Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I ask also if he is aware of what this does. It takes an entity that is 94 percent paid for by taxpayers' funds and gives some authority of oversight as to the expenditure of that 94 percent of funds that are being used. That is essentially what the amendment does.

Mr. INHOFE. All right. I also want to make sure----

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, who has the floor?

Mr. INHOFE. Well, I will respond to the chairman by saying that I do not have anyone who has requested time from me. I have pretty much stated the whole case. I would appreciate, of course, yielding time to him to hear his position on this, as chairman of the committee.

Mr. INHOFE. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator for yielding. I am not going to take that long, only because I don't want the Senator to be left with no time to respond to what I think we will be hearing in the next 22 minutes. I want to make sure the Senator has adequate time. Let me take a minute and say that I don't like the amendment but I don't know any other choice. I wish there were other choices out there. We got involved in this. I am sure I can visualize what was happening when they made the decision to invade a sovereign nation, sitting around a table saying, we will send bombs out there for a couple of days and that will take care of him and everything will be fine. That was not the plan. We heard the plan criticized by the very best people out there. I will be in the region again this weekend. My concern, as I voiced several times, without a well laid out plan in a war we shouldn't be involved in--we have troops out there, as I said before, who are virtually naked and have no protection right now. I am concerned about Albania and the threat to our lives there as much as I am crossing that line into Kosovo. Because right now there is no force protection over there. As far as the pilots are concerned, I don't think there is a person in this U.S. Senate who has visited with the pilots more than I have, because as chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee I go around to all these places. I take journalists with me, frankly, so these people will realize why we are only retaining 19 percent of our Navy pilots, 27 percent of our Air Force pilots. It is not just the attractive economy on the outside. It is not just the fact our mechanics are overworked and they are not sure the spare parts are going to be there. As they said in one of the places, with witnesses there, our problem is we have lost our sense of mission. They are sending us in places without adequate training. With all the money we are spending in these contingency operations where we do not have strategic interests, it is draining us from our ability to properly train should we have to meet a contingency where our national strategic interests are at stake. Our time that we are training these guys in red flag exercises in Nellis is cut way down; the National Training Center out in the desert, cutting down Twenty-nine Palms for the marines; they are not getting adequate training because we are busy deploying our troops in places where we do not have a national strategic interest. So I just look upon this as a way out. We have been looking for a way out of Bosnia since 1995. Now there is no end in sight there. I do not want to get ourselves in that position, so I see the only way out right now is what the Senator from New Hampshire is suggesting. I do support his amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. I inquire of the Presiding Officer how much time remains on both sides.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator for yielding time. I think just about everything has been said here, but there are some concerns I have that I would state in a little different way than the Senator from New Hampshire has stated them. One is that we have gone through an artificial downsizing that is not commensurate with the threat that is out there. The myth that has floated around that the cold war is over, there is no longer a threat, is something that finally the American people are waking up and realizing is not true. We are in the most threatened position today that we have been in probably in the history of this country, with the diverse types of opposition out there, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and abilities to transport those weapons. So I say, one of the strongest arguments against a BRAC round at this time is, we have gone through four BRAC rounds. If we take the level of our infrastructure down to meet the level of the force strength, then when we start back up with the force strength, we will not have the infrastructure that is necessary. So we need to be looking at our rebuilding process. It would be like going through extensive BRAC processes back in the late 1970s--right before rebuilding, which is imminent. We are going to have to do it with the new administration. Secondly, as I think the Senator from New Hampshire articulated quite well, we are in a really severe situation right now in terms of readiness. Later on today I want a chance to elaborate on this and talk about the fact that we are now at approximately one-half the force strength that we were in 1991. In other words, we could not repeat our effort in the Persian Gulf war today. This is being complicated by all these deployments to places where we should not be. We should never have sent a troop or any effort or any assets into Bosnia; we should not have done that in Kosovo or Albania, or to Haiti, for all practical purposes, because that dilutes the already scarce military assets we have. I say this relates to this subject because we have a military system that is hemorrhaging today. This is not something that we can wait until later to take care of. As the Senator from New Hampshire pointed out, anything that comes from a BRAC round, a new BRAC round, is going to cost money, not save money. Now is when we are going to have to try to do something with our readiness so that if General Hawley has to stand up and say something has happened either in the Pacific theater, North Korea, or the Persian Gulf, Iraq or Iran, we would be able to meet that. We cannot do that today. So this certainly would be ill-timed, even if you believe that it was a good idea to have future BRAC rounds. I think also we need to look at the budget we are passing. I want to talk about the inadequacy of what we are talking about in our authorization bill. We are increasing by about $9 billion what the President's budget was. We have had testimony from the CINCs and from others in the field and from the four-stars that this is totally inadequate. We are going to have to have at least a minimum increase of $24 billion each year for approximately 6 years. Lastly, I would like to remind everybody of what happened in the last round, I believe, in the BRAC process. I was elected to the House in 1986, and that is when we put this idea together. It was a Congressman from Texas, Dick Armey, who did it. The idea was to get politics out of the BRAC process. Through round 1 and round 2 and round 3, there were no politics involved. They were not political decisions; they were rational decisions. However, in the last round--and we all know what happened; no one is going to question this--the President went out there prior to the 1996 election, to McClellan in California and to Kelly in Texas, in order to get votes and politicize the system. You might say: Well, this is going to come along after he is gone. I am a little bit concerned about the fact that there is a possibility, a very outside possibility, that Al Gore will succeed him. That being the case, he was involved in politicizing this, too. For those who believe we still have excess infrastructure, I would like to have you consider that maybe we should wait until we see what the new administration is going to look like, what kind of commitments are going to be made. As chairman of the committee that has oversight over the BRAC process, I suggest we wait and not pass this BRAC recommendation today. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. INHOFE. Five minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Delaware, the Senator from Alabama, and others have been talking about the legal ramifications of what this amendment is all about. You can study the sections and subsections and sub-subsections and quote all of these things, but I think we all know this was an alliance that was set up to be a defensive alliance. Now we are getting into something that is far more than that. But I would put out two things that have not been said. First of all, I just came back from the Canada-United States interparliamentarian meeting up there. It is very clear to me they are involved in this, with a very modest contribution, only because we are in there. I wonder how many other of these countries are getting involved because we are providing that leadership. No. 2, my concern about this is not a legalistic concern. It is what effect is this having on our state of readiness. I happen to be chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee. This is what is very frightening. We can remember in this Chamber in 1994, in 1995, talking about Bosnia; we were going to be sending people over to Bosnia. What was the main argument used? We have to protect the integrity of NATO. Then we have the same thing coming up on Kosovo. It has come up in other places, too. These are areas where we do not have national strategic interests. What it has done is to put us in a position where we cannot carry out the minimum expectations of the American people or our national military strategy, which is to defend America on two fronts. I want to tell you how proud I was of General Hawley the other day, Air Combat Command, who came out and said we, right now, are not in a position to respond if we should be called upon to respond in areas where we do have a national strategic interest such as North Korea or the Persian Gulf. It is very, very important that we get to the bottom of this and we make a determination as to what our future commitments are going to be as far as NATO is concerned.