John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, last Friday the New York Times reported rather substantial increases in the price of cocaine on the streets of New York City. The article attributed this price rise to the recent arrests in Colombia of six of the seven biggest drug kingpins. Certainly the decapitation of the Cali cartel has played an important part in disrupting the supply of cocaine, but we should not overlook the other factors at work here. I want to draw particular attention to the efforts undertaken by the Governments of Peru and Colombia to shut down illicit narcotics flights between their countries. This air interdiction program was made possible by an amendment adopted last year by Senate during consideration of the Defense authorization bill. That amendment removed a legal impediment to sharing United States intelligence information with Peru and Colombia. Since our intelligence sharing began earlier this year, the Peruvian and Colombian Air Forces have seized aircraft, destroyed them on the ground, forced them down and, as a last resort after complying with strict verification procedures, shot them down. The resulting disruption in the flow of cocaine and cocaine base out of Peru has been impressive. The number of illicit flights detected in May, June, and July was the lowest level in 3\1/2\ years. The price of transporting narcotics out of Peru has risen by as much as 500 percent. In many cases the traffickers cannot hire pilots at any price. Constricting the flow of drugs through this critical choke point has led to an oversupply of coca leaf and cocaine base in Peru, the source country for 80 percent of the cocaine that reaches our streets. This glut has caused the price of coca leaf and cocaine base to plummet. In parts of Peru the price is down 50 percent and there are scattered reports of farmers abandoning coca fields because it is not worth their effort to harvest the crop. Unfortunately the air interdiction effort that is producing these noteworthy results faces a serious problem. The Peruvians cannot obtain spare parts from the United States for the A-37 aircraft that they use to intercept the traffickers planes. The United States suspended the transfer of these parts in 1991 when President Fujimori dissolved the Peruvian legislature and threw out the constitution. The situation was further complicated by the conflict earlier this year between Peru and Ecuador. The conditions which led to the cutoff of military equipment have evolved to the point where it is no longer productive to continue denying these parts. President Fujimori was overwhelmingly reelected in May and a cease fire holds sway in the border conflict with Ecuador. This amendment is offered as a way to encourage to the administration to rethink and modify its position. I know that the distinguished Senator from Vermont and others have concerns bout the human rights record of the Peruvian military and I share those concerns. This amendment should not be interpreted as an attempt to open the flood gates for broad military assistance. The only assistance I am encouraging is equipment for the interdiction program that is already in the pipeline. [[Page S 14060]] The Peruvian military needs to make much more progress in the area of respect for human rights before the United States should consider other forms of assistance. It would be a travesty if the Peruvians were forced to shut down this program because the United States would not send spare parts for two airplanes. Keeping cocaine in Peru, keeps cocaine off our school yards and street corners. I encourage the Senate to adopt this amendment. I ask unanimous consent to have the article printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise in support of my colleague from Arizona's amendment to restore authority for the State Department to use funds for counter narcotics efforts and crop substitution programs in Burma as long as the President certifies that any such program is fully consistent with human rights concerns and serves vital United States interests. Human rights is an issue of extreme importance and deep concern to every Senator in this Chamber, and must remain a significant element in our dealings around the world, and no Senator is more committed to the issue than Senator McCain. His amendment is a commonsense amendment that gives the United States the necessary flexibility to act in its interest in a nation which provides 60 percent of the heroin smuggled into this country. To prohibit counter narcotics efforts would be ill-advised and counterproductive. Whatever our deep and abiding concern for human rights, it is important to note, Mr. President, that Burma's most noted victim of human rights violations, Aung San Suu Kyi, supports drug control efforts in her country, and that, Mr. President, is the best argument for support of the McCain amendment. We have three important objectives in Burma--democracy, counternarcotics, and human rights. All three demand our attention and our support; but common sense would tell us that we cannot diminish potential success in any of these areas because of specific failures in another as long as we are sensitive to the impact of our actions on overall diplomatic progress. Mr. President, the State Department is well aware of congressional concerns and I fully anticipate that it will conduct counternarcotics efforts consistent with our overall international policy and in consultation with the Congress. I think, therefore, that this is a commonsense amendment that allows us to do what we need to do to fight the drug problem at its source while recognizing the limitations of our involvement and maintaining a strong focus on human rights. I would urge support of the Senator from Arizona's amendment, and I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I say to my friend that what I said--his able aide, Steve, was there at the time. We were interested in trying to see if we could use the structure of the House numbers, because under that structure we felt there was sufficient discretion within the capacity of the administration to do the consolidating that would be required. It seems to me that given the fact that we know we are going to wind up in a conference anyway, and the House has a position, it was a reasonable proposal to try to make in the spirit of cooperation. His staff informed me, Mr. President, at that time that there was a contingency fund contained within the Helms legislation of about $125 million, and that that fund ought to be able to be sufficient to take care of some of the concerns of the administration because it had flexibility. So I then went back to examine that, but found, in fact, that there are other problems presented because the money is not there. So you have a serious problem if the money is, in fact, not there, No. 1. And we never actually got back to a further conversation.

