[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H1932-H1936]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H1932]]
               KOSOVO AND THE INVOLVEMENT OF U.S. TROOPS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sweeney). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I will not take the entire 
hour, but I do want to continue a discussion that I started last 
evening, a discussion regarding the situation in Kosovo and the 
involvement of our troops in the air campaign, as well as the potential 
involvement of our troops in a ground campaign.
  I thought it was especially important to continue this this evening, 
Mr. Speaker, because, as we both know, there are a number of our 
colleagues who are this evening sitting in their offices signing mail 
and responding to constituent concerns and at the same time keeping one 
eye and perhaps one ear on the discussions taking place here.
  I think it is important that we look at all the parameters associated 
with the status of our military today as we hear increased discussions 
in the city about committing significantly larger amounts of American 
troops to Kosovo, and committing a significant amount of American 
resources to the situation and the ultimate defeat of Milosevic.
  Last night, Mr. Speaker, I focused on the need to bring Russia in and 
to basically have Russia, which is on an ongoing basis a significant 
beneficiary of American tax dollars, to play a vital and direct role in 
helping to bring Milosevic to the table and to agree to negotiated 
terms to settle the ethnic unrest that has occurred in Serbia, 
especially with the Kosovars.
  As I said last night, we spend between $6 hundred million and $1 
billion of taxpayer money on programs to assist Russia. From economic 
development to stabilization of their nuclear programs to assistance 
with environmental issues, we are actively engaged in Russia, and I am 
in the middle of many of those issues as the chairman of the 
Interparliamentary Commission with the Russian Duma.
  Now is the time for us, Mr. Speaker, to let Russia know that we 
expect, for the assistance that we give them, that they play a 
significant and vital role in bringing Milosevic, an ally and close 
confidante of the Russian government and certain Russian leaders, to 
the table to help us resolve this conflict peacefully.
  As I said last evening, I have had discussions with Russian Duma 
deputies and with leaders in Russia who want to pursue such a course. 
Make no mistake about it, I think these negotiations should be on our 
terms, not Russia's. We should set the policy based on the negotiations 
that we have had with the Contact Group in the past, but Russia has to 
be part of the process.
  I think in the 3 weeks or so that we have been bombing Serbia it is 
evident that we have not seen Milosevic move, in terms of coming our 
way in acquiring a peaceful settlement. What we can in fact do is, in 
continuing to apply pressure on the government there for the NATO 
alliance, is bring Russia in and give Russia a more prominent role, and 
basically allow Russia to play I think the kind of middle position they 
should be playing in bringing Milosevic and his people to somber 
discussions about how to resolve this situation peacefully.
  I encourage the administration to do that. I am heartened that some 
feedback I have gotten today is that the administration in fact is 
looking at these options. I think that is critically important for 
Republicans and Democrats to continue to press the administration and 
our allies to look at ways that we can solve this problem to our 
satisfaction, to the satisfaction of NATO, to the satisfaction of the 
stability of the Kosovars and Kosovo as a Nation, where people can live 
freely without ethnic intimidation, but we should do that also without 
having to resort to inserting ground troops and potentially involving 
ourselves in a major conflict that could involve the world's two major 
superpowers as opponents.
  Tonight, Mr. Speaker, I want to use this opportunity to talk about 
some other factors that Members must consider as we prepare to either 
support or not support the administration's policy on moving additional 
troops and operations and personnel and platforms into Kosovo and the 
surrounding theater.
  Before I do that, however, I want to reiterate two important points 
that I made last evening. The first is that Milosevic understand in no 
uncertain terms that all of us in this body are united with the 
President in demanding that he end his reign of terror on the Kosovars, 
and that he stop and be held accountable for the atrocities that are 
now unfolding in Kosovo and Serbia, and that we as Americans will 
follow through in holding him accountable personally. Let there be 
no mistake about that.

