[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 64 (Thursday, May 9, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4884-S4885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            ARMS SHIPMENTS TO BOSNIA FROM ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, a few days ago, on Tuesday of this 
week, a number of colleagues rose to express criticism of the actions 
of the Clinton administration with regard to arms shipments from 
Islamic countries, including Iran, across Croatia to supply the Bosnian 
Army and the decision made not to intervene by this administration in 
April 1994. Yesterday, our colleagues in the other body voted to 
appropriate $1 million to conduct a formal investigation of this 
incident, which has been referred to as Iran-Bosnia.
  Mr. President, as far as I am concerned, the suggestion here that 
what happened in April 1994 with the Clinton administration bore any 
resemblance to the Iran-Contra affair is wrong. There is simply no 
connection between the two. As my colleagues in the Senate know, for 
quite a long time--1993, 1994, 1995--I was very critical of this 
administration's inability to lift the arms embargo multilaterally, 
preferably, but unilaterally if necessary. But for the very reasons 
that led me to work, on a bipartisan basis, with the Senate majority 
leader and others to urge this administration to mandate finally that 
the arms embargo against Bosnia be lifted, I find the criticism of the 
administration and the President with regard to the decision made in 
April 1994 to be way off base, to be unfair, to be a bum rap. It is, in 
fact, quite the opposite of what was implied and expressed by all of us 
who worked so hard to convince our colleagues and this administration 
to lift the arms embargo against the Bosnian Government. I want to 
explain why I come to the conclusion that what the President did in 
April 1994 was not simply not wrong, but, in fact, I believe it was the 
right and moral decision to make.
  Let me go back to that time in early 1994. In January 1994, we passed 
an amendment, supported by the majority leader and myself and many 
others on both sides of the aisle, which expressed the sense of the 
Senate--because it is all we could manage to convince our colleagues to 
support--a sense of the Senate that we should lift the arms embargo on 
the Bosnian Government by an 87-to-9 vote. That was a vote here in this 
Chamber. That vote expressed the growing disgust, fury, and frustration 
by most of us here in this Chamber, if not people throughout the 
country and the world, that acts of aggression and genocide were 
occurring, primarily by the Serbs against the Bosnian people, and not 
only was the world just standing by, but we were prohibiting the 
Bosnian people from receiving the arms necessary to exercise their 
fundamental right of self-defense. That was in January of 1994 that the 
Senate spoke.
  In the spring of 1994, Bosnia was in dire straits. The newly 
established federation joining the Bosniacs and the Croats was in a 
very precarious state. The Bosnian Moslems in Gorazde, Sarajevo, and 
elsewhere were under siege, and not just casual siege but siege that 
threatened wide-scale death, destruction, and defeat. The Bosnians 
again, confronted by a foe with immense advantage and heavy weaponry, 
were, under an embargo passed in 1992 before the war broke out to try 
to stop the war from breaking out, denied by the international 
community the means to defend themselves.
  I said then repeatedly, as others did in this Chamber, that that 
embargo was unjust and immoral. Major cities in Bosnia were threatened 
with being overrun by the Serbs. In fact, the Bosnian-Croat Federation 
was on the edge of defeat and annihilation.
  Against that backdrop, in April 1994, the Croatian Government asked 
the United States, through diplomatic channels, whether the United 
States Government would object if Croatia were to allow arms shipments 
to go through its country, Croatia, to the Bosnian Government from 
other countries, primarily Islamic countries, including Iran. In fact, 
as I mentioned Islamic countries, there is some reason to believe that 
not just Iran, although that for understandable reasons concerns us, 
but also Turkey, perhaps Malaysia, perhaps including, with the support 
of our allies, Saudi Arabia, supplied arms to the Bosnians in transit 
through Croatian territory. The question then posed to the Clinton 
administration by this diplomatic query from Croatia was, should the 
United States at that point have acted forcefully to require the 
Croatians to stop those arms from going to the Bosnians?
  President Clinton decided that the United States would neither 
approve nor object to such shipments. American diplomats told the 
Croatian Government in response to their question that they had ``no 
instructions'' on the matter. That, I feel very strongly, was the right 
decision diplomatically and morally, for to have done otherwise would 
have meant that the United States was not simply refusing to supply 
arms itself to the Bosnian Government, was not simply at that point 
enforcing to the extent it was able the embargo against the Bosnians, 
but was in fact demanding that other countries that wanted to allow 
arms to go to the Bosnians not be allowed to do so.
