[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 5, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H2781-H2788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
KOSOVO
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona
(Mr. John Shadegg) who has, I think, a good health care proposal and is
one of our leaders in Congress on health care issues.
Patients' Health Care Choice Act
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I
presume he is going to discuss with us a little bit later some issues
about national defense, and I will await hearing his topic and hearing
his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, today, on behalf of myself and 13 other colleagues, I
have introduced the Patients' Health Care Choice Act, H.R. 1687. We are
embroiled in a great debate about health care reform in this Nation,
and it is appropriate that we should be embroiled in that debate, and
there is a great deal of discussion about how we ensure that Americans
get quality health care. But, as a part of that discussion, we have
left out a big piece of the debate.
We have talked a lot on this floor about patient protection
legislation. I want to make it very clear. I do think that we need HMO
reform. I do believe that we need to do something to ensure that
Americans get the health care that they purchase and that they pay for
and that they deserve.
But I want to make it equally clear that the entire problem cannot be
solved by a mega-regulatory piece of legislation which puts a Band-Aid
on the current problems in health care, which addresses the short-term
problems we have and ignores the long-term problems with our health
care system. And be sure, there are long-term problems.
The Patients' Health Care Choice Act is a bill that takes a long-
range look at the health care industry and says that we can do it
better. Fundamentally, it operates on the premise that giving Americans
greater choice in their health care options, that giving them greater
access to health care and improving the incentives for them to purchase
and consume health care services in a responsible fashion will do far
more to improve our health care system in America than a whole new set
of complex government regulations that try to mandate the marketplace
and tell businesses how to run their businesses.
Let me talk about those three issues that I have just addressed,
greater choice and health care options. Today, most Americans get their
health insurance through their employer; and that has been a good
system. It has enabled millions of Americans to get health care. But,
regrettably, it does not give those Americans the kind of choice that
we have everywhere else in the market.
If any one of us wants to go buy an automobile, we have dozens we can
take our pick from. If we want to buy a pair of shoes or a new suit or
a new home, we have virtually unlimited choices; and this is a great
aspect of the American economy.
But one of the drawbacks of the health care system that we have in
America today is that many Americans, indeed more than half of the
Americans who are insured, are given two choices or less. And indeed
many of those, and the statistics are disputed, many in fact get only
one choice: Their employer says, ``You may have this plan.''
This bill, the Patients' Health Care Choice Act, says we ought to be
giving Americans a much broader choice. Let them pick the kind of
health care plan they want. Let them pick the plan that suits their
needs and their family's needs. Let them shop with their feet and make
market decisions about their health care.
Now, how can we do that? Well, I will explain how this bill does
that.
But there is a second aspect of our health care system that is
equally broken, and that is access to health care. Let me explain that.
Beginning during World War II, many employers wanted to be able to
give their employees additional incentives to work for them and they
wanted to do that by giving them raises. The government, however, had
instituted wage and price controls. As a result of those wage and price
controls, employers were prohibited from giving their employees
additional raises.
So, the mind of man being ingenious, they came up with the idea of
saying to their employees, ``We will give you health care benefits.''
And as a result of a ruling of the IRS and a ruling of the Tax Code,
what we established during World War II was a policy which has driven
employer-based health insurance. And that policy says that if their
employer provides them health coverage, that health care coverage is a
deductible expense to the employer. That is, he can deduct it from his
tax return before he pays taxes on that tax return or before she pays
taxes on the earnings of that business but, most importantly, it is
excluded from income to the employer. That is to say, it is unlike
wages, which would be taxed when received by the employee. Instead,
health care benefits are excluded from income.
Now, what has that meant? What it has meant is that many, many
businesses offer very, very strong health care plans that have many
aspects to them and give Americans health care. That is very, very
good. But there has been an unintended consequence of that, one I
already mentioned, and that is now we have got employers purchasing
health care, not individual employees, and that is taking away choice,
as I already mentioned.
But another consequence of the current structure is that all of those
Americans not fortunate enough to be working for an employer that
offers them health insurance coverage are left out of the system.
Let me try to explain that. If they are a lucky American and they
work for an employer who provides them health care insurance, they are
getting that health care from their employer and they are getting a tax
subsidy because their employer's cost is subsidized. It is a deductible
expense to the employer, and it is not income to them.
But what about those uninsured Americans? Today, in America, there
are 43 million uninsured Americans. How do we treat them under our Tax
Code? The answer is we kind of give them the back of the hand.
Now what we say to them is they are not going to get a subsidy from
the government for their health insurance. They are not going to get a
tax write-off. What we are going to do is say to them, we are going to
punish them. If
[[Page H2782]]
they decide to go out and do something prudent and take some of their
hard-earned dollars and buy a health insurance plan, we are going to
punish them because we are going to say that they have to pay for that
plan with after-tax dollars, dollars on which they already paid taxes.
What that means to the average American whose employer does not
provide them health coverage is that their cost of health coverage is
somewhere between 30 and 50 percent higher than their peer that works
for an employer who provides health coverage. I suggest that that is
absolutely irrational and insane.
Let me make a point at this particular instance. In America, I
believe we have reached a consensus some years ago, maybe 5, maybe 8,
maybe 10, that no American should go without basic health care. If that
is our belief, if our public policy in this Nation is that people
should not go without health care, then how can we have a policy that
says, if they are lucky enough to work for an employer that provides
health care, the government will subsidize it with a deduction to that
business; but if, by pure happenstance, they are either unemployed or
they are employed by an employer who cannot offer them or does not
offer them health insurance coverage, we are going to punish them and
we are going to say they ought to go out and buy insurance but, if they
do, we are going to charge them 30 to 50 percent more because the
government will not help.
Well, the Patients' Health Care Choice Act takes a giant step towards
helping those people by providing a refundable tax credit for those
people. It is a refundable tax credit set at a modest level, but its
purpose is to put on an equal footing to create equity between those
Americans who get their health insurance from their employer and those
Americans not lucky enough to do that.
{time} 2015
What would this tax credit mean and who would be eligible for it? Any
American who does not get health insurance coverage from their employer
would be eligible for the tax credit. The tax credit would be set, is
set, at an amount roughly equal to the tax benefit that employers now
get, the tax subsidy that those who are employed now get for their
coverage.
All one would have to do to qualify for the tax credit would be to go
out and buy at least a catastrophic policy. You would then apply to the
government, you would certify that you have bought the policy and you
would immediately get the tax credit.
