Bob Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Rick Loeffler, on being named the ``New Hampshire 1999 Small Business Person of the Year'' by the U.S. Small Business Administration. This recognition is a great achievement. Rick is the CEO of Shorty's Mexican Roadhouse, a successful chain of restaurants in New Hampshire. Rick started his business ten years ago, with thirty five employees and one restaurant. Today, Shorty's employs over four hundred and fifty people and has five locations. Rick attributes the success of his chain to his partners and employees; always stressing the importance of attention to the customer. Rick and his employees are also involved in the community in other positive ways. Rick is a member of a number of civic organizations and serves on many charitable organization's board of directors. As a former small business owner, I understand the difficulties of starting a business. Rick demonstrates excellent entrepreneurial spirit and management skills. New Hampshire has always been a state that prides itself on the success of small businesses and Rick is an excellent example. Once again, I would like to congratulate Rick on receiving this prestigious award. It must have been a great sacrifice and risk to Rick as well as his wife Maureen and two daughters, to undertake the effort of starting up a new business. His dedication paid off and he has been a great asset to the state of New Hampshire. It is an honor to represent him in the United States Senate.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Is the same true with respect to the offset?

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I would like to emphasize that the State- side program of the LWCF receives widespread support across the Nation, particularly from State and local governments.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Accompanying the amendment were floor statements expressing our intent that the offset be derived from within the Department of Commerce, and specifically within Function 370. After negotiations with Senators Leahy and Feingold and other Democratic colleagues who cosponsored the amendment, we reached a bipartisan agreement that the $200 million would come from within the Commerce Department.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Edith (``Edie'') Schmidtchen on her retirement as the Town Clerk for Bedford, New Hampshire after thirty-five years of service. She has had an exceptionally distinguished career with the Town of Bedford. Edie began her career in Bedford as the Assistant to the Town Clerk. She was promoted and served as the Deputy Town Clerk and then served as the Town Clerk for twenty-one years. Her dedication to the Town and the State of New Hampshire is truly admirable. Edie has also been very active in the community during her time in the Town Clerk's office. She has been a volunteer teacher for the Bedford Mother's Club, an active member of the Bedford Presbyterian Church, and Secretary of the Town of Bedford Planning Board. She has also participated in many other activities that have bettered her community. My thoughts and best wishes are with Edie, her children and her grandchildren for success in their future endeavors. Once again, I congratulate her on her retirement and thank her for her thirty-five years of continual service to the Town of Bedford. It is an honor to represent her in the United States Senate.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Paul Slater of Londonderry, New Hampshire for his outstanding volunteerism and for being selected to serve as President of the Londonderry Lions Club for the next year. Paul Began his volunteer work with the Londonderry Lions Club in September 1995. His unwavering commitment to the organization, its mission, and its activism within the community propelled hi to the club's Board of Directors during the summer of 1996. Today, Paul serves as both the Treasurer and Secretary of the Londonderry Lions Club. Dedicated to social and humanitarian causes, Lions Club International is the world's largest service organization. With its primary focus on the needs of the blind and visually impaired, the mission of Lions Club International also extends to the needs of each chapter's respective communities. In addition to advancing the club's mission by organizing yearly yard sales and fund-raising dinners, Paul continuously works towards the betterment of his community and state. Every year since his induction as a member of the Londonderry Lions Club, Paul has helped organize and distribute Christmas and Thanksgiving baskets to those who are less fortunate in the Town of Londonderry. His biggest contribution to the organization and the people of New Hampshire, however, has been through his tireless effort towards improving Lions Camp Pride. Camp Pride, located in New Durham, New Hampshire, is a summer camp for children and adults with mild through profound special needs. In cooperation with the Londonderry Police and Fire Departments, Paul has been instrumental in insuring that the proceeds from the annual Police-Fire softball game are contributed to Lions Camp Pride. Having served as an honorary member of the Lions Camp Pride Board, I recognize the importance and the value of Paul's work and I would like to thank him for his commitment to Lions Camp Pride. Furthermore, Paul has continuously exhibited his unselfish dedication to the community as the Chairman of the Londonderry Lions Club High School Scholarship Committee. As a strong believer in education and equal opportunity, Paul has worked hard to insure that students with financial hardship who work hard and strive for academic excellence can still pursue college and technical educations. Mr. President, Paul Slater has devoted his time and his heart to serving the Londonderry Lions Club, the Town of Londonderry, and the people of New Hampshire. It is people like Paul that make New Hampshire a special place to live, and it is an honor to represent him in the United States Senate.