[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 20, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S804-S808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                FOREIGN TRAVEL OF SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER

 Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, during the winter recess, I had 
the opportunity to travel from Dec. 12 through Dec. 31, 1998, to 13 
countries in Europe, the Mideast and the Gulf. I flew over with 
President Clinton on Air Force One, spent the first several days in 
Israel essentially working with the President's schedule, and then 
pursued my own agenda when he returned to Washington. I believe it is 
worthwhile to share with my colleagues some of my impressions from that 
trip, which I am placing in the Congressional Record on Jan. 19, 1999, 
the first day for statements in the 106th Congress.


                                 ISRAEL

  From December 12 through December 15, I traveled with President 
Clinton to the Middle East to encourage the advancement of the Israeli-
Palestinian peace process in the wake of the accords reached in October 
at Wye Plantation. Although somewhat overshadowed by the pending 
impeachment process, the President's trip was useful, I believe, in 
applying pressure to both sides to abide by their commitments toward 
further progress.


                                 SYRIA

  When President Clinton returned to Washington, I proceeded to 
Damascus, Syria, where I met with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, to 
examine the possibility of progress on the Israeli-Syrian track of the 
Mideast peace process. While I believe that progress between Israel and 
the Palestinians could be made with the resumption of a dialogue 
between Israel and Syria, the pending Israeli elections have rendered 
the prospect for that dialogue unlikely in the short run.
  The big news while I talked with President Assad was the increasing 
tension between the United States and Iraq over the U.N. inspection of 
Iraq's weapons program. Because Syria shares a long border and cultural 
heritage--though certainly no great friendship--with Iraq, even the 
threat of military conflict between the U.S. and Baghdad produces 
immediate and tangible emotions among many Syrians.
  That afternoon in December, the situation in Iraq seemed grave: the 
U.N. team had evacuated the country, and chief inspector Richard Butler 
was preparing to address the U.N. Security Council in an emergency 
session. I did not know that a strike was imminent, but President Assad 
and I speculated during our meeting on news reports concerning what the 
immediate future might hold.
  Past midnight in Damascus, CNN carried live footage of anti-aircraft 
fire and air-raid sirens in Baghdad, only a few hundred miles away. The 
President's remarks from the Oval Office followed shortly thereafter, 
and, after a short night's rest, I was asked to comment on the bombing 
to an expectant Syrian press corps.
  I told the press the same thing that I told President Assad in the 
previous day's meeting: I had written the President on November 12 
urging him not to order the use of U.S. force against Iraq without 
first obtaining Congressional authorization as required by the United 
States Constitution. I believe that a missile strike is an act of war, 
and only the Congress of the United States under our Constitution has 
the authority to declare war.
  Had the President taken the matter to the Congress, as President Bush 
did in 1991, I would have supported it. I believe that Saddam Hussein 
is a menace to the region and to the world. I believe it is true that 
he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and that he has 
demonstrated a willingness to employ chemical weapons for the most 
destructive and terrible purposes. Clearly, some forceful international 
action has to be taken.
  I said I did not believe the President acted because of the pending 
impeachment vote. I indicated that, in my opinion, the President acted 
because he had put Saddam Hussein on notice in the past, and Ramadan 
was coming, as the President explained the previous evening. I said 
that I believe the House of Representatives was right in delaying the 
vote for a couple of days while we commenced a military strike on Iraq.
  Constitutional requirements aside, there is a practical benefit to 
seeking Congressional approval for acts of war. When a President has 
the backing of Congress confirmed by way of a recorded vote, his hand 
is immediately strengthened in the eyes of the world. Absent that 
imprimatur of support, America's enemies or would-be enemies are left 
to poke and carp at the propriety and the purpose of the military 
action. And the attendant Congressional debate helps to sharpen the 
aims and follow-on goals of any action. Winning Congress' approval 
requires a President to spell out exactly what he hopes to accomplish 
through military force, and it forces him to keep those goals within 
the bounds of reality.
  A recorded vote on military authorization is healthy for the 
Congress, as well. It puts Senators and Congressmen on the spot, up-or-
down, on a matter of pivotal importance in national policy: deciding 
whether the goals of a military action justify the price in the blood 
and sweat of our troops. It is simply too easy for Congressional 
critics to bob and weave around taking a position on a given military 
action. If a particular campaign takes a difficult

