[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 116 (Thursday, August 1, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H9834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                OPPOSITION TO DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Talent] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my opposition to the 
conference report on the defense authorization bill which the House 
passed earlier this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, shortly after I was elected to the Congress in 1992, 
several constituents first raised with me the POW-MIA issue. It did not 
take a great deal of research before I concluded, to my shame, that our 
Government had left hundreds of POW's behind in Vietnam at the end of 
that war. Since I entered the Congress I have participated in hearings 
which have only reinforced my original conclusion in that matter. In 
fact, the Government's denials in these hearings have taken on a feeble 
and pro forma quality, as if they know and we know that what they must 
say for the record is not true.
  Like many other Members, I continue trying to expose this truth 
publicly, but I am not so naive as to believe, with all the foreign 
policy, economic, and personal interests at stake that any 
administration is likely to admit that several hundred men were left 
behind following Operation Homecoming in 1973, and that a 20-year 
bipartisan coverup has since occurred.

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  But I did think it possible to make better provision for servicemen 
in the future. I was very pleased when, in last year's authorization 
bill, Congress passed the Missing Service Personnel Act. This act 
established a separate agency to track POW-MIA's, granting extensive 
powers to that agency and legal rights to the families of missing 
servicemen. The new legislation made it much less likely that soldiers 
could be left behind in subsequent wars. It tacitly recognized and 
therefore partially redeemed the sins of the past. Nothing could give 
better meaning to the past sacrifices of our POW's than real action to 
ensure that others are never abandoned as they were.
  However, during debate on this year's bill, and at the urging of the 
Pentagon, the Senate adopted an amendment gutting the legislation 
passed only 6 months ago, loosening standards for investigation and 
certification.
  As has so often been the case with the POW-MIA issue, it is 
impossible to fathom the reason for the Senate's and presumably the 
Pentagon's position. Certainly the families and the veterans 
organizations will be mystified and heartbroken. As I said before, the 
new law has only been in place for 6 months. What have we learned in 
that short period of time that justifies so significant a change? Why 
do we now believe that it is acceptable for a commander to wait 10 days 
before reporting that one of this men is missing in action? Why is it 
less important now than it was 6 month ago to require that forensic 
standards be satisfied before identifying a body based on one tooth or 
one bone? And what has the Department of Defense done since the 
beginning of the year that should convince us to err on the side of 
giving it more discretion in making these determinations given its 
dismal record over the last 20 years?
  Mr. Speaker, I cannot blame any Member who decided to vote for this 
conference report because of the good things in it, notwithstanding 
what it does to the cause of POW's and MIA's. Everyone has to make this 
own decisions in matters of that kind. I freely admit that my vote was 
based more on conscience than on policy. I simply cannot join in once 
more sacrificing the interests of our POW's in the name of some greater 
good. Objectively I know that what the Congress did tonight will have 
little effect on those left behind in Vietnam. I am sure they have long 
since given up hope of deliverance and in fact most are by now buried 
in fields or shallow graves or stored in warehouses in case the 
Vietnamese need their bodies for some purpose. What I find unendurable 
is the sense that we have today abandoned them again, heaping yet 
another betrayal on the bones of these honorable men who made the 
mistake of trusting us.

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