[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 200 (Friday, December 15, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18679-S18682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WAR POWERS ACT

  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I would like to discuss the overall concept 
of war powers and the congressional role in making decisions to deploy 
United States forces abroad. There was not sufficient time in the 
debate on Bosnia during which I alluded to my frustration in this 
regard, but did not go into detail. Today I hope to lay out my views in 
a more complete fashion.
  Mr. President, during Wednesday's debate on the Bosnia resolutions, I 
noted that when President Clinton publicly committed the United States 
to participate in implementing a peace agreement by putting U.S. forces 
on the ground in Bosnia, he did so without consulting with Congress 
prior to making that commitment, as far as I know. I was not consulted, 
and I do not know of others who were. I certainly do not know of any 
kind of formal consultation or any kind of leadership meeting before 
that commitment to deploy U.S. ground forces was made to the world and 
to our allies.
  It was a very important commitment. At that time, we were not on the 
verge of a peace agreement, so it was not taken as being important by 
the news media or by those people in Congress in leadership positions; 
but it was important. And I think all of us need to understand that 
when Presidents make these kinds of commitments internationally, and 
when they do so without consulting Congress, then the cards are already 
dealt.
  Those of us in the Congress who have certain constitutional 
responsibilities, if we do not do a better job ourselves, then this 
kind of pattern--it has not only been President Clinton, but it has 
been the same with other recent Presidents--will continue.
  President Reagan made commitments and certainly took action in Panama 
and Grenada and Congress played almost no role.
  President Bush, though he did, to his great credit, come to Congress 
before actually going to war, deployed hundreds of thousands of troops 
to Saudi Arabia without any congressional action. Congress did not take 
any action. I do not blame President Bush for that. Congress did not 
act. And President Bush then virtually doubled the number of forces in 
Saudi Arabia, which prevented a troop rotation, which meant that the 
clock was ticking. There was no way to rotate those forces. Therefore, 
they either had to be used in some kind of conflict or it had to be 
resolved. So, the clock was ticking there. Then President Bush also 
made it clear that whatever Congress did, even though he sought 
congressional authority, he was going to go forward.
  So, all of this leads me to think that it is time, way past time, 
probably 10 or 15 years past time, for Congress to rethink its own 
role. I think this is fundamentally a congressional responsibility. I 
do not think it is going to be solved by a President, whether it is a 
Republican President or Democratic President. It is not their job. I 
would hope that any President would cooperate if Congress takes its own 
initiative to exercise its own responsibility and authority. But, at 
this stage, I do not expect the President to solve our own problem.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, would the distinguished Senator from 
Georgia yield for just a moment?
  Mr. NUNN. I would be pleased to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. I wish to corroborate the fact that in February 1993, 
when President Clinton made this specific commitment, I did not have 
any knowledge nor did other members, senior members, of the Armed 
Services Committee, to my knowledge.
  Likewise, I remember the commitment of that large number of troops by 
President Bush. I recall the Senator from Georgia was quite concerned 
when he learned about it through other sources than through the 
consultation process which, in some effect, was taking place during 
that period in the fall. But I remember the Senator specifically raised 
a point that at no time in that consultation process--and I was the 
ranking member then--was there any to the then-chairman of the 
committee, the Senator from Georgia. And the Senator called the 
President to task for failing to do that.
  Last, Mr. President, I urge the Senator to look at a very erudite 
article on this subject written by Lloyd Cutler appearing in the 
Washington Post, I think about 2 weeks ago. I will put it in the 
Record, the exact date of that article. It lays out with detail the 
legal chronology of the War Powers Act.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1995]

 Our Piece of the Peace--Sending Troops to Bosnia: Our Duty, Clinton's 
                                  Call

                          (By Lloyd N. Cutler)

       After months of sustained effort, the Clinton 
     administration has succeeded in negotiating a peace agreement 
     among the three warring ethnic factions in Bosnia. The 
     agreements initialed in Dayton would require us and our NATO 
     allies to place peacekeeping units of our armed forces in 
     Bosnia for a year or more. This raises once again the biggest 
     unresolved issue under the U.S. system of separate executive 
     and legislative departments: Is the constitutional authority 
     to place our armed forces in harm's way vested in the 
     president or in Congress, or does it require the joint 
     approval of both?
