[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 24, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4291-H4309]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Pursuant to House Resolution 
169 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of 
the Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration 
of the bill, H.R. 1119.

                              {time}  1600


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the 
bill (H.R. 1119) to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 1998 and 
1999 for military activities of the Department of Defense, to prescribe 
military personnel strengths for fiscal years 1998 and 1999, and for 
other purposes, with Mr. Young of Florida in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose on Monday, June 
23, 1997, the amendments en bloc offered by the gentleman from South 
Carolina [Mr. Spence] had been disposed of.
  It is now in order to debate the subject matter of United States 
forces in Bosnia.
  The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] and the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Dellums] each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence].
  (Mr. SPENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, today Congress will cast its first significant votes on 
our United States policy in Bosnia since the President extended 
deployment of our United States ground troops to that war-torn land 
last winter.
  Today's votes will not be an expression of support for the mission, 
although our troops are doing well and we surely all support them. Nor 
will today's votes express the sense of the House or sense of the 
Congress. Rather, today's votes will call for the withdrawal of U.S. 
ground troops from a peacekeeping operation of growing expense and 
seemingly unending duration.
  Our Armed Forces have done all that they can to help bring peace to 
Bosnia and in the Balkans. With consummate professionalism under trying 
circumstances, our troops and NATO troops have enforced the military 
provisions of the Dayton peace agreement. As a result of their efforts, 
the military tasks required by the Dayton accord, the separation of the 
warring parties, the collection and destruction of heavy weapons, and 
the transfer of territories have all been completed.
  But the remaining tasks, the civilian, humanitarian and political 
reconstruction of Bosnia, are beyond the capabilities of our troops, 
unless we are prepared to remain in Bosnia for decades. In recent 
months, our military commanders have added tanks to the stabilization 
force in Bosnia and have made plans to postpone the transition to the 
smaller, lighter deterrent force that was supposed to take over when 
the United States ground mission ended in fiscal year 1998.
  Just last month, a top NATO commander told the New York Times, and I 
quote: ``It would be a mistake to say that there is peace in Bosnia. We 
have only the absence of war. We gave the civilian officials the time 
and the space it carry out the Dayton agreement, but they failed. 
Nothing has been accomplished.''
  This is a startling and frank admission. But we have not failed for 
want of effort. Since the United States military involvement in Bosnia 
and the Balkans began with the imposition of Operation Sharp Guard 
blockade back in 1992, more than 100,000 American soldiers, sailors, 
airmen and marines have seen duty in that theater of operations. That 
is the largest deployments of our forces since the Gulf War.
  Not only have we deployed tens of thousands of troops, we have spent 
a lot of money in doing it. By the end of the year, fiscal year 1998, 
the Department of Defense will have spent at least $7.3 billion on 
Bosnia and supporting operations. That is $7.3 billion over and above 
normal operating and personnel budgets. And $7.3 billion that has been 
and will continue to be diverted from already underfunded 
modernization, quality of life, readiness and training programs.
  I suspect, of course, that the true costs of our Bosnian involvement 
have been much larger. And based upon the highly optimistic political 
and operational assumptions that underlie the President's budget 
request for fiscal year 1998 in Bosnia, the cost will continue to rise 
dramatically.
  By any measure, Bosnia is too large an issue for our United States 
foreign policy to be decided exclusively by Presidential fiat. This 
would be true even if the administration's Bosnia policy were not 
marked with broken promises about the duration the mission, its scope, 
and its cost.
  The administration has lost the confidence of the American people 
when it comes to Bosnia. Nearly 2 years ago the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, said that he could not, and I 
quote, ``imagine circumstances changing in such a way that we would 
remain in Bosnia.''
  More than 1 year. Just 2 months ago, Secretary of Defense Cohen 
stated, and I quote, ``It is very clear that by June of 1998 we will be 
on our way out.'' I hope both of these gentlemen's statements have 
taken especially into account the administration's proclivity to say 
one thing one day and change its tune the next day.
  And the President is at it again. When he announced extension of the 
Bosnia mission following last November's elections, he said that he 
would propose to our NATO allies that by June of 1998 the work would be 
done and the forces would be able to be withdrawn.
  Yet last month, the President began to reverse himself again, as 
anticipated, when he said, and I quote: ``We just can't sort of hang 
around and then disappear in a year. . . I want to stop talking about 
what date we're leaving on.''
  The time is long overdue for Congress to express its will on behalf 
of the American people. It is important that the Clinton administration 
be held accountable for the Nation's foreign policy and in this case 
for Bosnia policy, a policy initiated without the consent or even 
support of Congress and predicated on the early withdrawal of United 
States ground troops. In my opinion, the sooner our ground troops are 
withdrawn, the better.
  But the withdrawal of our ground troops from Bosnia need not and 
should not mean the end of NATO operations in and around Bosnia. The 
United States has an obligation to support alliance operations. But I 
believe that our support should be focused on providing those 
capabilities which we alone possess or can best provide, things such as 
logistics support over large areas in long distances, intelligence, 
communication and a list of all kinds.
  No one should characterize our U.S. contributions as undermining the 
alliance, for these contributions will continue to involve thousands of 
troops at a cost to our taxpayers of billions of dollars. I am not 
suggesting that the Nation revert to isolationism; rather, a more 
practical and proper sharing of responsibilities and burdens of what 
appears to be a long-term NATO peacekeeping operation.
  I do not disagree with the approach that our allies call ``in 
together, out together'' when it comes to NATO operations in Bosnia. 
But unless we can take a more nuanced approach to that policy, one that 
allows the United States to participate without performing each and 
every task, our allies will simply continue to hold us hostage.
  If the withdrawal of our ground troops from Bosnia is followed by the 
collapse of the NATO mission, as the administration asserts will occur, 
then

[[Page H4292]]

the alliance will have proven itself far more fragile than anyone 
anticipated, perhaps too fragile for the stresses of post-Cold War 
missions and certainly too fragile for NATO expansion.
  I urge my colleagues to study both amendments very closely. More 
fundamentally, I urge all Members to vote in favor of withdrawing our 
ground troops from a Bosnia mission with no end in sight.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to my distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton].
  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Dellums] for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to both the Hilleary and the 
Buyer-Skelton amendments. The primary difference between the two 
amendments, as I understand it, is the date of withdrawal. The concept 
is the same, but so are the defects.
  Both amendments I think are unwise, for several reasons. First all, 
these amendments pose a risk to the United States troops in Bosnia. 
That is not my judgment. We should pay attention to the military 
commanders and to the Secretary of Defense. They have said that if we 
have a statutorily mandated requirement of redeployment, then that will 
jeopardize the safety of our personnel. Why would anybody in this 
Chamber want to jeopardize the safety of our troops by mandated date of 
withdrawal?
  Second, these amendments threaten the Bosnia peace process. When 
United States troops leave Bosnia, our allies are sure to go. They have 
said that loud and clear. If NATO-led peacekeepers leave too soon, 
Bosnia will likely return to chaos and to war. That is precisely what 
Bosnian President Izetbegovic says and thinks.
  These amendments send the opponents of the peace process the message 
they want to hear: Just wait; the U.S. troops are going to go. And we 
are going to be playing into the hands of the hardliners and the 
warmongers. Whether we like it or not, we are the key to stability in 
Bosnia. We are the central player. We are the leader. If we mandate a 
date certain for withdrawal, we help the opponents of peace and we make 
it more difficult to fulfill the promise of the Dayton accords.

                              {time}  1615

  We cannot build stability in Europe by simply walking away from U.S. 
commitments.
  Third, these amendments threaten the cohesion of NATO. The peace 
process in Bosnia has always been about more things than just Bosnia. 
It is also about the future of NATO and the stability of Europe.
  The NATO-led operation in Bosnia is the largest, most complex 
military mission that NATO has ever undertaken. Our allies have looked 
to us for leadership and we have supplied it. Both of these amendments 
tell the President to withdraw U.S. troops by a fixed date, without 
prior consultation, without agreement. The message is, we are pulling 
out. It does not matter what our NATO allies think. We are leaving, no 
matter what.
  If we act unilaterally in Bosnia, it undercuts United States 
leadership in NATO. This is the very moment of the most momentous 
change in NATO, enlargement, and we are saying by these amendments, 
NATO be damned, we are leaving when we want to without consulting them. 
What kind of an alliance partnership is that?
  Fourth, these amendments shut out the options and deny the President 
flexibility. That is obvious. It does not need to be elaborated on.
  Instead of locking ourselves in by passing either amendment, let us 
keep the options open. There are many ways that can be done. I do not 
have time to go into that.
  And, fifth, these amendments undermine the credibility of U.S. 
leadership because they cast a serious doubt on our ability to keep our 
commitments. We made a political commitment to the parties in Dayton 
that we would try to help them form a unified, decentralized Bosnia. We 
have lived up to that commitment. We have spent about $6 billion or $7 
billion, and brave Americans have risked their lives. So far, let it be 
noted, not one American soldier has been killed by hostile fire.
  We knew that peace in Bosnia would not come easy. What does it say 
about American steadfastness, American reliability, American 
credibility if we mandate a pullout before the job is done? Congress 
should not, I think, force the President's hand.
  I understand the President considers a legislatively mandated 
withdrawal date from Bosnia a veto item. No one in this Chamber can 
predict today what the circumstances in Bosnia will be on a date in the 
future. That being the case, it is folly to require American forces to 
be out of there by a date certain.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against both of these amendments.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Colorado [Mr. Hefley].
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not recall the gentleman from Indiana 
[Mr. Hamilton] when the President set a date certain when we went into 
Bosnia that we would be out by November of 1996 saying, ``Mr. 
President, that is folly for you to set that date.'' We all accepted 
that date. The President assured me we would be out by that date. That 
was our commitment. We would be there until November and get the 
shooting stopped, get the killing stopped, and then we would come out.
  We also had a commitment to spend $1.2 billion at that time. I want 
to refer my colleagues to this chart here. By 1998, we will be at $7.3 
billion. So do not talk to me about us backing down on our commitments. 
We have kept our commitments.
  Recently, at a meeting of the North Atlantic Assembly, it was quite 
clear to me that all of our allies sitting out there at the assembly 
were convinced that we were there for the duration; that we were going 
to be there forever, if necessary; that we were going to have another 
Korea, if necessary. Fifty years later, we might still be in Bosnia as 
we are still in Korea.
  I told them then as I tell Members now, so far as I am concerned, we 
are bringing our troops home from Bosnia, and we need to set a date 
certain to do that so that we can do it in an orderly kind of fashion, 
so it is not precipitous, so that our European allies know that this is 
what is going to be done, so that they can make preparations.
  Most of us felt this is primarily a European problem, but we wanted 
to be helpful. We still want to be helpful. As the gentleman from South 
Carolina [Mr. Spence], the chairman, enumerated, and I will not go over 
it, there are many things we can continue to do without having our 
ground troops on the ground in Bosnia. My colleagues can decide what is 
the right date, whether the date is December, whether the date is next 
June, but we need to set a date certain and say at that date our troops 
are out of there and we are bringing them home.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kucinich].
  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, Branjevo Farm in eastern Bosnia was an 
ordinary livestock farm. Then, in the course of war, this ordinary 
place became extraordinary. The banality of evil reared its ugly head 
in July 1995 when more than 1,000 Muslims were bused to the farm, shot 
in groups of 10, and then bulldozed over. Months later when then U.N. 
Ambassador Madeleine Albright visited the mass grave, as she walked 
along this mass grave area, the bones crunched underneath her feet.
  This chart, Mr. Chairman, of the mass burial at Branjevo Farm in the 
Donje Pilica area in Bosnia and Herzegovina shows Members the general 
area of the farm where livestock was raised and the area where the 
bodies were put into a pit and then covered over. Some of my colleagues 
have seen photos of that in the papers.
  Today the ghosts of Branjevo and the ghosts of Srebrenica and other 
places soar and drop over our consciousness and they challenge our 
sensibilities and they ask us, where we were when, did we take a stand, 
did we speak out, did we come forward to say no more killing, do we say 
no more killing today? Do we say the United States will continue to 
share the burdens of keeping the peace in the world as the most 
powerful Nation in the world, stepping up to our responsibility?

