Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am sorry I was not on the floor when the Senator from West Virginia offered what I understand to be a proposed amendment to this unanimous consent proposal. Is that correct? Pending is the proposed amendment of the Senator from West Virginia to this unanimous consent request. Is the Senator from Michigan correct?

Mr. LEVIN. I would object at this time to any such additions to the unanimous consent request. And that is what I was seeking. I would not object to the unanimous consent as it is printed here. But at this time, at least, I object to the amendment which has been proposed by the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Senator from Washington for her leadership in this effort. Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of mothers and others were in Washington, DC, for the Million Mom March, marching for sensible gun laws and safe kids. From my State of Michigan, thousands of moms came with their children, with their husbands, and with their parents to demonstrate for sensible gun safety legislation. Those moms are distraught. They have lost children in school shootings and in drive-by shootings. They have lost their kids in accidental shootings and in murders in their homes and in the streets. They are afraid to send their kids to school or to play at another child's house. There are teachers who are afraid to go to work. They all marched last weekend to put an end to that fear. My wife Barbara and I marched along with them. Every day, 12 of our children, on average, are killed from gunfire in America. Mothers are disheartened both by the children lost and by the unwillingness of Congress to do anything about gun safety legislation. Of the hundreds of mothers I met this weekend, not one of them said let's do away with guns in this country, and yet that is how NRA leaders label the actions of the million moms. In reality, Michigan mothers and mothers around the country are simply calling for sensible gun safety. The moms I met do not want to endure what a Michigan mother, Veronica McQueen, endured. Her 6-year-old daughter, Kayla Rolland, was shot by another 6-year-old at an elementary school not too far from Flint. On Sunday, she told her audience: Part of my heart went with her. It is so hard for me to think that I will never see her smile, laugh, or play again; I can never hold her or kiss her again, or see her grow up, get married, and have a happy life. The mothers who marched on Sunday know that in order to reduce the level of gun violence in this country, we must do many things. One of the things we must do is to pass stricter laws to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have guns--children who should not have guns, criminals who should not have guns. The way to do this, in the first instance, is to pass the juvenile justice bill with the Senate gun amendments. About a year ago this week, the Senate passed an amendment which closed the gun show loophole by applying the Brady background checks to guns sold at gun shows. The gun show loophole allows criminals and other prohibited persons to buy guns at a gun show from a private person that they could not buy from a licensed dealer. It is a loophole which has been exploited frequently by those who deliberately do not want to undergo background checks, including the Columbine gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. On April 20, 1999, Harris and Klebold opened fire on their classmates with four semiautomatic assault guns. Of those weapons, three were purchased by their friend, Robyn Anderson, at a gun show. Mr. President, 18-year-old Robyn Anderson bought her younger friends three weapons. Because she bought them at a gun show, she did not need to go through a background check. Later she testified about this. I would think, of the various testimonies that come out of Columbine, this is some of the most memorable. This is what she said. This is the 18-year-old who bought the guns for the two killers. She said: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had gone to the Tanner gun show on Saturday and they took me back with them on Sunday . . . While we were walking around, Eric and Dylan kept asking sellers if they were private or licensed. They wanted to buy their guns from someone who was private--and not licensed-- because there would be no paperwork or background check. Robyn continues: I was not asked any questions at all. There was no background check. . . . Dylan got a shotgun. Eric got a shotgun and a black rifle that he bought clips for. He was able to buy clips and ammunition