       President Clinton has said he would follow the precedent 
     set by George Bush before the 1991 Desert Storm invasion and 
     seek a congressional expression of support before committing 
     American units to the enforcement of the Bosnian peace 
     agreement. But he has also asserted the constitutional power 
     to act on his own authority, just as Bush did. This time, it 
     is Republican congressional leaders who are challenging a 
     Democratic president's view that the president can lawfully 
     act on his own, but, more typically it has been Democratic 
     Congresses challenging presidents of either party.
       During the coming debate. Congress would be wise to bear in 
     mind, as it did five years ago, that the world will be 
     watching how the one and only democratic superpower reaches 
     its decisions, or whether it is so divided that it is 
     incapable of deciding at all. Congress needs to recognize 
     that we cannot have 535 commanders-in-chief in addition to 
     the president and that some deference to presidential 
     judgments on force deployments is in order. That is 
     especially true when, as in Korea, Iraq and Bosnia, the 
     president's proposed deployments are based on United Nations 
     Security Council resolutions that we have sponsored and on 
     joint decisions with our allies pursuant to treaties Congress 
     has previously approved.
       In the case of Bosnia, the argument for committing U.S. 
     forces to carry out a peace agreement is a strong one. All of 
     us are revolted by the ethnic cleansing and other human 
     rights abuses that the various factions have committed. 
     These abuses are likely to continue if the peace agreement 
     is not formally signed in mid-December as now scheduled, 
     or if it is signed but not carried out. If the war goes on 
     or soon resumes, it may well spread to other parts of the 
     former Yugoslavia and to the rest of the Balkans, still 
     the most unstable region of Western and Central Europe. 
     Any widening of the Balkan wars could well spread to 
     Eastern Europe and the Middle East and pose a substantial 
     potential threat to U.S. national security.
       Some foreign forces are needed to separate the contending 
     armies and to control the standing down of heavy weapons. 
     Under our leadership, and only under our leadership, NATO is 
     ready to supply the necessary forces. The stronger the 
     forces, the better the chance that they will not be attacked 
     and that they will accomplish their mission. All these 
     reasons argue for a significant U.S. military commitment, now 
     that a promising peace agreement has been reached.
       In 1991, the Democratic Congress narrowly approved 
     President Bush's decision to reverse the Iraqi invasion of 
     Kuwait, thus mooting the issue of whether the president could 
     have acted alone. Today, the Republican congressional 
     leadership, while sounding somewhat more conciliatory than in 
     recent weeks, is challenging President Clinton to make his 
     case for the proposed deployment. This war powers question 
     has come up repeatedly since the 1950 outbreak of the Korean 
     War, when President Truman committed our forces without first 
     seeking congressional approval, but has never been resolved.
       In foreign and national security policy, as in domestic 
     policy, neither Congress nor the president can accomplish 
     very much for very long without the cooperation of the other. 


[[Page S18680]]
     This is so for both constitutional and practical reasons. The 
     Constitution gives Congress the power to ``declare war,'' but 
     both Congress and the president share the power to raise 
     armies and navies and to raise and appropriate funds for 
     their maintenance and deployment. Only Congress can enact 
     such measures, but it needs the president's approval or a 
     two-thirds majority of both houses to override his veto. Only 
     the president can negotiate treaties, but he needs a two-
     thirds vote of the Senate to ratify them. The president's 
     separate powers are limited to receiving ambassadors, serving 
     as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and faithfully 
     executing the laws. If as commander-in-chief he orders our 
     armed forces into a combat situation, he still needs 
     congressional approval to finance such a commitment over an 
     extended period of time.
       Before the United States became a superpower, disputes over 
     the authority to commit our forces rarely arose. We had few 
     occasions to deploy our military units abroad, much less 
     commit them to conflict. Armies, navies and news of battle 
     traveled very slowly. Air forces and long-range missiles did 
     not exist. There was plenty of time after learning of a 
     threatening event for the president to deliberate with 
     Congress about the proper response. Occasionally, presidents 
     committed us unilaterally, as in our attacks on the Barbary 
     pirates in Tripoli in Jefferson's time, but it was rare for 
     Congress to claim that its own prerogatives were being 
     usurped by the president.