[[Page H4293]]

  Let us remember why we sent troops to Bosnia in the first place. 
Exactly 50 years after the Nazis and their atrocities, another genocide 
occurred in Europe as a result of nationalism, racial and religious 
hatred, and the obsession to create ethnically pure states. The 
international community stood silently by as more than 2 million people 
were displaced and more than 200,000 human beings were killed, and 
horrendous acts of torture, systematic rape, and similar expressions of 
barbarity ensued. There is universal consensus that to protect human 
beings against gross violations of their basic human rights is no 
longer considered interfering with the internal affairs of the state. 
It is no longer a European problem, it is a world problem, it is a 
world responsibility and as the most powerful Nation in the world it is 
also our responsibility.
  If incidents like these can continue, albeit on a drastically reduced 
scale, where for example in Mostar recently, a 70-year-old woman's door 
was kicked in, she was torn from her bed, killed, wrapped in sheets and 
dumped in a field along the highway. Within days, a soldier and his 
family moved into her apartment. No charges filed. No arrests made.
  If incidents like these can continue, what will happen if we pull out 
of an area? What will happen to the peace? What will happen to our 
troops? What will happen to the survivors of genocide? The ghosts of 
Branjevo are watching. The ghosts of Srebrenica are watching.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Buyer] who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military 
Personnel and the author of one of the amendments today.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, on October 30, 1995, the House 
overwhelmingly passed House Resolution 247, a nonbinding resolution 
which urged the President to obtain prior authorization for any 
deployment of United States forces to Bosnia and that the Dayton peace 
agreement should not be predicated on United States ground troops but 
really focus on the parties so that they can discuss about the real 
reasons they are killing each other.
  On November 21, 1995, the House passed H.R. 2606 offered by the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Hefley] which would deny funds for the 
Bosnian mission unless specifically appropriated by Congress. The bill 
passed 243 to 171, but the measure failed in the U.S. Senate.
  Finally on December 13, 1995, the House passed the Buyer-Skelton 
measure which reiterated the body's opposition to the deployment of 
ground troops. At that time the President indicated that the Bosnian 
deployment would last about 1 year. On September 15, 1996, the 
Committee on National Security heard testimony from former Assistant 
Secretary of Defense John White who stated, ``IFOR will complete the 
withdrawal of all troops in the weeks immediately after December 20, 
1996 on a schedule set by the NATO commanders.''
  As we now know, immediately following the Presidential election, the 
President extended the mission in Bosnia until June of 1998 and renamed 
from IFOR to SFOR which stands for sustainment force.
  On November 22, 1996, I attended a hearing of the Committee on 
International Relations. At that hearing the administration officials 
testified concerning the lack of progress in the civilian 
reconstruction efforts that have been experienced since the Dayton 
accords were signed. IFOR and now SFOR has accomplished the military 
mission of ceasing hostilities in the region. However, a May 1997 GAO 
report indicates that ``while the task of implementing the civil 
aspects of the Dayton agreement has begun, transition to an effective 
multi-ethnic government has not occurred.''
  The report goes on to say that Bosnia remains politically and 
ethnically divided. The limited progress to date has been due 
principally to the failure of the political leaders of Bosnia's three 
major ethnic groups to embrace political and social reconstruction and 
to fulfill their obligations under the Dayton agreements.
  IFOR and SFOR has accomplished their mission, but the civilian 
leadership of the region and the international community in general 
have failed to make sufficient progress on reconstruction and 
reconciliation. The time is near for the United States to withdraw its 
ground forces from the region. Likewise, the time has come for the 
European nations to meet the challenge of rebuilding the Balkans.
  We in Congress have a dual responsibility. We must ensure the support 
of the peace process with the military forces and what I envision we 
will discuss here this afternoon is the over-the-horizon case. We want 
to work with our European allies to do exactly that.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to share with all my colleagues that I believe 
some of the problems that we are facing today in fact was inked in the 
Dayton accords. When the Dayton accords were signed, we came in and we 
just separated the parties. Rather than focusing on some of the 
problems, we said, ``Well, we'll delay them, we'll deal with them 
later.'' The parties right now are hunkered down and they are in the 
posture of deny and delay. That is why the Dayton accords has set forth 
a problem that we are facing today. When it is ill-conceived, 
improperly defined, and highly dangerous, it leads to the open 
commitment of ground troops.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha].
  Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, as most Members know, I have been involved 
in this issue for the entire length of time that the United States 
became aware of what was going on in Bosnia, and I realize there is an 
amazing difference between all of us about when troops should have been 
deployed and when they should not. I can remember vividly the debate on 
the floor of the House after the Dayton accord. There were predictions 
there would be American troops brought back in body bags. There were 
predictions that there would be a disastrous deployment for U.S. 
forces. When it started out, it looked like that was going to happen. 
President Clinton, against a lot of advice, made one of the most 
courageous decisions of his Presidency. He worked out an agreement, he 
put U.S. forces in conjunction with other forces under NATO on the 
ground.
  I am not one that believes that U.S. forces could have stopped this 
fighting before an agreement. I believe we had to have an agreement. 
But the truth has been that everything that has happened since the 
agreement has been positive. We have not lost one single American 
soldier from hostile fire. We have not had one person come back in a 
body bag from hostile fire. What happened before was just unmitigated 
killing by both sides. They hated each other. Once the accord was done, 
they were worn out, they decided that the territory was settled by the 
war itself and they are trying to reassimilate themselves.

                              {time}  1630

  The last time I was there, more agriculture than we had ever seen 
before, unemployment was down 50 percent in Sarajevo. Employment is 
coming back. People are starting to renew their lives.
  The day that I went in, one of the last times I went in, the Dayton 
Accord was just signed, and it was a quiet night, and I stayed in the 
hotel there because we could not get out of Sarajevo before dark. They 
said, well, only 4000 rounds were fired. Now that was the day before 
the Dayton Accord. Since that time there has not been any rounds fired, 
there has been nobody killed. It is almost at if some Members or some 
people wish something would happen.
  And I know that I am not suggesting that anybody has that motive. I 
know that all of us are trying to protect American forces. The thing 
that worries me: If we put into place either of these amendments that 
we say firmly under the law we take away the flexibility of the 
President of the United States.
  And we cannot argue with the results of what the President has done; 
the President has been successful. One of the reasons is because of the 
tremendous work of the troops. We have given the troops the 
responsibility to carry out their mission, we have not interfered. We 
do not want to interfere in this. Do they understand what they are 
doing? Do they appreciate what they are doing?

[[Page H4294]]

  I went to an outpost, one of the foremost outposts in Bosnia, and I 
went into what they called the slaughter house, and they showed me a 
room where nothing but bodies was in when they first went in there. 
There had been a mass killing in that particular room. They had cleaned 
it up, they put whitewash on the walls, but they left one small bloody 
hand print on that porous wall, and they took every single soldier that 
came to that outpost to see that small bloody hand print because they 
wanted the soldiers to know why they were there.
  I believe that the Europeans should be able to handle this 
themselves. I said it for 4 or 5 years while the fighting was going on. 
But they begged us to take a leadership position.
  Nobody else has logistics capability, the administrative capability 
or the leadership and experience capability the United States has, and 
our military has done a marvelous job. I think we make a substantial 
mistake if we put any kind of a time limitation in law.
  There is nobody wants to get them out more than I do. Nobody believes 
that the June date should be adhered to more than I do. I just do not 
believe we should put an arbitrary time limit, and I would request that 
the Members think very seriously, whatever motive we have, think very 
seriously about putting in law a time limitation, and I would ask the 
Members to vote against this time limitation.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary].
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, we have all heard about how difficult it 
is for Congress to get clear answers from the administration on the 
current situation or exit strategy in Bosnia. Congress needs to regain 
control of this situation. The compromise substitute amendment I am 
offering, the Hilleary-Condit-Kasich-Jones-Frank amendment, would 
accomplish three major objectives:
  It commits the United States to leave Bosnia by December 31, 1997, 
unless the President requests and Congress approves a 180-day 
extension. Should that happen, and I find it likely that it would, 
frankly, the date for the final withdrawal of all U.S. Armed Forces 
would be June 30, 1998. It also prohibits DOD spending for law 
enforcement and related activities by U.S. troops. This averts the 
mission creep that caused heavy casualties against United States 
soldiers in Somalia. It also prepares the Europeans to assume the 
mission. Rather than accept the self-fulfilling prophecy that the 
Europeans cannot do the mission, the legislation will require the 
executive branch to report on steps being taken to restore the 
Europeans to their appropriate role, deficiencies in our allies' 
capabilities and steps being taken to remedy those deficiencies.
  It is way past time, Mr. Chairman, for Congress to get a handle on 
this spending and to protect the men and women in the military who 
signed up to defend our national security, not police the world. Let us 
bring our troops home from Bosnia. I urge all my colleagues to vote for 
the Hilleary-Condit-Kasich-Jones-Frank bipartisan compromise amendment 
later this afternoon.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, let us slow it down and think about what it is we are 
doing. There are 2 amendments before the body that call for a date 
certain of withdrawing Americans troops. The previous speaker in the 
well said we should not be the police officer to the world. I agree. 
Let us talk about where we are.
  We are in a period that is so unique we have not come up with a name 
for it. We simply call it the post cold war era. But it is an era that 
is defined by change and difference and transition, and, as I have said 
on more than one occasion, both challenge and opportunity. In this 
period America has just begun to internalize and learn about, accept, 
play the role of peacekeeper, peacemaker, peace enforcer. This has not 
been part of the American lexicon: peacekeeping, peacemaking. This is 
all new to us. We are learning and evolving.
  The first practical reality of setting a date, I would challenge 
anyone here: Does the human condition lend itself to a date certain? 
Does it?
  What was happening that caused us to be in Bosnia in the first place?
  I want to remind my colleagues 250,000 people were killed, 13,000 of 
them children, women raped, beaten and brutalized, and I said, Mr. 
Chairman, to many of my colleagues who did not want America to play the 
role of peacekeeper in Bosnia because it, A, was not in our national 
security interests, and I went back and looked at the record of the 
discussion and debate when 6 million Jews were being killed in the 
context of Nazi Germany. People were saying, ``There is nothing we 
should do; it's not in our national security interests.''
  But Members who were on the floor in the context of this debate said, 
``If I were there during that period of time, I would have stood up and 
challenged the murder of 6 million people.''
  Well, do my colleagues know what that did? That let me know where my 
colleagues' moral compass is. If 6 million people die, one could be 
morally outraged. So now we are dickering at what the bottom line is; 
Five million? Three million? Two million? Can we get outraged morally 
because 250,000 people died and we are the major, the one, superpower 
standing?
  So some of us said, yes, we have a moral obligation, that that is in 
our national interest to stop the killing and the maiming. At what 
point do human beings move beyond the folly of murdering and killing 
each other as a way of solving problems? At what point do we move 
beyond that bizarre and barbaric way of solving human problems as a 
civilized society?
  So we said yes, peacekeeping. But remember we did not walk in. What 
happened? The parties to the killing and the maiming came to this 
country, in Dayton, Ohio, sat down around a table for days, and they 
worked out a peace agreement. Maybe not perfect; who am I to know? But 
these are people who were killing each other, maiming each other, 
murdering and raping each other, and they went to the table and they 
hammered out a peace agreement.
  And then they came to us as the great superpower committed to 
compassion, human rights, justice and peace and all the things we write 
down, and they said, ``Look. Here is a peace agreement. It's not 
perfect, but we hammered it out in your country on your soil. But we 
don't quite still trust each other. This is because they killed my 
parents, I killed theirs; they killed my children, I killed theirs; we 
killed each others' neighbors. And so for a while we do not quite trust 
each other. So will you and other nations in the world help us to make 
the peace real? Be peacemakers? Peacekeepers? Keep us apart for a 
while? Let us begin to build the necessary conditions that would allow 
a warm peace, a real peace.''

  As my colleagues know, as someone much more eloquent than this 
gentleman once said, the fascinating thing about peace is we do not 
have to make peace with our friends, we make peace with our enemies, 
and peace is hard because it is about making peace with somebody that 
killed and maimed people, and killed and maimed their children, their 
parents, their friends, their relatives, their neighbors. So we need 
some help.
  So we stood up for this country, but if I remember the circumstances, 
my colleagues, this body did not. This body went on record, as one of 
my colleagues pointed out, saying that the President should come to the 
Congress for prior approval. As my colleagues know, I believe in that. 
I am a man of peace. I believe in peace. But I am a hawk when it comes 
to preserving Congress' prerogatives on the issue of the deployment of 
our troops.
  I sued President Bush when he thought he could go to the Persian Gulf 
and violate the rights of the Congress to declare and to make war, 
rendering impotent 500,000 people that I represent. And thank God that 
Members joined with us and a decision was made, not in the court, but a 
ruling that made the President say maybe on sober reflection I ought to 
come to the Congress. Even the most incredible pundits in America said 
this was Congress' greatest moment when it stood up and debated whether 
we should or should not go. We did not do this on Bosnia; we let the 
President go, we passed the thing, a piece of paper that said we 
support the troops.
  I believe that this is the wrong debate, it ought to be Congress 
militant

[[Page H4295]]

about congressional powers when it comes to the deployment of troops, 
but we ought to be there on the front end, have heart, have courage, 
stand up and say, yes, they ought to go; no, they should not go. But do 
not wait until they are there and then say date certain, withdrawal. 
That is on the tail-end of the discussion. Where is the courage in all 
of that?
  I join my colleagues in standing here saying, ``Mr. President, 
whenever you're going to put troops out there in harm's way, you come 
to us. Article I, Section 8, the Constitution, gives us that right,'' 
and if that is not clear in the context of the post-cold war world, 
then let us pick up the War Powers Act, which I think is an impotent 
and incompetent instrument to guide us through the post-cold war era. 
Let us rewrite it so that it speaks to the reality of the world that we 
presently live in.
  But this is not the way, at the end to pick out a date, to say we 
have got to withdraw. We did not have the courage to step up to it in 
the first place; that is where Congress should assert itself; that is 
the correct debate.
  Now, Mr. Chairman, there are practical realities. This is not just a 
struggle between the President and the Congress. There are practical 
realities to our withdrawal. I cite one.
  The Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that many of us talk about, we 
want to speak about the troops. This is our highest-ranking military 
person who wrote with respect to date certain the following, and I 
quote in part from a letter, a joint letter, dated May of this year:
  ``We remain committed to a June 1998 withdrawal date. However we 
strongly oppose statutorily mandating withdrawal of United States 
forces from the NATO-led stabilization force by that date or indeed any 
specific date.''
  I go further. ``A fixed withdrawal date will restrict U.S. 
commanders' flexibility, encourage our opponents, opponents meaning 
people who oppose the peace process who want to pursue violence and 
undermine the important psychological advantage U.S. troops enjoy. Our 
forces must be able to proceed with the minimum of risk to U.S. 
personnel. Legislating their redeployment schedule would completely 
change the dynamics on the ground and could undercut troop safety.''
  Now we are in the wrong part of the debate; my colleagues want to 
micro-manage the discussion, did not have the heart to step up to it in 
the first place and say they should go or they should not go. So now we 
want to take political shots.
  I walked in the door, heard people saying that our foreign policy 
ought to be nonpartisan. Our foreign policy ought to be bipartisan. We 
fight here, but when we leave these shores, we join hand and we have a 
bipartisan foreign policy.
  What is this? What is this? Our own military people are saying, ``You 
are micromanaging, you are putting troops in harm's way''; these are 
our own military saying this.

