Joe Biden

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. The distinguished Senator from Michigan indicated that I could yield myself such time as he has remaining. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Kansas, I have no objection, after talking to him, if he wishes to send his amendment to the desk now. I will yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. If he can reserve 20 seconds for me, I would appreciate it.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I will be necessarily brief. It is not often I disagree with my friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter. I think he is right in the fundamental sense that if the President is going to send American ground forces into a war, it needs congressional authority. Very honestly, this amendment is, in my view, flawed. First of all, it is clear that the President has to come to Congress to use ground forces and that the President has already stated--I will ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a copy of his letter dated April 28, 1999, to the Speaker of the House in which he says in part: Indeed, without regard to our differing constitutional views on the use of force, I would ask for Congressional support before introducing U.S. ground forces into Kosovo into a non-permissive environment. I ask unanimous consent that the President's letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN. He may recall that I am the one who stood up and said: Mr. President, you do not have the authority to send in ground troops without congressional authorization. Since you have said, Mr. President, you have no intention of doing that, why don't you affirmatively send a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives committing that you will not do that without their authority? He said: I will. And he did. I think we accomplished that. To now say that we are going to add to that the requirement to cut off funds, that we will cut off funds, is a very direct way of saying: We don't trust you, Mr. President. You gave your word; you put it in writing; you put your signature on it; and we still don't trust you. I am not prepared to vote for that.

Mr. BIDEN. The Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, and I had an amendment to attempt to preauthorize the use of ground forces. The Congress debated, as the Parliamentarian can tell us, in the context of the War Powers Act, having been triggered by a letter sent by the President to the Congress. We have already spoken. We have already spoken as a Congress. We have made it clear to the President of the United States, unfortunately, in my view, that under the War Powers Act, we believe he should not at this moment be introducing ground forces because the McCain-Biden amendment was defeated, which was an affirmative attempt to give him authority in advance to use ground forces. So we have already debated this issue of ground forces in the context of the War Powers Act, which was one of the two documents cited by the Senator from Pennsylvania, the other being the U.S. Constitution. I argue we have done that. Second, I point out that I can't imagine a modern-day President, in the face of an overwhelming or even majority congressional decision, saying you should not use force and having the political will or courage to go ahead and use it anyway. I do not think such a circumstance exists. If you think this President is likely to do that, then you have a view of his willingness to take on the Congress that exceeds that of almost anyone I know. The idea that this President, in this context, having said so many times that he would not and does not want to use ground forces, would fly in the face of a majority of the Members of the Congress saying he should not do it without coming here, in what everyone would acknowledge would be a difficult political decision to make in any instance and difficult military decision to make, and then if, in fact, he is not immediately successful, I believe everyone in this Chamber would acknowledge that it would probably effectively bring this Presidency down. I just can't imagine that being the matter. Let me conclude by saying, Professor Corwin is credited with having said that the Constitution merely issues an invitation to the President and the Senate does battle over who controls the foreign policy. Seldom will Presidents take action that is totally contrary to the expressed views of the Congress which risk American lives and clearly would result in American body bags coming home. I wish he had a view different than the one I am asserting, because I think we need to have that option open and real. I am not sure it is. I am almost positive there is no reasonable prospect this President, or for that matter the last President, would have moved in the face of the Congress having already stated its views that it was not willing to give him that power in advance, which is another way of saying: Mr. President, if you want this power, come and ask us. So I think it is unnecessary. I think it is redundant. I think it has already been spoken to as it relates to the War Powers Act. I think it is a well-intended, mistaken notion as to how we should be limiting this President's use of ground forces. I thank the Senator from Michigan for yielding me that time. Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, as our nation gratefully remembers the deceased men and women of our military, I have a special commemoration for this Memorial Day, 1999. This year, as brave American patriots willingly put themselves in ``harm's way'' to defend the values and national interests of all Americans in places like the Balkans and the Persian Gulf, I rise to remind my colleagues here in the United States Senate and the American people of one distinguished group of patriots who gave so unselfishly at a time when their rights of citizenship were restricted--the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II. I want to let everyone know how honored we Delawareans are to welcome to my state one of these Native American patriots and World War II veterans this Memorial Day weekend. The Clarence Vinson-John Chason Post #3238 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Camden, Delaware will have the distinct privilege of hosting Mr. Samuel Billison. Mr. Billison was one of the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the United States of America defeat the Axis Powers in the Pacific during World War II. Mr. Billison is traveling from Window Rock, Arizona to be the featured speaker at the May 31st Memorial Day observances being conducted by VFW Post #3238 at the Ceasar Rodney High School auditorium. My state--the First State, the State that started our nation--has a long and proud history of celebrating the culture and accomplishments of Native Americans. It is only fitting, therefore, that Post Commander Mark Newman and Memorial Day Program Director Thomas E. Weyant sought out Mr. Samuel Billison, once one of the select Navajo Code Talkers. Each Navajo Code Talker made an invaluable personal contribution to the success of our nation's effort in World War II to preserve freedom and democracy. What is most astonishing about this is that they were willing to take on the responsibilities of democracy at a time when they were not allowed to enjoy the full blessings and rights of democracy here at home. Their communications contribution to World War II began in 1942 with a small group of 29 Navajos who shared their unique and unwritten language with the United States Marine Corps. Together they developed an unbreakable verbal code. By 1943, nearly 200 Navajo Code Talkers were dispersed to three combat divisions of the U.S. Marine Corps. As part of Marine Corps signal units, they participated through 1944 in the Pacific battles whose names bear witness to the honor and bravery of America's Marines--Bouganville, Tarawa, Cape Gloucester, the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Guam, and Peleiu. As 1945 unfolded, all six divisions of the Marine Corps in the Pacific theater were using the distinctive skills and loyal services of approximately 400 Navajo Code Talkers. These brave Native Americans joined other courageous Marines to recapture Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In the first two days of the battle for Iwo Jima, Navajo Code Talkers flawlessly translated over 800 messages. At the end of that month-long blood bath, it was Navajo Code Talkers who spelled out ``Mt. Suribachi'' as the flag was raised. By late 1945, the Navajo Code Talkers were serving with the occupation forces in Japan and China. The historical accomplishments and story of the Navajo Code Talkers must be preserved and retold for future generations. These Native American communications experts used their native tongue to thwart the enemy; to expedite military operations for critical territory; and to save countless lives in combat. Learning their story and repeating it is more than a matter of historical accuracy and completeness, or even a matter of just recognition and gratitude. As my friend Tom Weyant pointed out--speaking, I believe, for all Delawareans--it is also critical that Americans enter the New Millennium understanding the community ethos and deep patriotism of the Navajos who fought in World War II. The Navajos saw that ``pulling together'' was a matter of national survival. They gave unselfishly to defend ideals that even today, all we Americans still have not fully realized here in the United States, because the Navajos had faith that America would always continue to move toward the realization and fulfillment of those ideals. Mr. President, we in Delaware salute the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II. They are unsung heroes who played a vital role in our ultimate success in the Pacific by providing a code which the Japanese never could decipher. While many knew that Native Americans faithfully served in the war, including Navajos, it was not until 1968 that the existence of this top-secret code was finally declassified and made public. Our entire country is indebted to Mr. Billison, to all the Navajo Code Talkers, and to the thousands of Native Americans from various tribes who served so loyally and selflessly in both the Pacific and European theaters of World War II. We must never forget the ultimate sacrifice these Native Americans were willing to make at a time when they and their families were not even allowed to vote or participate in the full fruits of American citizenship in several states. Mr. Samuel Billison, the Navajo legacy of patriotism, the Navajo contribution of their unique skills, the Navajo heritage of heroism, and the Navajo example of love for America must be carried forward by us all. Your story embodies all that we Americans look for in our heroes today and that we revere in the rich tradition of our United States Marine Corps. To you and to all who served, I thank you.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. BIDEN. That is correct.

Mr. BIDEN. Over 5 years--it is over $1 billion.

Mr. BIDEN. It will cost over 5 years $1.15 billion--total cost for 5 years.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the report of the IG be printed in the Record.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I reserve my remaining time.

Mr. BIDEN. The same as the existing COPS Program.