Is the tax credit difficult to administer? It is not. It works
through the withholding system, so that you could withhold from your
wages, or you would get a benefit in a withholding of your wages to
allow you to pay for your health insurance as you go and let you buy
that health care as you move forward. We honestly believe that is a
giant step forward for Americans.
I do not know how I am doing on time, but let me just finish with the
last portion of the bill because I think it is critically important.
The third piece of the bill is to institute some major improvements to
both the group insurance market and the individual insurance market by
instituting health marts, association health plans, and a new concept
called individual membership associations.
Health marts are organizations that are set up, and association
health plans are similar to those, to create new pooling mechanisms so
that companies could go together and create pooling mechanisms to offer
their employees greater choice. Individual membership associations are
a new concept in the law, and they do essentially the same thing, only
they move away from relying solely on employer-based health insurance.
What they say is that new organizations, like for example the
American Automobile Association, or any other association, the
Daughters of the American Revolution, in my home State of Arizona the
Arizona State University Alumni Association or the University of
Arizona Alumni Association, could sponsor a health care plan, pool
together a large number of Americans and have a group health care plan
called an individual membership association. Those health care plans
would provide new pooling mechanisms and help bring down the cost of
insurance.
The last aspect of this bill that I think is critically important
goes to the issue of choice, is that as I mentioned at the beginning,
many, many Americans are trapped in one health care plan. Their
employer offers them only one plan and that is the plan they get to
pick from. Sadly, that does not give people the kind of options they
want.
The final piece of this bill, to encourage the creation of a market
and to give people choice, is a provision in the bill which says that
at the employer's decision, employees could be allowed to opt out of
their company's health care plan.
Let us say right now you are an employee of a company and you are
being offered a health care plan. Let us say hypothetically after this
legislation goes into effect, you say that you would rather go shop in
the private market, you would rather go look and see if you wanted to
join a health mart or see if you wanted to go to an association health
plan or see if you wanted to join one of the insurance plans offered by
an individual membership association.
What you would do is you would go to your employer and you would say,
``I would like to consider opting out of my employer-sponsored plan.''
The employer would then calculate his or her actual cost of insuring
you. In reality we know that younger people cost a lot less to insure
than older people. So an employer might do a calculation. To insure a
single young woman 21 years old might be as little as $850 a year. By
contrast, to insure her counterpart, a 58-year-old secretary, might be
two or three or four or five times that amount of money.
The employer would make this calculation based on an actuarial basis,
looking at the employee's age, sex, and geographical location, and come
up with a figure. That figure for a young employee might be $800; for
an older employee it might be $4,000. They would then say to the
employee, ``This is the amount of money you have to shop.''
If the employee then went out and shopped and found a health care
plan which better suited his or her needs or his or her family's needs,
that amount of money could be spent by that employee to purchase that
amount of insurance. Now, we do require that the money must be spent to
purchase insurance. However, if you are lucky enough to go out and buy,
for example, a catastrophic policy and have some savings, the
legislation allows you to roll that savings into a medical savings
account or a medical IRA for future health care needs.
What we will have done by achieving this is we will have truly made
health care personal and portable for those Americans who choose to opt
out of their employer's plan. We, the cosponsors of this legislation,
the Patients' Health Care Choice Act, H.R. 1687, believe that giving
Americans choice will create the right kind of market incentives that
will improve quality and bring down cost, and will do so in a fashion
that will benefit the entire system.
We also believe it will be tremendously beneficial to small employers
with a relatively small number of employees who do not want to be in
the business of procuring health insurance for their employees. They
would have the option of allowing their employees to opt out and
creating this new system.
We have dealt with the problem which will be raised, the issue of
adverse selection, by allowing the employer to make this actuarial
calculation, so that people will not have a motivation to opt out of
their employer's system for any reason other than they would like to
have a choice. We believe fundamentally that choice and market
incentives will improve health care.
We would end the problem that plagues our current system of
overconsumption. Right now, the current system, because your employer
pays for the plan and you consume it, has created a great incentive for
overconsumption. The average employee, understanding that somebody else
or believing that somebody else, their employer, has already paid for
the benefits, they tend to overutilize the system.
I recently had a conversation with a leader in the Senate who
indicated to
[[Page H2783]]
me that he had recently had a conversation with a family member who had
a cold. The family member said, ``I'm going to go see the doctor
tomorrow about this cold.'' This leader said, ``Well, jeeze, why are
you going to go see the doctor about the cold?'' The individual said,
``Well, I already paid for it, and it's free.''
Of course that is not true. They did not already pay for that
particular visit, and of course no visit to a doctor is free. But that
is the mind set we have gotten into in America, where we have made
people not individually responsible for purchasing their own health
care acting in an irresponsible fashion.
I believe this legislation takes us in the right direction. I am
extremely pleased that as we introduced it today, the House majority
leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), was an original cosponsor
of the bill and had some very nice things to say about this
legislation. He said, ``I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the
Patients' Health Care Choice Act,'' and he complimented the tax credit
provision of it which will deal with the problem of uninsured Americans
by giving them a tax credit to go out and buy health care coverage.
I am also extremely pleased that the American Medical Association, in
a letter sent to me on April 29 of this year after having reviewed our
draft legislation, specifically said, ``Your proposed bill will make a
significant step in the right direction.'' I think that is because the
bill does many of the things that the American Medical Association says
need to be done.
We need to make health care personal, we need to make it portable, we
need to change the system where one person, employers purchase health
care, but others, individual employees, consume that health care. We
can restore the marketplace here, we can do things that will benefit
people in a very positive fashion, and we can do that through this
legislation.
I am extremely excited about it. I am thrilled to have the
encouragement of the AMA and of many leaders here in the Congress. I
look forward to working on this legislation, the Patients' Health Care
Choice Act of 1999, H.R. 1687, I am thrilled that we can move this kind
of legislation forward to give Americans a long-term solution to the
health care problem.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. If the gentleman would answer one question.
Mr. SHADEGG. Surely.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I do not feel that our colleagues on the other side
of the aisle, the answer in their Patients' Bill of Rights was to have
unlimited lawsuits, which in my opinion would drive up the cost of
health care and destroy our HMOs, versus what you are planning to do is
to make changes, to make sure that people have access and adequate
care. Is that correct?
Mr. SHADEGG. That is exactly right. The whole theory behind the
Patients' Bill of Rights is between a combination of complex government
regulations, and going at the issue of ERISA reform by allowing
lawsuits, we can solve the problem. That is not going to solve the
problem.