                              {time}  1645

  We should debate it up front, go or do not go, but do not leave the 
micromanaging to the wrong side of the debate.
  I would conclude with this. We went there on moral grounds, we went 
there to save human life. I thought that was a dignified, courageous 
and lofty thing to do. Now that we are there, they are going to go out 
in June of next year; I did not agree, the gentleman from Colorado said 
anybody who says we should not have a date certain, I did, because I 
knew that we were learning about peacekeeping. And that date certain 
may play a political game, but it does not deal with the reality. If 
one is about peace, one is about peace. If it takes 1 month, 1 year, 18 
months, 2 years, we do it if we are committed to peace. Or if we are 
just committed to do a little political dance, then we walk away 
whenever we choose to walk away but not because we are committed to 
these ideals.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 20 seconds.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to try to see if we cannot put this whole 
thing in perspective, with all of the rhetoric on both sides of the 
issue here today in debating this question. The President of the United 
States set this date himself for withdrawal in the Dayton accords. Both 
of these amendments propose to give that same date as the date for 
withdrawal. One gives a different plan for getting up to the date.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina 
[Mr. Jones].
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, United States troops in Bosnia have been 
forgotten. Clearly the saying, out of sight, out of mind, applies to 
our men and women in Bosnia. While many Americans were opposed to 
deploying U.S. troops to Bosnia, we found some comfort in knowing that 
our troops were to come home at the end of 1 year.
  Well, Mr. Chairman, as we know, the President has broken his promise 
time and again and still will not commit to a withdrawal date. Enough 
is enough.
  I am a supporter of national defense, and I believe our men and women 
in Bosnia are doing an extraordinary job under tough circumstances; but 
I am troubled by an operation with no congressional authorization, no 
congressional consultation. In fact, our only function is to pay the 
bill. It is time for Congress to play a role and support the Hilleary 
amendment to ensure the safe and orderly withdrawal of United States 
troops from Bosnia.
  America has done its duty. Let us bring our troops home.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I would simply yield myself 30 seconds to say that this is a debate 
that takes us beyond rhetoric, and I think to use the term rhetoric is 
not advisable in the context of this debate. We are talking about life 
and death here, and to demean anyone's comments as rhetoric I think 
does not bode well.
  We are intelligent people here. Let us lift the level of the 
discussion and the debate. I am not prepared to challenge anyone on 
rhetorical grounds here. I am prepared to challenge any Member of 
Congress on substantive grounds, and I would hope that my distinguished 
colleague on the other side of the aisle would move beyond using the 
term rhetoric. It is demeaning and it is inappropriate in the context 
of the debate that ought to take us to a much higher level.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington [Mr. Metcalf].
  Mr. METCALF. Mr. Chairman, I opposed sending the troops to Bosnia. 
There was no critical U.S. interest involved, or, if there was, it 
escaped the notice of the President. He was never able to state it 
clearly.
  I said over a year ago, it is easy to send troops in but very 
difficult to accomplish stability and exit in a safe, honorable, and 
timely way.
  The President promised the troops out by December 1996. Now he says 
June 30, 1998. Why should this Congress not set a date certain and hold 
him to it? I support bringing the troops home December 1997, that is 
the Hilleary amendment. If that fails, then I think we should set an 
absolute deadline of June 1998.
  Congress must not continue to acquiesce to the President and allow 
him to leave our troops in Bosnia indefinitely. Both amendments give 
the President and our allies ample flexibility and notice that U.S. 
troops will be withdrawn.
  I urge every one of my colleagues to support the Hilleary amendment, 
of which I am a cosponsor; and if that is unsuccessful, support the 
Buyer amendment.
  There are many good reasons, but the cost alone, $7 billion already, 
demands that Congress do its duty, support the troops by bringing them 
home by a date certain.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Engel], my distinguished colleague.
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for yielding me this 
time.
  I want to just say that I think that we ought not to tie the 
President's hands, and we ought not to say that beyond a certain date 
certain our troops ought to go home.
  The people, our colleagues who are now saying that we ought to set a 
fixed date, are the same people who predicted dire disaster and dire 
consequences if the President sent troops to Bosnia. That has not 
happened. In fact, we can be proud of what our American troops have 
done in Bosnia. We have saved thousands upon thousands upon thousands 
of lives.
  Until the United States got involved, people were killing each other, 
men,

[[Page H4296]]

women, children; there was no end to the carnage. Since the United 
States has been there, we have helped bring peace to the region. It was 
only when the United States got involved that peace came. When our 
European allies were doing it, peace did not come; it was elusive. It 
was only when the United States got involved that we put an end to the 
carnage.
  I am proud of the role that we play. The United States is the leader 
of the free world, and sometimes we have to act like leaders of the 
free world. It does not mean that we need to be the policeman of the 
world or we need to rush to every incident in the world, but here, in 
Bosnia, it became crystal clear that, without United States help and 
intervention, the carnage was not going to end.
  So my colleagues who are now saying, let us get out, let us pull 
people out, are the ones that did not want us to go there in the first 
place. They said that there would be many, many American casualties; 
they said that it would be a disaster; they said that we would not be 
able to do the job. We have proven them wrong. It has not been a 
disaster. Thankfully, there have not been tremendous amounts of 
American casualties, virtually no American casualties.
  I went to Bosnia last year with then-Secretary of Defense Bill Perry; 
I saw firsthand how our troops were doing. I saw firsthand the 
precautions that were being taken to ensure the safety of American 
troops. I was proud to walk with our soldiers. I was proud to see the 
role we were playing and the job we were doing.
  The naysayers said it could not happen. They were wrong. Let us leave 
it the way it is. The President has done a very good job. He is not 
going to let our troops stay 1 day more than they have to stay. He is 
thinning down the amount of troops that will be there. He is saying 
that we intend to get out by June 1998. But we cannot foresee the 
consequences of what might happen down the road.
  Do we need to set a date certain to send a message to the parties 
there that we are definitely getting out come hell or high water? No. 
We cannot do that, and we should not do that, and it would be imprudent 
to do that.
  I have letters here that I am sure my colleagues got from General 
Shalikashvili, from Secretary of Defense Cohen, from Secretary of State 
Madeleine Albright, and they all say the same thing: Do not tie our 
hands. We are thinning out the troops. There are going to be less 
American troops. Our allies in Europe are going to be playing a major 
role. This is not the time to do it.
  I am proud of the role that the United States has played. Let us not 
tie the President's hands.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Tennessee [Mr. Bryant].
  Mr. BRYANT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time 
on this very serious debate.
  First of all, let me say that I join in all of my colleagues in this 
House in support of our troops, the 8,000-plus soldiers in Bosnia and 
for the outstanding job they are doing. We are hearing testimony to 
that today of the record they have there and the job they are doing, 
and again, without war-related casualties. That is great.
  I think, though, that when many of us considered this debate in the 
beginning, we had great hesitancy and philosophical differences in 
sending our soldiers over there when we felt that America's national 
interests were not at stake. Many of us continue to have those doubts, 
but yet, we received some comfort when we made that vote and when 
ultimately our soldiers were sent over there that there would be 
deadlines. There would actually be goals to be accomplished with our 
troops over there, putting their lives and limbs at issue. But yet, we 
seem to be going down that path of open-endedness. We do not see that 
goal, that end in sight any longer.
  We resist the idea that our soldiers ought not have that, especially 
when we are carrying the heavy weight there. We are carrying the water 
over there. At a time when we are having to downsize our military 
forces, our national defense; at a time when we are having to go back 
in and work on salvaging the morale of our soldiers and we have 
soldiers in some cases that are being paid so little they are on food 
stamps, and when they are training in this country, the training for 
the job they are supposed to be doing, not just being a policeman in 
Bosnia, but they are actually trained to do other jobs in case we have 
to defend ourselves. That is suffering. The equipment that we give 
these soldiers, we have to pay for that.
  When we are having to divert money from those types of good things to 
support a police-keeping effort that seems to be endless in Bosnia, 
many of us have great concerns there. We believe it is the right thing 
to do at this point. We do not want to tie hands, but we want a 
definite date certain for our soldiers and our taxpayers.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Hampshire [Mr. Bass].
  Mr. BASS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by 
the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer] and the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary] concerning the need to set a 
schedule to get our troops out of Bosnia by a date certain. I just want 
to say that this position in no way diminishes my outrage at the 
alleged atrocities that have been committed in this region, as was so 
eloquently described by my colleague, the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Dellums], and it in no way diminishes my concern and commitment to 
ensure that our troops remain safe and secure as they defend our 
interests over in that area.
  But let me just point out that the United States has never been able 
to successfully mediate civil wars around the world. I would only point 
out, for example, what happened to us in Bosnia, what happened to us in 
Lebanon and, as we all know, what happened to us in Vietnam. We are 
good at stopping incursions and defending countries and then leaving, 
but we are not good at mediating civil wars, and that is precisely what 
is going on in the Balkan region.
  I know the President wants to get us out of Bosnia in a reasonable 
period of time, but it just is not going to be possible without the 
help and support of Congress. Now, the Buyer amendment gets us out in 
the middle of next year, which is when the President now says he is 
going to get us out of the area. The Hilleary amendment calls for a 
date certain at the end of this year with a congressional resolution 
thereafter. This will get us out of a situation that is costing us 
anywhere from $5 million to $10 million a day. We can work together 
with the President to end this incursion and do so in an orderly and 
successful fashion.
  So I support both the Buyer amendment and the Hilleary amendment. I 
think that it is time for Congress to step forward and definitively 
provide an exit strategy for our troop involvement in the Balkan 
region.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the chairman of the Committee on the Budget.

                              {time}  1700

  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I was in the Congress the weekend when the 
bombing of our barracks in Beirut took place. It was a sobering event 
for all the American people. I think it was during that period that we 
began to determine that we needed a good set of rules that the country 
could follow when it came to putting our people in harm's way.
  Soon after the tragedy in Beirut, then-Secretary of Defense Casper 
Weinberger came out with more or less a set of rules that would guide 
the United States as they intervened around the world: Is there an 
achievable goal; is there an exit strategy; does it have public 
support; and is it in the direct, vital national interest of the United 
States? One thing he did not ask is what is the role of our allies. But 
in the post-cold war period, it is absolutely essential that we ask, 
what is the role of our allies?
  First of all, in regard to Bosnia, is there an achievable goal? Let 
me maintain that I do not believe there is. In fact, when we study the 
region of Bosnia-Herzegovina, it is pretty clear that pre-19th century, 
the parties had engaged in warfare. The region has not been stable 
since before the 19th century. Pre-19th century all the way up to the 
end of the 20th century has indicated that the parties in that region

[[Page H4297]]

have not been able to create a stable environment. In fact, it was only 
under the brutal iron fist of President Tito that the parties were able 
to remain in some kind of a stable relationship.
  I am uncertain as to whether there is a stable goal of being able to 
provide some kind of a Democratic environment in this region. But 
nevertheless, the United States intervened and separated the warring 
parties and stopped the slaughter that was going on, so the United 
States has done its job, the job it set out to do, to separate the 
warring parties. Many of us had a lot of questions about whether that 
was right at the time, but nevertheless, we went, we did our job. Now 
what remains to keep the peace is for our allies who we have protected 
for 50 years to continue to patrol the streets of Sarajevo and Bosnia.
  If we worked with our allies for the last 50 years to put them in a 
position to be able to stop the advance of Soviet tanks across the 
Fulda Gap in a major armored invasion, is it not likely that our 
European allies would be able to patrol the streets of Sarajevo and 
keep the peace? I say yes. But I say they will not do it until we make 
sure that they are in the place of being forced to do it.
  Of course they want us to do their job. The fact is, this is a vote 
on telling our allies to step up to the plate and do what they were 
intended to do, what we trained them to do over the course of the last 
50 years.
  Is it in the direct national interest? I have not heard that case 
made. I have not heard that case made by the administration, I have not 
heard that case made by any of our defense intellectuals as to how the 
United States being in Sarajevo today is in the direct national 
interest of the United States.
  We want the President to have that opportunity. Under the Hilleary 
amendment he would be forced to make the case as to why we should be 
there. He should do it, he must do it, the same way George Bush made 
the case. As we got ready to go to war against Saddam Hussein, 
Secretary Baker called me at home and said, what is your view as to 
whether we should have a vote in the Congress? I said absolutely, we 
must have the vote. So if it is in the direct national interest, let us 
have the President lay it out and let us vote on it.
  Now, what about the question of allies? I think they can do the job, 
Mr. Chairman. The United States under the Hilleary amendment is 
prepared to offer the logistical and technical support they need in 
order to do the job, for them to be able to accomplish their objective 
in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  Mr. Chairman, let me suggest I worry about our troops. I worry about 
the military being sent into a mission that is not well-defined, that I 
question is achievable, that is fuzzy.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member, the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Dellums] for yielding time to me.
  I understand the frustration the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] had 
in trying to explain his position in 5 minutes. All of us are 
constrained by time, but we ought to be constrained by good judgment on 
this issue as well.
  Yes, there was an issue as to whether or not we ought to deploy 
troops in Bosnia. There was concern. The President brought together at 
Dayton a new paradigm, if you will, to borrow from the Bush 
administration, and that paradigm was that we were going to be 
peacekeepers and peacemakers. We obviously have the ability to make 
war, but we were going to use our might to, yes, as Chairman Kasich has 
indicated, separate the parties, bring genocide to a close, and to, 
yes, put at risk some of our people.
  We did so in the context of large force so our people would be 
protected. That, in my opinion, made sense. I believe, Mr. Chairman, 
however, that it would not make sense at this point in time to set 
dates certain. Many Members in this body have talked to General Joulwan 
and other leaders of our military in NATO and in our own forces.
  They do not believe, as I think perhaps the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Dellums] and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] have 
already stated, that a date certain is in the best interests of the 
United States, of the date on peace accords, or the people of Bosnia-
Herzegovina, or, in fact, the Serbska Republic.
  I would urge my colleagues to continue to express their desires that 
we, as the President wants to do, extricate ourselves in a timely 
fashion, but let us not set a date certain so that we will in fact 
freeze in place the opponents of a Democratic, peaceful resolution of 
the conflict in the Balkans and simply try to outwait the United 
States.
  Mr. Chairman, I again I thank the ranking member, the chairman in 
exile, for yielding me the time.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums] is 
recognized for 2 minutes.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, if you believe in one of the notions that 
one of my colleagues asserted, that people cannot move to peace because 
for years they have been killing each other, then we would still 
believe in the divine right of kings and the right of people to buy and 
sell other human beings as chattel. We have moved beyond that. People 
can evolve. The human condition can evolve. People can grow. People can 
move, Mr. Chairman, and I believe that very sincerely.
  Mr. Chairman, at one point war was the dominant paradigm on this 
planet. The great gift we can give to our children and our children's 
children is to move beyond that war-making paradigm. I believe that in 
the context of the post-cold war world, the scenarios we are more 
likely to encounter are the Somalias, the Haitis, the Rwandas, the 
Bosnias of the world. I believe right before our very eyes our warriors 
are transitioning to peacekeepers and peacemakers and peace enforcers.
  It may be difficult for us to put our minds around that idea because 
our peacekeepers still look like warriors, they still dress as 
warriors, they still carry warriors' weapons, and in many ways they are 
trained like warriors. But this is a new world, a new day. We are 
moving beyond the paradigm of bombing and killing and maiming.
  The world is more likely to be peacekeeping, peacemaking, peace 
enforcement. Because of that transition it is imperative that we as a 
major power on this planet learn about peacekeeping, peacemaking. Mr. 
Chairman, one thing we learned in our hearings, in looking at the 
question of peacekeeping in a post-cold war world, was that an 
important set of principles as a peacekeeper were make no enemies, take 
no sides. In Somalia we learned that the hard way. In Bosnia we have 
learned. No one has died.
  I find it incredible that many of the same people who want to pull us 
out of peacekeeping would like, would be much quicker to carry us into 
war, where we really would harm and kill and maim. I do not understand 
that concept.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I will sum up. This whole question of Bosnia comes down 
to this. If we look at history, this thing first got started, and our 
President said all along, on numerous occasions over a period of years, 
that we would put no ground troops in Bosnia. We were doing different 
things, as Members know, on and off in that effort. But he kept 
reiterating, we would not ever put ground troops in Bosnia.
  Then, of course, he did, along with the Dayton accord, so-called, the 
agreement was made that we would go and send ground troops along with 
NATO troops to Bosnia. That was back in 1996. He said at that time that 
we would be out in a year, and that year passed, and then the election 
came about and he transferred it on out another year, and said we would 
be out then, this time, in June of 1998.
  That is the date we are talking about in both of these amendments, as 
I was trying to say earlier. With the talk that we hear back and forth 
on both sides, the fact still remains we have two amendments to 
consider today. Both of them just hold the President to his own date to 
withdraw in June of 1998. One of them is just a plain vote on getting 
out in June 1998, with some follow-on efforts being made by our people 
after that time.
  The other one starts back 6 months before June 1998 and it tells the 
President to tell us what your plans for withdrawal are during the next 
6