Mr. BIDEN. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BIDEN. Benjamin Disraeli says there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. I don't know where my friends have been. Every major police agency in the United States of America strongly endorses this particular bill. The National Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Association of Police Organizations. You all ought to go home and speak to your chiefs. Find me in your State more than a handful of police officers who will come and say this is a bad idea. Find me anybody in this country who will say adding 92,000 cops on the street has not had an impact on crime. Where have you been? What are we talking about here? This doesn't even pass the smell test. Those cops don't matter? Ask Rudy Giuliani, who picks up the phone and calls me and says, Joe, great idea, when the COPS bill passed. Mr. Riordan, a Republican mayor in Los Angeles: Great bill. I wonder if anybody goes home to their States. My Lord, I don't know where you all are. I look at these numbers. Let's talk about that report. Remember, I said there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. That report referred to by the inspector general says 1.2 percent of the COPS Program could have been spent better. Name for me a multibillion-dollar program the Federal Government has ever conceived that has a 1.2-percent problem. Come on. As my daughter's friends would say, Get real. What are we talking about here? I was so amazed by the assertions being made, I lost my train of thought here. The inspector general's report, ``Summary of the Findings of the IG,'' page II: In considering our COPS audit results it should be kept in mind that they may well not represent the overall universe of grantees because, as a matter of policy, the COPS program has referred to us for review those riskiest grantees. Do you get this? Unlike the Defense Department, the Department of Education, any other Department, the Attorney General's Office said, we think maybe some of what we put out there may not be being used properly, so you go out and investigate for us. Give me a break. When is the last time you heard someone at the Defense Department say: You know, we may have overpaid a contract; you ought to go investigate. When is the last time you heard someone at the Department of Education say: You know, we think we may have given a school district too much money; go investigate. With the Attorney General of the United States of America, in the COPS Program, there is a department called COPS. They said: We want you to look at this. We could have made some mistakes here. We are not certain that every municipality used this money for cops the way we wanted to use it. Go look at it. Now these guys are trying to hoist them on their own request? By the way, 1.2 percent? I ask my friend from Oklahoma, let's look at the Defense Department; 1.2 percent? I will lay you 8 to 5 I can find a 50-percent waste of money in half the programs you support: 1.2 percent, what an indictment. Come on. You do not like the COPS Program because it was not invented there. By the way, I find it fascinating. One of my friends said: You know, part of the problem here is this has nothing to do with COPS. It had to do with political leadership. Guess who has been in charge. A guy named Clinton. That is the first admission I have heard: Clinton reduced crime, more than the COPS Program. More than the COPS Program. I find that not true, but kind of encouraging. Look, COPS makes a difference. Ask your folks back home, ask the people in the gallery, ask the people out in the street, where would they rather have their money being spent? This works. This works. By the way, this bill has a little provision Barbara Boxer has in here. It says we will pay for all the money it costs to put a cop in a school. Go home and tell the folks you do not want to do that. Go home and tell the folks that is simply a local requirement. Inflexibility? The reason it is under $25,000 is flexibility. We want to give them more flexibility to use the moneys they can use, still requiring the local municipality, the State, to put up their own money to do this. Come on, name a program that has worked this well. Name a program that has had this much success. Name a program that has this little amount of waste. Name a program that has fewer Federal strings attached to it. Name a program. By the way: Oversight; oversight. We have had 5 years to have oversight. One of the reasons we have not had oversight hearings, I suspect, is you do not want to hear the results. Call in your mayors, call in your chiefs of police, call in your citizens, call in the PTA, call in the Marines. Call in anybody you want. Say: ``By the way, I'll tell you what we are going to do. We are going to cut funding for COPS, that's what we're are going to do.'' I dare you. Come on. In New York City--I do not know how many New York received. I will tell you what, New York State over this period received--I bring up the subject because New York was mentioned --New York State has 10,550 cops. ``But they did not make any difference, by the way. New York is safer because there is a Republican mayor. That is the reason. COPS had nothing to do with this, nothing to do with this. I want you all to know that, COPS had nothing to do with crime going down.'' Does everybody hear that? Is everybody listening? ``The additional cops have nothing to do with this.'' That is the Republican position. COPS do not have anything to do with this. If they do, the Federal Government should not be involved. Let me conclude by saying this. My friend says, why should the Federal Government be involved? Because Federal policy is part of the problem. The drug problem in America is a Federal problem, not just a local problem. A significant portion of the crime is caused as a consequence of the international drug problem, and it is a Federal problem, Federal responsibility. I thank my friend. I hope my colleagues will vote for this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BIDEN. It could hire up to 50,000 cops.

