my colleagues will rise to the occasion and send a very 
strong message, and that message is sent here in this Hutchison 
resolution because it says very clearly that we oppose you going, we 
oppose sending troops, Mr. President, but we will support them if you 
send them.
  That is a responsible action, and I hope that the President will heed 
the debate here and change his mind before it is too late.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, I thank you very much.
  I think it is very important on an issue of this magnitude that 
Members of the Senate take the time to outline why they have come to 
the conclusions they have. I serve as a member of the Armed Services 
Committee. We have had a number of hearings dealing with Bosnia. Like 
the Presiding Officer of the Senate who is currently in the chair, I 
have gone to Bosnia, to Sarajevo, and have seen the area.
  At one of our recent Armed Services hearings, I referenced a Time 
magazine where it had on the front cover a photograph of a young 
soldier. There was a caption on the front of Time magazine, and the 
question was, ``Is Bosnia Worth Dying For?''
  So I referenced that and asked that question to the witnesses who 
were there who were advocating that they supported this decision. And 
they told me that we are beyond that question, that that is not the 
question today.

  I do not believe that a lot of Americans, nor do I believe that a lot 
of American parents who have sons and daughters in the military, 
believe we are beyond that question. But in the discussion that took 
place at that Armed Services hearing, we were told the two vital 
interests that do require us to send our American military personnel to 
Bosnia are, No. 1, United States leadership, and, No. 2, European 
stability. Those were the two vital interests. It was not the question 
of whether Bosnia is worth dying for.
  With regard to leadership, approximately 2 years ago, members of the 
Armed Services Committee sat down with counterparts of ours from other 
European parliaments. We met here in Washington, DC, and I remember 
asking specifically the question of our European counterparts, with 
regard to Bosnia, the conflict that is taking place there, is that a 
situation in which you feel the United States should take a leadership 
role? Are we supposed to go in there and resolve that? And I am 
paraphrasing, but they said no, that is our problem. That is in our 
European backyard. We, the European countries, must solve this problem, 
not the United States.
  Then we saw how the United Nations policy began to be implemented. 
They placed the European peacekeepers in Bosnia. And as we watched, we 
saw routinely these peacekeepers being taken hostage. We saw these 
peacekeepers that were being handcuffed to potential target sites that 
bombing efforts might take out. But here were the peacekeepers 
handcuffed, held hostage. There was no peace that they were able to 
keep. Also, Mr. President, tragically, many of these peacekeepers 
watched as atrocities were inflicted upon different groups in Bosnia 
because the U.N. rules of engagement did not allow them to do anything 
else, so they watched these atrocities take place. This policy that was 
designed to resolve the problems of Bosnia was an absolute failure, a 
terrible failure.

  Congress has been passing resolutions saying lift the arms embargo 
because one thing that Americans believe in is self-defense. 
Unfortunately, the effort of passing in both Houses the measure to lift 
the arms embargo was rejected by the White House.
  The allies said, ``Absolutely not. You must not lift the arms embargo 
because that could put our European peacekeepers in peril.'' Tell me, 
what greater peril could there be than what was happening to those 
peacekeepers? But the allies insisted that that would be a mistake to 
lift the arms embargo.
  Just some months ago, Senator Dole hosted a gathering of Senators 
with the Prime Minister of Bosnia. I remember very clearly the Prime 
Minister of Bosnia saying, ``We don't want your boys to fight on our 
soil. We have boys to fight. What we need are weapons.'' And he said, 
``We can respect the United States taking a neutral position. We can 
respect that. But it is not neutral 

[[Page S18423]]
to deny us the weapons for our boys so that they can defend themselves 
and their families on our soil.'' But that is what the United States 
was doing. So much for neutrality. But the allies continued to say, no, 
no to lifting the arms embargo. So they stayed with a failed policy.
  Here is the incredible leap of logic that I just have a hard time 
grasping. And that is that with this failed United Nations policy, as 
carried out by our allies, the same ones who said that it was their 
problem to solve, we are now told causes a real question of U.S. 
leadership. The failed policy in Bosnia is carried out by the allies, 
but now we are told it is a U.S. leadership dilemma.
  Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State, in fact, said the 
placement of our troops into Bosnia is the acid test of U.S. 
leadership. Well, I have to question why we must put 20,000 troops into 
Bosnia to meet the acid test of U.S. leadership. If there is any 
question about U.S. leadership in the world, let me just discuss a few 
items that the United States is doing.
  American forces are enforcing the no-fly zone and economic sanctions 
in the Balkans. American military personnel are enforcing the no-fly 
zone and economic sanctions against Saddam Hussein. The American troops 
are helping to restore democracy in Haiti. And 40,000 American troops 
are preserving peace on the Korean peninsula. Also, 100,000 American 
military personnel are in Europe fulfilling our commitments to NATO. 
America took the lead in negotiating the Bosnian peace agreement. And 
that is significant.
  When I was in Bosnia, I saw Ambassador Holbrooke, and I saw his 
tireless efforts to bring about the settlement. We are the world's only 
military superpower. We are the world's largest economy. So how in the 
world does someone then, from this list, draw the conclusion that our 
placement of 20,000 troops into a piece of real estate called Bosnia is 
the acid test of United States leadership? And also how can anybody, 
after reviewing this type of list, which is simply a partial list, 
state that somehow we are advocating isolationism? This is not the list 
of isolationists.
  Mr. President, we are told that the key to success of the mission is 
establishing military equilibrium. In other words, in order for us to 
ultimately complete the mission and return our troops home and the 
allies to go home, the Bosnians must have military equilibrium with 
Serbs and the Croats because even as late as today we are told that is 
the only way they can defend themselves and, if they are not allowed to 
defend themselves, then it will not work. That is what the 
administration said.
  That is exactly what many of us have been saying for months, that if 
you do not allow the Bosnians to defend themselves, it will not work. 
That is why it has not worked. And now we are told that the key to 
success on this mission is that we must have this rebuilding of the 
Bosnians. In other words, we need to lift the arms embargo.
  Previously, our allies said no, you must not lift the arms embargo. 
But now apparently by paying the price of putting 20,000 American 
troops on the ground in Bosnia, now everybody says, this is the right 
way to go. Now we can achieve military equilibrium, which again is what 
we have been advocating for months in this body and in the body across 
the rotunda.
  I fail to see why this proposed deployment is the acid test of United 
States leadership when you consider how we got here. We did not need to 
get to this point. There were other options, options such as lifting 
the arms embargo as passed by Congress.
  With regard to the second point, on European stability, the argument 
there is that, if we were to allow this conflict in Bosnia to continue, 
it would spread, it may spread to Greece, it may spread to Turkey, and 
then we have vital United States interests, and, therefore, we must 
contain this conflict, we must not allow the fighting to go on; 
therefore, we are going to send an overwhelming force into Bosnia so 
there would be no fighting.
  But ironically we are told, if fighting does break out again --and 
there is that possibility--then the United States will immediately 
leave and the NATO allies will immediately leave. So the very reason we 
are going in there is to make sure there is no fighting, but if 
fighting breaks out, we leave. If that is not a paradox.

