Bob Smith

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Hutchison resolution in opposition--strong opposition--to sending American forces into Bosnia. I was quite interested in the remarks of my friend from the State of Washington. In listening to his remarks--and I know other Senators on the floor, Senator Brown, served with me in Vietnam--I could not help but think of terms like ``Vietnamization.'' I remember the charts, the McNamara charts and the pointers, how, if we would just supply a little help, we could be there a little while and the South Vietnamese would soon be able to take over the war and fight their own battles; if we could just secure the peace, everything would be all right. Mr. President, 58,000-plus lives later, we gave it back to the North Vietnamese. I remember then, very much so, as a young man of draft age volunteering in the Navy to serve, I remember then Presidents making commitments. And although this is not Vietnam per se, the parallels are very similar because, as the President must know, and as all of us participating in this debate know, and as the American people know full well, the majority of the American people do not support our involvement here. The difference is that we can stand here on the floor and debate this, and we know that, regardless of what we say here or what we debate here, the President is going to--indeed has already begun--proceed to send troops to Bosnia. So perhaps we are wasting our time. I think it is important that people understand that, yes, we are debating it and, yes, the President made this commitment 2 years ago. But there is somebody's son and there is somebody's daughter that, probably prior to Christmas, is going to be off somewhere in this far- off land without the full support of the American people for having them go there. They will have the support of the American people and this Senator's support when they get there, but that does not mean we have to endorse the policy of sending them there. I do not take participation in this debate lightly. There have been three or four major issues that I have been involved in since I have been in the Senate for some 5 years and in the House 6 years before that. One was the Persian Gulf war. It is not easy when you stand here, knowing the vote you make may cost American lives. It troubles me very much to take the floor of the U.S. Senate in opposition to any President, including President Clinton. I served in the Vietnam war under President Johnson. I disapproved of President Johnson's policies. I did not think he conducted the war properly. But I was proud to serve in the military and do my duty. I never had a second thought about that, as most military people do not. But I cannot sit idly by and say nothing and watch our troops being sent into harm's way, Mr. President, without a coherent policy and without a compelling military mission. And there is no coherent policy and there is absolutely no compelling military mission. These men and women are not trained to be 911 response teams. Police departments do that pretty well. These men and women are trained to fight for the national security of the United States. That is not why they are going there. So they are going to be put in harm's way, doing things they were not trained to do. Over the past 3 years, many of us in this body have spoken out loudly and clearly on lifting the arms embargo, which has denied the Bosnia Moslems the ability to defend themselves. They have a right to do that. Bosnia is their country. Those of us who have advocated lifting the embargo believe that because it is their country, the Moslems deserve the opportunity to defend it, to protect their families, their property, their culture, against a Serbian onslaught. Do you remember the safe havens? They were not very safe, but they were told they were safe. They were herded into them and executed by the Serbs. If the President, President Clinton, had accepted this recommendation that many of us made, including the majority leader, here on the floor and exerted firm leadership, we would not be having this debate. We would not be sending troops to Bosnia. They would not be giving up Christmas with their families to go to this far-off land, to be put in harm's way. We would not be doing it. Why? Because the Moslems would have been able to defend themselves if we had just--we did have to arm them. All we had to do was step out of the way and let them be armed. But we did not do it. So I am not swayed emotionally or any other way by the fact that this President made some commitment 2 years ago to NATO allies. I am not swayed in the slightest, because if things go wrong, if it looks bad not to go, how bad is it going to look when we leave, after things get rough? Are my colleagues here prepared to come down on the Senate floor if, in fact, something goes wrong--and I pray it does not--and when casualties occur? I remember that, too, in Vietnam, Mr. President, very clearly. I remember when there were 2 or 3 a week, and I remember when there were 350 a week coming home