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following brief statements be printed at the appropriate places in the permanent Record of May 14 immediately following Votes 118 and 119, respectively: Mr. President, I was absent from the Senate today in order to be a pallbearer at a funeral in Tahlequah, Okla. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on the Hatch-Craig amendment. This position is consistent with my vote to table the same amendment on May 13. The tabling motion failed 3-97, thus leading to the today. I believe my presence would not have changed the outcome since determined efforts were being made to switch just enough votes to assure the amendment's passage. Mr. President, I was absent from the Senate today in order to be a pallbearer at a funeral in Tahlequah, Okla. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on the vote to table the Shumer amendment.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleague, the senior Senator from Oklahoma. Mr. President, in Oklahoma we have gone through tragedies that are indescribable. The Murrah Federal Office Building was the most significant terrorist attack on domestic soil in the history of America. It is one that you can't describe standing here on the Senate floor. I have been there. And I remember so well the thundering march, the cadence of the fire trucks as they were going to try to extract so many people out of the building, and all types of volunteers. We saw the same thing yesterday. It was indescribable. I note the story of a horse that was picked up and taken a quarter of a mile in the air, and dropped on top of a car, then a car on top of a house, and the twisted ``I'' beams. The power, the indescribable power that was there. James Lee Witt--I am very complimentary of James Lee Witt, a man I have known long before he was Director of FEMA. As chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over FEMA, I work very closely with him. And I tell you right now, he had his hands on there. He was personally involved in it. He explained to us that this is the most significant tornado that he had seen in terms of the devastating damage and power that was there. You always remember one or two things. I recall in the helicopter ride going across a little town called Moore, OK. Everything was devastated in that town, except right across the street from the most devastating part of this tornado stood the First Baptist Church of Moore, OK. It had been untouched. As my senior Senator from Oklahoma said, we are so appreciative of everyone coming together, for all of the comments of our colleagues since we have been back, the prayers that we had this morning from the Senate Chaplain and others, and people like the Governor of Oklahoma, the mayor of Oklahoma City throughout yesterday, the police departments and the fire departments, all of the volunteers, and certainly FEMA bringing this all together. We are very thankful, and we in Oklahoma will be bound to that. We ask for your continued prayers for the families, for those who lost their lives, and for the families of those who lost their lives. I thank very much all of the government coming together to help us rebuild the damage that has been done. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. BROWNBACK addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Arizona particularly for the way he has conducted himself in this debate in spite of the fact that there are many who do not agree with him and the resolution. Let me first share some ideas that perhaps have not been discussed. I have done a lot of crossing off as I have listened today, taking off items I was going to discuss, and I have shortened my remarks and probably won't use all of my time. First of all, months ago I went to Kosovo when I saw the handwriting on the wall, when I felt that ultimately this President was going to send ground troops into Kosovo. In spite of the fact he continuously said he was not going to, I felt very strongly that he was. I went over to find out as much as I could before all of the bombing started, what it was really like in Kosovo. Truly, Milosevic is just as bad a person as everybody says he is. I do not question that. But one of the things I came back with is a knowledge of a little bit of the history of the area and that some of the people over there are bad, too. For example, you are talking about Kosovo, which is very small. It is about 75 miles in diameter, surrounded by mountains and for 600 years has been an area that has strived unsuccessfully for autonomy. There have been times when the Albanians have been the bad guys and the Serbs have been the good guys, and vice versa. It was about 12 years ago we were all so concerned because the KLA was doing all the raping and looting and burning, and not the Serbs. Also, I noticed only two dead people in the road going across Kosovo. I turned them over. They ended up being Serbs. They were killed by the KLA. They were executed at point-blank range. Rounding a corner about 10 minutes later, I saw someone--I found myself in the sights of a rifle-propelled grenade, an RPG-7, a very lethal weapon. After they put it down, we walked over, and it was the KLA, it wasn't the Serbs. I went on and we saw on the map a place called the ``no-go zone.'' I asked what it was. They said that is where you do not go. They do not care whether you are a United States Senator or whether you are a Serb or an Albanian; if you go in there, you are going to be shot. It was controlled by the KLA. I guess what I am saying, Madam President, is there are bad guys on both sides. I would like to just mention one thing about the China scandal, because I see a connection here. I hate to say this, but a couple of months ago on this floor I told the history of what had happened in the China scandal and the fact that back in the 1980s the technology known as the WA-8 technology was stolen and nobody knew about it until about 1995. The administration--the President and the administration found out about it and they withheld that from Congress for quite a number of years--not months but years. So in Senator Warner's committee we started having some hearings to find out what the truth was. Sometimes I remember that Winston Churchill said: Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may rescind it, ignorance may deride it, malice may destroy it, but there it is. Ultimately you get to that truth. That is what we are trying to get. And Notra Trulock, who was in charge of the intelligence for the Department of Energy--he said it became very serious a year ago--said we are going to have to tell Congress about this. So he wanted to come. He had to go to his superior, who was the Acting Director of the Department of Energy, Betsy Moler. And she said: No, you can't do that. You can't do that because it might be detrimental to the President's China policy. Here we are talking about the theft of the most significant nuclear device in our arsenal, the WA-8 warhead. To give you an idea what it is, Madam President, this is something that has 10 times the explosive power of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. It is a fraction of the size. The Chinese actually had missiles that were aimed at us at that time, at the time the President was running around the country, 133 times, saying: For the first time in the nuclear age there is not one missile aimed at American children--when in fact we had some 28 cities that were being targeted at that time. He signed the waiver to allow the Chinese to have a guidance technology to make those missiles more accurate, and he had knowledge of the fact they had, now, the warhead, the WA-8 warhead, that could be fitted on one of these. As a matter of fact, more than one could be fitted on one of their multiple- stage rockets. I say that there is a connection. There is always talk about the President, every time he gets in trouble, something big happens, like sending cruise missiles into Sudan or Afghanistan or Iraq. In this case, we started a war. But I will say this--I do not want to dwell on this because that is not the subject at hand today--I see a connection. I believe there is a connection. I think we may very well have a ``Wag The Dog'' situation here. I think everyone knows what I am talking about. They do not say it, but they know what I am talking about. But I did ask, in the committee meeting, since we had two diametrically opposed testimonies coming from Mr. Trulock and Ms. Moler, if they would submit to a lie detector test. Mr. Trulock immediately said he would; Ms. Moler vacillated. And then, in response to a letter, I found he is willing and she said she is not. So I think I know who is telling the truth. Nonetheless, we are going to have to address that in a little bit different way. We have learned since then, by the way, in the last 6 years, virtually everything in our nuclear arsenal is now in the hands of the Chinese. What I would like to do is cover this in four areas that have not been discussed by previous speakers. I think they are significant. First of all, some of the things this President has said that