  Some critics now insist that in making that decision the 
administration undertook covert action without reporting to Congress. 
That is a quasi-legal argument invoking, I suppose, memories of Iran-
Contra, and I wish to explain why I feel there was not covert action 
here. In fact, it was neither covert nor was it action.
  Let me make clear, too, that unlike the Iran-contra episode, there 
was here no mandate from Congress not to supply aid as there was in the 
case of aid to the contras. In fact, here there was growing support in 
Congress to have the United States Government either supply arms to the 
Bosnians or at least, as happened later in the year, to stop enforcing 
this immoral embargo.
  Why do I say this was neither covert nor was it action? In legal 
terms, the administration decided to take no position, give no 
instruction on the delivery of arms through Croatia to Bosnia from 
Islamic countries including Iran. That does not constitute action. The 
State Department has made it very clear that the United States had no 
contact with Iran on this matter and took absolutely no action to 
facilitate these shipments. So I do not see how this can be construed 
as action by our Government which would require formal reporting to 
Congress under relevant law.
  Second, and very importantly, this decision was by no means covert. 
While my colleagues who have been critical of late of the decision have 
acted, I presume, on the basis of an article which appeared early in 
April of this year, 1996, in the Los Angeles Times about the 
President's decision, the fact is that the decision made by the 
President and the administration in 1994 to give no instructions to the 
Croatians on the question of Islamic shipments of arms to the Bosnians 
across their territory should have been known to all of us and 
certainly should not be construed as news.
  The leadership of the Congress and the relevant committees and their 
staffs have and at that time and from the beginning of the war in 
Bosnia had routine access to the very same intelligence information 
about the Islamic arms shipments that was seen by administration 
officials early in 1994, and, in fact, before. No one, to my

[[Page S4885]]

knowledge, urged the administration to take any steps at that time to 
stop the arms from reaching the Bosnians.
  Arms shipments from Iran and the other countries to Bosnia, 
facilitated by Croatia, which incidentally took its share of these 
weapons, in fact, became public knowledge in a Washington Post article 
on May 13, 1994, approximately 1 month after the administration made 
the decision to give no instructions to the Croatians. Again, we heard, 
and the record shows, no calls from anyone to stop those shipments of 
arms.
  In June 1994, 1 month later and 2 months after the decision made by 
the administration, our colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, 
speaking forcefully for the lifting of the arms embargo denying the 
Bosnian Government the right to self-defense, shared with us all--and 
it is printed in the Congressional Record--a June 24, 1994, Washington 
Times story entitled ``Iranian Weapons Sent Via Croatia--Aid to Moslems 
Gets U.S. 'Wink.''' The whole story was told 2 years ago, 2 months 
after the administration's decision. I urge my colleagues to look at 
that article. Thus, the Congress and the public not only knew of 
Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia, but we also knew of President 
Clinton's decision not to act to stop those shipments nearly 2 years 
ago.
  On April 14 and 15, 1995, a little more than a year ago, a year after 
the decision was made by the administration, the Washington Post 
reported extensively on the President's decision not to stop arms 
shipments destined to the Bosnian Government, and still, I think for 
understandable reasons, there was no clamor for the United States to 
stop those shipments. In fact, the Washington Post, in an editorial on 
April 16 of 1995 entitled ``Arms For Bosnia,'' endorsed President 
Clinton's decision saying that the risk of Iranian influence was ``A 
risk worth taking to serve what ought to be regarded as the political 
and moral core of American policy to render as much support as possible 
to the Bosnian Muslims.''

  So there can be no doubt that we all knew or should have known about 
the Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia and the shipments from other 
Islamic countries 2 years ago, and we all knew or should have known of 
the President's decision not to try to stop those shipments in the 
spring of 1994. And during that whole time the Senate and the House of 
Representatives did not call for U.S. action to stop those shipments.
  Therefore, Mr. President, I conclude that these shipments were by no 
means covert. In fact, not only were they not covert, they were not 
wrong, and shortly thereafter we in Congress expressed our agreement 
with that conclusion.
