[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 198 (Wednesday, December 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18469-S18470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               PROHIBITION OF FUNDS FOR BOSNIA DEPLOYMENT

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on H.R. 2606.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill is before the Senate and open to 
amendment. If there be no amendment to be proposed, the question is on 
the third reading and passage of the bill.
  The bill (H.R. 2606) was ordered to a third reading, was read the 
third time.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Warner 
be inserted into the Republican spot there, following the Senator from 
Nebraska, Senator Kerrey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, does the majority leader accept 
cosponsors at this point of the Dole-McCain amendment?
  Mr. DOLE. Absolutely.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I would like to be added.
  Mr. EXON. Put me on.
  Mr. DOLE. So we have the Senator from Connecticut, the Senator from 
Nebraska, the Senator from South Dakota, we will be accepting 
cosponsors throughout the day.
  I will proceed for 2 or 3 minutes before the vote on this bill. I 
will speak later on the Hutchison amendment and on my own amendment.
  Let me speak to the Hefley resolution because I think it is 
important. Just for the record, I went back and had the Congressional 
Research Service check my votes and the debates I was participating in 
between 1969 and 1973 when it came to cutting off funds in Vietnam. We 
had one debate that lasted 7 weeks, and I was the leader of the effort 
not to cut off funds because we had people like John McCain who were in 
prison, and we had other young men and women who were on the ground in 
Vietnam. I thought it would have been a tragedy. We had long, 
rancorous, heated debates, on the so-called Cooper-Church amendments--
Senator Cooper from Kentucky and Senator Church from Idaho.
  So let me say on the so-called resolution before us now, and having a 
lot of experience in efforts to try to avoid cutting off funds once we 
have our young men and women committed somewhere around the world, we 
have a couple of choices. We can cut off funds for this operation and 
our forces who are already underway; second, we can loudly protest the 
President's decision and express our opposition; third, we can require 
the President to take measures that will enhance the safety of our 
troops and ensure that they will return quickly--without their 
withdrawal leading to resumption of hostilities.
  I have given this matter a lot of thought, and I have been engaged in 
a lot of these debates on the Senate floor. I have thought about my own 
personal experience during World War II and deliberations I have had 
since that time. I have thought about the American troops spending a 
Christmas overseas in the mountains of Europe. I have also thought 
about the experience of our brave war heroes like Senator John McCain 
and Bob Kerrey. John McCain was in a Vietnamese prison while tens of 
thousands of Americans were marching to protest the war, and Congress 
regularly debated cutting off funds for United States military 
operations in Southeast Asia. As some may remember, the Congress spent 
weeks--even months--on debating Cooper-Church, McGovern-Hatfield, and 
other measures to cut funding for the war in Vietnam, Laos, and 
Cambodia.
  I recall that in the spring of 1970, I led a filibuster against the 
Cooper-Church amendment cutting off funds for military operations in 
Cambodia and Laos. In that debate, I offered an amendment that would 
have allowed 

[[Page S18470]]
the President to waive the funding restrictions if he determined United 
States citizens were being held as prisoners of war in Cambodia by 
North Vietnam or the Viet Cong. This amendment failed. Believe it or 
not, the amendment failed by 36 to 54, and Cooper-Church passed, but 
only after troop withdrawal had begun.
  Mr. President, while I understand opposition to and disagreement with 
the President's decision to send American ground forces to Bosnia, I 
believe that action to cut off funds for this deployment is wrong. It 
is wrong because it makes our brave young men and women bear the brunt 
of a decision not made by them, but by the Commander in Chief.
  I will vote against H.R. 2606, sponsored by Representative Hefley, 
which was passed by the House last month. H.R. 2606 prohibits any use 
of Department of Defense funds for deployment of United States Armed 
Forces on the ground in Bosnia participating in the NATO implementation 
force--unless such funds have been specifically appropriated by 
subsequent law. There has been no appropriation for this operation, so 
the effect would be to cut off funds to our troops who are on the way 
or already on the ground in Bosnia. I do not believe we should limit 
the funds for food, supplies, and ammunition for our troops. It was 
wrong during Vietnam, and it is wrong now.

  I believe that passing the Hefley resolution would undermine our 
troops, as well as our credibility.
  I believe that even at this late date, the Congress can play a 
constructive role--supporting the troops by enhancing their prospects 
for a timely and safe withdrawal, and ensuring that there is a military 
balance upon the departure of our forces.
  President Clinton does not have an exit strategy for our troops. Let 
us be clear: A date is not an exit strategy. In my view, it would be 
irresponsible to send thousands of American forces in without a 
concrete plan to bring them out. We will be debating that at a later 
time.
  Furthermore, we need to do what we can to make certain that the 
sacrifices being made now--by our men and women in uniform, by the U.S. 
taxpayer--are not for nought. It would be inexcusable to undertake this 
immense endeavor, only to leave Bosnia, a year later, in the same 
situation it is in now--virtually defenseless and at the mercy of its 
bigger and stronger neighbors.

  Later today, we will have an opportunity to vote on the Hutchison-
Inhofe and Dole-McCain resolutions. Now, we should speak decisively in 
support of our troops and defeat H.R. 2606.
  This is not the way to go--cutting off funds. As I have said, in all 
the debates that I have engaged in, these are the records of my votes 
between 1969 and 1973. It never seemed appropriate for me, when you had 
young men like John McCain, a prisoner of war, that we would cut off 
funds in the U.S. Congress, and I still have that same attitude today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on H.R. 2606. The 
question is: Shall the bill pass?
  The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber who desire to vote?
  The result was announced, yeas 22, nays 77, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 601 Leg.]

                                YEAS--22

     Brown
     Campbell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Inhofe
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Pressler
     Smith
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Warner

                                NAYS--77

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grams
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thurmond
     Wellstone
  So, the bill (H.R. 2606) was rejected.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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