[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6627-6628]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  THE KOSOVO CONFLICT, NO END IN SIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I want to give some perspective on an 
issue that is, I think, very near and dear to every American's heart, 
as it is in Kosovo today also.
  I would like to give the Speaker a little perspective. First of all, 
according to Henry Kissinger, and I agree, Rambouillet was a very poor 
foreign policy. It was an agreement only between Albania and the United 
States in which the United States knew, in no uncertain terms, that 
Serbia would never give up Kosovo itself. Any history student would 
know that.
  We have spent $16 billion in Bosnia to date; Somalia cost us billions 
of dollars; Haiti cost us billions; $4 billion times the four strikes 
in Iraq, the Sudan, Afghanistan. Our troops are deploying 300 percent 
above the highest level in Vietnam but yet we are doing it with about 
half the force. Enlisted retention in our own military is below 23 
percent; pilots, 30 percent.
  The Joint Chiefs of Staff said we are $150 billion short. We cannot 
buy spare parts. We do not even have basic bullets. Top gun, 14 of 23 
aircraft are down; 18 for engines; 137, parts.
  Kosovo, and this is according to General Clark, I was with General 
Clark just days ago and I said I want to know how many sorties the 
United States is flying. Mr. Speaker, General Clark said, and this is 
accurate to the sortie, 75 percent of all strikes in Kosovo are being 
flown by the United States. That does not include the B-2s, the 
tankers, the support aircraft like C-17s and C-130s. That brings it up 
to 82 percent.
  We are dropping 90 percent of all the weapons, so we are paying for 
over 90 percent. That does not even include our ships. That does not 
include our manpower over there. My point is that it should be the 
other way around.
  The reason given by General Clark is that other nations do not have 
the stand-off capability that we do so we are having to fly 90 percent 
of this stuff, 82 percent of it and 90 percent of the ordnance.
  My point is that the supplemental that we are going to ask for, if 
NATO

[[Page 6628]]

is a fair share organization, then NATO ought to pay the United States 
between $10 and $20 billion for our supplemental and not come out of 
our taxpayers' dollars.
  Let me give you another perspective. Before the bombing in Kosovo, 
there were only 2,000 deaths. Each death is important, but in 
perspective there were only 2,000 deaths attributed in Kosovo that 
whole year. One-third were Serbs and other nationalities besides the 
Albanians, but after the bombing look at the number of deaths. We have 
just killed 70 Albanians in a convoy trying to get out of Kosovo. NATO 
has killed 70 Albanians in an air strike. Look at the million refugees 
that these air strikes have caused that would not be there unless we 
had bombed Kosovo.
  The Croatians executed 10,000 Serbs in 1995 in Croatia. They deported 
and fled over 250,000 Serbs as refugees. Indonesia has killed millions; 
Turkey, thousands; India with the Sikhs; China, thousands with Tibet. 
Yet, we are in a mass war where there is less than 2,000 deaths, and 
over a third of those by the people we are claiming to bomb.
  The Pentagon, confirmed by Secretary Cohen, that the Pentagon did not 
want to execute just air strikes. The Pentagon told the President that 
they would not work alone, that they would exacerbate the problems, 
cause refugees, kill a lot of people. The United States would have to 
pay for a lot of it and unless we put ground troops in there the goals 
were not attainable. Yet, the President says no ground troops, which I 
am opposed to also.
  Why is he opposed to it? Because the Germans balked, the Italians 
balked. In World War II, Germany had 700,000 troops in Kosovo. The 
Chechens, with one half the force that Milosevic has, killed those 
Germans. General Shelton just 2 days ago said that this is the easiest 
place to defend and the most difficult to attack in the world.
  We do not belong there, Mr. Speaker. This is Clinton's war. Clinton 
ought to get out of it.

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