[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 151 (Wednesday, October 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12970-S12972]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WORLD AFFAIRS

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, in a few short minutes the curtain will 
fall on this Congress. Today we complete our legislative business. Yet 
the business of global peace and national security will continue. 
Issues such as our global economy, regional stability, nuclear 
proliferation, proliferation of biological and chemical weapons--just 
to name a few--determine the condition of this business. It is a 
business that requires the daily attention of our world leaders, 
including the President of the United States, including his advisors, 
and including, yes, this Senate.
  Yet today it is claimed that our national attention is not focused on 
the kinds of affairs that have a huge impact on our national security. 
It is claimed that our focus is not made on foreign affairs. Even our 
President, we are told, is not able to devote to foreign policy the 
level of commitment and leadership our country needs. We are told he is 
distracted. Some say he was distracted first by a lengthy independent 
counsel investigation, and now distracted by a congressional 
impeachment process. We are told he is distracted needlessly from doing 
the job at hand.
  Distracted. That is a word that has gotten quite a bit of mileage 
lately. It has found its way into our editorial pages and into our 
Sunday morning talk shows. We are told by the political columnists and 
TV pundits that all of us were distracted in this country--all of us--
by the Starr investigation and the Starr report.
  Soon it will be the House impeachment process that draws our 
attention. We are told that all of us are distracted--the American 
people, the Congress, and first of all, the President--by all of this. 
We are told that that distraction is dangerous--dangerous because it 
could send the wrong signal to a rogue nation or a terrorist group or 
further complicate an already complex global economic slowdown.
  The conclusion that seems to be reached by a number of people is that 
it is in our best interest, perhaps even our national security 
interest, to achieve an expedited resolution of the impeachment 
process, and to do it quickly. Some argue that what we need is an 
alternative to the impeachment process itself. Some have used the term 
``censure'' or ``reprimand.'' I am deeply concerned that the upcoming 
impeachment process is perceived as a distraction, one that inhibits 
the kind of vision and strategic planning that we must expect from the 
leader of the world's sole superpower.
  This perception is not lost on those around the globe who have a 
stake in American leadership. And who doesn't have a stake in American 
leadership? One European Finance Minister here in Washington for the 
annual IMF World Bank talks was quoted in the New York Times with the 
following:

       You might find that the leader of the world's biggest 
     economy could spend more time figuring out ways to save the 
     world economy if he was not trying to save his job.

  There is no reason for the President of the United States to be 
distracted to the point of even remote danger to our national security. 
In other words, we must not let the perception of distraction dictate 
the reality. We can and must address our interests here and abroad in 
the midst of this constitutional impeachment process.
  For that reason, we cannot let this perceived distraction in any way 
undermine our constitutional duties as Members of Congress. Perhaps 
most important, we cannot let this argument of distraction serve as an 
excuse to avoid the kind of long-range planning and decisionmaking, the 
strategic thinking, that we need, and should expect, from our President 
in regard to the American foreign policy during these very difficult 
times.
  These are difficult times, perhaps the most difficult and the most 
challenging period in the post-cold-war era. Since the end of the cold 
war we have experienced a combined period of peace and prosperity 
probably not seen in this country since the 1920s. However, ours has 
not been a tranquil peace. The President had to send ground troops to 
Somalia, Haiti, and most recently to Bosnia. We have taken to the air 
with swift military action in Iran, Sudan and the hills of Afghanistan. 
We made a show of force in Iraq, the Taiwan Straits, and recently in 
Serbia. If the last 7 years have proven one lesson, it is clear that 
the challenges of peace do not end with its achievement. It must be 
protected, enforced and advanced with the same vigilance and 
determination we used in the past to arrive at this point in history. 
As Henry Kissinger reminded our young allies more than 10 years ago:

       History knows no resting places. What does not advance must 
     sooner or later decline.

  The world has not been resting. Indeed, this has been a time of 
increasing restlessness. At no time since the fall of the Soviet Union 
has the world needed either individual or collective leadership more 
than it does today. We are in need of leadership that strives not just 
for quick fixes but solutions that look beyond the short term. When the 
world looks for leadership, it can only look one place, and that is to 
the United States. If the United States does not lead, there is no one 
else who can lead, no one else who will lead. We must lead.

