[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 5, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H2771-H2772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SUPPORT A RESOLUTION CONCERNING THE CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS AND HOW 
                   THAT CONFLICT SHOULD BE CONDUCTED

  (Mr. BATEMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BATEMAN. Madam Speaker, we have stumbled through, I think, inept 
decision-making into a conflict in the Balkans. Last Wednesday we 
debated that issue. At the end of the day we had declared no policy, 
approved no policy, condemned no policy. I think that is an evasion of 
our moral, if not constitutional, responsibility.
  So today, I will introduce a resolution which seeks to declare a 
policy with reference to that conflict and how it should be conducted, 
as well as how the cost of it should be borne and shared among our 
allies, and how we should deal with the question of indicted war 
criminals as a part of any agreement, and termination of that conflict. 
I solicit the review and hopefully the co-patronage of this resolution 
by my colleagues.
  The United States Congress has been debating whether and to what 
extent our country should be involved in the conflict between NATO and 
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I cannot find words strong enough 
to condemn the miserable performance of the Congress thus far. No 
American to date knows whether the Congress of the United States 
approves or condemns the policy of the Commander in Chief. Our fellow 
citizens will not know, because we as their collective national 
leadership have steadfastly refused to either approve or disapprove, 
condemn or condone, any policy. We have done this even in the context 
of a solemn debate by some about our constitutional responsibility and 
the War Powers Act.
  Last week we ensured that the House of Representatives would bear no 
responsibility

[[Page H2772]]

for the military action against Yugoslavia. We declared no policy, we 
disapproved of no policy. We didn't accept the reality that our nation 
has led the NATO alliance into a conflict. By a majority vote, we 
asserted that our Commander in Chief could not commit ground forces--
whatever that means--without our specific prior approval. We then by a 
tie vote failed to approve even the continuation of the ongoing 
conflict into which we had been injected by our President.
  I cannot tell you how much I have agonized over the sorry, inept, and 
clumsy failure of those who determine our national security policy in 
this latest phases of the ongoing Balkan crisis. Even the prior 
Administration, so confident during the Gulf War, failed to lead when 
it could and should have in the Balkans.
  Without direction or credible leadership we have become deeply 
embroiled in this conflict. We are without any clear delineation of the 
reason or importance of our being involved or of what represents a 
successful conclusion to the conflict. We are in this conflict with an 
announced policy that we will not commit ground forces, a position that 
serves our enemy's interest but undermines our objectives, whatever 
they are. I submit that it is the height of irresponsibility for the 
Congress of the United States to abdicate their responsibility to 
either approve or disapprove a Kosovo policy.
  If the President and his, to use the most charitable reference, 
``national security team'' have produced a national policy disaster, we 
should say so. We should not evade the issue. If the administration is 
correct in its assertion that the barbarism attributed to the 
leadership of Yugoslavia demands a military response, we should endorse 
this conclusion.
  There are those whose political judgement tells them Congress should 
not act on this matter, because if we do, we might have to assume 
responsibility. I categorically object to any such notion. Our 
President may have failed to call upon the Congress to support his 
policy in the Balkans, but the Congress has a duty to speak out anyway. 
We have a constitutional duty whether the President ask us for our 
approval or not. Perhaps the constitutional duty is higher when the 
President seeks to evade us and his policy is muddled.
  Last Wednesday, I voted no on all four resolutions regarding the 
conflict against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I seriously 
considered voting no even on the Rule regarding our debate, because 
under the Rule, we could not make, approve or disapprove any policy. We 
trivialized the role of the Congress and that is fraught with dire 
consequences for the future.

  The Congress of the United States makes policy and our politics ought 
to crystallize conflicting views of good or bad policy. Last week we 
failed in this. For this reason I am offering a joint resolution 
regarding the conflict in the Balkans.
  The resolution is critical of how we came to the sorry choices before 
us, but recognizes that our country is confronted with certain 
realities which it must confront. The choice the resolution makes is to 
give congressional authorization to the ongoing military conflict 
against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. It does not presume to give 
political guidance to how the conflict is waged and bespeaks a concern 
only that it be waged with sound military judgement, consistent with 
the earliest victory and least casualties.
  Most importantly, it enunciates a policy and identifies goals, which 
if correct fully justify our involvement and leadership into this 
conflict. If not correct, clearly the resolution should not be 
supported and should fail. How dare we, on a matter of such 
consequence, stand by and declare neither war nor even any policy. Are 
not our armed forces entitled to know that their Congress approves or 
disapproves of what they are doing on the orders of our Commander in 
Chief? Certainly they must hope that the elected representatives of our 
people will not choose to abdicate their responsibility.
  The resolution I offer speaks to the financial burden of this 
conflict in the bosom of Europe, and asserts a policy that the costs 
should be fairly allocated among the entire NATO alliance.
  My resolution also asserts that any agreement that concludes this 
unhappy chapter in our history should exempt no one from prosecution 
who is or may be indicted by the appropriate judicial authority as a 
war criminal.
  It is not an easy resolution. It is not meant as political 
confrontation. It nonetheless confronts all of us with the inescapable 
duty to declare a policy and decide whether we should be involved in, 
go forward with, or repudiate our involvement in the ongoing conflict 
with Yugoslavia.
  Oh, yes the choices are not easy, but how dare we not even make a 
choice and deign to call ourselves the elected representatives of our 
people.
  I solicit your advice and would appreciate your cosponsorship of this 
resolution.

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