Our legislation says, let us create a marketplace. If people want to
buy a plan where the plan is less expensive because they have given up
their right to sue their plan, let them do that. On the other hand, if
people want to pay a little bit more for a plan and recognize that in
paying more, they are getting the right to sue their plan, that seems
to me to give them an option. In addition to which I think this
Congress is going to move forward on thoughtful legislation for HMO
reform which will not open the door to unlimited lawsuits. I agree with
the gentleman, the last thing we want to do is create a litigation
frenzy.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on the
health care issues. I am on the Labor-HHS appropriations committee. I
think it is absolutely exciting seeing the revolutionary research that
is being done all the way from cancer to Alzheimer's to Parkinson's,
diabetes. Many of us want to double that research budget over the next
5 years. We are going to have trouble doing that by some of the things
that I am going to talk about here today. But I thank the gentleman for
his leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I am Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham. I represent the 51st
Congressional District in north county, San Diego. I come here tonight,
as someone once said, with a very heavy heart.
I would say, Mr. Speaker, unlike many of my colleagues in this body
and the other body, I spent the majority of my adult life in the
military. I come with a lot of experience. I have flown in three
fighter squadrons. I was both a student and an instructor at the Navy
fighter weapons school, which most people call Top Gun, where we
devised the tactics and invasions of countries of our potential
enemies. I served on Seven Fleet Staff, where we planned and my
preliminary job was planning the invasion and the defense of Southeast
Asia countries. I flew 300 combat missions in Vietnam. I was shot down
on the 10th of May, 1972, and I was very fortunate, unlike my colleague
Sam Johnson in this body, was not taken prisoner of war but had a
helicopter rescue me before the enemy got to me. I was commanding
officer of an adversary squadron that flew Russian and Chinese tactics,
forces against our fighters and allied fighters. And I am a student of
history, not only of the capabilities but the planning, the strengths
and weaknesses in the deployment of air, land and sea forces. That was
my job in the military.
I come tonight first of all to speak on Kosovo. Many people will tell
you about the problems. They will tell you about the travesties that
are taking place, on both sides in my opinion, but they will not give
you any solutions.
Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do tonight is first give in my
opinion what some of those solutions are instead of committing ground
troops or continuing the air war, because as I give the solutions, Mr.
Speaker, I think my colleagues will see that the causes and the
problems come in fold. I would like to start first of all by starting
at what I consider the beginning of the end.
The first was Rambouillet. Rambouillet was an agreement. I would ask
you, Mr. Speaker, would you take this agreement in hand? First of all,
if you were going to allow a foreign power to occupy what you
considered your country. Secondly, that that foreign power would hold
that country, yours, in its hand for 3 years and then turn it over to a
country like Albania that since 1880 has not only tried to take Kosovo
in expansionism but also Macedonia, Montenegro and even parts of
Greece. That is why the Greeks are so petrified.
The ad hoc air campaign is no strategy. It is a disaster in my
opinion. The strategy of bombing until they capitulate is poor foreign
policy and is not a strategy. For us that have fought in wars, unlike
many of my colleagues in this body, it is easy to kill but it is very,
very difficult to work to live.
What would you do, then, Mr. Congressman, if you had the power? First
of all, halt the bombing. Jesse Jackson, who I disagree with most of
the time, has shown more leadership than the President or many of the
leaders in this body and the other body in my opinion. Jesse Jackson
has said that a diplomacy with no diplomacy is no diplomacy; that
bombing and forcing an enemy to capitulate with no other dialogue is
wrong. I agree.
First of all, Russian military, 70 percent of the Russian military,
according to our CIA. I would say, Mr. Speaker, nothing I am going to
say here tonight is secondhand. It is firsthand, face to face, either
with our intelligence agencies, our military or sources directly
related to Kosovo.
{time} 2030
But 70 percent of the Russian military support the overthrow of the
Yeltsin government. These are the hard-line Communists, the hard-line
Communists that want to see Yeltsin leave and communism returned to the
former Soviet Union. These are the same Communists that strongly
support Milosevic, and it is part of the problem.
So how do you resolve that? Let us solve Russia's problem, and the
United States and Kosovo and the Albanians at the same time.
The Serbians, the Yugoslavians have said that they would allow
Russian troops to act as peacekeepers because they trust them. The
Greeks, the Scandinavians, the Italians and maybe even the Ukrainians,
but let us keep out the United States, Britain and Germany, who is
Yugoslavia's bitter enemy since Hitler's days. They do not trust them,
[[Page H2784]]
and they are not about to let them on what they consider their
homeland.
Kosovo, as per Rambouillet, you have got to start over. The President
had a total disregard for the gut feeling of what Kosovo means to the
Yugoslavian people and to the Albanians as well. It was a no-win
situation, and let us start over. You may have a vote on Kosovo, but it
will have to remain, if you want peace in that part of the world, it
will have to remain part of the greater Serbia.
You can have a cantonization program, much like they have in the
Scandinavian countries to where they have an area for the French, where
they have French speakers in French schools, and for the Germans, and
for the Swiss, and on and on. That is accepted by the Orthodox Catholic
Church of both Greece and greater Serbia and over 200,000 Serbian
Americans.
Milosevic, once there is stability with the peacekeeping troops that
he trusts and that the Albanians trust, then Milosevic has got to
withdraw his troops and his armor prior to Rambouillet. It does not
mean they have to give up full power or autonomy, but they have got to
remove the threat to the Albanians and to themselves in the long run.
The KLA who is supported, and this is not secondhand, not just in the
newspapers, but looking George Tenet, head of the CIA, eye to eye, face
to face, and George Tenet told me. He says:
Duke, the KLA is supported by Osama Bin Laden, the
terrorist that blew up our embassies. Izetbegovic, a Muslim
leader in Sarajevo, has over 12,000 Mujahideen and Hamas that
surround him, Mr. Speaker, 12,000. They have emigrated from
Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan and Syria, the fundamentalist
Muslims. These are the Jihad, the real bad people in this
world. They know that some day that NATO and the United
States will pull out of both Bosnia and Kosovo, and they have
surrounded themselves with people they think will give them
the strength. Unfortunately, the strength is a threat to
world peace and a threat to the United States and the free
world, in my opinion.
So, the President has got to look the President of Albania in the eye
and say: We want every single one of those Mideast Mujahideen and Hamas
out of the country within a short time. He has got to look Izetbegovic
in the eye and say: I want every single one of the Mujahideen and Hamas
and other fundamentalist terrorists out of Bosnia, out of Kosovo and
out of Europe. Besides that, the President has got to look the
President of Albania in the eye and say: You have got to stop your
expansionism toward Kosovo, toward Macedonia, toward Montenegro and
toward Greece.