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I am pleased to sponsor, along with the gentleman from Rhode Island and others, an amendment to increase funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Our amendment would accomplish two important goals. First, the amendment authorizes $200 million in matching grants to states for their conservation and recreation programs. The amendment therefore would help fulfill a thirty-five year-old Federal commitment that has been largely ignored in recent years. Second, our amendment maintains Congress' commitment to living within the budget agreement by offsetting the increased LWCF funding with an equivalent reduction in programs within the Department of Commerce. Let me speak first about the LWCF. As most of my colleagues know, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was established in 1964, and it has been the main source of Federal funding for Federal and state recreational lands. The LWCF accumulates revenues from outdoor recreation user fees, the federal motorboat fuel tax, surplus property sales, and, most significantly, revenue from oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. Due to early successes and strong support, authorized funding levels increased steadily from the initial authorization of $60 million to the program's current $900 million level--although appropriations have consistently fallen far short of authorized levels. Until Fiscal Year 1995, about one third of the total $10 billion appropriated under this program went directly to the states. The rest of the revenue was split between four Federal agencies: the Park Service, the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Matching grants to states have funded some 37,000 projects and helped conserve 2.3 million acres of land. While the law requires at least a 50% match from states receiving funds, in some cases the Federal grants enabled states to leverage up to seven times the grant amount. The LWCF has enjoyed widespread support, both in my home State of New Hampshire and across the nation. The LWCF has truly been, up until recent years, a Federal-state partnership that works. In the early years of the program, the bulk of the funding for LWCF went directly to the states. However, the state share of LWCF funding has declined dramatically since Fiscal Year 1978, when annual LWCF appropriations stabilized at between $200 and $300 million after fiscal year 1978, but the state portion of LWCF appropriations steadily declined until Fiscal Year 1996, when grants to states were completely eliminated. Since Fiscal Year 1996, overall funding for LWCF has begun to increase again, but all of the money has been appropriated for the Federal-side of the program, and none for the states. Mr. President, to put it simply: that is wrong. These revenues were originally intended to be shared between the Federal Government and the states. We should not penalize states like New Hampshire that can effectively manage these funds and that have critical needs which must be addressed. The idea that only the Federal government can be trusted to conserve resources is again, Mr. President, simply wrong. Last month, more than 100 elected officials, community representatives and other New Hampshire citizens sent a letter to the Chairman of the Budget Committee, expressing their strong support for the LWCF and other conservation partnership programs. I ask unanimous consent that their letter be inserted into the Record, along with a letter that I and thirty-five of my colleagues sent to the Chairman on this topic as well. Today's amendment will help bring back some balance to this program by providing $200 million for states from the LWCF. Our amendment will not reduce LWCF appropriations to Federal agencies, but will, as I stated earlier, offset this increased funding with a corresponding reduction in appropriations for certain Commerce Department activities within Budget Function 370.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, yesterday, I joined Senator Ashcroft and others in offering an amendment to the budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2000. Our amendment addresses a troubling aspect of the President's Social Security proposal, about which I would like to say a few words. President Clinton's plan calls for government-controlled investment of a sizeable portion of the Social Security trust funds. Our amendment expresses the sense of the Senate that the Federal government should not be directly investing the Social Security trust funds in private financial markets. Enabling the Federal government to own millions of dollars worth of private shares in corporations is a recipe for disaster. No matter how much care is taken to avoid bias in government-controlled investment decisions, the potential for abuse would always be present. Even if an independent board is charged with making the investment decisions on behalf of the government, there is always the risk that the board would be overwhelmed by political pressure from lobbyists, lawmakers and others. Inevitably, special interest groups or politicians would seek to influence the investment decisions. Questions such as whether or not a particular investment would benefit a corporation that hires union workers or is located in a certain state might become important considerations. The result would be that the rate of return on an investment would become secondary to numerous political or other concerns. Also, under the President's plan, the government would eventually own private stocks worth $600 billion or more. That could have perverse effects on the free market. Government-controlled investment of the Social Security trust funds would make possible what some have called ``crony capitalism.'' In a recent paper on this subject, Daniel Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation warned that government-controlled investment would give lawmakers power to control the economy indirectly by attempting to pick winners and losers. The Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, is one of the more noteworthy critics of President Clinton's idea for government- controlled investment. Chairman Greenspan has said that it ``would arguably put at risk the efficiency of our capital markets and thus, our economy.'' Mr. President, the Senate should heed his words and reject any plan to have the government directly involved in the investment of Social Security trust funds.