  The second key point I want to make and reemphasize from last evening 
is that we are solidly behind our military; that we in the Congress are 
doing everything in our power to give them the tools and the resources 
they need to allow them to continue the operations that have been 
outlined for them by the Commander in Chief.
  But let me get into the meat of what I would like to discuss this 
evening, Mr. Speaker. That deals with the need for Members of this body 
and the other body to understand that deploying our troops in Kosovo, 
sending our pilots in to conduct aerial campaigns, sending our 
helicopters, our Apaches in to provide safe ways, is not the same as 
sending inanimate robots into an area.
  These are human beings, and these human beings have need, they have 
wants. We have not been as supportive as a Nation in providing the 
backup and financial resources to protect the quality of life and 
stability of these troops as we should be.
  This is an appropriate time for us to outline these concerns, and to 
use this as part of our discussions as we decide whether or not to move 
into a phase where ground troops are entered into Kosovo.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the people in America have been convinced 
that for some reason we are spending so much more money today on our 
military than at any point in time in the past. The facts just do not 
bear that out.
  When I talk to my constituents back in Pennsylvania, I use a simple 
analogy. I do not compare what we are spending on defense to Ronald 
Reagan, as some would perhaps do. Rather, I go back to the time of John 
Kennedy.
  When John Kennedy was president in the sixties, Mr. Speaker, we were 
spending 52 cents of every Federal tax dollar coming into Washington on 
the military. Yet, it was a time of peace. It was after Korea and 
before Vietnam. Fifty-two cents of every tax dollar was spent on the 
military. Nine percent of our gross national product was spent on 
defense back then.
  In today's budget, we are spending 15 cents of the Federal tax dollar 
on defense. We are spending 2.6 percent of our gross national product 
on the military. The numbers have dropped dramatically. In fact, by any 
accounting standard, we are spending a significantly smaller portion of 
our Federal allocation that is available on defense and security than 
we were back when John Kennedy was the President, even though I would 
argue that was a more stable time and a time of peace throughout the 
world.
  But some other factors have changed. Back when John Kennedy was 
president we had the draft. Young people were brought into the 
military. They served a period of 2 years or more. Then they went on 
with their lives. They were paid next to nothing.
  Today we have an all volunteer force. They are well educated. Many 
are married, they have children, so we have added health care costs, 
housing costs, travel costs, so a much larger portion of our smaller 
defense budget is being spent on the quality of life to get those 
troops, to get those people, to serve in the military and to keep those 
troops involved and to stay on beyond one tour of duty.
  In fact, quality of life is the overriding driving factor of our 
defense budget process today, to make sure our troops are happy, that 
they have the best possible quality of life to raise their families and 
to continue to serve America.
  That was not the case back in the sixties. With the draft, we paid 
the troops a meager amount of money. Most were not married. We did not 
have all the associated costs with housing, education, health care, and 
so forth.

[[Page H1933]]