Mr. BIDEN. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BIDEN. I beg your pardon? I thought I had 30 minutes.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I would like to reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, on the Biden amendment, Biden-Kohl-Schumer- Boxer-Specter amendment, it is very basic. Every major police organization in the country endorses this amendment. It adds a total of $600 million a year for the next 5 years for cops and $200 million a year for the next 5 years for prosecutors. It is endorsed by every major police organization. I hope my colleagues will vote for it. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield 9 minutes to my friend from Pennsylvania and 9 minutes to my friend from New York. I will reserve 2 minutes for myself to close.

Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I send this amendment on behalf of the primary sponsors: The Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter; the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer; the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer; and the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl; and others. This is a pretty straightforward amendment. My amendment extends for another 5 years the COPS Program which was created in the 1994 crime bill. As we all know, the COPS Program has put over 100,000 police officers on the--well, they are not all on the street yet, but it funded 100,000 police officers, of whom about 11,000 are in training now. I have put on the desk of every Member of the Senate a list of the number of police officers, State and local police officers, that have been funded under the COPS Program in their States. I have put on the desk of every Member of the Senate the reduction in violent crime, in property crimes, that has occurred in their State since the crime bill of 1994, which was passed, and I would make the argument that we do not have to reinvent the wheel here; it works. Cops on the street through the COPS Program work. The COPS Program is going to expire next year. Our amendment authorizes $1.15 billion per year through the year 2005. Let me explain what it does. There is $600 million more for police on the streets every year, which would give the States up to another 50,000 police officers over the next 5 years. This money, though, can always be used to retain current officers hired under the COPS Program; it can be used to pay overtime; it can be used to reimburse current cops for college and graduate school courses up to a percentage of the total money here. Since the original crime bill was the Biden crime bill that became the 1994 crime bill--we put in this COPS amendment. At the time, we were told by everyone, whether it was liberal newspaper editorials saying, we have tried this before and more cops don't work, or conservatives arguing that this was just a great big social welfare program--it was going to hire a bunch of social workers--we have demonstrated that it had never been done before and it works when it is done. I am reminded of the quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton. He said, it is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. The truth of the matter is, up to the time of the crime bill of 1994, we had never made a full blown major commitment to help local law enforcement officers increase their number. We have, in fact, increased the number of cops wearing uniforms--of local police officers, not Federal cops--by 100,000 cops. The crime rate has plummeted, not solely because of that but, I would argue, in large part because of that. Now, I have been here long enough to know that one of the dangers of being here long enough and having worked hard on setting up a government program, which you thought about and conceived and worked on for years and years to get adopted, is that you become a captive of your own program. So the Senator from Pennsylvania and I would talk, back in the early days when he got here and I got here, about community policing and how important it was. Cops didn't want community policing. Mayors did not want community policing. No one wanted it. My friend from Pennsylvania talked about career criminals and pointed out that only 6 percent of the criminals in America committed over 60 percent of the violent crimes in America. To both of us, it didn't seem like rocket science. If you focused on going after that 6 percent and you put more cops on the street and you took them out of patrol cars and put them on a beat, that would have a positive impact. I didn't have the experience my friend from Pennsylvania had of being a prosecutor. I might add, the office he was the chief prosecutor of in Philadelphia tries more criminal cases in 1 year than the entire Federal system tries in a year. The entire Federal system tries fewer cases than are tried in the Philadelphia prosecutor's office, the Philadelphia DA. I didn't have the experience, but I was smart enough to listen to him. And I was smart enough to listen to enough people who have been out there and had the experience. So as hard as it is to believe, it took us about 6 years to convince people that putting local cops on the beat made sense. I have spent, as has the Senator from New Mexico who was on the floor, a long time in this body. I think we both agree that if you take this job seriously and you sit in hearings year after year, day after day, month after month, unless you are an absolute idiot, you eventually learn something. Every single, solitary criminologist, every single expert, every single person who testified before the Judiciary Committee in the 16 years I chaired it or was a ranking member, said, we don't know a lot about crime but one thing we know: If there is a cop on this corner and no cop on the other corner and a crime is going to be committed, it is going to be committed where the cop is not. The second thing we know: If you have a cop in a neighborhood and they get to know the folks in the neighborhood, a simple thing happens--trust gets built. They