Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

HOW TO RESPOND TO THE CUBAN K.A.L. 007: SHUT DOWN THE CUBAN CHERNOBYL

(Washington, D.C.): The premeditated (1), cold-blooded
murder of four American citizens by the Cuban government
last Saturday should be the last straw for those who
understand that there will be no transition to democracy
and no respect for human rights in Cuba until Fidel
Castro is removed from power. If even the likes of Sam
Donaldson — who on “This Week With David
Brinkley” initially, reflexively described the Cuban
action as warranted if the planes transited Cuban
airspace — are obliged to condemn this action, the rest
of us must do no less than bring about an urgent end to
Castro’s odious regime.

Too Little, Too Late

Certainly, it is not enough for the Clinton
Administration to engage in symbolic gestures like the
pre-election housecleaning it did a few weeks ago when
the architects of its plan to normalize relations with
Fidel — notably, the National Security Council’s Morton
Halperin — were summarily dismissed.

Similarly, it is not enough for the
Administration to rescind recent decisions by curtailing
travel, telephonic communications and Cuban-American
remittances to Cuba or reducing America’s diplomatic
presence there. First of all, these initiatives should
never have been undertaken as long as Fidel was in power.
They are transparently intended to be steps on the
Vietnam-style “roadmap” to normalization. And
they have afforded Castro something of a new lease on
life by offering desperately needed cash flow and a
measure of international legitimation he has been denied
by Washington for over thirty years. Second, they have
merely served to whet the appetite of American businesses
anxious to exploit new cheap labor pools and favorably
disposed to the “disciplined” business climate
promised by a totalitarian regime. And third, the
rescinding of these concessions in the wake of the
shoot-down can — and likely will — be quietly undone a
few months down the road in one of the Administration’s
trademark Friday afternoon press announcements if it
thinks it can get away with doing so.

And it is surely not enough for the
Administration belatedly to embrace the Helms-Burton Libertad
act. Legislation like this, aimed at curtailing American
allies’ efforts to end-run and undermine the U.S. embargo
against Cuba, should have enjoyed President Clinton’s
support from the get-go. While his belated endorsement is
welcome — and should ensure that the steps taken at his
Administration’s behest to water it down are fully
reversed — in the aftermath of the Cuban KAL 007, Mr.
Clinton’s signature on the Libertad act should be
deemed a necessary but not sufficient condition.

To Remove Fidel from Power, Cut off His Power

What is clearly needed now is a formal declaration
that Castro’s Chernobyl- equivalent-in-the-making — the
two nuclear reactors under construction in the Cuban
province of Cienfuegos — will never be allowed to come
on-line. The United States has a compelling
self-interest in effecting such an outcome: These
reactors are fatally flawed (as a result of shoddy
construction, defective components, an unsafe design,
inadequate quality control and operating skills and a
tropical site reported to be seismically active); if, as
is predictable, such reactors experience a major
accident, within four days its lethal radioactive plume
would extend over much of the southeastern United States
(westward to Texas or north to Washington, D.C.,
depending upon the prevailing winds and season).

The other advantage of this stance is that, more than
anything else, it will make Castro’s rule genuinely
problematic. As Pedro Miret, a vice president of the
Cuban Council of Ministers and a senior lieutenant to
Castro, put it in the New York Times yesterday
(2): “Nobody is more interested in not having to
build this power plant than us. But the problem is we
have no choice.” (Emphasis added.) In fact,
unless the regime in Havana can secure near-term sources
of inexpensive or foreign-subsidized energy, its economy
will remain in a free-fall and the pressure for
fundamental political change will intensify inexorably.
For example, it is hard to see how the European and
Canadian investments in tourism and mining upon which
Castro is literally banking will bear fruit without
reliable sources of energy.

For these reasons, Castro is determined to complete
the reactors at Juragua, with help from the Kremlin and
from Western governments and/or companies. It is entirely
possible, however, that he will try to parlay the threat
of a Chernobyl-equivalent less than 200 miles off the
U.S. coast into a major break in the embargo so as to
allow U.S. official and/or private assistance or,
alternatively, to secure a North Korean-style buy-out of
his dangerous reactor program.

If the United States wishes to secure the two-fer of
protecting its people against a immense nuclear disaster and
putting Castro out of business once and for all, it must
foreclose his options to secure outside help. Toward that
end, the following steps should be taken at once:

  • Declare that there will be no U.S. bail-out of
    the Juragua project     — either through
    technical assistance, financial support or a
    swap-out of advanced Western reactors for the
    flawed Soviet-era systems — as long as Fidel
    and his clique remain in power    .

  • Warn that any allied governments or companies
    found to be providing equipment, financing or
    assistance to this project — even that
    advertized as “safety enhancement
    measures” — will face the closure of the
    U.S. market to their imports (i.e.
    across-the-board import controls).

  • Announce that Russian ships or aircraft
    believed to be bringing enriched uranium to fuel
    the reactors at Juragua will be intercepted and
    prevented from reaching their destinations in
    Cuba    .