led us to where we are today. The President does have an insatiable propensity to say things that are not true, and he does it with such conviction that people start nodding and agreeing with him. I am not going into the details on that; everybody knows about that. But one of the things that I think had the greatest impact on the American people in supporting the President to send our assets in there and get involved in a war of a sovereign nation, in a civil war--the first time we have done that, certainly the first time in 50 years that NATO has done that--was when he started talking about the history of World War I and World War II. He gave a very persuasive story of how World War I and World War II started. The only trouble is, he was not telling the truth. I am not a historian and neither is the President, but I will tell you who is: Henry Kissinger. He said he got quite upset with the thing. I am quoting now. He said: The Second World War did not start in the Balkans, much less as a result of its ethnic conflicts. Then he said: World War I started in the Balkans not as a result of ethnic conflicts but for precisely the opposite reason: because outside powers intervened in a local conflict. He said: Russia backed Serbia and France backed Russia . . .. And then Germany jumped in on Austria's side. So we had the same situation as is happening today. We had the great powers dividing up and getting on both sides of this, a civil war. It was a civil war, just like it is today. If that started World War I, certainly that could start World War III. So what he said to the American people just simply was not true, Madam President. I think we need to talk about that. The Senator from Washington just a few minutes ago talked about the article by Charles Krauthammer. I think that was very significant, when he talked about the Russians. It is already submitted for the Record so I will not resubmit it, but I will read a few things out of it. He said: Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov turned his U.S.-bound plane around in mid-transit to protest the bombing. * * * * * Russia kicked NATO's representatives out of Moscow. It sent a spy ship into the Adriatic to shadow the U.S. fleet. It threatened to send military supplies to Belgrade. It boycotted NATO's 50th-year summit in Washington. I don't know what we could have done that could have precipitated more of a problem between us and Russia than has already been done by this President in getting involved in war. The last paragraph reads: Most important, Primakov will have proved to the world--and to pro-Western Russians--that an anti-American foreign policy puts Russia back on the stage and gives it diplomatic clout, while the pro-American policy followed since the Gulf War yielded Russia nothing but a ticket to oblivion. We will have vindicated Primakov's vision of Russia as leader of the opposition, friend and broker of rogue regimes [like] Serbia and Iraq [and] balancer of American power. This might even get him elected president next year when Yeltsin's term expires. Clinton will finally have his legacy. I would like to make one comment also to clarify the Record. I know Senator McCain said this does not authorize ground troops. But it does authorize whatever force necessary, and some of us could interpret it that way. But in my opinion, the President has always known that there were going to have to be ground troops. I know he said he is opposed to ground troops, but he wasn't telling the truth. I offer as evidence of that what, long before we sent bombers in there, General Wesley Clark said. We never thought air power alone could stop the paramilitary tragedy. . . everyone understood it. When he said that, he was with the President of the United States. We had Secretary Bill Cohen, a man I have a great deal of respect for and served with here in this body, in the Senate, but I asked him the same question about this, and he elaborated a little bit on it, but he said we understood that Milosevic: . . . could take action very quickly and that an air campaign could do little, if anything, to stop him. So when people talk about this resolution doing that, I think this is what the President had in mind all the time anyway. The second thing I wanted to talk about is the cost of this thing. A lot of people have not realized, they do not stop and think about, the cost in terms of both money and our capability of defending America. I do not think there is anyone who is not going to stand up here and agree with me in this Senate that the President, through his veto power, has decimated the military budget so we right now, today, are at one-half the force strength that we were in 1991, back during the Persian Gulf days. That is very significant. I think people need to hear this and understand it: One-half the force strength. I am talking about one-half the Army divisions, one-half the tactical air wings, one-half the ships, from 600 down to 300. We are one-half the force strength that we were because of this President. Add to that the deployments. We have had more deployments in the last 6 years than the previous 20 years to areas where we do not have any national security interests. We need to look at that. For Joe Lockhart, the Press Secretary of the President, to stand up last week and say that Inhofe is wrong, we are as strong today as we were in 1991, that is just an outrageous lie, and it is quantified in force strength. Anyone who is working on the committees understands this. We have the deployments, we have the problems, and we are paying the price. Yet, we do not have the national security interests. I was so proud of Colin Powell this weekend to come out and admit that America does not have national strategic interests in Kosovo, the same as Henry Kissinger said. I have quoted both of them extensively. Yet, here we are making the commitment. I came back from my last trip to Kosovo just to hear Tony Blair stand up and make his very eloquent statement: We want to escalate the war, escalate the airstrikes. Here is a guy standing up who does have national security interests. He is over there; we are halfway around the world. We do not have strategic interests there, but he does. He stood up and said we need to escalate the airstrikes when, at the time he said this, we had 365 airplanes over there and they had 20. That is easy for him to say. I say he is a better negotiator than we are. I was very much concerned with what I saw over there. I see several members of the committee here. I have to say that sometimes the NATO interests do not necessarily coincide with our interests. I wonder sometimes what has happened to sovereignty in the United States of America, why we have to take on all these other obligations at the expense of our ability to defend ourselves. Can we defend ourselves? Again, General Hawley was very brave when he, this weekend, said--keep in mind he is the air combat commander, the top guy, a four-star general. It takes a lot of courage for one of these generals to stand up against the Commander in Chief, President Clinton. He said that 5 weeks of bombing in Yugoslavia has left U.S. munitions stocks critically short, not just of air-launched cruise missiles, as previously reported, but also of another precision weapon, the joint direct attack munition--that is JDAM--dropped, used by these beautiful B-2s that are performing very well. Now we are short of them. He went on to say we would be hard pressed to handle a second war in the Middle East or Korea. Let's stop and think about that a little bit. Our national military strategy has always been to be able to defend America on two regional fronts. I do not think there is anyone in here who believes we can simultaneously defend America on two regional fronts. What General Hawley is saying on the commitments we have made to Bosnia and Kosovo and with the deployments we have made there is we would have a very difficult time. And he questions whether we could defend America if something happened in either North Korea or in Iraq. That is very serious. I went back to the 21st TACOM, and I know people are tired of hearing me talk about that, but any time we do a ground operation anywhere in that theater, it has to be logistically supported and run and operated by the 21st TACOM in Germany, down the road from Ramstein Air Force Base. A year or so ago, I was over there. They said just with what we are doing in Bosnia, we are at 100 percent capacity; we cannot do anymore. And now they are doing more. As I watched the deployments take place and they were cranking these troops through--5,000 were there a few days ago --as they were taken through, I said: What are you going to do if there is any contingency like in Iraq? They said: We would be 100 percent dependent on Guard and Reserve. We know the President's intentions are to activate the Guard and Reserve. He has already called up units. He has notified units. Anyway, we do not have the capacity. I went over, Madam President, to Tirana, where our troops are, in a C-17. I found some things out there that were really kind of scary. The C-17 I went in was carrying two MLRSs, that is the mobile launch capability, and one humvee, and all the rest filled up with troops. We were at gross weight. We could not hold another pound in that C-17. We have now done 300 sorties with C-17s. That is the beautiful high- lift vehicle that is going to replace a lot of the others of which we don't have enough and need more. Nonetheless, we are tying those things up. Four hundred of them are going in and out, taking things into Albania. Then we have our scenarios as to what the cost is going to be. I will only say this. I