know the cop's name. If they know who the cop is, they are going to be more inclined to call the officer aside when a crime has been committed and say, Officer John, I know who did that. If it is a wave-by and a cop is going by in a car and he is not a community cop, they don't want to take the chance of putting them on the line. I realize these are very simple, basic, trite-sounding things I am saying, but this program works. It works well. There are a lot of ideas here that ended up being rejected because they do not pass the test of ``not invented here.'' I realize there are some concerns, on the part particularly of my Republican colleagues, that this may be--and I am not talking about the Senator from Pennsylvania or anyone in particular--a program that is viewed as being identified with the Democratic Party, the President; therefore, why do we keep it going for another 5 years? I respectfully suggest that there have been some incredibly good ideas that have come out of the Republican caucus, including the block grant notion for police departments, including more flexibility to be given to local law enforcement officers. I want my colleagues to know-- and I understand the limitations my friend from Utah had in being able to reach an agreement here--I was prepared to accept the community block grant portion of the Republican program in order to get a consensus in this process. We didn't get there. I hope that when this passes, if it passes, we can still, as we move on through this year, move on to that good idea as well. I didn't try to incorporate it here because it is not my idea, it is the idea of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and others on the Republican caucus with whom I have to agree. Now, let me say this: One of the things we learned from the COPS Program and its functioning is that, as well as it works, it can be made to work better. I say to my friend from New York, Senator Schumer, he has been deeply involved. He carried this load in the House when we did this in 1994. He was a leader on the COPS Program. What he and I have both found out from our local law enforcement officers is that they need more flexibility. They need to be able to use this COPS money in ways that go beyond hiring a new shield, to be able to keep cops who are on the beat and use this money. They also want to be able to pay overtime, because they get the same coverage as they would if they hired a new cop, if they are allowed to pay overtime. So we built into this extension of the COPS Program more flexibility. To the best of my knowledge--my staff is behind me; I don't have it in front of me--I believe every major police organization has endorsed this and endorsed it on this bill, because it works. The second thing--and I will shortly yield to my friend from Pennsylvania, and then I want to reserve time for my friend from New York as well--is that there is $350 million in here for law enforcement to get new technologies to enhance crime fighting, such as better communications systems so cops in different jurisdictions can communicate, and even the ability to target hot spots, and new investigative tools like DNA analysis. The cops have come to me and they have said, this is what we need; this is what we need. I am one who believes that as long as they keep doing the job as well as they have been, we should give them the tools they need. There is one last piece, and then I will yield. The cops have been doing such a good job that the prosecutors in Senator Specter's old office are overwhelmed. They are overwhelmed. You put 100,000 more cops on the job, 545,000 cops who have already been on the job and who had not been in community policing but are all now community police, and you have had a phenomenal impact on crime, but also a phenomenal impact on putting more pressure on the court systems in the State and local governments. So there is in this bill $200 million for community prosecutors to expand the community policing concept to engage the whole community in preventing crime. These cops, as I said, have been so successful with their jobs that the next piece of the puzzle, the new bottleneck, is State prosecutors. Local prosecutors, they need help. So the next major piece of this bill is $200 million for community prosecutors. Lastly, you are only allowed to use a portion of the COPS money for this, but one of the things the cops have come to us and said is, we have a lot of cops who want to increase their education; we have a lot of cops who want to go back to college, who want to be better cops. If you are a schoolteacher in most districts and you go off and teach school and you go off and get your graduate degree, the school district helps you pay for that. I think we should be allowing the cops to take a portion of the money they get and pay for the continuing education of law enforcement officers. I still believe that the greatest safety lies in educated police officers who fully understand the Constitution, who increase their educational background. So that is another innovation in this bill. There is much more in it that I will not bore the floor with at this time. I know a lot of people are trying to get through this bill. I respectfully suggest--and it is imprudent of me to say this--I think this is, in a substantive sense, the single most important amendment we could add to this bill. I guarantee you--and I am willing to bet anybody in this body dinner--that if we add another 50,000 cops out there and this technology, we are going to have a significantly greater impact on reducing juvenile crime than we would without it. It works, folks. Let's not reinvent the wheel. I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. How much time remains in control of the Senator from Delaware?

Mr. BIDEN. I don't know how they get that number.

Mr. BIDEN. It could fund 50,000 cops for the entirety of the 5 years. But it could also only hire 30,000 cops, if in Oklahoma City they decide to use the COPS money for overtime instead of hiring new shields.