[[Page S805]]

turn, critics emerge from the woodwork. If, on the other hand, our 
troops achieve dramatic, unforseen successes, prior Congressional 
critics of the action take to the floor in lavish praise.
  Insisting on proper Congressional debate and authorization on future 
military acts would end this charade, while fulfilling a fundamental 
tenet of our Constitution: ``The Congress . . . shall have power to 
declare war . . .''


                                 EGYPT

  Following the press conference, I departed Syria for Cairo, Egypt, to 
meet with President Hosni Mubarak. President Mubarak and I have met 
numerous times since his ascent to power following the assassination of 
President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Needless to say, our discussion this 
time centered around the U.S. military strike on Iraq. I made the same 
points about Congressional authorization for the use of force, and it 
was clear from the initial Egyptian reaction to the strike that our 
motives would have been clarified, and our hand strengthened, had the 
President sought and received the backing of Congress before attacking. 
Following my hour-long discussion with President Mubarak, I addressed 
the Egyptian press corps on the same points at the Presidential palace.


                               MACEDONIA

  I then departed Egypt for Skopje, Macedonia. Upon arrival, I met with 
Ambassador Christopher R. Hill to discuss the situation in Kosovo and 
other issues affecting Bosnian regional stability.
  Skopje is a beautiful, small city surrounded on all sides by 
mountains. The city was leveled almost completely by a post-WWII 
earthquake, as a result of which very little of the original Macedonian 
architecture remains. In place of the earlier buildings stand poured-
concrete, Soviet-style structures that fail to reflect the rich 
heritage of the Macedonian people.
  Formerly a sub-entity of Yugoslavia, Macedonia won its independence 
in the breakup of the former Soviet-bloc country that followed the end 
of the cold war. Macedonians are clearly hardworking people, and it is 
probably no surprise that the tiny republic's economy reportedly is 
doing better than that of most other Yugoslavian republics save 
Slovenia.

  Ambassador Hill and I met that afternoon with the country's newly-
installed 33-year-old Prime Minister, Ljubco Giorgievski. The youthful 
Mr. Giorgievski is obviously proud of the emergence of Macedonia as a 
stable entity in a clearly unstable region. Mindful of the threat that 
Serbia has posed to Bosnia and Kosovo, he is particularly anxious for 
his country to develop friendly, close alliances with NATO, the 
European Community, and the United States.
  That evening, I met with Ambassador William Walker, the U.N. head of 
the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission. Ambassador Walker described in 
detail the instability of the region, and his unease about the lack of 
a protective detail or even airlift assets for his U.N. mission there. 
He described the situation in Kosovo as very different from Bosnia: 
Kosovo is a small-scale guerilla war, with no front lines, and with 
both Serbs and Albanians fighting for public opinion in the region. 
Ambassador Walker said his chief frustration is the absence of a 
political settlement for the U.N. to implement in Kosovo, such as the 
one that was forged in Bosnia. Without such an agreement, he said, 
providing real stability to the region will remain extremely 
problematic, as the U.N. will not be able to move forward on training 
local authorities and local police forces to provide security to the 
region.