  I asked the administration if there would not be a great temptation 
in that instance, with an overwhelming force, if they would not feel 
compelled to snuff the conflict right then, because if that is the 
mission, you do not want this to spread, perhaps you need to snuff it 
right there. But, no, they would not do that.
  Therefore, I think that shows you the flaw of this strategy. Instead 
of putting the troops in there that says, if there is a fight, we would 
immediately leave, we should have a containment strategy in the 
surrounding area so it cannot leave. You lift the arms embargo and you 
allow the Bosnians to defend themselves and, if it spreads, you have 
the borders and you stop it. We had options, Mr. President.
  We are told also with regard to an exit strategy--I asked former 
Defense Secretary Schlesinger at a recent hearing in the Armed Services 
Committee, ``Do you believe that we have an exit strategy?'' And he 
said, ``No. We have an exit hope.'' That has been the dilemma of so 
many of our actions that we have taken. We have not had an effective 
exit strategy.
  When we talk about this, again, that the military equilibrium is a 
key to the exit strategy, with all of the different annexes that were 
developed in Dayton that have been initialed, which will soon be signed 
in Paris, volumes of written agreements between these warring factions, 
is it not ironic that that element dealing with the potential buildup 
of Bosnian arms is only verbal? It is not in writing. To me that is 
amazing, if that is the key to the mission and that is the only thing 
that is verbal.
  Mr. President, I do not feel that on an issue like this there is any 
room for partisanship. I remember when I arrived here approximately 3 
years ago, one of the very first pieces of legislation that I embraced 
and was proud to cosponsor was the legislation by Senator Feingold, a 
member of the Democratic Party. I am a Republican. It did not bother me 
at all because he was right. And his legislation was to lift the arms 
embargo.
  I felt passionately about that. I still do, and it was a bipartisan 
effort. It was passed in a bipartisan effort.
  I believe in this current situation, Congress has been brought in too 
late. The commitment has been made. But I will just add, this Bosnian 
problem did not just happen when the new administration came into 
power. It had been there, and we had not dealt effectively with it.
  I ask myself to cast my votes based upon what I think is the right 
thing for the country, the right thing for the troops and what sort of 
precedent I am establishing for myself in future votes of this nature.
  Tonight, we had a meeting at the White House, eight Senators met with 
the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of 
Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security 
Adviser, and I appreciate that invitation to have that sort of 
discussion in that sort of a setting so that we could ask the 
questions. But I will tell you, Mr. President, after approximately 1 
hour and 20 minutes in that setting asking the questions, I came out 
convinced that we are following the wrong policy, we are following the 
wrong strategy. We did not exercise the options that I believe firmly 
we should have exercised and, in a funny, roundabout way, we are 
beginning now to try to implement those but we are going to put 20,000 
troops in there to accomplish, in essence, the lifting of an arms 
embargo.
  But with regard to this situation, like Senator Smith stated, there 
will be no question, there will be no doubt about my support of the 
United States troops, the finest military personnel in the world. They 
are the finest, and we will do all that is necessary, in the event that 
they are sent to Bosnia, to make sure they have the equipment, to make 
sure they have whatever they need. In Somalia, we saw a problem 
because, for political reasons, they were not given the equipment they 
needed. That will not happen. We support our troops wherever. We 
support them.
  I believe that the Dole-McCain amendment will be that perfecting 
resolution that says in the event the troops are sent, then there is 
going to be a list of reporting requirements to 

[[Page S18424]]
Congress so that we are not left out of milestones that must be met so 
that mission creep does not happen. I have not seen the final language 
of that because I believe it is still being worked on, but I believe 
that will be the intent.
  I am a cosponsor of the Hutchison amendment because, Mr. President, 
the terrible dilemma that we are in is that the options that had merit 
were not exercised with our allies. And I underscore ``with,'' because 
we must work with our allies. We have been through too much together 
for us to not work today and in the future with our allies. But we now 
find ourselves in the situation where a commitment has been made, and I 
respectfully and strongly disagree with that action.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I want to share some additional thoughts 
with Members of the body with regard to the deployment of troops in 
Bosnia.
  Some Members in their busy schedules may have missed articles that 
appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post, but for those who 
continue to probe this question and try and analyze whether or not this 
is a wise move, I wanted to share these quotes.
  The first one is from the New York Times, December 3, 1995. It is a 
page-1 story. The headline is: ``Foreign Islamic Fighters in Bosnia 
Pose Potential Threat for GI's.''
  The second paragraph reads:

       ``The American tanks do not frighten us,'' said a fighter, 
     standing under a black flag covered with white Arabic script. 
     ``We came here to die in the service of Islam. This is our 
     duty. No infidel force will tell us how to live or what to 
     do. This is a Muslim country, which must be defended by 
     Muslims. We are 400 men here, and we all pray that we will 
     one day be martyrs.''

  The article continues:

       They are even suspected in the shooting death last month of 
     an American civilian employee of the United Nations.

  I do not think it was widely covered in the United States, however, 
the week in which I visited Bosnia, specifically the day before I went 
up to Tuzla, an American had been killed.
  The article continues:

       The mujaheddin have also vowed to kill five British 
     citizens in retaliation for the October 5 killing, by British 
     United Nations troops, of a mujaheddin fighter who pointed a 
     loaded pistol at them.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed a copy of the 
article in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Dec. 3, 1995]

 Foreign Islamic Fighters in Bosnia Pose a Potential Threat for G.I.'s

                           (By Chris Hedges)