dead. The American people then lost interest in the war because they never supported it in the first place, and brave young men and women died because of that. That could happen this time, and I cannot believe that we are allowing it to happen again. When will we ever learn from history? A year ago, it was widely reported that the President offered up to 25,000 American troops to help withdraw the U.N. protection forces from Bosnia. I joined many of my colleagues right here on this floor voicing serious reservations with that proposal. It is strangely ironic that 1 year later the President has committed roughly the same number of troops from the same service elements to enforce a peace agreement that, as of today, has not even been signed. Maybe it will be signed in the next day or so; maybe it will not. But we are already going to send troops, are we not? We already made the commitment. We hear people from all sides saying we are not going to support it. So we are going to put our American forces there in harm's way, without a peace treaty that we know will work. Is that our responsibility? Why? Because CNN carries bloody footage every night from the war? There are other places where blood is let every day, and we are not there--Ethiopia, Somalia. We were in Somalia, but we should not have been there either. There is at least the appearance that when Congress closed the front door on Bosnia deployment, the President decided to sneak around the back door to get the American troops involved. That is what he did. He made an incorrect decision. The President has stated that our troops will only be deployed to Bosnia for a year. He has not articulated what the specific mission will be. He has not defined a concise timetable or sequence of milestones for achieving our military objectives. How can he possibly say that American forces will be there for a year? He does not know that. Sure, he can pull them out in a year, regardless. All sides know that. So if I were an adversary in Bosnia, I would do one of two things. One, I would absolutely harass American forces to try to create as many casualties as I could and get us out, or I would sit back and do nothing and wait for a year. And, in the meantime, during that year, how many landmines do American forces step on? How many people die in simple motor vehicle accidents, or airplane accidents, or other combat- related accidents, in the line of duty? This is not a safe venture. When you deploy 20,000 troops anywhere in one big operation like this, it is a high-risk operation. I am not sure the President of the United States, to be very blunt about it, who never served in the military, and specifically avoided serving in the military, understands that, to be candid about it. The only argument I hear coming from the White House spin doctors in support of the President's policy is the assertion that President Clinton has made a commitment to our allies, and if Congress were to reject this commitment, it is going to destroy our credibility and destroy our reputation in the international community. That is no consolation, is it, to the mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters and kids of the American personnel that are being sent to Bosnia? Frankly, I think it is a disgrace. I hope the President will think, as I am going to think, before I vote tomorrow on this. If I have to make that phone call--and I pray to God nobody ever has to make it--or I have to look a mother, or a father, or a brother, or another loved one in the eye, I have to be able to say to that person: Your son, your daughter, your brother, your sister, whatever, died for a good reason. There was a good reason for us to be there. Can we really say that? I sure cannot. I could not say it. I cannot look that parent or sibling in the eye and say, ``Your son or daughter died for a good cause, a good reason, died bravely, yes, died courageously, yes, or was injured in the line of duty, courageous, absolutely.'' Know why? Some feel sympathy. Some who have never served in the military do not understand. They feel sympathy toward those people who go. They do not want your sympathy. They go where they are asked. They are the bravest, best, most ready military force in the world, and they do their duty. They do it better than anyone else in the world. That is why we stopped Nazi Germany in World War II. They do it because it is their duty to do it. It does not mean we should ask them to do it. That is a different story. The American forces, the Armed Forces, again, are not to be subcontracted out all over the world whenever some crisis erupts. They are the guardians of our security, our liberty, our national security. We ought not to allow them to be needlessly or recklessly endangered, even if the President has boxed himself in a corner. What is the President supposed to say to Mrs. So-and-so when she loses her son? ``I got boxed in a corner, Mrs. Jones. I am very sorry. I made a commitment. I should not have made it, but I sent your loved one anyway, to be killed. I am sorry.'' That is