  • Should these measures prove insufficient to
    prevent the Cienfuegos reactors from coming
    on-line, the United States will use whatever
    means are necessary — including, but not limited
    to the use of surgical military force — to
    ensure that does not happen    .

The Bottom Line

Castro’s nuclear program is but the latest and most
palpable manifestation of a government that is
indifferent to the well-being of its own people and a
menace to those of the United States. As such, it is
fitting that this symbol of the hemisphere’s last
totalitarian regime is also its Achilles heel.

There should be no underestimating the difficulties
associated with preventing the actualization of the Cuban
VVER-440 reactors. After all, U.S. allies will vehemently
oppose American actions to terminate the Juragua reactor
program, witness their hostility to any effort to
sanction Cuba for the deliberate murder of four Brothers
to the Rescue at the U.N. Security Council last night.

For its part, the Russian government of Boris Yeltsin
— having just secured a $10.2 billion campaign
contribution primarily from the United States and other
Western taxpayers via the International Monetary Fund —
will work hard to protect its client, Fidel Castro, from
coordinated retribution (e.g., multilateral sanctions). (3) And Castro
himself will, in due course, play his ultimate hole card:
the threat of yet another Mariel exodus timed to damage
Bill Clinton’s election prospects in vote-rich Florida.

Still, as a practical matter, the United States has
no choice but to prevent Castro and his friends in the
Kremlin and Western capitals from creating a mortal
nuclear threat to the American people and homeland. There
is no better time to make that clear than in the wake of
Fidel’s latest outrage. If President Clinton will not do
so, the Republican candidates who want to replace him
should make the most of that failure and pledge to
rectify it at the earliest possible moment. (4)

– 30 –

(1) The Cuban government
reportedly asked retired Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll —
director of the Center for Defense Information and one of
the subjects of a recent Center for Security Policy Decision
Brief entitled ‘Useful Idiots’: Why Would Any
Americans Help Fidel Castro Bring his Cuban Chernobyls
On-Line? (No. 96-D 13,
10 February 1996) — what the U.S. reaction would be if
it shot down “Brothers to the Rescue” aircraft.
Adm. Carroll says that he subsequently passed that
question along to the State Department and Defense
Intelligence Agency upon his return from Cuba.

(2) See “Cuba’s Nuclear Plant
Project Worries Washington”, 25 February 1996, p.3.

(3) A delegation from Russia’s
odious Ministry of Atomic Energy (MinAtom) was in
Cienfuegos just last week in an effort to accelerate
construction and financing for the nuclear complex. For
more on this subject, see the href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-P_51at”>1 August 1995 testimony of
Roger W. Robinson Jr. before the House International
Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.

(4) Interestingly, on the eve of
the Arizona primary and the day of the Cuba shoot-down,
the Phoenix Gazette published the href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=96-D_19at”>attached important editorial
encouraging the Presidential candidates to take public
positions on this matter immediately.

CENTER’S GAFFNEY WARNS HERITAGE FOUNDATION AUDIENCE ABOUT BILL CLINTON, ‘COUNTERCULTURALIST-IN-CHIEF’

(Washington, D.C.): In an address to the Heritage
Foundation today, Center for Security Policy director
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. expressed grave concerns about
steps being taken by the Clinton Administration designed
to “mutate the U.S. armed forces from
first-class war- fighting machines and instruments of
national power-projection into something altogether
different — a sort of armed AmeriCorps.“
Gaffney suggested that “this sort of mutation fits
the ‘counterculture’ mindset of the 1960s that proved
such a profound influence on the outlook of this
President and many in his Administration.”

Gaffney’s remarks (excerpts of
which are attached) were offered as part of a panel
discussion of “War-Making and Peace-Keeping:
Presidential and Congressional Authority in Foreign
Policy.” The other panelists were Michael Uhlmann,
former Counsel to President Reagan for Policy and C.
Boyden Gray, former Counsel to President Bush.

Gaffney argued that when President Clinton
characterized the U.S. troops he was visiting in Bosnia
as “warriors for peace,” he actually put into
sharp relief his agenda for the American military:
Transforming the military — through changing its
mission, diminishing its assets and other constraints —
so as to prevent future abuses of U.S. power of the sort
critics believe occurred in the Vietnam war.

According to Gaffney, the diversion of resources,
personnel and American sovereignty involved in U.S.
participation in multilateral peacekeeping operations is
but one of the means being used by the Clinton
Administration to accomplish this radical counterculture
objective. Other techniques now mutating the American
military include: promoting officers on the basis of
peacekeeping experience; giving priority to training for
peacekeeping over warfighting operations;
intelligence-sharing with notoriously insecure agencies
like the United Nations; and marginalizing the Congress
in decisions concerning the deployment of U.S. forces
while promoting the influence and authority of the UN
over such decisions.