  Some other things have changed. Back in John Kennedy's era when we 
were spending 52 cents of every Federal tax dollar on the military, we 
were not spending a significant portion of our defense budget on 
environmental mitigation. In this year's defense budget, $11 billion of 
the defense budget will go for what we call environmental mitigation. 
That is money that is not going to provide support for our troops. That 
is money that is not going to buy new equipment or to replace old 
equipment, or to repair equipment.
  Now $11 billion out of today's budget for defense environmental 
mitigation, and zero dollars spent during John Kennedy's era for the 
similar type of situation, a further change from the nineties as 
compared to the sixties.
  But there is even a more fundamental difference that gets at the 
heart of our problem in sustaining the readiness of our troops today. 
That is the issue that I also talked about last evening. This issue, 
Mr. Speaker, I think we have to drive home to Americans and to our 
colleagues on a daily basis.
  During the time from World War II's ending until 1990 and 1991, under 
the administration of all the presidents that served during that 
period, starting with Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard 
Nixon and going on through John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and going 
on through Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and even including Ronald 
Reagan and George Bush, during all of that time the total amount of 
deployments by those Commander in Chiefs was 10, 10 deployments in 40 
years.
  Our troops were only inserted into hostile environments as a measure 
of last resort by our Republican and Democrat Commander in Chief.
  Let us look at the past 8 years, Mr. Speaker. Since 1991, 1990 and 
1991, we have had 33 deployments. I had to cross them out, because 
Kosovo is now the 33rd. There have been 33 deployments of our troops 
into hostile situations. Each of these 33 deployments, 33 in 8 years, 
versus 10 in 40 years, each of these deployments cost hundreds of 
millions or billions of dollars. None of these 33 deployments were 
budgeted for, not one. None of these deployments were paid for with an 
up or down vote on the Congress in advance of the deployment of the 
troops.
  The payment of the costs associated with these deployments was made 
by taking dollars out of an already decreasing defense budget, out of 
programs of modernizing our aircraft, modernizing our naval fleet, 
modernizing our platforms, and giving the soldiers, sailors, marines, 
and corpsmen the kinds of quality of life that they deserve in an era 
where we have all volunteers.
  In fact, the Comptroller of the Pentagon has given us a figure that 
these 33 deployments cost us $19 billion of unanticipated expenditures. 
Many of them were paid with supplementals to provide the funding to pay 
for these operations.
  In fact, the irony of these 33 deployments, Mr. Speaker, is that we 
in the Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, joining together each 
year for the past 4 years, plussed up more money to try to replenish 
some of these funds that were being eaten away for this rapidly 
increasing deployment rate.
  In fact, 4 years ago we gave the Pentagon $10 billion more than what 
the President asked for. Three years ago we gave the Pentagon $6 
billion more than what the Pentagon asked for. Two years ago we gave 
the Pentagon $3 billion more than what the President asked for.
  In each of those years, as we in the Congress tried to replenish the 
funds to replace money that was being used for these deployments, the 
President and the administration criticized the Congress for giving the 
Pentagon more money than they asked for.

                              {time}  1930

  Finally this year, the Pentagon leaders have spoken up and said, ``We 
can take this no longer. The funding problem is so severe in the 
Pentagon that we have to tell you candidly that we need more money in 
next year's budget.''
  The service chiefs came in and testified before the House committees 
and the Senate committees and said, at a minimum, they need $19 billion 
more than what President Clinton asked for in the fiscal year 2000 
budget.
  The President said he would make $11 billion of new funding 
available. It was a great speech. But when we cut away all of the 
rhetoric, the actual new money put in by the President in his budget 
for the next fiscal year is $3 billion. In fact, one of the gimmicks 
they used was to take $3 billion out of R&D for defense, shift it into 
acquisition, and call that a $3 billion plus-up in defense spending.
  The problem we have today is that the readiness of our troops, the 
capability to perform in Kosovo, is directly dependent on how much we 
support our troops. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, we have undermined the 
capability of our military.
  Because of the rapidly increasing level of deploying our troops 
around the world and because of the rapidly decreasing defense budget, 
we have unfortunately encountered a mismatch that is affecting the 
quality of life for our troops, that is affecting the ability for our 
troops to serve this Nation well in Kosovo, let alone the possibility 
of asking ground troops to go in to fight what could be a massive war.
  Mr. Speaker, let me give my colleagues some examples that are very 
specific. One of our national defense technical media outlets is 
running a series of stories that, to me, are embarrassing. They have 
documents, one of which I will enter into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 
These are internal memos of the Army where the Army is discussing the 
need to replace the survival radio gear that we provide the pilots and 
crew members on aircraft flying over hostile environments.
  This gear and equipment is essential because, if a plane is downed, 
as we saw with the F-117A, those pilots and those crew members have got 
to have a way to get a signal back so that we can go in and rescue 
them.
  These documents refer to those systems. Unfortunately in the internal 
memos of the Army, in discussing the availability of these devices to 
provide for our planes that are flying, not just over Kosovo, but also 
over Iraq in the peacekeeping role there and protecting the no-fly 
zone, this is what the Army is saying to those who are asking for these 
devices to put on these planes to protect our pilots, and I quote: ``We 
do not have any radios available to fill shortages.'' We do not have 
any radios available to fill shortages, referring to these devices that 
are so critically important for pilots that may be downed in either 
Iraq or in Kosovo from enemy fire.
  They go on to discuss the fact that we need to have some kind of 
protection for the pilots. So further on in the same memo, these are 
internal Army memos that I have been given by the medial outlets 
running these stories, this is a directive that has been issued by the 
Army, ``The pilot in command'' of the aircraft ``will continue to 
ensure that not less than one fully operational survival radio is on 
board the aircraft. This does not preclude crew members from carrying 
additional radios on board the aircraft as assets become available. In 
addition, the'' pilot in charge ``will ensure that crew members without 
radios have other means of signaling'', now listen to this, Mr. 
Speaker, either a ``foliage penetration flare kit and/or a signal 
mirror.''
  Can we imagine, Mr. Speaker, that we are sending pilots and crew 
members into a hostile environment, whether it is over Iraq or Kosovo, 
and we are telling them, because we do not have enough equipment, that 
they should make sure that they have a signal mirror; that that is the 
method they are going to use to tell our rescue crews that they have 
been downed.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, there was another story that ran a week or so 
ago where one of our Maryland units, I believe it is the 104th Air 
Reserve Squadron out of neighboring Maryland who is currently flying 
the missions over Iraq at this very moment, that the commanding officer 
has been quoted as saying that that unit had to go to local Radio Shack 
stores and buy GPS devices to give their pilots to carry on board these 
planes.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not some pie-in-the-sky make-believe threatening 
scenario. This is what is happening today with our military. How can we 
as the world's most powerful Nation there to provide security and 
leadership for NATO allow our pilots and their crews