not good enough, folks. That is not good enough. That is not good enough. Bosnian peacekeeping is not an appropriate role for the Armed Forces of the United States. It is not what they are trained to do. It is not what they are trained to do. Now, the administration has also suggested that those of us who do not support turning the American military into a Bosnian police force are somehow isolationists. I resent that charge very much. The issue here is not whether our Armed Forces should be called upon when necessary to defend our interests abroad; rather, the issue is, when, where, and under what circumstances is it appropriate to deploy U.S. military personnel in and out of area operations? That is what the military is all about. It is troubling to me that even after 3 years of on-the-job training the President still--still--does not understand the proper role of our Armed Forces. I just left a meeting 15 or 20 minutes before I came here to the floor. We were talking about the Defense budget. We were talking back and forth, back and forth among Members of both sides of the aisle. A couple of comments were made. Well, we do not think the President will sign this bill. The President is not going to sign, we are hearing, he is not going to sign the Defense authorization bill which provides the support, increases the pay, by the way, of our military, the people that he is asking to go to Bosnia. He is not going to sign a bill to give them a pay raise. That is what is being threatened, hung over our head every day. But he made a commitment to somebody in NATO without the consent of Congress, without consulting the American people. Without consulting anybody, he made that commitment. I think he has a commitment to those he is sending that he ought to support. If he vetoes a Defense bill, he is not supporting them. Anybody that says he did not like everything in it, let me tell you, what is in it is the funding for those people that he is sending. So when we debated here--I do not want anybody to accuse me or anyone else who takes the other side that we are isolationists. I was not an isolationist when I served in Vietnam, and I was not an isolationist when I supported every Defense budget to support our American troops since I have been in the Congress, and when I supported pay raises when he would not support pay raises for members of the military. We have no military or economic interests--none--in Bosnia. The American people overwhelmingly oppose this policy. They oppose the commitment of 20,000 ground troops. Everybody knows that. Look at any poll. That is the issue. The White House spin does not cut it. Public relations gimmickry does not cut it. It does not work. Nothing is going to change them. Let me briefly, for the benefit of my colleagues, highlight what I see to be the critical unanswered questions associated with the President's Bosnia policy. First, what is our exact mission in Bosnia? What are we supposed to do? Are we there to make peace? I ask everyone to listen, are we there to make peace, keep peace, enforce peace, or monitor peace? Which is it? Are we neutral? Are we evenhanded, or are we realigned with the Bosnian Moslems? Which is it: Keep peace, enforce peace, monitor peace, make peace? Are we neutral, are we even handed, or aligning with the Moslems? Does anyone know the answer to that question? No one knows the answer to that question. What is the difference between making peace, keeping peace, enforcing peace, or monitoring peace? No one knows the answer to that question. The President does not know the answer to that question. It has never been clearly delineated. Second, why are we deploying for 1 year? Where did that come from? One year--we just pick these guys up, 9-1-1 force, send them over there for 1 year. Why not 10 months? How about a year and a half? Fourteen years, 14 days, 2 years, 11 years--where did 1 year come from? Can you imagine if Franklin Roosevelt had said after Pearl Harbor, ``We will take your boys and send them out for 1 year. If we win the war, we will come back in 1 year. If we lose the war, we will come back in 1 year.'' This is not Franklin Roosevelt in the White House right now. He does not understand, you cannot make a commitment like that. You do not tell your enemies what you are going to do ahead of time. If we do not know exactly what the mission is, how do we know how long it will take to complete it? What sequence of milestones have we established to determine our progress? What happens if after this year, this little arbitrary year goes by, what happens if we have not achieved our objectives--we do not know what the objectives are, but assume we have not achieved them whatever they might be--what do we do then? Pull the plug? Leave and concede that the whole operation was a waste? How about that phone call? ``Mrs. Jones, we stayed there a year, we took some casualties. Unfortunately, your son was one. We did not get it done. Unfortunately, they still want to fight, so we are leaving.'' Maybe Mrs. Jones should know that now--not tomorrow, not