       Podbrezje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dec. 2.--On a bleak, 
     wind-swept hilltop, bearded Arab soldiers, many in the 
     traditional black garb of Afghan fighters, stomped their feet 
     to ward off the bitter chill, shifted their automatic rifles 
     and cursed the impending arrival of American soldiers.
       ``The American tanks do not frighten us,'' said a fighter, 
     standing under a black flag covered with white Arabic script. 
     ``We came here to die in the service of Islam. This is our 
     duty. No infidel force will tell us how to live or what to 
     do. This is a Muslim country, which must be defended by 
     Muslims. We are 400 men here, and we all pray we will one day 
     be martyrs.''
       With the crease-fire in Bosnia, these militantly Islamic 
     volunteers known as mujahedeen, who fought alongside Bosnian 
     Government soldiers against Serbs and Croats for much of the 
     war, have turned their attention to what they see as the 
     other, often internal, enemies of the faith.
       They are even suspected in the shooting death last month of 
     an American civilian employee of the United Nations.
       Many of these 3,000 to 4,000 men are veterans of the war in 
     Afghanistan and are often wanted in their own countries, 
     linked to violent Islamic groups struggling to overthrow the 
     Governments in Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In 
     their zeal to enforce a militant form of Islam that most 
     Bosnian Muslims themselves do not espouse, the fighters, 
     distinctive in their flowing black beards, force United 
     Nations vehicles off the road, smash bottles of alcohol in 
     shop windows and warn Christian families at gunpoint to leave 
     Bosnia.
       The mujahedeen have also vowed to kill five British 
     citizens in retaliation for the Oct. 5 killing, by British 
     United Nations troops, of a mujahedeen fighter who pointed a 
     loaded pistol at them.
       The killing of the fighter, a Bosnian Muslim named Elvedin 
     Hodzio who had joined the majahedeen, is the kind of event 
     United Nations officials say could easily trigger violent 
     clashes between the Islamic militants and American troops. 
     The British are now locked in a war of nerves with the 
     mujahedeen troops.
       Five days after the shooting, a rocket-propelled grenade 
     was fired at a United Nations military observer team along a 
     mountain road. The team's armored car was destroyed, but 
     those inside escaped with slight wounds. Two weeks later a 
     British United Nations patrol in the town of Zavidovici was 
     surrounded by about two dozen heavily armed mujahedeen who 
     threatened to kill the soldiers until Bosnian Government 
     troops intervened.
       On Nov. 18, William Jefferson, a native of Camden, N.J., 
     employed by the United Nations, was found shot twice in the 
     head near Banovici. United Nations officials strongly suspect 
     that he was killed by the mujahedeen, who may have mistaken 
     him for a British citizen.
       Most British aid workers, whose homes have been attacked 
     and spray-painted with Arabic slogans, have left Zenica. The 
     few who remain ride in unmarked convoys, change their routes 
     and never go out at night. And the British Overseas 
     Development Administration office in Zenica has placed armed 
     guards out front and removed its signs.
       ``This is worse psychologically than the shelling,'' said 
     Fred Yallop, the administration director.
       The clash with the British has also pointed out to many aid 
     workers the strength of the mujahedeen and the weakness of 
     the local authorities.
       ``The problem,'' a senior United Nations official said, 
     ``is that the local authorities have no control over the 
     mujahedeen. The mujahedeen are protected by the Bosnian 
     Government. They operate with total impunity. We do not know 
     who controls them, perhaps no one.''
       Many mujahedeen fighters carry Bosnian identity cards and 
     passports, although they often do not speak the language. And 
     Western aid workers who report the frequent theft of jeeps 
     and vehicles by mujahedeen troops say the Bosnian police are 
     powerless to enter their camps to retrieve the vehicles.
       ``We see them drive by in vehicles that were stolen from 
     international organizations and the U.N.,'' said a British 
     aid worker, who insisted on remaining unidentified.
       The mujahedeen here are based in a four-story yellow 
     building that was once a factory in the village of Podbrezje, 
     three miles north of Zenica, in what would be the American 
     sector of Bosnia, and they are among the Muslim volunteers 
     who came to Bosnia shortly after the war started in 1992. The 
     fighters are revered in the Arab world, and videotapes that 
     extol their bravery and dedication are sold on street corners 
     from Aden to Cairo.
       The mujahedeen served as shock troops for the Bosnian Army 
     and have suffered severe casualties in frontal assaults on 
     Serbian and Croatian positions. All view the West, despite 
     the scheduled deployment of some 60,000 NATO-led troops, as 
     an enemy of the faith they have vowed to give their lives 
     defending.
       ``The American soldiers will be just like the U.N. 
     soldiers,'' said a fighter wearing green combat fatigues and 
     speaking in heavily accented Persian Gulf Arabic. ``They will 
     corrupt the Muslims here, bring in drugs and 
     prostitution. They will destroy all the work we have done 
     to bring the Bosnians back to true Islam. The Americans 
     are wrong if they think we will stand by and watch them do 
     this.''
       The Bosnian-Croat Catholics who live near this mujahedeen 
     camp, one of about 10 in Bosnia, have suffered some of the 
     worst harassment. Many have been beaten by mujahedeen 
     fighters and robbed at gunpoint. More than half of the 
     Catholic families in this village have been driven from their 
     homes. When they flee, their houses are promptly seized by 
     the Islamic militiamen.
       Jazo Milanovic and his wife, Ivka, sat huddled by their 
     wood stove one recent evening waiting for the police. At the 
     house of their next-door neighbor, mujahedeen fighters were 
     carting out household items. The fighters would finish their 
     looting before the police arrived.
       ``They walk in and take what they want,'' the 68-year-old 
     farmer said, ``and the one time I protested to them they 
     fired a burst over my head. The bullet holes are still in the 
     wall. We will all be forced out soon.''
       But it is not just the mujahedeen who have gained a 
     foothold in Bosnia. There are at least 10 Islamic charities 
     in Zenica, including one run by the Iranian Government, that 
     many Western governments view with deep suspicion. The 
     charities have budgets in the tens of millions of dollars and 
     work to build militant grass-roots organizations in Bosnia.
       Human Relief International, an Egyptian foundation that is 
     outlawed in Egypt, is one such group.
       The 40 Egyptians who work for the charity in Bosnia are all 
     wanted in Egypt on terrorism charges. Western diplomats and 
     United Nations officials say the charities, along with the 
     mujahedeen, have combined to create a powerful militant 
     Islamic force in Bosnia that could be inimical to American 
     interests here.
     
[[Page S18425]]

       ``We are all code red,'' said Airman Elhamalaway, who works 
     for the Egyptian charity. ``If we ever go back to Egypt, 
     which we will not, our names come up bright red on a computer 
     so the police know we should be immediately arrested.''

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the point of the article, and the reason I 
share it with Members, is simply to make a clear point. This is not a 
benign action. This is an area where there are serious problems that 
have not been resolved by the peace agreement and where there are 
forces that can inflict harm on American troops.
  I understand and appreciate American troops are willing to face 
dangers, face combat, but it would be foolish for any Member of this 
Senate to think that we are sending people into an area that has been 
cleared of danger because of the peace agreement.
  Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record a similar article from the Washington Post dated November 30.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 30, 1995]

Foreign Muslims Fighting in Bosnia Considered ``Threat'' to U.S. Troops

                            (By Dana Priest)

       The Pentagon is seriously concerned about the threat posed 
     to American peacekeeping troops in Bosnia by several hundred 
     Islamic fighters who come from outside the country but are 
     based in the Bosnian region that the U.S. military will 
     control, officials said yesterday.
       While land mines, bad roads, soupy weather and disgruntled 
     rogue paramilitary groups also are listed as likely hazards 
     for western troops, it is the freelance groups of religious 
     zealots that particularly worry military planners.
       U.S. officials called the non-Bosnian Muslim fighters 
     ``hard-core terrorists.'' Some U.S. officials said they 
     believe some of those Muslims were the ones who killed an 
     American civilian working for the United Nations on Nov. 19 
     in the northern city of Tuzla, where the U.S. headquarters is 
     to be based. The investigation is continuing.
       ``Many [of the Muslims] are very brave fighters,'' one 
     Defense Department analyst said. ``They have taken large 
     casualties. They have taken on some important operations and 
     are willing to take some tough action.''
       They are, in short, the men willing to drive car bombs and 
     take part in other suicide attacks against western soldiers. 
     Worse, there is no obvious way to make them leave the region.
       Defense officials estimate that throughout Bosnia, there 
     are ``a couple thousand'' fighters from Islamic countries--
     including Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Libya, 
     Pakistan and Egypt--who have fought with the army of the 
     Muslim-led Bosnian government against separatist Serbs.
       Many of the foreign Muslims are based around Tuzla, which 
     is to become the headquarters for ``Sector North'' of the 
     NATO-led operation, the area to be controlled by American 
     troops. Many also operate from three towns to the north of 
     Zenica, which is likely to define the southern border of the 
     U.S. sector.
       The foreign Muslim groups usually carry small arms and 
     antitank weapons. Some, like the Iranians, are organized into 
     their own brigades. Others have been blended into the regular 
     armed forces and paramilitary groups.
       Within the last several weeks, non-Bosnian Islamic troops 
     have stepped up attacks on western troops and civilians. They 
     fired a rocket-propelled grenade at one U.N. vehicle and 
     attacked several others with small arms fire.
       Also recently British soldiers who are part of the U.N. 
     peacekeeping mission killed a member of one Islamic group, 
     who they said pulled a pistol on them. Shortly afterward, the 
     group retaliated by killing American civilian worker William 
     Jefferson, 43 of Camden, N.J., whom they mistook for a Briton 
     because he spoke with an accent, defense analysts said. The 
     Bosnian government told United Nations officials it had 
     captured and killed the three Islamic soldiers involved.
       Although the Dayton accord calls for all foreign fighters, 
     including mercenaries and trainers, to leave Bosnia, defense 
     officials acknowledge that they have little hope that any of 
     the parties can, or are willing, to persuade the Islamic 
     groups to leave. The Bosnian government has given them tacit 
     approval to operate in its territory because they are good 
     fighters and have helped it win battles.
       ``There are certain elements of the Bosnian government who 
     don't want to separate themselves from these particular 
     elements,'' said the defense analyst, who spoke on the 
     condition he not be named. ``They will find a way of hiding 
     these elements, to merge them into'' the regular armed 
     forces.
       A civilian who has worked with the Bosnian government said 
     the United States is trying to ``put some heat'' on Turkey, 
     Saudi Arabia and other countries with some financial 
     influence over the groups, to make them leave. ``These guys 
     are mean,'' he said. ``You've got to control them.''