                              NETHERLANDS

  The next morning, I proceeded to the Netherlands, where I held a 
working lunch with Ambassador Cynthia P. Schneider and three members of 
the Dutch Parliament who served as experts in their different parties 
on Middle East issues. A consensus emerged that the international 
community needs to work to replace Saddam Hussein as the leader of 
Iraq, but no one could point to a realistic way for the international 
community to get that done.
  We also discussed the benefits to the United States' opening up a 
dialogue with Iran in the future. Interestingly, one of the Members of 
Parliament present, Geert Wilders, had traveled to Iran, and expressed 
frustration that the absence of a real dialogue between the United 
States and Iran meant that Russia is having a disproportionate 
influence on the government, especially by way of providing 
technological expertise for the development of weapons of mass 
destruction. That said, Mr. Wilders expressed the clear difficulty in 
developing a productive dialogue with a government that hold such 
irresponsible positions on regional and international security.
  I then proceeded to the International Criminal Tribunal for the 
Former Yugoslavia, where I met with Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour and 
President Judge Gabrielle McDonald. In contrast to my previous visits 
to the tribunal, Justice Arbour expressed a reasonable degree of 
satisfaction with the Tribunal's U.N. funding, up by $23 million from 
last year's level of $70 million. Not surprisingly, Justice Arbour 
views this manifold increase as a real endorsement of the Tribunal's 
work in bringing justice to the victims of atrocities in Bosnia. In 
particular, she described the success of the prosecutors' exhumation of 
mass grave sites in Bosnia as part of their search for evidence to 
support present trials and further indictments. Justice Arbour 
expressed her aim of indicting and prosecuting a handful of ``top'' 
officials in the Bosnian conflict through the prosecution of lower-
level criminals at present.
  Judge Gabrielle McDonald, a former U.S. District Court Judge in 
Houston, indicated a similar satisfaction with the work of the 
tribunal, but, for her part, feels somewhat understaffed in her 
chambers, particularly as the prosecutors and bring more cases to 
trial. Also, Judge McDonald, as the Tribunal's Chief Judge, would like 
to publicize the court's work as a way both of letting victims know 
justice is being served, and of assuring those under indictment that 
they will receive a truly fair trial in The Hague, should they 
surrender themselves to the court.
  As I left the Tribunal, the U.S. Embassy in The Hague was overrun by 
anti-war activists protesting the U.S. military strike against Iraq.


                                ENGLAND

  During a stopover in London, I met with the country team headed by 
Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Bradtke, to discuss further fallout from 
the bombing. The evening of my arrival, the House of Representatives 
voted out two Articles of Impeachment on President Clinton. The next 
evening, I appeared on a live broadcast of CBS's Face the Nation from 
the network's London studio. The show came the day after the House 
voted to impeach President Clinton, and I discussed procedures and 
context for the impending Senate trial.


                    BELGIUM/NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY

  Operation Desert Fox, the US and British missile strikes on Iraq 
which ran four days during my travels, spurred anti-American 
demonstrations, attacks on US embassies and flag-burnings throughout 
Europe and the Mideast, including many of the nations to which I 
traveled. We had to switch hotels in Brussels upon arrival on Sunday, 
Dec. 20, because the American-owned Sheraton hotel where we had planned 
to stay was the site of a demonstration by some 200 Arabs, who seized 
and burned the hotel's American flag, and a bomb threat that forced the 
evacuation of the entire hotel. There had also been a demonstration 
during the day at the hotel where we did stay, but there was no more 
trouble that night.
  Upon arrival Sunday evening Dec. 20 in Brussels, I met with U.S. 
Ambassador to NATO Alexander Vershbow for an informal briefing. On 
Monday morning at NATO headquarters, I met formally with the ambassador 
and 11 members of the U.S. team. We discussed ways of activating NATO 
against Iraq, and I expressed my concern that the recent bombings of 
Iraq were a strictly US-British operation, with no help from any of our 
other allies. Our team suggested that it takes too long to line up 
other nations and gives too much warning to Saddam. I rejected that 
proposition, given that we had signaled our intentions against Iraq 
after our near-strike in November.
  We also discussed the Russian threat to Western Europe, stemming from 
Russian instability, and our efforts in Bosnia and Kosovo. As for NATO 
and United Nations missions, I commented that many Americans abhor the 
idea of

