Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. No; it was not. Congress had no role in that whatsoever. This Senator believes there is subsequent evidence in the reports that followed up on that tragedy which indicate that political decisions were made by people within the administration relative to the perception American people might have regarding our presence and involvement in Somalia, and the decision that was then made, either through the administration or at the Department of Defense, and to deny the request for additional force support.

Mr. COATS. I think there is a great distinction between asking the President, ``What do you think the force should be? What, in your judgment as Commander in Chief, with the advice and consent and assistance of your military commanders, should the number be to perform a certain mission?''--there is a great distinction between that and a direction to the President of the United States saying, ``You must give us a number based on an average of troops that are committed by nations outside Congress' control,'' and it cannot exceed that. The President here couldn't have the discretion to say, ``Well, we need whatever troops are necessary to protect, or complete our mission, or carry out our mission in this part of the world, or to protect our forces.'' The President is being dictated to arrive at a number, which the President may disagree with, or the Commander in Chief, or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff disagrees with in terms of ability to carry out that mission. That is my concern with the Byrd-Hutchison amendment.

Mr. COATS. I do not understand where in the Constitution the power is vested in Congress to specify not the total force level but to specify military strategy.

Mr. COATS. How are we to interpret the role and the meaning of the word ``Commander in Chief''?

Mr. COATS. I am not disagreeing with the Senator on that point whatsoever.

Mr. COATS. Perhaps I misunderstood the Senator.

Mr. COATS. I can assure the Senator from West Virginia that was not implied.

