[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 30, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11146-S11148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 KOSOVO

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a related issue. 
The Senator from Nebraska touched on foreign policy and how it affects 
our national security. I want to express my concern that President 
Clinton and the United States, in coordination with NATO, is once again 
preparing to take military action with very little, if any dialog, with 
the Congress or the American people.
  Once again, the President of the United States may be about to 
``plant the flag'' of U.S. credibility that will lock this Nation in 
another expensive, long involvement without any clear discussion--it 
may be warranted; it may be in the national interest, but without any 
clear discussion of U.S. vital national interest--and that involvement 
is in a place in the world called Kosovo.
  The news today is pretty grim. The news from Kosovo has been and 
continues to be very grim. In the Washington Post, here is a story as 
of this morning:
  ``New Kosovo Massacre May Spur NATO To Act.'' This is not pretty. I 
am quoting from the Post story by Mr. Guy Dinmore:

       Their bodies lay as they fell, throats cut or shot in the 
     back of the head--19 ethnic Albanians believed to have been 
     executed by Serbian police units in the most harrowing 
     massacre of civilians since warfare erupted in Kosovo seven 
     months ago.
       Relatives and neighbors today dug graves for the dead--most 
     of them women, children and elderly people--as they tearfully 
     recounted the massacre that occurred Saturday when government 
     forces entered this village in the Serbian province of Kosovo 
     following the killing of seven policemen by separatist 
     guerrillas.
       With the death toll in the bitter conflict between 
     government forces and ethnic Albanian rebels steadily 
     mounting and little sign that Serbia will adhere to a 
     unilateral cease-fire senior NATO sources said today there is 
     a growing possibility that the Western alliance will 
     intervene militarily in Kosovo as early as next month.
       Serbia is the dominant Republic of Yugoslavia, and NATO 
     sources say the alliance's next step would be to deliver an 
     ultimatum to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic demanding 
     a cease-fire and full access to refugees from the Kosovo 
     conflict. If the demands are not met, they said, NATO would 
     proceed with plans set in motion at a NATO defense ministers 
     meeting last week to launch airstrikes against Serbian 
     targets. Last week, the U.N. Security Council issued a call 
     for an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of government 
     forces from Kosovo.

  In the New York Times--and as Senator McCain pointed out a few short 
moments ago, and completes the pictures--there is a very disturbing 
story summed up:

       Senior officials in Washington and NATO last week stepped 
     up their threats of military force against Milosevic and 
     demanded that his forces stop their rampage.

  A USA Today headline, ``Yugoslavian Army Takes Steps to Avoid 
Strikes.''

       Up to 150 Yugoslavian army vehicles pulled out of southern 
     Kosovo Tuesday in an apparent move to avoid NATO airstrikes, 
     Yugoslavia media reported. But the Pentagon said it had seen 
     no evidence of a large-scale pull back, and NATO stepped up 
     its plans for military strikes to stop the Yugoslav 
     onslaught.

  Then in the London Times, a story by Tom Walker, the reporter who 
discovered the tragedy:

       I discovered the bodies of 16 Albanian civilians [now it is 
     up to 19] massacred by Serb forces in a remote village in 
     Kosovo yesterday.

  I won't go into the gory details.
  The international press and our local national press are forecasting 
what I think everybody in the Senate certainly is aware of.
  I commend to my colleagues the latest issue of Time Magazine. The 
headline reads, ``The Balkan Mess: The West has been fiddling while 
Kosovo burns and regional peace strategies falter.''
  This is precisely the topic that Senator Hagel was talking about. I 
don't like saying this, but the headline says it: ``And Bill Clinton is 
too distracted to pay proper attention.''
  The highlights of the article are as follows:

       But Kosovo is far and away the worst of the current crises. 
     Vowing not to permit another slaughter like Bosnia's, the 
     NATO allies threatened Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic 
     last June with airstrikes unless he halted his security 
     forces' attacks on the rebellious Albanians. Even if Clinton 
     hadn't been bedeviled by scandal, the threat would have been 
     difficult to carry out. France [in typical fashion] refused 
     to go along with the military action unless the U.N. Security 
     Council approved, and Russia promised to veto any resolution 
     that authorized it.
       Washington was also stuck in internal wrangling. Secretary 
     of State Madeleine Albright wanted the White House to push 
     harder for NATO military action, but Defense Secretary 
     William Cohen balked, fearing air strikes would only 
     embolden the Kosovo Liberation Army, then at the peak of 
     its strength and demanding an independent state, which 
     Washington opposed. Clinton was too distracted to knock 
     bureaucratic heads or force the allies to carry out their 
     threat. The indecision ``proved to be a disaster,'' said a 
     U.S. diplomat. ``Milosevic took the measure of the west 
     and decided he could take advantage of it.''
       By last month, The Serb leader had turned his 
     counteroffensive against the rebel army into a campaign of 
     terror against Albanian villages. Suddenly, whole sections of 
     the population were being driven from their homes, but the 
     Western response remained inaudible. In part, critics charge 
     that the U.S. tacitly let Milosevic go ahead because the West 
     also wanted to break the back of the rebel army, whose lack 
     of structure threatened regional stability.