[[Page S806]]

putting US troops under a foreign commander. I told our team about the 
protests I hear on the subject regularly at my open-house town meetings 
throughout Pennsylvania. Some of our team argued that, ultimately, all 
NATO troops are under an American supreme commander, even if they 
happen to also be under a European divisional commander.
  I met next with the German Ambassador to NATO, Joachim Bitterlich, 
who had served previously as former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's 
national security adviser. Ambassador Bitterlich began by assuring me 
that the US-British strike against Iraq was the right thing to do. I 
took up the questions of Iraq, Iran and the Middle East with Ambassador 
Bitterlich, and we agreed that expanded dialog should be part of any 
strategy. Like many other policy setters, Ambassador Bitterlich said he 
struggling to find any leverage over Saddam Hussein.
  I met next with Gen. Klaus Nauman, Chairman of the NATO Military 
Committee. Gen. Nauman likened Saddam Hussein and his oppressive regime 
to the Nazis, under whom Gen. Nauman had spent his early childhood. 
Such a repressive terrorist regime makes it very difficult to foster 
opposition forces from within, the General warned. As for Russia, Gen. 
Nauman agreed that western nations would be well advised to spend money 
to destroy Russia's nuclear and chemical weapons stockpile, as the 
United States and Germany have. But he cautioned that we must make sure 
the money goes for the purpose intended, and is not diverted, as past 
funds have been.


                                 GREECE

  We left Brussels early Monday morning and traveled most of the day, 
arriving in Athens late in the afternoon. I met with Ambassador R. 
Nicholas Burns. We discussed a variety of subjects, ranging from Greek-
Turkish tension to the situations in Crete and Cyprus to local reaction 
to the Iraq bombings.


                                BAHRAIN

  We left Athens early Tuesday morning, Dec. 22, and traveled to 
Bahrain. At a refueling stop at the Cairo airport, I met with two 
members of our country team to discuss recent intelligence about anti-
American attacks in the region stemming from Operation Desert Fox. They 
briefed me on a mob attack on the U.S. ambassador's residence in 
Damascus, in which the residence was destroyed and our ambassador's 
wife was holed up in a steel-walled safe haven closet until Marines 
arrived to rescue her. Arriving late in the afternoon in Manama, 
Bahrain, I was met at the airport by Ambassador Johnny Young and Vice 
Admiral Charles ``William'' Moore and members of their teams. Admiral 
Moore, Commander of the Fifth Fleet, was in charge of much of the U.S. 
effort in Operation Desert Fox.
  At the US Embassy, Admiral Moore and several of his senior officers 
briefed me on details of Operation Desert Fox. The operation, as 
Admiral Moore summarized it, was a success in that our forces executed 
their objectives with zero allied casualties.
  I met next with 13 area chiefs of UNSCOM, the United Nations program 
to check Iraq's weapons of mass destruction through inspections and 
destruction of materiel. The UNSCOM chiefs, mostly in their 30s, came 
primarily from the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Britain. 
They looked shell-shocked, and as though they had not slept in weeks. 
As I told them at the outset, the world owes them a debt of gratitude 
for the job they have done and for the risks they have taken.
  UNSCOM's numbers have dwindled from a high of 186 inspectors to 112. 
Forty-seven of the inspectors had moved their base to Bahrain after 
evacuating from Iraq hours before the bombing. We discussed their 
assessments of Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons 
programs, the various delivery systems Iraq was developing or had 
built, and the difficulties in conducting inspections and in tracking 
weapons components and chemical precursors. They told me, for example, 
that they had found biological agents in far greater quantities than 
could be justified by legitimate uses. The UNSCOM chiefs all said they 
were ``keen'' to return to Iraq and continue their work, though that 
prospect remains in doubt.