without me having to show any I.D. The sellers didn't write down any information. And here is her bottom line: I would not have bought a gun for Eric and Dylan if I had had to give any personal information or submit any kind of check at all. I think it was clear to the sellers that the guns were for Eric and Dylan. They were the ones asking all the questions and handling all the guns. She concluded: I wish a law requiring background checks had been in effect at the time. I don't know if Eric and Dylan would have been able to get guns from another source, but I would not have helped them. It was too easy. I wish it had been more difficult. I wouldn't have helped them buy the guns if I had faced a background check. So the Columbine gunmen knew about the gun show loophole. They took full advantage of it. The result: 15 dead. Congress has a chance to close the loophole with the gun show amendment. But that amendment is part of a juvenile justice bill which is tied up because the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate will not allow a conference to meet. It is at that conference where Members are supposed to reconcile differences between the two bills. The Brady law is not intrusive to law-abiding Americans. Mr. President, 72 percent of the checks are completed in 3 minutes, and 95 percent are cleared within 2 hours. The 5 percent of people whose background checks take more than 24 hours to complete are 20 times more likely to have a criminal record or otherwise be prohibited from buying firearms. It is just simply not unreasonable to extend the Brady background check to guns that are bought at gun shows. Congress must act. The moms, the dads, the grandparents, the families want us to act. We must vote yes on the pending sense-of-the-Senate legislation that Senator Daschle and others have offered in order to clearly state to the American public that there are some of us here, yes, in the majority in the Senate--since the majority passed these amendments--the majority of us want to act. With their help--the million moms, and millions more like them--we will hopefully be able to move this legislation this year, reduce the number of killings, and save more families from the tragedies which have been too often witnessed in this country. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senators McCain, Biden, Lugar, Hagel, Lieberman, Smith of Oregon, Robb, Voinovich, Reed of Rhode Island, Mack, Lautenberg, Kerry of Massachusetts, and Daschle, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the issue is not whether Congress has the power to force withdrawal of ground forces. We have that power. We should have that power. We should defend that power. And we have exercised that power, recently in Haiti and Somalia before that. We have exercised that power to pull out ground forces when the power has contributed to U.S. security. So the issue is not whether we have the power to act in the way the Appropriations Committee proposes. The question is whether or not it is a wise exercise of congressional power to set a deadline for a pullout in Kosovo, thereby creating a year or two of dangerous uncertainty which would result in increased risks to our troops and to our interests. It is not the power of Congress that is at issue; it is the wisdom of exercising that power in the way proposed under these circumstances which we will be debating today and tomorrow. I ask that Senator Cochran of Mississippi be added as a cosponsor of our amendment, and I will now yield to my friend from Delaware for 45 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, and I surely won't, but since we are lining up speakers, I will then ask to be recognized after Senator Hollings for 30 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the time of Senator Biden is off our 5 hours.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield my time to the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. LEVIN. I look forward to that.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his typically thoughtful comments. He has made a truly great contribution to this Senate. We spend a lot of time with him on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He has made an extraordinary contribution not only based on his own intellectual powers but on his own experience which is invaluable to us in the Senate. I thank him for his insightful comments.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I believe Senator Hutchison wants to be heard at this point. I have no objection whatsoever to that, even though that is a change in the order of battle.

