[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 22, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7448-S7449]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                                 KOSOVO

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I rise to speak about a resolution 
related to Kosovo which was brought before the Senate late last 
Thursday evening and adopted by unanimous consent.
  This concurrent resolution commends the President and the Armed 
Forces for the ``success'' of Operation Allied Force. I had 
reservations in supporting this resolution, but ultimately decided to 
do so because it provided an opportunity to honor the men and women in 
uniform who put their lives on the line for this dangerous cause.
  However, to term this operation a success, either now or in the 
foreseeable future, is an unconscionable stretch of the truth, at best. 
This mission represented a complete failure of the Clinton 
administration's foreign policy. This resolution also implies that the 
book has been closed on Kosovo, and peace will reign in the Balkans. I 
do not think it is necessary to remind the Senate of the bloody and 
tumultuous history of the region, or

[[Page S7449]]

the uncertainty of the future. And it certainly is not appropriate to 
mislabel this foreign policy mishap as a success.
  The failure of the administration's policy was apparent from the 
negotiations at Rambouillet. It was one-sided from the beginning and 
Secretary Albright made no secret where the administration's loyalties 
lay: ``If the Serbs are the cause of the breakdown, we're going to go 
forward with the NATO decision to carry out air strikes,'' she 
threatened. It was NATO's way, or no way. It is little wonder an 
agreement was not reached. The arrangement provided no preservation of 
national sovereignty for Yugoslavia. NATO troops would have been 
authorized ``free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access 
throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia].'' There was also 
no guarantee, and indeed evidence to the contrary, that Yugoslavia's 
sovereignty and territorial integrity would remain intact after NATO 
troops rolled into the country. The United States took sides in the 
negotiations, and then wondered why the Serbs refused to sign the 
proposed agreement.
  Equally harmful to the peace process was the lack of historical 
understanding with which the administration engaged in the 
negotiations. Kosovo is the site of key historical and religious 
monuments for the Serbs. However, the President and Secretary failed to 
recognize this fundamental fact. It was both arrogance and 
shortsightedness which allowed the administration to proceed on this 
flawed course to disaster. I do not claim to be a scholar of the region 
myself; however, I am not arrogant enough to believe one can solve 
centuries-old conflicts with three nights of an air campaign, as the 
administration originally anticipated.
  The administration ``policy'' was nothing more than a policy du jour. 
At first, the goal of the air strikes was to bring Milosevic to the 
negotiating table. Next, the strikes were to harm Serb military might. 
Then strikes were to force a complete Serb withdrawal from Kosovo. 
Regardless of what the strikes were supposed to do, they were never 
part of a methodical, strategic plan. Instead, they were a knee-jerk 
reaction to daily events.
  Perhaps most disconcerting is the potential damage the operation may 
have inflicted on the NATO alliance. This mission marked the first time 
in the 50 years of the alliance's history that it was involved in an 
operation that had nothing to do with defending the territorial 
integrity of one of its members. The operation should be proof positive 
about the dangers of a ``new strategic concept'' that would expand 
NATO's missions beyond territorial self-defense to peacekeeping arenas 
outside its borders. NATO maintains a hefty burden in protecting 
members from an unstable Russian and Korean Peninsula, and the growing 
proliferation threat around the world without the burden of regional 
peace-keeping, or other humanitarian missions which have nothing to do 
with preserving the territorial integrity of members.
  I point out these facts not to lessen the impact of the human tragedy 
that occurred in Yugoslavia before the bombing began, or to lessen the 
responsibility of Milosevic's role in that tragedy. However, I feel 
compelled to raise this issue in the Senate today because it is 
premature to hail the Kosovo agreement as a success. Today, the Balkans 
are far less stable than when the operation began on march 24. The 
lesson to be learned from this operation should not be that good 
intentions are good reasons for foreign policy whims, particularly when 
those whims risk the lives of our men and women in uniform.
  The brave men and women of the Armed Forces deserve the praise and 
thanks of a grateful nation for serving with distinction and honor. I 
wholeheartedly join the Senate in thanking the members of the Armed 
Forces who served in the campaign in the Balkans. However, I am not 
ready to endorse this ill-conceived mission as a victory for the United 
States or NATO. Instead, this mission ought to go down in the history 
books as a lesson in what foreign policy blunders should be avoided in 
the future.
  To recover from this blunder, the President must provide a 
comprehensive post-war plan for the region. Bringing true peace to 
Kosovo will depend on the development of a stable balance of power on 
the ground. Whatever course of action is pursued by the administration, 
it must be one that ultimately would help the United States and its 
NATO allies to reduce their military commitments in the Balkans, and 
avoid entangling the United States and the Alliance in another Kosovo 
in the future.

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