       Since World War II, all this has changed. As commander-in-
     chief of the democratic superpower, presidents now deploy our 
     armed forces all over the world. We can attack, or be 
     attacked, within moments. On numerous occasions, presidents 
     have committed our forces to armed conflict, sometimes of a 
     sustained nature as in Korea and Vietnam, without asking 
     Congress to declare war. In Vietnam, as it had in Korea, 
     Congress initially supported the president's initiatives by 
     appropriations and other measures. But as the duration and 
     scope of our military actions in Indochina escalated, an 
     increasingly restive Congress enacted the War Powers 
     Resolution over President Nixon's veto. The resolution laid 
     down a series of rules that require a president ``in every 
     possible instance'' to ``consult with Congress'' before he 
     commits our armed forces to combat or to places in which 
     hostilities are ``imminent.'' It also requires the withdrawal 
     of those forces if Congress fails to adopt an approving 
     resolution within 60 days.
       President Nixon and all subsequent presidents have 
     challenged the constitutionality of these prescriptions, but 
     the Supreme Court has never accepted a case that would 
     resolve this dispute and is unlikely to do so in the near 
     future. When presidents ``consult'' with Congress before 
     committing forces, they are careful to avoid saying they do 
     so ``pursuant to'' the War Powers Resolution; they say they 
     do so ``consistent with'' the resolution.
       There are obviously situations where modern technology 
     makes advance consultation with Congress impractical--most 
     notably the case where our sensor equipment indicates that a 
     missile attack has been launched on the United States or our 
     NATO allies, or where speed and secrecy are key factors, as 
     in the rescue of American hostages or reprisals against a 
     terrorist act abroad.
       But presidents have continued to commit our forces to armed 
     conflict or situations where conflict was clearly 
     ``imminent,'' whether or not split-second timing was 
     imperative. President Ford, for example responded forcefully 
     to an attack on a U.S. vessel (the Mayaguez) off the Cambodia 
     coast; President Carter launched a military mission to rescue 
     our hostages in Iran; President Reagan put our forces into 
     Lebanon, the Sinai, Chad and Grenada and ordered bombing 
     attacks on Libya; President Bush sent troops into Panama, 
     Liberia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.
       As for President Clinton, he has already ordered our forces 
     into Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and Macedonia and has authorized 
     our air units to enforce the U.N. no-fly zone over Bosnia 
     itself.
       Moreover, in the 22 years since the War Powers Resolution 
     became law, Congress has never undermined these presidential 
     uses of force by action (or inaction) in a way that would 
     have blocked the mission or required withdrawal within 60 
     days.
       All this does not mean that Congress must cede the power to 
     make national security decisions to the president. Congress 
     successfully forced Johnson and Nixon to limit and finally to 
     terminate the undeclared Vietnam War. Congress successfully 
     stopped Reagan's covert sales of weapons to Iran and his 
     covert and overt military aid to the contras. As these 
     examples show, presidents cannot effectively exercise their 
     separate constitutional powers over national security and 
     foreign policy over an extended period without the 
     cooperation of Congress. That is why Clinton, like Bush in 
     1990, has invited Congress to express its views before our 
     forces are committed to support the peace agreement in 
     Bosnia.
       A week ago Friday, while the Dayton negotiations were still 
     going on, House Republicans passed a bill that would bar the 
     expenditure of any funds to sustain U.S. forces in Bosnia. 
     Fortunately, the Senate is unlikely to follow, and even if it 
     did, a presidential veto would be difficult to override. But 
     the House Republicans who launched this preemptive strike 
     would do better to emulate former Republican congressman Dick 
     Cheney.