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I want to share with Members a concern that 
I had early on when we began to deploy U.S. forces into Bosnia by the 
way of aircraft. I was concerned about the ground rules and the rules 
of engagement with regard to aircraft. I specifically raised with the 
administration a series of questions as to what we would do if 
Americans were attacked while they were performing routine air patrols. 
Frankly, my concern was that we would end up duplicating what happened 
in Vietnam. Because our actions in Vietnam is relevant, let me 
summarize that briefly.
  U.S. troops were deployed in Vietnam but not given the rules of 
engagement that allowed them to quickly respond. If a forward air 
patrol spotted enemy troops on the ground no action against those 
troops could be taken unless you had been fired on. They could be 
carrying in supplies or ammunition that would be used against our 
troops. I recall one particular unit was carrying the North Vietnamese 
flag. That was not enough to allow engagement of combat or use of 
airstrikes and naval gunfire in the coastal regions.
  What was required was for the air patrol plane to fly low enough so 
the troops were attempting to fire on you. Once the troops fired on 
you, then you were allowed to call in an airstrike.
  That airstrike called for approval by a variety of commands before a 
response could be made.
  The quickest I ever had a response that allowed action was 2 hours. 
One time it was over a day before we got a response. In the north, when 
our fliers went on missions, we had the Pentagon schedule the majority 
of those flights, and they dictated the road of ingress and the path of 
egress, and dictated the flight level at which you could come in. If 
you did not finish a target, you would go back into the cycle for 
retargeting, done in Washington, not in the field. Generally, the 
Vietnamese knew how long that cycle took and they knew when you would 
be coming back, they knew the altitude you would be coming in at, the 
altitude you would be addressing at, the course you would be taking 
into the target, and the course you would take away from the target. 
Mr. President, we set our people up for turkey shoots.
  So I thought it was a legitimate question to ask specifically what 
the rules of engagement for our missions into Bosnia would be. As 
Members will recall, in Vietnam we ruled out of order some of the best 
targets. I know of Secretary McNamara's book. I read it. He goes to 
great length to talk about all the targets he allowed. He left out that 
the most important targets were ruled off limits. I thought a 
legitimate question was, if we were attacked by forces from Serbia, 
would we retaliate against the supply depots, against the bridges, or 
against the forces that originated the attacks or supported the attacks 
on the American troops? That is what I asked in the report.
  This was a series of discussions on October 5, 1993, before the U.S. 
planes were shot down.

       Senator Brown. Can you assure me that if our troops are 
     fired on, they will have the right to return fire?
       Ambassador Oxman. Yes. The rules of engagement would permit 
     self-defense.
       Senator Brown. We would be able to bomb supply bases of 
     troops that attacked our troops?
       Ambassador Oxman. Senator, I think I would not go further 
     than to say there would be rules of engagement which would 
     permit NATO forces to defend themselves and carry out the 
     mission.
       Senator Brown. Let me be specific. In Vietnam, key bridges 
     were put off limits, bridges that carried troops and vital 
     supplies to the North Vietnamese troops. They used those 
     supplies to attack American troops, and yet these key bridges 
     were put off limits, and our planes were not permitted to 
     attack some of the most valuable targets of the enemy. Can 
     you assure me that that will not be the policy if we send 
     troops to Bosnia?

  I found it difficult to get an answer, other than ``they would have 
the necessary rules of engagement to defend themselves in order to 
carry out that agreement.''
  Mr. President, we have experience in Bosnia already. We detected 
ground-to-air missiles, SAM missiles. We detected the radar that was 
following our planes. We knew the locations of Serbian missiles. The 
U.S. intelligence knew that. We publicly have acknowledged that the 
Serbs had missiles that were ground-to-air missiles they could use to 
shoot down our planes. We knew 

[[Page S18426]]
they were in the locations where our flights were going. We had 
detected the radar from those units, and we still ordered our planes to 
fly the missions, and one of our planes was shot down. We are all aware 
of that.
  But perhaps what some Members have forgotten is what we did in 
retaliation. My concern had been, in the October 1993 hearing, that we 
would not respond, that we would give a message that Americans are a 
punching bag and will not punch back. For those Members who have 
forgotten, let me review what happened.
  They shot down our plane, even though we knew the missiles were there 
and did not cancel the mission. We did not go after the missiles. We 
did not go after the installation. After the plane was shot down, we 
did not go after those locations. We did not bomb the bridges that 
brought those missiles to the front. We did not bomb the supply depots 
where they came from.
  Mr. President, what we did when they shot down our plane was nothing. 
Now, can you come up with reasons for not doing anything? Of course you 
can. But what I want to call to mind for the Members is this: What kind 
of message do you think that sends to people who would attack American 
forces? Does it encourage them to attack us, thinking we will not fight 
back? What kind of message does it send to the parents of Americans who 
might die in combat to know that we do not even care enough about our 
troops to defend them and retaliate when they are attacked?
  Mr. President, I think the administration was remiss in, one, not 
making sure that we moved against installations that would fire SAM 
missiles against us and, two, when it happened, not following up and 
retaliating against those who did. What you have, in my belief, is a 
callous disregard for those who wear the uniform of the United States. 
They deserve to be defended and protected and stood by. It is a mistake 
for us to put them into combat unless we are willing to stand with 
them, and that is part of the problem of this mission. It is not 
speculation; it is what happened in Bosnia already by this 
administration--Americans were fired on, and the plane was shot down, 
and we turned our back on those who wear our uniform in terms of 
protecting or defending them.
  Mr. President, I want to follow up. First, I want to pay tribute to 
the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I have made an effort to get all the 
information I could about this mission, and they have been, frankly, 
quite helpful in responding. They have taken a great deal of their time 
to not only try and respond to the questions, but to be helpful in 
providing information. I think that is to their credit. I have great 
respect for all three of them.
  I want to share with the Senate, specifically, a question and an 
answer that I had asked because I think it goes to the very heart of 
this issue of when we stand by our troops when they are in the field.
  This was submitted to Secretary of State Warren Christopher on 
October 17. I received the answer today.
  Question:

       If we receive information that attacks in violation of the 
     peace agreement by Bosnian Serbs have received the full 
     support of the Serbian government in Belgrade, will we 
     retaliate against Belgrade?

  I think that is a reasonable question. If we know they have been 
involved in attacks against our troops, will we retaliate against 
Belgrade, or put them off limits like they did in Vietnam?

       A. Will strikes into Serbia or Croatia, should they violate 
     the terms of the peace agreement, be considered off-limits if 
     the safety of American troops is jeopardized?
       B. Will our rules of engagement include the authority to 
     take actions to cut off supply lines from Serbia itself?
       C. Will strikes into Serbia or Croatia, if necessary to 
     ensure the protection of American troops, be authorized?

  That is pretty specific. If they attack us, will we go after those 
who attacked us?
  The response is:

       * * * IFOR will have complete freedom of movement 
     throughout Bosnia.

  That is helpful. It does not respond to the question, but I think it 
is helpful.
  But let me share the response to the more specific aspects:

       IFOR commanders will operate under procedures and rules of 
     engagement that allow them great flexibility in determining 
     the proper response to a violation of the agreement or a 
     threat to IFOR. This would help ensure that violations are 
     dealt with effectively and further violations deterred.

  It goes on in the concluding paragraph, specifically, with regard to 
my questions as to whether we will go after them if they attack our 
troops. This is the Secretary of State:

       I cannot speculate now on what the U.S. would or would not 
     do against Serbia or Croatia if it were determined that 
     violations of peace accord were supported from outside Bosnia 
     and Herzegovina. Such decisions would be made based on the 
     particulars of the situation.