  That is a sad, sad commentary if in fact that is true.

       So last week the Security Council finally passed a Franco-
     British resolution demanding that Milosevic halt his 
     offensive and begin negotiations, or face the possibility of 
     armed intervention. The attack plan calls for U.S. cruise 
     missiles to be launched first . . .

  I'll repeat that.

       The attack plan calls for U.S. cruise missiles to be 
     launched first against Serb military targets in Kosovo; then, 
     if needed, NATO would mount a wider air campaign outside 
     Kosovo against security facilities in Serbia.
       Even if the Administration rouses itself to take charge of 
     the Balkan situation--

  Senator Hagel tried to point this out, and Senator McCain has tried 
to point this out, as others have--

     damage to U.S. foreign policy may have already been done. 
     Allies sense distraction and are growing worried, but are 
     unable to step in. Enemies may see opportunities for making 
     mischief.

  That is certainly true, with the third-stage rocket being tested by 
North Korea, and Saddam Hussein is certainly not behaving. And India 
and Pakistan are continuing their war of words. There is very little 
justification, by the way, for the missile strike in regard to Sudan 
and the Khartoum chemical plant. I won't go into all of that, but let 
me say on record that I do not think that the justification can be 
verified:

       Enemies may see opportunities for making mischief. For 
     rogue leaders like Saddam Hussein and North Korea's Kim Jong 
     Il, the Balkans may convey a different message: Now is the 
     best time to take what they want.

  Senator McCain talked about this last week, and he did so a few 
moments ago, also. Last week, he repeated the observation made by the 
former majority leader, Bob Dole of Kansas, who tearfully told an 
audience he had been to Kosovo and was shocked in regard to the number 
that have been killed, the atrocities, and the tragedy that 250,000 
people are in the mountains hiding,

[[Page S11147]]