after her son is injured or killed--today. Maybe Private Jones ought to know that now, too. Are the antagonists not likely to wait us out and launch hostilities as soon as we leave? Is it all for nothing if we have not achieved our goal in a year? Mr. President, 1,000 years these people have been fighting over there, and we will decide it all in a year. We will take care of it all in 1 year. We will come home in 1 year, and that will be it. All that fighting will end, all that 1,000 years, century after century, we will take care of it in a year. Very ambitious. Maybe the President reneges on his 1-year commitment and he decides to keep the troops there a little longer. How long is a little longer-- 14 years? How many years were we in Vietnam? The Senator in the chair knows we went there in 1961 to help the South Vietnamese get control of their government against the communist onslaught from the North, and 12 years later we left. And 2 years after that, the North Vietnamese tanks rolled back into South Vietnam. We saw it in Somalia. If you do not like the Vietnamese example, you think that is too hard on the President, to look at. It is easy to get the troops in. It is a little tough to get them out, though. The troops are deploying to this treacherous terrain in the middle of the winter, dead winter. There is no infrastructure to support tens of thousands of soldiers. Towns that are being vacated by the Serbs under the peace agreement, told they had to vacate, are being burned and sacked and ravaged. Shermanesque; burned. What are they going to be living in? Tents? Is there housing over there? If they are not going to live in tents, and many of the houses are being burned, and we have thousands of refugees that the President says are going to come back home, with a shortage of housing, where are we going to quarter our troops? Did anybody think about that? How are we going to transport the heavy equipment in and around Bosnia with very few roads that are in shape to be able to pass on? Are we going to have to build those roads and build those bridges? While we are building roads and building bridges, who is going to be protecting the folks that are doing the building of the roads and bridges? The Senator from Tennessee a short while ago talked about this. At what point do we get sucked into the role of nation building? Nation building? He even used the term, the Senator from Tennessee, Senator Thompson, said ``nation creating.'' Arbitrarily, we take a map in Dayton, OH, and we say: ``Here is a line here. Here is a line over here. If you are a Serb, you live on this side of the line. If you are a Moslem, you live over here. If you are a Croat, you live here. If three of you live in the same town, we will split the town up a little bit.'' That did not work in Berlin and it is not going to work here. It is not going to work here. So we are going to have to nation build. What happens when we leave? What about the Russian brigade that will be serving alongside American forces? There is going to be a Russian brigade of soldiers serving alongside American forces. I can hear the President now. ``That's great. We can work with the Russians.'' Whose side are the Russians on? Who have they been sympathetic to all these years? The Serbs. What have we been doing to the Serbs for the past few months under this President's policy? Bombing the blazes out of them. Are the Russians going to sit back and allow the Moslems the opportunity to achieve military parity? Are they going to let that happen with their clients, the Serbs? I don't think so. And what happens--I am asking a lot of interrogatories here, but there are a lot of lives at stake, and we ought to ask these interrogatories. If we had asked them in the Vietnam war, we would not have lost 58,000 people. What if the Russians do not view us as being evenhanded, and they take action to enhance, to boost the Serbs? What happens then? What happens when the Russians and the Americans have a flareup over who is supporting whom? What happens then? How do we increase the military capability of the Moslems without involving or jeopardizing the security of American ground forces? I remember this debate a couple of years ago. We were talking about it during the Bush administration. We were talking about it during the Clinton administration. The words ``ground forces in Bosnia'' was like raking your fingers across a blackboard. It just sickened you to think of. You could just feel how much it hurt just to think about it. I never believed that we would get to this point. Yet here we are. Even if the U.S. forces are not actually delivering the weapons, and even if they are not training the Moslems, how do we avoid being linked to the Moslems? The Serbs know we are linked to the Moslems. They know that. So, ironically, you have a situation where it could be beneficial to the Moslems to instigate some attack and blame it on the Serbs. Or vice versa. It could happen. What do we do then? Is this Lebanon all over again? Do you remember Lebanon? (Mr. BROWN assumed the chair.)

