[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 87 (Thursday, June 13, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6213-S6214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 BOSNIA

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been very distressed, as many 
people have, over the recent developments in Bosnia, statements that 
have been made, attributed to a number of our high-ranking officials, 
including Secretary of Defense William Perry.
  Many of us were quite outspoken in our opposition to sending troops 
into Bosnia back when the decision was made by the President and his 
administration. I can remember having the resolution of disapproval 
that I had with Senator Hutchison. We only lost that by four votes. One 
of the selling points on the floor was this is going to be a mission 
that will be completed, successfully completed, and the troops will be 
out in a period of 12 months. None of us believed that at that time.
  I can remember so well on October 17 of 1995, the Senator from New 
Mexico, Senator Bingaman, asked the question of Secretary Perry: ``What 
do we contemplate as far as a remaining presence once the one-year 
period is up, or once the IFOR troop development is complete? Would we 
expect to see some residual NATO force remain?''
  Secretary Perry responded:

       ``I expect that the security-- that the function of 
     external forces maintaining security will be accomplished by 
     then . . . The IFOR, the NATO force which is responsible, an 
     external force for maintaining security--we expect that 
     function to be completed in one year and the forces to be 
     completely removed.''

  Later in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he 
said: ``The implementation force will complete its mission in a period 
not to exceed 12 months. We believe this will be more than adequate to 
accomplish the needed tasks that will allow the peace to be self-
sustaining. As we did in Haiti, we anticipate the IFOR will go in heavy 
and, if successful''--a key phrase--``would begin drawing down 
significantly far in advance of the final exit date,'' that exit date 
being 12 months.
  We keep hearing how successful the operation is, so we assume, if 
successful, that condition has been met. He was talking about drawing 
down the forces far in advance of the 12-month period that he committed 
to.
  I suggest the commitment was much stronger. I asked in that committee 
meeting: ``Are you saying to this committee on the record that 12 
months is it, and after 12 months we are out of there?''
  I remember that distinctly because I asked the question of General 
Shalikashvili: ``Can you tell me any time in military history when you 
had an exit strategy that is geared to time as opposed to events.'' 
That was October 17.
  General Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
also responded at that time to a question asked by Senator Robb of 
Virginia. The response was: ``From a military perspective,'' this is 
General Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top 
guy, ``From a military perspective, as I evaluated the tasks we wished 
this force to accomplish, it was my judgment that in fact can be done 
in 12 months or less.''
  Right after that, Mr. President, I wanted to see for myself, and I 
spent some time and went over to Bosnia, went alone, and talked to a 
number of the commanders. Not a single U.S. NATO or U.N. commander 
thought the peace in Bosnia could be achieved in anything close to 12 
months. I thought I would talk to the people in the northeast sector, 
which is that sector assigned for our troops, our thousands of troops 
that would go over there and accomplish some mission that is still not 
real clear to me. I could not get there, only to find out that no 
American had been up there in the northeast sector.

  I remember so well a very attractive British general by the name of 
Rupert Smith, who we will be hearing a lot from. He is quite a figure. 
He took pity on me after the second or third day and agreed to help me 
get up there. So we did, in a driving snowstorm, go up to the northeast 
sector, where we talked to those individuals up there with the United 
Nations.
  The commander at that time, from Norway, was General Haukland, who 
said at that time when I said, ``Can you assure us that our 
participation up in this northeast sector can be done and the mission 
accomplished and we can be out of here in 12 months,'' and they all 
started laughing. General Haukland used the analogy, he said, 
``Senator, it is like putting your hand in water and then leaving it 
there 12 months, and you take it out of there and everything is back 
the way it was, and you cannot tell your hand was there in the first 
place.'' He started talking about the responsibilities we would have to 
keep peace up there. At one time, when I said, ``12 months,'' he said, 
``You mean 12 years.''
  ``No, we mean 12 months.''
  It was a very distressing experience. When we came back, we had 
another Senate Armed Services Committee, and we repeated the questions 
to Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and General John Shalikashvili. 
Again, they were emphatic that it would be done. Of course, that is 
when we had the lengthy debate on the resolution.
  I will read to you out of the Congressional Record from December 13 
from this floor, right here, quoting myself:

       But the administration cannot have it both ways. President 
     Clinton cannot say that our vital interests are threatened in 
     Bosnia and at the same time pledge that we will be out of 
     Bosnia in a year. If two vital interests--European security 
     and NATO alliance--are truly threatened in Bosnia, how can 
     there be a one-year statute of limitations on our response? 
     Since when are American vital interests only worth one year's 
     commitment? . . . If there are vital interests at stake, the 
     administration should be honest and tell the American people 
     that we are committed to Bosnia for a longer period of time.