                                  OMAN

  Early Wednesday morning, Dec. 23, we flew to Oman. Upon arrival in 
the capital city of Muscat, we drove for a meeting with Sheik Abdullah 
bin Ali Al-Qatabi, President of the Majlis As-Shura, or elected lower 
house of the national council. For the first 40 minutes, the Sheikh 
deflected my questions about threats to the region and the world by 
Iraq and Iran, reducing the meeting to small talk and an exchange of 
views on civics and bicameral legislatures. Then, when we took 
photographs and stood to leave, the Sheik could contain himself no 
longer and told me what was really on his mind, for nearly an hour as 
we stood at the center of his office.
  The Sheik said Iraq did not pose the grave threat I suggested, 
arguing that Saddam Hussein had not used weapons of mass destruction 
during the Persian Gulf War and probably would not again. Further, he 
argued, our operations would not eliminate Saddam Hussein, but would 
only hurt the Iraqi people, who depend on the infrastructure we 
destroy, and inflame passions throughout the region against the United 
States.
  The Sheik was concerned that we had embarrassed the Sultan and the 
government of Oman through publicity about the use of Omani bases by 
U.S. aircraft during Operation Desert Fox. He used the word 
``embarrassment'' four times, noting that such embarrassment made it 
more difficult for Omani leaders to pursue their genuine desires to 
continue warm relations with the United States. Oman was not 
embarrassed about the use of its bases for allied planes during 
Operation Desert Storm in 1991 because of Iraq's aggression against 
Kuwait, he said.
  The Sheikh told me that he was being unusually frank out of 
friendship, and I assured him I appreciated his candor. I addressed his 
concerns, telling him that collateral damage to civilians is inevitable 
in any military strike, and that we minimized civilian casualties 
during Operation Desert Fox and very much regretted any losses.
  I met next with U.S. Ambassador Frances Cook and members of her team. 
Ambassador Cook warned that anti-American opinion had been growing in 
Oman. Two demonstrations were held at the university, she noted; the 
only two in the school's 10-year history. From this visit and previous 
contacts, I believe Ambassador Cook has done an outstanding job.
  I then met with Oman's Minister of Information, Abdulaziz Al-Rawwas, 
for what would prove another long and direct conversation. Minister Al-
Rawwas also did not consider Iraq or Iran threats to the region, and 
also criticized our military efforts against Iraq as ineffective. He 
pressed me to consider an overture to Iran to warm US relations with 
that nation, such as dropping embargoes or allowing a planned Caspian 
oil pipeline to pass through Iran on a southern route to the Persian 
Gulf, rather than through a western route through southern Europe to 
the Black Sea, which the U.S. currently favors. I assured him I would 
study the matter.
  Our party arrived at the Muscat airport shortly after 6 am the next 
morning, Thursday, to fly to Islamabad for a scheduled meeting with 
Pakistan's Prime Minister and for other meetings in Pakistan and India. 
I had wanted to discuss the nuclear stand-off in the region, and 
disarmament measures. But fog and smoke over most of the subcontinent 
made air travel impossible, for us and for all other commercial and 
official traffic into and out of the subcontinent. We had no better 
luck on Friday morning. We then tried to adjust our schedule, but were 
unable to get necessary clearances and make flight and meeting 
arrangements on Friday, Dec. 25, which was both Christmas Day and the 
first Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. We wound up staying 
in Oman until Saturday morning, Dec. 26, at which point we departed for 
Amman, Jordan.


                                 JORDAN

  Days before I arrived in Amman, Jordanian Parliamentarians, in a 
highly unusual move, surprised the Monarchy by convening a conference 
of Arab Parliamentarians on six days notice, to discuss the US-British 
missile strikes on Iraq. Parliamentarians from 15 of the 16 countries 
in the Arab League dispatched representatives to Amman.

[[Page S807]]

 Only Kuwait declined to attend. President Assad reportedly ordered the 
Syrian Speaker to attend personally.
  After arriving in Amman, I met with Jordan's Foreign Minister, Abdul 
Illah Al Khatib, for an hour. Minister Khatib, whom I had met several 
times over the years both in Washington and Jordan, lamented the 
failure so far to implement the Wye River peace accord between Israel 
and the Palestinian Authority. Both sides, we agreed, were torn by 
factionalism. On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Netanyahu was mired 
in struggles with hard-liners and fighting to keep his job, while on 
the Palestinian side, Abu Mazen, the second-ranking official, had his 
house stoned for his efforts to effect the peace accord, leaving him 
reportedly so shaken that he wanted nothing more to do with the peace 
process. In the face of such factionalism, Al Khatib said, the parties 
and the process needed leadership from the United States.