When there is stability and not before there is stability can you
even start considering bringing back in the refugees. There will have
to be some kind of outside source to determine which refugees should
come back to Kosovo.
One of the problems the Serbs created themselves is tearing up the
papers of the Albanians. Why? Because over 60 percent of the Albanians
in Kosovo are there illegally. They have crossed the border, they are
not citizens, and to separate now the citizens from the noncitizens, I
think the Serbs have made it even more difficult. But yet that has got
to be accomplished, in my opinion; and it is going to have to be done
thoughtfully.
In the meantime, we are going to have to take a look at the millions
of people, in my opinion, that the United States, NATO and Milosevic
himself have caused through forced evacuation, that those people
starving, they are hungry. If you look into the eyes of the children,
they do not have the slightest clue of what is going on.
These are not the Albanians that I am talking about, the terrorists.
These are people like you and me with families that just want to live
and survive.
But I would also say there is the Yugoslavians the same way, that to
identify an entire race as evil is wrong. We have gone down that road
in history too often, and each time it has been disastrous.
So we have to aid the citizens on both sides at least with minimal
conditions because what are you going to do? You going to bring them
back into Kosovo in tents, with no food, and there has got to be a
general plan and a central clearinghouse.
The United States should provide leadership, technology and
intelligence in its part of the cost. Europe countries, Russia, Greece,
Ukraine, Italy, France, Britain and the others, need to pick up the
slack and to put the pieces of the puzzle back together; and NATO needs
to pay its fair share. The United States is paying for 90 percent of
this war. That is wrong. There are 18 other nations in this war, and
they should have burden sharing equal to ours.
One of the other problems, Mr. Speaker, is that the President talks
about wanting to save Social Security and Medicare and education. Every
penny of that surplus that he is talking about comes out of Kosovo. We
have already spent $16 billion in Bosnia. We still spend $25 million a
year in Haiti building roads and bridges. That all comes out of the
military budget, and that has got to change. We are in over 150
countries. Our military is so spread out and so distraught that we are
only saving about 23 percent of our enlisted and 30 percent of our
pilots. That means your experience, not only your troops working on
your maintenance, but your aviators and your personnel are without
leadership in many cases and/or expenses.
We have been in Korea over 50 years. Bosnia, we were supposed to be
there 1 year, and it is $16 billion. We are still in Saudi Arabia. It
has got to stop, and this all needs to be part of the solution as well
as strength through peace.
Mr. Speaker, let me go back and tell you in my opinion what some of
the causes, and there is a saying:
If you smell the roses, look for the coffins.
In Vietnam it is: Where have all the flowers gone?
As I mentioned, Rambouillet was a disaster, a shortsighted attempt at
foreign policy, and I quote Henry Kissinger and Larry Eagleburger:
Was an offer that the President either knew or could not accept, that
the Yugoslavians could not accept to give up Kosovo even if Milosevic
had said I will give up Kosovo. The Serbian people with
their nationalism have been fighting in Kosovo since 1385, that one in
three Serbs during World War II gave up their lives against 700,000
Germans on April 5, 1941. The Germans bombed Belgrade and along with a
half a million Croatians and a quarter million Muslims have fought with
Nazi Germany. One in three Serbs died defending Kosovo, and they either
kicked out or killed every single one of the Muslims, of the Croatians
and the Nazis, and in doing that they paid for that country in their
blood in their opinion. And I think before you ever have a solution,
before you ever have a foreign policy, you have got to look in the eyes
of all the sides affected, not just one side, or that diplomacy will
fail. It will be a no-win situation.
The President basically tried to put a horse's head in bed with the
Serbian people, Milosevic. Milosevic sent him the rest of the horse
back because the President had not a clue on the gut feeling of the
Yugoslavian people as far as Kosovo.
This is the home of the Orthodox Catholic Church. It is their
Jerusalem, and they will not give it up. So Kosovo has got to go off
the table and remain part of greater Serbia, but yet it can be
cantonized.
The military, the Pentagon, told the President. I can name the guys
that I flew with in these wars that are now in the Pentagon. They
looked me eye to eye and said:
Duke, we told the President not to get into this air war, not to do
it, because, A, the goals could not be achieved with air strikes alone,
and the unwillingness to conduct ground troops and to insert them into
the war, that we would make things worse, that we would kill a lot of
innocent people, we would stretch our military beyond belief, we would
make ourselves vulnerable in North Korea and Iraq and other places in
the world and that we would accelerate an increased forced evacuation
of refugees. And that is exactly, Mr. Speaker, what we have done.
When you ask the people where were you when the Serbs came: We were
in our homes; they told us to get out. They were not evacuating, they
were not refugees, but our bombing forced acceleration of that, and
there are millions of people that in my opinion this President and
Milosevic are responsible for that would not be there today, and this
is a sad thing to say about your own country, Mr. Speaker, and the lack
of planning and understanding and leadership.
You think in the planning to just conduct air strikes, something I
did for
[[Page H2785]]
20 years, that the President would have looked at the weather to
commence air strikes when the weather is predicted to be overcast and
bad weather, which you cannot conduct your air strikes safely for 2
weeks. Do you think they might have checked the weather?
When Chernomyrdin was on his way to the United States knowing how
Russia supports the Serbs, do you think they might have notified
Russia? Instead Chernomyrdin had to turn around his airplane and go
back to Russia. To me, that is ludicrous. It is not something that you
would plan.
And this ad hoc air circus warfare that is stepped up little by
little with very little planning is not the way to win a war, and I
would ask you, Mr. President, to think about what we have done.
Mr. Speaker, do you know the total number of people killed in Kosovo
prior to our bombing? It is amazing. People will say 10,000, 20,000. It
is 2,012. Prior to us bombing, this great massive killing, 2,012.
Tudjman, the head of the Croatians, slaughtered 10,000 Serbs in 1995
and ethnically cleansed out of Croatia 750,000 Yugoslavians. Where were
we then? And on a scale 2,012, and one-third of those were Serbs killed
by the KLA. Was there an apartheid? Yes. Ninety percent, not all
Albanians, made up of other nations.
As my colleagues know, there was over 100,000 Serbs that left Kosovo
because of the harassment by the KLA. There was fighting on both sides.
And before you can have diplomacy, you have got to understand the only
problem is not Milosevic. The KLA is a problem. Tudjman is a problem.