[[Page H4298]]

months in getting our people out, so you have a withdrawal plan and we 
would know about it. But both amendments, I reiterate, hold the 
President to his own declared deadline.
  The reason this comes up today, this issue, is because on so many 
occasions before, the President has set a deadline and then did not go 
by it. As a matter of fact, he went into Bosnia in the first place 
without the agreement of Congress and the American people. All the 
polls showed overwhelmingly that the American people were opposed to 
it. Congress was opposed to it. He did it anyway. This is the first 
meaningful vote we will have, the Congress will have, to express itself 
on this whole issue. In the meantime, we have spent a lot of money and 
a lot of effort, and we still have a real problem before us.
  The CHAIRMAN. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 8 printed 
in part 1 of House Report 105-137.


                  Amendment No. 8 offered by Mr. Buyer

  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 8.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment numbered 8 offered by Mr. Buyer:
       Strike out section 1201(b) (page 373, line 4, through page 
     375, line 15).
       At the end of title XII (page 379, after line 19), insert 
     the following new sections:

     SEC. 1205. UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES IN BOSNIA.

       (a) Limitation.--Funds appropriated or otherwise made 
     available for the Department of Defense may not be obligated 
     for the deployment of any ground elements of the United 
     States Armed Forces in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
     after----
       (1) June 30, 1998; or
       (2) such later date as may be specifically prescribed by 
     law after the date of the enactment of this Act, based upon a 
     request from the President or otherwise as the Congress may 
     determine.
       (b) Exceptions.--The limitation in subsection (a) shall not 
     apply to the extent necessary to support (1) a limited number 
     of United States military personnel sufficient only to 
     protect United States diplomatic facilities in existence on 
     the date of the enactment of this Act, and (2) noncombat 
     military personnel sufficient only to advise the commanders 
     North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeeping operations in 
     the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       (c) Construction of Section.--Nothing in this section shall 
     be deemed to restrict the authority of the President under 
     the Constitution to protect the lives of United States 
     citizens.

     SEC. 1206. LIMITATION ON SUPPORT FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT 
                   ACTIVITIES IN BOSNIA.

       None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available 
     to the Department of Defense may be obligated or expended 
     after the date of the enactment of this Act for the conduct 
     of, or direct support for, law enforcement activities in the 
     Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, except for the training 
     of law enforcement personnel or to prevent imminent loss of 
     life.

     SEC. 1207. PRESIDENTIAL REPORT ON POLITICAL AND MILITARY 
                   CONDITIONS IN BOSNIA.

       (a) Report.--Not later than December 15, 1997, the 
     President shall submit to Congress a report on the political 
     and military conditions in the Republic of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina (hereafter in this section referred to as Bosnia-
     Herzegovina). Of the funds available to the Secretary of 
     Defense for fiscal year 1998 for the operation of United 
     States ground forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina during that fiscal 
     year, no more than 60 percent may be expended before the 
     report is submitted.
       (b) Matters To Be Included.--The report under subsection 
     (a) shall include a discussion of the following:
       (1) An identification of the specific steps taken by the 
     United States Government to transfer the United States 
     portion of the peacekeeping mission in the Republic of Bosnia 
     and Herzegovina to European allied nations or organizations.
       (2) A detailed discussion of the proposed role and 
     involvement of the United States in supporting peacekeeping 
     activities in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
     following the withdrawal of United States ground forces from 
     the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina pursuant to section 
     1205.
       (3) A detailed explanation and timetable for carrying out 
     the President's commitment to withdraw all United States 
     ground forces from Bosnia-Herzegovina by the end of June 
     1998, including the planned date of commencement and 
     completion of the withdrawal.
       (4) The date on which the transition from the multinational 
     force known as the Stabilization Force to the planned 
     multinational successor force to be known as the Deterrence 
     Force will occur and how the decision as to that date will 
     impact the estimates of costs associated with the operation 
     of United States ground forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina 
     during fiscal year 1998 as contained in the President's 
     budget for fiscal year 1998.
       (5) The military and political considerations that will 
     affect the decision to carry out such a transition.
       (6) Any plan to maintain or expand other Bosnia-related 
     operations (such as the operation designated as Operation 
     Deliberate Guard) if tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina remain 
     sufficient to delay the transition from the Stabilization 
     Force to the Deterrence Force and the estimated cost 
     associated with each such operation.
       (7) Whether allied nations participating in the Bosnia 
     mission have similar plans to increase and maintain troop 
     strength or maintain ground forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina and, 
     if so, the identity of each such country and a description of 
     that country's plans.
       (c) Stabilization Force Defined.--As used in this section, 
     the term ``Stabilization Force'' (referred to as ``SFOR'') 
     means the follow-on force to the Implementation Force (known 
     as ``IFOR'') in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and 
     other countries in the region, authorized under United 
     Nations Security Council Resolution 1008 (December 12, 1996).
       Page 371, line 25, strike out ``(1)''.
       Page 372, line 8, strike out ``(2) For purposes of this 
     paragraph,'' and insert in lieu thereof ``(b) Covered United 
     States Forces.--For purposes of this section,''.
       Page 372, line 15, strike out ``(3) and insert in lieu 
     thereof ``(c) Matters To Be Included.--''.
       Page 372, beginning on line 16, strike out ``paragraph (1), 
     for each activity identified in that paragraph'' and insert 
     in lieu thereof ``subsection (a), for each activity 
     identified under that subsection''.
       Page 372, line 18, strike out ``(A)'' and insert in lieu 
     thereof ``(1)''.
       Page 372, line 20, strike out ``(B)'' and insert in lieu 
     thereof ``(2)''.
       Page 372, line 23, strike out ``(C)'' and insert in lieu 
     thereof ``(3)''.
       Page 373, line 1, strike out ``(4) The first report under 
     paragraph (1)'' and insert in lieu thereof ``(d) Submission 
     of Reports.--The first report under subsection (a)''.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Buyer] and a Member opposed each will control 10 minutes.
  The gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums] will control the 10 
minutes in opposition.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer].
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I have enjoyed the substance of this debate. I would 
like to comment to the ranking member when he made mention that people 
have the capacity to evolve and that the human condition can change. I 
agree. What we are trying to do here is change the way the United 
States and our allies in Europe have had a relationship over the last 
50 years.
  They are in a comfort zone. They like the United States' security 
blanket. They like that. What we are trying to do here and say, as the 
United States is the sole remaining superpower, I believe as a foreign 
policy that we should be there to provide regional stability, and our 
regional allies should be there to ensure stability within their region 
when there is no possibility of destabilizing that region.
  We can debate whether or not Bosnia in fact would destabilize Europe. 
That is debatable. But what we are trying to do here is evolve that 
human change the gentleman is talking about: How do we get our allies 
to be major players in this one?
  When I mentioned earlier about an over the horizon, 18 months ago 
when we had this debate I also wanted durable peace in Bosnia. We can 
get into the moral obligation and talk about the peace. There is not 
anybody who wants the killing or the ethnic cleansing.

                              {time}  1715

  What we want is for Europe to take the lead. We have learned, and the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] was very articulate, that 
Europe was not able to take the lead there. They were there with the 
United Nations and they felt inept.
  So when the United States exercised some leadership, compliments to 
Bill Clinton. But I find myself in a very awkward position. I led the 
debate on the House floor saying no to ground troops. Now I come to the 
House floor saying, Mr. President, I will move to codify his date to 
withdraw. There are some Members on this side of the aisle and on that 
side of aisle that say, let us get them out in December. I now have to 
come to the House floor and say, whoa, time out. I think what we should 
do is be rational here. We want to send a message to our European 
allies, keep our commitments to our international agreements, and how 
do we move toward the President's date of June 30,

[[Page H4299]]

1998? It is the President's date. It is not my date. But I want to back 
up the President with his foreign policy and his commitments, and I 
want our allies in Europe to take the lead. You say, this is NATO. You 
are right. But over the horizon what I mean is for the U.S. presence, 
for us to be there with our air power, our sea power, our logistics by 
air and sea to provide our intelligence through our architecture. We 
are right there in Hungary.
  But when we talk about what will we envision, two things I wanted to 
ask of this President. First, I want his plan for withdrawal. And 
second, after June 30, 1998, what is his plan for the follow-on force? 
What is there after SFOR? And under Dayton, it asked for an 
international police force. Are the U.S. troops going to participate in 
that? That gets into the mission creep issues at hand.
  So I have got some pretty strong concerns. That is why we want that 
plan, and that is what the Buyer amendment is about, codifying, and for 
those two reports.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond.
  The last comment the gentleman made, I totally agree. I think the 
report requirements here are important. I believe that there ought to 
be consultation. The President ought to be forthcoming with us about 
what is on the other side. What I am arguing is that we should not 
codify a date certain for both the political and the practical and the 
diplomatic reasons that I have already enunciated several different 
times.
  I do not disagree with the gentleman's last statement. We ought to 
know what is on the other side of June 1998. I am simply saying, 
putting a date certain into legislation raises a number of significant 
and serious problems, but I think what the gentleman is trying to do is 
valid. I just think this particular vehicle is inappropriate. I am not 
challenging the gentleman at that level.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
California [Mr. Lantos].
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding the time to 
me.
  I would like to put this debate in somewhat of a historic 
perspective. When the history of the 20th century will be written from 
the vantage point of 100 years from now, the Bush administration will 
deserve and will get a great deal of credit for its performance in the 
Persian Gulf. It represented American leadership at its best. And the 
Bush administration will get enormous blame for its pathetic failure in 
preventing this tragedy that has unfolded in Yugoslavia, following the 
great victory in the Persian Gulf war.
  Publicly, publicly and privately, many of us cautioned the 
administration that what was called for in 1991 was to use the 
deterrent capability of NATO which would have prevented the death of a 
quarter million innocent human beings, the creation of 1\1/2\ million 
refugees, and material damage running into the tens of billions of 
dollars.
  The Clinton administration, after a wobbly start, got it right. We 
are now in the process of destroying what has been gained since Dayton.
  You do not telegraph your punches. This region is not inherently 
unstable. It is a misreading of history that these people have been at 
each other's throats for centuries. That is simply not the case. 
Throughout most of the period, there was stability and peace. There are 
ethnic complexities which create great difficulties, but it is a myth 
which is being perpetuated on the floor of the House today that these 
people simply cannot live together.
  Just a few days ago, some of us advocated that one of the constituent 
republics of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia, be admitted to NATO now. 
I look forward to the time that all of the former constituent republics 
of Yugoslavia will be admitted into NATO and they will be admitted into 
the European Union.
  To telegraph our punch now, that on June 30, 1998, everything ceases, 
is guaranteed to undermine NATO cohesion, NATO solidarity, the 
participation of our friends and allies, and, the most likely, outbreak 
of violence, hostility, and bloodshed again.
  Have we not learned enough from the tragedy of the last few years? 
Did we not see enough pictures on television of children being 
massacred in Yugoslavia in the very heart of Europe so as not to 
advocate neoisolationism, which this proposal is. It is obvious that 
all those who want to break the peace which exists in the region would 
love to see nothing more than every single American soldier withdrawn 
on June 30, 1998. That would be the guaranteed commencement of the new 
outbreak of hostilities. To tell our NATO allies that this is your job 
completely misunderstands the nature of NATO. NATO is a collective 
security system. We do not unilaterally tell our NATO allies what we 
will and will not do. We have assumed some obligations when we joined 
NATO. It is now our responsibility to carry through with our 
obligation.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes and 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton], a member of the committee and a 
coauthor of this amendment.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, we have a very interesting and telling 
decision before us, the three choices that may be made in all of this 
Bosnia business today. The first is to adopt an amendment, which I 
oppose, to take our troops out by the end of December of this year. 
That would be wrong. No. 1, that is rushing to judgment. No. 2, that 
would be in violation of what our President has openly stated.
  The other is to leave the commitment open. To do so raises the issue 
as to whether our European allies will be ready, will take up of 
gauntlet and perform the duties we have been urging them and wanting 
them to do and take care of the European problems themselves now that 
we have shown them the way and given them the leadership.
  The other problem with the open-ended commitment is the operational 
tempo of our young troops, and I am immensely, immensely proud of them. 
But with the downsizing that we have already had of particularly the 
U.S. Army, the young soldiers will be meeting themselves going and 
coming.
  The middle ground, I believe, is to accept the word of our President 
and to adopt the date that he suggested.
  Mr. Chairman, over the past few years I have addressed this body no 
less than seven times regarding U.S. involvement in the region in 
southeast Europe. In March 1993, warning of the 1,000-year-old nature 
of tension in the region, I advocated American involvement in the form 
of organizing and leading a concert of nations for a regional peace. I 
called for a diplomatically focused coalition-building effort and 
advocated U.S. military involvement, involvement limited to the 
peripheral but essential roles of logistical support, intelligence, 
command and control, and communications; in the air and on the sea.
  In December 1995, with the impending deployment of 20,000 American 
grounds troops to that region, I appealed to this body to remember the 
importance of impartiality. I quoted the U.S. Army Field Manual: 
``Peacekeeping requires an impartial, even-handed approach.'' I voiced 
my angst that, as American peacekeepers, our sons and daughters posited 
themselves inside a centuries-old, three-sided conflict, just as 
America pledged to assist, train and equip one faction.
  During the spring and summer campaigns of 1995, parity was reached 
between the armor-heavy Serbs and the infantry-heavy Croat-Muslim 
Federation. The combined forces of the Federation pushed the enemy from 
the Bihac region back towards the Sava and the Drina Rivers.
  We have been fortunate. In 1997, we can be proud of our military 
personnel for their efforts and accomplishments. They have been 
professional and dedicated in their military duties. We have overseen a 
separation of the warring parties and a cessation of hostilities. We 
have allowed political reform to begin and refugee settlement to occur. 
We have led as no other Nation than America can.
  Keeping our troops there until the end of June 1998 will be the best 
and correct thing.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on both sides in the 
debate?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California [Mr.Dellums] has 5\1/2\ 
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer] has 3 
minutes 