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Contoocook Valley Regional High School for winning the regional competition of the Second Annual Ocean Sciences Bowl. I commend them for their accomplishment. The regional competition included teams from fifteen other schools in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Their final match, which was held at the University of New Hampshire, was played against high school students from Bridgeton Maine. It was a close call and Contoocook Valley won by the narrow margin of two points! Contoocook Valley's team consists of five students. The team members are Amber Carter, Megan Cahill, Sonja Fritz, Cissy Courtemanche, and Emily Dark. Jon Manley, science teacher at the Contoocook Valley, is the coach for the team. The students train very hard every year for this competition. This is the second year in a row that Contoocook Valley Regional High School has won this competition. They will soon be traveling to Washington, D.C. to compete in the nationals. As a former high school teacher, I appreciate the hard work the students and the coach have dedicated to this team effort. I look forward to their visit to Washington and wish them the best of luck. It is an honor to represent them in the United States Senate.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Term Limits for Judges Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. I first introduced this proposal in the 105th Congress, with Senators Shelby and Helms as co-sponsors. I am pleased that both of those distinguished colleagues are joining me again as original co- sponsors. Mr. President, the Framers of our Constitution intended that the judicial branch created by Article III would have a limited role. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton argued that the judicial branch ``will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution.'' Courts, wrote Hamilton, ``have neither force nor will but merely judgment'' and ``can take no active resolution whatever.'' Even as he advocated the ratification of the Constitution, however, Hamilton also issued a warning. ``The courts,'' he said, ``must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise will instead of judgment the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.'' More than two hundred years after Alexander Hamilton issued his warning, it is abundantly clear that the abuse of judicial power that he feared has become a reality. In recent years, for example, activist judges have repeatedly abused their authority by blocking the implementation of entirely constitutional measures enacted through state ballot referenda simply because they disagree with the policy judgments of the voters. Activist judges have taken control or prisons and school districts. Activist judges have even ordered tax increases. Worst of all, activist judges have created new rules to protect criminal defendants that result in killers, rapists and other violent individuals being turned loose to continue preying on society. Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese estimates that over 100,000 criminal cases each year cannot be successfully prosecuted because of these court-created rules. Mr. President, judicial activism has become such a severe problem that former U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Bork has proposed that the Constitution should be amended to give the Congress the power to overturn Supreme Court decisions. I believe, however, that a better solution is a constitutional amendment providing term limits for judges. The Term Limits for Judges Amendment would put an end to life tenure for judges. Judges at all three levels of the Article III judiciary-- Supreme Court, Appeals Courts, and District Courts--would be nominated by the President and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed for 10-year terms. After completing such a term, a judge would be eligible for reappointment, subject to Senate confirmation. Since under the Twenty-Second Amendment no person can be President for more than 10 consecutive years, no judge could be appointed twice by the same President. Finally, judges appointed before the Amendment takes effect would be protected by a ``grandfather'' clause. Mr. President, activist judges are routinely violating the separation of powers by usurping legislative and executive powers. This widespread abuse of judicial authority is constitutional in dimension and it is serious enough to warrant a constitutional response. Term limits for judges would establish a check on the power of activists judges. No longer could they abuse their authority with impunity. Under the Term Limits for Judges Amendment, judges who abuse their offices by imposing their own policy views instead of interpreting the laws in good faith could be passed over for new terms by the President or rejected for reappointment by the Senate. Moreover, the Term Limits for Judges Amendment would make the President and the Senate more accountable to the people for their judicial selections. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the Term Limits for Judges Amendment printed in the Record.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill that I am calling the ``Brady Act Amendments of 1999,'' which would remove ``long guns'' from the requirements of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). I am pleased to be joined by my distinguished colleagues, Senators Craig, Inhofe, and Helms, as original co-sponsors. Mr. President, Congress has imposed many restrictions on firearms sales over the years, with no apparent effect on reducing crime. By contrast, the most effective crime fighting initiatives have been undertaken at the state and local levels. Many states have dramatically reduced crime by increasing their incarceration rates. Local governments, such as that of Richmond, Virginia, reduced crime rates by aggressively prosecuting cases involving possession of firearms by convicted felons and drug dealers--not by imposing any new restrictions on the purchase of firearms. In fact, Mr. President, states that have fewer restrictions on the purchase of firearms have more favorable crime reduction trends than other states. Despite all of the favorable media fanfare over the Brady Act, states that were covered by its ``waiting period'' phase until the NICS went into effect late last year actually had worse crime trends than other states. The Federal Bureau of Investigation notes that out of the total number of homicides in a recent reporting period that were committed with firearms, less than 7% were committed with rifles, and less than 7% were committed with shotguns. Out of the total number of homicides, rifles and shotguns each were used in 4%, while knives, which may be purchased without clearance by the NICS, were used in 13% of such cases. Mr. President, my bill would amend the Brady Act to make the NICS apply not to firearms in general, but only to handguns. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of my bill printed in the Record.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 23, 1999, to conduct a hearing on ``Management Challenges at HUD.''