Mr. LEVIN. If we can put in a short quorum call.

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

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the issue before this body tomorrow--at least the principal issue--will be whether we are going to set a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Kosovo by the middle of next year. I will be coming back to that issue a little bit later in my remarks. But before we directly address that question, I would like to go back a bit in time and talk about how we got here and about NATO's air campaign. That campaign was the correct response to Milosevic's brutal repression of the Kosovo population and was the correct response to Milosevic's effort to spread instability in the region. Now that ethnic cleansing has been reversed, for the first time in the 20th century, NATO's peacekeeping mission was the right thing to do, to give the people of Kosovo a chance to live peaceful and productive lives. And NATO's peacekeeping mission is the right thing to continue, to give that chance to live a chance to flower. We are at a crucial point with respect to Kosovo. Ten months into the NATO-led peacekeeping phase of the operation, there are some encouraging signs. There are not such encouraging signs, I am afraid, inside the Senate. The first and most significant fact in Kosovo is that over one and a half million people have returned to their homes, homes from which they were driven, and they have returned either from abroad or from the woods. Mass torture, rape, and looting were the substance of daily life in Kosovo just a year ago. There is still too much violence, but the contrast is stark. When the NATO-led Kosovo force, or KFOR, arrived in Kosovo in June of 1999, there was a weekly murder rate of about 50. It is now down to an average of five--still too high, but comparable to large cities in the developed world. The discussion taking place within the international community is now how fast, how many, to where in Kosovo the Serbs and other minorities should return. There is still a long way to go in Kosovo before Kosovo is safe for all of its former residents, but progress is being made. Dr. Bernard Kouchner, head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, had it right when he said that ``Kosovo is emerging from 40 years of communism, 10 years of apartheid, and a year of ethnic cleansing, and that it is simply unrealistic to expect that a Switzerland would be created there in less than a year.'' Some who maintain that a deadline should be set now for the pull out of U.S. combat forces point to the fact that the United States flew over 70 percent of the missions in the air campaign. The argument is that it is now the Europeans' turn to bear the peacekeeping burden. Well, that is exactly what is happening. The European nations are providing over 80 percent of the peacekeeping troops for Kosovo, and the United States is providing about 15 percent of the troops. The Europeans have responsibility for four of the five peacekeeping sectors in Kosovo. The KFOR commander is presently a Spaniard. He was preceded by a Brit, and then preceded before that by a German. The Eurocorp, a multilateral command composed of Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Spain, took over the KFOR headquarters function last month. Last week, NATO announced that an Italian would become the KFOR commander in October. Moreover, the European nations, either as part of the European Union, or individually, have pledged to provide more than 75 percent of the financial contributions to Kosovo. Now, that brings us to the provision that is included in the military construction appropriations bill. This provision makes the decision now that U.S. ground forces will pull out of Kosovo after July of next year. That is the heart of the matter. It is a decision in this bill now that those ground forces will pull out of Kosovo in the middle of next year. If we leave this language in the bill, Congress will be deciding to pull our ground forces out next July. We will have an opportunity later to reverse that decision if we change our minds. But unless Congress changes its mind, the decision is made. Nothing more needs to be done. It is a self-effectuating decision. If Congress does nothing, those troops--we would be deciding now--must come out in the middle of next year. In another part of the language, it says that if the Europeans do not meet specified percentages of their pledges for financial assistance and police contributions, the withdrawal of our forces would start in August of this year, unless Congress enacts a joint resolution providing otherwise. But if Congress does nothing, the decision is made now. This is not left to a later decision of Congress. We would be deciding now that those troops must come out, if the Europeans do not meet very specified percentages of certain pledges for financial assistance. I have been one that has criticized the Europeans for not delivering on those financial pledges--particularly for not providing more civilian police for Kosovo. I have joined our chairman, Senator Warner, in criticizing the Europeans very publicly, very openly. We have talked to the foreign and defense ministers from Britain, France, and Germany, as well as the Ambassador of the European Union to the United States. I have publicly said it is a little more than hypocritical for the European Union to talk about grand plans for European security and defense identity at the same time they are not appropriately living up to their pledges of financial assistance and civilian police for Kosovo. So I believe that we should be continuing to put pressure on the Europeans to live up to our commitments, and I think we ought to live up to our own commitments as well. I have a number of concerns with the Byrd-Warner language relative to the Europeans' commitments. First, I don't agree with the consequences that would follow if the President is unable to certify that the Europeans are meeting their precise commitment; namely, in the absence of a majority vote of both Houses of Congress, our ground forces would automatically have to withdraw from a NATO-led peacekeeping operation. I don't object to voting on that issue, but I strongly believe that the proper way to use the power of the purse is to vote directly on whether or not to cut off funding. That is what we did in Somalia in 1993 with the Byrd amendment, and in 1994 with the Defense appropriations bill, with that amendment. But that is very different from what is being proposed now, which is to require a withdrawal of U.S. forces later, unless a later vote authorizes the peacekeeping operation, or unless specific targets are met by the Europeans. Throughout our history, while we have used the power of the purse to cut off funding for the deployment of our forces, Congress has not, to my knowledge, enacted legislation that would require the Congress to affirmatively vote at a later date to allow a deployment to continue. The provision before us basically says if Congress doesn't act in a specific way at a later date, our forces must withdraw from Kosovo, so that the fate of Kosovo may very well be determined by the impetus of Congress to act. The power of the purse is a vital power. It is totally appropriate to seek to exercise that power. But the power, as wielded here, sets up a process by which nonaction by the Congress would lead to the withdrawal of our forces from Kosovo. The Byrd-Warner provision decides now to require the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Kosovo next July, unless Congress changes its mind in the interim. The issue then isn't whether Congress has the power to set deadlines. Of course we have the power. If that were the issue before us, the vote on this would be 100- 0 to maintain that power. The issue before us is whether we want to force the withdrawal of ground forces from Kosovo in July of 2001. That would be an unwise exercise of a power that Congress clearly had. So the language before us isn't about a theoretical principle that Congress has the power to set deadlines. The Byrd-Warner language exercises that power. No further action is needed later, and unless further action is taken later, our ground forces would be withdrawn next July.