came back convinced that the paper that was written by the Heritage Foundation was true, because from the officers over there, I learned three scenarios, which are: The most conservative scenario, go in and take over Kosovo, as if you can do that and nothing else is going to happen; second, take over Belgrade; third, take over Yugoslavia. The first scenario would take 30,000 American troops; the second scenario, 100,000 American troops; the third scenario, 250,000 American troops. While they do not like to think in terms of casualties, casualties under the most conservative scenario would be somewhere between 500 and 2,000 American casualties; the Belgrade option would be somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 casualties; and the Yugoslavia total effort would be somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 American casualties. That is very, very serious. Before I quit, I have two other things I want to share. I have heard many Senators stand on this floor and talk about the horrible atrocities that are going on, and they are. Anytime anyone is killed, anytime there are refugees, anytime there is any degree of ethnic cleansing, it is a tragedy. For the junior Senator from California to stand up and say, ``the most God-awful ethnic cleansing since Hitler,'' just is not true. I am sure she believes it is true or she would not say it. We keep hearing these horrible stories. We heard the President walk out into the Rose Garden last week and talk about what Brian Atwood, the AID Administrator, told him about the groups of men that were lined up and doused with gasoline and lighted on fire. I was with Brian Atwood over there a few days before that. Apparently, this allegedly happened before that time. He did not tell me about it. I don't know what is true and is not true. I will say this. I know despite what you hear to the contrary--and this is most significant-- the atrocities that have been committed on the Kosovar Albanians are minor when compared to other places. I am involved in mission work. I go to west Africa with some regularity. I was in west Africa less than a month ago. This does not have anything to do with being a Senator. It is doing the Lord's work in some of these places. I am talking about Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone. For every one person who has been killed, ethnically cleansed, killed in the Kosovar Albanians, for every one, there have been 80 killed in just the two countries of Angola and Sierra Leone. Are they as brutal? Yes. They went into Sierra Leone and took whole tribes of people, lined up the children and cut their hands off. Entire tribes, the most brutal killing. For every one killed in Kosovo, 80 were killed there. Why aren't we concerned about that? We have now come to the conclusion that it is humanitarian reasons that are motivating us. What is wrong with the 80-to-1 ratio in west Africa? What about Rwanda? For every one that has been killed in Kosovo, there have been 300 killed in the one country of Rwanda. You can go throughout Africa and see much greater atrocities. I don't know why people sit back and act like there is no problem anywhere in the world except there. I have to come to the same conclusion that some of the others have come to. There was an article written in the Minneapolis-St. Paul newspaper that I will submit for the Record at the conclusion of my remarks that is very specific as to why it might be we are not concerned about this many Africans when just a handful are killed in Kosovo. You have to also ask why are so many killed in Kosovo. We know it is a tragic thing. I have come to the conclusion that it is because of the bombing. I know that George Tenet, who is Director of Central Intelligence for the United States, said long before the bombing started, and this is from the Washington Post of March 31: For weeks before NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia, CIA Director Tenet had been forecasting Serb-led Yugo forces might respond by accelerating the ethnic cleansing. I asked the Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, before our committee if, in fact, that was true. He said: With respect to General Tenet testifying that bombing could, in fact, accelerate Milosevic's plans, we also knew that. So we did know that. So I am wondering how many of the Kosovar Albanians are dead today who would be alive if we had not gone in there and bombed. I have to say also that when I was in Tirana with witnesses, with newspapers, with the media from America--who did not repeat this, by the way--I interviewed everyone I could in that refugee camp outside of Tirana. They were doing all right. They were well fed. They were taken care of. I think they were as well taken care of as you would expect refugees to be. There was not one who said they had any problems until the bombing began. Then I was interviewed by a Tirana Albanian TV station, and they said, ``When are you and the United States going to come out and take care of all these refugees?'' I said, ``Why us?'' They said, ``Because if it weren't for you, they wouldn't be here.'' That is the way they are thinking there. I am running out of time. I want to say one thing about the troops. One of the reasons I went over to be there when the troops arrived is because I saw a New York Times article on April 13 that said, ``We're going into Albania, the middle of nowhere, with no infrastructure, naked and exposed.'' And this was an official who gave this quote. So I went over to see if, in fact, that was what I would find. And you know what? That is exactly what I found. I went over with the troops. As we unloaded, we went down, and the troops were over there building the tent cities. And, bless their hearts, they are doing a great job. Their spirits are high. They are ready to do whatever their commanding officer tells them to do, which is what they said they would do when they joined the military. They are knee deep in mud, and they are exposed. I will tell you a little bit about Albania that not many people know about Albania. First of all, it is the poorest country in Europe. Secondly, it is one of the three most dangerous countries anywhere in the world. Thirdly, back during the Hoxha regime, they actually declared it as an atheist nation. So it is the only declared atheist nation out there. And fourth, the pyramid scheme that took place in the middle 1990s was one that actually took over, from the military, all of their weaponry. I am talking about RPG-7s; that is the rifle-propelled grenade, a very lethal weapon; the AK-47s--we know what that is--the SA-7s--that is the shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles; it can knock down our helicopters over there, and every other kind of thing-- mortars, other kinds of equipment--and yet our troops are over there standing in the mud without any infrastructure, without any protection, no troop protection. I am very, very concerned about that. If I ever saw a place more ripe for a gradual escalation in mission creep, like Vietnam, this is it. Some people say, ``Where do you go from here?'' That always bothers me, when people say, ``What are you going to do now?'' If it weren't for us, we would not be where we are today. ``This is something where we were pushed into it. We had no control over it.'' We have a President who decided he was going to declare war, and joined NATO in declaring war, on a sovereign nation. So there is where we are. But people say, ``If you try something else, our reputation is on the line.'' How is our reputation on the line, if we have tucked our tail between our legs and run from Saddam Hussein in Iraq? Do we have any weapons inspectors there in Iraq anymore? No, we do not. He kicked us out and laughed at us. In the Middle East we are the laughingstock, and our foreign policy. So we cannot do worse than we did before. I really believe there is no way out, that the only way to keep our President from sending American ground troops in--then it becomes irreversible. Then we are in for the long haul, when that happens. The only way to stop it is, No. 1, today--or tomorrow morning, whenever this comes up for a vote--to join the House with the votes that they voted last week and not give the permission to use any type of force that is necessary; and, secondly, inform the American people. Let's face it, this administration is poll driven. This administration does what the polls say most people are going to find acceptable. I will repeat and quote General Hawley one more time: ``I would argue we cannot continue to accumulate contingencies,'' he said. ``At some point you have to figure out how to get out of something.'' You see, it is easy to get into something. We learned that in Bosnia, when the President promised it would be 12 months, and then here it is several years later and we are still in there. So this is what we are facing at this time. So, anyway, I just think we are going to have to reject the McCain resolution. I anticipate we will do that. I think we need to inform the American people what the real threat is, inform the American people as to what our ability to defend America is, where our vital national security interests are, what it really is. If we do that, I think we are going to have the American people behind us. I think also we have to keep in mind that if we end up saying, ``All right, those of you in Europe who have national security interests at stake, if you want to go ahead and take care of those national security interests, you fight the battle,'' we will go back and we will regroup and we will start rebuilding our military so we can defend America on two regional fronts, and, ``We will protect you against Iraq and against North Korea.'' I think that is probably the greatest thing we could do for our NATO allies. Whatever the indication, we need to be out of there. This isn't our war, and whatever it takes to get out we should do.