  Jordan's other pressing foreign policy problem, Al Khatib said, was 
Iraq. He noted that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which sparked the 
Persian Gulf War, sent 400,000 Kuwaiti refugees to Jordan, swelling 
Jordan's population by 10 percent and buffeting Jordan's economy as it 
tries to house and absorb the new residents. The foreign minister said 
we should have a permanent monitoring system for Iraq's weapons 
efforts. In the evening, we met with Crown Prince El Hassan bin Talal, 
heir to the throne and brother of King Hussein, who was at the Mayo 
Clinic in Minnesota undergoing cancer therapy, and several of his 
ministers. The Crown Prince had been briefed on my meeting with the 
Foreign Minister, and we proceeded directly to discussing policy.
  The next morning, Sunday, Dec. 27, I met with our embassy team for a 
briefing. Based on what they told me, I grew even more concerned that 
we had so badly misread regional public opinion in launching our 
strikes against Iraq.
  Before leaving Washington, I had raised that specific question with 
an Administration Cabinet officer. He had replied the administration 
had no day-after plan; but that was not a reason not to launch the 
strikes. Disagreeing sharply, I said it was.
  Our policy makers apparently based their assurances to the American 
public of Arab support on regional leaders who, eager for US aid, told 
them what they thought the Americans wanted to hear. No longer can the 
United States talk only to government officials to gauge their nation's 
reaction. Nor can we count on Arab national leaders to suppress public 
reaction against our ill-planned acts.
  In Amman, our experts told me that despite general ennui with Saddam 
Hussein, Jordanian public opinion about our missile strikes was very 
strongly pro-Saddam, a feeling exacerbated by the US failure to 
articulate a post-strike plan. After my discussion with our embassy 
team, I met Sunday morning with Jordanian Prime Minister Fayez 
Tarawneh, who expressed the same criticisms of our recent strikes 
against Iraq. ``We don't know what the military strike did,'' the Prime 
Minister said. ``It seems he is better off.'' Our timing was poor, he 
said, just before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and following what 
he perceived as Israel putting the Wye River accord ``in the deep 
freeze.''
  As for Iraqi opposition to Saddam, the Prime Minister said, it is 
there, but it is fictionalized and lacks any acceptable leader. ``It is 
a complicated matter, and every military strike makes it more 
complicated,'' he said.
  When the Jordanian Prime Minister apologized for the Amman 
Parliamentarians' conference, I surprised him by expressing my view 
that it was a healthy sign to see Jordan's Parliamentarians expressing 
an independent view from the Jordanian government, even if it 
conflicted with US policy.
  ``We have to do a much better job in the United States of taking into 
account what the public reaction will be,'' I conceded.
  When I asked the Prime Minister to explain the Jordanian people's 
support for Iraq and Saddam, he said, ``The people here do support 
Saddam. Jordanians do not believe in dictatorship. They are aware of 
the fact that this is a brutal regime. But this does not negate the 
fact that the Iraqis are our brothers.''


                             IZMIR, TURKEY

  From Amman, we flew to Izmir, Turkey, a city of 4 million that serves 
as headquarters for a NATO charged with ensuring the security and 
territory of NATO's southern and eastern flank. I spent much of the day 
Sunday with Maj. Gen. Reginal Clemmons, Commanding General of the U.S. 
Army Element of the Allied Land Forces-Southeastern Europe, members of 
Gen. Clemmons's staff, and U.S. Air Force officers from the 425th Air 
Base Squadron, based in downtown Izmir.
  Over the course of several hours, we discussed Greek-Turkish tension, 
recently inflamed by plans to bring Russian-made S-300 missiles to the 
Greek island of Crete, and still hot over joint control of Cyprus; 
plans to create a Kurdish state in northern Iraq; a potential Caspian 
oil pipeline through Turkey; and realities of working with foreign 
military officers. Gen. Clemmons serves as deputy commander of the 
Izmir-based NATO post, under a four-star Turkish general.