Our lack of understanding of European problems is the problem.
And again what I tell you is not secondhand; it is firsthand.
{time} 2045
General Clark, face-to-face, when I was in Brussels, said, Duke, NATO
only wanted to bomb one day and quit; to me, face-to-face, not in a
newspaper, not from an Intel source, that NATO only wanted to bomb one
day and quit.
Secretary Cohen said, well, Duke, our biggest problem is the media.
If we have the media coming down on us, we are lost. In other words,
the spin has got to come. Because I asked, why did they continue?
Because the President got ahold of Blair from Britain, and the German
Chancellor, and pushed the bombs to what we are doing now, and that is
why I think it really is a Clinton-Gore war.
For us to disregard the Pentagon, to not have the knowledge of what
Kosovo meant, to push NATO into this, and now they are into it, and
then to say NATO speaks with one voice after last week in their
meeting, if they are speaking with one voice, why is Hungary still
shipping oil to Serbia, a NATO country? Why is France still shipping
oil? Why is France trading nuclear weapons to Iran? These are part of
NATO nations and they are speaking with one voice?
I think that is wrong. The policy to bomb into submission is a lack
of policy.
Again, I would like to thank Jesse Jackson, who I disagree with most
of the time, and his son serves here on the other side of the aisle,
but I want to say Mr. Jackson gave more leadership and more thought
toward this problem than the President of the United States, and I want
to personally thank him for that.
It is easy to fight, we have the power, but it is difficult to work
and live, and I quote Jesse Jackson: There is fear on both sides. The
understanding, the diplomacy.
When I was a youngster, I worked in a hay field and I sat on a bench
and I had a Persian cat jump up in my lap, and I was petting the cat.
Just a few minutes later a Siamese cat came on the other side. Of
course, the two cats tensed up but I was going to make them friends. I
was smarter than those cats, and I knew their attitudes could be
changed.
I moved those cats closer and closer and they would tighten, and I
would pet them. They would tighten and I would pet them, and I would
move them closer. I sat there out of the hay fields with no shirt on
and those cats hit each other and I was a shredded mess.
If one tries to bring refugees into a country where they want to kill
each other and put the United States in the middle, it is going to be a
disaster.
The Serbs fear the KLA. The Albanian people fear the Serbs. The Serbs
feel that the country is theirs. The Albanians feel that portions of
the country is theirs. Again, before we can have any diplomacy, the
President has to understand, when the liberal level attempts to use a
vehicle like the military that they neither understand nor have
supported in the past, they are bound to fail.
They have a strange dichotomy, Mr. Speaker. They have a vehicle which
they loath at times, and at the same time they use this vehicle to
serve foreign policy. They are inept, and I would say that the Strobe
Talbotts, the Jane Fondas, the Tom Haydens, the Ramsey Clarks are bound
to fail because they do not have the gut inclinations on what the use
of the military is, and especially when they deny what their
warfighters say and go on.
Let us look at NATO today. It is not Ronald Reagan and Margaret
Thatcher. Let us look at the makeup. France is a socialist communist
coalition. Italy, a former, and I say ``former'', communist; they say
he is a quick study for democracy. Germany, a Greenpeace socialist.
Tony Blair, a liberal left labor party. And then the President with his
military record.
I contend that this is not leadership in foreign policy with the use
of that vehicle that will be successful, especially if they turn their
heads away from their advisors, the people that know what they are
doing in conflict. They are out of their element and disaster is
inevitable.
I asked General Clark, face-to-face, I said, how many sorties, how
many flights, is the United States making? We have got 19 nations in
this. With his eyes he looked at me and he said, Duke, to the sortie we
are flying 75 percent of the air strikes. That does not include the B-
2s, the C-17 logistics, the tanking and the other missions. That puts
us up over 86 percent. Ninety percent of the weapons dropped are from
the United States. There are 18 other nations, Mr. Speaker, in this.
Our supplemental coming up tomorrow should be a check from NATO.
Billions of dollars for a European war and we are paying for it, and we
are taking the money out of the things that we are trying to support
like medical research and Social Security and Medicare and education to
fight this war.
There are many of us who think that we should not be there, and that
there is a better way. Eighteen other nations. I think that is wrong.
I talked to Stavros Dimas, he is number two in the Greek parliament
on the minority side. They are absolutely petrified of Albanian
expansionism because, like I said, in the early 1800s they wanted even
parts of Greece. History, in 1389 when Kosovo was one, and I mentioned
that on April 5, 1941, 700,000 German troops invaded Kosovo and
Belgrade was bombed. The Chetniks, who were mostly the guerilla
fighters, the partisans and the loyalists, were led by a general named
Miholevic, not Milosevic but Miholevic, and they killed or kicked out
every single German out of Kosovo.
The CIA, George Tenet, again, told me that the KLA is supported by
Osama bin Laden, the Mujahideen and Hamas from Middle East countries.
And these are the people that some of my colleagues want to arm?
They say, oh, no, no, no, that is not true. That is not true. There
cannot be any KLA sympathizers to Mujahideen and Hamas.
Well, I would tell my friends that they are wrong and it is backed up
eyeball-to-eyeball with George Tenet.
Mr. Speaker, I have a tape here. I cannot play it on the floor
because it is illegal to use electronics on the floor of the House, and
I will not play it, but what is in this tape is some 36 surface-to-air
missiles fired at a strike in January of 1972. My flight had over 36
SAMS fired at it. I lost two good friends this day. I lost two other
good friends and pilots in a strike up by Quang Tri City.
Part of the supplemental that we are going to fight for tomorrow has
these stand-off weapons, the stand-off weapons that have kept many of
our pilots safe but yet because of Iraq, because of other places the
President has gotten us into, four times in Iraq, the Sudan, Somalia,
Haiti, that we are running out of these stand-off weapons like the
[[Page H2786]]
Tomahawk. We call it a TLAM. The conventional air launch cruise missile
we call a CALCM, these run at about $2 million apiece. The Tomahawk
runs at about a million. The Joint STARS, which is a joint surveillance
large aircraft that gives us the intelligence and the information we
need on the ground, we are short of those. We have lost two F-16s. We
have lost two Apaches. We lost an F-117 fighter.
I would say, Mr. Speaker, we are going to lose more aircraft, and if
we commit ground forces into Kosovo, even if we force Milosevic to
capitulate, we then buy Kosovo. If you look at the history, General
Shelton said this is absolutely the most difficult land and area
environment to attack in the world. It is one of the easiest to defend.