[[Page H1934]]

to fly combat missions without the appropriate equipment to guarantee 
the safety of their lives?
  Is it no wonder, Mr. Speaker, that the retention rate for our pilots 
in the Navy and the Air Force is the lowest rate today since World War 
II? The retention rate for Air Force and Navy pilots flying planes 
today over Kosovo and Iraq is below 20 percent. In one case, it is 15 
percent.
  We wonder why these young pilots who we have invested so much money 
to train do not want to stay in. It is because we are not giving them 
the equipment they need. It is because their morale is suffering and 
because they are sick and tired of going from one deployment to the 
next.
  Instead of having time to come back to visit with our families, to 
visit with our children, they are being dispatched to Haiti, from Haiti 
to Somalia, from Somalia to Macedonia, from Macedonia to Bosnia, from 
Bosnia to Kosovo.
  The morale is suffering in a dramatic way, and we are seeing the 
result of that in a level of retention for pilots that we have not seen 
in the last 50 years. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we are seeing it in the 
ability to recruit new young people in the services.
  The Secretary of the Army just 1 month ago, because of shortages in 
the Army's ability to bring the new recruits, has proposed that we 
lower the standard of acceptance, that we now take young people in the 
Army who do not have high school diplomas.
  Here is the irony of that, Mr. Speaker, the Army's number one 
priority right now, which I fully support, is the digitized 
battlefield, to give the Army warrior of the 21st century an 
information technology capability second to none, a computer in the 
backpack so they have visual imaging, a GPS capability so in their 
goggles they can see what the pilots in our helicopters and our planes 
and our radar surveillance planes are seeing.
  At a time when we are making our soldiers digitized, able to be 
operating computers, we are having to lower the standard of acceptance 
in the Army to well below a high school diploma because we cannot fill 
the billets, because the morale in the services are suffering unlike 
any time, including 1970s, since World War II.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, we have ships going out to sea, aircraft 
carriers short of 600 to 700 sailors from what the required rate of 
deployment and billets should be for a mission, 600 to 700 sailors 
short because we cannot provide the number of sailors to man the ships 
to do the functions that they are required to do in hostile 
environments.