Mr. BIDEN

Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to speak today in support giving the Senate's advice and consent to ratification of the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons. This amended protocol was adopted on May 3, 1996, and submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification on January 7, 1997. The Foreign Relations Committee approved this resolution of ratification on March 23 of this year, with no dissents. While this is not as big an issue as NATO enlargement or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, ratification of the Amended Mines Protocol will be a real achievement. Its enactment is a further demonstration that the Senate and its Foreign Relations Committee can, in fact, reach agreement upon treaties that deal with difficult issues. My colleagues are well aware of the humanitarian crisis that has developed in the world as a result of the millions of unexploded land mines left from the last generation of wars in the world. The United States is a leader in humanitarian de-mining efforts, and we have all supported those efforts. But a few examples may help explain to the public why the issue of land mines is of such deep concern. In April 1996, Newsweek magazine wrote about one victim of land mines as follows: He served three years on Bosnia's front lines and survived. But within days of being demobilized, Petr Jesdimir became a casualty of the peace. He was working with a private road crew on the outskirts of Sarajevo last month when an anti-personnel mine buried at the roadside blew up under his left foot. As he stumbled down the road to get help, another mine shattered his right leg. Today he lies in a Sarajevo orthopedic clinic where battle- tested doctors have made their own transition--from treating soldiers hit by grenades to amputating the arms and legs of mine victims, mostly children. Jesdimir, 50, realizes that until he dies he'll probably be a drain on the nation he fought to preserve. ``I know I have to live with this now,'' he sobbed last week, holding up the trembling stump of a leg. ``Now I understand war.'' A year later, The Washington Post recounted the story of another Bosnian victim: The June weather was perfect as 14-year-old Tibomir Ostojic returned home from a dip in a nearby river. ``Cherries,'' he thought. ``Wouldn't it be nice to have some cherries?'' So he climbed a cherry tree not far from his apartment in the Sarajevo neighborhood of Dobrinja. As he was climbing down--and a split-second before his foot hit the ground--he realized the grass he was about to step on clearly had been avoided by others, and he knew instantly he was in trouble. The first explosion threw him into the air and onto a second land mine. By then he had his hands over his head for protection. The second blast blew them off. Land mines were also the major cause of casualties for NATO forces in Bosnia. Yet Bosnia is hardly the only land where this occurs. A Washington Times article of June 10, 1997, reported: ``The land mines are strewn so widely in the jungles along the cease-fire zones between Ecuador and Peru that when peacekeepers kick a soccer ball out of their compound, it stays there.'' Last year, in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, still more innocent people fell victim to land mines left over from the civil war in Nicaragua. The catalogue of countries ravaged by land mines--long after the end of the wars in which those mines were laid--goes on and on: Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Vietnam. It was the need to put an end to these seemingly endless post-war tragedies that motivated both the Administration and the Foreign Relations Committee to recommend ratification of the Amended Mines Protocol. The new Protocol is not a complete ban on anti-personnel land mines. Many of us regret that the United States is not in a position to sign and ratify the Ottawa Convention that institutes such a ban. The Amended Mines Protocol is supported, however, by several mine-producing or mine-using powers that would not sign the Ottawa Convention. It is a sad fact of life that countries with fortified borders are not yet willing to do without land mines. By adhering to this Protocol, they will save many innocent lives while we work to make a world-wide ban feasible for all countries. The new Protocol bans mines that are designed to be exploded by the presence of a mine detector, and it requires anti-personnel mines to be detectable. These provisions will greatly aid mine-clearing efforts in future wars. The Protocol severely limits the use of land mines unless they are both self-destructing within 30 days and self-deactivating within 120 days (in case the self-destruct mechanism should fail). Adherence to these provisions should end the senseless post-war slaughter inflicted by so many mines today. The Protocol establishes an obligation to clean up minefields after wars have ended. You might think that this was an obvious duty, but countries have often failed to clean up their lethal mess. Finally, the new Protocol applies to civil wars, as well as international ones. This is a desperately needed provision, as so many of the worst land mine disasters have been the result of civil wars. The Amended Mines Protocol is the first protocol of the Convention on Conventional Weapons to be applied to civil wars, and this is an important achievement that is in keeping with U.S. policy and practices. These provisions will go a long way, if adopted and fully implemented by the major mine users and producers, to curtail Future humanitarian crises