[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7095-7096]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           WAR IN THE BALKANS

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the Congress is about to be asked to 
appropriate $10 billion, and perhaps more, in emergency funds to 
finance a war in the Balkans and to help the refugees that war has 
created. We will be asked to do so after a brief debate and with no 
opportunity to impose conditions or to add reservations. That is the 
wrong way to deal with so grave an issue.
  On March 23, the Senate authorized air attacks on Yugoslavia in the 
hope that they would motivate the Government of Yugoslavia to grant 
autonomy to the Kosovars, a status far less than the independence they 
seek, enforced by the presence of American and other NATO troops for an 
undefined period of time, and thus to prevent a refugee crisis. We have 
been spectacularly unsuccessful at attaining either goal.
  I voted against the March resolution. I did so because I believe that 
the United States should engage in armed conflict only when its vital 
interests are at stake, and that the then Serb repression of the 
Kosovar Albanians did not involve any of our vital national interests.
  My vote was also motivated by the belief that the limited bombing 
proposed would be unlikely to help us reach the dubious goal of 
occupying Kosovo. When we do engage our Armed Forces in conflict, we 
should do so decisively and with overwhelming force aimed at the cause 
of the conflict--in this case, the Milosevic government in Belgrade.
  This conflict, to the contrary, was begun in too limited a fashion to 
be likely to bring the Serbs to heel, with no contingency plans should 
the early bombing not work, and with no anticipation of the brutal Serb 
reaction in driving hundreds of thousands of Kosovars out of home and 
country.
  It is that failure that brings us to our present state. The President 
will not acknowledge our failure to reach his goals, will not speak 
seriously to the American people about both ends and means, and will 
not ask Congress to authorize him to act decisively and to support him 
in doing so. Instead, we are engaged in a conflict in which the primary 
goal seems to be to avoid American casualties, the secondary goal to 
avoid Serbian casualties. So the only real casualties are among the 
Kosovar Albanians, the people the conflict was designed to protect.
  The President will not, and should not, send our troops into Kosovo 
and won't arm the Kosovo rebels so they can defend themselves. We bomb 
buildings that we are certain are empty but not television towers or 
airports. We bomb oil storage depots but allow oil tankers to unload 
replacement oil within sight of our fleet.
  At this point, of course, a conflict over an issue that was not vital 
to our national security in the beginning has now escalated to one that 
is, both with respect to the refugees and to the survival of NATO 
itself, all due to the frivolous and half-hearted nature of our 
military operations. In the abstract, this fact lays weight to the 
arguments of Senators Lugar and McCain, among others, to lift the 
artificial and self-defeating renunciation of ground operations.
  But their arguments flounder disastrously with the first whiff of 
reality. This is a war run by committee. A dozen politicians from 
almost as many countries must sign off on targets even with respect to 
the air war. The United States has not even sought NATO consent to arm 
the Kosovars and to blockade Yugoslavia.
  Does any Senator believe for a moment that this administration will 
wage or is capable of waging a real war with victory as its goal? No.
  We have only four realistic alternatives, all unpalatable. First, 
there is the remote hope that Milosevic will surrender and agree to our 
demands. Under those circumstances, we would get to occupy Kosovo for 
perhaps 25

[[Page 7096]]

years. Second, we may quit and go home, leaving chaos in our wake. 
Third, the most likely outcome now is a settlement brokered by the 
Russians in which the 90 percent of Albanian Kosovars get the poorest 
half of a devastated province and the 10 percent Serb Kosovars get the 
best half. We will then be asked to rebuild Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, 
and probably Serbia as well. President Clinton will proclaim this a 
victory.
  The fourth and last alternative is a gradual escalation of the air 
war, followed by gradual escalation on the ground, without any prospect 
of real victory but at a very real cost in American lives and the 
expenditure of billions of American dollars.
  Each of these alternatives, Mr. President, is a terrible disservice 
to the brave American men and women who are loyally fighting this war 
and who deserve better from our leaders. Each is a tragedy for the 
hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians rooted out of destroyed 
homes, turned into impoverished refugees or killed outright.
  It is those prospects that the Senate should be debating, using such 
time as is proportionate to the seriousness of the issues.
  But we are now faced with the prospect of a $12 billion add-on to a 
$2 billion supplemental appropriations bill, with little opportunity 
for debate and no opportunity to amend or condition that appropriation. 
What should have been an occasion for a serious debate will become 
instead a venture in avoiding the responsibility to ask and to answer 
hard questions.
  That is a game the Senate should not play. At the very least, we 
should allow those who propose intervention on the ground an 
opportunity to make their case, and those of us who wish to arm the 
rebels a chance to make ours.
  An appropriation covering the cost of this conflict until October 
without seriously debated conditions is a blank check to the President 
to conduct the conflict as he pleases. It is all the authorization for 
war on the ground he is ever likely to seek. It is a total abdication 
of our responsibilities. I cannot support such an action. I will do all 
I can to defeat it.
  Mr. WYDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President.

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