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for too long, economic development in Indian country has been hindered by antiquated rules and regulations, many dating back to before the turn of the century. Many American Indians continue to struggle, denied by bureaucracy the opportunity to take steps to improve their position. I am proposing legislation today that would reverse one of these situations. Under current law, Indian lands owned by more than one person require the consent of 100 percent of the owners before mineral development can go forward. Oftentimes, this fractionated property is owned by over one hundred people; it is difficult, if not impossible, to locate all the owners. Once found, developers must obtain their unanimous consent. As you can imagine, this creates a significant and often insurmountable obstacle for leasing or other development. Last year, Congress lowered this requirement for the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation to a majority, which more closely resembles regulations for non-Indian land. By loosening the consent requirements, these tribes have found the right balance between economic progress and protection of landowners' rights. I am proposing to extend last year's legislation to seven Oklahoma tribes: the Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, Fort Sill Apache, Delaware, and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes. Oil and gas are the cornerstone of Oklahoma's economy, but these tribes have by and large been left out of this industry because of the stringent consent statutes. Increased access to their own land would greatly facilitate mineral development, bringing increased economic opportunity. These tribes and their members will now be able to undertake oil and gas exploration which was previously not possible. This will represent a significant advance toward greater economic empowerment, breaking out of the constraints now imposed on these tribes. Common sense dictates that the first step of self-sufficiency is being allowed to use the resources you already own. This proposal will be equitable and beneficial to all parties involved. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this and other such legislation that would help American Indians achieve greater economic independence.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for too long, economic development in Indian country has been hindered by antiquated rules and regulations, many dating back to before the turn of the century. Many American Indians continue to struggle, denied by bureaucracy the opportunity to take steps to improve their position. I am proposing legislation today that would reverse one of these situations. Under current law, Indian lands owned by more than one person require the consent of 100 percent of the owners before mineral development can go forward. Oftentimes, this fractionated property is owned by over one hundred people; it is difficult, if not impossible, to locate all the owners. Once found, developers must obtain their unanimous consent. As you can imagine, this creates a significant and often insurmountable obstacle for leasing or other development. Last year, Congress lowered this requirement for the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation to a majority, which more closely resembles regulations for non-Indian land. By loosening the consent requirements, these tribes have found the right balance between economic progress and protection of landowners' rights. I am proposing to extend last year's legislation to seven Oklahoma tribes: the Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, Fort Sill Apache, Delaware, and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes. Oil and gas are the cornerstone of Oklahoma's economy, but these tribes have by and large been left out of this industry because of the stringent consent statutes. Increased access to their own land would greatly facilitate mineral development, bringing increased economic opportunity. These tribes and their members will now be able to undertake oil and gas exploration which was previously not possible. This will represent a significant advance toward greater economic empowerment, breaking out of the constraints now imposed on these tribes. Common sense dictates that the first step of self-sufficiency is being allowed to use the resources you already own. This proposal will be equitable and beneficial to all parties involved. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this and other such legislation that would help American Indians achieve greater economic independence.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. So we have that very serious problem. I will briefly, in the remaining time, talk about the refugee situation. The toll we have heard about in terms of deaths over there has been somewhere between 2,000 and 3,500. NATO is now saying 3,500; some are saying 2,000. Let's say 3,000. That means that 1 out of 600 of the Kosovar Albanians has lost his life, 1 out of 600. If you compare that--I have a ministry in West Africa. Three weeks ago, I came back from there. In the two countries of Angola and Sierra Leone, for every 1 person who has lost his life in Kosovo, 80 have lost their lives in just those two countries alone. We knew this was coming. I am reading now from the Washington Post of March 31: For weeks before the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia, CIA Director George Tenet had been forecasting that Serb-led Yugoslavian forces might respond by accelerating ethnic cleansing. Then when we asked Secretary Cohen about this, he said: With respect to George Tenet's testifying that the bombing could, in fact, accelerate Milosevic's plans, we also knew that. So they knew it. The President knew it, and the administration knew it. I have to say this--and this has not been observed by anyone so far--I interviewed these refugees just 2 days ago. When I interviewed the refugees, I found some very interesting things. They all said the same thing. They said that, in fact, they didn't have any problems until the bombing started. I was interviewed by a Tirana TV station, I think it was Tirana. It was Albanian, anyway. And they said, What is the United States going to do about all these refugees? I said, What do you mean, what are we going to do? He said, You are the reason we are here. You are the ones that bombed, and that is what has caused the ethnic cleansing and the forced exodus. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have to say one other thing about the refugees. The refugees, in spite of the fact it is a horrible thing that some 3,000 of them have lost their lives, still when you look at the refugees, I was shocked to find out, as perhaps you were, that they are very well off, considering they are refugees. Kids are all wearing Nikes and were very well dressed. They have the food that they need to eat. They seem to be in much better shape, certainly much better shape than the refugees in some other areas. Lastly, I want to mention the troops. Our troops are doing a great job. I just couldn't feel better about that. But I really want to get into this, because the New York Times said, on April 13, we are going into Kosovo, the middle of nowhere, with no infrastructure. They will be naked, an official told the New York Times. I went in there and I found that is exactly right. Our troops have just arrived there, and they are up to their knees, literally, in mud in a tent city. You have to keep in mind that Albania has some things that are very unique. First of all, it is the poorest country in Europe. Secondly, it is always listed as one of the three most dangerous countries in the world. And third, a guy named Hoxha came along right after the Second World War, and he actually declared, and it is still official policy, it is the only nation that has a declared policy of atheism. So we are dealing with that kind of people there, too. Then something happened in 1997. It is called a pyramid scheme. In 1997, these poor Albanians, from this country in poverty, as poor as Haiti, revolted and they took over the military. When they did that, they took over all the weapons they had. What kind of weapons did they have? They had rocket-propelled grenades, RPG-7s. They had AKA-47s. They had SA-7s, a shoulder-launched, surface-to-air missile that can knock down one of our Apaches very easily, and they had mortars. So here we have our troops who are there in the mud without any infrastructure protecting them and with all of this hostility around them. I might also add, I was sorry--I hate to even say this--that one of the units that came in there when I was there was the mortician unit, so the body bags have arrived. Mr. President, if there is ever a scene that is set for gradual escalation and for mission creep, this is it. I can see our Troops going in right now. When the President, who has already decided he is going to send in American troops, takes these troops and puts them across the border--and we were standing there watching these high mountains where the border is--if they go in that way, or they go around through Macedonia or some other way, and they have to take over Kosovo and get the Serbs out of Kosovo, that mission is going to creep into the Belgrade scenario, and then that will creep into the Yugoslavia scenario, and let's remember what the Heritage Foundation said in terms of American casualties. I will say this, and I am not enjoying doing this. There is only going to be one possible way to keep us out of a war, in my opinion, because the President is going to send in troops. Once our American troops get into Kosovo, it is irreversible. One way to keep that from happening is if the American people wake up and realize that we are getting involved in a war where we do not have any national security interests. We are getting involved in a war that is keeping us from adequately defending America in areas where we do have a national security interest such as Iraq or North Korea. Let us keep in mind that in Korea we still have about 367,000 troops and their families. This would greatly impair them. I hope we can have a concerted effort and a wake-up call to the American people to stop this President from starting this war that we will all live to regret. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I returned from Albania just a few hours ago. This is the third time I have made such a trip. I went over to see whether or not the beliefs I have developed over the last 7 months were true, and I came back, really, very convinced that they in fact are true. For one thing--I have been saying for quite some time--even though the President denies it, the President has planned all along to send American ground troops into Kosovo. I am prepared to document this. I want to put my remarks into four categories: One is the administration's approach to this war that we are about to get in; secondly, the cost in terms of both national security and dollars; third, refugees; and fourth, what our troops are in right now. Before I do that, I want to go back and review a couple of remarks I made on March 23, just a month ago, to put it in proper perspective. A month ago, I stated that I felt if we did not try to put a stop to this, we would, in fact, be in a protracted, bloody long war. This is a war in which we do not have national security interests. A lot of people say, ``Well, we do have national security interests.'' I know this is a relative term. You can argue it, I suppose, but the people who are really knowledgeable on this are convinced that we do not have national security interests at stake. Henry Kissinger said: The proposed deployment in Kosovo does not deal with any threat to American security. . . . Kosovo is no more a threat to America than Haiti was to Europe. I further went into the conclusion that if, in fact, we do not have national security interests, it is the humanitarian motivation which is getting us involved in this war. We are concerned about it, and I want to get into some detail about that. There are some things I have discovered in the last 3 days. However, a month ago I mentioned that if this is the case and if we are concerned about humanitarian problems that exist all around the world, why are we not concerned about the 800,000 who have been killed in ethnic strife in Rwanda, the thousands who have been killed in Ethiopia, the 140 civilians killed by paramilitary squads in Colombia, including 27 worshipers slain during a village church service? Why is there no outcry for United States involvement in these obvious humanitarian situations where far, far more people have been brutally murdered than in the current Kosovo crisis? Let me share with you, as I did back on March 23, a couple of paragraphs from an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. This was written on January 31, 1999. This was just a few days after 45 people were killed in Kosovo. Let's keep that in mind when putting this in the proper context, Mr. President. I am quoting from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: But no one mobilized on behalf of perhaps 500 people who were shot, hacked and burned to death in a village in eastern Congo, in central Africa around the same time. No outrage was expressed on behalf of many other innocents who had the misfortune to be slain just off the world's stage over the last few weeks. Why do 45 white Europeans rate an all-out response [from the administration] while several hundred black Africans are barely worth the notice? While U.S. officials struggled to provide an answer, analysts said the uneven U.S. responses to a spurt of violence in the past month illuminates not just an immoral or perhaps racist foreign policy, but one that fails on pragmatic and strategic grounds as well. So now the President wants to send the U.S. military into Kosovo. Keep in mind, when we talked about this 1 month ago, he was still denying that he was going to send troops, and yet now we find out in the recent meeting which was held by NATO in Washington that they are doing an update strategy--an update strategy, Mr. President. That means perhaps an update of what we have previously said was our position on sending in ground troops. I have to say, the whole purpose for me to be on the floor right now is to say I know there is no way to stop this. Once American troops are on the ground in Kosovo, we will all support them and do everything we can for the American troops. It will be the same situation we faced in Bosnia. We will not be able to turn this around. That is when it becomes protracted and without an end. I will recount a trip I made to Kosovo recently--it was in January of this year--to find out what Kosovo was really like at that time. Keep in mind, Kosovo is only 75 miles across and 75 miles long. It is a place that has been in strife and civil war since 1389. As I was going across Kosovo, I had a couple of experiences. One experience I had was seeing two dead bodies. These were obviously soldiers. When we turned them over, we saw that they were not Albanians; they were Serbs. They had been executed at close range by the KLA. We went on a little bit further. I saw on the map something called a ``no-go zone.'' I said: I would like to go in to see what it is like. They said: You can't do that; it is occupied by the KLA, the Albanian military, and they will kill anybody who comes in. They don't care if you are a United States Senator or someone from the press. Nonetheless, you will be dead if you go in there. We did not go in. Then we rounded another corner. There was a rocket-propelled grenade, an RPG-7, that was aimed right at our heads. They put it down, and we went over and found out they were Albanians, not Serbs. I am saying this, and I said this back on the 23rd of March, for a specific reason, and that reason is that while Milosevic is a bad guy, he is not the only bad guy in that conflict which is taking place. There is one more thing I will mention with Henry Kissinger that I mentioned back on the 23rd of March. He said: Each incremental deployment into the Balkans is bound to weaken our ability to deal with Saddam Hussein . . . . Of course, this is the most critical thing we are dealing with. I happen to chair the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. This committee is in charge of all readiness issues and military construction, all training. Since this President took office, we have watched what has happened with our military and our ability to defend ourselves. I am going to elaborate on that a little bit later. The bottom line is, we are one-half the strength we were when he took office. I quantify that by saying one-half of the Army divisions, one- half of the tactical air wings, one-half of the ships. We have gone down from a 600-ship Navy to a 300-ship Navy. And all these things are happening at a time when we do not have the capacity to fund and to logistically support another ground movement. A month ago, I went by the 21st TACOM. It is located in Germany. Its function is to logistically support ground operations. At that time, the 21st TACOM said they were at 100 percent capacity and could not take on any more responsibilities because they were devoting all their attention to Bosnia. The trucks were going into Bosnia from Hungary, taking everything necessary to keep that exercise going. I looked at the problem we have within the administration in the 21st TACOM. This President has cut the number of troops managing from 28,500 to 7,300. They are operating with just a fraction of the number they had before, about one-fourth. I asked the question: If we get into something--at that time, we thought it was going to be Iraq; we didn't know about Kosovo at that time--if something happens and we need ground troops in Iraq, what are you going to do? That is in your theater, too. They said: We couldn't do anything. We would be 100 percent dependent upon Guard and Reserve. As we know, our critical operational specialities, MOSs, are failing in our Reserve and Guard components, and the reason is that we have had so many deployments under this administration that they cannot be expected to leave their jobs. A doctor can no longer expect to leave his practice for a period of 270 days and go back and have any practice left. And the same thing is true with the employers around the country. So we have those serious problems. Again, this is from a month ago. And lastly, I mention, in a hearing before us, what the various generals had said. General Ryan, who is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, said, ``There stands a very good chance that we will lose aircraft against the Yugoslavian air defense.'' The Navy Chief of Staff said, ``We must be prepared to take losses.'' The Marine Corps Commandant, General Krulak, said it will be ``tremendously dangerous.'' And George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence of the United States, reminded us that Kosovo is not Bosnia, and if we get on the ground there, their participants are not tired and worn