Mr. LEVIN. I think my friend and I know from a whole lot of debates in this Chamber that, while the facts may be clear to either of us or both of us, they may not be clear to a majority of this Chamber the way we see those facts. It is that year of uncertainty. It would be about a year.

Mr. LEVIN. It could go up to, let's say, 10 months of uncertainty. That is a dangerous period of time, which is, by the way, not necessary to create. If my friend wanted a guaranteed vote on whether or not to pull the plug on our forces next year, that can be arranged--a guaranteed vote. But that is not what this is. Let's be very clear on this. This says that unless the majority decides a year from now to authorize something, that automatically then, on automatic pilot, self-effectuating, we are deciding now, and those troops must leave. And it is that dangerous period between now and then--whether it is 10 months, 12 months, or 14 months--it is that destabilizing dangerous period which the NATO Secretary General and General Clark have told us endangers the mission and endangers our troops. It is unheard of, I believe. There is no precedent that we can find for the Senate or the Congress ever deciding in year 1 that unless something is authorized in year 2, relative to a deployment of forces, that those forces must be withdrawn. We have pulled the plug on deployment. I have voted to pull the plug on deployments. I have voted to end deployments in Haiti. I voted, after my dear friend from Virginia and I went to Somalia, both before and after, to set deadlines and pull our troops out of Somalia. That is not what we are doing here. What we are doing is deciding now that if Congress doesn't authorize a deployment next year--be it May, June, or August--those troops must go. It creates between now and then a very dangerous period, and a period which is demoralizing for our troops, according to the former commander. That is what we ought to avoid. It is unnecessary for us to do that. Some people ask, is there anything wrong with exercising the power of the purse? My answer is, I am going to defend the power of the purse. Senator Byrd is surely correct in saying we have the power to do what the Senator from Virginia and he proposed that we do. I don't doubt that. I doubt its wisdom--not the power of Congress, but whether it is wise for us to do what is being proposed. When it comes to the constitutional power issue, if that were the issue before us, whether or not Congress has the power to do what the Senator proposed, if that were the question, I would say we have the power. I think we would have a 100-0 vote. I hope so in terms of the prerogative of this branch of Government. The question isn't power. It is wisdom. Is this the right thing to do? Do we want to create this year of uncertainty and instability? Do we want to put into place a self-effectuating, automatic process which would lead to the withdrawal of forces later unless something happens between now and then? I think the answer clearly is no. I will quote from this letter I referenced, General Clark's letter, which I have printed in the Record. I use only a few paragraphs from the letter. General Clark wrote that the provisions in the bill before the Senate: . . .would, if enacted, invalidate the dedication and commitment of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, disregarding the sacrifices they and their families have made to help bring peace to the Balkans. He also wrote: Our service men and women and their families, have made great sacrifices in bringing peace and stability to the Balkans. This amendment introduces uncertainty in the planning and funding of the Kosovo mission. This uncertainty will undermine our service members' confidence in our resolve and may call into question the sacrifices we have asked of them and their families. General Clark continues: These measures, if adopted, would be seen as a de facto pull-out decision by the United States. They are unlikely to encourage European allies to do more. In fact, these measures would invalidate the policies, commitments and trust of our Allies in NATO, undercut U.S. leadership worldwide, and encourage renewed ethnic tension, fighting and instability in the Balkans. He also wrote: Our allies would see this as a unilateral, adverse move that splits fifty years of shared burdens, shared risks and shared benefits in NATO. This action will also undermine specific plans and commitments made within the Alliance. At the time that U.S. military and diplomatic personnel are pressing other nations to fulfill and expand their commitment of forces, capabilities and resources, an apparent congressionally mandated pullout would undercut their leadership and all parallel diplomatic efforts. General Clark continues: Setting a specific deadline for U.S. pull-out would signal to the Albanians the limits of the international security guarantees providing for their protection. This, in turn, would give them cause to rearm and prepare to protect themselves from what they would view as inevitable Serbian reentry. The more radical elements of the Albanian population in Kosovo would be encouraged to increase the level of violence directed against the Serb minority, thereby increasing instability as well as placing U.S. forces on the ground at increased risk. I repeat that one sentence because it seems to me when, up until recently, the commander reaches this conclusion, as well thought out it is, that our forces on the ground will be at increased risk while they are there if this action is taken, we should pay some very significant heed to those words.