  In the last few days, Tuesday's Washington Post: `` * * * A consensus 
is growing among senior NATO officials that a substantial NATO-led 
follow-on force will likely patrol Yugoslavia well into 1997, according 
to alliance officials in and Western diplomats.''
  Strong indications are that United States troops will stay in Bosnia 
for much longer than 1 year.
  Finally, yesterday, the other shoe dropped, and Secretary Perry said,

[[Page S6214]]

``NATO will not want simply to give up on the investment that we have 
made in Bosnia.''
  This is a kind of a creep that we get into. We make a commitment, and 
while mission creep is a very realistic thing, this is commitment 
creep. We are now saying we will be there for a longer period of time.
  I wanted to be proven wrong, but I was right when I said on this 
floor on December 13, 1995, and I have to repeat it now because this 
will become a major issue:

       The simple truth, Mr. President, is that the Republic of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina is about to become America's pet 
     country. The United States of America is going to own Bosnia 
     and all of her problems just as soon as the 1st armored 
     division sets up in Tuzla. Does anyone really believe that we 
     will leave Bosnia in a year if the threat to her stability 
     remains? Does anyone really believe after arming, training, 
     and equipping the Bosnian army for a year that we will stand 
     by and watch if our pet army is on the verge of defeat? Of 
     course not; if Bosnia is as important as the administration 
     says it is, we will stay in Bosnia as long as we have to . . 
     . I say to my colleagues--

  December 13.

       We are on the verge of what may be a very long commitment.

  I am not saying that to say we were prophetic at that time, Mr. 
President. I am only saying that we made that statement. I firmly 
believe there are more than four Senators who would have voted for the 
resolution of disapproval if the administration had been honest with us 
and admitted to us that our commitment was going to be longer than 1 
year. They were not honest with us. They were not honest with America. 
That was just a commitment that happens to coincide with the reelection 
in November of this current year.
  I think it is something we have to address. We will have to make a 
decision. Are we going to stay in until some tragedy takes place? I 
remember so well--I am not being partisan, I am not just being a 
Republican on this floor--it was George Bush in December 1992 that sent 
the first American troops over to another commitment that we had, with 
the idea they would be coming back in 90 days, and of course Bill 
Clinton took office in January 1993, and the troops stayed over in 
Somalia. It was not until 18 of our troops were brutally murdered and 
their corpses dragged through the streets of Mogadishu that the 
American people finally put enough pressure on the administration to 
bring our troops home.
  I see the same type of analogy right here, that we could leave them 
there indefinitely. I can tell you right now if they do not stay with 
that 1-year commitment, it will not be just another few days, another 
week or another month; it will be exactly as every U.N. commander, U.N. 
and NATO force that we dealt with said it was going to be and 
predicted, as we told the American people.
  It is going to be a much longer period of time. This is a very 
serious thing. We are going to have American troops at risk. It is far 
more serious than the other one; that is, while we are deploying troops 
all around the world on missions that are either peacemaking or 
peacekeeping--and the world is expecting us to do this now all the way 
from the Near East to the Far East to the Middle East--now they are 
expecting us to come in on the Golan and come into the Gaza on 
peacemaking and peacekeeping missions at the same time we are sending 
our American troops. We are depleting our very scarce resources. As I 
said earlier on the floor today, we have been cutting our military 
budgets each year for 12 consecutive years, and we are in the same 
position we were back in 1980.
  So it exacerbates that problem to think we are going to be leaving 
troops over there longer than this period of time. I am deeply 
distressed about developments in the Middle East, and about the things 
we are hearing out of Iraq.
  I remember so well when the Saddam Hussein--the guy who murders his 
own grandchildren--made a statement 5 years ago that if we had waited 5 
years to invade Kuwait he would have had the capability of reaching the 
United States with a missile with a weapon of mass destruction. This is 
a very serious thing.
  So we are making it even worse by leaving troops in place where the 
President committed to the American people the troops would be out in a 
period of 12 months. I never believed they would. Most of the people 
here never believed they would. I suggested there are many people who 
would have voted in favor of a resolution of disapproval to keep our 
troops out of it. Now we are in the position where I would lead the 
charge to support our troops over there, but we have to go back to the 
original mission, keep our commitment to the American people, and keep 
our commitment to this Congress and to the Senate Armed Services 
Committee.
  So I serve notice to the administration at this time that it is not 
going to be easy for them to leave our troops over there past the time 
that they promised and committed to us the troops would be back.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.

                          ____________________