  The issues we face are numerous, complex, interrelated and 
potentially self-destructive. As we near a new millennium, we find 
ourselves at a virtual crossroad in so many different areas. We stand 
on the brink of a nuclear arms race in Asia and the Middle East. 
Nationalism raised the prospect of war in several regions, from Central 
Europe to Asia, and most ominous, we face a worldwide economic 
dislocation, and perhaps a global recession, a global recession that 
threatens to undermine, if not overwhelm, the progress of the 
democracies that we have seen springing up in virtually every corner of 
the world. Each one of these challenges has serious economic and 
security consequences for our own country. Each one of these issues 
requires leadership from the United States.
  Let me expand briefly on each of these challenges. First, the threat 
of a nuclear arm race in Asia and the Middle East raises serious 
questions about the effectiveness of our own unilateral and our 
multilateral efforts to control the flow of materials, to control the 
flow of technology and information that is needed to build a nuclear 
weapon and the means to deliver. In May of this year, as we all recall, 
India and Pakistan both reinforced their status as nuclear powers. 
China, as we all know, has gone to great length to advance its own 
ballistic missile capability. And 3 years after an agreement with the 
Clinton administration to cease its nuclear weapons program, North 
Korea may still be moving forward to acquire nuclear weapons. In 
August, North Korea tested a two-stage ballistic missile that 
demonstrated its capability to deliver a nuclear payload.
  When the Persian Gulf war ended in 1991, both sides agreed to a U.N. 
Security Council resolution that required the destruction and banned 
future possession and development of nuclear, chemical and biological 
weapons in Iraq. But time and time again, Iraq has demonstrated its 
clear resolve never to abide by this resolution. The United Nations 
demonstrated it has no resolve to insist on compliance.
  Iran continues to actively pursue a nuclear weapons program. The 
capability, if obtained, could fuel a nuclear arms race throughout Asia 
and the Middle East. Perhaps of greatest concern, nuclear proliferation 
in this region raises the risk that a nuclear device could end up in 
the hands of terrorist organizations or other elements hostile to the 
United States or hostile to the free world.
  While these nations have challenged international nuclear 
nonproliferation policies and agreements, others are asserting 
nationalism as well as ethnic prerogatives, prerogatives which have 
tested the United Nations and our NATO allies.
  Certainly we can point to the success of the stabilization forces to 
sustain the Dayton peace accords in Bosnia. However, when will the 
ultimate end game be in sight? At what point can our troops return 
home? At what point can real peace sustained by the Bosnians themselves 
ever be achieved?
  While we struggle to find the end game of peace in Bosnia, we are 
just beginning to make the opening moves and struggle to restore peace 
in the neighboring Serbian province of

[[Page S12971]]

Kosovo. Milosevic has pledged to abide by U.N. demand, but only after 
the United States and our NATO allies started speaking with force, 
showing that they are ready. Bosnia has taught us hard lessons. We 
cannot rest on a commitment made by a war criminal, and the actions or 
inactions over the last week clearly reinforce that, as well.
  To the east, Turkey finds itself in military buildup against two 
adversaries, Syria and Greece. This administration now has been in a 
week-long struggle to revive, once again, the single issue that has 
kept peace and democracy bottled on the eastern shore of the 
Mediterranean, the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
  The regional tensions I have just described are fueled by ethnic and 
historic tensions that clearly go back for generations, go back 
centuries. It is safe to say that to achieve stability all sides have 
to defy the history of violence and bloodshed that preceded. While 
these nations attempt to reinforce their place in history, other 
nations are trying to save or achieve the economic and democratic 
success stories of recent history. Currency downturns across all of 
Asia now threaten the economic vitality in Latin America, particularly 
in Brazil. International drug trafficking from South America to the 
U.S.-Mexico border also undermines legitimate economic development 
efforts by countries in the production and transit zones. Our own 
efforts have to look to the larger global economic picture. For 
example, forcing a drop in the U.S. currency relative to the yen may 
make Japanese products less expensive, but it effectively makes 
products made by their Asian competitors more expensive, which could 
stall economic growth in places like Thailand or Singapore.