Mr. SMITH. Another question. What about the thousands--and I mean thousands--of Iranian fundamentalists who are already in the region supporting the Bosnian Moslems? They are not exactly our best friends, Iranian fundamentalists. How do we defend against terrorism or sabotage from these professed anti-American forces? Do you see what we have put our American troops into? Is that what they are trained to do? Is that why they went to Ranger school? Is that why they joined the Marines and became pilots and learned to fight for the security of their country? Is that what they did it for? Is that what they were trained to do? Since I have had a lot of ``what abouts'' here, what about the Croats? How do they fit into this mix, a very fragile mix? How will they view the buildup of Moslem military capabilities? Are they going to be supportive? Or are they going to be threatened? Will they be emboldened to reignite hostilities against the Serbs, knowing that U.S. troops are in their corner either directly or indirectly? Who knows? Let me go to the final question. What about the cost, not only in American lives or the possibility of lost American lives--and one life, one, is too many; one life. We have already spent billions on military operations in and around the Adriatic. Navy steaming hours, rescue operations, no-fly-zone enforcement, offensive military operations, and now the preliminary ground deployments have been enormously expensive. This has been taxing the military over and over again. Mr. President, 911 in Somalia, 911 in Haiti, 911 in Cuba, 911 now in Bosnia. You think those dollars do not come from somewhere? You think they do not come out of training? Or housing? Or something? Some military equipment? Flying hours? You bet they do. What does this President want to do? Cut the defense budget. Do not give them the $7 billion; we do not need it. Cut it. Do not sign the defense bill. Threaten us. We have been threatened for the last 3 months by administration personnel here, and I know because I am on the Armed Services Committee and I have been involved in those threats. ``We are not going to sign it if you do not do this or you do not do that.'' The administration estimates the 1-year cost in dollars will be an additional $2 billion. How are we going to pay for this? What other programs will become the bill payer? How is readiness being affected? How will this deployment affect our ability to fight and win two major regional contingencies, as called for in the Bottom-Up Review conducted by this President? That means two major contingencies. It means, for example, if war broke out in the Persian Gulf and war broke out in Korea, just to use an example, that is two different regions of the world. We are supposed to be able to go right out there and take care of ourselves and protect our interests in both of those regions, while we are cutting the military, while we are cutting readiness, and cutting operation and man-hours. And if the President does not sign the authorization bill, even giving these kids a pay raise to go risk their lives in Bosnia--we are not talking about a big raise either. The American people need to understand that some of the kids who are going to Bosnia are probably on food stamps because they do not make enough money, so they are eligible for food stamps. It is food for thought, Mr. President, before you send them over there. I just listed a few dozen of the unanswered questions surrounding this debate, and we will not get the answers before we send our troops over there because they are already being sent there. We are supposed to rubber stamp it. Without substantive answers to these questions, it is irresponsible for the Clinton administration to be committing--let alone actually acting to deploy--thousands of United States troops in Bosnia. If you think of the Somalia situation, when we lost a group of Army Rangers because we did not even have basic equipment because we did not have access to it, we had to ask for it from one of our allies. That was a small operation--a small operation. This is a big operation with thousands of American troops in harm's way without having basic questions answered. Do you think that President Roosevelt would have sent troops in World War II or President Truman would have sent troops to Korea without having these questions answered? Of course not. Of course not. President Bush in the Persian Gulf had the questions answered before he went. He knew what the mission was. That mission was very simple: drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait. And he was criticized for not going into Baghdad and killing Saddam Hussein. That is easy to criticize after the fact, but that was not the mission. The mission was to drive them out of Kuwait, which is what they did. Can somebody tell me what the mission is here? Again, peacekeeping, peacemaking? What is it? I oppose as firmly, as adamantly, as strenuously, and as strongly as I can sending American soldiers on the ground into Bosnia. I do not believe the President has articulated a clearly defined mission. I do not believe he has articulated a rationale. And I believe as deeply in my heart as I can that it is a terrible, terrible mistake to send America's finest to police this region, to intercede and to take sides in a centuries-old conflict. And if we get out of there and we do not take casualties and we accomplish it, God bless us. I hope that happens. But is it worth the risk? And the answer is, no, it is not, and the American people know it. We are taking sides in this case. We are not going in there as strictly peacekeepers. We have already taken sides, just as we did in Somalia, and we paid for it when one of the warlords, Aideed, attacked our