       In 1990, when we had a Republican president and Democratic 
     majorities in both houses of Congress, Cheney was the 
     secretary of defense. As he said before we entered the Gulf 
     War, ``When the stakes have to do with the leadership of the 
     Free World, we cannot afford to be paralyzed by an intramural 
     stalemate.'' The decision to act, he noted, ``finally belongs 
     to the president. He is the one who bears the responsibility 
     for sending young men and women to risk death. If the 
     operation fails, it will be his fault. I have never heard one 
     of my former [congressional] colleagues stand up after a 
     failed operation to say, `I share the blame for that one; I 
     advised him to go forward.' ''
       This does not mean that Congress must approve the 
     president's proposed commitments without change. For example, 
     following the Lebanon precedent, Congress could require its 
     further approval if the forces were not withdrawn within, 
     say, 18 months, a period that expires after the next 
     elections. The president and Congress have the shared 
     responsibility of finding a solution that shows we can 
     function as a decisive superpower and as a responsible 
     democracy at the same time. The public expects no less.
       It may be too late to help in the Bosnia debate, but there 
     is one change in our process for making national security 
     decisions that ought to be adopted. The National Security 
     Council (NSC), the statutory body created to advise the 
     president on national security affairs, consists entirely of 
     officials in the executive branch. When the NSC takes up 
     issues related to the potential commitment of our forces, the 
     president could invite the attendance of the speaker, the 
     majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate and the 
     chairman and ranking members of the national security and 
     foreign policy committees of each house. Since the NSC role 
     is purely advisory, no separation-of-powers issues would 
     arise. In this way Congress, in its own favorite phrase, 
     would be effectively consulted before the takeoff, rather 
     than at the time of the landing. The cooperation on national 
     security issues that the nation wants and expects might still 
     elude us, but the president would have done his part to carry 
     out George Shultz's admonition that trust between the 
     branches must be Washington's ``coin of the realm.''
  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I think that is a very good article to place 
in the Record. I thank the Senator from Virginia, my friend from 
Virginia, for his recollection, which is entirely consistent with my 
own.
  Mr. President, during the cold war--in a long period of nuclear 
confrontation--all of us and most Americans instinctively understood 
that the Commander in Chief had to make a quick and decisive decision 
with potentially fatal consequences if certain events took place.
  In effect, every President of the United States from 1945 on has had 
the acknowledged authority and responsibility to respond to aggression 
by using nuclear weapons, which could result in the destruction of a 
large portion of mankind, including most of the United States.
  With this awesome authority being accepted for so long, recognizing 
that, if the former Soviet Union attacked the United States, and 
certainly if they used nuclear weapons, there would not be time for 30 
days of congressional debate or probably even 3 days. With that kind of 
reality having taken place for so long and that kind of assumed 
authority being vested in the Commander in Chief, how then, in 1995, in 
a totally different set of circumstances, does Congress exercise its 
constitutional responsibility to ``declare war?'' And even more 
relevant in my view, how do we exercise our responsibility in funding 
these operations?
  That is the ultimate power of Congress. Senator Byrd reminds us of 
that frequently. The ultimate power of Congress is we pay the bills on 
behalf of the American people. We appropriate the money.
  Mr. President, in Grenada, in Panama, Congress played almost no role 
in those military operations. In Lebanon, we heard President Reagan 
declare that our military commitment in Lebanon was vital--he used the 
word ``vital'' several times--to our national security interests. 
Congress approved the deployment of U.S. military forces with a time 
certain to perform an ill-defined and uncertain mission which I 
opposed.
  It was almost the ultimate backward way of doing things. We put a 
time certain on completion of the mission but did not define the 
mission. So we ended up with a time certain to perform something that 
no one knew really what it was. That was, I think, a backward way of 
doing things.
  To the credit of the Dole-McCain amendment--and I participated in 
helping draft the final version of that 

[[Page S18681]]
amendment--I do think that the current approach is a much better 
approach than we have had in the past in the sense that, at least, we 
make it clear what the mission is and there is an effort to define an 
exit strategy.
  We did neither of those things in the Lebanon situation. I voted 
against it. But, nevertheless, in Lebanon we witnessed the tragic death 
of hundreds of our marines, uncertain as to why they were there or what 
they were supposed to do. We saw President Reagan pull the troops out 
of this ``vital'' area overnight. Since then, we paid very little heed 
to events in this so-called vital country.
