Congressional Reports

Sunday, April 4, 1999

(Congressmen on Kosovo on talk shows)

On the Sunday talk shows April 4, leading members of the U.S. Senate, both Republicans and Democrats were unanimous in stating that NATO must prevail against the forces of Slobodan Milosevic, President of the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," now composed of Serbia and Montenegro.

Many said they would support the use of ground forces, if Clinton called for them, while others held out hope that the NATO airstrikes will be successful in getting Milosevic to agree to allied demands.

Senator Chuck Hagel (Republican-Nebraska), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he would vote to send U.S. ground troops into Kosovo if called upon to do so.

"When you're in war, you're in a war to win," Hagel said on NBC-TV's "Face the Nation". "You never take any option off the table."

He maintained that resolving the Kosovo crisis is in the U.S. national interest, because the United States is a leader of NATO and has troops deployed in Europe.

Regarding Milosevic, Hagel observed: "We've got a butcher loose in the backyard of NATO. If NATO can't deal with this, are we living a charade that there's peace and stability in Europe?

"NATO is the only organization in the last 50 years that has helped keep peace around the world," Hagel said, noting allied support in forcing Iraq's Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991.

"If we let this unravel, if we do not win this, the consequences will be immense across the globe," Hagel said of the Kosovo crisis.

Senator James Inhofe (Republican-Oklahoma) said he opposes sending U.S. ground forces to Kosovo.

Appearing with Hagel on "Face the Nation," Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, said U.S. participation in the NATO airstrikes in the Balkans has stretched American forces too thin and has "decimated" the ability of the United States to defend itself.

"Our concern is we should be able to defend America in the event something happens that our strategic interests are at stake, such as in Iraq or North Korea," Inhofe said. He urged the development of an exit strategy to quickly extricate U.S. participation in the NATO offensive against Serb forces in Kosovo.

Senators Joseph Biden (Democrat-Delaware) and John Ashcroft, (Republican-Missouri) both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who appeared on on CNN's "Late Edition" April 4, said they felt the NATO air strikes need more time to produce the desired result of incapacitating Milosevic's forces.

Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pointed out that allied strategists had always anticipated that a 30-day air campaign would be required to cripple Milosevic's military capabilities. With only 12 days of the campaign now completed, Biden said "it's awful early to be making any judgment." He warned against conducting "minute-to-minute, day-to-day analysis of who 'won' and who 'lost.'"

Ashcroft urged that the airstrikes be intensified. "We haven't had the kind of aggressive air war which I think is appropriate in this kind of a setting and could be expected to get the job done," he said.

Senator Arlen Specter (Republican-Pennsylvania), appearing on Fox News Sunday, said if there is a shift in U.S. policy to send ground troops into Kosovo, that should be debated in the Congress. But he said he still believes airstrikes will get the job done, "if we really step up the pace."

"We have to be tougher than hell with Milosevic," he said. "We have tremendous air power and we already have shown some of it. That air power and those missiles have tremendous force, and I think Milosevic is starting to see that."

"We are dealing with a very important precedent here. What we do with Milosevic is going to reverberate around the world for a long time, and we can't afford a loss either for NATO or for the United States. We've got to fight it out," Specter said.

"What we have to look for with Milosevic is to treat him as a war criminal and have unconditional surrender -- the same terms we had in World War Two, no concessions at all."

Specter said both houses of the U.S. Congress are prepared to approve an emergency appropriation bill to help the refugees fleeing Kosovo. "The dollars...are relatively minor compared to the suffering of the refugees," he said.

Senator Richard Durbin (Democrat-Illinois), also speaking on Fox News Sunday, said he agreed with Senator Specter that if President Clinton decides that ground troops are needed, Congress must be consulted for its approval.

But Durbin said that top Administration officials have told him as recently as April 3 that there are no plans to send ground troops.

Durbin said he personally opposes the use of ground troops in Kosovo where the mountainous terrain would make fighting difficult against Serbs defending their homeland.