[[Page H4300]]

remaining. The gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], has the right 
to close.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], chairman of the Committee on 
International Relations.
  (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me, and I rise in support of the amendment by the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Buyer].
  Mr. Chairman, in debating United States policy toward Bosnia, we have 
to begin with a candid assessment of where current administration 
policy is taking us. It is leading us apparently to another Cyprus.
  Since 1974, U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed along the so-called 
green line in Cyprus, an artificial boundary separating Christian and 
Muslim communities that used to be able to live together as one nation. 
There is no end in sight of that peacekeeping operation.
  Mr. Chairman, we do not want to be involved in another Cyprus, this 
time in the infamous tinderbox of Europe, the Balkan peninsula. As 
everyone knows, the President disregarded the deadline he initially set 
for the withdrawal of United States forces from Bosnia and predictably 
we now see signs that the second deadline is beginning to slip.
  None of us should have any doubt that in the end the President may 
have to renege on his second deadline, just as he did on the first, 
unless we step in and hold him to his word. He will renege not because 
he is trying deliberately to mislead us but because he has become a 
prisoner of a policy that just will not work, a policy that can lead 
our Nation to only one place, to a Cyprus in the Balkans.
  We need to help the President out of this quagmire. We need to help 
him remain true to his word. I know that some say that June 1998 is too 
far in the future. So the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary] has 
offered a perfecting amendment to move the deadline up to January 1998.
  While I am sympathetic to the Hilleary amendment, ultimately we must 
recognize that it is unrealistic. It is going to be very hard to enact 
any funding cutoff for United States forces in Bosnia. We do stand a 
reasonable chance of enacting the withdrawal date that the President 
himself has promised. An earlier date almost certainly could not be 
enacted.

                              {time}  1730

  We should not pick a fight that we cannot win. Instead, let us defy 
opponents of the June withdrawal date to explain to us today why the 
President must have flexibility to break for the second time his solemn 
commitment.
  Accordingly, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to defeat the 
Hilleary amendment and approve the Buyer amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by Mr. 
Buyer, and I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.
  In debating United States policy toward Bosnia, we have to begin with 
a candid assessment of where the current administration policy is 
leading us. It is leading to another Cyprus.
  Since 1974, U.N. peacekeeping have been deployed along the so-called 
Green Line in Cyprus, an artificial boundary separating Christian and 
Muslim communities that used to be able to live together in one 
country. Every day since 1974, soldiers from Britain, Austria, and 
other countries have patrolled the Green Line. Every day for the last 
23 years, these soldiers have been exposed to great risks, and many 
have been killed.
  Even though no U.S. forces have participated in this operation, 
American taxpayers have paid approximately $250 million over the years 
to keep the operation going. And worst of all, there's no end in sight. 
No one today can tell you when, if ever, the Cyprus peacekeeping 
mission will end.
  Mr. Chairman, we not want to be involved in another Cyprus, this time 
in the infamous ``tinderbox of Europe''--the Balkan Peninsula--and this 
time involving a permanent commitment of United States ground forces.
  Many of us in this chamber have struggled mightily for many years to 
avoid precisely this outcome.
  Four years ago last month, in May 1993, I was proud to join the 
gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hyde, as an original cosponsor of the 
first bill to end the unjust and illegal international arms embargo of 
Bosnia. We offered that legislation because we believed that the only 
way to stop the aggression and the violation of human rights that we 
were then witnessing in Bosnia was to create a military balance between 
the aggressors and the victims of aggression. We were confident that, 
in the absence of such a military balance, U.S. military intervention 
to stop the fighting would become inevitable.
  For more than 2 years, we tried to pass that legislation. Finally, 
during the summer of 1995, we succeeded. Both we and the other body 
passed legislation ending the arms embargo, and in both bodies the 
legislation was approved by veto-proof margins.
  So when the Congress left Washington for the August recess in 1995, 
the President had a problem. Congress had just repudiated his policy, 
and our legislation was sitting on his desk. Even though he had 
promised to veto it, he needed to do something to make sure that his 
veto would not be overridden.
  His solution was to launch a simultaneous military and diplomatic 
offensive. NATO bombers were called into action in Bosnia, and Mr. 
Holbrooke was dispatched to bring the parties to the negotiating table.
  The result was the Dayton Peace Accords.
  The problem with the Dayton Accords was that they provided for 
precisely the result that so many of us had feared--a massive United 
States military intervention in Bosnia.
  Many of us predicted that if our forces faithfully carried out their 
mandate under the Dayton Accords, they would end up in armed conflict 
with the parties and likely sustain significant casualties.
  This prediction was never tested because in fact our forces never 
carried out those portions of their mandate that could have led to 
conflict with the parties, such as arresting war criminals and 
facilitating the return of refugees. Indeed, the failure to do these 
things, and similar things collectively referred to as ``civilian 
implementation'' of the Dayton Accords, is one of the main reasons why 
we are told that we cannot bring our forces home from Bosnia today.
  Of course, many of us predicted at the time that once our forces went 
into Bosnia they would never get out.
  The President solemnly assured us that we were wrong about this. He 
promised us that our forces would stay in Bosnia no more than 1 year. 
Indeed, in a letter to us dated December 13, 1995, he stated:

       IFOR's basic military tasks should be completed within six 
     months. During the remainder of the year, IFOR will continue 
     to facilitate implementation of the peace agreement while 
     preparing for and undertaking an orderly drawdown of forces.

  Of course, 1 year later, the President had to take all this back. In 
a letter to us dated November 27, 1996, he stated:

       . . . our achievements on the military side have not been 
     matched by progress on the civilian side. It will take longer 
     than we and our Allies anticipated for Bosnia's economic and 
     political life to reach the point where an outside security 
     presence is no longer required.

  It would be necessary to extend the United States military presence 
in Bosnia by another 18 months, the President said, to June 1998. But 
this time he was serious about the deadline for withdrawing our forces. 
We know because he told us so in the letter: ``The new mission in 
Bosnia should end in June of 1998, and the remaining forces will 
completely withdraw from Bosnia quickly thereafter.''
  We already see signs, of course, that this second deadline is 
slipping. The President's advisors are said to be in disagreement about 
whether and how to renege on the President's commitment. And none of us 
should have any doubt, that, in the end, the President will renege on 
his second deadline, just as he did on his first--unless we step in to 
hold him to his word.
  He will renege, not because he is trying to deliberately mislead us, 
but because he has become a prisoner of a policy that will never work. 
A policy that can lead our nation to only to one place--to a Cyprus in 
the Balkans.
  We need to help the President out of this quagmire. We need to help 
him remain true to his word, or at least his second word. That's what 
the Buyer amendment is about, and that's why I urge its adoption.
  Now I know that some say that June 1998 is too far in the future. We 
would like to bring our forces home sooner than that. So the gentleman 
from Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary] has offered a perfecting amendment to 
move up the deadline to January of 1998.
  While I am sympathetic to the Hilleary amendment, ultimately we must 
recognize that it is unrealistic.
  The fact is that we are embarked on a very difficult enterprise. 
Congress is understandably reluctant to impose mandatory deadlines on 
U.S. force deployments abroad. And the President is even more reluctant 
to accept them. This means that it is going to be very hard to enact 
any funding cutoff for United States forces in Bosnia.

[[Page H4301]]

  We stand a reasonable chance of enacting the withdrawal date that the 
President himself has promised. Any earlier date almost certainly 
cannot be enacted.
  We should not pick a fight that we cannot win. Instead, we should 
defy opponents of the June withdrawal date to explain to us today why 
the President must have flexibility to break for a second time his 
solemn commitment to withdraw United States from Bosnia by a date 
certain.
  Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to defeat the Hilleary amendment 
and approve the Buyer amendment.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, hopefully, using the same clock, I yield 
myself the balance of the time.
  Let me make a very few observations, if I might have the attention of 
my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer]. First of all, if 
we accept the argument by the previous speaker, then we would not be in 
the Sinai, we would not be in Korea. And if that is their position, 
step up to it and be real, step up to it and be consistent. But that 
argument is not a consistent argument. We are talking about keeping the 
peace, preventing war for tens of thousands of people not dying. That 
seems to me an appropriate role to play.
  Now, Mr. Chairman, my position in this whole thing is we ought to 
stay there until the job is done. As Martin Luther King said, probably 
more eloquent than anyone, that peace is more than simply the absence 
of war, it is the absence of conditions that give rise to war. So our 
military people may only win a marginal role in the whole issue of 
peace, because peace is about economics and it is about human rights 
and it is about democracy and a whole range of things.
  But sometimes people are so much adverse to each other that they need 
someone to come in to hold them off. Now the allies, my colleagues 
recall, we were all at some point in these chambers students of 
history, our allies tried to keep the peace on the ground; and it 
failed, not because the leadership failed, but because the 
circumstances did not provide for success.
  What provides us with some opportunity for success? Because the 
parties to the killing and the dying came to this country, sat down, 
negotiated a peace plan, and said, as imperfect as it is, help us to 
achieve that peace. We do not trust each other. We have been killing 
and maiming each other. Give us a hand until we create the conditions 
that evolve a war and peace.
  As I said earlier, we make peace with our enemies; we do not make 
peace with your friends. Peace is hard. Peace is difficult. I would 
like to say to my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer], 
who I think is sincere and genuine in his effort, if he recalls on his 
reporting requirements in this bill. In this bill, on page 373, under 
the heading Presidential Report on Political and Military Conditions in 
Bosnia, ``The President shall submit to Congress,'' I read in part, 
under section (2) paragraph (A), ``the date on which the transition 
from the multinational force,'' and my colleagues all know that we only 
are providing 25 percent of the troops here, not all of them, no one 
said that in this debate, the multinational force known as the 
Stabilization Force to the planned multinational successor force to be 
known as the Deterrent Force. Now we asked for this report.
  Further, paragraph (F),

       Any plan to maintain or expand other Bosnia-related (such 
     as the operation designated as Operation Deliberate Guard) if 
     tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina remain sufficient to delay the 
     transition from the Stabilization Force to the Deterrent 
     Force and the estimated cost associated with each such 
     operation.

  What I am saying to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer], I think 
in the context of the conference, we can take what is already in the 
bill before us and we can work this in order to accommodate the 
concerns of the gentleman and this gentleman. We meet on common ground.
  The place where we do not meet is when you take the extra step of 
putting in the date certain into legislative form, for all the reasons 
that the Chair, the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, I, and 
others have enunciated. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], all 
have raised these questions.
  I think that this can be accommodated. I know the gentleman is 
sincere in what he is attempting to do. But I think that there are 
other Members who, rather than, as I said earlier in the debate, Mr. 
Chairman, asserting our congressional prerogatives on the front end of 
the debate, where we should be, and that is should we go or should we 
not go. That is our responsibility. That is why we are getting paid. 
Step up to that constitutional responsibility.
  But more often than not, in the 26-plus years I have been here, Mr. 
Chairman, we back off that, we do not have the heart or courage to 
stand up to that. We wait until the President walks out on a limb and 
then we come in the dead of the night, on the tail-end, saying no funds 
shall be used to cut off at a date certain on the end where we are 
micromanaging, putting troops in harm's way.
  But I think we ought to step up to it earlier on and assert our 
constitutional prerogative. If you do not want troops some place, step 
up and say that. If we do, step up and say that. I came here opposing 
every military adventure that we engaged in. I am a man of peace. Now 
here I am advocating that we stay in Bosnia.
  The world has turned completely in a flip. The people who wanted to 
go anywhere in the world bombing and killing and maiming do not want 
our troops in Bosnia. Now if people are smart, they realize that that 
means that the world has changed. Bosnia is about peacekeeping, not 
war-making.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. All time for debate 
on the Buyer amendment has expired.
  It is now in order to consider amendment No. 9, printed in part 1 of 
House Report 105-137, as a substitute for the pending amendment.


    Amendment No. 9 Offered by Mr. Hilleary as a Substitute for the 
                  Amendment No. 8 Offered by Mr. Buyer

  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as a substitute for 
the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment offered as a 
substitute for the amendment.
  The text of the amendment offered as a substitute for the amendment 
is as follows:

       Part one, Amendment No. 9 offered by Mr. Hilleary as a 
     substitute for Part 1, amendment No. 8 offered by Mr. Buyer:
       Page 379, after line 19, add the following:
    TITLE XIII--UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

     SEC. 1301. SHORT TITLE.

       This title may be cited as the ``United States Armed Forces 
     in Bosnia Protection Act of 1997''.