Mr. LEVIN. That is not the issue. This is not a personal issue. This is an issue of judgment on the effect of a particular proposal. He is not saying that the intent of the proponents is to put our forces on the ground at increased risk. General Clark knows the Members of this body. He knows nobody in this body would intentionally place U.S. ground forces at increased risk.

Mr. LEVIN. What he is saying is, from reading the letter, this action will do that. He is not saying it is intended to do that. He is saying this is what the effect of this action will be. I don't think the persons who support the language that is in the bill can fairly believe that General Clark is aiming anything personally at them in terms of their intention because there is nothing suggesting that.

Mr. LEVIN. Let me try to answer the question of how our allies feel. We have direct evidence on that. We have a letter from Secretary General Robertson.

Mr. LEVIN. I will read now in response to the question of how our allies feel from a good friend of ours, George Robertson, whom we both know well, Secretary General of NATO.

Mr. LEVIN. He says: The question of Congressional prerogatives is an internal matter for the U.S. Congress and the administration to resolve. I'm in no position to comment. Where I do have a concern, however, is that in the way the legislation is written, it would not just affirm the Congressional privilege, but point toward a single policy outcome--the withdrawal of U.S. forces. As Secretary General, the prospect of any NATO ally deciding unilaterally not to take part in a NATO operation causes me deep concern. It risks sending a dangerous signal to the Yugoslavian dictator, Milosevic--that NATO is divided, and that its biggest and most important ally is pulling up stakes. That is how our NATO allies feel about this language. Some have argued that Congress has never authorized or even formally debated U.S. involvement in Kosovo since the Senate on March 23, 1999, authorized airstrikes against Yugoslavia. By the way, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the letter from the Secretary General of NATO, Mr. Robertson, be printed in the Record.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, some have argued that the Congress has not authorized or debated United States involvement in Kosovo since the Senate, in March of 1999, authorized airstrikes against Yugoslavia. That is not correct. On June 10, 1999, during the House of Representatives consideration of the Department of Defense authorization bill, the House approved an amendment offered by Mr. Skelton that deleted language in the bill as reported out of committee that would have prohibited any funding for combat or peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia after September of 1999. The vote on the House floor was 270-155. Additionally, on May 25, 1999, during the Senate's consideration of the Department of Defense authorization bill, Senator Specter offered an amendment that would have prohibited the use of funds for the deployment of United States ground troops in Yugoslavia, except for peacekeeping personnel, unless authorized by a joint resolution authorizing the use of military force. Senator Specter's amendment was tabled by a vote of 52-48. Proponents of this bill assert that Congress has a constitutional responsibility to address policy issues involving the deployment of U.S. troops overseas in instances in which American men and women are being sent into potentially dangerous situations. But the language singles out the involvement in Kosovo. The language relates to Kosovo, not to a general principle. The United States has been enforcing a no-fly zone in Iraq for more than 9 years. U.S. and British aircraft are being fired upon by Iraqi forces almost daily. They respond by attacking Iraqi air defense and command and control installations. Our pilots are clearly at risk. Total incremental costs for our operations in the Persian Gulf are $1.2 billion a year. It is estimated that for this fiscal year it will be about $1 billion. The United States has been contributing forces to NATO-led peacekeeping troops in Bosnia for 5 years. The U.S. contingent in that effort is 4,600 troops. With the passage of time, the risk to our troops in Bosnia is probably less than it is in Kosovo, but they are at risk. More than $9 billion has been appropriated since fiscal year 1991 for Bosnia-related operations. We have 3,700 troops in South Korea. In