Gaffney, Gray and Uhlmann all argued for Congress to
become more assertive in playing its constitutional role
as a check-and-balance concerning the uses made of
American military personnel. Gaffney warned that
Congress’ recent, unsatisfactory experience with
President Clinton’s Haiti and Bosnia operations — and
the likelihood that it will shortly face a similar
problem with his commitment to deploy U.S. troops on the
Golan Heights — argues for specific corrective action: a
stipulation that the President may not commit U.S.
forces to deployments overseas in non-emergency
situations in the absence of a specific appropriation to
pay for such deployments.

A copy of Frank Gaffney’s
prepared remarks may be obtained by contacting the
Center.

HAITI: WHAT WE’VE LEARNED

by Elliott Abrams
The Weekly Standard , December 11, 1995

Elliott Abrams, who managed U.S.-Haiti relations
when he served as assistant secretary of state in the
Reagan administration, is a senior fellow at the
Hudson Institute.

BOSNIA WILL BE BILL CLINTON’S second military venture
— after Haiti. Fifteen months ago he sent 6,000 American
troops there with the promise that they would restore
democracy and then leave. What is the situation in Haiti
as 1995 ends, and are there any lessons in it?

For nearly a year after the Americans arrived, Haiti
looked far better than c onservative critics had
predicted. The Clintonites had promised that President
Aristide would champion reconciliation and economic
reform, abandoning his hist ory of class-warfare rhetoric
and liberation-theology economics. In fact, the l evel of
political violence dropped fast, a new economic plan was
adopted, and a political debate began within Haiti among
democrats of the right, center, and left. American
officials had deified Aristide in order to win public and
congressional support for military action aimed at
putting him back in the presidential palace; and they
continued to play favorites by supporting Aristide’s
people as against Haitian democrats who did not like him.

Only one year later, Aristide has reverted to form.
His prime minister quit recently because Aristide blocked
the privatization program and seems to have developed no
taste for free-market economics. More importantly, he
gave a fierce rabble-rousing speech in mid-November that
led to a wave of mob violence against his political
opponents. And although he now promises to step down on
February 7, 1996, in accordance with the Haitian
constitution, Aristide’s long delay in announcing his
decision leaves only days to organize the December 17
presidential election. It will be a mess.

Given the level of violence in Haiti, many
administration officials admit privately that the only
way to keep the peace there is to leave some American
soldiers on the ground through next year. But at the same
time they fret that our troops, who are potential mob
targets, are a source of vulnerability as well as
strength. We value democracy in Haiti and those soldiers’
lives; Aristide has different standards. Others in the
administration warn that the troops will have to be out
by election day 1996, whatever the effect of that
withdrawal on Haiti.

Any lessons for Bosnia?

First, the presence of soldiers is a double-edged
sword. It is arguable that we could come down harder on
Aristide (with diplomatic and economic pressure) if he
had no leverage on us; but we need his help in
guaranteeing the safety of our troops, and that
complicates our situation. Apparently our soldiers in
Bosnia will be heavily armed, but the point still
applies.

Second, a large (for the neighborhood) military force
may achieve peace while the troops are there but have no
permanent effect. Our presence has suppressed violence in
Haiti, but the number of murders and burnings is rising
as our departure date comes closer. It appears that we
have achieved in Haiti what Tito achieved in Yugoslavia:
the temporary burial of disputes, not their solution.

Third, it is dangerous when local electorates are
less committed to peace and democracy than we are. The
administration that gave Aristide a halo finds itself in
an embarrassing position when he shows his tail — and
his supporters love him all the more for it. How will we
cope with Serbs who may be acting amiably and reasonably
now but are probably war criminals, or with
democratically elected officials whose irredentist
speeches may provoke violence against our troops?

Fourth, this administration always acts with both
eyes firmly fixed on domestic politics. Our troops
restored Aristide to power because that was the only way
the president could defend sending all the Haitian boat
people back home. (With Aristide restored to power, Haiti
was a democracy, right?) The vast majority of our troops
will be pulled out next year regardless of events on the
ground in Haiti, for the president is up for re-election.
One cannot say precisely how electoral politics will
affect our troop deployment in Bosnia, but one can say
with certainty that our reaction to any significant event
there will be the combined decision of Lake, Christopher,
Holbrooke, Shalikashvili — and Carville, Morris, Dodd,
and the rest of the crew.

‘DRIVERS WANTED’: WILL REPUBLICAN CONGRESS RISE TO CLINTON’S CHALLENGE ON BOSNIA?

Precis: Concerns are mounting daily, in
Congress and elsewhere, about the nature and potential
costs of President Clinton’s Bosnia initiative. Leading
security policy practitioners today raised a number of
serious objections to the Dayton Deal. Clearly, before
the United States becomes any more implicated in this
flawed accord — a result that would inevitably arise
from the further, unauthorized deployment of American
troops to Bosnia — the Senate should promptly join the
House in barring such deployments without express
congressional approval.

(Washington, D.C.): Bill Clinton’s decision to send
upwards of 20,000 troops (1)
to Bosnia to “enforce” the peace agreement
brokered last week in Dayton may represent the defining
moment of his presidency. The response to that
decision, however, almost certainly will be the most
critical security policy challenge faced by the 104th
Congress.