due to land mines. The amended Protocol specifically meets concerns that the Senate articulated in 1995, when we gave our advice and consent to ratification of the original Mines Protocol and the underlying Convention on Conventional Weapons. For all these reasons, the Amended Mines Protocol deserves our wholehearted support. Bringing the Amended Mines Protocol to the Senate floor has required us to reconcile sharply differing and strongly held views regarding the utility and morality of using anti-personnel mines that meet the standards of the Amended Mines Protocol. We owe a debt of gratitude to our colleagues who agreed to accept resolution provisions and report language that safeguarded each other's positions on the broader land mine issues. One colleague who put the lives of innocent civilians ahead of his personal policy preferences is our esteemed Chairman, Senator Helms of North Carolina. Senator Helms has stated that anti-personnel mines are essential to the U.S. Armed Forces and that a ban on such weapons would needlessly place U.S. forces at risk. The Amended Mines Protocol does not pre-judge, however, the question of U.S. adherence to the Ottawa Convention. Both supporters and opponents of that treaty can support the Protocol's limits on the use of anti-personnel land mines by those countries that retain them. Adherence to the amended Protocol will not require any adjustment of U.S. military weaponry or tactics, moreover. Rather, it will make other countries meet standards that we already have achieved. U.S. military leaders want this Protocol to succeed, because it will save the lives of U.S. service men and women. In the interests of securing ratification of the Amended Mines Protocol, Senator Helms agreed to several major changes in the resolution of ratification, both last year and again this year, to remove from that resolution any language that would jeopardize this effort by pre-judging the broader land mine questions in his favor. He also issued a Committee report this year that omitted extensive material on land mines and the Ottawa Convention, thus minimizing any unintended affront to colleagues who favor a complete ban on anti- personnel mines. Another colleague who has put other people's lives ahead of his own views is Senator Leahy of Vermont. Senator Leahy has said many times in this chamber that the United States should adhere to the Ottawa Convention as soon as possible. He has sponsored successful legislation to fund the search for land mine alternatives, and he has an understandable interest in ensuring the effectiveness of that search. Senator Leahy is in an interesting position, however: he actually helped to bring about the Amended Mines Protocol. Although he favors a world-wide ban on anti-personnel mines, Senator Leahy has stated that he also considers the Amended Mines Protocol an improvement over the existing Protocol. Senator Leahy agreed not to seek to amend this resolution of ratification, even though he opposes some of its provisions. For example, the resolution will preserve the Pursuit Deterrent Munition until January 1, 2003, even though the U.S. military found that this weapon was too heavy to be of great use to U.S. personnel. It was not easy to bring Chairman Helms and Senator Leahy to agreement on a resolution of ratification for the Amended Mines Protocol. Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and I, as well as Executive branch officials from several agencies, had to work at this beginning in 1997. Chairman Helms and Senator Leahy agreed early on, however, that ratification of this Protocol was worth doing, if it could be done without prejudicing their stands on the larger issues. I am very pleased that we achieved such a resolution. I am also proud to be associated with two fine colleagues who kept their eye on the ball and arrived at an agreement. I want to recognize some of the staff members who have labored so hard to bring about successful U.S. ratification of the Amended Mines Protocol. Marshall Billingslea and Edward Levine of the Foreign Relations Committee staff have kept at this for over a year and a half, framing the issues and enabling Chairman Helms and me to reconcile our own differences as well as those between the Chairman and Senator Leahy. Senator Hagel's staff also played a major role in reconciling those differences, especially in the early stages. Tim Rieser of the Senate Appropriations Committee staff ably served Senator Leahy in crafting language that would not subvert the cause of eventual land mine abolition. Two State Department lawyers deserve special recognition for their roles. The Principal Deputy Legal Adviser, Michael J. Matheson, was instrumental in the negotiation of the Amended Mines Protocol and in explaining to the Senate its legal intricacies. Steve Solomon, an attorney in the office of the Assistant Legal Adviser for Political-Military Affairs, was tireless and expert in explaining why U.S. ratification is in our national interest. Time and again, Mr. Solomon kept us on track toward reasonable solutions. Without the assistance of those fine civil servants, we would not be ratifying this Protocol today. In closing, Mr. President, I want to emphasize that U.S. ratification of the Amended Mines Protocol is an action of which all Senator can feel proud. It will save innocent lives. It will reaffirm U.S. leadership in codifying the laws of war. Irrespective of whether we eventually renounce all anti-personnel mines, and without prejudicing that debate, the Amended Mines Protocol will serve our national interest and the interests of humanity.