troops, just as we did in Lebanon when we took casualties. In each case, we paid a terrible price--a terrible price. When are we going to learn from the mistakes of the past? When are we going to learn from history? I hate to say this, but I like to call it like it is. It is something that just makes it worse for me, and people are going to accuse me of taking a cheap shot. And I am not; I am just stating a fact. This President, when he was called to go to Vietnam, went to Europe and protested the war. He now is ordering these people into combat-- possible combat, possible harm's way--without a mission clearly defined and without the support of the American people. There is no small irony there, Mr. President. If we authorize this misguided deployment, and I know we will, or, even worse, if we acquiesce in it, and I know we will, we are just as culpable for its consequences as the President who sent them there-- just as culpable. I ask my colleagues to think it over very carefully. Are you prepared to accept the responsibility for what may occur there? Are the potential costs worth it in dollars, in lives? What do we gain? If we are successful--and I think any reasonable person would say we might have a few years of peace, maybe, if we are lucky--we have a lot to lose, a whole lot to lose. I have two teenaged sons. I can tell you I have weighed the pros and cons. They are not of military age yet, but they are not far away. No matter how I do the math, no matter how I do the math, each time I come up with one inescapable conclusion: We should not be sending America's finest to Bosnia. And I have to ask myself, would I want to send them there? If the answer to that question is ``no''--and it is--then I am not going to send anybody else's there with my vote. Bosnia is not our home. It is a terrible tragedy. It is not our security in jeopardy. It is not our fight. When I think of the blood that we shed for Europe over the years, what we did in literally liberating the continent of Europe, half of it, how could we be criticized for passing on this one, Mr. President? Does that make us isolationist? Give me a break. We cannot afford, nor do we have the moral authority, to be the world's policeman. The world's leader, yes; the world's policeman, no. This is a European conflict. The Europeans themselves ought to resolve it, and they can resolve it. It has nothing to do with NATO-- nothing at all to do with NATO. It is a phony issue. The NATO charter does not even mention Bosnia. They are not members of NATO. NATO talks about collective security, collective response when one of the nations of NATO are attacked. It has nothing to do with NATO. Do not listen to that phony argument. It is not about isolationism. It is not about internationalism. It is about the proper role of the Armed Forces in international affairs. That is what it is about: the proper role of the Armed Forces in international affairs. It is about keeping faith with the men and women who so selflessly serve our Nation in uniform day in and day out, deployed all over the world. That is what this is about. During this century, we spent hundreds of billions dollars defending Europe against communism and against fascism. We sacrificed hundreds of thousands of American lives in Europe in World War I and World War II. Then, after we finished, we spent billions more under the Marshall Plan to rebuild it, and then we fought the cold war. We maintained a robust military presence in Europe throughout that cold war, and we equipped our NATO allies with sophisticated state-of-the-art aircraft and weaponry. And they can use it along with their forces to end this conflict, if they think they can end it. We have done our part. We have done it. How can anybody accuse us of being isolationist because we do not support sending American forces into Bosnia after all we have done for Europe? We have earned the right--we have earned it--to sit this one out. There is no reason that our allies cannot begin assuming a more direct role in European security, and certainly no reason they cannot handle the Bosnian peacekeeping mission on their own. It is another 20,000 of their troops. That is all. And, if not, if this operation requires the full combat power of the United States of America because somehow this threatens the security of Europe, then we are really talking about something much larger than a peacekeeping mission, are we not? My colleagues, please, consider this very carefully. The American people are watching. Lives hang in the balance. Perhaps the moral essence of America hangs in the balance, just like it did when we deserted our people in Vietnam while they died and we protested in the streets. They are the ones who will be in harm's way. They are the ones who are going to be in the mud and the cold and the slush while we stand on the floor of the Senate debating. They are the ones who will be away from their families at Christmas, missing their kids--not us. They are the ones who will be vulnerable to millions of landmines all over that country, put out there by all sides of the conflict. They are going to be vulnerable to anti-American fundamentalists roving the countryside. They are the ones who are going to be subjected to bitter hatred of combatants who have seen their friends and families butchered before their eyes. Peace and reconciliation in Bosnia is a lofty goal, and I give the President credit for wanting it, as we all want it. But is it something that American sons and daughters should die for? Is it? Because that is the question. There is no other question that we deal with in this debate that matters except that one when you make that vote. Is it something that those men and women should die for, whether