out, they are ready and willing and culturally prepared to fight and to kill Americans. I mention that, Mr. President--that was a month ago--to get it in a context that helps me to understand where we are today. I want to mention, I am not saying this as a Republican; I am saying this as a Member of the U.S. Senate and as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, with a responsibility to tell the truth about what is going on. The American people have not been hearing the truth. They have heard that the President does not want to send in ground troops, and yet we know he does want to send in ground troops. I have to say that the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, has a propensity to say things that are untrue with great conviction. And for that reason, I am afraid there are a lot of people who are afraid of this man, because he is so adept at getting the American people behind him. One of the things he has said that is not true is what he told the American people as to the reason why we were going to get involved. He talked about the history, and he said that this is exactly what precipitated World War I, and the same thing with World War II. I am not a historian, Mr. President, certainly not the historian that you are, but I would say there are some historians around who have voiced themselves on this. Again, going back to Henry Kissinger, no one will question his credentials concerning the history of that region and that period of time. He said--and I am quoting now--``The Second World War did not start in the Balkans, much less as a result of its ethnic conflicts,'' totally refuting what the President told the American people. He goes on--and this is further quoting --``World War I started in the Balkans not as a result of ethnic conflicts but for precisely the opposite reason: because outside powers intervened in a local conflict. The assassination of the Crown Prince of Austria--an imperial power--by a Serbian nationalist led to a world war because Russia backed''--listen to this, Mr. President--``Russia backed Serbia and France backed Russia while Germany supported Austria.'' That is exactly the same thing right now. If a person wanted to start World War III, based on the model that took place for World War I, they would do exactly what we are doing; that is, go in there and say to Russia and to China, who is with Russia, ``All right. We don't care what you say, we're going to get involved in a war here,'' and rub their nose in it. Let's keep in mind that China and Russia have missiles that will reach the United States of America, and they have every different kind of weapon of mass destruction put on those missiles. So it is just exactly the opposite of what the President said. That war started because the superpowers of the time took each side in a civil war that was taking place in what was then Yugoslavia. I have said several times that the President has not been telling the American people the truth in terms of ground troops and the number of ground troops that are going to be going in. I would like to quote now to try to validate what I have said. General Wesley Clark, who is the Supreme Allied Commander for NATO and our troops in Europe, said--this is way back in the beginning, 7 months ago--``We never thought air power alone could stop the paramilitary tragedy . . . everyone understood it. . . .'' And just a week ago, Thursday, the Presiding Officer will remember, because he was sitting there, Secretary Bill Cohen, in whom I have the most respect, said, ``We would try diplomacy, and that's what Rambouillet was all about . . . we would try deterrence . . . but failing that, we understood that [Milosevic] could take action very quickly and that an air campaign could do little if anything to stop him.'' So we have not just the experts in the field, the commanding general, but also the Secretary of Defense who said they have known all along we are going to have to send troops in. Obviously, they both work for President Clinton. And President Clinton knew it. I was a little disturbed last week when Joe Lockhart, in one of his press conferences, brushed off some questions, and then he volunteered without a question being asked--he said, ``Senator Inhofe is wrong in that we are in great shape. Our state of readiness is just as good as it was back in 1991,'' or words to that effect. And I have to say either he is intentionally lying or just incredibly misinformed, because, as I said before, we, right now, are one-half the troop strength that we were in 1991. I think it is a terrible disservice for Joe Lockhart and the President to try to convince the American people that we are more prepared than we really are. I would like to also mention that the President is breaking the law today. I was over there in just the last 3 days, and I went in there on a C-17. That C-17 had multiple launch rockets right there, all of them hot and ready to be fired--two of those, along with some two pallets of additional ammunition, a humvee, and additional troops. Troops are there right now within the sight of the border of Kosovo. And one of our most brilliant Senators, Senator Pat Roberts, had passed an amendment to the 1999 defense appropriations bill where he said that the President cannot deploy troops to--and he named different places, which would include this area--unless eight different conditions were met. One was that we have national security interests; No. 2, why they are national security interests; No. 3, what is the mission; No. 4, what is the exit strategy; No. 5, what is the cost; No. 6, identify the cost; No. 7, how it will affect readiness; and there is an eighth one. He has not complied with any of these eight. I say just by sending them into Albania, he has already broken that law. The second area I want to get into is cost. In ``cost,'' I am not talking about just dollars but also national security. Because the President has decimated our defense budget, we no longer can defend America on two simultaneous, what they call MTWs--major theater wars. Ninety percent of the American people think we can because they have been told we can, but we cannot. We are not able to do that. We are one-half the force strength we were. In addition to that, we are handling all of these deployments. We have had more deployments in the last 6 years than we had in the 20 years prior to that. In almost every case, they are being deployed in areas where we have no national security interests. So we are paying without any national security interest. I think it is very interesting to note that, of the great effort we have put forth in the air, which has been very successful in terms of our deployment and our ability and our equipment, a total of 480 aircraft were used. Well, guess what, Mr. President. Three hundred sixty-five of those 480 were us, the United States of America. So we have Tony Blair standing up and making these great profound statements: ``We have to escalate the war.'' That is easy for him to say. We have 365 airplanes over there. He has 20. I will tell you, that is a pretty good deal. ``Let's go ahead and escalate,'' if you are Tony Blair. I have a problem with all these multinationalist things, obligations or obsessions, that this President has. In the case of NATO, we have 80 percent of the effort right now we are paying for and yet we only have 5 percent of the vote. General Hendrix is the commander in chief of the 5th Corps over there. The 5th Corps, Mr. President, has 50,000 troops. To give you an idea of the significance of what is going on right now with the deployment to Tirana, just south of the Kosovo border, where I just came back from--where you have already been--he is there now full time. And what do we have? As of today, we have 5,000 troops--wait a minute-- we have 5,000 out of his 50,000, and he is spending all of his time there. Why is he doing that? I can tell you--and I am sure the others who have been over there are fully aware--the big problem is that the decisions on targets for our military aircraft are being made by committees. You have NATO. You have all these other countries that have to pass on targets. It is my understanding that even the President personally wants to pass on those targets. This is a big difference from the war in Kuwait in 1991. George Bush and the administration got together and said, we have a serious problem over there. We are going to have to take care of it. This is our mission. Colin Powell and General Schwarzkopf, you go out and do it. These people are experts. They are professionals. So is General Hendrix, but he is not able to do it on his own because these are committee decisions as to where they are supposed to be able to fire at their targets. I will just update for a minute. This is as of 2 or 3 days ago. We are just now approaching 400 sorties coming out of Ramstein Air Force Base. These are C-17s carrying our equipment. You go over there and you get on the ground where all of our troops are in tent cities. You see everything over there is American. I will also mention the cost of this and the three scenarios. One scenario is you just send the troops in as far as Kosovo, and that would be about 60,000 troops, according to what I found out over there, 30,000 of which would be Americans. Or the next step, if we went all the way and took Belgrade, that would take 200,000 troops, of which half would be U.S. troops. Or if we wanted to destroy Yugoslavia altogether, it would take a half million troops, a quarter million of those would be Americans. I thought this was interesting because I found this out when I was over there. And I thought I had heard these figures before. The