  Mr. President, I want to submit that entire question and response so 
the record is complete.
  I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record at this 
point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    Question for the Record Submitted to Secretary of State Warren 
   Christopher by Senator Hank Brown, Committee on Foreign Relations

       Question. 5. If we receive information that attacks in 
     violation of the peace agreement by Bosnian Serbs have 
     received the full support of the Serbian (Yugoslav) 
     government in Belgrade, will we retaliate against Belgrade?
       a. Will strikes into Serbia or Croatia, should they violate 
     the terms of the peace agreement, be considered off-limits if 
     the safety of American troops is jeopardized?
       b. Will our Rules of Engagement include the authority to 
     take actions to cut off supply lines from Serbia itself?
       c. Will strikes into Serbia or Croatia, if necessary to 
     ensure the protection of American troops, be authorized?
       Answer. As specified very clearly in the Dayton agreement, 
     IFOR's mission is to implement the military aspects of that 
     agreement: enforcing the cessation of hostilities, withdrawal 
     to agreed lines, and creation of a zone of separation; and 
     overseeing the return of troops and weapons to cantonments. 
     The forces, their training, their equipment, and their Rules 
     of Engagement (ROE) are geared to these missions. IFOR will 
     have complete freedom of movement throughout Bosnia. This 
     mission will be even-handed. It is important to keep in mind 
     that the parties themselves bear primary responsibility for 
     achieving the peace in Bosnia which they themselves sought, 
     initialled in Dayton on November 21, and will sign in Paris 
     on December 14.
       IFOR commanders will operate under procedures and rules of 
     engagement that allow them great flexibility in determining 
     the proper response to a violation of the agreement or a 
     threat to IFOR. This would help ensure that violations are 
     dealt with effectively and further violations deterred. 
     IFOR's ROE authorize the use of force, up to and including 
     deadly force, to ensure its own safety and fulfillment of its 
     mission.
       Obviously, IFOR's mandate and mission focus on Bosnia and 
     Hercegovina. I cannot speculate now on what the United States 
     would or would not do against Serbia or Croatia if it were 
     determined that violations of the peace accord were supported 
     from outside Bosnia and Hercegovina. Such decisions would be 
     made based on the particulars of the situation.

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the reason I quote that is because I am 
concerned about it. I am concerned that, once again, this country will 
send troops into harm's way and then turn their back on them. Mr. 
President, I submit this response of the Secretary of State as some 
indication of what may happen. It is not just the experience we had 
with the shot down pilot where we did not respond when they shot him 
down, and we did not go after the surface-to-air missile emplacement--
even at the start, they were unwilling to give us a commitment that if 
Serbia attacks our troops we will go after them.
  Mr. President, I believe part of this depends on what Serbs think we 
will do. If they think if they attack our troops we will ignore it, 
they will be tempted to take a different course of action than if they 
know we will respond if they attack us. I think this invites attacks. I 
think the vagueness of our commitment invites attacks on our troops.
  Mr. President, I respect the Secretary of State--and I understand how 
he does not want to be pinned down--but I respectfully suggest, Mr. 
President, that this is the problem, a willingness to commit troops, 
and ask them to make the final commitment, in Abraham Lincoln's words 
``without our willingness to stand beside them.''
  In my book, if you are going to be true to those troops, if you 
commit them to combat and somebody goes after them, we have an 
obligation to defend them and to go after whoever attacked them. There 
should be no 

[[Page S18427]]
doubt about it. That is part of what is wrong with this mission, an 
unwillingness to stand squarely beside young men and women we put in 
harm's way.
  There is one last aspect I want to mention before closing. I heard 
some very conscientious, intelligent Members who I have enormous 
respect for come to this floor and say,

       We think it is a mistake to send troops to Bosnia but the 
     Commander in Chief has made the decision and it is not our 
     role to prohibit him acting as Commander in Chief in 
     dispatching troops.

  They may have said it in a different way, but in its essence it boils 
down to that--a deference to the President in this regard. The doubt or 
concern about the decision the President made but a deferring to the 
President in terms of the matter of deploying the troops into Bosnia.
  Mr. President, I most sincerely have a different view of the American 
Constitution and frankly of the logic of the governmental process. I do 
not know how any scholar can read the proceedings of the Constitutional 
Convention, can understand the struggle for independence that this 
Nation went through, can understand the cases that have come down from 
the Supreme Court, and not come to the conclusion that the essence of 
the American experience in constitutional government is checks and 
balances.
  The Founders believed in and perfected the system of checks and 
balances as effectively as anyone has in the history of the world, and 
there have been a lot of attempts. To look at the American experience 
and assume the President has unlimited authority to commit our troops 
to combat situations and Congress' only job is to simply go along is to 
misunderstand the effect of our Constitution.
  I believe it is quite clear that Congress has a role to play. 
Tomorrow we will play that role as we vote. But none of us should be 
under the impression that the Constitution allows us to duck our 
responsibility. The truth is, a declaration of war comes from Congress, 
and the ability to control the purse strings comes from Congress.
  If we turn our back on our responsibilities under the Constitution we 
will be just as responsible for this unfolding tragedy as the misguided 
President who brought it about.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Mr. COHEN. I listened with interest to the presentation of the 
Senator from Colorado who is now occupying the chair. He delivered it 
with great passion. That passion stems from his experience of having 
been in the fields of Vietnam and having witnessed the kind of policy 
that we pursued there--in leaving, in many cases, our troops without 
either the military or moral support that they deserved.
  He spoke with great eloquence and passion, and I think his words 
should be given serious consideration by all of our colleagues as we 
deliberate and debate this issue tonight, tomorrow, and beyond.
  If you watch the evening newscasts, it is very clear our troops are 
heading into Bosnia as we speak. The anchormen are there cataloging the 
various vehicles that are rolling by, the numbers of troops, the 
feelings and sentiments of the men and women who are being sent, the 
reaction on the part of the citizens that they are being sent to help 
defend. And various commentaries being offered by military leaders who 
have served in the past as part of the U.N. force.
  It is interesting to get their different perspectives in terms of 
both the mission and how long it might be before we complete that 
mission. So our troops are in Bosnia, and we have to ask the questions: 
How did they get there? What will they do there? When will they leave? 
How will we ever measure their success?
  I think it is fairly clear that the road to Bosnia has been paved 
with good intentions and poor judgment. The road has been littered with 
mistakes. We can point to those in the past. I say that the early 
recognition on the part of a united Germany of Croatia was one of those 
initial mistakes. I think the new united Germany at that time was 
feeling its power, its diplomatic initiative, and that prodded a number 
of countries to follow suit too quickly in recognizing Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
  The West fell in line to applaud its--the Germans--diplomatic 
initiative.
  When predictable war broke out, the Europeans, who were steeped in 
Balkan history, said it is a local issue. It is really not our problem. 
It is a domestic civil war. These tribes as such, these factions, have 
been making war for centuries. We are not going in.
  So the United States was not about to intervene where Europeans 
feared to tread. If we had any inclination to do so, if the Bush 
administration had any predisposition to going in to helping solve that 
particular war, it was discouraged from doing so by domestic politics.
  After all, President Bush had come off of a major victory in the 
Persian Gulf. He was riding very high in the polls at that time but the 
charges were he was too interested in foreign affairs, he had neglected 
domestic issues. The Nation was suffering, and therefore he should turn 
his gaze away from world affairs and concentrate on domestic issues.
  So if there were any inclination, and I am not sure there was at the 
time, but if there were any inclination on President Bush's part to 
intervene in any significant way in that war, he was discouraged from 
doing so.
  UNPROFOR, the U.N. peacekeeping force was sent in. I have spoken on 
this floor on a number of occasions, written articles for the 
Washington Post and other publications, suggesting--no, not suggesting, 
but declaiming, that it was an inappropriate mission for U.N. forces to 
send blue helmets into that region. It was inappropriate to send these 
brave, heroic people wearing blue helmets and flak jackets and carrying 
very light weapons into a region that was so mired in conflict at that 
time. It was an inappropriate mission for them to perform. It was a 
``Mission Impossible,'' in many ways, for them to perform. But those 
soldiers performed that mission as well as they could, given their 
circumstances. But they were put directly in the midst of an ongoing 
war and asked to keep the peace.