                                GEORGIA

  Before dawn Tuesday morning, we took off for Tbilisi, the capital of 
Georgia, one of the 15 former Soviet Republics. Rugged, mountainous and 
historically worn-torn, Georgia is famous as the home of former Soviet 
leader Joseph Stalin. Georgia endured several years of civil war 
recently, from the Soviet breakup until 1995. President Eduard 
Shevardnadze, the former Soviet Foreign Minister, survived two 
assassination attempts, and has led the effort to ally Georgia with the 
West and to foster democracy and a market economy. Georgia has been 
looking primarily to the United States for help.
  I met first with U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Yalowitz and his team at the 
embassy for a full briefing on the nation of 5 million. We discussed 
Georgia's struggle toward democracy and a market economy, frustrated by 
corruption, civil war, and failure to collect taxes; Georgia's struggle 
with Russia, which seeks to control its former republic and thwart its 
efforts toward independence; Georgia's reliance on U.S. aid, which was 
$85 million this year, compared to the nation's $100 million budget; 
and advantages and disadvantages of running the Caspian oil pipeline 
through Georgia to the Black Sea.
  I then met for an hour with President Shevardnadze. The President 
looked more somber than he had when I last saw him in Washington, but 
he still seemed vigorous and intense at not quite 71. Mr. Shevardnadze 
is largely responsible for the progress Georgia has made toward 
democratization and a market economy since the Soviet Union crumbled in 
1991, but he was the first to say much more work remains to be done. 
Nation building was put off until 1995, after Georgia's post-Soviet 
civil war ended, he noted.
  Russian instability poses perhaps the greatest threat to the region, 
Shevardnadze said. He brushed off my concern that an expanded NATO 
would give Russian hard-liners an excuse to seize control, saying 
extremists did not have an adequate base from which to take over. But 
President Shevardnadze said he did have a major concern: ``The West 
failed to notice the Soviet Union's disintegration; the West was caught 
unaware,'' he said. ``Make sure the formation of a new Soviet Union 
does not catch you similarly unaware.''
  In Russia, Shevardnadze warned, people of all political stripes 
support restoring the Soviet Union. He did not see a reunited Soviet 
Union as a benign force. ``Gorbachev had a different vision; a vision 
of a democratic Soviet Union,'' Shevardnadze said. ``But that was an 
illusion--or a delusion.'' If democracy were an option, he said, the 
former Soviet republics would opt for independence.

  On the question of terrorism, Shevardnadze said the United States 
should pressure Russia to stop selling arms to rogue nations such as 
Iran, saying we should have leverage over Russia, considering the $18 
billion we give them. Shevardnadze, not surprisingly, argued that the 
Caspian oil pipeline should run through Georgia and Turkey. The 
pipeline, by all accounts, offers a major strategic and economic plum 
for any nation through which it runs.
  We met next with Georgia's Minister of State, the equivalent of the 
Prime Minister, Vazha Lordkipanidze. We discussed Georgia's economic 
reform efforts, including privatization, banking,

[[Page S808]]

liberalization of prices, decentralization of management; and the 
smuggling, shoddy tax collection and Russian meddling that have 
frustrated these economic reforms. Lordkipanidze also did not believe 
NATO expansion would provoke and strengthen Russian hard-liners, saying 
extremists would find another pretext if NATO did not expand. The West 
must foster democracy in Russia and in other former Soviet republics, 
he urged.
  Our final meeting in Tbilisi was with Parliamentary Chairman, or 
Speaker, Zhurab Zhvania, who had just turned 35, and a 31-year-old 
Parliamentarian who had studied law at Columbia University. The 
Parliamentarians' English was fluent, and they were both very 
impressive, and encouraging for their nation's long-term prospects. We 
covered the same sweep of issues that I had discussed with President 
Shevardnadze and with the Prime Minister, and they offered similar 
views. They spoke passionately about Georgia's Constitution, the only 
Eastern national charter patterned on the U.S. Constitution; and about 
the nation's judicial reform, including competitive exams monitored by 
California Bar examiners that cleared out nearly all the previous 
political appointees. We differed on the death penalty, which I believe 
is a deterrent to crime, but which Georgia has abolished, the Speaker 
said, as a matter of moral philosophy.