they do or not? And let us pray they do not, but the question is, is it something they should die for? And I submit with the greatest respect to the President, the Commander in Chief, and to my colleagues, the answer to that question is no, it is not. Let me end on one final observation. I vigorously oppose this policy, as I have said. But irrespective of the outcome of this debate, I will do everything in my power to ensure the safety and security of our troops. Reasonable people can disagree on policy, as many of us do here today, but I will tell you one thing, if this President sends them there, which he is going to do, this Senator is not going to be silent if he hoists that veto pen and decides to veto the defense bill of the United States of America. No, this Senator is not going to be silent. This Senator is going to speak up head to head with this President if he pulls that stunt. That is not going to happen without the American people being fully aware of what is going on. As Americans, we must support these men and women, whether we disagree with the policy of the President or not. If he sends them there, we have to support them. But we do not have to give him cover by saying he said he was going to send them there; therefore, let us vote and give him the cover. We need to make the President understand it is a mistake. Maybe he will change his mind. This is the chance we have, the only chance we will have. We must support them and provide a unified base of support to ensure their safe and expeditious return home, not like when I was in Vietnam and read about the protests. They have earned it. They are the best. That is the sad, bitter irony of this whole debate. These are the best, the best of America that are going into harm's way. These are not criminals. They are not people who are dregs of society somewhere, castoffs, failures. These are the best. These are the people who go to the military academies, and I nominate them every year, as do all of my colleagues. These are the best that we are sending into harm's way, and they will have my support if they go, but I will be doggone if I am going to cave in because somebody made a commitment 2 years ago that was wrong, that will put them in harm's way. Mr. President, in closing, just let me say, I pray that God watches over our men and women in this policy that I bitterly oppose, and I hope that my colleagues will rise to the occasion and send a very strong message, and that message is sent here in this Hutchison resolution because it says very clearly that we oppose you going, we oppose sending troops, Mr. President, but we will support them if you send them. That is a responsible action, and I hope that the President will heed the debate here and change his mind before it is too late. I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, let me just say, for the benefit of my colleagues, I am not going to prolong the debate on this second-degree amendment. I know Senator Pryor has some comments and Senator DeWine wants to speak. I do not know of any others. But if others are going to speak, hopefully, they will come to the floor and we can expedite this matter as quickly as possible. This amendment requires hearings on the relationship between GATT patent laws and the FDA Hatch-Waxman law relating to prescription drugs. At the outset, let me say I would have preferred not to have this bill, become a Christmas tree for nongermane amendments. It was hopeful that we would not have nongermane amendments. But the underlying Pryor amendment dealing with pharmaceutical products, GATT, and patent protections has nothing to do with partial-birth abortion. However, I recognize the right my colleague has to offer such an amendment, and I respect that. I hope that we will not spend a lot of time on this and delay this bill. We saw the same tactic a few weeks ago, and it seems to me that maybe there is some reluctance to face the issue at hand. Mr. President, this second-degree amendment calls for hearings in the Judiciary Committee to look into this issue. I say to my colleague from Arkansas that it is an important issue and deserves a hearing, and I recognize that. I recognize that the Senator has a legitimate interest in this. I hope that it will not delay a vote on the bill, as other Senators have expressed interest to me--or have asked me whether or not there would be a vote tonight on final passage of the partial-birth bill. I am prepared to do that at any time. I do not know specifically of other amendments, but you never know. If this second-degree amendment fails or if any other Senators are going to try to load the bill up, we will have to be offering second- degree amendments on all kinds of things from sex selection to Down's syndrome, and Lord knows what. Let's hope we do not get into all that. Hopefully, Mr. President, why don't we just vote and move on and see where the votes fall on this bill. If we want to talk about patent protections, come to the hearing and testify about patent protections. Then when the Senate is ready to vote on that, when we can come down and debate it. It is a very complicated issue, patents and trade. I don't think it ought to go through the Senate in a hurry without having an opportunity to hear from both sides. The Senator from Arkansas voted a couple weeks ago to have a hearing on partial-birth abortion, and we did. I was not originally in favor of it, I admit, but we did have the hearing. I did reconsider my views and allowed it to be sent to the committee. I hope the Senator from Arkansas will do the same. I urge my colleagues if there is a vote to vote for the Smith amendment so we can have a full hearing under this issue of patent protection. I yield the floor.

Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed.

Mr. SMITH. Madam President, the House of Representatives recently voted overwhelming by a two-thirds majority to ban partial-birth abortion. The vote on the ban was 288-139. This is not a radical extreme bill. It was supported by liberal Democrats such as Patrick Kennedy; liberal Republicans, moderate Republicans, such as Susan Molinari; pro-choice, pro-life. It is not a radical bill. Rich Gephardt supported it and others. We have added a life-of-the-mother exception which was requested by some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We did that. I hope we can get a similar, bipartisan overwhelming majority here in the Senate like we had in the House to stop what I believe is a very cruel practice. Let me conclude on this point, because Senator Boxer and I have been debating this on and off for several days now. The photograph that is being displayed here is of a woman who went through a terrible ordeal. We all know that. We have great sympathy for what she went through. But she did not have the partial-birth abortion. She did not have a partial-birth abortion. This would not have stopped the procedure that Coreen Costello had. I urge my colleagues to vote for final passage. I yield the floor.

Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SMITH. The Senator is correct.

Mr. SMITH. The Senator is correct. That is correct.

Mr. SMITH. The Senator from Colorado is correct. This bill would only cover those circumstances where someone intentionally delivers part of a living baby through the cervyx and into the birth canal.

Mr. SMITH. The Senator from Colorado is correct. ``Partially vaginally delivers'' means the physician delivers part of the baby through the cervyx and into the birth canal.

Mr. SMITH. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, so we all understand, the Feinstein substitute amendment is the killer amendment. It simply guts the bill. The earlier amendment was the Boxer amendment, which was defeated. This amendment, no less than the Boxer amendment before it a short while ago, is the partial-birth abortion-on-demand amendment. And this amendment would totally eliminate the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. So if you support the bill, and you voted no on the Boxer amendment, you should vote no on the Feinstein amendment because it would replace the bill with current law. Current law is partial-birth abortion on demand--I might add, through all 9 months of pregnancy for whatever reason. In other words, Mr. President, if you want to go back on what you voted for, what you support, the partial-birth abortion ban, then you would have to vote for Feinstein. In essence and in conclusion, this is a gutting amendment. It goes back to current law. It just eliminates the entire bill. For that reason, obviously, we oppose it, and I encourage all of those who voted no on Boxer who want the partial-birth abortion ban as described in our legislation to vote no on the Feinstein amendment. At this point, unless my colleagues would like some of my time--I would be happy to yield it--I have no further desire for time.

Mr. SMITH. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from California who is waiting to go on her amendment, briefly I will do the affirmative defense amendment and then be ready for her amendment. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SMITH. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SMITH. We have no objection to the Brown amendment.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, in view of the fact that the Senate adopted the life-of-the-mother exception amendment, the affirmative defense section of the bill is no longer necessary and I had agreed that we would remove that provision, providing the life-of-the-mother exception prevailed. Since it did prevail, this amendment would strike the entire subsection E of the bill which talks about the affirmative defense to a prosecution or a civil action. So, it is my understanding that the Senator from California agrees with this amendment, so unless the Senator wishes to speak, I urge its adoption.

Mr. SMITH. I move to table the motion. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3090 (Purpose: To limit liability under this act to the physician performing the procedure involved)

Mr. SMITH. The Senator from Colorado is correct. As far as I know, there is no objection on this side, and I do not believe there are any objections on the other side.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, to recap for all Members, we expect two additional votes to occur within the next 40 minutes. That is the essence of it. [[Page S 18223]] Amendment No. 3085

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I have a unanimous-consent request here, and I think Members will be interested in hearing it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the disposition of the Pryor amendment, the following be the only amendments remaining in order and limited to the following time restraints: The Brown amendment No. 3085, 5 minutes equally divided; a Feinstein amendment, supporting current law, 35 minutes, 20 minutes under the control of Senator Feinstein, 15 minutes under the control of Senator Smith; a Brown limiting liability amendment, 15 minutes equally divided; a Smith affirmative defense amendment, 5 minutes equally divided. I further ask that the votes be stacked to occur on or in relation to the above-listed amendments at the conclusion or yielding back of all time, and that prior to the votes, there be 4 minutes equally divided for closing remarks on the bill, with the votes occurring in the order in which they were debated, and following disposition of the amendments, the bill be advanced to third reading, and final passage occur, all without further action or debate.

Mr. SMITH. Will the Senator yield for a unanimous-consent request?

Mr. SMITH. Madam President, let me just say that no matter what the pros and cons are of this amendment it is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Regardless of how you feel about GATT or the patent protections, let us not load this historic bill up with this controversial unrelated amendment. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the motion to table.

Mr. SMITH. Madam President, is there any time remaining?

Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.