  They were attacked without retaliation. They were taken hostage. They 
were humiliated by the warring factions who demanded that they pay 
tribute, that they give up half of their fuel, half of their food, half 
of their weapons, whatever it was, to gain access to the starving 
population that they were sent to help feed and clothe. They were tied 
to weapons storage sites to prevent any kind of attack by the United 
States or Western allies.
  We had the anomalous situation--and the presiding officer, Senator 
Brown, touched upon this--we had the anomalous situation of the 
military leaders on the ground saying, ``Please send in the cavalry, 
send in air support, attack the people who are attacking us.'' But, of 
course, the planes did not come and the relief did not come because 
they received some hot air excuses from U.N. diplomats who held the 
keys to the weapons. It was a so-called dual-key arrangement, which 
amounted to dual nonsense to those on the ground.
  So, we watched the situation unfold with heroic blue helmeted 
soldiers carrying out their mission as best they could, as atrocity was 
piled on atrocity, until we could no longer stand it.
  The final blow came when the artillery shell was launched into 
Sarajevo, killing 69 innocent people and wounding some 200 others. We 
continued to watch the evil of ethnic cleansing, and all the while the 
world stood by, praying for peace while the innocents were slaughtered.
  There were some in this Chamber, I point specifically to Senator 
Dole, the majority leader, who said we should lift the embargo, 
multilaterally if possible, unilaterally if necessary, and strike, if 
necessary, in order to prevent the Serbs, at that particular time, from 
continuing their assault upon safe havens, so-called safe havens. Lift 
the embargo and strike, or simply lift the embargo and let them fight. 
And on each occasion he was rejected.
  The administration said no, you cannot do this and you should not do 
this. Our allies have said no. The President 

[[Page S18428]]
has said no. The United Nations has said no, it would endanger the 
UNPROFOR forces who are on the ground. By the way, United States, you 
do not have any forces on the ground so do not be so quick to lift, or 
to lift and strike. It would endanger the UNPROFOR forces, and it would 
lead to more slaughter. And if we should act unilaterally, then NATO 
would dissolve, the U.N. forces who were there would leave, the United 
States would no longer have any credibility, and we would endanger the 
other embargoes that exist on Iraq and other countries who have engaged 
in, certainly, unfriendly behavior.
  So, under the threat that we would endanger NATO, that NATO would 
dissolve, nothing was done. The slaughter continued and the regions 
were cleansed of their undesirables.
  Last spring, President Clinton made a pledge to commit up to 20,000, 
perhaps as many as 25,000 troops to aid the extraction of U.N. forces, 
if it became necessary. That really was a shot across the Senate's bow 
at that time, saying, ``If you are going to insist on lifting the 
embargo over the objection of the President, over the objection of our 
allies, over the objection of the United Nations, then I am making a 
commitment as Commander in Chief. I will commit 20,000 American troops, 
ground forces, to help extricate the U.N. forces from that situation.''
  That was a pledge he made publicly. I think, perhaps to his surprise, 
President Dole--strike that for the moment--Senator Dole said, ``I 
agree. If we have to get U.N. peacekeepers out of there in order to 
allow the Bosnian Moslems to defend themselves, that is a decision we 
will support.''
  But that was the marker that was laid down. We are going to commit 
U.S. forces on the ground in order to extricate the peacekeepers in the 
event the United States unilaterally decided to lift the embargo or our 
allies decided the United States was no longer interested in pursuing a 
multilateral approach and therefore said, ``We are getting out.'' We 
would help get them out.
  So, Congress retreated. We retreated on that issue. We waited. We 
delayed. We debated. We did nothing, until finally we saw one atrocity 
too many. We would strike, and we did strike, but we would not lift. 
And we saw an immediate reaction once we decided to apply air power. 
The President sent off his chief negotiator, Secretary Holbrooke, to 
then hammer out a truce.
  Again, we hesitated. All of us in this Chamber and the other Chamber 
as well, we hesitated. ``Don't interfere with the President. He 
conducts foreign policy. Don't cut his legs off with a preemptive vote 
of disapproval. Allow him to conduct this effort.'' And we backed away. 
Once again, we deferred.
  We deferred because, No. 1, we assumed, or at least thought, perhaps 
the negotiations will fail on their own weight. Perhaps the 
negotiations will be unsuccessful. So why should we take action at this 
point on a preemptive basis to say, no matter what you arrive at in the 
way of negotiation, we disapprove your sending American troops to help 
keep that truce? So we did nothing at that time.
  Also, we should be very candid about it, if we had taken so-called 
preemptive action to assert our constitutional authority, our control 
over the purse strings, saying, ``No funds appropriated under this 
account may be expended for the deployment of ground forces in 
Bosnia,'' and the negotiations then failed, Congress did not want to 
accept the blame for it. So we backed away and we waited.
  Now, I mention this all by way of a preface to the debate over 
constitutional power. Who has it? Does the President have the 
undiluted, unilateral power to send troops to Bosnia, or does Congress 
have the power? That is a debate that cannot be resolved and will not 
be resolved during the course of this particular discussion.
  Who has the power depends upon who lays claim to it, who takes 
possession of it, who runs with it. I know the Senator from Colorado is 
an attorney, skilled in tax law and real estate law and may recall from 
law school days that possession is 90 percent of ownership. Who takes 
possession of the power and runs with it really determines who has it, 
ultimately.
  The fact is, Congress has yielded its powers to the Executive over 
the years. ``Don't vote to strike. Don't vote to lift. Don't vote to 
disapprove before the negotiations. Don't vote to disapprove after the 
negotiations.'' Much of what we say and do really does not matter at 
all, does it? Because the President has said, ``I really am not too 
concerned about whether you approve or disapprove, because I am going 
anyway. The troops are going in anyway.'' Even if the House and the 
Senate were to vote overwhelmingly to disapprove the sending of 
American troops to Bosnia, the President has already indicated they are 
going in any event. ``It is my prerogative. It is my power. I am going 
to keep the commitment I made to the NATO allies and I don't really''--
  He cares, of course; I am oversimplifying. He cares, but not enough 
to say that he would abide by the decision.
  As a matter of fact, during hearings in the Armed Services Committee 
last week, the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Holbrooke, and the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were there to testify, and they 
were very candid about it. I specifically asked the question: In the 
event that Congress should pass a resolution disapproving the sending 
of American forces into Bosnia, the President does not intend to be 
bound by that decision, does he?
  And the answer was a very clear, ``No.''
  The next question that follows onto that, of course, is, well, what 
if Congress fashions a resolution that imposes certain conditions, or 
seeks to define the mission with greater clarity to remove some of the 
confusion and the ambiguities that exist in the documents that were 
signed and negotiated in Dayton? Would the President in any way feel 
constrained by those conditions? And, of course, ultimately the answer 
is no. Secretary Perry was very clear, very direct. If he felt that any 
resolution passed by the Congress in any way posed a danger to our 
troops, he obviously would recommend to the President that he not abide 
by it. We got into something of a semantic dual with the Administration 
witnesses saying they will not ignore it, but they certainly will not 
abide by it.
  So this entire debate on what we are going to pass in the way of a 
resolution has no ultimate, no practical, consequence in terms of 
preventing the troops from going there. More will be going shortly this 
week.
  So, Mr. President, I raise these issues this evening because it is in 
stark contrast to what took place back during the debate on the Persian 
Gulf war. I have a whole sheath of notes. I was going to quote from 
speeches that were made at that time by my colleagues on the other 
side. That might seem to be a bit unfair, hitting below the 
intellectual belt on the eve of a vote. But I sat this afternoon 
reading through their statements, and I was struck by the passion with 
which they were delivered, by the intensity of the charges that were 
made at the time should President Bush ever neglect to come to Congress 
to get its approval. Some suggested he would be impeached, or should be 
impeached.
  In all candor, President Bush was not eager to come to the Congress. 
I recall on at least two, possibly three, occasions going to the White 
House with a group of Senators and Congressmen standing up in the East 
Room, and urging the President to come to Congress to get our approval. 
The President's advisers at that time said, ``He really does not need 
your approval. He has approval from the United Nations.'' I do not know 
how many of us have sworn allegiance to the U.N.
  But we, over a period of time, were able to persuade him that it was 
important. I think from a constitutional point of view he had the 
obligation to come to get our approval. But even from a political point 
of view, it was an imperative that he come and get our approval because 
you should never send American forces into war, or into the danger of a 
war zone in which they might be forced into war, without the solid 
support of the American people. And, if you put our troops in such a 
dangerous position, if you send them off to war without the broad 
support of Congress--after all, we reflect the views of our 
constituents--without that broad consensus, then you can anticipate 
what will happen.
  When people start to die, when they start to be flown back to Dover 
in their 