testimony before the Armed Services Committee in March of this year, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency said that war in the Korean peninsula could occur at any time. Our troops in South Korea are clearly at risk. It does not appear that our U.S. troop deployments in the Persian Gulf or Bosnia or Korea are going to end anytime soon. There is no fixed date for the end of these deployments. But they are important missions and our troops should remain deployed until those missions are completed. Proponents suggest we are abdicating our responsibility by not specifically authorizing U.S. troops' participation in the NATO peacekeeping operation in Kosovo. Surely Congress is not abdicating its responsibility by not having expressly authorized deployments in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, and Korea as a condition of their continued deployment. So the issue before the Senate is not a principle or else that principle would presumably be consistently applied. The issue before us is not the power of Congress. We have that power. Every one of us, I hope, would vote to defend that power. I will as long as I am in the Senate of the United States. If the issue is does Congress have the power of the purse to end the deployment, I will defend that principle. But I will not defend its application every time there is an attack on the deployment of our forces or an effort made to end the deployment of our forces. The question here is, Is it wise now to say that a year from now, unless Congress votes affirmatively and changes its mind, that we are saying now that those forces must leave Kosovo? That is the question. It is the wisdom of the application of the power in these circumstances in this way that is the issue before the Senate. It is not the abstract power of the purse or the abstract power to force the pullout of American forces because there cannot be any doubt that we have that power constitutionally. The question is, Is it wise to exercise that power now in Kosovo in this way, with the resulting year of dangerous uncertainty, as General Clark has outlined to us--endangering the NATO effort in Kosovo, endangering the morale of our forces in Kosovo, emboldening Milosevic to return to Kosovo? That is the question. Is it wise to exercise that power now to be effective a year from now unless we change our mind? That is the only issue, not the abstract power of the Senate. I could give many other examples of where we have forces in different places. I have talked about the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, and South Korea. We have forces in the western Sahara; we have forces in Sinai; we have forces in East Timor. We have forces in a number of places around the world--and in many ways I think we are overstretched, by the way. We have forces in so many places, but I do not believe there has been any specific congressional authorization for the deployment of U.S. military personnel to any of those deployments. We could cut off funding for those deployments; we have that power. But a failure to specifically authorize them cannot represent an abdication or the loss of constitutional power over the purse. It cannot mean that. We have not abdicated our power or abdicated the power of the purse by failing to authorize forces in East Timor or Sinai or in Bosnia or in South Korea or in Germany. We have decided as a Congress not to withdraw those forces. Any one of us at any time on any appropriations bill related to defense or on the defense authorization bill could offer an amendment saying we want those troops out of there. Then we would debate the wisdom of doing that. But the issue is the wisdom, not the power. Finally, I hope General Clark's words and those of NATO General Secretary Robertson will be with us as we vote on this amendment. Just to pick one sentence from General Clark's letter to conclude, this language, if it stays in this bill: . . . would be seen as a de facto pull-out decision by the United States. Those measures are unlikely to encourage European allies to do more. In fact, these measures would invalidate the policies, commitment and trust of our allies in NATO, undercut U.S. leadership worldwide, and encourage renewed ethnic tension, fighting and instability in the Balkans. That is what the year of uncertainty that this language, if left in this bill, will precipitate. I hope we will avoid that. I hope we will strike this language, and I yield the floor.