  In the Persian Gulf, Congress, without speaking formally, acquiesced 
in the commitment of several hundred thousand ground troops to protect 
Saudi Arabia. We watched without taking any action as President Bush 
deployed such a large force in November of that year, that its rotation 
was infeasible, and made international commitments at the same time, or 
very shortly thereafter, to go to war against Iraq on a date certain. 
Those international commitments to go to war on a date certain were 
without congressional approval.
  By a close vote on the eve of the war, Congress gave President Bush 
the authority to do what he had committed to do with or without 
congressional approval.
  Mr. President, I do not blame the Presidents for acting and 
exercising leadership. They can make mistakes like anyone else. That is 
why we have three branches of Government. That is why the Founding 
Fathers very carefully separated the right to declare war from the 
Commander in Chief and placed it in the legislative branch of 
Government. That is also why all funds have to come from the Congress.
  So, the President, whether President Bush or President Reagan or 
President Clinton, is, when making these decisions, exercising 
Executive leadership. And they are doing it too many times with a 
vacuum, a void, coming from the Congress in terms of a response.
  So, it is our job to say what the congressional role is. We put up 
the money, and it is our job to say what we demand in terms of a role. 
And, so far, I do not think we have done it.
  I believe this is the time for the Congress to acknowledge formally 
what is plain for all to see, and that is the War Powers Resolution 
does not work. Furthermore, it is not going to work. The longer this 
outmoded and unworkable legislation remains on the books in its present 
form, the longer we will continue the illusion--and it is an illusion--
that Congress has a meaningful role in the commitment of U.S. military 
forces to these types of missions.
  Certainly, we can come along and we can take an action after the 
mission is already well underway to cut off funds. That is always a 
very difficult, very painful way to do business. We have done that only 
on one or two occasions. We did it in Somalia, in effect, and we do not 
think we should have to rely on that as the way we do business. We may 
have to do it again, but it is certainly not the desired way for this 
Government to function, certainly not in international affairs.
  No President will allow U.S. forces to be withdrawn from a military 
mission because of congressional inaction, as set forth in the War 
Powers Resolution, nor, in my opinion, should they. The War Powers 
Resolution provides that if the President commits forces in a hostile 
area, then Congress, by its inaction, can require those forces be 
brought home by doing nothing.
  That has never worked. I voted for the War Powers Resolution. I wish 
now I had not because it will never work. It is not sensible. It defies 
reason. Congress sitting on its hands requiring a President who has 
committed our military forces to a foreign area where they are in 
harm's way--maybe even in a war or conflict--and we do not do anything. 
And the War Powers Act presumes the President will then bring them 
home. That has never worked. It never will work. The longer we continue 
to keep this legislation on the books, the more impotent the Congress 
of the United States will be in exercising its real authority under the 
Constitution.
  Mr. President, we should either amend the War Powers Act to make it 
workable or we should repeal it and replace it with legislation that is 
realistic and workable. That is long overdue.
  In the post-cold-war world in which the United States is called on to 
intervene in ethnic, religious and other conflicts in areas that may be 
important but less than vital, we must find a way to create regular, 
frequent and comprehensive consultation between the President and the 
Congress before the President makes concrete commitments and before 
U.S. troops are committed to harm's way.
  Such consultation can, in theory and in reality, take many forms. My 
preference is the formation of a Congressional Consultation Group, as 
was proposed almost 7 years ago, by myself, Senator Byrd, Senator 
Mitchell, Senator Cohen, Senator Warner, Senator Boren and Senator 
Danforth in a bill to amend the War Powers Resolution. I believe 
Senator Biden from Delaware had a similar resolution which he 
sponsored.
  Under that bill, the congressional leadership, including the chairmen 
and ranking members of the Appropriations, Armed Services, Foreign 
Relations and Intelligence Committees would meet on a regular and 
frequent basis with the President to discuss real-world situations that 
could lead to the involvement of the United States forces. Some have 
suggested having that group meet on a regular basis with the National 
Security Council, chaired by the President. It seems to me that thought 
is worthy of pursuit. I certainly believe that would be one form that 
this could take.