A single rocket launcher can knock out a tank and these narrow roads
can tie up a whole column of tanks. Guerilla warfare, which they are
used to fighting, they have been fighting there for 800 years. Yes, I
think we can overcome the Serbian forces but if we do, A, at what cost?
B, we have just bought Kosovo. And then what? I think it is a disaster.
So, Mr. Speaker, I think with the history of the area, that with the
lack of understanding by the White House, the lack of diplomacy with
Russia and the threat of Russia becoming involved, it is very evident
that we are in a very dangerous situation.
I have here, Mr. Speaker, an article that I would like to submit. It
says, Head of U.S. Air Command Warns of Strained Forces. They warned of
strained forces long before Kosovo ever took place.
We had 14 of 24 jets at Top Gun down for parts; 137 parts were
missing. Eight of them were down for engines. The 414th, which is the
Air Force aggressor squadron in fighter weapons school, was about the
same way. Oceana, a training base, had 4 of 35 jets up, only 4, which
trained our new pilots, because they are sending the parts forward.
I do not guess Iraq is important anymore because the no-fly zone, we
are letting that skid. Or the threat to North Korea is not there.
There is another article here that I would like to submit, Mr.
Speaker, that says if we were forced to go into North Korea or these
other areas, that we could no longer fight a two-conflict battle, which
is what our national security policy has been.
This is a very difficult time for my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle. We will find a mix of people on both sides of this issue from
both sides of the aisle. I like to bring to it an understanding, not
only of the diplomacy that is needed but the understanding that is
needed before we can ever have a peace.
The President's position of just bomb until Milosevic quits will not
work, in my opinion. Even if there is a short halt in the peace, it
will escalate again, and I think that is wrong.
I look at other problems not only in Kosovo but around the world with
foreign policy.
I would ask, Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, read the New York Times about
the lab secrets that were stolen for China in our nuclear labs. It was
found out. The gentleman pleaded guilty. He actually took secrets on
our missile technology and submarine technology to China. He gave it to
the PLA, the communist People's Liberation army, showed it to them and
then burned it and came back. He has confessed. But is he up for
treason? No. The judge would not handle it. He got a 1-year sentence
and he is out this year from a prison in California. Treason?
Colonel Liu, who is General Liu's daughter, the head of technology
transfer for the People's Liberation Army in China, Colonel Liu met
with John Huang. John Huang introduced Colonel Liu to the President,
gave the President, the Clinton and Gore campaign, $300,000.
Loral gave the Clinton-Gore campaign a million dollars. Hughes gave
the Clinton-Gore campaign a million dollars. The following week the
President waived, against the Department of Defense, the Department of
Energy, the National Security Agency, waived and let the Chinese have,
and what did he let them have, Mr. Speaker? Secondary and tertiary
missile boost capability, which we were briefed by the CIA that Korea
was 10 years away from striking the United States. Guess what? They
magically have that now after we gave it to China.
The laboratories, what was stolen? The President was briefed in 1996
that we had a spy at our laboratories, at our nuclear labs, and they
did nothing. What did they steal? They stole the W-88 warhead, which is
a small nuclear warhead. And what did the President waive, against the
Department of Defense and national security advisors?
{time} 2100
The MIRVing capability, which now allows China to put eight nuclear
warheads on a single missile. If that is not bad enough, the targeting
devices, before, yes, they could hit the United States, or if they were
targeting Chicago, they may hit Peoria. But now they could hit the
fourth window on the third apartment on 32nd Street, with that
accuracy.
When we have that kind of foreign policy mixed with Kosovo, mixed
with the threat to this country with Iraq and Iran, then I think this
country needs to take a sidestep and readjust not only its foreign
policy but its trade policy as well.
Mr. Speaker, it brings me a lot of sadness to come to the well
tonight to speak in this manner. But this is not an easy situation for
any of us. Let us get out of Kosovo. There is a much better way, a
peaceful way, to achieve this and to work.
I do not think there will be peace in the Middle East in my lifetime,
there may not be peace in Northern Ireland in my lifetime, but we have
to keep working in that direction. But it does not mean that we have to
put troops in Northern Ireland or the Middle East, or keep them in
Korea or in Saudi Arabia, because we have a lot of things in our
country that we need to do like social security, like Medicare, like
education, like medical research.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following articles:
[From the Washington Post, Apr. 27, 1999]
Analysis: Warnings of Air War Drawbacks
(By Bradley Graham)
With NATO leaders still wedded to a strategy of pounding
Yugoslavia only from the air, a top alliance commander warned
yesterday that the relentless bombing could end up setting
the country's economy back several decades and still not
produce the desired results.
General Klaus Naumann, outgoing head of NATO's military
committee, told reporters that alliance leaders came out of
their summit conference here this weekend determined to
pursue and intensify the month-old bombing campaign. U.S.
military commanders differ, however, over when to start using
two dozen AH-64A Apache attack helicopters now on station in
Albania, he said. Some officers fear the low-level aircraft
are still to vulnerable to Yugoslav anti-aircraft missiles.
With consideration of ground forces put off for the time
being, Naumann said he and Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the
alliance's top military officer, still look to the air
campaign to force President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw
Yugoslav forces from the embattled Serbian province of
Kosovo, largely because of a sense that no responsible head
of government would allow his country to be reduced to
rubble.
``Of course, we may have one flaw in our thinking,'' he
added. ``Our flaw may be that we think he may have at least a
little bit of responsibility for his country and may act
accordingly, since otherwise he may end up being the ruler of
rubble.''
Naumann indicated he favors using the Apache gunships
against Yugoslav artillery emplacements along Kosovo's border
with Albania, saying the Apaches stand a better chance of
finding and destroying these targets with less harm to ethnic
Albanian refugees in the area that higher-flying NATO
warplanes now in use. But yesterday's crash of an Apache in
Albania, during what defense officials described as a
training accident, only heightened concerns among some
Pentagon officers about putting the Apaches into action in a
risky environment.
____
[From the Military Readiness Review, April, 1999]
Kosovo and the National Military Strategy: The Cost of Doing More With
Less
(Written and produced by Floyd Spence Chairman, House Armed Services
Committee)
``The [U.S. military] must be able to defeat adversaries in
two distant, overlapping major theater wars from a posture of
global engagement and in the face of WMD and other asymmetric
threats. It must respond across the full spectrum of crises,
from major combat to humanitarian assistance operations. It
must be ready to conduct and sustain multiple, concurrent
smaller-scale contingency operations.''--The National
Military Strategy of the United States.