  Mr. President, I have outlined a series of challenges. Each of these 
challenges offers no simple solutions. Let's be very clear and honest 
about that. Each has long-term consequences, though, for U.S. national 
security. All of them are really interrelated. For example, the harder 
it is for Russia to right herself economically and politically, the 
harder it will be for Russia to avoid marketing its own destructive 
assets--those assets, of course, being nuclear technology.
  Mr. President, President Clinton is looking to leave a legacy; 
surely, he must be. The challenge to leave such a legacy to advance 
global peace and prosperity into the next century is there for the 
taking. Mr. President, the American people should not accept the 
upcoming impeachment process, or investigation--however we want to 
phrase it--as an identified impediment to achieving that legacy. What 
it would reveal instead is an administration that is lacking in the 
creative administrative capacity to articulate and advance a long-term 
foreign policy agenda. It is that failure to articulate and then stand 
by that agenda that poses the real risk to U.S. interests around the 
world.
  Mr. President, it is important that we put the impeachment process 
launched by the House of Representatives in its proper perspective. We 
are not faced today with a constitutional crisis. Instead, we are 
beginning a constitutional process. We don't know the ultimate outcome 
of that. It is a constitutional process designed by our Founding 
Fathers, designed to be a check on the potentially abusive power of a 
President. It is up to us in Congress to ultimately determine what 
``high crimes and misdemeanors'' mean, and to ultimately determine what 
the facts are. It is up to us to follow that constitutional process 
that was laid out over 200 years ago by the founders of this country.
  Mr. President, for impeachment, the Constitution provides Congress a 
way to preserve the integrity of the President and, more to the point, 
to define this process and the kinds of practices that would fall into 
the category of high crimes and misdemeanors. Certainly a President 
faced with this constitutional process will have to devote time and 
effort to overcome the possible removal from office. We know that. But 
should we seek to limit or alter this process arbitrarily because it 
takes him away from other perhaps more pressing duties? Certainly not.
  Mr. President, impeachment is not the only process in our 
Constitution that can result in removal of a President. The 
Constitution provides a regular formal check on the President's powers 
known as ``elections''--the electoral process itself. As we all know, a 
President who is subjected to this constitutional process has to devote 
a great deal of time and attention to prevent his removal from office 
by the people. It is called running for election and running for 
reelection. Campaigns have become longer and more expensive. They 
demand more and more of a President's time and energy. This has taken 
place in the midst of challenging times. Not one time was this normal 
election process altered because of its potentially adverse affects on 
a President's ability to lead in times of difficulty, or even in times 
of crisis. Abraham Lincoln fought both a military war to save the union 
and a political war to save his Presidency in 1864. Franklin Roosevelt 
battled economic depression, and then Nazi and Japanese aggression, 
through three reelection campaigns. All of his successors, except one, 
from Harry Truman to George Bush had to wage and win a cold war, stop 
and dismantle communism, run a campaign and, at the same time, remain 
in office.
  I cite these examples because we expect our Presidents to exercise 
leadership even when they are being subjected to a political process 
that could result in their removal from office. Although the 
impeachment process raises very serious issues, it is no more a 
constitutional crisis than the very electoral process itself. Even 
today, in the days when Presidents are actively involved in reelection 
campaigns that begin almost immediately after being sworn into office, 
we expect our President to not let the campaign distract him from 
exercising leadership on the larger issues that are vital to this 
country. Nor have we ever postponed an election because of any fear 
that it would disrupt or threaten our Nation's security --not even when 
our Nation was at war, not even when our Nation was bitterly divided.
  Mr. President, with that in mind, we should not allow the current 
impeachment proceedings to be used as an excuse for not confronting the 
more important challenges we face in the world today. As I said in the 
beginning of my remarks, the business of national security and global 
peace is never-ending. This makes Presidential leadership a full time 
job, no matter what constitutional processes are utilized to remove the 
President from office by those who elected him or those tasked to 
protect the integrity of that office, whether it is what we consider to 
be the normal every-four-year reelection process or this extraordinary, 
unusual process that is clearly prescribed in the Constitution--the 
impeachment process that we are about today.

  Therefore, Mr. President, any process to address the charges raised 
by the independent counsel, short of that provided for in the 
Constitution, would be a grave mistake. I am confident that the 
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Henry Hyde, will 
conduct a thorough and fair hearing. Congressman Hyde will not let the 
process last a day longer than is needed. It is a process that will 
consume the time of many members of the legislative and executive 
branch of Government. However, it is a process put in place by the 
founders of this country to preserve the integrity of representative 
government. We have a duty to follow that process. It is not in 
anyone's interest to cheapen or weaken this process in a way that 
compromises our system of Government.
  With that said, the process must continue. I am confident that the 
House and the Senate will conduct themselves in a way that will give 
confidence to the American people that we are following the 
Constitution and that we are doing what we think is right--whatever the 
outcome.
  Mr. President, I urge the President of the United States to 
demonstrate that we are a country capable of following our Constitution 
and maintaining our position of leadership in the world. That could 
only occur if the President brushes aside the talk of distraction and 
takes on the numerous challenges before us. Ultimately, Mr. President, 
the truest sign of weakness is not a President focused on the 
constitutional process at hand, but an entire administration that is 
not prepared to exercise the leadership needed to work with our

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allies, develop sound policies, and then abide by them.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair.

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