trying to prevent them and their families from being killed. I don't 
know what is going to happen, but it is a human tragedy. Bob Dole said, 
``For goodness sake, let's not repeat Bosnia.''
  Let me say that I just came from an intelligence briefing as of 
yesterday with Senator DeWine of Ohio. He and I are extremely concerned 
about the situation. I can tell you that our sources from the various 
intelligence assets certainly confirm what the press has reported--a 
human tragedy in the making, a foreign policy disaster that bears upon 
the ability of NATO to function. Now, what do we do about it? Last 
July, I offered an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that 
required the President to come before the American people and the 
Congress before he committed the U.S. to a military involvement in 
terms of Kosovo. The amendment asked the President to address several 
items to make his case before we intervened.
  Why is it in our national interest? You can argue it both ways. You 
can say we are into another Bosnia, another $10 billion, and year after 
year of presence; or you can say that the future of NATO is in danger. 
You can even make a case that it is in our national interest to 
intervene. But regarding the amendment, I went on to ask, how many 
troops will be required? Now, that is a good question because when the 
distinguished Senator from Alabama, Chairman of the Intelligence 
Committee, and I were visiting the new NATO countries just a month or 2 
ago, we were at a social event and one of the generals who certainly 
plays an important role regarding NATO indicated to me privately that 
it would take 70,000 troops to be on the ground-- ``peacekeepers,'' as 
he called them. I have no idea how 70,000 troops can be in that part of 
the world, with that rough terrain, in the middle of winter, with no 
accessible roads and a very difficult situation where the Serbs are 
trying to kill the ethnic Albanians. I don't know how we can put 70,000 
troops in there. But if we are going to do that, we at least ought to 
go over those contingencies.
  Then, again, I stated it should be mandatory to state what the 
objectives would be, when we expected the troops to be withdrawn, and 
what criteria would signal ``mission complete,'' what the cost would be 
and what would be the funding source.
  I am going to interrupt again and say that, yesterday, as Senator 
McCain pointed out, the Joint Chiefs of Staff came before the Congress, 
and it was a pretty candid session. That is putting it mildly. I don't 
agree with the press coverage in the Post as of this morning regarding 
Senators raising holy ned with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We wanted 
candor and they gave us candor, and it pointed out that the joint 
chiefs--all of the services combined said we need $21 billion to keep 
our services in a status where at least we could honor our 
responsibilities regarding readiness.
  I pointed out that the President has requested $1 billion. It has to 
be offset in the rest of the defense budget. The Marine Corps needed 
$1.9 billion just to put new tires on trucks, and other essentials. So 
he is going to get $51 million, but he has to offset it in another way. 
The rest of the services said we need $5 billion or $6 billion, or the 
``nose of the plane,'' in terms of readiness, will go into the ground, 
and the President requested $1 billion that has to be offset, and $1.9 
billion in terms of emergency funding regarding Bosnia. This is a 
disaster. We do not even have enough funds to keep our services in a 
readiness posture, and here we are talking about going into Kosovo, and 
perhaps we should, but there has been no dialog. What would be the 
impact on an overstressed military? We are stressed and we are strained 
and we are hollow in some portions.
  The distinguished present occupant of the Chair summarized it very 
well when we had that hearing. The Senator from Oklahoma was the 
Readiness Subcommittee chairman. He had a hearing last week that 
pointed this out. The first obligation to the Federal Government is to 
guarantee our national security, and we are not doing that today. Also, 
as of today, nothing has been heard on the subject from the 
administration regarding Kosovo. Now, that train has left the station 
while the Nation has been preoccupied with other matters.
  Let me point out what has happened in the Serbian province of Kosovo 
since July. Mr. Milosevic has steadily increased the level of violence 
against the Albanian majority. Estimates put the number of deaths at 
several hundred. We read the latest reports, and the number of refugees 
is probably around 250,000. As I have indicated before, we have 
intelligence assets and there is talk of humanitarian relief--and I am 
for that--but we can't even find these folks. Why? Because they are 
hiding in the trees, on the mountains, in the snow, and women and 
children are starving, because they are afraid Serbs will kill them. 
NATO has developed plans for military action against the Serbian 
forces. I will point out that NATO had a flyover, called ``Determined 
Falcon.'' That was one falcon who wasn't very determined. These planes 
flew over for about 3 minutes. What was the signal sent to the Serbs? 
We were not really serious about it. They took advantage. What was the 
message that was given to liberation army on the other side? It was: I 
think the United States is going to come to our aid. So there wasn't 
any real dialog. I wonder why that demonstration was even started.
  Humanitarian groups, including U.S. State Department, have warned 
that a human disaster is in the making if the refugees do not find 
shelter and food before winter starts. Winter has started. This week, 
the first snows have fallen in Kosovo.
  The U.N. has adopted a resolution under Article 7 of the U.N. Charter 
demanding an immediate cease-fire. Under Article 7, military force can 
be used to ``compel compliance,'' Mr. President.
  NATO members are being canvassed about the number of troops and 
equipment they are willing to commit to an ``undefined operation in 
Kosovo.'' We have several hundreds troops in Macedonia. The general 
told us, when we were over in the NATO countries, they need at least 
70,000 people. You know the U.S. would have a larger portion than 200 
or 300.
  I am calling for the administration to come to the Congress now and 
not after a military action and the commitment of U.S. credibility and 
fully discuss what the plans are, what is the objective, how many 
troops, what is the cost, what is the national interest for military 
action in Kosovo. None of the questions addressed in my amendment have 
been answered, but it is clear to me the United States and NATO are 
very close to a prolonged, costly involvement in another part of the 
Balkans.
  And the risks of such an involvement is great. The risk of not taking 
action is equally great. As I have indicated, we have several hundred 
U.S. troops on the ground in the neighboring country of Macedonia. What 
risk would they be in if we strike? What is the risk of destabilizing 
the entire region if we incite a broader conflict in Kosovo? What is 
the risk if we do not? How likely will a conflict in Kosovo draw Turkey 
and Greece into the fray as opponents? These are tough issues. They 
require very close examination before we get involved, and not after a 
military demonstration strike of cruise missiles.
  The administration and the national security team, with all due 
respect, is the most doggone outfit I have ever seen in terms of 
planting the flag; and, then, after the flag is planted we have the 
choice of whether we are going to withdraw while the troops are in the 
field. You can't do that. So the flag is planted, and then we are 
stuck.
  If the administration thinks threats of military action may alter the 
behavior of President Milosevic, what clearer signal of intent could we 
send that we were prepared to forcibly stop the violence against the 
Albanians than by having the President of the United States lay out the 
issues to the American people?
  It might be a good idea to come back and confer with the Senate, as 
Senator Warner, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, the leading 
spokesman for defense and foreign policy, has requested the 
administration to come up and consult. It might be a good idea to get 
off the fundraising trail, Mr. President, and come back and do that.
  The President owes this Nation and the Congress the full explanation 
of intent if we are to become even more involved in Kosovo.
  There is no need to discuss the military details of any proposed 
action. I

[[Page S11148]]

am not asking for that. No one is asking for that. We don't need to 
know the timing, or the types or selection of weapon platforms. But we 
do need a dialogue on why this is necessary, and why this is in our 
U.S. vital national interests.
  I indicated just a moment ago that Senator Warner has requested 
Secretary Cohen, our national security adviser to the President, Sandy 
Berger, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and anybody else that 
will listen, especially the President of the United States, to please 
come down here, to please come to the Capitol, and to please consult 
with us. What is going on?
  As I have indicated, we are having a very tough time in regard to the 
national defense.
  As I said, it is a national disgrace. And before we commit American 
men and women in uniform to a possible combat role overseas and an 
additional role as opposed to what we are doing in Bosnia, we have to 
be consulted. Mr. President, what is going on?
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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