Mr. COATS. I don't believe that is what I said.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, Senator Levin and I, along with the chairman and others, have worked long and hard attempting to fashion a way in which this Congress could express its dissatisfaction with the prospect of an indefinite troop commitment in Bosnia. We now are going on the third year of that commitment at a cost that continues to escalate. I believe it is approaching, if it hasn't exceeded, $9 billion--this is despite the assurances of the administration that the troops would only be necessary to accomplish the military portion of the Dayton accords for 1 year. The then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, in testimony before our committee on October 18, 1995, said: NATO's plan will call for the implementation force to complete its mission in twelve months and to withdraw. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in testimony before the House National Security Committee on October 18, 1995, said: NATO's plan will call for the implementation force to complete its mission in twelve months and to withdraw. Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State, said in a speech to the National Press Club on November 9, 1995: We believe that twelve months is a reasonable period of time for the implementation force to have accomplished its mission. The President of the United States, President Clinton, in a letter to Speaker Gingrich dated December 13, 1995, said: NATO and U.S. military commanders believe and I expect that the military mission can be accomplished in about a year. Twelve months will allow IFOR time to complete the military task assigned in the Dayton agreement and to establish a secure environment. Within 1 year we expect that the military provisions of the Dayton agreement will have been carried out, implementation of the civil aspects and economic reconstruction will have been firmly launched, free elections will have been held under international supervision, and a stable military balance will have been established. Those words from the President of the United States. He was supported by Richard Holbrooke, former Assistant Secretary of State, who negotiated the Dayton agreement. Mr. Holbrooke said: The President has given a very clear commitment on the twelve months. That is our policy. It will remain our policy. General Shalikashvili once again said, in an article, in an interview with the Washington Post of April 3, 1996: I'm absolutely convinced that America will not participate with military forces in Bosnia after the conclusion of this year. On and on it goes. Yet it is now 1998. There is no indication of when our military forces will be removed from Bosnia. Their continued presence has come at considerable cost to the taxpayer--as I said, $9 billion-plus and counting--and no indications by the administration that forces will be withdrawn at any time soon. There is little disagreement on this floor about the concern over the escalating costs and the indefinite commitment. The real question before the Senate is how we accomplish the goal of withdrawing those troops. It is clear that what was promised by the administration as a consequence of the Dayton accords has not been accomplished on the civil implementation. Our armed forces have done a marvelous job in meeting the military obligations. In fact, the military tasks were essentially accomplished in that first year. A poitical decision was made, however, that forces needed to remain in Bosnia to provide a secure environment so that the civilian portion of Dayton could be accomplished. I was one who voted against the use of our troops to enforce the Dayton accord. I did not provide that support. Senator Levin I believe, did provide that support. Yet today we are joining in attempting to send a message from the Congress to the President and to our allies that we do not want an indefinite commitment, that we believe the military mission has been successfully achieved--that it is time to begin the process of bringing our troops home. While there has been some progress in civil implementation, when I traveled last December with the President to Bosnia, I saw little evidence of successful civilian implementation. It has taken 2 years and an extraordinary amount of outside pressure to get the three nations involved to agree on a common license plate and a common foreign currency--what is seemingly the most easily defined civilian implementation aspects of that accord. Yet, the parties, over a 2-year period of time, could not even agree on what the license plate would look like that each of them would put on their vehicles, or what the currency would look like, in order to establish a common currency for that one country. So I stand here as one with grave concerns and deeply held doubts about whether or not we are ever going to accomplish what Dayton attempted and promised, and that is reunification of a country that appears to not want to reunify. Key issues such as resettlement of refugees; establishment of a civilian police force that, to date, has not been deemed effective in providing any kind of stability; establishment of judicial reforms that would provide a basis for enforcement of the law on an equal and fair basis. Resolution of many of these issues appear far down the road--if they are even achievable. I come back to the central question, which is, now that our troops are there, who makes the determination and what is our obligation as Members of Congress relative to establishing the continued presence, limiting that presence, or requiring that withdrawal? I happen to believe strongly that our responsibility, as defined by the Constitution, is to determine the funding, whether or not we will financially support the commitment that has been made by our Commander in Chief. Now, Senator Levin and I have wrestled with this question in terms of how we can best express a message to the President of the United States that we do not support an indefinite commitment, that we do believe that a transition should take place from an American presence to European support for whatever military forces are necessary to provide continued stability. But we do not believe that we are in a position; nor do we have the right to define a timetable or a troop level. We believe that is a decision that ought to be left to the military, ought to be left to the Commander in Chief, and that is where the responsibility lies. We do so because we don't believe we have the expertise to define what that troop level should be. When the discussion was undertaken relative to our placing troops in Bosnia, virtually every individual who represented the military, from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commanders who were called forward to testify, said we need the flexibility to determine what is necessary to accomplish our message and to provide for the security for the forces that are deployed in Bosnia. We need to make that decision based on our military expertise and based on what we see as the threat and what is necessary to provide for the security of those forces. This is not a decision that ought to be made by Congress, regardless of our own expertise or what expertise we think we might have, having served on the Armed Services Committee or learned through our association with the Department of Defense. We are not in a position to define that troop level number. This decision has to be left to the military commanders. We learned, by tragic experience, how political intervention and policy can sacrifice lives and place our troops in jeopardy. All of us have freshly imprinted on our minds the tragedy in Somalia, as a request by the commander of our forces in Mogadishu for armored forces to provide the force protection was denied primarily for political reasons, because they wanted to avoid the perception that the U.S. was enlarging our presence in Somalia, but that we were drawing down. We drew down too far and we lost some great Americans because we were not able to provide them with sufficient protection. It is not our decision as to what that level of protection should be. Secondly, Senator Levin and I--and he will speak for himself--believe that it is important that we not set an arbitrary timetable for accomplishment of the mission or for withdrawal of troops. That simply sends a signal to extremist forces and others who are intent on destabilizing the situation. All they have to do is wait until a certain date, pull back and give the appearance of stability, give the appearance of cooperation, knowing that when a certain date is reached, our troops will be withdrawn. We want to keep that indefinite. It doesn't mean the decision can't be made to remove the troops tomorrow, or the President can't sit down with our allies and discuss what the future force should be. I believe an amendment will be offered--if not to this bill, to the defense appropriations bill--by the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Texas to establish a certain level and a certain timetable. It may be that that is what our military commanders decide is in the best interests of accomplishing our military mission and protecting our forces. But that ought to be their decision, not ours. So those are the primary reasons--the protection of our forces, for a limited success, in stabilizing the war and to protect against the potential of extremist groups taking advantage of the knowledge they have of our force size and to protect against the concept that if we define a specific date through a statutory definition, that any hopes of accomplishing a mission that has been agreed to--as I said not by this Senator, but by the President and supported by a majority--can be realized. To conclude, our amendment essentially expresses the sense of Congress that the U.S. ground combat forces should not remain in Bosnia indefinitely, in view of the worldwide commitments that we have, the impact on our forces, on our readiness, on our deployment, and on our ability to address other needs; that the President should work with our NATO allies, and other nations who have military forces participating in the stabilization force, to withdraw ground combat forces from Bosnia within a reasonable period of time. The difference here is reasonable. We allow a reasonable period of time, leaving it again to the discretion of our military, rather than the fixed time. Consistent with the safety of those forces and the accomplishment of the stabilization force's military task. We think it is appropriate to define a way in which we can continue, when we withdraw ground combat forces, to continue to provide support for a follow-on European force, and to have a ready reaction or Ready Reserve force in the region--not in Bosnia, but in the region, available to help if necessary; that the President should inform our European allies of the will of the Congress, should this amendment be accepted; and that the President should consult very closely with congressional leadership with respect to the progress he is making in terms of achieving the goals of the Dayton accord. That is the essence of our amendment. As Senator Thurmond said, this is not a committee amendment that was voted out of committee, though it is supported by a number of members on our committee. We think it is an important amendment to lay down. We think this debate is important. Following this, there is much about what is going to be said by those who may not support this and who want something different than what I am going to agree with. Much of what they have put in their proposed amendment, which apparently will not be offered to this amendment and to this bill but at a later time, I am going to agree with.

Mr. COATS. No. The Senator wants to understand the Constitution.

Mr. COATS. It only applies if Congress declares war.