Unfortunately, the Republican congressional
leadership will fail that challenge if, as it now appears
inclined to do, it accedes to the President’s commitment
of American forces to hazardous duty in Bosnia. That
would be the effect of the Congress either a) permitting
a fait accompli (i.e., the insertion of large
numbers of troops in Bosnia without express congressional
authorization) or b) belatedly adopting a resolution
designed simultaneously to “support the troops”
and provide a modicum of political cover if the mission
becomes a fiasco.

Influential Dissenters

Principals and distinguished friends of the Center
for Security Policy today provided a wealth of reasons to
be concerned about the Dayton Deal. Former Secretary
of Defense and Energy James Schlesinger told the
Senate Armed Services Committee: “The reality of the
post cold war world is that the United States has limited
political capital for foreign ventures. We should husband
that political capital for those matters that are of
vital interest to the United States.” He expressed
concern about several aspects of the actual operation,
including the following: “The likelihood of us
coming out intact is slim”; “the justifications
are not persuasive”; and “I am concerned that
there may be a mismatch of the forces and the
mission.”

Dr. Schlesinger went on to warn:

“With the[ir] heavy armor, our forces will be
road-bound down in the valleys…We will need to
reconstruct the transportation systems in the area to
accommodate [our] 60-ton tanks…Given the road-bound
nature of our forces, they will not be able to reach
beyond the first range of hills with their
direct-fire weapons.”

Dr. Schlesinger observes that this situation will
lead to a need to send out foot patrols up the mountains,
creating more risk to U.S. troops.

In a major address on the Senate floor today, Senator
Jon Kyl (R-AZ) — a long-time member of the Center
for Security Policy’s Board of Advisors and recipient of
its 1994 “Keeper of the Flame” award —
expressed his concerns about the Dayton Deal. He said, in
part:

“If this peace that has been negotiated is so
fragile…that the only thing between peace and war
is that of the 60,000 ground troops, and 20,000 have
to be Americans, then this is a peace which is bound
to fail. It is not a peace of the heart. It is not a
peace that has been committed to by the belligerents,
but rather a convenience that has probably been
forced upon the parties and is probably doomed to —
if not failure — at least a very rocky road, which
means a lot of casualties on the part of the
peacekeepers. And that is a situation we need to take
into account before we support the President’s
decision to send the troops…

“It is true, if the Congress turned its back
on the President at this point, there would be some
embarrassment to the United States. The question
we have to ask ourselves is: Is the risk of
casualties and is the precedent which is being set to
send those troops outweighed by some temporary
embarrassment to the United States?

“I submit at this point, at least I have
concluded that the answer to that is ‘No,’ that the
Congress has to make it clear to the President that
he cannot simply go around making premature
commitments without the advice and consent of the
Congress, commitments which some of us believe not to
be wise, and then justifying the support for that on
the basis that the commitment was made and,
therefore, cannot be questioned anymore.”

Other leading Senators, including Sens. Jim Inhofe
(R-OK), Hank Brown (R-CO) and Kay Bailey
Hutchison (R-TX) deserve credit for raising their
voices as well in strong opposition to the President’s
planned deployment. Sen. Inhofe, who recently returned
from a deeply disturbing fact-finding mission to Tuzla —
the prospective site for the American headquarters in
Bosnia, remarked in a statement issued after Mr.
Clinton’s address to the Nation last night:

“Once again, the President has treated
Congress poorly in this matter. He has essentially
committed the troops first and asked for Congress’
blessing second. Congress is not being asked to make
a judgment about the basic wisdom of sending troops,
but rather forced to consider the consequences of
breaking a commitment it had no part in making in the
first place.”

In the attached op.ed. articles published in today’s Wall
Street Journal by
former Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Douglas Feith and in the Washington Times href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-D_98at2″>by Center director Frank Gaffney,
additional arguments are made as to why the Congress must
not rubber-stamp the Dayton Deal. Amb. Wolfowitz went on
to note in his own appearance today before the Senate
Armed Services Committee:

“The peace agreement did not end the deep
enmity that led to this war, or quench the desire for
revenge that the war has unleashed…Neither arms
control measures, nor constitutional provisions, or
international police task forces will hold the
continuing sense of enmity or grievance in
check.”

The Bottom Line

Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole has signaled that
he wants to keep an open mind about the President’s
initiative. If Sen. Dole wishes to leave the issue
genuinely open, however, then he must ensure that Mr.
Clinton is prevented from putting thousands of American
troops on the ground in Bosnia, effectively mooting
congressional deliberations about supporting the
deployment of “peace enforcers.”

The obvious vehicle for accomplishing this would be
for the Senate to join the House in adopting legislation
that would prohibit the use of appropriated funds for the
deployment of U.S. forces in Bosnia. An early vote should
be scheduled on this legislation which was originally
sponsored by Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO). Such a step
would allow the ultimate decision about whether to
authorize deployments to be held in abeyance, while
permitting an opportunity for a full airing of the
aforementioned and related concerns and a further
detailing of the nature of the mission, exit strategy,
risks, responsibilities, etc. If he genuinely wishes
to “support the troops” and create a
constitutionally and strategically sound basis for a
unified foreign policy approach, Sen. Dole must schedule
an early Senate vote on the Hefley legislation.

