[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 6] [House] [Pages 7784-7796] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]AUTHORIZING PRESIDENT TO CONDUCT MILITARY AIR OPERATIONS AND MISSILE STRIKES AGAINST FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 5 of House Resolution 151, I call up from the Speaker's table the Senate concurrent resolution (S. [[Page 7785]] Con. Res. 21) authorizing the President of the United States to conduct military air operations and missile strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kolbe). The Clerk read the title of the Senate concurrent resolution. The text of Senate Concurrent Resolution 21 is as follows: S. Con. Res. 21 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That the President of the United States is authorized to conduct military air operations and missile strikes in cooperation with our NATO allies against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 5 of House Resolution 151, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) will each control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson). Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, some of our colleagues are distributing a letter that frankly is, I am sure, unintentionally inaccurate. I would hope that every Member of this body, before they vote, reads the five line resolution. This five line resolution is not an authorization for ground forces, and I will ask my colleagues to listen as I read it, because it is only five lines. The resolution that has come from the Senate says: ``The President of the United States is authorized to conduct military air operations and missile strikes in cooperation with our NATO allies against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.'' It says nothing else. Make it clear. Members should vote however they believe is correct, but they should do it based on the facts. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) control my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Connecticut? There was no objection. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) will control the remainder of the time allotted to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson). General Leave Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject matter under consideration, S. Con. Res. 21. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from New York? There was no objection. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as I have previously indicated, I am prepared to support statutory authorization for appropriate measures necessary to achieve all of our objectives in Kosovo. Accordingly, I support this resolution, although I consider it to be only a halfway measure. It is not a statutory authorization, even though it purports to be such, and it addresses itself only to the present military air operation by NATO in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As I previously stated, I believe that it would be both timely and prudent for the administration to come to the Congress with a request for statutory authorization for any and all measures necessary to bring about our stated objectives in Kosovo. We do not want to encourage Mr. Milosevic to believe that our Nation is not prepared to pursue victory, and we do not want him to believe that he can wait us out and his will is superior to our manifest determination in this matter. I believe that this measure advances, in a modest way, our determination of support for an end to the brutality in Kosovo and, accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support this measure. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 21. The Congress needs to have a voice in the involvement of the United States in Operation Allied Force. We should stand up and express our support for our troops and our allies in NATO. We must also take this opportunity to show to President Milosevic that we are united in our belief and determination that this campaign of terror must be stopped. We must continue to work with our NATO allies to restore peace to the region, to ensure that the Kosovo Albanians who want to return to their homes can be allowed to do so under peaceful circumstances, and we must continue to ensure that Mr. Milosevic will withdraw his military and paramilitary forces from Kosovo and, ultimately, provide for self-governance in Kosovo. To accomplish these goals we must participate in Operation Allied Force and support the air strikes. We are steadily diminishing the power of Mr. Milosevic and his military forces. For the United States to withdraw from this attack at this moment would undermine the entire NATO effort and would, in effect, validate Mr. Milosevic's inexcusable and terrible campaign of ethnic cleansing. {time} 1845 Our NATO allies have stepped up to the plate in Kosovo. Leaders of the NATO alliance have recently reaffirmed their commitment and resolve to continue the air strikes until we stop President Milosevic. This is the time for Congress to step up and to endorse those air strikes. The Senate concurrent resolution authorizes the President to conduct military air operations and missile strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Passage of this resolution will express our endorsement of these strikes and send a strong message to President Milosevic that we are unified with our allies. This will also send a strong message to our troops in the field. Fifty years ago we formed NATO to work together for the security of Europe. The cold war has ended and communism has ended. However, there is a great need for us to work to assure the safety and stability of countries in Europe who have been our partners for over 50 years. We can continue this good work by adopting this resolution today, sending a message that we are united as a country and determine our resolve to stop the slaughter in Kosovo. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished majority whip. Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. I hope Members will think very seriously about this resolution, because what this resolution says is that this House is about to take ownership in what the President has put us into since he started bombing Kosovo. So I think we should think very, very seriously whether we are going to take ownership of the bombing of Kosovo. Let us go back a little ways. Let us go back to even the negotiations in Rambouillet. I do not think many Members of this House have even read the provisions of the peace agreement in Rambouillet. One of the provisions of the peace agreement was that Milosevic had to agree to allow foreign troops, the peacekeeping troops, to have free reign over the entire country of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo, but the entire country of Yugoslavia, which put Milosevic in a very untenable situation. No wonder he was not going to sign this agreement. Then the Secretary of State, who believes in bombing to support her diplomacy, decides that we are going to bomb him to the peace table and make him sign something that would actually slit his throat with his own people. Then after trying to force him with bombing, and I remind Members of the briefings that we had with this administration, the first briefings, that frankly scared me to death because those briefings with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told us that this was no big deal, [[Page 7786]] that we were going to bomb for a couple of days, 48 hours, and then stop bombing and Milosevic would come to the table. When asked the question, what if he does not come to the table, they said, well, we will go to Phase 2; and Phase 2 is that we will bomb for a few more days. Then he will be going to the table, by crackie. And when we asked, ``Then, what?'' then they said, well, we will bomb for another week and that will force him to come to the table and this will be all over with. And then when we asked, ``Then, what?'' there was silence. This administration started a war without a plan farther along than 2 weeks. And Phase 3. That is what brought us to the bombing, my colleagues. Once they started bombing and found out that Milosevic was a pretty tough customer and that the Serbian people were pretty tough people that have been through these kind of things before, and some people have said that the Germans had something like 20 divisions in Yugoslavia trying to route the Serbians out of those mountains and those caves, and they could not do it. So what they are doing here is they are voting to continue an unplanned war by an administration that is incompetent of carrying it out. I hope my colleagues will vote against the resolution. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran). Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, there are three reasons why it is legitimate, why our actions in Yugoslavia should be authorized by this Congress: Number one, the strength of NATO; number two, our experience with Milosevic; and number 3, the alternative of doing nothing. It is in our vital interest that there be a strong and resolute NATO. Think of the hundreds of thousands of innocent soldiers, sailors, and airmen that were lost in Europe because we did not have NATO when we needed NATO. We need NATO now. We need to act with NATO. We need a strong NATO. And if we do, we will not have to be the world's peacekeeper in the future. Second, our experience with Milosevic, because NATO did not get involved when it had an opportunity, such as in 1992, when it was recommended; what resulted, with the same leadership, Mr. Milosevic, 200,000 lives were lost, 2\1/2\ million people were displaced, 40,000 women were raped. It could have been prevented had NATO acted when it had the opportunity. But thirdly, think of the alternative. This is the fault line, my colleagues, between the Muslim and the Orthodox worlds. This is the fault line that has existed for generations. If we had not gotten involved in a multilateral action, NATO taking the leadership, think what would have happened. Extremists would have been involved. We know what Milosevic was going to do, why he had 40,000 troops amassed on the border, why he did not want to compromise at Rambouillet, because he knew exactly what he was going to do; and he did it. But if he had done that and NATO had not gotten involved, do my colleagues really think other nations would have stood by? Of course they would not have. We would have had the Mujahidin getting involved. We would have had Islamic extremists getting involved. And do my colleagues really think Russia then would not have gotten involved if there had not been the strength of NATO taking the leadership here? My colleagues, we are doing the only responsible thing. This is not the United States acting unilaterally. We are acting multilaterally. We are acting with NATO. We are acting in the long-term interests of this country. We are doing the right thing, for a number of reasons. And the Congress should be supporting it. They should vote ``aye'' today. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Commerce. Mr. BLILEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address my colleagues, particularly on this side of the aisle. We can question whether we should have ever gone in. But we are in. And if we do not win, we might as well withdraw from NATO, fold it up, because the credibility will be gone. The message that we send to Saddam, to Iran, to Qadhafi, to Korea, to China, to Russia, is that we do not have the resolution, we do not have the will. Think about it. This past Saturday, I was privileged to have lunch with two foreign policy experts, Henry Kissinger and Ziggy Brzezinski. I posed these questions to them. They said, send me a letter and we will reply. And Dr. Kissinger sent this response to me: Prior to the initiation of the bombing, I repeatedly expressed my uneasiness about the Rambouillet process. But, having begun the military operation, we must win it militarily. To back down would demonstrate a dangerous lack of commitment and credibility, both to nations tempted to take advantage of our perceived weakness and to our NATO allies. From Dr. Brzezinski: I have your letter of April 26. Let me state unequivocally that in my view it is absolutely essential that NATO should prevail fully, and thus without making any compromises regarding the demand it made prior to the bombing, in the course of the current Kosovo conflict. Failure to do so would be most damaging to America's global leadership and would doubtlessly undermine both the credibility and the cohesion of NATO. Accordingly, the U.S. Congress should encourage the President to use all means necessary to successfully complete the ongoing mission. I could not say it any better. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the letters to which I referred. Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington, DC, April 28, 1999. Hon. Tom Bliley, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Bliley: I have your letter of April 26. Let me state unequivocally that in my view it is absolutely essential that NATO should prevail fully--and thus without making any compromises regarding the demands it made prior to the bombing--in the course of the current Kosovo conflict. Failure to do so would be most damaging to America's global leadership and would doubtlessly undermine both the credibility and the cohesion of NATO. Accordingly, the U.S. Congress should encourage the President to use all the means necessary to successfully complete the ongoing mission. Yours sincerely, Zbigniew Brzezinski. ____ New York, NY, April 27, 1999. Hon. Tom Bliley, House of Representatives, Rayburn Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Representative Bliley: This is in response to your letter of yesterday. Prior to the initiation of the bombing, I repeatedly expressed my uneasiness about the Rambouillet process. But, having begun the military operation, we must win it militarily. To back down would demonstrate a dangerous lack of commitment and credibility, both to nations tempted to take advantage of our perceived weakness and to our NATO allies. I have stated this view repeatedly and publicly--in an article in Newsweek and in my recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee (both of which I enclose), as well as in numerous television interviews: ABC's ``This Week'' with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts, CNN, Fox News, Charlie Rose, CNBC, Reuters TV, as well as the BBC, ARD (German TV), Britain's ITN and various other American and European networks. I would be glad to have you refer to this letter in the coming debate in the House of Representatives, if it would be useful. I enjoyed our discussion at luncheon at the Romanian Embassy. Sincerely, Henry A. Kissinger. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, one of the truest sayings is that ``second place does not count on the battlefield.'' We are engaged in a conflict to bring the Europeans' last dictator into light. It has to be a victory for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It has to be a victory for the United States to bring Milosevic to the table, to do what is right by the refugees, to get them back to their home, to make sure there is autonomy for these people. But more than that, it is a matter of credibility for NATO and for the United States. If the world perceives NATO, led by our country, not winning and not being [[Page 7787]] successful in this effort, NATO will then become a paper-debating society. That we cannot have. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), a member of our committee. Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution, even though I am not opposed to air strikes philosophically in the Balkans as a vehicle to achieving American policy. Unfortunately, the policy of this administration, which includes air strikes, has been confusing and sometimes incoherent. Air strikes as part of a policy that would recognize Kosovo, and part of that policy would be arming the Kosovars to defend themselves, certainly might have been a respectable plan at one point. Instead, this administration is using bombing to force both parties into accepting a plan in which American troops would be garrisoned in the Balkans for years and years to come. This is total nonsense. And we will be spending tens of billions of dollars and putting American lives at stake in order to achieve what? The garrisoning of troops, leaving the troops in the Balkans all of those years? This is a blank check, my colleagues. This resolution is a blank check for an air war which will lead to tens of billions of dollars and American blood being shed. And do my colleagues know where that check is going to be cashed? It will be cashed at the bank that is holding the money for the Social Security Trust Fund. It is going to be cashed at the bank that is supposed to be paying for the defense of our country all over the world. Because we are going to be spending the money, instead of buying ammunition and making sure our defenders are safe overseas, we are going to be wasting that money in the Balkans on big explosions. It is going to make us worse off. We are not going to be as safe. And as far as NATO goes, this is an organization that did its job. Are we now to be the policemen of the world? And because we are part of NATO, to keep an organization going, finding a purpose for it, we are going to spend our money all over the world, send our troops all over the world, in order to create stability wherever there is not stability? American lives are going to be put on the line? This will, in the end, cost American lives. It will break our bank. We will not be able to deter the aggression in Asia and from China and elsewhere where there are serious threats. Oppose this resolution. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Sisisky). Mr. SISISKY. Mr. Speaker, I support Senate Concurrent Resolution 21. The reason I could not support the other alternatives is because I think it would be wrong to withdraw. I also believe it would be wrong to hamstring our Commander in Chief's authority to conduct operations. And finally, I believe it would be wrong to declare war. My major concern is that all of these options send the wrong signal. Neither with respect to NATO nor President Milosevic should we even hint that we might withdraw block funds for further development. {time} 1900 Nothing would make Milosevic happier than knowing the power and the might of the United States would no longer be fully engaged. By the same token, we should never suggest to our own forces that our full support for their effort may be less than forthcoming. What we need to do is to authorize the continuation of the current effort and give the current effort more time to work. Mr. Speaker, I have said it before. You cannot run the Department of Defense like a business, with 535 Members of a board of directors. The same thing goes for foreign policy and military operations. You cannot substitute the opinions of these board members for the sound judgment of Chairman Shelton and General Clark and Secretary Cohen and, yes, the Commander in Chief. We should not get into the details of whether ``you can do this mission, but you can't do that mission.'' That is like the Vietnam War with the President choosing Vietnam targets on sand tables in the White House basement. It was wrong then, it is wrong now, and Congress should not be part of it. What Congress should do is to affirm or deny the general policy and turn over the details to the war fighters. I believe that the Gejdenson amendment, which has already gotten bipartisan support in the other body, makes the best sense in the current situation. I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I just want to point out one thing. All we are doing in all of these resolutions today is sending messages. I think we have sent some pretty strong messages. I imagine tonight if there is a television capability in Belgrade that the Belgrade television will say Congress, U.S. Congress votes 430-2 against war against Yugoslavia. But with respect to this particular message that we are sending, we mention in this resolution, Montenegro. I do not think that there is a Member of this body who thinks that we should be bombing Montenegro. I agree that we should be bombing Belgrade, and I support the President in that respect. But I do not think we ought to send a message to the people of Montenegro that this Congress is in favor of bombs being dropped in that part of the world because they indeed are struggling, struggling to create a democratic form of government, struggling to do what we are requesting they do. I think that if we send a message, we should make certain that the people of Montenegro know that we are supportive of their efforts and sorry they are in the dilemma they are in. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the distinguished minority leader. Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask each Member to seriously consider voting for this resolution. As I enter this debate, I think it is worthwhile tonight at 7 o'clock here in Washington to take into account the votes that we have taken and the messages that we have sent from this Chamber this afternoon, today. First, we have said that we do not want a general declaration of war against Serbia. Second, we have said that we do not want to withdraw all of our troops out of the region. Third, we have said that if there is to be a ground war, we want the President to come back here and get a vote from this body. If we now vote against what the Senate passed 4 weeks ago in a bipartisan way, a simple authorization of what is now happening on the ground in Kosovo and around Kosovo, we will send a message to our young men and women who are out there trying to carry out this policy that we have conflicting signals on war or withdrawal or what we are going to do about a ground war, but we send the clearest signal of the day that we do not even want to authorize what we are doing. It also will send a message to Mr. Milosevic and his leadership that the House of Representatives of the United States of America is totally confused and certainly is not behind what is happening. I do not think that is the message we want to send. If we learned anything from Vietnam, I think we should have learned that before we commit our troops and put them in the field and leave them out there with ambivalence, that we have to stand finally behind something. I know there are lots of worries by Members here about ground troops. I have worries about ground troops. I have not decided how I would vote on ground troops. But I have decided that what we are doing with 19 other nations of NATO is the right thing for our country to do. If it is to succeed, we must be unified together as a people, behind the effort, and America must be unified with NATO in its first affirmative action in 50 years, since it was conceived, to move forward to try to [[Page 7788]] end this killing and mayhem that is going on and has been going on for weeks now in Kosovo. I urge Members to put aside partisan feelings and political goals and objectives. That can have no place in this consideration. There is not a Republican Army or a Democratic Army or a Republican Air Force or a Democratic Air Force. This is the United States of America. Our young people, our best, are out there tonight doing what we have asked them to do. At the very least, we owe them and NATO an affirmation that we as the representatives of the American people at least support what is happening now, without prejudging or saying what we would do about other propositions that might come later. I urge Members to support this resolution. The Senate passed it 4 weeks ago with a bipartisan vote. Fifty-seven Members of the Senate voted for this resolution. I think it would be a grave error if we would not support it tonight. I urge Members to search their conscience, I urge Members to stand behind this policy for the sake of the United States, for the sake of our young people, for the sake of our future. Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Armed Services. Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the distinguished minority leader that this is not about partisanship, it is about policy. We have an advantage here tonight in that we are being asked to authorize something that happened 5 weeks ago. That gives us the advantage because we can see the immediate effects. We have got the benefit here of a crystal ball to see what the results will be of the President's policy. The question for all of us is, do you want to stand behind this? Is this the policy and the results that you want? Because if it is not, you will be endorsing everything that has gone on in the last 5 weeks and taking on the risk of what will happen in the future. What have we seen? The political aims are not clear and they have not been from the very beginning. Mostly they are humanitarian. Our objective was to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Balkans. We have exacerbated that humanitarian disaster, and hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians have been pushed out of their homes and those homes burned because our military means were not tied to those political objectives. I am a former Air Force officer. I believe in air power, as my father did and my grandfather before him. And despite the images that we see on our televisions of precise attacks, we can hit the bridges, but we cannot change the mind of Slobodan Milosevic. As a result, we have not been able to stop a door-to-door campaign of repression and ethnic cleansing, and we have made it worse. The refugees themselves enhance the instability of the Balkans. We have pushed those refugees into neighboring countries which themselves are fragile, and we will have to deal with the consequences of that for the coming decade. We have increased domestic support for Milosevic and enhanced Serbian nationalism in Serbia. That does not serve NATO interests or American national interests. And we have stretched our forces dangerously thin. We are almost out of cruise missiles. Fully a fifth of the American Air Force is committed and tied down in the Balkans. What kind of risk does that put us in in Korea? We are a superpower, but much of our power comes from our own restraint and the threat of the use of that power. NATO will endure. I used to serve at the United States Mission to NATO. It will continue to have the credibility to do that which is in its vital interests to do and that, Mr. Speaker, is the fundamental problem. This is not in the vital national interests of the United States. If it were, we would be there, foursquare, with decisive military force to get the job done and come home. But because it is not, we cannot sustain this operation. I will not vote to support an action which has been shown to fail. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy). Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I have a great deal of respect for our new colleague, the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) and her unique expertise, but I flat out disagree with her in a couple of important respects. I believe it is ludicrous to assume that but for the NATO air campaign, Slobodan Milosevic would not have turned 1 million people out of their homes. He could not, Mr. Speaker, forcibly evict 1 million people from their homes in 2 weeks without having a very thoroughly developed plan well in advance. Do not kid yourselves. This was on the game plan of Slobodan Milosevic and would have occurred irrespective of the NATO air campaign. I also disagree with my colleague in believing that it is time to pack it in, to let Slobodan Milosevic have his evil way. The gentlewoman from New Mexico supported that approach in a vote earlier today and it was rejected. We must now stand together, just like happened in the Senate, in a bipartisan way, to support the air campaign. A vote for this resolution, Mr. Speaker, is a vote for our troops, a vote for NATO, a vote for American leadership and a vote to end the ethnic slaughter in Kosovo. Children and the elderly are dying by the side of the road today as Serb forces shove them to the border. Thousands and thousands of young men have disappeared, many more murdered perhaps right now, even as I am speaking. We cannot turn our back on this dimension of ethnic cleansing. While we send an unequivocal message to Milosevic, let us send with this resolution an equally clear message to our troops and all of the troops, Americans and others, involved in the NATO engagement. We need to support our troops and can do so with this resolution. I regret and regret very much we have no alternatives but to continue with this intervention. It is now our only option. I urge my colleagues' support. Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), a member of the committee. Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Americans have big hearts. It is one of our best traits. Whenever we see killing anywhere, injustice anywhere, we want to stop it, even if our national interests are not at stake. On Kosovo, having good intentions and a bad plan have proven to hurt the very people we are trying to help. We have increased human suffering. We have not stopped it. We have spread instability rather than prevented it. With the lessons of the Vietnam War barely cold on our plates, here we go again. Like Vietnam, we wage a war we are not committed to win, by the seat of the pants, war by committee, war by posters, war by the politically correct. It is having fatal results. {time} 1915 Worst of all, we forgot the most important lesson of Vietnam. It is fatal to enter a war without the will to win it. Those who sought this war lack the political courage to win it. To aggressively target Slobodan Milosevic, his leaders in the Serbian Army he commands, they have forgotten what General MacArthur has told us. War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory. If a lethal criminal entered our home, entered our school, entered an airport, entered our neighborhood and began to gun down innocent families, it would be the first responsibility of law enforcement to stop them cold, now, to bring the shooter down without flinching. History will record in Kosovo an America that flinched, and the lives of Kosovars fell around us because we were unwilling and lacked the courage to bring the shooter down, the leaders, the Army and to end the atrocities. There is nothing humanitarian about a policy that puts American pilots' and fighters' lives on the line so that [[Page 7789]] Milosevic can live. There is nothing just about a policy that allows Kosovars to die cold and hungry and lonely on the side of the road while we preserve Serbian troops, our enemies, the killers on the very day American pilots flew into Yugoslavia. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank). Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I do not think we should flinch either, and I do not see how denying any authority to continue this is nonflinching. I want to pay tribute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) whose efforts forced this House against its will to stop hiding. There were 2 aspects to this issue. One, what is the policy choice in Yugoslavia? It is an unhappy choice. I believe that the policy of continued bombing in conjunction with our allies, and it is awkward to carry out an allied policy, but it is better than an unilateral one. When we accept the strength of an alliance, we take constraints with it. I think that is the best policy in a set of bad choices. The House now has to make a choice, and it is inappropriate for this great elected body of representatives, when confronted with a difficult choice, to say: None of the above. But if we vote down this resolution, that is what we are doing. Thanks to the efforts and the integrity of the gentleman from California who insisted we face up to our responsibilities, we voted. We voted not to pull out. Now 139 people who voted not to pull out can consistently vote against this. But are we to be told that there are dozens, maybe 100, 125 Members who do not think we should pull out but simply do not want to be blamed for staying in? We had one comment say: Oh, well, we should not take ownership of this. That is an inappropriate attitude for people who are elected. The draft does not work here. We all ran for this job, and a lot of it is fun, and sometimes it is not, and having to help ratify this unpleasant choice is one of those moments when it is the least fun, the least attractive. But we do not have the option of simply copping out. Members could be against this, they can be for it, but they cannot vote for none of the above. They cannot conscientiously say it is too hard, I will vote over here, and I will vote over there. I am delighted that we have a chance here to pass a concurrent resolution to have a combined policy, House and Senate, which says we support this current military policy. Members may be opposed to the military policy, and then they should have voted for the resolution offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell), or they can be in favor of it and they should vote for this. But punting is not an option; it is not football season. We cannot simply say: Let this one pass from us. I voted for the resolution offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling). I voted for it because I do think before we commit ground troops, this House ought to vote. But I must say I have some second thoughts about putting that authority into the hands of a group of people, some of whom say, ``Gee, can I duck the hard one?'', and that is what we are talking about now. If people thought the policy was wrong and we should pull out, they had a chance to vote that way. Mr. Speaker, I hope people will not simply try to duck a tough issue and will vote to ratify the least unpalatable choice. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough). Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the gentleman from Massachusetts I agree with him with the need for consistency, and I will consistently be opposing this action and will vote against it, and for several reasons. First of all, we had the minority leader talk earlier today about how this was, quote, the first affirmative action by NATO. What he is saying is actually this is a radical extreme departure in the history of NATO, the first time they have attacked on the offensive instead of being defensive. This is an extreme radical departure for NATO, make no mistake of it, and guess who is paying for that extremism and radicalism? It will be the men and women who are in my district, who are in five military bases, whose sons and daughters go to the public schools of my children. It is very easy to play fast and lose with military tradition, very easy to make an extreme radical departure for the first time in 50 years of a defensive alliance, but that is happening in this situation. We also see the ghosts of LBJ rising like from the mist of the Potomac where we have a President who is selecting bombing targets in a war. We have Madeleine Albright going on television, on PBS, declaring early on that this was going to be a short, clean, tidy war. These people do not know what they have gotten into. It is a 610- year-old ethnic war, civil war, religious war, and, yes, Milosevic is a murderer. He has murdered according to the New York Times 3700 people. But I see the selective outrage up here. I hear nothing about those that want to support the KLA who were murderous. I hear nothing about the 60 million killed in China over the past 50 years. I hear nothing about the 2 million killed in Sudan. Of course there is an oil pipeline that Occidental Petroleum wanted to get through Sudan, so I heard no moral outrage then. I hear no moral outrage about the 1 million people slaughtered in Rwanda. Of course they are not the same color as a lot of us. I mean let us not go here and beat our chests in moral self-righteous indignation if we are not willing to apply the same test to every region that we want to start wars in. I will oppose it. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos). Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Florida would have heard a great deal about all of those outrages had he been active in the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. The folks who cry crocodile tears for all these people who have been killed and tortured and murdered are nowhere to be seen when we are dealing with human rights issues. Mr. Speaker, the greatness of this country is measured by the moments when we act in a bipartisan fashion. It was the Marshall Plan, it was NATO, and it was all the bipartisan measures passed by our predecessors that created the great moments of American history in the 20th century. In the other body 16 of my colleagues' Republican colleagues, some of the most distinguished members of the Republican party, Senator John McCain, their most credible presidential candidate, Senator Lugar of Indiana, the foreign policy expert, Senator John Warner, head of the Armed Services Committee and 13 others voted for this identical resolution. They have risen to a high level of bipartisanship. Now I have some credentials along those lines. I stood up with President Bush 8 years ago and voted to support that President because I felt the national interest was at stake. It is no less at stake today. The blind hatred that is so apparent on the part of some of my colleagues towards this administration makes it impossible to make rational judgments. What we are asking for is to get our troops the feeling that the Congress is behind what they are doing day and night under the most difficult circumstances. That is all that this resolution calls for. And John McCain saw fit to vote for it, as did 15 other distinguished Republican senators. They have taken ownership, if I may borrow the phrase of the Republican whip, they have taken ownership of this measure because this is an American engagement. It is not a Republican or a Democratic engagement, just as the Marshall Plan was an American engagement and NATO was an American engagement. We are seeing a miracle unfold. Nineteen nations of the most disparate types are united, but our own House of Representatives has risen with division. Vote for this resolution. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich). [[Page 7790]] Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough). Mr. SCARBOROUGH. In response to some reckless words from the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) first of all, they were not crocodile tears. It was my resolution that passed on Sudan last year. My colleague can ask the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) or anybody else, that I have been on the forefront for human rights in China, and I challenge my colleague to check the Congressional Record over the past year and-a-half or 2 years. If anybody has spoken out more on human rights than myself, I would like my colleague to let me know. Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, it should be obvious that the President does not need this resolution to use air power because he is already using it. He needs Senate Con. Resolution 21 because, if it passes, both houses of Congress will have satisfied the War Powers Resolution to authorize force, and that effectively gives the President the power to wage an unlimited war even with ground troops. Section 5 of the War Powers Resolution states that the President must terminate the use of force after 60 days unless Congress, first, declares war; second, enacts explicit authorization of the use of force; or third, extends the 60-day period. Although Senate Con. Resolution 21 refers only to air war, it is an explicit authorization of force. The President will not be limited to only air war once the War Powers Resolution requirement is fulfilled. Since this resolution authorizes the President to conduct military operations against Yugoslavia in the air, its passage by the House is, in fact, a blank check for the President to wage war, not only to bomb, but to send ground troops. If Senate Con. Resolution 21 should fail, then the war in Yugoslavia will be limited to air war, which is what is now being waged, and no ground troops, and the President will have to get Congress' authorization to deploy ground troops at a later time. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest). Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) for yielding this time to me. I would like to start with a quote by a man called Jacob Brownoski that I think is apropos to this situation. In it he says there are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means, that deliberate deafness to suffering has become the monster of the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit where a nation becomes a nation of ghosts, obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts. The road to war is paved with unchecked ignorance, arrogance and dogma. What is our national interest in Yugoslavia? It is peace and stability in a democratic process where all men are created equal. It is in our national interest to check the road to war that has caused the dilemma that we are now in. I am going to vote in favor of this resolution. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the resolution before us this evening, and in doing so, yes, I want to stipulate to the work of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) for human rights in China, and let us say that everybody in this room cannot tolerate the atrocities, the brutality that Milosevic has exacted upon the people of Kosovo. {time} 1930 Let us not have a fight about anyone's sincerity on the issue. But in supporting this resolution, I want to say what it is not. This resolution is not a declaration of war. It is not a blank check for the President. It does not authorize the use of ground troops. In fact, I do not support ground troops in Yugoslavia. It is interesting though to hear those who have criticized President Clinton for taking ground troops off the table as an option now say that they do not support this because it could lead to the authorization of ground troops. It is interesting to hear the same people who want to double the appropriation from $6 billion to $12 billion and those are on the majority side of the aisle say they do not want to support the military action that that funding is being appropriated for. So how can we have it both ways? We criticize the President for no ground troops, but we do not want to support this resolution because it could lead to ground troops. We do not want to support this resolution because it supports the President's policy on the flights and the strikes, and yet we want to double the amount of money that is there. It reminds me of Yogi Berra who said of a restaurant, ``I don't like the food in that restaurant, and, besides, they don't give you enough.'' Mr. Speaker, let us sound a resounding vote of yes on this resolution, so Milosevic can hear it, so our flyers in the area can hear it, and for the children who are displaced in the region. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose). Mr. OSE. Mr. Speaker, I look around this room and I see my senior colleagues, like the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), and I realize very clearly that over the years as the baton has passed from one generation to the next in this political body, that those men and women who serve here manage to make sure that the young men and women who serve in our Armed Forces are used properly for vital national security interests. I am proud to be here as a new Member. I take very seriously my charge to vouchsafe and keep secure the interests of those young babies now who come to our country as new citizens from birth and what have you. And I absolutely do not understand, Mr. Speaker, what the vital national security interest that senior Members of this body on both sides of the aisle have protected for years and years, what national security interest it is that we are proposing to protect by conducting a unquantified and unidentified military campaign in Yugoslavia, whether it be in the air or on the ground. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards). Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the stability of Europe, which is supported by all of the NATO leaders, is very much in the interest of America's national security. I would also suggest that what is extreme and radical is not the action of our NATO allies. What is extreme and radical have been the actions of the modern day Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic. I do not think we should write a blank check in this matter, and this resolution does not. Let us be clear about that. What we can do in voting for this resolution though is check the power of someone who has killed not 3,700, but hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. How ironic it would be that the NATO leaders who left this Nation's capital just a few days ago unified to stand up to that reign of terror would have that unity now undermined by those of us who work in this Capitol. Let us recognize that if we stop the air war now, Milosevic wins, NATO loses; the ethnic cleanser wins, and Europe's stability loses. Every other two-bit terrorist in the world would be emboldened to emulate this modern day Holocaust. If this measure is defeated now, especially in light of the passage of the Fowler resolution earlier, what we will have done today is this: We have said we are not yet ready to support a ground war, and now we are not even sure we want to continue supporting an action of an air war supported unanimously by our NATO allies. Mr. Speaker, I would ask Members on both sides of the aisle, please, in a bipartisan vote, do not send this message [[Page 7791]] to Mr. Milosevic. Let us send him a clear message, that while we are not quite sure if we want to commit to ground troops today or any day, we do not believe that God's gift of life and liberty stops at the American border. Let us support this resolution. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood). Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I do not understand at all why we cannot have this debate with the clear feeling and understanding that this is not about politics, this is not about party. Some of us just think he is wrong, this is wrong-headed foreign policy. I believe that in my absolute soul. We do not need to be attacking from the air, we do not need to be attacking with ground troops. We need to get out of the Balkans. It is going to lead to a disaster that will carry us well into the 21st century, and primarily because it is not in our national interest. I totally disagree with that. Is it a humanitarian cause? Absolutely. And are there ways we should deal with that? Yes. But we need a leader, not a commander-in-chief. We needed a leader to deal with this with Europe. Many, many, many months now have gone by. I have been there and done this, Mr. Speaker. I watched this occur as a young man when we went to Vietnam. I did not question the Congress and I did not question the President. He said we needed to go, and I was ready to go. I will tell you another thing. Those of you who think this is such a clear-cut mission, perhaps if you are young enough, and I consider myself, maybe we ought to resign from Congress and go into the Balkans. Let us fight through the mountains over there with the Marines, if that is what you believe is so important; and if you are not young enough to go, send your sons. That is the question: Will you let your son die for humanitarian interests that we well should put on the backs of the Europeans? It is time for them to grow up. We need a leader who is sanctioning Britain and sanctioning France and talking to Russia and saying you guys have been burned down twice in this century, you need to be in the Balkans. You need to have peace. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to vote for this one minute, and I hope no one will, because I agree this may allow him to put ground troops in. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro). Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution. It is identical to the resolution passed by the other body in March. It expresses Congress' support for our forces caring out a brave mission. It sends an important message to Slobodan Milosevic that his savage campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kosovar Albanians will not be tolerated. Mr. Milosevic continues to wage war on ethnic Albanians. His acts of violence, mass murder of civilians, driving 950,000 people, whole communities, from their homes to refugee camps in foreign countries, have forced our hand. If left unchecked, he will continue his crimes in Kosovo. I heard a Member opposed to our mission in Kosovo earlier today compare this action to the Gulf War and say that the difference was that we had a national interest in the Gulf; oil. Well, I do not know the going rate for a barrel of oil today, but I do know that you can put no price on the lives of men, women and children who have been slaughtered in Kosovo. It is in our national interest to stop genocide. We have witnessed a grave humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and a destabilization of the region and neighboring countries like Macedonia and Albania. By endorsing air strikes now, Congress is not tying its hands in the future. Congress can still and I believe should vote on sending ground troops if we reach that point in the future. Vote to authorize air strikes in Yugoslavia. Let our young men and women in the Armed Forces know that our prayers and our support are with them as they fight to counter aggression and to foster peace. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler). Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. First, as was expressed by some of my colleagues in their concern earlier today on our first resolution when they had concerns with wording, I believe this resolution is very poorly drafted, and those that had that concern earlier I am sure must share that concern on this resolution, because it authorizes the President ``to conduct military air operations and missile strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.'' Now, this appears to authorize the President to conduct airborne operations; in other words, drop paratroopers into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It also authorizes the President to pursue ``missile strikes'' of an unspecified variety, which theoretically could include strategic weapons. Moreover, I oppose this measure because, as one of those in the leadership who met with the President twice prior to the bombing, I joined many of my colleagues from both parties in asking the President face-to-face to seek specific authorization from the Congress before proceeding with any air campaign. He ignored that request. Today I cannot in good conscience retroactively authorize him to do something that I did not support and that he undertook without regard for the Congress' responsibilities under the Constitution and the very direct bipartisan advice he received before he began the bombing. I urge a ``no'' vote on this resolution. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher). Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution to authorize United States involvement in the NATO air operations against Slobodan Milosevic's military force. It is both in our strategic and humanitarian interests to end the vicious ethnic cleansing campaign that Slobodan Milosevic is pursuing in Kosovo. His actions have threatened the stability of southern Europe, jeopardized our efforts to maintain peace in other parts of the Balkans and unleashed a flood of refugees into poor and underequipped nations in the region. It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that we must take action to end this tragedy. A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Brussels with Secretary Cohen. I met with General Clark and the delegates of our NATO allies. The resolve that every person and every country involved in this operation showed then was reinforced this past weekend in Washington. The truth is, our air campaign is working. We are knocking out the infrastructure of Mr. Milosevic's military and isolating his troops in Kosovo. If we continue to take out the four corners of his fighting machine, his whole house of cards will come crashing down. We must make clear to Mr. Milosevic that the bombing campaign will not cease until he withdraws his troops and allows the citizens of Kosovo to return to a life of peace and autonomy. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kolbe). The Chair would advise Members that since this resolution was taken directly from the table, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) has the right to close. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) has 7 minutes remaining and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) has 4 minutes remaining. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer). Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, we have sons and we have daughters of America in Apaches, in F-16s, in submarines, fighting for principle and fighting against ethnic cleansing. Now, we can do nothing; we can ignore the horrific holocaust. That is not acceptable. We can send in ground troops, and that is not an option for me, for many of our NATO allies, or for our troops. But we can support this authorization to conduct military air operations against Yugoslavia. [[Page 7792]] {time} 1945 We must now aggressively and vigorously pursue victory for our people, for principle against ethnic cleansing, and for NATO. Defeat is not acceptable. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen). Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support our policy on Kosovo. Some in this debate have said our goal is not clear, but our goal is to stop Milosevic's slaughter of Albanian Kosovars, to prevent the spread of conflict, and to permit the Kosovars to return safely home. Our allies share that objective. This century is the bloodiest in human history and the world's democracies must stand against Slobodan Milosevic's bloody repression if we hope to deter other tyrants from engaging in ethnic slaughter. In Kosovo there are no clear answers, no good options, but to do nothing in the face of Milosevic's barbarity would be barbarous itself. Some see Kosovo as another Vietnam. I disagree. Kosovo is another Cambodia, another Rwanda. Let us learn the lesson of those in other killing fields and not allow our belated or inadequate response then to compound this tragedy today. The lack of a perfect choice is not an excuse to take no action. Some here today have declared after 30 days that this policy is a failure. Well, we should be made of sterner stuff than that. The young men and women in our military are made of sterner stuff than that. We need to be patient with this policy in Kosovo. The bombing campaign, even with its limitations, should be given time to work. Ground forces may yet be required, and we will have that debate. But for now, we should maintain our unity, stay the course. America is strong enough to see this through. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kolbe). The gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) has 7 minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter). Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, on March 24, the day the bombing began, this Member stood on the floor and said, this is a tragic day, undoubtedly the beginning of a tragic scenario, and that is exactly what it was. We have heard today about hamstringing the President. But I would like to point out that, in fact, no authorization was requested by the President before the bombing began, and he has not asked for that authorization to this day. This is a gratuitous authorization. I do not think it is wise that it is brought up. I wish even at this late date that it would be withdrawn. Bombing for peace, bombing for peace is wrong, and it is not working. I regret the fact that any of our colleagues would suggest that decisions of this gravity are based upon partisan considerations. I say to my colleagues, we have a war, in Yugoslavia. We can call it whatever we want, but it is a euphemism unless we recognize it is a war. It is an unmitigated disaster. Our and NATO's involvement in this war is an unmitigated disaster. That is the ugly truth, and everybody knows it. They certainly know and talk about it in the Pentagon. In the past, NATO, the 12 members, the 16 members, now the 19 members, were a defensive pact, and for the first time NATO has used those forces aggressively. We can imagine what the Soviet Union said, and now what the Russians say about NATO as an aggressive force. Well, we have just confirmed their worst suspicions and, in fact, we set back Russian-American relations dramatically for years to come. We have reinforced the wrong people in Russia in the process. We cannot say that this war has unintended or unanticipated consequences. They were entirely predictable. I had hoped that people in the administration would have looked at and understood the history of the Balkans. I would have hoped they would have talked to people who know Mr. Milosevic and how he came to power. I had a chance to visit with the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and General Shelton in a meeting convened by the Speaker, a bipartisan meeting, and I laid out the dire consequences that I thought would prevail if, in fact, the bombing campaign began, and all of those predictions but one have come true. The remaining prediction is that after starting to bomb we would have combat troops involved in Yugoslavia in 2 months. We are a little over a month and counting, and we are headed for those combat troops in Yugoslavia. Now, look at it from the side of the Albanian militants, the KLA. They never wanted autonomy, they wanted independence, and that is what they want today. Look at it from the side of the Serbians. We have to recognize that Kosovo is sacred ground for the Serbs. It is where they all came together in an infamous but courageous defeat in 1389, and they have not forgotten what happened on the Field of Blackbirds. It is for them the same as if Lexington, Bunker Hill and Yorktown are rolled up into one. It is like asking a Texan to give back the Alamo, site of another courageous defeat, to the Republic of Mexico. That is what it means to the Serbs. Milosevic had no option to give up his Serbian control over Kosovo. He did not have that option. And what we have predicted, that the Serbs would coalesce around Milosevic, has happened. Yes, I say to my colleagues, as negative and terrible an individual as Milosevic is, he would now be followed by more Serbian leaders who have this very kind of militant, aggressive Serbian nationalism re-aroused. What has happened, of course, is that Milosevic made his reputation in Kosovo by jumping right over his mentor by speaking to the abuses, real, alleged and exaggerated, that were taking place against the Serbian minority in Kosovo. And that is how he played upon their emotions, and that is what has been further ignited by the bombing campaign. What happened when we threatened we would bomb, and then we held off, and we threatened and we threatened? Well, of course, it provided time for him to deploy his troops in and around Kosovo, in fact right on the Macedonian border, for that matter. And all of the NGOs and independent observers, they went out of Kosovo, naturally, and so no one is there to report on the atrocities and the ethnic cleansing that were accelerated when we began that air war, just as predicted. Some people have said, and in fact the Secretary of State said before our committee, well, we had no idea he would be so brutal and thorough and energetic in the ethnic cleansing. I say to my colleagues, we had an object example in Bosnia with Croatian and Serbian ethnic cleansing like we had not seen since World War II in Europe. Of course, we had an idea of what he would do. Were we ready for it? Did we anticipate it? Did the people that launched this war have this in mind? Look at the refugees coming out of Kosovo into Macedonia and Albania and Montenegro. Look at the people dying from all kinds of disease and from hypothermia. NATO was not able to take care of them. It is obvious NATO was not ready for it. The Administration and NATO did not anticipate this result. One of the frustrating things about being on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at a period of time when Yugoslavia was in danger of disintegration was that we had the best information about what would happen with the disintegration of Yugoslavia. We knew a blood bath was coming in Bosnia where three religious/ethnic groups live side by side, and we knew that Kosovo was a tinderbox waiting to explode with its Albanian majority, but our vital national interests were not involved yet. Where they are and still remain involved is in Macedonia. And we should have gone to great lengths never to destabilize Macedonia. This air war is, in fact, pushing us towards a destabilization of Macedonia. Why is that so important? Because it is likely to bring Greece and Turkey, overtly or covertly, in on opposite [[Page 7793]] sides, fracturing the NATO alliance, and that, I say to my colleagues, is very much against our vital national interests. But we have taken steps inadvertently, but predictably, to destabilize Macedonia. And yet today, the Yugoslavian military is basically intact. All the armor units are setting there; they are not using their engines, they are not using fuel, they are in hiding. And they have not used their air defense systems at this point. We have been attacking, but we have been attacking refineries and bridges and a whole variety of things that are important to the long term, but the Yugolavians or Serbians military is basically setting there intact. And what are we assured on the other side? We have assured the rule of the KLA militants in Kosovo beyond this. I urge all of my colleagues to take a look at the May-June 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs and read the article by Chris Hedges, the former Balkan Bureau Chief of the New York Times. Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the resolution. Vote against it. I voted against the War Powers Act; for strategic and tactical reasons we do not want to give that 30-day warning before a withdrawal would theoretically be required under the invocations of the War Powers Act. I urge my colleagues, do not take this gratuitous step to authorize the bombing war. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), our closing Democratic speaker, a senior member of the Committee on International Relations who just returned from a trip to the Balkans region. Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, we have a very important vote coming up in a few minutes. We are hearing discussions today about people saying, this in our national interests? Why should we be concerned about those people over there? Well, for 50 years we have been partners with our neighbors in western Europe. We came together to stop the Soviet threat from taking over Europe and coming over to our shores. All of a sudden, when there is a problem with our partners, now we have decided that perhaps now that we have defeated the USSR, it is time for us to take a look at this partnership. Maybe if there is a difficult situation coming up, we ought to step out of it because I thought we were the land of the free and the home of the brave. Next week we are going to have a constitutional amendment voting on flag desecration because we love our flag so much. And here we see people talking about, let us take our flag and let us run out of there because a person in a country of 11 million people, about the size of Tennessee, has raped and robbed and destroyed, killed, maimed a whole group of people, and we are saying this is not in any interests of ours. Destabilizes central Europe, destabilizes western Europe, and it continues to spread. I am shocked by some of the speeches that I have heard in this discussion today. Mr. Speaker, 60,000 people in Montenegro, 120,000 in Macedonia, 300,000 in Albania. Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous support for S. Con. Res. 21 so that we can put this in its right and proper perspective. Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. Con. Res. 21. This resolution authorizes the current military air campaign that was launched by NATO a little over a month ago. Mr. Speaker it is important to note the bipartisan support, which this bill received in the Senate. I believe that this resolution will enable NATO to achieve its goal of a durable peace that prevents further repression and provides for democratic self-government for the Kosovar people. This Body can send an invaluable message to Milosevic, to our troops, and to the world. If we adopt this resolution authorizing air operations and missile strikes against Yugoslavia, we will show our support for the troops carrying out this mission. If we adopt this resolution we will signal to our NATO partners that our resolve to see stability and peace prevail in Europe is no less today than it was during WWI and WWII. When we adopt this resolution we signal to Milosevic that his campaign against the Albanians of Kosovo is unacceptable. Endorsing airstrikes today does not preclude a vote in the future to authorize ground troops in the future. But we are certainly not at that point now. Instead this Body should show patience and determination. The airstrikes are an effective means of delivering our message. We must make Milosevic feel the pain and pay a heavy price for his policy of repression and aggression in Kosovo. If this Body fails to adopt this resolution now it would be interpreted as a vote of no confidence for our foreign policy in the Balkans. It would send confusing signals about our national resolve to persevere to friend and foe alike. The blame for this crisis lies not with the President, the U.S. Congress, or even the NATO airstrikes; rather the blame rests with Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic shoulders the blame for the current crisis. I stand firm in my determination to see the killing of innocent Kosovar Albanians ended. War and conflict is not my first choice, it is not the first choice of any American, but there are times when force must be employed. We joined the NATO alliance some fifty years ago to provide stability and to limit aggression. If we ignore the acts committed by Milosevic, then our fifty-year commitment to NATO will have been lost. During WWII this nation turned away a ship full of Jewish immigrants from our shores. The 907 immigrants on board the S. S. St. Louis sought to escape the horrors of Nazism but our nation sadly turned them away. In the aftermath of WWII the American people pledged to never again to allow ethnic cleansing to occur and to never again to ignore the plight of those who face genocide. This Body must answer the call of the 1.6 million Kosovars displaced from their homes and of those who can rest in the unmarked mass graves. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. We should follow the Senate and send a unified message to our troops, to Milosevic, and to our allies. Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the Gejdenson resolution to authorize the NATO action in Yugoslavia. Tragically, we were unable to prevent Serbian forces from brutally killing thousands of people, forcing innocent people from their homes, and burning and bombarding countless villages. Now, we must do everything in our power to put an end to this tragedy, to halt the mass killings, and hold accountable those responsible for the unspeakable atrocities that Serbian forces are committing against the ethic Albanians in Kosovo. First, we must aid the refugees in any way that we can. We cannot allow refugee camps to turn into death camps due to poor sanitation, the spread of disease, and the lack of food and shelter. I support a massive humanitarian response to this crisis. The U.S. should do whatever it takes to bring food, medicine, and shelter to the refugees, and I support efforts by the United States and other countries to admit any refugees seeking asylum. But I am afraid that is not nearly enough. We have a moral obligation to protect the internally displaced ethnic Albanians within Kosovo. Those who have not yet been slaughtered must be protected. We must not allow them to suffer the same fate as so many other Kosovars. Unfortunately, we did not act soon enough to address the murderous actions by Serbia, and today thousands of people are dead because of international indifference. We ought to create safe havens for ethnic Albanians inside of Kosovo--and we ought to do it as soon as we can. This would prevent further expulsions and mass killings. This will not be easy and will not be without a loss of lives, but it must be done. We cannot allow the leader of one nation to wipe out an entire ethnic group. At the end of World War II and the Holocaust, the world made a collective promise to all future people. We said ``never again'', we ought to mean it. However, it is unlikely, at this point, that air strikes alone will bring an end to this conflict. We ought to consider other options, including the use of ground forces. We now have to be prepared to forcefully enter Kosovo and occupy the area in order to make the safe return of refugees possible. This is not a task that we ought to take lightly, but it is one that must be done. NATO must continue to assess the situation and make adjustments as they see fit. This resolution gives the Administration the flexibility to respond quickly to any new developments and continue their efforts on all fronts to resolve this conflict. I urge support for this resolution. Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, today I voted for the bipartisan Senate- approved resolution authorizing President Clinton to continue military air operations and missile strikes [[Page 7794]] against Yugoslavia. I supported this resolution because it shows strong support for the troops while endorsing the NATO action as the best available way to convince President Milosevic that his campaign of ethnic cleansing is unacceptable. We in Congress must take care to be supportive and not limit our future military options in Kosovo, especially given that the situation may change faster than Congress can react. For that reason, I opposed the Goodling-Fowler resolution as it would have required Congressional authorization before using ground troops. Even though the Goodling- Fowler resolution will never find its way into law, the act of approval by the House sends all the wrong signals about our commitment to NATO's actions. We cannot afford to tie NATO's hands or broadcast our military intentions--especially at this important juncture in the conflict. I also opposed both proposals by Representative Campbell, one declaring war on Yugoslavia and the other demanding the removal of our armed forces from their positions near Yugoslavia. I believe both resolutions were extreme and not helpful in advancing NATO's efforts to restore peace to the region, in returning the Kosovars to their homeland, or in reducing or eliminating Milosevic's ability to threaten his neighbors or terrorize minorities inside Yugoslavia. However, I feel clarifying Congress' role in foreign conflicts under the War Powers Act is one worth considering at an appropriate time. We in Congress have continued to neglect what Congress' exact role should be in these situations. It is unfortunate that we seem to only visit this issue in the middle of conflicts, when such debate is confusing at best, and often inappropriate. I am hopeful we can schedule a full debate on this issue at a time certain before the end of this Congress. Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. Mr. Speaker, the vote today on S. Con. Res. 21-- although largely symbolic because of its timing--presents every Member of this House with a grave dilemma. On the one hand, we can vote against this resolution and the deeply flawed policy that it represents, even though doing so risks undermining our troops and giving comfort to Slobodan Milosevic, Europe's last Communist dictator. On the other hand, we can vote for this resolution and ratify a flawed policy which has failed to make any progress towards stopping the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Neither of these choices is attractive. But I believe that my duty as Member of the United States Congress compels me not to undercut our current policy, flawed as it might be, but to focus on finding a credible diplomatic alternative. I support a negotiated solution to the conflict in the Balkans, and I was one of 15 Democrats in this body who last month voted against authorizing the use of U.S. troops in Kosovo. I warned back then that a continued escalation of military action would only serve to undermine conditions for lasting peace in the region. Regrettably, these fears have been borne out. With all that said, Mr. Speaker, I cannot in good conscience vote against the efforts of our Nation's Armed Forces when a military operation is already underway. Our soldiers are in the Balkans doing the job we sent them to do. A unilateral halt to the bombing at this stage in the conflict would not bring us closer to a lasting peace in the Balkans. Instead, it would give the Milosevic regime a boost and deprive the NATO alliance of critical negotiating leverage. However, the sooner we begin negotiations, the sooner the air strikes can stop. Continuing to seek a military solution to a political problem will only mean that more Albanian Kosovar, Serb, and American lives are lost in vain. Just yesterday, General Wesley Clark, commander of NATO forces, acknowledged that NATO air strikes have not slowed the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's Albanian population. And just yesterday, NATO forces again mistakenly struck a civilian target in Serbia, killing 17 people including 11 children. The United States of America believes very strongly in doing the right thing--and we have an exemplary record of fighting for what is right around the world. But as Henry Kissinger has pointed out, a supremely moral foreign policy is useless if it is not effective. As difficult as it may be, we must acknowledge that the bombing campaign has not been effective--and we must immediately begin to seek a negotiated solution to this conflict. The sooner negotiations start, the sooner the bombs will stop, and the sooner the Kosovo refugees can return home. Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I am in support of this resolution which passed the Senate last week with bipartisan support. But let us step back and take a long-term view of the Balkans. Milosevic is the only tyrant left in Europe. Who amongst us predicted 10 years ago that some of the most reprehensive Communist regimes in Central Europe would today be thriving democracies and members of the European Union and NATO. That is the trend in Europe and that is my long-term prediction for the Balkans as well. One tyrant cannot stop it for long. But in the meantime we have some short-term objectives. Peace and humanity will prevail in Kosovo. The refugees will go home. They will have security. And they will have self-autonomy. And, Mr. Milosevic, these terms are not negotiable. NATO will prevail. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today I voted to require the President to obtain congressional approval before deploying ground troops in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The framers of the Constitution clearly intended that the power to initiate war, whether declared or undeclared, should reside in the legislative branch of government. The power to lead the nation without congressional authority into a costly overseas military adventure is a power the Constitution explicitly denies the President of the United States. The Administration's policy in FRY is extremely short sighted and is a clear example of why the Administration should have come to Congress before committing U.S. troops to the NATO airstrikes. A congressional debate would have forced the Administration to define every aspect of NATO's Balkan policy. Congress should have been given the chance to ask the tough questions that still linger after weeks of bombing. Instead, NATO and the Administration are defining and defending their policy as they go along. The result has been a tenuous military coalition with a mission constantly questioned. This has emboldened Milosevic to escalate his genocidal campaign and strengthened his power in Serbia. A completely unified NATO force backed by a well-defined long term Balkan policy before executing any military operations might have made Milosevic a willing participant in peace negotiations. The congressional leadership has presented Congress with a lot of bad choices today as well. It is unfortunate that Congress is falling into the trap that the Administration has set for it. Before the NATO airstrikes began, the Clinton Administration wanted us to believe that the only options available were to bomb or do nothing. Now Congress wants us to believe that the only options are to continue the severely flawed military operations or withdraw our troops and do nothing. Unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from the military operations at this time would cause the collapse of NATO and be tantamount to a victory for Slobodan Milosevic. While I support the efforts of my colleagues today to begin asserting their Constitutional duty to authorize military actions, I question the timing. Debating whether or not to withdraw our troops while they are engaged in a military action, is extremely irresponsible. There is a way to assert our Constitutional duty without undermining the safety of our troops. I have introduced legislation for the last 8 years to require Congress to authorize military actions before U.S. troops are placed in hostilities. The continuing religious and ethnic strife in the Balkans is unlikely to be resolved by offensive military actions. Milosevic has more than demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice the lives of his own people to retain his power. There is another option. The U.S. and NATO should call for a cease fire contingent upon a pull back of Serbian forces and the beginning of real negotiations including Russia and the United Nations. The Rambouillet agreements were fatally flawed and designed to fail. It's time to go back to the drawing board and negotiate enforceable peace between Milosevic and the Kosovar Albanians. Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the House has the opportunity to debate these important questions before us today. While I have not supported the first three options before us, I do believe that Congress needs to have a voice in the involvement of the United States in Operation Allied Force. We should stand up and express our support for our troops and our allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). We must also take this opportunity for Congress to show Mr. Milosevic that we are united in our belief and determination that his campaign of terror must be stopped. We must work with the international community to help restore peace to the region and to ensure that the Kosovar Albanians who want to return to their homes are allowed to do so. We must work with our Allies to force Milosevic to withdraw his military and para-military forces from Kosovo and to provide [[Page 7795]] self-governance for Kosovo. Mr. Speaker, we must work together with our Allies in Europe to achieve a lasting peace in this critical region. To accomplish these goals, we must continue to participate in Operation Allied Force and support the air strikes. We are steadily diminishing the power of Mr. Milosevic and his military forces. For the United States to withdraw from this operation at this time would, in my opinion, undermine the entire NATO effort to stem Milosevic and his campaign of terror against the Albanian population, hand Milosevic a victory and, in effect, validate his campaign of ethnic cleansing. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues how we can in good conscience turn our back on these people and the horrible crimes that are being perpetrated against the Kosovar Albanians. While I commend my colleague from California, Mr. Campbell, for bringing this issue before the House, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing both of his resolutions. We should not withdraw our troops or declare war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I also oppose H.R. 1569 offered by Representatives Fowler, Goodling, and Kasich. This bill would prohibit the Department of Defense from deploying ``ground elements'' in Yugoslavia unless such a deployment is authorized by Congress, I again urge my colleagues to vote ``no''. Passing this proposal at this time is at best premature and at worst is a prescription for failure of our current air strike operation. The Fowler/Goodling/Kasich bill is unnecessary. Congress ultimately holds the power of the purse and will continue to have the ability to withhold funding for this operation. In addition, if events change and the President decides that ground troops are needed, he should come to Congress and ask for our support and approval at that time. Furthermore, if this prohibition of funds were to become law, many aspects of the current NATO operation could be imperiled. We would be weakening our own position for future negotiations for a settlement by removing the threat of possible ground troops in the future. We must show Milosevic our resolve. We must make it clear to Milosevic that we intend to prevail and that we are reserving options to accomplish victory. The Fowler/Goodling/Kasich bill also puts our current operations in Yugoslavia at risk. For example, MacDill Air Force Base, located in my community, is the headquarters for U.S. Special Operations Command--a unified command that oversees special operations for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Forces housed at MacDill could very well be involved on the ground in Yugoslavia and Kosovo in support of our air strikes. I am concerned that this bill would put their operations and possibly their lives at peril. We should not limit the ability of the troops already in and around Yugoslavia as part of our current operation. Our NATO Allies have stepped up to the plate in Kosovo. Just last weekend, at the NATO Summit here in Washington, DC, the leaders of the alliance reaffirmed their commitment and resolve to maintain the air campaign against Yugoslavia until our objectives are met. Now it is time for Congress to step up to the plate and endorse the NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia. I urge my colleagues to support the Gejdenson Alternative offered in the form of Senate Concurrent Resolution 21. This Resolution authorizes the President to conduct military air operations and missile strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Passage of this Resolution will express Congress' endorsement of NATO air strikes and send a strong message to Milosevic that we are unified with our allies. Adopting this Resolution will reaffirm to our troops carrying out this mission that Congress supports them. By endorsing the NATO action, Congress will be sending a message that we are unified as a nation and determined to stop Milosevic. Fifty years ago, we formed NATO to work together for the security of Europe. Today, the Cold War has ended and communism has ended. However, there is still a great need to work to ensure the safety and stability of countries in Europe who have been our partners for these 50 years. We have heard a lot about the fear of Milosevic and his forces crossing over the borders. Some thought this might be an unfounded fear. However, we now know that the Serbian forces have crossed over into Albania, proof that Milosevic has no fear and is quite willing to cross sovereign borders to continue his atrocious attacks on the people in this region. The stability of Eastern Europe is at stake and we must stand by our allies in the region. I urge this House to show Mr. Milosevic that we stand behind our military and our allies. Join me in supporting Senate Concurrent Resolution 21. The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired. Pursuant to section 5 of House Resolution 151, the Senate concurrent resolution is considered as having been read for amendment, and the previous question is ordered. The question is on the Senate concurrent resolution. The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the noes appeared to have it. Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered. The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 213, nays 213, not voting 8, as follows: [Roll No. 103] YEAS--213 Ackerman Allen Andrews Baird Baldacci Barcia Barrett (WI) Becerra Bentsen Berkley Berman Berry Bishop Bliley Blumenauer Boehlert Bonior Borski Boswell Boucher Boyd Brady (PA) Brown (CA) Brown (FL) Brown (OH) Callahan Capps Capuano Cardin Carson Castle Clay Clayton Clement Clyburn Conyers Costello Coyne Cramer Crowley Cummings Davis (FL) Davis (IL) Davis (VA) Delahunt DeLauro Deutsch Diaz-Balart Dicks Dingell Dixon Dooley Doyle Edwards Ehrlich Engel Eshoo Etheridge Evans Farr Fattah Filner Forbes Ford Frank (MA) Franks (NJ) Frelinghuysen Frost Gejdenson Gephardt Gilchrest Gilman Gonzalez Gordon Green (TX) Greenwood Gutierrez Hall (OH) Hastert Hastings (FL) Hayes Hill (IN) Hilliard Hinchey Hinojosa Hoeffel Holden Holt Hooley Houghton Hoyer Hunter Hyde Jackson-Lee (TX) Jefferson John Johnson, E.B. Jones (OH) Kanjorski Kaptur Kelly Kennedy Kildee Kilpatrick Kind (WI) King (NY) Klink Knollenberg Kolbe LaFalce Lampson Lantos Larson Lazio Levin Lewis (GA) Lowey Lucas (KY) Luther Maloney (CT) Maloney (NY) Markey Martinez Mascara Matsui McCarthy (MO) McCarthy (NY) McDermott McGovern McHugh McIntyre McNulty Meehan Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Menendez Millender-McDonald Miller, George Minge Moakley Moore Moran (VA) Morella Murtha Nadler Napolitano Neal Oberstar Obey Olver Ortiz Owens Oxley Pallone Pascrell Pastor Payne Pelosi Phelps Pickett Pomeroy Porter Price (NC) Quinn Rahall Rangel Reyes Riley Rodriguez Roemer Rothman Roybal-Allard Rush Sabo Sanchez Sanders Sandlin Sawyer Schakowsky Scott Sherman Shows Sisisky Skelton Smith (WA) Snyder Spratt Stabenow Stenholm Strickland Stupak Tanner Tauscher Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Thurman Tierney Traficant Turner Udall (CO) Udall (NM) Velazquez Vento Walsh Waters Watt (NC) Waxman Weiner Wexler Weygand Wise Wolf Wu NAYS--213 Abercrombie Archer Armey Bachus Baker Baldwin Ballenger Barr Barrett (NE) Bartlett Barton Bass Bateman Bereuter Biggert Bilbray Bilirakis Blunt Boehner Bonilla Bono Brady (TX) Bryant Burr Burton Buyer Calvert Camp Campbell Canady Cannon Chabot Chambliss Chenoweth Coble Coburn Collins Combest Condit Cook Cooksey Cox Crane Cubin Cunningham Danner Deal DeFazio DeGette DeLay DeMint Dickey Doggett Doolittle Dreier Duncan Dunn Ehlers Emerson English Everett Ewing Fletcher Foley Fossella Fowler Gallegly Ganske Gekas Gibbons Gillmor Goode Goodlatte Goodling Goss Graham Granger Green (WI) Gutknecht Hall (TX) Hastings (WA) Hayworth Hefley Herger Hill (MT) Hilleary Hobson Hoekstra Horn Hostettler Hulshof Hutchinson Inslee Isakson Istook Jackson (IL) Jenkins Johnson (CT) Johnson, Sam Jones (NC) Kasich Kingston Kleczka Kucinich Kuykendall LaHood Largent Latham LaTourette Leach Lee Lewis (CA) Lewis (KY) Linder Lipinski LoBiondo Lofgren Lucas (OK) Manzullo McCollum McCrery McInnis McIntosh McKeon McKinney Metcalf Mica Miller (FL) Miller, Gary [[Page 7796]] Mink Moran (KS) Myrick Nethercutt Ney Northup Norwood Nussle Ose Packard Paul Pease Peterson (MN) Peterson (PA) Petri Pickering Pitts Pombo Portman Pryce (OH) Radanovich Ramstad Regula Reynolds Rivers Rogan Rogers Rohrabacher Ros-Lehtinen Roukema Royce Ryan (WI) Ryun (KS) Salmon Sanford Saxton Scarborough Schaffer Sensenbrenner Serrano Sessions Shadegg Shaw Shays Sherwood Shimkus Simpson Skeen Smith (MI) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Souder Spence Stark Stearns Stump Sununu Sweeney Talent Tancredo Taylor (MS) Taylor (NC) Terry Thomas Thornberry Thune Tiahrt Toomey Towns Upton Visclosky Walden Wamp Watkins Watts (OK) Weldon (FL) Weldon (PA) Weller Whitfield Wicker Wilson Woolsey Young (AK) Young (FL) NOT VOTING--8 Aderholt Blagojevich Hansen Mollohan Shuster Slaughter Tauzin Wynn {time} 2018 Mrs. BONO changed her vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.'' So the Senate concurrent resolution was not concurred in. The result of the vote was announced as above recorded. A motion to reconsider was laid on the table. ____________________