John Murtha

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman must have misspoke. We are not trying to change the language. The language you offered is exactly the language accepted in the conference.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton].

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we hope we will be able to do this. We do not think it is necessary to recommit the bill in order to do it. [[Page H 9704]] We agree with the thrust of what the gentleman was trying to do and the amendment that the gentleman offered.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, [[Page H 9706]] and I would like to say, in closing our argument. I do think that we did the best we could do on this bill. Let me say to the pro-life people, I resisted tremendous pressure from the Democratic side several years ago to put language in the bill which would have allowed abortions overseas. We did not put that language in our bill because we thought that would be inappropriate. We thought the pro-life position was the right position and we resisted that position. I would hope the Members would take that into consideration. It sounds like we need a medic here to save this bill because everybody is talking negative. I think we have a good bill. I think we have a bill that is as good as we can get, and I hope we will be able to convince the White House to sign the bill when it finally gets to them. I would urge the Members to vote for a reasonable defense bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me just compliment the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] for working his way through a very, very difficult bill. As the gentleman mentioned, we had 1,700 areas of disagreement. Some of the major areas of disagreement were with the White House and others with the Senate. [[Page H 9700]] In some, the Senate agreed with the White House, and it put us in a difficult position where we were not able to come to an agreement which satisfied everybody. Any time we have a conference report, it is obviously a compromise between all the parties. One of the areas of particular disagreement was Bosnia. All of us have a concern about Bosnia. There is not one who has been more involved in trying to force White Houses, whether Republican or Democrat, to ask for authorization before we send peacekeeping forces to any foreign nation. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] and I have been working for the last year, with the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the chairman of the overall committee, in trying to convince the White House that if they send peacekeepers into Bosnia, and I support them in sending forces to extract any U.N. forces who are there now if they got into trouble. I think the United States has a legitimate commitment there. I think we have a legitimate commitment on the bombing. But the peacekeeping is a different situation. One of the most difficult tasks we can ask of our military is peacekeeping, because the way the military protects American lives is to use overwhelming force. That means in many cases we have to kill people, and we, then, become the enemy. Mr. Speaker, I think we have gotten to the point, after 3 years of negotiation, that this administration has committed themselves to ask for authorization before we send peacekeepers into Bosnia. Now, this is an important point. There are a number of people who want to vote against the conference. At this very time, we have a meeting going on at the White House where they are laying out their plans and consulting with Congress about what needs to be done in Bosnia. At the very least, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State have both committed themselves publicly to urge the White House to come to the Congress before they commit any troops for peacekeeping in Bosnia. I think that is the way it should be. I think, not only from the process of authorization and appropriation, it is important for the support of the American people. So we moved in that direction, and so we took the language out of our bill. The Senate said it will not want the language. It would not accept it. The White House felt we went too far. All of us understand the prerogative of the White House when it comes to dealing with national security. I do not feel that humanitarian deployments are national security. So we think we have finally convinced this White House that, before they make this particular deployment, they are going to come to the Congress and ask for authorization. I would not be surprised that as of this very time they have mentioned this to the Members of Congress who are at the meeting in the White House. The other issues that we worked our way through, we always find areas where we have to increase the budget, decrease the budget. There are some talks about procurement being increased and readiness or O&M being decreased. The problem here is that in many cases, if we do not upgrade our equipment, we are going to run into a terrible problem in readiness. For instance, the Navy got behind the procurement of airplanes. So all the airplanes they have are slow or outdated and/or they are not stealthy. This is because they did not buy or upgrade their equipment. So it is important, as important as individual readiness is for troops. We run into even a greater problem if we do not have technological superiority of a weapons system. I say this is as good a bill as we can come up with, compromising with what we knew the White House rejected and what the White House did not agree to, even though I have a message here which I got 2 minutes ago which says this bill is not acceptable. I hope that if this bill passes the House, we will be able to convince the White House that they should sign the bill. I have assurances from the Chief of Staff that he will consider it. The chairman of the committee and I both have talked to them. Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye believe that we can convince the White House at some point. They would like to see this bill delayed, but I see no point in delaying it, since the Senate is going to delay their sending the bill down to the White House. So we worked our way through a very difficult situation, and we think we have presented as good a bill as we can present. All of us disagree with elements in this bill. All of us would like to see some changes, but, frankly, this is as good as we could do, given the constraints we were working under in the conference itself. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume and yield to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I support the conference report.

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, the problem, as I see it, is, we had over 2000 suggestions and recommendations to the bill. Obviously, we had to make a judgment on each of those recommendations as we went through the bill. Certainly, it would be a problem because as it gets involved in negotiations, there will be less of everything available. So there is no question in my mind, that there will be some substantial changes in the bill.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, one of the remarkable stories of the last 19th century was the rebuilding of Johnstown, PA after the Great Flood of 1889. The Johnstown Flood destroyed the city and much has been written about this disaster. But most of these stories stop at the death and destruction caused by the raging waters; they don't talk about the rebuilding efforts that made Johnstown a bustling, growing steel community in the years after the flood. Although it was the turbulent waters which caused the initial devastation during the flood, the fires which came afterwards completed the destruction. As the Johnstown area rebuilt over the next few years, residents realized they needed protection against the potential damage that fires could pose. In 1895, seven residents of Franklin Borough located just east of the downtown Johnstown area, decided to form a department to protect the borough and provide emergency services to the people of the area. One hundred years later, the Franklin Borough Fire Department is still going strong. The Johnstown area has endured two major floods and severe economic downturns over the past 100 years. But the Franklin Borough Fire Department has continued to protect the residents of the area during good times and bad. From the days when seven residents founded the department, the Franklin Borough Fire Department has developed into a modern, efficient fire and rescue operation, handling emergencies from rescues to disposing of hazardous materials. The department is still the hub of Franklin Borough, and many of the activities in Franklin Borough revolve around it. I'd like to congratulate the Franklin Borough Fire Department on its 100th anniversary. I join the people of the borough in wishing them well as they start on their second century of protecting the people of the area.

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. MURTHA. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. MURTHA. That is correct, and the gentleman has to understand, of course, obviously this does not go in effect until the bill is passed and signed with the President, and we know there will have to be such negotiation before it is finalized.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, as I said before, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] and myself have talked at great length, as has the chairman of the committee. This is a very delicate situation. We know that the White House, whether it is Republican or Democrat, always opposes any kind of stipulation restricting their ability to deploy troops. But I agree with the gentleman that we have not only the right, but the obligation, to insist on authorization before troops are deployed in a humanitarian sense. I do not agree if it is a national security issue; I believe the President does have the ability under the Constitution. I would hope that the gentleman would accept this amendment. We could take this to conference, and, if the chairman would accept this amendment, then we would be able to then work out the final language with the White House which would give us some leverage over what happens in the future in these humanitarian deployments. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I have talked to the gentleman at great length about this amendment, and I have a substitute to the amendment which I think would satisfy certainly me and, I hope, would satisfy the chairman, which would eliminate the extraction part of it from the amendment that the gentleman is offering, because I think it is so important that we have a commitment to the U.N., but, if I could offer this amendment to the amendment, maybe we could continue the colloquy.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order against the amendment.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I have no problem with this.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURTHA. I just wanted to add my request to withdraw and see if we could not work something out on it. It is a complicated subject. It is a comprehensive amendment, which certainly in committee I opposed the Istook amendment because of my concern for that issue, and I would ask the gentlewoman to withdraw the amendment and see if we cannot work something out.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment the gentleman from [[Page H 8641]] Vermont [Mr. Sanders] for the work he has done on this amendment and certainly, speaking for this side of the aisle, we would be glad to accept the amendment.