– 30 –

(1) This week’s edition of Defense
News reports that the numbers cited by the Clinton
Administration to describe the U.S. and NATO forces to be
deployed to Bosnia (20,000 and 60,000 respectively)
greatly understate the actual size of the military
commitment being contemplated. According to that
respected trade publication, these figures refer only to ground
combat personnel. The actual levels may be as high as
240,000 when associated logistic and other support
personnel are factored in.

AS HAITI MELTS DOWN, REASONS MOUNT UP WHY NO U.S. TROOPS SHOULD GO TO BOSNIA ABSENT CONGRESS’ O.K.

Precis: Today, the House of
Representatives is expected to act on the Hefley bill —
binding legislation barring the use of appropriated funds
to deploy U.S. ground forces to Bosnia without
congressional approval. As evidence mounts that it was a
mistake to allow American forces and resources to be
employed absent Congress’ assent to restore
Jean-Bertrande Aristide to power in Haiti, the case for
avoiding a similar, and far more serious, debacle in
Bosnia becomes all the more compelling.

(Washington, D.C.): Bill Clinton’s luck may have run
out. Just as the U.S. House of Representatives begins
consideration of legislation that would require prior
congressional approval of any American deployment of
peacekeeping forces to Bosnia, the arguments for doing so
are being given fresh impetus in Haiti. If as seems
likely, President Aristide continues to revert to form as
a ruthless, unstable dictator — increasingly presiding
over, if not responsible for, the shredding of such
trappings of democracy as have been put in place since
his return to Port-au-Prince — the lessons should not be
lost on Congress: In non-emergency situations, as a
general rule, the legislative branch ought to have a say
in the deployment of U.S. troops to dangerous overseas
assignments.

Haiti — A Case in Point

President Clinton insisted on invading Haiti
and reinstalling Jean-Bertrande Aristide in the face of
strenuous, bipartisan objections from Congress. Thanks
largely to the efforts of former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, Senator Sam Nunn and former
President Jimmy Carter, the invasion was effected
virtually without bloodshed. It nonetheless occurred
without congressional assent; indeed, it was timed so as
to preempt scheduled votes on Capitol Hill that
would almost certainly have disapproved of such military
action on behalf of Arisitide.

In recent weeks, congressional reservations have been
increasingly borne out. In the wake of parliamentary
elections characterized by widespread fraud and voting
irregularities, President Aristide has apparently been
emboldened to employ anew the techniques of mob violence
and political coercion that he has used before to
maintain control. Several of the President’s political
opponents have been brutally murdered with axes and
machetes in recent weeks, with the residences of many
more set afire. Two days ago, a female Haitian journalist
who had courageously published articles documenting
widespread corruption in the Aristide regime was attacked
by a mob while driving with her two small children. Her
car was destroyed and she and her children were last seen
being dragged away by the attackers.

In the past, such street violence has been used by
Aristide to preserve his hold on power. It should come as
no surprise if, in the weeks leading up to the scheduled
17 December presidential elections, mobs are heard
demanding that the President seek reelection. Of course,
to do so, Aristide would have to disregard a
constitutional prohibition against such a possibility and
his repeated promises not to run again — centerpieces of
the Clinton Administration’s case that a U.S.
intervention in Haiti would lead to democratic rule.
Whether President Aristide actually stands for a rigged
reelection or chooses to exercise effective control over
a successor government dominated by his party, the bottom
line is the same: The deployment of tens of thousands
of U.S. troops and the infusion of many hundreds of
millions of American tax-dollars into Haiti has not
assured the functioning of democracy there, to say
nothing of ensuring that it will survive the scheduled
withdrawal of U.S. troops from the island in March of
1996.

No Better Prospects for a Lasting Peace in
Bosnia

The deal under negotiation in Dayton, Ohio shows
little sign of being more effective or durable than that
used to justify the American intervention in Haiti.
To the contrary — as evident in President Clinton’s 13
November 1995 letter to the congressional leadership —
there are serious questions about the viability of any
peace agreement in Bosnia that is predicated upon the
good faith of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and a
de facto division of territory that rewards aggression he
inspired. Mr. Clinton’s assurances about the
Implementation Force’s mission, its command and control
arrangements, its costs, the “exit strategy,”
the “evenhanded” or neutral status of American
forces and the impact on U.S. military readiness all
warrant the most careful and skeptical prior
congressional scrutiny.

Unfortunately, that is clearly not what the Clinton
Administration has in mind. While the President’s letter
assures Congress that “our troops will not be
deployed unless and until there is a genuine peace
agreement” and that “there will be a timely
opportunity for Congress to consider and act upon [his]
request for support before American forces are deployed
in Bosnia,” Mr. Clinton notes “there is a
requirement for some early prepositioning of a small
amount of communications and other support
personnel.”