  Mr. Speaker, these are facts. These are not ideas. These are not 
maybes. These are dependables. These things are happening today. We 
have a severe problem with our military. We are stretching it to the 
bone.
  Our military was not designed to become the world's police department 
where every time a conflict occurs, we send in the American troops. 
These are not robots. These are human beings with families, with loved 
ones. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
  I appreciate President Clinton today or yesterday going down and 
speaking to the pilots who are flying our B-52s, real heroes for 
America and real heroes for the world that we are trying to protect. 
But I wish the President would have addressed one other thing when he 
spoke to them.
  I wish he would have told those pilots what we all know, that those 
B-52 bombers are going to be 75 years old before we can retire them, 75 
years old and flying because we have undermined the base of financial 
support to provide new aircraft.
  That is what is critical to those pilots in those B-52s and those 
crews. It is not just enough to say they are American heroes. It also 
requires us to give them the new equipment, the training, the repairs, 
the kinds of support they need to do the job they are being asked to 
do.
  We are not doing that, Mr. Speaker. We are not modernizing the 
military because, over the past 6 years, we have cut program after 
program to put the money in to paying for these deployments because we 
do not have the dollars necessary to fund these deployments up front.
  This means that marines flying in the CH-46 workhorse helicopter that 
was built during the Vietnam War will be flying those helicopters when 
they are 55 years old. Those helicopters were designed to be flown for 
20 to 25 years.
  The marines will have to fly the 46 when it is 55 years old because 
we have not replaced the 46 with the aircraft that is designed to take 
it out of service, because we have taken the money from that program 
and used it to fund these escapades around the world; and that is what 
they are, escapades.
  Critics would say to me, ``Well, wait a minute, Congressman Weldon, 
you are being critical of this President and this administration for 
all of these deployments. What about President Bush? Wasn't it 
President Bush back in 1991 in this 33 deployment rate who sent our 
troops to Desert Storm, a very large conflict?''
  The answer is, yes, it was President Bush who sent our troops into 
Desert Storm. We did have a full and open debate in this body and the 
other body before those troops were committed to combat.
  We did one other thing, Mr. Speaker, or I should not say ``we did''. 
The President did. President Bush felt so strongly about the allied 
commitment in Desert Storm that he personally went to the major world 
leaders around the world, and he said something very simple to them. 
``If you cannot send troops, then you must support this operation 
financially. But if you can send troops, we want your troops 
involved.''
  Desert Storm was the largest multinational force that we have seen 
certainly in this decade. In fact, Mr. Speaker, Desert Storm cost the 
American taxpayer $51 billion, a huge sum of money. But, Mr. Speaker, 
President Bush got our allies to reimburse us $52 billion. There was no 
net cost to our defense budget.
  Each of these deployments, the reverse has occurred. Not only are the 
allies not reimbursing us for our costs, in places like Haiti, we are 
subsidizing the cost of other nations sending their troops in along 
with us. In fact, we are using American defense dollars to fund the 
support, the housing, the food, and the subsidization of other nations 
to bring their militaries into these deployments that we have become 
involved with.
  Mr. Speaker, the situation is getting grave. We on the Committee on 
Armed Services are getting ready to mark up our defense authorization 
bill. We have very serious problems. The Joint Chiefs have said 
publicly they need $19 billion more than what the President has in fact 
allocated.
  That does not include a pay raise for all the service personnel. That 
does not include service-wide adjustments to the retirement system that 
are needed. That does not include missile defenses, which are one of 
the fastest growing threats that we see emerging in the 21st Century.
  The estimate we have come up with is that we are short approximately 
$25 billion in the next fiscal year just to take care of our ongoing 
commitments. I say that, Mr. Speaker, because Kosovo has already cost 
us $2 billion. Where did that money come from? It came out of an 
already decreasing defense budget. Every major operation in the country 
has had to put dollars on the table to help fund the Kosovo deployment.
  We are going to have to pass a massive supplemental. I saw the report 
today where the long-term projected cost of Kosovo could exceed $10 
billion to $15 billion alone. Mr. Speaker, I ask the question of our 
colleagues, where is that money going to come from? Where are we going 
to find that additional $10 billion to $15 billion when we cannot even 
fund the $19 billion to $25 billion shortfall that has been identified 
before Kosovo became an issue.

