[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 10, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1138]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   QUESTIONS THAT MUST BE ASKED REGARDING OUR NATION'S COMMITMENT OF 
                        GROUND FORCES TO KOSOVO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow this House will debate whether the 
United States ground forces should be deployed to Kosovo as part of a 
NATO force to oversee the implementation of an agreement negotiated by 
a group of countries led by the United States. This body does not often 
debate foreign policy. Under our Constitution, foreign policy is 
generally the responsibility of the executive branch. But there are 
some limitations to that power. It is up to us to ask the tough 
questions, to oversee, to be the check in a system of checks and 
balances that generally works in the people's best interests.
  We are the People's House. And while professionals might sometimes 
decry our provincialism, collectively we bring a perspective, an 
important and different perspective, to these decisions. The troops 
that will go to Kosovo to us are not unit designations or blocks on an 
organization chart. They are kids, the sons and daughters of members of 
our Kiwanis Clubs. They played football at our high schools and sang in 
the church choir. They are the kids who delivered our newspapers and 
struggled with math homework. They decided to go into the service 
because their dads did, or because they really have not decided what 
they want to do with their lives, or because they wanted to earn money 
for college, or see the world a little bit before they settled down, or 
because of duty to country.
  There will be 4,000 names and faces with families from our hometowns 
who will be asked to go to a province most of them probably could not 
have found on a map a few months ago, and before we send them overseas, 
we need to ask ourselves some tough questions. I know that, because I 
used to be one of them. I am the first woman veteran in the history of 
the United States to serve in the House of Representatives. I have 
friends and classmates who serve tonight in the Gulf, in Korea, in 
Europe, and all over the United States. I also know a little bit about 
NATO and European security policy, having served as a member of the 
United States Mission to NATO and as a director on the National 
Security Council staff at the White House during the period of the fall 
of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. I am a strong 
supporter of NATO and of American engagement in the world. But my 
support is not unconditional or blind, nor should it be for any of us.
  Let us not underestimate how profoundly serious our vote tomorrow 
will be. We will endorse or reject the indefinite assignment of 4,000 
American men and women as part of a 30,000-person NATO deployment into 
the territory of a sovereign country, with which we are not at war and 
over the objections of that country, on the grounds that the 
administration of the province of Kosovo is not in accordance with 
international humanitarian standards. While we may have come to this 
point by small steps, the policy we will debate tomorrow is an 
extraordinary departure from what was envisioned in the NATO charter, 
and I would argue a departure from much of American diplomatic history.
  I rise tonight not to argue with you for or against the Kosovo 
resolution, that will be for tomorrow, but to suggest to my colleagues 
some of the questions we must answer and ask on behalf of our 
constituents.

                              {time}  1915

  First, what is the threat to U.S. security or a vital U.S. national 
interest? We need to be able to answer this not in vague and rhetorical 
ways, but very specifically.
  Second, what is the political objective we are trying to achieve, and 
is the deployment likely to achieve that political objective? In 
Kosovo, the purpose seems to be to stop oppression of the Kosovars and 
begin a process that will lead to a referendum on autonomy, but not 
independence.
  Third, is the size and structure of the proposed force, their rules 
of engagement, their lines of command, clearly defined and adequate to 
the task so that risks are mitigated? Who do our forces report to, and 
who decides what they can and cannot do? Whom do they shoot at and for 
what causes? Do they have the armored vehicles and the air support they 
will need if everything does not go exactly as planned? And it will 
not. How are forces to react when KLA members refuse to disarm, as many 
will? How should they react to outside intervention, unlike Bosnia 
where there are enclaves that different ethnic groups claim? In Kosovo, 
the Serbs and the Kosovars are claiming the same territory, and we are 
led to understand that Serbs and Kosovars and NATO forces will be all 
in the same area. How do we protect our troops in that situation? And 
what are they allowed to do?
  Mr. Speaker, tonight we have a lot to think about as we prepare for 
the debate tomorrow.

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