                             ANKARA, TURKEY

  From Tbilisi we flew to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, arriving 
Tuesday evening, Dec. 29. We met the next morning with U.S. Ambassador 
Mark Parris, a former foreign affairs adviser to President Clinton, and 
his team for an hour briefing on the political landscape. Turkey's 
government is fractionalized, and the Turkish military commands the 
most popular support, which Parris considered a mixed blessing. The 
military is honest and conservative, cracking down on threats to the 
secular state, Parris said, but the military also cracks down on free 
speech that advocates proscribed positions. National elections and 
elections in Turkey's three major cities, Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, 
are all scheduled for April 1999.
  I was particularly impressed that Turkey had succeeded in getting 
Syria to evict terrorist camps based near Syria's Turkish border that 
preyed on Turks. The Kurdish PKK movement, seeking a separate Kurdish 
state, has killed an estimated 30,000 Turks since the Soviet grip began 
to loosen around 1989. PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was specifically 
evicted from Syria.
  In my discussions with Parris and his team, we focused on the Caspian 
oil pipeline, beginning with the proposition that the Turks have come 
around to the American way of thinking: That the pipeline ought to run 
east-west to the Black Sea, through Turkey and Georgia, not south to 
the Persian Gulf through unstable and potentially hostile areas such as 
Iran. An east-west pipeline would tie central Asia to the West, and 
avoid giving Iran strategic leverage, the strategy holds.
  I also remained impressed by Turkey's strong ties to Israel. The two 
nations conduct joint military exercises, trade and joint ventures on 
such items as insurance, leather goods and software. The collaboration 
began as a Turkish effort to win points with the United States, which 
was being pressed by Greek and other anti-Turkish lobbies. But the 
Turkish-Israeli collaboration soon warmed into a genuine symbiotic 
relationship apart from US politics, Parris said.
  We met next with Ambassador Faruk Logoglu of the Turkish Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs. Logoglu had spent 13 years in the United States, 
attending college at Brandeis and graduate school at Princeton, 
teaching at Middlebury and serving at the United Nations before taking 
his post at the Turkish Foreign Ministry in 1971. Pressing for the 
east-west pipeline, Logoglu said, ``The pipeline is an umbilical cord 
tying countries to the West.''
  My final meeting in Turkey was with President Suleyman Demirel. The 
President received us in a grand, wood-trimmed chamber in the 
Presidential palace, finished with red carpet and chandeliers. 
President Demirel spoke softly in perfect English.
  I complimented the President on his warm relations with Israel, 
despite its risks of angering nations hostile to Israel. He replied 
that the Turkish-Israeli friendship had indeed angered some nations at 
Turkey. At an Islamic conference in Iran, the President said, he stood 
and said Turkey was a sovereign nation and could do whatever was 
necessary to pursue its interests. There was no response from 
representatives of the 55 nations present, he said.
  As to Saddam Hussein, President Demirel said he had known him for 
about 24 years, but it was a ``puzzle'' as to how to deal with him. The 
United States should enlist allies in its efforts to influence Saddam, 
he urged.
  I asked the President if he would accept an invitation to meet at the 
Oval Office with his Greek counterpart, with whom he does not talk, 
just as President Clinton had brought together Palestinian Chairman 
Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. I had no 
authority to call such a meeting, I noted, but stressed the power of 
the U.S. Presidency. The President replied that Cypriots, both Greek 
and Turkish, should come to an agreement first, but he did not discount 
the possibility of an Oval Office meeting.


                             NAPLES, ITALY

  From Ankara we flew to Naples, where I met with Lt. Gen. Jack Nix, in 
charge of the Army NATO troops, while we refueled. We spent most of our 
half hour discussing Bosnia. Gen. Nix cautioned that we can only reduce 
our troops so far; that we must maintain a baseline to allow both 
mobility and the ability to rescue other troops.
  From Naples we flew to London, where we arrived in the evening, 
stayed overnight at an airport hotel, and flew back to the United 
States the next day. Our visits were facilitated and generally made 
pleasant by the assistance and cooperation of U.S. embassies in the 
various countries.

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