     SEC. 1302. FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS OF POLICY.

       (a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
       (1)(A) On November 27, 1995, the President affirmed that 
     United States participation in the multinational military 
     Implementation Force in the Republic of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina would terminate in one year.
       (B) The President declared the expiration date of the 
     mandate for the Implementation Force to be December 20, 1996.
       (2) The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint 
     Chiefs of Staff likewise expressed their confidence that the 
     Implementation Force would complete its mission in one year.
       (3) The exemplary performance of United States Armed Forces 
     personnel has significantly contributed to the accomplishment 
     of the military mission of the Implementation Force. The 
     courage, dedication, and professionalism of such personnel 
     have permitted a separation of the belligerent parties to the 
     conflict in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and have 
     resulted in a significant mitigation of the violence and 
     suffering in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       (4) On October 3, 1996, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff announced the intention of the United States 
     Administration to delay the removal of United States Armed 
     Forces personnel from the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
     until March 1997 due to operational reasons.
       (5) Notwithstanding the fact that the President, the 
     Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff assured the Congress of their resolve to end the 
     mission of United States Armed Forces in the Republic of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina by December 20, 1996, in November 1996 
     the President announced his intention to further extend the 
     deployment of United States Armed Forces in the Republic of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina until June 1998.
       (6) Before the announcement of the new policy referred to 
     in paragraph (5), the President did not request authorization 
     by the Congress of a policy that would result in the further 
     deployment of United States Armed Forces in the Republic of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina until June 1998.
       (b) Declarations of Policy.--The Congress--

[[Page H4302]]

       (1) expresses its serious concerns and opposition to the 
     policy of the President that has resulted in the deployment 
     after December 20, 1996, of United States Armed Forces on the 
     ground in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina without 
     prior authorization by the Congress; and
       (2) urges the President to work with our European allies to 
     begin an orderly transition of all peacekeeping functions in 
     the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the United States 
     to appropriate European countries in preparation for a 
     complete withdrawal of all United States Armed Forces by 
     December 31, 1997.

     SEC. 1303. PROHIBITION OF USE OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FUNDS 
                   FOR CONTINUED DEPLOYMENT ON THE GROUND OF ARMED 
                   FORCES IN THE TERRITORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF 
                   BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.

       (a) Prohibition.--None of the funds appropriated or 
     otherwise available to the Department of Defense may be 
     obligated or expended for the deployment on the ground of 
     United States Armed Forces in the territory of the Republic 
     of Bosnia and Herzegovina after December 31, 1997, in 
     connection with peacekeeping operations conducted by the 
     Implementation Force, the Stabilization Force, or any 
     successor force.
       (b) Exception To Ensure Safe and Timely Withdrawal.--The 
     prohibition contained in subsection (a) shall not apply with 
     respect to the deployment of United States Armed Forces for 
     the express purpose of ensuring the safe and timely 
     withdrawal of such Armed Forces from the Republic of Bosnia 
     and Herzegovina, but such a deployment may not extend for a 
     period of more than 30 days beyond the date specified in 
     subsection (a) (or the date otherwise applicable to the 
     limitation under that subsection by reason of an extension of 
     that date pursuant to subsection (c)).
       (c) Extension of Required Withdrawal Date.--The date 
     specified in subsection (a) for the applicability of the 
     limitation under that subsection may be extended by the 
     President for an additional 180 days if--
       (1) the President transmits to the Congress a report 
     containing a request for such an extension; and
       (2) a joint resolution is enacted, in accordance with 
     section 1304, specifically approving such request.

     SEC. 1304. CONGRESSIONAL CONSIDERATION OF REQUEST BY 
                   PRESIDENT FOR 180-DAY EXTENSION OF DEPLOYMENT.

       (a) Terms of the Resolution.--For purposes of section 1303, 
     the term ``joint resolution'' means only a joint resolution 
     that is introduced within the 10-day period beginning on the 
     date on which the President transmits the report to the 
     Congress under such section, and--
       (1) which does not have a preamble;
       (2) the matter after the resolving clause of which is as 
     follows: ``That the Congress approves the request by the 
     President for the extension of the deployment on the ground 
     of United States Armed Forces in the territory of the 
     Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina for a period ending not 
     later than June 30, 1998, as submitted by the President on --
     --------'', the blank space being filled in with the 
     appropriate date; and
       (3) the title of which is as follows: ``Joint resolution 
     approving the request by the President for an extension of 
     the deployment on the ground of United States Armed Forces in 
     the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina for a 
     period ending not later than June 30, 1998.''.
       (b) Referral.--A resolution described in subsection (a) 
     that is introduced in the House of Representatives shall be 
     referred to the Committee on International Relations and the 
     Committee on National Security of the House of 
     Representatives. A resolution described in subsection (a) 
     introduced in the Senate shall be referred to the Committee 
     on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services of 
     the Senate.
       (c) Discharge.--If the committee to which a resolution 
     described in subsection (a) is referred has not reported such 
     resolution (or an identical resolution) by the end of the 20-
     day period beginning on the date on which the President 
     transmits the report to the Congress under section 1303, such 
     committee shall be, at the end of such period, discharged 
     from further consideration of such resolution, and such 
     resolution shall be placed on the appropriate calendar of the 
     House involved.
       (d) Consideration in the Senate.--(1) On or after the third 
     day after the date on which the committee to which such a 
     resolution is referred in the Senate has reported, or has 
     been discharged (under subsection (c)) from further 
     consideration of, such a resolution in the Senate, it is in 
     order (even though a previous motion to the same effect has 
     been disagreed to) for any Member of the Senate to move to 
     proceed to the consideration of the resolution. A Member may 
     make the motion only on the day after the calendar day on 
     which the Member announces to the Senate the Member's 
     intention to make the motion. All points of order against the 
     resolution (and against consideration of the resolution) are 
     waived. The motion is privileged in the Senate and is not 
     debatable. The motion is not subject to amendment, or to a 
     motion to postpone, or to a motion to proceed to the 
     consideration of other business. A motion to reconsider the 
     vote by which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to shall 
     not be in order. If a motion to proceed to the consideration 
     of the resolution is agreed to, the Senate shall immediately 
     proceed to consideration of the joint resolution without 
     intervening motion, order, or other business, and the 
     resolution shall remain the unfinished business of the Senate 
     until disposed of.
       (2) Debate on the resolution in the Senate, and on all 
     debatable motions and appeals in connection therewith, shall 
     be limited to not more than 2 hours, which shall be divided 
     equally between those favoring and those opposing the 
     resolution. An amendment to the resolution is not in order. A 
     motion further to limit debate is in order and not debatable. 
     A motion to postpone, or a motion to proceed to the 
     consideration of other business, or a motion to recommit the 
     resolution is not in order. A motion to reconsider the vote 
     by which the resolution is agreed to or disagreed to is not 
     in order.
       (3) Immediately following the conclusion of the debate on a 
     resolution described in subsection (a) and a single quorum 
     call at the conclusion of the debate if requested in 
     accordance with the rules of the Senate, the vote on final 
     passage of the resolution shall occur.
       (4) Appeals from the decisions of the Chair relating to the 
     application of the rules of the Senate, as the case may be, 
     to the procedure relating to a resolution described in 
     subsection (a) shall be decided without debate.
       (e) Consideration in the Senate After Consideration by the 
     House of Representatives.--(1) If, before the passage by the 
     Senate of a resolution of the Senate described in subsection 
     (a), the Senate receives from the House of Representatives a 
     resolution described in subsection (a), then the following 
     procedures shall apply:
       (A) The resolution of the House of Representatives shall 
     not be referred to a committee and may not be considered in 
     the Senate except in the case of final passage as provided in 
     subparagraph (B)(ii).
       (B) With respect to a resolution described in subsection 
     (a) of the Senate--
       (i) the procedure in the Senate shall be the same as if no 
     resolution had been received from the House of 
     Representatives; but
       (ii) the vote on final passage shall be on the resolution 
     of the House of Representatives.
       (2) Upon disposition of the resolution received from the 
     House of Representatives, it shall no longer be in order to 
     consider the resolution that originated in the Senate.
       (f) Rules of the Senate and House.--This section is enacted 
     by the Congress--
       (1) as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the Senate 
     and House of Representatives, respectively, and as such it is 
     deemed a part of the rules of each House, respectively, but 
     applicable only with respect to the procedure to be followed 
     in that House in the case of a resolution described in 
     subsection (a), and it supersedes other rules only to the 
     extent that it is inconsistent with such rules; and
       (2) with full recognition of the constitutional right of 
     either House to change the rules (so far as relating to the 
     procedure of that House) at any time, in the same manner, and 
     to the same extent as in the case of any other rule of that 
     House.

     SEC. 1305. PROHIBITION OF USE OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FUNDS 
                   FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OR RELATED ACTIVITIES IN 
                   THE TERRITORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF BOSNIA AND 
                   HERZEGOVINA.

       None of the funds appropriated or otherwise available to 
     the Department of Defense for any fiscal year may be 
     obligated or expended after the date of the enactment of this 
     Act for the following:
       (1) Conduct of, or direct support for, law enforcement 
     activities in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, except 
     for the training of law enforcement personnel or to prevent 
     imminent loss of life.
       (2) Conduct of, or support for, any activity in the 
     Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina that may have the effect 
     of jeopardizing the primary mission of the United Nations-led 
     Stabilization Force in preventing armed conflict between the 
     Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska 
     (``Bosnian Entities'').
       (3) Transfer of refugees within the Republic of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina that, in the opinion of the commander of the 
     Stabilization Force involved in such transfer--
       (A) has as one of its purposes the acquisition of control 
     by a Bosnian Entity of territory allocated to the other 
     Bosnian Entity under the Dayton Peace Agreement; or
       (B) may expose United States Armed Forces to substantial 
     risk to their personal safety.
       (4) Implementation of any decision to change the legal 
     status of any territory within the Republic of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina unless expressly agreed to by all signatories to 
     the Dayton Peace Agreement.

     SEC. 1306. REPORT.

       (a) In General.--Not later than October 31, 1997, the 
     President shall prepare and transmit to the Congress a report 
     on the deployment on the ground of United States Armed Forces 
     in the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
     The report shall contain the following:
       (1) A description of the extent to which compliance has 
     been achieved with the requirements relating to United States 
     activities in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
     contained in Public Law 104-122 (110 Stat. 876).
       (2)(A) An identification of the specific steps taken, if 
     any, by the United States Government to transfer the United 
     States portion of the peacekeeping mission in the Republic of 
     Bosnia and Herzegovina to appropriate European organizations, 
     such as a combined joint task force of NATO, the

[[Page H4303]]

     Western European Union, or the Conference on Security and 
     Cooperation in Europe.
       (B) A description of any deficiencies in the capabilities 
     of such European organizations to conduct peacekeeping 
     activities in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a 
     description of the actions, if any, that the United States 
     Government is taking in cooperation with such organizations 
     to remedy such deficiencies.
       (3) An identification of the following:
       (A) The goals of the Stabilization Force and the criteria 
     for achieving those goals.
       (B) The measures that are being taken to protect United 
     States Armed Forces personnel from conventional warfare, 
     unconventional warfare, or terrorist attacks in the Republic 
     of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
       (C) The exit strategy for the withdrawal of United States 
     Armed Forces from the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 
     the event of civil disturbances or overt warfare.
       (D) The exit strategy and timetable for the withdrawal of 
     United States Armed Forces from the Republic of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina in the event the Stabilization Force successfully 
     completes its mission, including whether or not a follow-on 
     force will succeed the Stabilization Force after the proposed 
     withdrawal date announced by the President of June 1998.
       (b) Form of Report.--The report described in subsection (a) 
     shall be transmitted in unclassified and classified versions.

     SEC. 1307. DEFINITIONS.

       As used in this title:
       (1) Bosnian entities.--The term ``Bosnian Entities'' means 
     the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika 
     Srpska.
       (2) Dayton peace agreement.--The term ``Dayton Peace 
     Agreement'' means the General Framework Agreement for Peace 
     in Bosnia and Herzegovina, initialed by the parties in 
     Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 1995, and signed in Paris on 
     December 14, 1995.
       (3) Implementation force.--The term ``Implementation 
     Force'' means the NATO-led multinational military force in 
     the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (commonly referred to 
     as ``IFOR''), authorized under the Dayton Peace Agreement.
       (4) NATO.--The term ``NATO'' means the North Atlantic 
     Treaty Organization.
       (5) Stabilization force.--The term ``Stabilization Force'' 
     means the United Nations-led follow-on force to the 
     Implementation Force in the Republic of Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina and other countries in the region (commonly 
     referred to as ``SFOR''), authorized under United Nations 
     Security Council Resolution 1088 (December 12, 1996).