Mr. KERRY. The Senator said he accepted the $3 billion. The $3 billion was originally in his bill. We proposed $2 billion. So nothing was accepted.

Mr. KERRY. Will the Senator yield for one point?

Mr. KERRY. So it is correct then that the Senator is appropriately representing that there has always been a difference in the amount of money that we have been willing to embrace as appropriate for a mandated reduction.

Mr. KERRY. Well, let me ask the Senator from North Carolina, if I may. I would ask the Senator, is it not a fair representation on my part that the committee amendment that I proposed--that the Senator from Massachusetts proposed, embraced the notion of the $2 billion reduction as well as a one-agency abolition?

Mr. KERRY. I have always been willing to yield, by an appropriate request, to a colleague. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President----

Mr. KERRY. That is not, in fact, accurate, because I think, as the Senator well knows, there is a world of difference whether or not colleagues are asked to vote on a motion to table and whether or not they have to vote to sustain a veto of the President, No. 1. That is just No. 1. No. 2, it seems to me that there is also a world of difference as to whether or not we should give up our legislative prerogatives, which at this point are shared by many that is sort of a one-sided, rather heavy-handed effort to drive home simply one point of view. I mean, usually--let me give you an example. Last year we jointly worked on this. We sat down and worked on every aspect of the authorization bill together. It came to the floor. And I think we passed one of the first authorizations in a record amount of time. This year, under a new regime, none of those sorts of preliminary discussions ever took place. We wound up with every single Democratic member of the committee voting against this bill even coming to the floor. So here we are with a not even marginally bipartisan effort now being presented to us in a way that requires us to give it freestanding life that it does not have on its own. Now, if the Senator from North Carolina, which I am very happy to do--I am prepared to vote for some consolidation requirements. I am prepared to [[Page S 14022]] vote for a one-agency abolition requirement. But the Senator seems completely unwilling even to embrace the notion that we would move closer to the structure of the House on numbers or we could agree to have the START treaty come to the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Apart from this?

Mr. KERRY. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. KERRY. I do agree. I think the Senator is absolutely correct, that the business of the committee has obviously been wrapped up almost entirely in the effort to try to ram this through. And one of the things that concerned a great many of us--I think the distinguished chairman knows this because I expressed it to him personally and in private conversations--was the sense that there was not really a bipartisan effort to try to mold the bill. It was a bill created, and that at a subsequent point we only entered into last- minute negotiations before the markup. And I said that to the Senator at the time. Now, I would like to say to the chairman, I would like to see if we could find some measure of agreement here. I am prepared to move forward on the one-agency abolition that I talked about previously. I am not backing down on that. But the other components of my amendment had a different sum of money in them. Now, the Senator is looking for $3 billion. And my amendment, which he keeps suggesting that he is embracing, had a $2 billion savings. And there is a very strong reason for that. I mean, in the last decade the appropriations for function 150 have declined by $15.6 billion constant. They have gone from $36.8 to $21.2 billion in 1995. And under the budget resolution, the discretionary function, 150 plummets from $17.1 billion in budget authority down to $15.1 billion in 1999 and $14.7 billion by the year 2002. So we have gone from $36.8 billion down to $14.7 billion by the year 2002. There is nobody examining the various functions that are effected who cannot suggest that this is not going to have just, you know, a gargantuan impact in the capacity of this country to affect its foreign policy around the world. Now, I am prepared--certainly speaking just for myself, this Senator--if we could--in fact, yesterday in the last discussion that we had we suggested that there was some problems with the numbers. And we wanted to try to come closer to the House structure on numbers. Now, I believe that if we were to embrace the House structure on numbers, we could conceivably proceed forward. But there did not even seem to be a response to that. So we had no sense of whether or not that might be possible.

Mr. KERRY. To answer the question, the Senator is absolutely correct. There is no money in his amendment.