The Bottom Line

In other words, the President hopes to achieve
precisely the same sort of fait accompli with
respect to Bosnia that he perpetrated in Haiti — get
started with a deployment before Congress can interpose
objections or conditions, then insist that the
legislative branch “support the troops” by
authorizing deployments and paying the bills. As the
folly of this approach becomes clear in the context of
Haiti, it should be evident that the mistake should not
be repeated in the case of a far more volatile Bosnia.

Starting with today’s vote in the House of
Representatives on legislation offered by Rep. Joel
Hefley and a large, bipartisan group of cosponsors, the Congress
should establish that no U.S. ground troops may be
dispatched to Bosnia for peacekeeping, peacemaking or, as
the President put it, “peace implementing”
purposes without express and prior congressional
approval.

Mideast Peace Has a Price for the U.S.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. directs the Center for Security Policy in Washington. He held senior Defense Department positions under Ronald Reagan

 

TOMORROW, THE WHITE House will be the site of the second Israeli-PLO signing ceremony in two years. The choice of venue is fitting – although not for the reasons President Bill Clinton has in mind, namely lending U.S. prestige to the event and reflecting politically useful credit on his administration. Rather, the Washington setting is appropriate because the United States, although not a party to the so-called "Oslo II" accords, will nonetheless bear some of the most serious repercussions of their predictable failure.

 

These repercussions will likely arise in three areas. The first and most strategically portentous will be the implications for the United States of Israel surrendering land essential to the Jewish state’s defense. If, as a result, Israel’s domestic security situation becomes more shaky, Israel will be far less able to serve as a bulwark for the West against radical Islam and other threats to American interests in the region.

 

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin seeks to allay such concerns in the wake of the accords by promising that Israel will maintain a presence in the strategic Jordan River valley and provide protection for settlements built on key pieces of real estate in the West Bank. Unfortunately, such promises are unlikely to be kept. The Rabin government already has indicated its desire to liquidate some settlements. And, despite the new "bypass" roads and Israeli patrols instituted to promote the settlers’ safety, even the most stalwart of them may feel compelled to abandon the vital passes, crossroads, watersheds and high ground on which their homes have typically been situated.

 

Such a trend will only be exacerbated when PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat declares the newly relinquished territory a sovereign Palestinian state. The fences Rabin proposes to build between Israel and its new neighbor probably will not prevent terrorists from attacking the Jewish state. Certainly, these barriers will not afford the geographical protection or the assured access to vital water resources that Israel has enjoyed since it took control of the West Bank in 1967.

 

It is, of course, up to the democratically elected government of Israel to decide whether to take such risks. No one should be under any illusion, however: If the Rabin government proves to have recklessly "bet the farm," U.S. interests currently served by a strong, self-reliant and reliable Israeli ally in the Mideast will also be adversely affected.

 

The second area of concern about the accords involves the commitment of U.S. taxpayer dollars to induce the PLO to reach an agreement with Israel. So far, more than $ 500 million has been pledged, and well more than $ 100 million has already gone out the door.

 

Such American largesse is simply outrageous, given the mounting and persuasive evidence that international aid flowing to Arafat’s organizations is finding its way into his personal bank accounts – or those of his cronies. Some of it is old-fashioned corruption; some of it is to advance the PLO’s political agenda. As recently as last Wednesday, Arafat affirmed to the Al Ahram News Agency the malevolent nature of that agenda.

 

According to the Jerusalem Post, Arafat said his agreements with the Israelis followed "the blueprint of the 1974 PLO "plan of phases." That plan called for destruction of Israel as a second phase, to follow the initial establishment of Palestinian sovereignty over territories obtained from Israel through negotiation.

 

The third source of repercussions arises from the United States’ bowing to the Israeli desire for peace with the PLO and in the process subordinating its policy on those, like Arafat, who encourage terrorism. In just the past few weeks, two Americans were killed and a pregnant American woman lost her child in terrorist attacks in Israel. Yet Arafat has continued to tell his people in Arabic that such murderous attacks are the work of "heroes and martyrs" engaged in a "jihad [holy war] of battles and of death."

 

These newest casualties join a long list of U.S. victims of PLO terrorism for whom there must be accountability and punishment of the perpetrators, not legitimation and diplomatic, financial or other rewards.

 

In short, the costs of the champagne and caviar sure to be consumed at tomorrow’s White House signing ceremony are only the beginning of the high price Americans will be asked to bear for the latest Rabin-Arafat accord. Quite apart from concerns about what an unsustainable peace agreement will mean for Israel, it is entirely reasonable to ask: How many more of these ominous accords can the United States and its vital interests afford?

START THE BOMBING, NOW!

(Washington, D.C.): At first blush, there appears to
be considerable irony in Bill Clinton’s recent embrace in
Bosnia of what his Administration calls “bombing in
the service of diplomacy.” After all, a hardy
perennial of the anti-war movement in which he was once
active was the demand to “Stop The Bombing,
Now!” Indeed, many believe the political opposition
that in the first instance operationally ham-strung and
then prematurely terminated strategic bombing campaigns
in Southeast Asia did much to deny the U.S. and its
allies success on the battlefield and at the negotiating
table.