Heritage Foundation came out on April 21 and put down the cost of the three options, and I found that to be exactly what I found out over there. The only thing is, they went one step further. They included U.S. casualties and the cost. The cheap way, going into Kosovo, would cost from $5 billion to $10 billion--this is the United States cost-- and would take from 500 to 2,000 American casualties. The second, going into Belgrade, would be $10 billion to $20 billion. It would take a toll of 5,000 to 10,000 American casualties. The third, $50 billion to $60 billion, and that would result in 15,000 to 20,000 casualties. I ask unanimous consent to have a chart printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak in morning business for up to 25 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to introduce Y2K Regulatory Amnesty Act of 1999. I believe this is a timely piece of legislation considering the current debate over the Year 2000 issue. Senators Bennett, Dodd, Hatch, Feinstein, and McCain have been working diligently on Year 2000 issues for quite some time. I applaud them for their efforts in dealing with such a unique and complex issue. However, as I have watched their progress and listened to their reports, I have noticed one significant omission in their discussions. Virtually nothing has been said about the potential regulatory nightmare that regulated entities could face as a result of a Y2K disruption. While the debate has been centered on getting government and businesses ready for the date change, very little has been said about how the government will actually deal with the private sector's problems associated with the year 2000. The last thing we need is for Regulatory Agencies to view a Y2K problem as an opportunity for a fine. As a result, I began to ask several regulated communities about their concerns over regulatory penalties as a result of a Y2K disruption. Surprisingly, many had not yet begun to think about the potential for regulatory problems. Instead, they have been focusing on becoming Y2K complaint, which is what they should be doing. However, one question remains; how will the federal government react to regulatory noncompliance due to a Y2K systems disruption? In response to that unanswered question, I am introducing the Y2K Regulatory Amnesty Act. My legislation will create a ``Y2K upset'', which is defined as an exception in which there is unintentional and temporary noncompliance beyond the reasonable control of the party. It will provide regulated communities with an affirmative defense from punitive actions from the federal government should they encounter a Y2K systems disruption. My legislation does not create a ``free pass'' for entities to violate federal regulations. A ``Y2K upset'' is strictly defined and can only be invoked if the entity has made all possible efforts to become Y2K complaint and meets other stringent requirements. Additionally, if the noncompliance would result in an immediate or imminent threat to public health, the defense is not applicable. For those individuals who do attempt to use this defense frivolously or fraudulently, there will be severe criminal penalties. Let me give you an example of how this provision will work. Assume that a small, local flower shop is run by a simple 3-computer network. The flower shop uses its computer network to manage payroll, accounts payable/receivable, and to track orders from customers. In an effort to become Y2K complaint, the flower shop hires an outside consultant to examine his network for signs of the Y2K bug and solve any problems that exist. This process costs the flower shop just over $1,000 but is well worth the investment considering the shop wants to be in business in January 2000. On January 1, 2000, flower shop finds that its payroll software is failing to operate. The shop owner contacts the software manufacturer, the computer manufacturer, and his consultant in order to find a solution. From the outset, the shop owner knows this delay means that he will be unable to calculate how much he owes the IRS in payroll taxes--not to mention, they will be late. For that small business owner that means a hefty penalty on top of the hassle and lost business the failure caused in the first place. Under my legislation, this small business owner would not be facing IRS penalties. The flower shop will still have to pay the taxes, but they won't be hit with a fine for a computer problem outside of their control. This is just one example of how this legislation would assist businesses as they attempt to become compliant. However, this legislation would also help many others. I have heard from several schools in my state that fear that if they lose federally required reporting information, they may face losses in federal funding. I have also heard from small, rural telephone cooperatives who fear that even a short-term Y2K-related systems disruption could result in significant FCC fines and penalties. The list is exhaustive. Virtually, anyone regulated by the federal government faces the unanswered question as to how the federal government will handle a Y2K systems disruption. There is also an added benefit to this legislation. Because this defense would only apply to those who have made good faith efforts to become compliant, it will serve as an added incentive for everyone to fix their Y2K problems upfront. Some people will say this legislation is unnecessary. However, I believe it is prudent to define how the federal government will approach Y2K systems disruptions in a regulatory context. But, more importantly, I believe we need to establish the rules of the game in advance so that everyone is operating from the same page. In closing, I would urge each of my colleagues to become a cosponsor of the Y2K Regulatory Amnesty Act and join with me in working to remediate the potential regulatory problems associated with the coming date change. Mr. President, I ask that the full text of the bill be inserted in the Record. The bill follows:

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill with my colleagues from Alabama, Senator Sessions, that will help our domestic oil and gas industry by reducing one of the many regulatory burdens that they must comply with. Last year, I was informed of a case in Alabama in which the EPA was sued over their policy regarding underground injection and specifically, ``hydraulic fracturing''. This procedure is used in cases where product, such as gas is located in a tight geological formation such as a coalbed. A hole is drilled into that area and a fluid consisting of water, gel and sand is pumped down the wellbore into the formation creating a fracture zone. The gel and water are extracted during the initial production stage of the well while the sand is left to prop open the cracks in the formation. When Congress originally passed the safe drinking water act (SDWA) in 1974, they intentionally left the underground protection control (UIC) program to the states. That act stated: ``the Administrator . . . may not prescribe requirements which interfere with or impede (injection activities associated with oil and gas production) unless such requirements are essential to assure that underground sources of drinking water will not be endangered by such injection.'' That concept was re-affirmed in 1980 when a provision was enacted specifically to recognize the adequacy of state programs, none of which required permitting for hydraulic fracturing in the construction or maintenance of oil and gas production wells. So, when the lawsuit was filed in Alabama, and the court ruled in favor of the environmental organization that filed the suit, I was shocked. It seemed clear to me that the intent of the law was to leave the regulation of this procedure to the states. I have neither heard nor seen anything that would lead me to the conclusion that there is any contamination of drinking water because of hydraulic fracturing. In fact, I believe the EPA agrees with me. Let me read a letter from Carol Browner, the Administrator of the EPA, to Mr. David A. Ludder, General Council for the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, Inc (LEAF), the group that sued EPA over this procedure. There is no evidence that the hydraulic fracturing at issue has resulted in any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water. Repeated testing, conducted between May of 1989 and March of 1993, of the drinking water well which was the subject of this petition failed to show any chemicals that would indicate the presence of fracturing fluids. That statement seems pretty straight forward and implies to me that EPA would be willing to work with us to solve this problem. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Senator Sessions and I, with assistance from Senator Chafee, have received nothing but stalling tactics. In late January, we drafted this language and sent it over to EPA hoping that we could resolve this issue quickly to provide relief to our producers. Unfortunately, they were not willing to work with us. So here we are introducing a bill that is simple and solves the problem. This bill is short and to the point. In less than two pages we clarify that hydraulic fracturing is not underground injection and re- affirm that the administrator has the ability to determine what is regulated as underground injection, which is simply a clarification of an ability the administrator already possesses. It is my hope that EPA will work with us as this bill moves through committee and come up with a solution that will allow our oil and gas guys to get back to work and get EPA to focus on issues which may pose a more immediate threat.