He said through airstrikes "We can make it clear to Mr. Milosevic that his policy of genocide is absolutely unacceptable. If he's going to try to move all of these Albanian Kosovars out of Kosovo, he is going to pay a price. He is going to see his military capacity diminished by NATO."

Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the situation in Kosovo "needs to be remedied, and remedied quickly and the only way we are going to be able to do that is bring the full might of American military and NATO capability to bear.... We can, will and must prevail."

McCain said ground forces must be available to NATO. Sending Apache helicopters into Albania, is "a step in the right direction, but it has to be part of a significant buildup," he said.

"It is absolutely necessary in a war that you are prepared to do whatever is necessary to gain victory. We must do that, we have to do that now. I hope that that option isn't necessary, but for us not to be prepared is a terrible mistake," he said.

"It is in our interest now, and in the interest of the future of NATO to win this conflict," McCain said. He added that former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and "every wise man that I've heard from, that I respect, feel the same way."

McCain, who himself spent 5 1/2 years in Hanoi as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, commented on the three U.S. soldiers captured by Serb forces.

"Mr. Milosevic has to understand if he or any of his people pretend to put them on trial, that we will never, ever give up our efforts to make sure that they pay for that. It is in violation of the Geneva Convention and should never happen to American fighting men," McCain said.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, (Democrat-Connecticut), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agreed that"we have to hold open the option of using ground forces there to finish this battle."

The credibility of NAT~~O around the world is at stake here, Lieberman said. He predicted that public opinion in the United States would support such a move, saying a lot has changed in the past few days since the Congress recessed.

"We are engaged here in a just cause that is not only a fulfillment of our moral obligation, it's in our strategic interest. We have just begun to fight," Lieberman said.

Lieberman said victory means "to restore the Kosovar Albanians to their homes, to let them live in peace and freedom."

Milosevic is as much a problem to Serbia as he is to NATO, Lieberman said. He urged Serbs "to rise up and throw him out of office. He has turned the proud Serb military into a gang of war criminals, and they ought to get rid of him."

Lieberman said he would like to see that food and ammunition be provided to the Kosovar Liberation Army (KLA) as well as to the police in Montenegro, who support that country's pro-western government.

Senator Richard Shelby, (Republican-Alabama), who co-chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on "Face the Nation" that "we certainly will not be decisive" in winning the war against the forces of Milosevic "unless we go all out and we decide we are in it to win. We need a decisive victory. We don't need a stalemate. We do not need to begin to unravel NATO."

Shelby said "if we happen to go in the direction of ground troops," it is very important that President Clinton make the case for such troops with clarity to the Congress and to the American people. If he does this, "I believe the Congress and the American people will follow," Shelby said.

Senator Chuck Robb (Democrat-Virginia), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Richard Lugar (Republican-Indiana), senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, both appeared on the ABC program "This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts."

Robb said he supports sending Apache helicopters to the region. "You can't really protect the Kosovars unless you go in with Apaches and WartHogs and other lowflying aircraft" to directly attack tanks and troops, he said.

Robb also said he has always believed that "we could not, should not take ground forces off the table." But he acknowledged "it would take a long period of time to truly mount the kind of ground offensive that would be necessary."

Lugar said "There has to be a sense of urgency and movement and clearly the ground troop element is key to that."

"Milosevic has created a war, he has created a situation continual in the area, including the Bosnia problem, that will not go away without his removal" and the "removal of the military power that backs him," Lugar said.

Lugar urged President Clinton to send in ground troops.to deliver the "overwhelming force that will be required to eliminate the military dangers of Serbia, not only to Kosovo, but to Montenegro, and to all the surrounding states which are going to be embattled given the current conditions.

"It means literally eliminating the military problems of Milosevic in the area and having sufficient force then to make good on all of our pledges to the Kosovars that they will return, that somehow rehabilitation of the country might occur, Lugar said."