On closer inspection, however, President Clinton’s
present approach to the use of U.S. airpower has a lot in
common with his earlier stance. For one thing, the
Vietnam-era military — which chafed under rules of
engagement and targeting directions emanating from the
White House — had a free-hand compared to the absurdly
micromanaged bombing operations that the United States
and several of its NATO partners have mounted against
Bosnian Serb forces in recent weeks.

‘Super-pinpricks’

As a result of the limitations imposed by Washington
either unilaterally, under pressure from the Russians or
pursuant to lowest-common-denominator guidance from the
UN and/or NATO secretariats, thousands of bombing
sorties have been mounted at a cost of many millions of
dollars and considerable risk to American and allied
pilots and aircraft. Yet, there has been little
perceptible — and certainly no lasting — damage
inflicted upon the Serb’s war-making capabilities.

In fact, the Clinton Administration, stung by earlier
criticism and the transparent failure of its
“pinprick” bombing operations, has allowed U.S.
air assets to be used exclusively for what might be
called “super-pinprick” attacks. Targets
were quite deliberately selected and struck in ways that
would not alter the military balance of forces in Bosnia.
Since the equivalent of the Ho Chi Minh trail — the land
and water routes and logistical supply network by which
Serbia and Russia have continued to support Bosnian Serb
predations — has not been struck, the ammo lost to NATO
attacks is being rapidly replenished. Air defense
operations have been suppressed, but not destroyed, as
disrupted command and control links to Belgrade are
readily repaired. And, of course, heavy armor, troop
concentrations, fuel depots and marshaling areas that
have deliberately not been targeted have gone unscathed.

Such minimal results do not reflect a lack of skill,
courage or capability on the part of U.S. and allied
aircrews. To the contrary, those who once argued that
air power could not materially affect the course of this
conflict in the absence of massive Western combat forces
on the ground have now been largely silenced. If only the
same energy and resources had been applied to truly
destroying Serb warfighting potential, conditions
essential to a real and durable peace in Bosnia might
finally have been created.

What the Bombing Has Wrought

The Clinton Administration would have us believe that
those results have, in fact, been achieved — that its
micromanaged use of “bombing in the service of
diplomacy” has concentrated the Serb aggressors’
minds and made possible heretofore elusive progress in
the so-called “peace process.” Clearly, NATO’s
air strikes have had a psychological impact. This impact
has not, however, been evidenced in a lessening of
Serbian war aims or resolve to accomplish them, as
wishful thinkers in Washington, New York and Brussels
would have us believe.

Instead, the principal effect of the bombing has been
to improve the morale and audacity of Bosnian government
forces and their Croatian allies seeking to liberate
territory in Bosnia-Herzegovina previously seized by the
Serbs. The resulting military reverses, rather than
the super-pinprick air strikes, have been responsible
for concentrating the minds of Serbian President Slobodan
Milosevic and other war criminals like his
hand-picked commander of the Bosnian Serb forces, Ratko
Mladic. They now profess a willingness to come to terms
and end hostilities.

But what terms? What peace agreement has
“diplomacy served by bombing” served up? Alas,
it is a formula for the ultimate, inevitable destruction
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, not a genuine — to say nothing of
durable — peace. To be sure, the Serbs have agreed
to accept a de facto partition of Bosnia that would cede
them control of less territory than they once held.
Recent Bosnian government and Croatian military gains,
however, have already accomplished this result. But in
most other respects, Serb war aims have actually been
legitimated by the deal struck by Bill Clinton’s point
man for Bosnia, Amb. Richard Holbrooke: It will
produce an “ethnically pure” Serbian entity,
governed by a constitution drawn up by genocidal
psychopaths like Mladic and his civilian counterpart,
Radovan Karadzic, for the express purpose of fulfilling
(eventually, if not in short order) Milosevic’s dream of
a Greater Serbia.

Holbrooke’s False Peace — Disaster for Bosnia,
Calamity for the U.S.

It is sheer self-delusion to construe such
an arrangement as one conducive to stability in the
Balkans. In the event that this deal is actually
formalized, it will merely set the stage for the next
round of conflict.

Unfortunately, in the interval, President Clinton
appears determined quickly to insert into Bosnia as many
as 25,000 U.S. troops equipped with heavy armor. The
perceived urgency is apparently motivated by two
considerations: First, the Administration knows that
Congress is unlikely to go along with this deployment.
Hence the need to present it — as in Haiti — with a fait
accompli. And second, Mr. Clinton wants to be able to
start withdrawing American troops early in the upcoming
campaign; if he is to start getting them out in
six-to-eight months, he has to get them in
quickly.