Mr. COATS. I ask the Senator, what does the Senator believe the founders intended to be the powers of the President as Commander in Chief? What would be his duties as Commander? What does the word ``commander'' imply, or state, or mean?

Mr. COATS. I would be happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. COATS. I do not disagree with the Senator a bit on anything he has just said.

Mr. COATS. How does that individual do that?

Mr. COATS. The duties of Commander in Chief are to direct that Army, to deploy that Army when necessary to defend the United States.

Mr. COATS. Is the Senator saying those are the decisions to be made by this Congress?

Mr. COATS. So am I.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, today the Senate will resume consideration of the defense authorization bill. Currently pending to that bill is a Hutchinson amendment relating to China. It is expected that a tabling motion will be made on that amendment at approximately 10:15 a.m. this morning. Further votes could occur with respect to the defense bill prior to the 12:30 policy luncheon recess. Under a previous order, following the party lunches at 2:15, the Senate will proceed to a cloture vote on the defense bill. Members are reminded that under rule XXII they have until 12:30 p.m. today to file second-degree amendments to the defense bill. The leader would like to remind all Members that there are only 4 days left before the Independence Day recess. There are still several important items to be considered this week, including appropriations bills, the conference reports accompanying the Coverdell education bill, the IRS reform bill, the Higher Education Act, and any other legislative or executive items that may be cleared for action also may be considered this week. Therefore, the cooperation of all Members will be needed to successfully complete the Senate's work this week. I thank my colleagues for their attention. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Reserving the right to object, if there is going to be additional time allotted--the Senator from Arkansas spoke; the Senator from Massachusetts spoke--if there is going to be additional time allotted, I believe it ought to be allotted on an equally shared basis. If additional Senators are going to speak, this Senator would like to speak for an equal amount of time, whatever that time is.

Mr. COATS. I would be happy to.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, last year DOD had an initiative to have NATO adopt the JSTARS system as the NATO alliance ground surveillance system, but NATO subsequently decided not to acquire the B-707-based US JSTARS aircraft. After that decision, the US offered a concept to integrate a variant of the US JSTARS Radar Technology Insertion Program (RTIP) sensor into an aircraft of NATO's choice. In April, NATO's Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) approved a one year concept definition study to flesh out this alternative. However, the April decision was too late to affect the budget request, so that unless the Department gets the authority that would be provided by this amendment, the concept definition effort would slip by a year.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the administration has requested authority to enter into multi year contract on these three aircraft. Multi-year procurement of these three aircraft is cost effective and has the commitment of the Department of Defense. I support the initiative as a prudent step to ensure we have efficient acquisition of mature defense systems.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, this amendment allows for the inclusion of budget authority to continue work on the expeditionary common automatic recovery system (ECARS), which is a launch and recovery system that DoD is using for unmanned aerial vehicles. ECARS would be an adaptation of that system to provide a landing system for Marine Corps helicopters in places where the Marines have not had an opportunity to establish the full air control system. The K-band testing obscuration pairing system (K-TOPS) program would provide a training scoring system to allow the Marines to conduct realistic training in the presence of smoke or other obscurants on a simulated battlefield. Since these programs are for the Marine Corps, the source of budget authority for them is in the communications and infrastructure support program contained in the Procurement, Marine Corps (PMC) account.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I had a discussion earlier with the Senator from New Mexico. I had a discussion with the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I told the Senator from New Mexico that it is not my intention to bog down this bill. I understand the dilemma the Senate is in due to the 4 weeks we spent on the tobacco bill without resolution. We have appropriations bills that need to move. I assured the Senator from New Mexico that it was not my intent to do this. I was operating on the assumption that the agreement that we so torturously reached in 1996, that received the unanimous support of every Senator, including the Senators from New York and the Senators from New Jersey, including the Senators from Illinois and exporting States, after days and weeks and months of negotiations, that that would still be operative. Now it seems that everything has changed. I am not going to insist on my rights to allow this amendment to tie up this appropriations bill. I think there is important work in the Senate that needs to be done. I will just say to my fellow Senators, this is an issue that is not going to go away. I said it in 1990. I have said it every year since. It has passed the Senate five times, sometimes by unanimous consent, sometimes by 94 votes. Importing States are at a tremendous disadvantage, and they have no say in the ways in which they can manage their own environmental destiny as it regards municipal solid waste. Exporting States can continue to make promises about what they are going to do. The fact of the matter is they apparently are not delivering on those promises. We were assured time after time that if they just bought a little more time, they would achieve the capacity necessary to deal with their own waste, but they found it convenient to ship it somewhere else so that somebody else can deal with their problems. It appears now that the evidence is in that they are not doing anything to deal with their own waste, and that puts those of us who are importing States at a great disadvantage. By the way, that is 31 States. We agreed we are going to continue to work on this. We will continue to work on this. We will attempt to achieve another consensus so that we can move this legislation, but, in the meantime, I think it is important that we go ahead with other work in the Senate that has been planned. With that in mind, I withdraw my amendment.