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. 
Hilleary] and a Member opposed, [Mr. Buyer] each will control 10 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary].
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, for the purposes of debate only, I yield 
5 minutes to my colleague on the other side of the aisle, the 
distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Condit] and I ask 
unanimous consent that he be permitted to control that time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Tennessee?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, there are several different important differences 
between the two amendments on Bosnia that are being offered here today.
  First, the Hilleary-Condit-Kasich-Jones-Frank amendment is a 
bipartisan compromise; and with all those names, we know it is a 
bipartisan amendment. It is a bipartisan compromise of the much tougher 
H.R. 1172, the U.S. Armed Forces in Bosnia Protection Act, which has 
148 bipartisan cosponsors.
  Our bipartisan compromise amendment would bring our troops home by 
December 31, 1997, but would still give the President some flexibility 
by allowing him to make a written request to Congress to extend the 
exit date to June 30, 1998, his present exit date.
  Second, the Hilleary-Condit-Kasich-Jones-Frank amendment is the only 
vote we will have to show that we did everything we could to bring our 
troops home as soon as possible. Voting only for the Buyer amendment, 
although it is a worthy amendment, demonstrates that we are accepting 
the President's present exit date of June 1998, and accepting the 
responsibility for all the harm that may come to our troops the longer 
that they are there.
  Think about this, Mr. Chairman: As it becomes apparent to the warring 
factions in Bosnia that the President has no intention of pulling our 
troops out, they will be increasingly motivated to perpetrate a heinous 
terrorist act on our troops to get our troops out, just like at Khobar 
Towers in Saudi Arabia or the car bomb in Beirut, Lebanon. The later we 
set the exit date and the longer our troops are in Bosnia, the greater 
the odds are that this type of act will occur.
  This is serious business, Mr. Chairman. Let us get them out as soon 
as possible. Let us support the Hilleary-Condit-Kasich-Jones-Frank 
amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Skelton].
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Hilleary 
amendment. To do so, to adopt that I think would be a travesty in this 
House and a travesty for our country. We have deployed our troops. And 
I might say I am immensely proud of what they have done in Bosnia. But 
we have been fortunate.
  We should be proud that our military personnel and their efforts have 
been successful in their accomplishments. They have overseen a 
separation of warring parties. They have been professional. They have 
caused the hostilities to cease. We have allowed political reform to 
begin. Refugee resettlement is occurring, and we have led as no other 
nation can. We have relished support among Europeans and throughout 
other nations of the world to follow our deeds.
  Today I ask my colleagues to help our uniformed personnel complete 
their mission in a timely, efficient, and professional manner. In doing 
so, we must follow in honor of the word of the President of our Nation. 
He said some time ago that we should be out of there by June 1998. To 
cut if off at this time would be improper for our troops, to rush them 
out and not give them sufficient time to make plans to leave, to cause 
us to break our word as a nation, and to not give the former warring 
parties the time to complete their reconciliation, which the end of 
June 1998 will do.
  We should honor the commitments of our Nation. We should honor the 
commitment of our President. We should honor the commitment of his word 
when he said June 1998. We must stick to that. We, as this Congress, 
should back him up and allow our troops to remain until that time.
  I oppose the Hilleary amendment. It would be wrong for this body. It 
would be wrong for our Nation.
  Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, as we stated, this amendment will require the 
withdrawal of our Armed Forces from Bosnia by December 31, 1997. In 
October 1995, the administration stated that our presence in Bosnia 
would last for 12 months.
  Well, here it is a year and a half later, and the troops are still 
there; and now the withdrawal date is June 1998. Their mission is 
unclear. Their objective is uncertain. Our commitment changes as every 
deadline for withdrawal passes. Let us end the charade. If the troops 
cannot come home by December of this year, let the administration tell 
us why, let us execute our constitutional authority of either 
supporting the administrative policy or rejecting it. That is quite 
simple. Let them submit to us a plan. Let us approve it, or let us 
reject it.
  This will force all of us to define our purpose and our objective in 
Bosnia. It will also force us to do something that is extremely 
important, and that is to have a discussion of what the role is of the 
Europeans, what role must they play in safeguarding Europe.
  The Vietnam war, the Persian Gulf taught us a valuable lesson: Give 
our troops clear, definable, and achievable missions. To do less than 
this is to put them at risk, without full regard for the consequences.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself l minute.
  Actually, I would like to say to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Dellums], earlier when he was referring to the ellipsis as the actual 
bill itself, some report language with the President, if he would note 
from the amendment that I have before the committee, it is now the 
perfecting amendment, we kind of beefed that up. In his request for the 
spirit to work that in the conference, I would join him to do that.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from gentleman from California 
[Mr. Dellums].

[[Page H4304]]

  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I believe the gentleman is absolutely 
correct, he has beefed up these provisions and I think appropriately. I 
would be more than happy to work with the gentleman in the context of 
the conference to move it in the direction of the gentleman, because I 
think it strengthens these report requirements.
  Mr. BUYER. I thank the gentleman in that spirit.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Hobson], who had an important meeting and could not be here during the 
general debate.

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. HOBSON. I appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Buyer-Skelton amendment 
to terminate our mission in Bosnia by June of next year, the 
President's date.
  Only through the leadership, good will, and commitment of our Nation 
has the fighting stopped in Bosnia. The peace accord that ended the 
Bosnian conflict was written and agreed upon in my district. I have 
made two trips to the Balkans and seen first hand the mess into which 
these people have gotten themselves.
  Considering that the history of hatred in the Balkans dates back at 
least a millennium, 2 years of American presence there will not turn 
the situation around. We have been able to see a pause in this fighting 
that will hopefully endure, but the people of Bosnia, Croatia, and 
Serbia ultimately must be the architects of, frankly, their own peace.
  I want to see our troops out of Bosnia as soon as possible, and I 
frankly was very disappointed when the President broke his word to all 
of us to have our troops out last year. This amendment that I am 
supporting will make sure that our troops come home by next June, and 
also ensure that sufficient planning takes place between now and then 
so that when they are withdrawn, it will be done in an organized 
fashion and a secure fashion.
  If it were up to me, the troops would be out now, and I might not 
have sent them to begin with, but my first and foremost concern is 
their safety. Preserving that safety means that we get them out, and 
that our pullout is planned, organized, and well executed.
  When I was last there, I met with the NATO Ambassador and some of 
their people. They said one of the problems they were having is getting 
the people to begin moving on with the accords in the civil side of 
this. We have done the military job. The longer they think we are going 
to stay there, the less they are going to move on the civil side.
  That is why we need to set a date certain and get our troops out, get 
them home, let the people of the area get on with their lives, 
hopefully in a peaceful fashion. We are not going to solve this peace. 
We should get out, come home, and let the people do their job.


                        Parliamentary Inquiries

  Mr. HILLEARY. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, do I have the right to close this debate?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman has the right to close.
  Mr. BUYER. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
  Mr. BUYER. As I understand, this is a perfecting substitute amendment 
to my amendment and I rise in opposition. Therefore, would I not have 
the right to close?
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair would advise that neither gentleman represent 
the position of the committee and, therefore, the sponsor of the 
substitute amendment would have the right to close.
  Mr. BUYER. I thank the chairman.
  Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I differ with some of 
those, and I support the Hilleary amendment, I differ with some of 
those who join me in supporting it. I think the mission has been 
successful. I think it was a good idea. I was glad the gentleman from 
California decried the argument that these are somehow subhuman people 
who cannot get along.
  This is a mission that ought to be done but America should not be 
doing it. Where are our European allies? Yes; they are there with us. 
We are alone in South Korea with the Koreans, standing up to North 
Korea. We are essentially alone in the Middle East, standing up to Iran 
and Iraq. We do our part in Latin America and in Haiti. Is it never 
Europe's turn? Bosnia is in Europe. It is close to Germany, close to 
France. Can they do nothing by themselves?
  We are the great enablers of dependency in this House, not of welfare 
but of a Europe that simply will not stand up for its own interests. 
Indeed, I think maybe we should send out an investigating committee, 
Mr. Chairman. I am not sure there is a Europe. I think that France and 
Germany and Italy and Denmark and Belgium, at least for military 
purposes, are a fraud that has been perpetuated on us. Because the fact 
is that when it comes to their own interests, when we are talking about 
problems 100, 200, 300 miles from their own border, this collection of 
wealthy, powerful democratic nations acts like a bunch of immature 
teenagers that have to hide behind the United States.
  Yes, it was a good thing that the President did. Yes; it has been 
more successful than people thought. And there is a reason for people 
to stay. But with America in South Korea, America in the Middle East, 
America elsewhere, we have a right to tell our European allies this one 
is theirs.
  At the recent summit meeting, the Europeans complained to the 
President that he was thinking of leaving. Sometimes people have to 
learn to do things on their own. This is a job for the Europeans. We 
should adopt the Hilleary amendment and let the Europeans show that 
they can defend their own interests.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Indiana is recognized for 4\1/2\ 
minutes.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the perfecting 
amendment of my good friend because what I want to do is accept the 
President's date. That is June 30, 1998.
  I am from Indiana. It is corn country. We accept people at face 
value. Your word is your honor, is your bond. You do that until 
somebody has a little slippage in their word. The President slipped 
once. He slipped twice. Our Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, now 
is kind of hinting that there may be in fact a third slippage. Fool me 
once, fool me twice, but pretty soon it becomes shame on me.
  What I have done is to step forward and codify the June 30 date. I 
have been a good listener to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Dellums], the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] and some others 
about codifying that date. I understand. It still is a little tough 
saying ill-defined, not providing flexibility and those kind of words, 
but I want to hold firm. I want to hold firm on the date and back up 
the President so he can move to our allies within the region so they 
can begin to accept those greater responsibilities, because I support 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums] when he says, let us 
change human condition. I want to change human condition with our 
allies and how we interact. I understand also we are talking about NATO 
and U.S. leadership, I say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Murtha]. But let us talk about what is happening. We always focus on 
the military. It is the civil implementation of the Dayton accords that 
has got us in this mess. The military always meets their deadlines. 
They do a great job. IFOR was highly complementary. SFOR will be highly 
complementary.

  The concern and our focus should be on the civilian implementation. 
Right now when we look at the implementation of the subregional arms 
limitations, it is to be complete in November 1997. I do not know if we 
are going to make that date.
  The train, arm, and equip of the Bosnian Muslims is only half 
complete. I expect claims of compliance to be contested. Verification 
will be necessary on the checking to ensure that the checks and the 
balances are there for the stability of the region. Who is going to do 
that? That is where I believe, yes, the United States still needs to 
have our presence in the over-the-horizon, but on the ground I actually 
want our NATO allies there. I want them to have a greater role and 
presence in the peace and the stability

[[Page H4305]]

within their region, that is, the continent of Europe.
  We also have the issue of war criminals. There are some that say that 
no lasting peace will be possible in Bosnia until the war criminals are 
brought to justice. Right now to date only 8 of 74 currently under 
indictment are in custody of The Hague. Only 2 of the 8 have been 
convicted. When we talk about two of the most prominent indicted 
persons, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and former Bosnian 
Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, they are still at large. Who is going 
to go after them?
  If we are talking about after the June 30, 1998, date and they are 
still in place and threaten the region's stability, what type of force? 
That is why I join with the gentleman from California to have it 
defined what will be the U.S. role and presence after the President's 
June 30 date. Let us not rush to judgment here.
  We also have the concerns of the nation building. When I talk about 
that, it is the humanitarian, the political, and the reconstruction. 
The nationwide elections have been held, but what about the municipal 
elections? The multi-ethnic political institutions are still 
segregated. It is also, as I earlier had stated, and this is what pains 
me the most is it is questionable if the Dayton agreement has in fact 
created the durable peace because the only way I think that we can have 
the durable peace is because of this open-ended commitment.
  The question is, how long will we be there? When I have heard this 
today, we have to be there until the job is done. It was Dayton that 
set up these parameters that has an open-ended commitment. What I want 
to do is set a date certain so we can work in mutuality with our 
regional allies in Europe, so we can have a plan to withdraw and we can 
have the assurance of a durable peace. That is in fact what we want.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Hall].
  (Mr. HALL of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HALL of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to voice strong support 
for the Hilleary amendment and for ending deployment of our United 
States ground forces in Bosnia.
  I did not support the administration's decision to send troops to 
Bosnia a year and a half ago, and I would vote to bring our troops home 
today if I could.
  The best we can do, however, is to bring them home as soon as 
possible. The administration has stated repeatedly that our troops 
would be in Bosnia for no longer than 12 months. It has been well over 
a year since our troops were deployed there--and there still is no end 
in sight. The amendments offered today will require a ate certain for 
troop withdrawal, require development of an exit plan, and require a 
defined policy concerning the role of the United States and our allies 
in Bosnia following withdrawal of United States troops.
  We have been most fortunate that in the past 18 months, no Americans 
have died from hostile fire in Bosnia. However, as frictions continue 
to get more heated and ethnic divisions continue to erupt in human 
rights violations, the dangers to our troops will intensify. Our 
mission in Bosnia still remains unclear--and without a clear policy, 
the future of our troop involvement also remains uncertain.
  It is imperative that we have a clearly defined exit policy and that 
we stick to it. Today, we have an opportunity to express our support 
for our troops by voting our desire to bring them home, and I urge my 
colleagues' support.
  Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Missouri [Ms. Danner].
  Ms. DANNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Hilleary 
amendment.
  Before United States troops were deployed to Bosnia, I expressed 
skepticism that we would be there for only 1 year and that it would 
cost $1.5 billion. We have been there 2 years already, we are up to 
$6.5 billion, and the whole object is escalating. We are going to be 
there now perhaps as many as 3 years, and we could be up to we do not 
even know how many billions of dollars.
  I think this has become a quagmire that we have to withdraw from. The 
American public believes, and I totally agree with them, that our 
European friends should be handling this. It should be something that 
they do. It is on their continent, and it has been proven that they 
have the ability to provide for their own common defense and to handle 
the issue of Bosnia.
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns].
  (Mr. STEARMS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment to put 
an end to this unauthorized operation by creating a date certain.
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Campbell].
  (Mr. CAMPBELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Hilleary 
amendment.
  Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary].
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Tennessee is recognized for an 
additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to close 
this debate to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] who 
has helped lead the effort to bring our troops home from Bosnia.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Ohio is recognized for 3\1/2\ 
minutes.
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KASICH. I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. HILLEARY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I am holding a letter from Maj. Gen. Jim Pennington, 
Retired U.S. Army, president of the National Association of Uniformed 
Services, expressing his strong support for the Hilleary-Condit 
amendment to H.R. 1119.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, let me just suggest to the Members that are 
listening, the President said that we should withdraw our forces in 
December 1996. The Hilleary amendment says that they can be there until 
December 1997. And at that point in time, our allies will assume the 
additional burden of patrolling the streets of the communities in 
Bosnia. We worked with them for 50 years to stop the advance of the 
Soviet military and an invasion of Europe. Surely they can in fact keep 
the peace and patrol the streets. If they have difficulty, we will help 
them, not with our soldiers but with all of our technical expertise and 
all of the logistics.
  I look at the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] who has been 
in the Chamber longer than I have, but I have been here now for 15 
years, and I want to tell my colleagues when the U.S. military gets in 
trouble is when we send our troops into a circumstance that is not 
clear and a mission that is fuzzy and a mission that confuses the 
nature of what the mission is for our soldiers.
  We have done our job. We went to separate the warring parties and we 
did it. It is not our job to build the infrastructure and the 
Government of Bosnia. We will not be successful in that. And so what I 
would suggest is if Members believe that the President has not made the 
case about the vital interests of the United States, if Members believe 
the President has not articulated a clear exit strategy, if Members 
believe that our allies should do more, if Members believe that the 
American people do not stand behind this mission, if Members believe 
that this entire role ought to be clarified, if Members believe we have 
done our job and we ought to come home, and if Members share the 
concern that our soldiers could find themselves in a fuzzy mission and 
the consequences that are related to that, they must support the 
Hilleary amendment.