The National Military Strategy of the United States
requires that the U.S. armed
[[Page H2787]]
services be prepared to fight and win two major theater wars
at the same time they conduct multiple, concurrent smaller-
scare contingency operations and maintain a posture of global
engagement around the world. The sustained reduction in
military force structure and defense budgets since the end of
the Cold War has seriously called into question whether the
U.S. military is able to execute the national military
strategy. Since 1989, the Army and the Air Force have been
reduced by 45 percent, the Navy by 36 percent and the Marine
Corps by 12 percent while operational commitments around the
world have increased by 300 percent.
Strained by the already high pace of day to day operations,
as well as on-going contingency operations in Iraq and
Bosnia, the U.S. military now faces a rapidly escalating
commitment in Kosovo. Indeed, the build-up of aircraft for
Operation Allied Force in the Balkans will soon approach the
size of the air fleet required in a major theater war--in
essence, Kosovo has become a third major theater of war. The
U.S. military is already feeling the strain in critical
areas:
Aircraft Carriers. The aircraft carrier USS Theodore
Roosevelt, originally scheduled for deployment to the Gulf
region, has been assigned to the Balkans and arrived on
station April 5. The gap in the Persian Gulf has been filled
by the USS Kitty Hawk, normally stationed in the Far East.
She arrived in the Gulf on April 1, and will be relieved by
the USS Constellation in June. With no carrier deployed in
the Far East in the foreseeable future, the Air Force has
been compelled to put its fighter aircraft in the region on
higher alert in an effort to partially compensate for the
loss of the carrier-based Navy aircraft. The Navy has 12
aircraft carriers in the fleet to cover commitments world-
wide. With five currently in shipyards and the rest either
recently returned from deployment or just beginning pre-
deployment training, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig
recently testified that the service's carrier fleet is
``being stretched.''
Conventional Fighter and Attack Aircraft. Including the
aircraft aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and the 82
additional aircraft just approved for deployment,
approximately 500 total U.S. aircraft are currently involved
in Operation Allied Force. This includes over 200 fighters
and attack aircraft. General Wesley Clark, NATO's Supreme
Allied Commander, recently requested some 300 additional U.S.
aircraft in order to intensify the air campaign. If approved,
it will bring the total number of U.S. aircraft in the region
to 800. In addition, the European Command recently removed 10
F-15 fighters and 3 EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft
from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and deployed them in Aviano
Air Base in Italy. Press reports indicate that in an April 1,
1999, meeting, the Joint Chiefs of Staff expressed concern
that General Clark's growing requirements for aircraft and
other equipment will mean higher risks in other hot spots
around the world.
F-117 Fighters. The Air Force has deployed 24 F-117
aircraft to the Balkans to support Operation Allied Force.
Because of their stealth capabilities, F-117s are in high
demand for the type of operations currently being conducted
over Yugoslavia. However, the United States has a total of
only 59 F-117s to cover all requirements world-wide.
Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint
STARS). JSTARS is a modified Boeing 707 aircraft equipped
with a long-range air-to-ground surveillance system designed
to locate, classify and track ground targets in all weather
conditions. Currently, the United States has just five JSTARS
in the inventory. Two are supporting operations in the
Balkans, placing a strain on the remaining three aircraft
that must respond to all other commitments around the world.
EA-6B Prowler. The EA-6B is used to collect tactical
electronic information on enemy forces and to jam enemy radar
systems. It is also equipped with the HARM anti-radiation
missile that is used to destroy enemy radar systems. The EA-
6B is found in Navy, Marine Corps and joint Navy/Air Force
squadrons. With a total of only 123 in the inventory, nearly
20 are currently deployed to support operations in
Yugoslavia. Combined with the on-going deployments in support
of Operations Northern and Southern Watch in Iraq and other
commitments around the world, the EA-6B fleet is considered
by DoD to be ``fully committed'' at the present time.
KC-135/KC-10 Aerial Refuelers. Currently the Air Force has
over 50 KC-135 aircraft and approximately 15 KC-10 aircraft
supporting operations in the Balkans. The refueler fleet is
heavily committed on a day-to-day basis during normal
peacetime operations. As a result, the active Air Force
relies heavily on the Guard and Reserve, who fly 56% of the
refueling missions for the Air Force. Normally, the Air Force
meets its world-wide commitments using volunteers from the
Guard and Reserve. However, as the operation intensifies, Air
Force will be unable to meet commitments with volunteers
alone. The pending Presidential Guard and Reserve call-up is
likely to contain a high percentage of KC-135/KC-10 crews. On
April 26, 1999, the Secretary of Defense announced that an
additional 30 KC-135/KC-10 aircraft and crews, both active
and Reserve, will deploy to the region.
Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missiles (CALCM). Prior to
Operation Desert Fox against Iraq in December 1998, the Air
Force had approximately 250 CALCMs, the non-nuclear version
of the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) that are launched
from U.S. bombers. The Air Force fired 90 against Iraq during
Operation Desert Fox. In Operation Allied Force, 78 have been
fired during the first three weeks of operations leaving
approximately 80 in the inventory. The Congress recently
approved an emergency reprogramming of $51.5 million in FY
1999 funding to convert an additional 92 ALCMs to CALCMs. In
the White House's recent emergency supplemental budget
request, CALCMs were designated as the Air Force's number one
shortfall.
Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM). The TLAM has become
the Administration's weapon of choice to strike heavily
defended or high value targets while posing no risk to
American pilots. During Operation Desert Fox strikes against
Iraq, 330 TLAMs were fired from Navy ships. To date,
approximately 178 additional TLAMs have been fired against
targets in Yugoslavia. The type of TLAM that is being
depleted most rapidly, the Block IIIC model, is the most
advanced and therefore the most in demand by military
commanders. Further, the U.S. shut down the last remaining
TLAM production line in fiscal year 1998 and production of
the follow-on missile system is not planned until fiscal year
2003. The White House's emergency supplemental appropriations
bill identified TLAM shortfalls as an urgent priority, and
included funds to convert older cruise missiles to the more
advanced Block IIIC model.
[From the Washington Post, Apr. 30, 1999]
Head of U.S. Air Command Warns of Strained Forces--General Says War
Stretches U.S. Forces
(By Bradley Graham)
The general who oversees U.S. combat aircraft said
yesterday the Air Force has been sorely strained by the
Kosovo conflict and would be hard-pressed to handle a second
war in the Middle East or Korea.