  But whatever the form of consultation, I believe there also needs to 
be an attempt to forge an executive-congressional consensus on a set of 
principles that will guide the use of United States forces in the 
future. This approach starts with the proposition that the United 
States is the world's only superpower and that we have certain 
responsibilities that no other nation on earth can fill.
  Too many times, when we get into a Third World situation or a 
situation like Bosnia, or a humanitarian mission like Somalia, or a 
mission like Haiti, or a mission in other areas of the world, we 
forget--as our allies urge us to come in and play our role--we forget 
that we are the only country in the world that can do certain things. 
Too many times our allies forget that, too. They, of course, want us on 
the scene every time there is a problem.
  But, Mr. President, we need to keep in mind that we are the only 
nation in the world that can deter the use of weapons of mass 
destruction. We are the only nation in the world that can lead and 
coordinate the worldwide effort to avoid the spread of weapons of mass 
destruction to the Third World and to terrorist groups. We are the only 
nation in the world that can help preserve the stability in Europe by 
the presence of American forces that, although dramatically reduced in 
number, are still very significant in terms of their psychological and 
their political impact.
  We are the only nation in the world that, with our allies in South 
Korea, can deter and defeat the aggression of North Korea or come to 
the rescue of nations in the Middle East that are the world's primary 
source of oil.
  We are the only nation that can perform those key and vital 
functions.
  By our military presence, we are the only nation in the world that 
can give the Japanese the confidence to resist any urge they might have 
in the future to develop nuclear weapons and go on a real rearmament 
program that would have a profoundly destabilizing effect in northeast 
Asia and beyond.
  And we are the only nation in the world that can keep open the sea 
lanes of communication on which not only our trade but also the trade 
of the world and the economy of the world depend.
  Mr. President, these are all key functions. That does not mean we 
cannot perform other functions like Bosnia, but it does mean that, when 
we undertake this kind of mission, we and our allies should understand 
the United States should not be expected to continue a large ground 
force in an area like Bosnia for a prolonged period of time, because if 
something goes wrong in Korea, if something goes wrong in the Middle 
East, if something goes wrong elsewhere in the world, who is going to 
play the role of superpower? There is no one else on the block.
  I believe we can divide America's interests into three broad 
categories: one 

[[Page S18682]]
is humanitarian; two is important; and three I would call vital. There 
is other terminology that people might want to use, but I would like to 
stimulate at least some discussion and thought about the areas where 
the United States may be involved.
  A humanitarian interest is an interest in which we want to see an 
alleviation of suffering, but where we do not have a significant 
strategic interest. This includes cases like Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, 
Bangladesh, Sudan--places where people are going through tragic turmoil 
and, in many places, actually starving.
  We see them on television. It brings tears to our eyes. We want to do 
something about it, but, in my view, this does not mean we should 
automatically think about sending military forces. In those cases where 
we want to alleviate suffering, I think our responsibility--again 
keeping in mind the other responsibilities we have as a superpower that 
no one else can perform--our responsibility, generally speaking and in 
most cases, is to say to our allies: we will help you with logistics, 
we will help you with airlift, we will help you with sealift, we will 
help you with intelligence, and we will help you with communications, 
but we want you to do your job by putting in ground forces where 
necessary for peacekeeping or peace enforcement purposes. Not only to 
our allies in the traditional sense, but also to nations in the region 
where the tragedy is occurring.
  In other words, on most such occasions, we should do the things only 
we can do and let others do things they can do.
  Mr. President, this probably does not meet the definition of a 
national security strategy, but I believe we need to start thinking 
along those lines.
  America cannot deploy military forces in all of these humanitarian 
areas, and when we do, we can get into serious and severe difficulty. 
Somalia is the best example of that.
  To me, a vital interest is one that we are willing to fight for and, 
if necessary, willing to send our young people off to die for. This is 
an awesome responsibility. There are not many of those interests in the 
world, by the very definition of that word, and we have to be very 
careful in designating an area as a place where we have a vital 
interest. That word ought to be used very carefully.