                              {time}  1945

  We are in a massive crisis. In fact, Mr. Speaker, as I have spoken 
around the country, I have made the statement that this period of time, 
the 1990s, will go down in history as the worst decade in undermining 
our national security because of our increasing rate of deployment and 
our massive decreases in defense allocations. The two run in a 
diametrically opposite way, and we are feeling the crunch today.
  With all of these deployments, the Navy is being asked to do more and 
more assignments around the world. We are now dispatching another 
carrier over to the Kosovo theater; to the

[[Page H1935]]

Balkan theater. The Navy at one time had 585 ships. If we listen to our 
Navy experts today, we are having trouble keeping our Navy at 300 
ships, in spite of these massive increases in deployments around the 
world.
  Our fighter squadrons. We have fighter squadrons today, Mr. Speaker, 
where up to one-third of the planes are grounded because we are using 
them as spare parts to keep the other two-thirds in the air flying.
  Mr. Speaker, how long can this go on before the American people sense 
that something is terribly wrong? Is it going to take a massive loss of 
life? Are we going to have to see another case where soldiers are 
killed, as we saw 28 young Americans killed in 1991 when that low-
complexity SCUD missile hit the barracks in Saudi Arabia that we could 
not defend against and we brought them home in body bags?
  It is a real fact, Mr. Speaker, that 8 years after that attack on our 
soldiers in Saudi Arabia with that SCUD missile that we have no highly 
effective system today to deal with the medium-range missiles that Iran 
and Iraq both now have, that North Korea has now deployed that 
threatens our troops in South Korea and threatens our troops in Japan. 
The growth of missile proliferation is providing threats to our troops 
that we do not have the money to build systems to defend against.
  The threat of weapons of mass destruction has caused the President to 
ask for billions of dollars of additional money to deal with the 
threats of the potential use of chemical, biological and small nuclear 
weapons, and I agree with his assessment of the threat. But, Mr. 
Speaker, we do not have the money.
  Mr. Speaker, perhaps the greatest threat, the threat of cyber 
terrorism, the use by a rogue nation or rogue group with high-
performance computers to compromise our smart weapons and our civilian 
information systems, is requiring a massive increase in new dollars to 
deal with information warfare, and we do not have the money to put into 
that process.
  Mr. Speaker, I recite these facts because as we, my colleagues and I, 
are being asked to assess whether or not our troops should be deployed, 
both our helicopters which are already there and the troops that 
support them that are already there, and the potential follow-on of a 
larger group of troops going into Kosovo, we had better consider one 
very important thing: We had better be prepared to provide every ounce 
of support for those men and women that they need.
  That is going to require a significant new investment of money. That 
is going to require an effort that breaks the budget caps. It is going 
to require us to significantly increase the support to replace the 
Tomahawk cruise missiles, the guns and ammunition, the fuel, the 
lodging costs, and all those other associated costs that currently are 
in excess of $2 billion for the Kosovo deployment.
  Mr. Speaker, we better be prepared for one other debate as well. If 
we cannot sustain the level of our troop strength that we need, if we 
cannot reverse the decline in the retention of our pilots, especially 
Navy and Air Force pilots, if we cannot turn around the Army's problem 
of recruitment, the Navy's problem of filling its billets, if we cannot 
solve those problems, Mr. Speaker, I believe all my colleagues know 
what that means we will have to debate. That means we have to debate 
whether or not to consider reinstating the draft. Boy, all of a sudden 
does that raise eyebrows across the country.
  It is easy to say put the troops in. It is easy to say put American 
kids in harm's way. It is easy to say send planes over. But, Mr. 
Speaker, we need men and women to fly those planes, to fly those 
helicopters, to feed those troops. And if morale becomes such a problem 
because of our lack of support financially for our troops, what then do 
we do?
  If we cannot convince young people to voluntarily serve their 
country, and that is where we are heading, then, unfortunately, if we 
are going to see the administration keep this level of deployment up, 
we have got to find a way to get young people to fill those billets, to 
sail those ships, to man those helicopters, to fly those B-52s, to fly 
those F-117As. And if we cannot do that voluntarily, Mr. Speaker, that 
means we have to force people to serve our Nation to complete these 
operations that our commander-in-chief has gotten us into.
  These are not easy decisions. These are not easy circumstances where 
we can, sitting in our armchair, decide to send more robots into a 
theater and risk their lives. We have a problem with our military 
because we have not funded readiness, we have not funded modernization, 
we are not even giving the pilots the remote sensing gear they need if 
they are shot down.
  And if we cannot provide the support to keep those volunteers serving 
our country, then those Members of Congress who are standing before the 
national media, who are talking about putting our troops in harm's way, 
who are talking about sending tens of thousands of new troops into 
Kosovo, they better be prepared to address the issue of where do these 
young people come from. Because if we cannot provide the bodies, then 
we have to force young Americans to do what they did prior to the 
Vietnam War, and that is serve their country as a part of a national 
conscription effort.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to do that. I do not think we should 
be thinking about restoring the draft, but I also understand the 
reality of the situation we are in. We cannot have it both ways. We 
cannot deploy our troops 33 times, we cannot keep young people in 
Haiti, Macedonia, Somalia, the Balkans, in Bosnia, and put them in 
Kosovo, and have them handle floods and tornadoes and earthquakes and 
unrest in Central America, and rebuilding in Central America, and at 
the same time not have the bodies to fill those slots. It does not work 
that way.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, we have never heard this President deal with these 
issues. He has not talked about the need to provide additional support 
for our troops. He does not want to break the budget caps. He does not 
want to put the kind of money in that the Joint Chiefs have said 
publicly they need this year. And he is not willing to talk about the 
morale problems in the military. These are issues that we in the 
Congress cannot run away from.
  Defense is not a partisan issue. I am the first to admit publicly, 
Mr. Speaker, that Democrats in this body have been as supportive of 
defense as have Republicans, and some of our leading supporters of the 
military are Members of the Democrat party. An overwhelming number of 
our Republicans are strong supporters of our military.