Gen. Richard Hawley, who heads the Air Combat Command, told
reporters that five weeks of bombing Yugoslavia have left
U.S. munition stocks critically short, not just of air-
launched cruise missiles as previously reported, but also of
another precision weapon, the Joint Direct Attack Munition
(JDAM) dropped by B-2 bombers. So low is the inventory of the
new satellite-guided weapons, Hawley said, that as the
bombing campaign accelerates, the Air Force risks exhausting
its prewar supply of more than 900 JDAMs before the next
scheduled delivery in May.
``It's going to be really touch-and-go as to whether we'll
go Winchester on JDAMs,'' the four-star general said, using a
pilot's term for running out of bullets.
On a day the Pentagon announced deployment of an additional
10 giant B-52 bombers to NATO's air battle, Hawley said the
continuing buildup of U.S. aircraft means more air crew
shortages in the United States. And because the Air Force
tends to send its most experienced crews, Hawley said, the
experience level of units left behind also is falling. With
NATO's latest request for another 300 U.S. aircraft--on top
of 600 already committed--Hawley said the readiness rating of
the remaining fleet will drop quickly and significantly.
His grim assessment underscored questions about the U.S.
military's ability to manage a conflict such as the assault
on Yugoslavia after reducing and reshaping forces since the
Cold War. U.S. military strategy no longer calls for battling
another superpower, but it does require the Pentagon to be
prepared to flight two major regional wars at about the same
time.
As the number of U.S. planes involved in the conflict over
Kosovo approaches the level of a major regional war, the
operation is exposing weaknesses in the availability and
structure of Air Force as well as Army units, engendering
fresh doubts about the military's overall preparedness for
the world it now confronts. If another military crisis were
to erupt in the Middle East or Asia, Hawley said
reinforcements are still available, but he added: ``I'd be
hard-pressed to give them everything that they would probably
ask for. There would be some compromises made.''
The Army's ability to respond nimbly to foreign hot spots
also has been put in question by the month it has taken to
deploy two dozen AH-64A Apache helicopters to Albania. While
Army officials insist the helicopter task force moved faster
than any other country could have managed, the experience
appeared to highlight a gap between the Pentagon's talk about
becoming a more expeditionary force and the reality of
deploying soldiers.
Massing forces for a ground invasion of Yugoslavia,
officials said, would require two or three months. Because
U.S. military planners never figured on fighting a ground war
in Europe following the Soviet Union's demise, little Army
heavy equipment is prepositioned near the Balkans. Nor are
there Army units that would seem especially designed for the
job of getting to the Balkans quickly with enough firepower
and armor to attack dug-in Yugoslav forces over mountainous
terrain.
``What we need is something between our light and heavy
forces, that can get somewhere fast but with more punch,'' a
senior Army official said.
Yugoslav forces have shown themselves more of a match for
U.S. and allied air power than NATO commanders had
anticipated. The Serb-led Yugoslav army has adopted a duck-
and-hide strategy, husbanding air defense radars and
squirreling away tanks,
[[Page H2788]]
confounding NATO's attempts to gain the freedom for low-level
attacks to whittle down field units. Yugoslav units also have
shown considerable resourcefulness, reconstituting damaged
communication links and finding alternative routes around
destroyed bridges, roads and rail links.
``They've employed a rope-a-dope strategy,'' said Barry
Posen, a political science professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. ``Conserve assets, hang back, take
the punches and hope over time that NATO makes some kind of
mistake that can be exploited.''
Hawley disputed suggestions that the assault on Yugoslavia
has represented an air power failure, saying the full
potential of airstrikes has been constrained by political
limits on targeting.
``In our Air Force doctrine, air power works best when it
is used decisively,'' the general said. ``Clearly, because of
the constraints, we haven't been able to see that at this
point.''
NATO's decision not to employ ground forces, he added, also
has served to undercut the air campaign. He noted that combat
planes such as the A-10 Warthog tank killer often rely on
forward ground controllers to call in strikes.
``When you don't have that synergy, things take longer and
they're harder, and that's what you're seeing in this
conflict,'' the general said.
At the same time, Hawley, who is due to retire in June,
insisted the course of the battle so far has not prompted any
rethinking about U.S. military doctrine or tactics, nor has
it caused any second thoughts about plans for the costly
development of two new fighter jets, the F-22 and Joint
Strike Fighter. Despite the apparent success U.S. planes have
demonstrated in overcoming Yugoslavia's air defense network,
Hawley said the next generation of warplanes is necessary
because future adversaries would be equipped with more
advanced anti-aircraft missiles and combat aircraft than the
Yugoslavs.
If the air operation has highlighted any weaknesses in U.S.
combat strength, Hawley said, it has been in what he termed a
desperate shortage of aircraft for intelligence-gathering,
radar suppression and search-and-rescue missions. While
additional planes and unmanned aircraft to meet this
shortfall are on order or under development, Hawley said it
will take ``a long time'' to field them.
In the meantime, he argued, the United States must start
reducing overseas military commitments. He suggested some
foreign operations have been allowed to go on too long,
noting that the U.S. military presence in Korea has lasted
more than 50 years, and U.S. warplanes have remained
stationed in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, flying patrols over
Iraq, for more than eight years.
``I would argue we cannot continue to accumulate
contingencies,'' he said. ``At some point you've got to
figure out how to get out of something.''
The Air Force blames a four-fold jump in overseas
operations this decade, coming after years of budget cuts and
troop reductions, for contributing to an erosion of military
morale, equipment and training. The Air Force has tried
various fixes in recent years to stanch an exodus of pilots
and other airmen in some critical specialties.
It has boosted bonuses, cut back on time-consuming training
exercises and tried to limit deployment periods. It also has
requested and received hundreds of millions of dollars in
extra funds for spare parts.
Additionally, it announced plans last August to reorganize
more than 2,000 warplanes and support aircraft into 10
``expeditionary'' groups that would rotate responsibility for
deployments to such longstanding trouble zones as Iraq and
Bosnia.
But Hawley's remarks suggested that the growing scale and
uncertain duration of the air operation against Yugoslavia
threaten to undo whatever progress the Air Force has made in
shoring up readiness. Whenever the airstrikes end, he said,
the Air Force will require ``a reconstitution period'' to put
many of its units back in order.
``We are going to be in desperate need, in my command, of a
significant retrenchment in commitments for a significant
period of time,'' he said. ``I think we have a real problem
facing us three, four, five months down the road in the
readiness of the stateside units.''
____________________