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, of the Senate Judiciary Committee be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 10 a.m. in room 226, Senate Dirksen Office Building, on ``Internet Gambling.''

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Governmental Affairs Committee to meet on Tuesday, March 23, 1999, for a hearing on the topic of ``Securities Fraud On The Internet.''

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 12 noon to hold a hearing.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Aging of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 2 p.m. to receive testimony on the Older Americans Act.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be permitted to meet on March 23, 1999 at 9 a.m.-1 p.m. in Dirksen 106 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a business meeting.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, the Finance Committee requests unanimous consent to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 beginning at 10 a.m. in room 215 Dirksen.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities be authorized to meet at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23, 1999, in open session, to receive testimony on the proliferation threat and the Department of Defense's program and policies to counter it.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, that is not very much time, but this is a very serious matter. It is a vote that I wanted. I have been asking for it for a number of days and weeks. Now we are here, and the President has already made up his mind. He didn't really care particularly one way or the other how the Congress felt, which is pretty much the way the foreign policy has been conducted. Thousands of people, hundreds of thousands have died in Rwanda. We are not firing missiles there. This is a mistake. This is a civil war. We are attacking a sovereign nation without a declaration of war and we are going to regret it.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, the legislation before us--which Senator Lott has introduced--is an amendment which I drafted several weeks ago when I saw the administration lurching toward war in Yugoslavia. I believe that Congress should determine whether or not America should commit an act of war against a sovereign nation inside its own borders. Regardless of what your view is on the conflict in Kosovo, I sense that most of my colleagues agree that Congress should take a position on any action in Kosovo. We simply cannot turn this or any other administration loose to commit acts of war around the world without the demonstrated support of the American people. We did that once in Vietnam. We know the results. Politicians stood here and debated it, and men and women died every day. The purpose of my amendment is very simple. It simply requires Congress to debate, and then approve or deny, the use of military force in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. That is it, pure and simple. If you want the Congress to have a say in this, you should vote for my amendment. If you think the President should be able to go to war against a sovereign nation without the support of Congress, you should vote against my amendment. This raises constitutional issues for some of my colleagues. I want to dispense with them right away. It is clear that the President has the power to commit U.S. forces to battle--this President or any other President--and he has the power to command them once they are committed. I interpret this authority as allowing the President to respond swiftly and unencumbered to an immediate threat to U.S. lives, liberty, or property. We have seen in history, some of it recent, that a President can interpret this authority very loosely. But we also have seen that when Presidents use force in a way that they do not or cannot explain to the American people, and for a cause the American people do not in their gut support, that policy collapses. We saw it by the end of the war in Vietnam. We saw it in Somalia, in 1994. We saw it in Beirut in 1983. Republican and Democrat Presidents alike have learned this lesson. It is entirely constitutional for the Congress to withhold funds from any activity of the Federal Government. It is the Constitution itself, Article I, Section 8, which gives us that power. This so-called power of the purse is a blunt instrument--there is no question about that-- and one we should use sparingly, but it is sometimes the only instrument we in Congress have. It is why the administration must seek consensus, or at least some majority, in support of military hostilities. So we should undertake an examination of this proposed action and then speak for the American people. We must consider our interests, the question of sovereignty, the nature of the conflict and the risks, and what we are trying to accomplish. What are our interests? The administration has a hard time explaining why U.S. interests are at stake in Kosovo. This is not surprising. There are certainly no American lives at risk--not yet, at least. American liberty and American property are not threatened. It is not a humanitarian mission like the assistance we have given to Central America in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Nor is loss of life the administration's standard. Two thousand people have been killed in the fighting in Kosovo in the past year. That is a lot of people. However, in just 6 weeks in 1994, half a million Rwandans died. We didn't launch