                              {time}  1800

  And then what happens? The President should come to this House and 
make his case. He has not yet done it. The only way that we will force 
the President to spell out the mission, to give us the achievable 
objectives, to call to task our allies, and to prove to the American 
people and to prove to

[[Page H4306]]

the American people that this is a just mission, then my colleagues 
must vote for the Hilleary amendment and force the President to come 
here and tell us precisely what we are doing in Bosnia, what the 
mission is. Anything short of that leaves our troops in a confusing 
role with a dubious mission, without the kind of total support we need 
from allies who we supported for 50 years.
  This is a support to get us on the road to clarifying U.S. military 
policy in the post Cold War period. This is a chance for my colleagues 
to stand up for the men and women who have put their lives on the line 
in Bosnia, and let us bring them home, and if not in December, force 
the President to make his case.
  Support the Hilleary amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time has expired.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. Under the rule, the gentleman, as the ranking minority 
member, is entitled to 5 minutes and is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I understand where the majority of this 
body is going on a date certain; that is the easy political thing to 
do. But I think we ought to be part of the educative process, and I 
choose to try to do that.
  First of all, to this notion, Mr. Chairman. To this notion, Mr. 
Chairman, this is important to the Europeans; let them do it. Does that 
mean we do not care about human life, Mr. Chairman?
  We had this debate this morning about China. We care about human life 
in China. A few years ago we were concerned about human life in South 
Africa. We had a discussion about that. What are we talking about it is 
only Europeans should be concerned about European life? If this had 
been in the context of Nazi Germany, would Members have gotten up and 
said let Europe do it?
  Mr. Chairman, we have a moral obligation to stand up and to care 
about human life. A quarter of a million people were being killed, 
raped, maimed and murdered; 13,000 of them were children.
  So we say let the Europeans do it, we have no responsibility?
  I heard speeches down here when we talked about the Preamble to the 
Constitution, and they said it was not just about America. Read the 
Record tomorrow. We said that on the floor just a couple of hours ago. 
This is about the whole planet. Now, when we talk about people dying in 
another place, let Europeans do it.
  I want my colleagues to recall history, Mr. Chairman. Europeans did 
try to solve this problem, and they died there. Historically they died. 
They left blood on the soil of Bosnia trying. They spent money trying. 
It did not work. But what did work is when we stood up as a moral 
leader in the world and we said to the parties:
  ``Come to the United States, come to Dayton; sit down around the 
table, work out a peace plan,'' and when they did, they came to us, 
they invited us. That is the difference.
  This is not some Vietnam quagmire. This is the United States standing 
up, caring about thousands of children not dying, women not being 
raped, mothers and fathers not dying because people could not figure 
out how to solve a problem. And they came to us and they said:
  ``Look, help us. Help us be peacekeepers.''
  I challenge anyone in this Chamber with their commitment to peace. I 
am committed to it. Mr. Chairman, I have given my whole life to peace. 
Peace is my passion, and this is what we are trying to do in the 
context of Bosnia. Europeans, they did not do it. It was not because 
they did not try, and somebody ought to stand up here and set the 
record straight; I would do that.
  Mr. Chairman, in just 1 second I will be happy to yield to my 
colleague from Massachusetts.
  Mr. Chairman, I understand all the date certain business. I am simply 
saying let us be proud of being peacekeepers and peacemakers. As my 
colleagues know, it is like there are people in the Chamber who would 
like to paint a big sign on the Pentagon. Do my colleagues know what 
the sign would say? ``Hey, we only do the big ones. We don't do the 
peacekeeping, the peacemaking. We don't do the humanitarian assistance. 
We do the biggies.''
  But I think that our war years are transitioning, and I think the 
world is changing, and I think war is not the paradigm, and maybe I am 
ahead of my time, but I think we are changing, we are moving, we are 
growing, we are evolving, and, Mr. Chairman, we need to learn about the 
Bosnias. We need to learn how to be peacekeepers.
  As I said, we did not do well in Somalia. We did better in Haiti, we 
are doing better in Bosnia, and maybe in some other place where we are 
called to be peacekeepers we can do it.
  Final point and I yield to the gentleman:
  All I say to my colleagues is that both of these resolutions do not 
give us the flexibility to dial down the 25 percent of our troops. We 
can dial down to 5 percent, 2 percent, special group of people. The 
gentleman's resolution does not give us that kind of flexibility. 
Rational, intelligent people in a changing and transitioning world 
ought to always be committed to enough flexibility to learn to grow and 
to evolve. That is all I am saying.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I agree that America should 
have gone in. I may differ with some of the others on this resolution. 
I think it was essential because only we could do it. But we have been 
in, and the fighting has stopped, and it is one thing to say, well, the 
Europeans should have been able to do it from the beginning. I never 
said that. The question is now are the Europeans capable of maintaining 
this kind of maintenance force?
  And the point I make is this. Of course I care about Europeans, I 
care about a lot of people, but there are limited resources, and for 
the United States to continue to encourage on the Europeans the notion 
that they do not have to do very much while we do it all I think is 
ultimately damaging to the values the gentleman is seeking. I think 
precisely because America does have important roles to play in various 
parts of the world where the mission has now been reduced to a more 
easily accomplished one than originally when we had to go in, we have a 
right to ask the Europeans to do a hand-off from now.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums] 
has expired.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. Under the rule, as chairman of the committee the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence] is entitled to 5 minutes and 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I hesitate to do this because I hate to get 
5 more minutes for one side in one amendment and the other amendment 
did not have that like amount of time, but that is the way things work 
out.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns].
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Dellums] said this afternoon let us be proud to be peacekeepers.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPENCE. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Absolutely.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I say to the gentleman from California let 
us also be proud to abide by the Constitution.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Absolutely.
  Mr. STEARNS. Where in the U.S. Constitution does a President have the 
power to unilaterally place U.S. troops in combat environment without 
any congressional approval, let alone without notifying Congress?
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, the Constitution is clear about war 
making. The Framers of the Constitution did not contemplate the post-
cold war world where we are talking about peacekeeping, peacemaking, 
and peace enforcement, and I would dare say to the gentleman that the 
War Powers Act is an inept and impotent act in dealing with these 
conditions as well.
  So the gentleman's point is not well-taken. The Constitution did not 
envision the Bosnias, the Somalias, and the Haitis of the world.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Dellums] it is clear under Desert Storm when President 
Bush came here and asked Congress for approval for that conflict, and 
every

[[Page H4307]]

President eventually came to Congress to do that, yet here we are, the 
law is not changed, the President does not have the constitutional 
authority to send U.S. combat troops into an indefinite situation, and 
even the President agreed they would be out far ahead of this time, yet 
it is not true.
  Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman from South Carolina 
yield for 10 seconds?
  Mr. SPENCE. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, let me just state to the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Stearns], President Bush did not ask for authorization. As 
a matter of fact, he did not think he needed authorization. The 
Congress forced that on the President.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman yield and let me reply 
to that?
  Mr. SPENCE. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Murtha], did not President Bush come here, get a vote?
  Mr. MURTHA. I led the fight.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Stearns].
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, the bottom line here is this is going on 
and on with no definite time when this is going to end.
  Let me read quickly what Corp. Zechariah Gransbury of Orlando said. 
He is in Bosnia, he should know:
  It is getting worse and worse. The repetition is awful. Morale in my 
battalion is terrible. Most soldiers do not do the job they are trained 
to do. No one is motivated. I think a lot of us concluded that we are 
not making any real change in Bosnia. .
  Now this is someone that is in Bosnia, not somebody on the House 
floor. It is time Congress put an end to this unauthorized operation by 
creating a date certain for the exit of United States combat troops on 
the ground in Bosnia, and that is why I support the Hilleary amendment.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield 10 seconds to me?
  Mr. SPENCE. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Chairman, I took President Bush to court, I sued in 
the Federal court to guarantee Congress' prerogative in warmaking, and 
I went out there initially alone, my colleague. The gentleman was not 
there, there were no other people. I went alone initially to the courts 
of this country to preserve Congress' warmaking prerogatives on the 
issue----
  Mr. STEARNS. President Clinton, will the gentleman take President 
Clinton to court?
  Mr. DELLUMS. He has not violated the Constitution as I envision it.
  Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham].
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 30 
seconds.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Thirty seconds to get us out of Bosnia.
  Mr. Chairman, let me just say that the President told us a year ago 
that we are going to be out of Bosnia. Look at Somalia, the extension 
we got, 22 Rangers killed. Haiti; Aristide is still there, and so are 
the same problems. Billions of dollars.
  Izetbegovic is aligning himself with Iran because he knows the United 
States is eventually pulling out. There are thousands of mujaheddin and 
Hamas sitting there.
  Will there be peace in Bosnia? Not in our lifetime, nor the Middle 
East, and we need to let Europe do it and let us get out of Dodge.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Buyer and 
Hilleary amendments.
  What is the purpose of these amendments?
  Why should Congress get involved at this point?
  Clearly United States actions in the NATO-led Bosnia mission have 
saved lives and not lost lives.
  A target date for withdrawal has been set. Yesterday, the President 
reiterated that he expects the mission should be completed on schedule 
by June 1998. Do we want to eliminate any flexibility, even though the 
Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say 
it would be harmful to both the military and civilian effort in Bosnia? 
Secretary Cohen and General Shalikashvili have stated that a fixed, 
statutorily mandated date for the withdrawal of U.S. forces could 
undercut the safety of our troops.
  When the consequences of a false step could be severe, Congress 
should be extremely careful how and where it treads. In this case, the 
stakes are high: the danger of renewed genocide. We speak out on this 
floor about the horrors of genocide. Let's not take an action that 
might increase the chances of a renewed nightmare.
  Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of both of the pending 
amendments.
  Both these amendments would merely compel the administration to live 
up to its pledge to withdraw United States ground forces from Bosnia by 
June 30, 1998, at the latest.
  To date, we have spent some $6.5 billion on our peacekeeping mission 
in Bosnia. Meanwhile, we rob our training, maintenance, and other 
operational accounts to pay for this mission. Our service people must 
do more and more with less and less, while readiness suffers and our 
military families are strained to the limit by overseas deployments.
  I strongly support peace in Bosnia, but we cannot perform the 
peacekeeping mission there indefinitely. Our forces have provided a 
significant period of tranquility for implementation of the Dayton 
accords. We have provided aid to help rebuild. Fundamentally, however, 
it is up to the people there to decide whether they will work for 
peace. If Bosnia's factions have not moved significantly toward 
resolving their problems by June 1998, how long will it take?
  I urge my colleagues to support these amendments.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, article I, section 8, of the U.S. 
Constitution gives the Congress, not the President, the right to 
declare war. We will have learned nothing from America's experience in 
Vietnam if we allow U.S. military to take part in a war without the 
explicit approval of Congress. At the very least, the war powers 
resolution should be honored. That law permits the insertion of U.S. 
troops into a circumstance where hostilities are imminent only for a 
maximum of 120 days before the explicit approval of Congress is 
obtained. In open hearings of the International Relations Committee, I 
asked of the Secretary of State why the President had not complied with 
this law in Bosnia. She answered in a way that brought me great 
sorrow--she claimed that hostilities were not imminent in Bosnia. Yet, 
allied troops have died in Bosnia. United States troops have been 
subject to sniper fire, and wounded, in Bosnia. To say this is not a 
situation of hostilities is to play with words--and that we must not do 
when American lives and the terms of the U.S. Constitution are at 
stake. The President has not obtained approval of the U.S. Congress for 
our troops to be in Bosnia. The Constitution compels they be brought 
home.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time has expired.
  The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from 
Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary] as a substitute for the amendment offered by 
the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair announces that pursuant to clause 2(c) of 
rule XXIII the Chair will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any 
electronic vote on the underlying Buyer amendment.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 196, 
noes 231, not voting 7, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 233]

                               AYES--196

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bonilla
     Boyd
     Brady
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehrlich
     English
     Ensign
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Filner
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hulshof
     Hutchinson
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly

[[Page H4308]]


     Kim
     Kingston
     Klug
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (KY)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Markey
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Mink
     Moran (KS)
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanders
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Smith (OR)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tierney
     Traficant
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Young (AK)

                               NOES--231

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Armey
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barrett (WI)
     Bateman
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Castle
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (VA)
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fawell
     Fazio
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Fox
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     King (NY)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Lazio
     Leach
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Linder
     Livingston
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McHugh
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Oxley
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Quinn
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Redmond
     Regula
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Scott
     Shaw
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Towns
     Turner
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weldon (PA)
     Wexler
     Weygand
     White
     Wicker
     Wise
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Bryant
     Cox
     Schiff
     Schumer
     Torres
     Weldon (FL)
     Yates

                              {time}  1833

  Messrs. STOKES, MOAKLEY, OWENS, WHITE, Callahan, and FOX of 
Pennsylvania changed their vote from ``aye" to ``no.''
  Mr. ISTOOK and Mr. PACKARD changed their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment offered as a substitute for the amendment was 
rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


                          personal explanation

  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 233, I was 
unintentionally delayed. Had I been present, I would have vote ``aye.''


                          personal explanation

  Mr. BRYANT. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 233, I was inadvertently 
detained. Had I been present, I would have vote ``aye.''
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer].
  The question was taken; and the chairman announced that the ayes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 278, 
noes 148, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 234]

                               AYES--278

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boyd
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Filner
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kildee
     Kim
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lucas
     Maloney (CT)
     Manton
     Manzullo
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (CA)
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Mink
     Molinari
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Pascrell
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Redmond
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherman
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Sununu
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tierney
     Traficant
     Turner
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NOES--148

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dixon
     Doyle
     Engel
     Etheridge
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gordon
     Gutierrez
     Hamilton
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Hooley
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kanjorski
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     King (NY)
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Millender-McDonald
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal

[[Page H4309]]


     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Scott
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Thurman
     Torres
     Towns
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Brady
     Bryant
     Cox
     Dingell
     Schiff
     Schumer
     Talent
     Yates

                          ____________________