[[Page S18429]]
flag-draped coffins, CNN cameras will be there to capture that. And the 
hearts that beat so loudly and enthusiastically to do something to 
intervene in areas where there is not an immediate threat to our vital 
interests, when those hearts that had beaten so loudly see the coffins, 
then they switch, and they say: ``What are we doing there? Why are our 
young men and women dying in that region?'' And the President at that 
time needs to have the support of the Congress to say, no, once we 
commit our troops to a region, we have to stand behind them. And the 
worst thing you can do to American credibility--once you send them into 
battle and the casualties start to mount--is to leave, to quit and 
leave before the mission is completed. That will do more to undermine 
America's credibility as a world power, as a superpower, as a reliable 
ally, than anything we could possibly do.
  So that is the reason it is important, it is critical, for a 
President to build the support for the deployment prior to making the 
decision--not the inverse, not putting the troops there first and then 
coming back and getting support. You have to build the support, give 
the reasons, persuade the American people that it is our solemn duty 
and responsibility to take action. And when people start dying, when 
sons and daughters start dying, we are still going to carry through on 
the mission. If he does not do that, then he is going to be naked unto 
his enemies, because the fact of the matter is, unless you have 
Congress on record in support of such action, when the public turns 
Congress will be in full pursuit. And that will not bring credit to 
this institution. It will not bring credit to the United States.
  That is why I urged at that time President Bush to come to the 
Congress. He did so, and he was able by a very thin margin to persuade 
the Senate and the House--a larger margin in the House but a very thin 
margin here in the Senate--that it was in our national security 
interest to see to it that Saddam Hussein did not remain in Kuwait, and 
that he did not stand astride the oil fields of the Middle East and 
threaten to go all the way to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
  We talked about the implications of a tyrant, a dictator of his 
magnitude, standing astride the oil fields and what it would mean to 
international stability. We talked about his having biological weapons, 
chemical weapons, and, yes, even a nuclear capability and the 
possibility of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBM's. 
And still we were only able to persuade a few Members on the other side 
that it was important that he be removed from Kuwait by force.
  I mention all of that tonight because the mood has changed, and the 
rhetoric has changed. Suddenly we see a support coming forth for the 
President of the United States on a bipartisan basis thanks to the 
leadership of Senator Dole, Senator Lieberman, and others--Senator 
McCain. It was not a bipartisanship that was shared during the Persian 
Gulf war even though there was a much greater identifiable national 
security interest there than there is in Bosnia. This is much closer to 
a humanitarian interest and a potential national security interest. But 
it is hardly of the magnitude and the immediacy as posed by the Persian 
Gulf war.
  So what do we do at this point? They are over there. More will be 
there later this week. What we have to do is to lend our support to the 
troops. We are not going to undercut them at this point as they are 
going into a very dangerous mission. We intend to support them but to 
do so in a way that makes it clear why they are going, what they will 
do, and when they and we will know that it is time to come home.
  So we talk about exit strategies--code word, ``exit strategy.'' 
Basically it means defining what the mission is; defining the mission 
so you can measure success, so you can say at the end of their tour of 
duty that the commitment they made was exactly worth the price they are 
being asked to pay in order to achieve a certain identifiable goal.
  There is some confusion about this. And that is why this debate is 
important. That is why it is important that we pass a resolution being 
as definitive as we can, even if the President is going to ignore it. 
Whatever we say, it is important that we try to define what we believe 
the application is, and should be.
  Secretary Warren Christopher made a statement while in Dayton, and he 
indicated--at least to me the statement indicated--that the mission was 
to ``assure the continuity of the single state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
with effective federal institutions and full respect of its sovereignty 
by its neighbors.'' Mr. President, no such state has ever existed. What 
he was saying is that we are about to build a nation upon the ashes of 
a failed nation. No such nation ever existed for any period of time. 
Almost simultaneous with its recognition as a separate state, war broke 
out. There has been no single separate state with effective federal 
institutions whose sovereignty is respected by all neighbors on all 
sides.
  So is this going to be our mission? We raise this issue. The answer 
is no. That is not our mission.
  That is nation building, but nation building is not something we are 
supposed to be sending our troops to do. So there is to be no nation 
building. That apparently is clear. There will be no resettlement of 
refugees under the aegis of American Forces. That is not going to be 
our task. There will be no organization or monitoring of elections. 
That is not our task.
  In fact, there will be no hunt for war criminals. You may recall that 
President Clinton indicated he thought those who have been charged with 
committing atrocities should be brought to justice. In fact, he 
declared they would be brought to justice--Karadzic, Mladic, to name 
two. Are we going to hunt them down? Well, not exactly. If they happen 
to wander into the area of Tuzla or the areas that we will be 
patrolling, if we happen to stumble across them in that region, then 
obviously we can grab and apprehend them and bring them to justice. But 
that is not going to be our mission. We are not going to hunt down war 
criminals. And so that also has to be excluded as part of the mission 
of our young men and women.
  There are side agreements, annexes, which have caused me some concern 
and some need to seek clarification. Apparently a part of our effort, 
contained in Annex 1-B, has to do with something called build-down. We 
are going to seek an arms build-down in the region.
  Now, I have taken issue with this publicly because it is a complete 
misuse of the term ``build-down.'' Build-down was a phrase that was 
coined back in 1983 referring to a proposal Senator Nunn and I 
developed. Beginning with an article I wrote for The Washington Post 
January, 1983, that talked about how we could force reductions in 
nuclear forces as we modernized them to make them more survivable, more 
mobile. We needed to have a more stable relationship with the Soviet 
Union, and therefore we wanted to get rid of these fixed, big targets 
that they had and we had. And one way to do that was to have more 
mobility and fewer numbers, and so we formulated a concept saying, for 
every one new missile we put into our inventory, we take two old ones 
out. And that is where the phrase ``build-down'' came from.
  Well, we are not really seeking to put new modern weapons into the 
region and build them down on a 2-for-1 basis. That is the phrase that 
has been used. We will use it for convenience sake, but it has no 
relationship to the actual reality of what we are seeking to do. What 
we are seeking to do is have the parties in the region reduce their 
arms.
  Now, if you or I, Mr. President, were negotiating an arms control 
treaty with any of the parties involved that directly affected our 
security, we would never sign this agreement. We would be run out of 
office on a rail were we to sign such an agreement, because in essence 
it relies not upon verification, not upon independent assessments but 
upon the declarations of the parties. We are going to rely upon the 
Serbs to tell us how many weapons they have and where they are, and the 
Croatians and the Moslems, all to make a good-faith statement of the 
weapons they have in their inventory, and then we will see if we cannot 
help to negotiate a relative builddown, arms reduction to equal or 
semi-equal levels.
  We have asked people in the business of making these kinds of 
judgments--former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, former 
National Security Council Adviser Brent Scowcroft, 