  Korea is a place where we have vital interests. Without any doubt, we 
would fight in Korea, if necessary. We have already demonstrated that. 
We continue to demonstrate it with the presence of thousands of 
American military forces. We have already demonstrated we have a vital 
interest in the Middle East in the Persian Gulf war and by the 
deployment we had--a couple of deployments--just in the last 2 years 
when the Iraqis again started threatening Kuwait.
  Mr. President, we also have had a vital interest in Europe since 
World War II, and we continue to have a vital interest in Europe. We 
are a party to the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides for a 
collective defense in the case of an armed attack against one or more 
of the parties.

  The United States also has entered into bilateral defense treaties 
with Japan, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea. We have entered 
into a multilateral defense treaty with Australia and New Zealand--
although in the latter case, our obligations under that treaty have 
been suspended with respect to New Zealand since September of 1986 
because of differences on the question of port visits of nuclear-
powered warships. Mr. President, under that treaty, we have committed 
to meet the common dangers of an armed attack on our treaty partners in 
accordance with our constitutional processes. That is the case in most 
of these treaties.
  And, of course, the area Senator Lugar and I have emphasized more 
than any other in the last 2 or 3 years, and where we have the most 
profound and difficult national security challenge in the next 10, 20 
years, or even longer, is that we have a vital interest in preventing 
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction--not simply nuclear 
weapons, but chemical as well as biological weapons, which can 
literally kill tens of thousands of people in an instant. That is also 
a vital interest because it could be a direct threat to our Nation and 
to our friends in the world.
  Now, the most difficult of all of these areas is the third category, 
the one that fits between vital and humanitarian, and the term that I 
use is ``important interest.'' An important interest is an interest 
that is more than a mere humanitarian interest, but does not rise to 
the level of a vital interest. There are overlaps between these 
categories. They no longer come in a neat package. The most difficult 
can be exemplified by Bosnia, where I have long believed we have had an 
important interest but not a vital interest. I do believe that we have 
a strategic and even a vital interest in preventing that conflict from 
spreading. If it spreads to other areas, then it could indeed become 
vital. When an important but not vital interest becomes a test of NATO 
solidarity--as has happened in the case of Bosnia--when an important 
interest becomes a test of United States leadership in NATO and of 
United States credibility and commitment in the world, it moves into a 
category beyond important. Such is the case in Bosnia.
  We must also bear in mind when considering the deployment of our 
forces for other than a vital interest that the cumulative impact of 
such deployments may interfere with our responsibilities as the world's 
lone superpower in areas which are truly vital to U.S. security and the 
American people.
  Returning, briefly, to the subject of Executive-Congressional 
consultation, I note that the majority leader, Senator Dole, introduced 
S. 5, the Peace Powers Act of 1995 earlier this year, which, in part, 
would have repealed the War Powers Resolution but re-enacted the 
consultation and reporting provisions of the War Powers Resolution.
  Mr. President, I also note that the May 1994 White Paper entitled 
``The Clinton Administration's Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace 
Operations,'' stated that the administration would support legislation 
along the lines of that introduced by myself, Senators Mitchell, Byrd, 
Warner, and Cohen, to amend the War Powers Resolution to introduce a 
consultative mechanism and to eliminate the 60-day withdrawal 
provisions.
  Based upon these developments, Mr. President, I believe it is very 
important in the next year that we have a chance to forge a bipartisan 
approach that would meet the needs both of the Congress and of the 
administration and that would foster a more cooperative approach 
between the two branches on important national security decisions. When 
our military forces go into harm's way, they have every right to expect 
that both the executive branch and the legislative branch have been 
involved in the decisionmaking and are behind the mission. That is 
something we owe the military men and women who serve in our forces 
abroad.
  Mr. President, I intend to introduce legislation early next year to 
address this very important issue. It has been delayed too long in 
terms of dealing with it. I repeat, the longer we pretend that we have 
on the books legislation that covers congressional responsibility in 
this important, crucial area, the longer we deal with an illusion which 
has no basis in reality. Mr. President, I solicit input from all 
Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle on this issue. I hope 
we can address it before the next crisis arises.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield back whatever time I have remaining.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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