  I want to speak to those other Members of the Congress who want to 
put our troops in harm's way but who want to cut the defense budget 
even further than what it is now. Mr. Speaker, we cannot let that 
happen. Every one of those Members of Congress who goes on national TV, 
who stands in the well of this body and talks about committing our 
troops, talks about humanitarian efforts, talks about saving lives and 
taking people out of wheelbarrows to give them homes, they better be 
prepared to vote for the money and the support to deal with the morale 
problems, the readiness problems, the modernization problems that we 
have in the military today. Because that is what this debate needs to 
focus on. This is not about undermining the leadership of our country. 
This is about giving those men and women asked to go into harm's way 
the tools they need to do their job.
  We need to have this debate across America, and I hope, as we get 
closer to a decision on how to proceed with Kosovo, we continue to 
understand that every day we are there is costing us, by one estimate I 
saw, $30 million an hour. Thirty million dollars an hour of U.S. tax 
money that we do not know where it is coming from. Thirty million 
dollars an hour that the U.S. is putting up, that we are shouldering 
the bulk of the responsibility for.
  These costs have to come from someplace, and this body needs to find 
a way to provide the additional resources to pay for those operational 
costs and not rob other accounts that force us to fly aircraft well 
beyond their life expectancy, that forces morale to continue to drop, 
that forces our pilots to want to get out and make money in the private 
sector, and that forces those people flying those bombing missions and 
those security missions over Iraq and Kosovo at this very hour to not 
have the necessary equipment so that if they are shot down they can 
alert our rescue crews to come in and know where they are to get them 
out quickly and safely.

[[Page H1936]]

  Mr. Speaker, the challenges before us are great. This country needs 
to understand all the dimensions of the Kosovo deployment. This country 
needs to understand that we cannot afford to be fair weather friends of 
the brave men and women who serve this country. It is not just enough 
to stand up and wave the flag and say ``I am behind the troops.'' We 
must be prepared to take care of all the extra costs that are 
associated with these 33 deployments, many of which our troops are 
still involved with around the world today.
  I ask my colleagues to consider these facts as we move further into a 
very nasty and dangerous situation far away from the homes and the 
towns where these brave Americans live.

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