Mr. KERRY. I am happy to yield.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader said he would be back in a moment. I know Senator Helms was here a minute ago. I would like to make sure the Record accurately reflects where we have traveled with respect to possible agreements or nonagreements. I thought that Senator Dole made a very fair summary of most of the journey that the discussions have traveled. But I think there is one incorrect judgment made, and that is whether or not I had at any time signed off on what was a negotiation in progress, and in fact as part of the negotiation we had proposed that the START treaty be permitted to come to the floor of the Senate, and that was not mentioned as a component, or one of the ingredients that we were waiting to hear back on. And so we never had reached any kind of final agreement. It is true that I did say that reducing it to the one Agency abolition would suit me because that was in keeping with an amendment that I had proposed in the committee itself. But with respect to our ability to move forward here and now, there were other elements under discussion at that time, and I think appropriately. For instance, the unanimous consent request of the Senator from North Carolina suggested 4 hours on the bill itself as a [[Page S 14021]] freestanding bill, but it allowed no amendments. And we had a number of Members on our side who were obviously, as I think anybody would be here, concerned about this thing being presented fait accompli without the ability to be able to amend it. So that was also under discussion at the time, and we never had any cloture with respect to this. In fact, I have never had any sort of final conversation with either Senator Helms or his staff. Now, it is also true, however, that the administration did signal back directly to Senator Dole as well as to Senator Helms that some form of whatever was under discussion was not acceptable, and that I am aware of, and that message was indeed conveyed.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio. Mr. President, I believe the amendment of the Senator from Colorado is a great mistake. The question is really a very simple question. Why would you relax sanctions that were put in place because of one proliferation problem at the exact moment when Pakistan is involved in another proliferation issue? Every one of us understands the reality from briefings and otherwise about the M-11 controversy. In 1989, Pakistan knew exactly what the sanctions would be and exactly what the results would be with respect to a continued nuclear development program, and they knew in 1995 what the consequences would be of pursuing ballistic missiles. They have done both. We know they have done both. So, if we send a message that we are willing to undo the sanctions on the first proliferation issue, we are making it very clear that the second proliferation issue does not matter at all, I think. It is really that simple. And when you couple that with what the Senator from Ohio just said with respect to the nuclear delivery capacity and the type of weapons being sent, it is a mistake. The Senator from California is absolutely correct. There is a matter of equity here. It is unfair for the United States to hold onto money which they delivered for products. So, obviously, we ought to rectify that as a matter of fairness and as a matter of proper judgment and proper relationships, and we need to cooperate with Pakistan. There is much we have in common and that we want to work on. But it would be an enormous mistake. We do not have a relationship with India with respect to the selling of weapons. And we have always had a certain tension over Western nuclear program proliferations. We must hold the line on the question of people who break the law when we say that there will be a certain set of sanctions if certain actions are taken and, notwithstanding those warnings, those actions are taken. To do anything less than that would make a mockery of nonproliferation efforts. I thank the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. KERRY. I am trying to explain.

Mr. KERRY. Let me say to my friend from North Carolina, there was a conversation over here with Senator Leahy, and we subsequently engaged in a conversation. I do not think I had any late-in-the-day conversations at all yesterday. The entire discussion was in the morning and in the early afternoon. I came over immediately and said to your able assistant that there were concerns by other Senators being expressed, and those concerns entailed whether or not we could get the full agenda of the committee liberated, and I specifically mentioned not just the START treaty but also the CWC treaty. We were told the CWC treaty was out of the question, but the START treaty we would see. I never personally had a response with respect to the START treaty, and I do know that the administration in between that had some conversations and made it clear to the Senator that the numbers were simply unacceptable. It seems to me that the key here is to try to see whether or not we could get an agreement on the numbers. I think we have an agreement on the rest of the framework. I am prepared to vote for a consolidation requirement--always have been; I was in the committee. But the issue is whether we are going to do it under a stricture of numbers that are so draconian that we are leaving no discretion and no capacity for the Department itself to operate properly. And facing that, it is not inappropriate for us to be concerned about creating a freestanding entity that then could go over to the House-- for instance, it could go to the House, and it could then be attached to the authorization bill in the House. The authorization bill could be what comes back, and we are faced with sort of this same round robin, unless there is some meeting of the minds Mr. President, I will be happy to see if we can engage in some discussion on that. In the meantime, I am prepared to yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Beg your pardon?

Mr. KERRY. Let me say to my friend, because I think these kinds of dealings are very important and I do not want the Senator from North Carolina to feel somehow this was a moving target. The Senator from Massachusetts recalls having----

Mr. KERRY. I would be happy to.

Mr. KERRY. Well, I will in one moment. I do not want to keep the floor.

Mr. KERRY. I did not say to the Senator when we were standing by the cloak room door that I was interested in some numbers, and that the Senator then left the conversation and left us to discuss it as he went into the cloakroom?

Mr. KERRY. Well, let me ask the Senator----