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former Defense Under Secretary Paul Wolfowitz--would you trust any of 
these individuals to declare their inventory, would you rely upon that? 
Brent Scowcroft said he would not trust any of them. I do not know how 
many here would trust any of them. The history is not replete with 
accurate assessments and declarations made by any of the individuals 
involved, any of the leaders, any of the troops.
  Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslavia, in fact, is renowned for having 
hundreds, if not thousands, of underground caves and caches where 
thousands of weapons are stored. So now they are going to say, we have 
them all stored in X, Y and Z and you can go in and take a head count 
for yourself and we will agree to build down.
  Very few people believe that is going to be possible. So the next 
question is, well, if we cannot really guarantee that there is going to 
be an arms reduction that will result in some sort of military 
equilibrium, then we have an obligation to see to it that the Bosnian 
Moslems are put in a position that, when we leave, they will be capable 
of defending themselves. Well, that means we are going to arm them in 
the alternative.
  What the resolution of Senator Dole, Senator McCain, Senator 
Lieberman, and others says is we really have that wrong. If you are 
talking about an exit strategy, the best we can hope to do is maintain 
a truce, a cease-fire for a year--I will talk about the year's 
timeframe in just a moment. That is the best we can hope to do. And 
during that time, we have to see to it that the Moslems are going to be 
in a position to defend themselves when we leave, if war should break 
out. Otherwise, we cannot declare that we have been successful in our 
mission.
  If I had my druthers on this, I would do it in reverse. I would say, 
let us put the parties in a relative state of equilibrium now, let us 
build up the Bosnian forces now and then see if we can get them to 
agree to reduce to roughly equal levels and then leave. At least you 
would have a real incentive at that particular point for everybody to 
negotiate in good faith.
  Right now, we know from listening to the administration and to others 
that the Bosnian Serbs do not want us to arm the Moslems. The Croatians 
do not want us to arm the Moslems. Our NATO allies do not want us to 
arm the Moslems. Article after article is now being written: Do not arm 
the Moslems; they have plenty. And, by the way, you do not want to 
upset the stability that has been achieved.
  That is one of the areas that we have to remove in terms of our 
policy. Are we going to use fig leaf phrases to hide our naked 
ambiguities? Is that what we are about? Saying, well, we have this 
commitment on the side and a lot of opposition to it, so let us put it 
out there. In the event we do not get the arms reduction, we will see 
to it they are able to defend themselves.
  Well, how and who? Who is going to provide the weapons? Under what 
circumstances, under whose aegis? Are we really fooling anyone? I 
quoted from a soul singer recently: Who is zooming who? Who are we 
zooming when we say we are totally neutral on this mission, that we are 
evenhanded and neutral and not favoring one side or the other? We ought 
to be up front about it. I know that causes concern for many, saying if 
we in fact are going over to help make sure the Bosnian Moslems can 
defend themselves, when we leave we are putting ourselves in danger.
  That may be the case. That may be the case. But I would submit to 
you, Mr. President, and to my colleagues, leaving this in a state of 
suspended ambiguity also puts our troops in danger. We have to be very 
clear of what we are about. And so the resolution that will be offered 
tomorrow will in fact seek to define that our goal is to make sure that 
at the end of this period of time, be it 12 months or longer or less, 
when we leave, the Moslems will be in a position to at least be on a 
relatively equal playing field.
  Now, is it going to be 12 months or not? Our colleague, Senator 
Warner, asked a very important question during the hearings last week. 
He suggested to Secretary Perry that he was troubled by the 12-month 
timeframe; there seemed to be some political overtones to that.
  Let me say here, as I said before during the hearings, not for a 
moment do I think that President Clinton made the decision to send 
troops into Bosnia for any political purpose. There is absolutely no 
political benefit that I can perceive that will come from that 
decision. There is not much of an up side, as we say in politics, from 
that kind of decision. A lot of down side to it. And so he is taking a 
very big risk. He is exercising what he believes to be leadership in 
the correct direction. We can challenge that or question that, but he 
is exercising leadership coming from the Oval Office.
  And so I do not for a moment question his motivation. I think he is 
doing it because he thinks it is the right thing to do, which is not to 
say there will not be political implications and overtones come next 
September and October. It is an election year.
  Hopefully--and we are going to pray on this and hope on this and be 
prepared for this--but hopefully we will never have a major 
confrontation between any of the major parties and U.S. troops. It 
would be an act of folly on their part in terms of the firepower we can 
bear.
  But that is not the kind of conflict we can anticipate. If there are 
going to be any attacks launched against the NATO forces, U.S. troops 
in particular--and we assume there will be efforts to try to see how 
thin or wide our patience is going to be--they will come in the form of 
terrorist attacks, they will come in the form of landmines, they will 
come in the form of car bombs like we saw in Beirut, they will come in 
the form of a sniper's bullet. Those are the kinds of things that we 
can anticipate will take place.
  Should we start to suffer significant casualties between now and next 
September or October, then obviously the President will be under 
pressure to pull the troops out. So I raised the issue with Secretary 
Perry. And to his credit, he was absolutely direct. He did not try to 
circumvent and he did not try to hedge and he did not fudge or try to 
engage in any kind of obfuscation. He simply responded to my question.
  I said: Is it unreasonable for me to assume that come next October a 
tranche of 2,500 troops will be coming home? He said: Not at all. In 
fact, they intend to start bringing the troops home next October, 
November, and December.
  So, really, it is not a truly 12-month mission, it is going to be, at 
least partially, a 9-month mission. I raised the 9 months because 
Secretary Perry said in response to Senator Warner: ``Nine or ten 
months would have been a time one could have been quite suspicious 
about. But let me assure you that the question never came to me, it was 
never raised to me by the President, of lowering this time from 12 down 
to 9 or 10 months.''
  So, now at least we understand the troops will be coming home in 
September or October or certainly by November or December. I say that. 
It is a reality. It does not question the President's motivation in 
sending them in. But it raises the issue, if we are really planning on 
that kind of a strategy of getting them out starting in September or 
October, then that really does accelerate the timeframe in terms of 
what we have to do in order to complete the mission.
  So we have to be very clear on what we are seeking to do. If you ask 
any other U.N. commander who has been in that region and say we will be 
out of there in 12 months, not to mention 9 months, they will shake 
their head and say, ``No, no.'' The President of France said that we 
will be there for 20 years. A Canadian commander who has been there as 
part of the UNPROFOR forces has said that our grandchildren will be 
there, if we really are serious about carrying out a mission to help 
build a nation.
  But, of course, that is not what we are going to do. We are simply 
going to maintain a cease-fire to keep the warring parties apart for a 
period of 9 months-plus.
  So, Mr. President, I will not take any longer this evening to discuss 
this issue. It is getting late. It is not much of an audience that is 
going to be influenced by whatever I say this evening. But I do think 
it is important to try to spell out what we believe to be the goal of 
our forces there, that we make it as clear to the American people as we 
can, so that if things go awry, if things do not work out as the 
administration hopes and we pray they work out, that 

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we will at least have defined what we believe the mission to have been 
and, hopefully, shape the administration's thought process on this so 
it does not get expanded.
  We are worried about mission creep, that once we get there, once an 
incident starts to take place, once bullets start flying, once there is 
an action and reaction, once someone is attacked and we respond, that 
we do not start engaging in mission creep and start to indulge 
ourselves with the added burdens that will come about under that kind 
of pressure.
  The Chinese leader Mao said, ``Power comes out of the end of a gun 
barrel.'' Power in this country does not come at the end of a gun 
barrel; it comes at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue and Capitol Hill. 
Power, as I suggested before, belongs to whomever claims it and 
exercises it.
  Congress has chosen not to claim the power of deciding when to deploy 
American forces when our Nation is not under attack and when our vital 
national interests are not immediately at stake. So, we are where we 
are because we were not willing to risk the consequences of action. We 
have deferred, we have debated, we have waited, we have talked, and we 
have let the President take us to where we are today.
  So our duty, as I see it, is now to define the role that our men and 
women must now play.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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