  Later, in 1994--in fact, in August 1994, on August 11, 1994--with 
pressure building here for support of the resolution that Senator Dole 
and I and others were advancing to lift the arms embargo, unilaterally 
if necessary, the Senate adopted an amendment offered by the Senator 
from Georgia, Mr. Nunn, and then Senate majority leader, Senator 
Mitchell, as an amendment to the fiscal year 1995 Defense authorization 
bill which called for multilateral lifting of the arms embargo but, 
more relevant to the present controversy, mandated the end of any 
American involvement in enforcing the international arms embargo on the 
Bosnian Government.
  In October 1994, Senator Dole and I and our cosponsors, 
unfortunately, could not gain enough votes to pass our legislation 
mandating unilateral lifting of the arms embargo, but in response to 
our efforts the Congress adopted the Nunn-Mitchell provision as part of 
the fiscal year 1995 National Defense Authorization Act. So we in this 
body and our colleagues in the other body made it illegal, against the 
law, for the United States to use appropriated funds to enforce the 
arms embargo.
  So since November 1994, the Clinton administration has been 
prohibited from acting to intercept arms shipments to Bosnia from Iran 
or anybody else, exactly the decision made in April 1994 by the 
administration. In that sense, the decision was ratified by the 
Congress.
  Mr. President, let me make clear that I share the concern expressed 
by my colleagues who spoke the other day, and other times, about the 
continued Iranian presence and influence in Bosnia. In fact, the Senate 
majority leader and I raised this concern in a letter we sent a few 
months ago to President Izetbegovic of Bosnia. I believe there has been 
a response to that letter. But, of course, what I am saying here is 
that we need to see the results and the content of the administration's 
decision of April 1994 beyond the unfortunate but, after all, very 
limited, continued presence of Iran in Bosnia.
  The supply of arms to Croatia and Bosnia by Islamic countries in 1994 
and before in fact changed the military balance in the former 
Yugoslavia. As a result, the Bosniacs and Croats were able to defend 
their people and their territory and even reverse Serb gains.
  I certainly--and I am sure most of my colleagues--would much rather 
have seen the arms embargo lifted and the arms supplied to the Bosnian 
Government by the United States or other friendly countries other than 
Iran. It is clear to me--it was then--that the Bosnian Government would 
have preferred that outcome, but just as a drowning person cannot be 
particular about who has thrown him a life jacket, a dying nation, a 
nation under death siege, as Bosnia was at that time, cannot be 
particular about who gives it arms. Without the supply of those arms, 
the Serbs, in my opinion, would have completed their campaign of 
territorial aggression, ethnic cleansing. With these arms, the Bosniacs 
and Croats cooperated to hold the Serbs in place--in fact, to reverse 
some Serb gains.
  Then we came to 1995, growing concern about the course of the war, 
and finally Senator Dole and I, and our cosponsors, were able to 
receive majority support here in this Chamber and in the other body for 
mandating a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo against the 
Bosnians. Srebrenica fell; a slaughter occurred there. With that in the 
public's mind, and being able to say to our allies in Europe that 
Congress was about to force him to lift the arms embargo unilaterally, 
the President was able to gain the allies' support for the NATO 
airstrikes which brought the Serbs to the negotiating table at Bosnia, 
which stopped the war and then led to the 60,000-person implementation 
force now there in Bosnia, with 20,000 Americans, whose presence, 
incidentally, was ratified in a bipartisan vote here in which the 
Senate majority leader, in an extraordinary act of bipartisanship, 
nonpartisanship, gave his support to that presence.
  So I say, in conclusion, that to criticize the Clinton 
administration, President Clinton, for their decision not to protest 
the flow of arms to Bosnia in April 1994 is unfair and inconsistent 
with the position that so many of us took that, in fact, the arms 
embargo should be lifted. The decision the President made was, in my 
opinion, moral. It would have been outrageously immoral to have watched 
aggression and genocide continue in Bosnia and have done nothing--in 
fact, not only to have done nothing, but to have acted to stop others 
from doing something to help the victims of that aggression and that 
genocide.
  Finally, in the struggle many of us made here on a bipartisan, 
nonpartisan basis to change the course of this war, I think we had a 
substantial effect. It was, in my opinion, some of the finest hours of 
this Chamber in affecting the course of foreign policy and world 
events, stopping aggression and genocide, and preserving stability in 
Europe.
  I hope we will not sully that extraordinary record of nonpartisanship 
with a kind of partisanship in hindsight, which is unjustified by the 
facts and inconsistent with the bipartisan leadership of this Chamber 
on this matter.
  I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.

                          ____________________