any cruise missiles in Rwanda, Mr. President. There, we did not launch any cruise missiles when half a million people died. If anything, the administration's statements have added confusion to a very complex issue. During a recent Armed Services Committee hearing, I asked Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering whether or not an attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would be an act of war. His response goes right to the heart of the problem I have with the actions of this administration. Here is what Mr. Pickering said: Well, an act of war, as you know, and I have recently found out, is a highly technical term. My lawyers tell me . . . that an act of war, the term is an obsolete term in anything but a broad generic sense. If you would say that Milosevic, in attacking and chasing Albanians, harassing, torturing, killing Albanians and sending them to the hills is anything but an act of war, I would certainly agree with you on that particular judgement. If, in fact, we need to use force to stop that kind of behavior and also to bring about a settlement which recognizes the rights of those people which have been denied, I would tell you that it might well be a war-like act, although the technical term ``act of war'' is something we ought to be careful to avoid in terms of some of its former meanings that have consequences beyond merely the use of the term. That sounds like a pretty bureaucratic explanation to me, Mr. President, but I will tell you one thing: To the young men and women who are going to be asked to put their lives on the line in Kosovo, there can be no bureaucratic explanation about what a declaration of war is or is not. It is not the lawyers Mr. Pickering is referring to who are going to fight. It is not the lawyers who are going to be manning the aircraft. It is not the lawyers who are going to be captured as POWs. It is not the lawyers who have to go in and get those POWs if they are shot down. It is the young men and women of our Armed Forces. I was then, and I continue to be, absolutely astounded by Mr. Pickering's response. The administration tells us that we must become involved in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia to prevent the spread of this conflict into neighboring nations, including perhaps NATO members. This is a bogeyman argument, and it is meant to scare us into resolving this conflict by using American military forces. It obscures the real issue: should American troops be placed at risk in an area of the world where we have no real interests which justify direct intervention? Risking U.S. troops in a war in Kosovo is far more dangerous to American interests than the small risk that the conflict would spread. The argument is also made that the conflict in Kosovo threatens NATO and threatens American leadership of NATO. There is nothing in the North Atlantic Treaty that authorizes NATO to commit the kinds of actions we are talking about here. NATO is not an offensive alliance, it is a defensive alliance. As a matter of fact, it was created to prevent aggression against the sovereign nations of Europe. By using NATO to attack a sovereign nation, we are about to turn the alliance on its head. We are only weakening the alliance by using its forces offensively in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The core of the alliance has always been to protect members from attack, not to be peace enforcers, not to meddle in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation--no matter how despicable the acts that are being committed are--and certainly not to dictate a peace agreement under the threat of violence. By intervening in this civil war, I fear the alliance is not showing strength to the world, but weakness and confusion. Mr. President, NATO expansion has already diluted NATO's strength. By becoming enmeshed in the internal affairs of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the alliance is distancing itself further from its core mission, which is to ensure the protection of its members. Although I opposed and continue to oppose expansion of NATO, I am a supporter of NATO and its core mission. But if this is what NATO has become--a means of dragging the United States into every minor conflict around Europe's edges--then maybe we should get out of NATO. We are about to begin a high-risk military operation--a war--against a sovereign nation. Not because Americans have been attacked, not because our allies have been attacked, but because we disapprove of the internal policy of the Federal Republic Yugoslavia. That policy is easy to disapprove, but that is a very low standard to apply the use of force. If we applied that standard around the world, we would be launching cruise missiles around the world. The fundamental question is whether the lives of American soldiers are worth interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation where there are no vital U.S. interests at risk. This is not Iraq in 1990, where a ruthless tyrant invaded a peaceful neighboring country. This is a case of a disaffected population revolting against its government. Is Milosevic a tyrant? Yes, absolutely. But his tyranny is happening inside his own nation. We are dictating, under the threat of military action, the internal policy of Yugoslavia. We may not like that policy, but is that reason to go to war? Moreover, is it reason to let the President of the United States go to war without an act of Congress? That is the question before us today. It is a very serious question, and our actions in this body will have ramifications for many years to come. This very well may be one of the most important votes we make on the Senate floor this year. The conflict in Kosovo is a civil war. Neither side wants to be involved in the peace agreement that we are trying to impose. It took weeks of arm twisting and coercion just to get the Kosovo Liberation Army to agree to the deal. The administration had to send our distinguished former leader, Bob Dole, to persuade them to accept the agreement. Both the KLA and the Serbs still want to fight, and they will fight until they do not want to fight anymore. We will be using U.S. troops, not as peacekeepers, but as peace enforcers. There is a difference. Peacekeepers are there to assist the transition to stability. Peace enforcers are there as policemen to separate two parties who want to do nothing but fight. They are not interested in an agreement. They still want to fight. By jamming the agreement down their throats, the administration is not solving the problem. At best, it is delaying it. Many proponents of military intervention in Kosovo cite World War I as a lesson as to the ultimate danger of a crisis in the Balkans. They have it exactly backwards. A Balkan war became a world war in 1914 not because there was strife, but because the great powers of that day allowed themselves to become entangled in that strife. We need to heed this lesson. We did not fight and win the Cold War just to be dragged into marginal conflicts like this one. Why are the Balkans so prone to conflict? The main reason is that this is where Christianity and Islam collide. Strife along these lines has gone on virtually uninterrupted for a millennium. This is no place for America to get bogged down. I believe in America and American power, but these are conflicts that America cannot solve. The administration is prepared to send our pilots into combat against a combat-hardened nation that is well equipped to defend itself from attack. Let there be no doubt--I will say it here now in this Chamber-- let there be no doubt, American lives will be in danger. This act will result in the deaths of American servicemen. The Joint Chiefs testified before the Armed Services Committee last week. They tried to tell us, as carefully as they could. General Ryan, Air Force Chief of Staff, said: There is a distinct possibility we will lose aircraft in trying to penetrate those defenses. General Krulak, Commandant of the Marine Corps, said: It is going to be tremendously dangerous. He went on to ask the same questions I have: What is the end game? How long will the strikes go on? Will our allies stay with us? In the coming days, if air strikes do go forward, we need to be ready to answer the questions of the families of those young men and women who will not be returning from Yugoslavia. We have to be prepared to answer those questions. We can begin to answer them today: Are we prepared to fight in Yugoslavia month after month, slugging it out with the Serb forces in those mountains, losing Americans day after day? Are we prepared for that? I want to say one thing about the troops. If we go in tonight or tomorrow, they will have my support. That is the way it should be. But I have an obligation to the Constitution, and under the Constitution, the U.S. Congress must decide whether or not we go to war. That is the purpose of my resolution. Mr. President, I abhor the bloodshed in Kosovo. But as much sympathy as I have for those victims, we must remember that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is a sovereign nation. We can provide safe haven for those refugees as they exit Kosovo. We don't need to go to war. Throughout the cold war, we fought to protect the rights of sovereign nations, and in 1991 we sent American soldiers to war to turn back the unlawful and immoral invasion of the sovereign nation of Kuwait. George Bush sought to defend a sovereign nation after it had been attacked, and he came before Congress to seek that authorization. He came before the Congress. And he barely got our approval. George Bush risked losing a vote in Congress because he believed that the American people should comment on whether or not we would go to war. In that case, the nation of Iraq had attacked and conquered the sovereign nation of Kuwait. What a change in just eight years; here we are today, preparing ourselves to attack a sovereign nation, and the administration at this very minute is trying to avoid this vote. This is a terribly difficult time for all of us. Having been in the Vietnam war, watching politicians who could not decide whether they wanted to support the troops or not, day after day, month after month, year after year, I don't want to see us get embroiled in another conflict the American people are going to lose their taste for after we start losing young men and women. I just came back from a 4-day trip around the country--Louisiana, Alabama, and Colorado--talking to the troops. They are the best. They can handle anything we ask them to do. But they should not be asked to die in a conflict where the national security of this country is not at risk. This is exactly what they will be asked to do it if we go into Kosovo. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to carefully think about the implications of what we are about to do at 2 o'clock or so this afternoon. I urge my colleagues to support the Smith amendment. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on this side?