Such a deployment is likely to be even more of a
misuse of the men and women who serve in the U.S.
military than the super-pinprick bombing campaign has
been. After all, they will be placed in harm’s way
for a period that will almost certainly prove longer than
President Clinton now envisions. Getting them and their
vast quantities of heavy equipment out again will be no
trivial undertaking, particularly if their withdrawal is
opposed by civilian populations in Bosnia. And, perhaps
worst of all, like the current UN peacekeeping force,
these American troops will be obliged to play the role of
honest brokers in Bosnia. Moral equivalence between the
aggressors and their victims will be the order of the
day. They will, as a practical matter, be subjected to
impossible command and control arrangements; as likely as
not, the UN and other foreign authorities will have a say
over their actions.

Worse yet, given the changing correlation of forces
on the ground in Bosnia, the principal role such U.S.
and allied personnel may be asked to perform could be the
odious task of safeguarding Serb land-grabs and
preventing any reversal of Serbian ethnic cleansing.
The war criminals responsible for such travesties will
come under American protection and taxpayers in this
country will be obliged to contribute to Serb economic
reconstruction. Incredibly, the Clinton Administration
also wants to save face for the Serbs by introducing
Russian troops into the mix, affording Moscow a pretext
and the means to involve itself even more deeply — and
insidiously — in Balkan affairs.

The Real Lessons

Before the United States goes any further down this
unpromising track, it would do well to reflect upon the
lessons that can be extrapolated from the recent NATO
bombing campaign: If aimed at the appropriate target
sets and effectively executed, U.S. air power (operating
unilaterally or with allied participation) can enable
Bosnian government and Croatian forces to reestablish a
unified state in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This can
clearly be facilitated by an immediate lifting of the
arms embargo against the Bosnian government.

Such an arrangement is the only hope for returning
most refugees to their homes, creating conditions in
which economic recovery is likely to enjoy Western
support and avoiding the eventual, if not near-term,
creation of Greater Serb and Greater Croat entities —
among the most serious impediments to a stable peace in
the Balkans. This outcome is also the only foreseeable
basis upon which to avoid a massive U.S. military
commitment on the ground in Bosnia, either for the
purpose of withdrawing the UN peacekeepers currently
there or to try to maintain an unworkable
“settlement” between the warring parties.

The Bottom Line

Of course, using air power effectively in Bosnia —
to say nothing of lifting the arms embargo, would oblige
the United States to stand with the victims of genocidal
aggression, rather than further indulge in moral
equivalence. It need not, however, require a greater
allocation of U.S. military resources than have been
devoted to date in connection with Bill Clinton’s
“bombing in the service of diplomacy.” If
anything, it will take far fewer resources than the
Administration has in mind in order to pull off a Dunkirk
retreat on the one hand, or a Somalian peacekeeping
operation on the other.

To be sure, there are risks associated with this
approach. Russia will not like it; Belgrade will howl;
and the United States might find itself with a pick-up
team of like-minded nations, as in Desert Storm, rather
than a UN/NATO-sponsored operation. But there are even
worse risks associated with the other options. American
involvement in Bosnia on the Administration’s terms or,
alternatively, its complete disengagement from the
conflict there is likely to produce far worse outcomes in
the Balkans. And given the demonstrated capacity of
conflicts begun in this region to precipitate crises much
farther afield, it behooves the United States to stop
the war in Bosnia by starting the real bombing, now.

The Time Has Come

By WILLIAM SAFIRE
The New York Times, July 13, 1995

On the central moral-military challenge of his Presidency to lead the Western world in collective
defense against bloodstained aggression — Bill Clinton will be remembered in history as a man
who feared, flinched and failed.

The policy long urged by Senator Bob Dole was to lift the pernicious arms embargo to Bosnians
who want to fight for their country, and to support the defenders with air strikes at ammo dumps
and supply lines of the invading Serbs. Events have proved the Dole policy right.

But the other-directed Mr. Clinton deferred to Europeans who secretly wanted the Bosnian
victims to surrender. We now see proof that the Clinton policy of passivity was wrong.

The objective reader will recall the central argument made by the not-my-table set in the White
House: that if “lift-and-strike” was undertaken, fighting would escalate, U.N. forces would have
to be withdrawn, and safe havens would be overrun by Serbian forces.

So lift-and-strike was never tried. What has happened? Serbian attacks have escalated,
humiliated U.N. forces are preparing to withdraw, and safe havens are being overrun.

Moreover, Clinton’s failure of nerve has led to this: The U.N. is reduced to huffing resolutions
as impotent as the papal bull against the comet; NATO is revealed to be militarily musclebound, at
the mercy of terrorist hostage-takers; Nazi-style ethnic cleansing is triumphant; and Bosnian
civilians are being driven from their U.N.-guaranteed havens like cattle.

On top of that, Mr. Clinton’s message to rogue states who shoot down a U.S. F-16 on patrol:
We will not retaliate. We will rescue our downed pilot and celebrate his return with a White
House luncheon, but as for the Serbian missilemen who shot down our plane: The President turns
the other cheek. It then gets slapped at Srebrenica.

Ah, say Clinton apologists, but we kept our boys out of foreign wars. The truth is otherwise: By
refusing to help the Bosnians fight their own war, Mr. Clinton has foolishly committed us to
provide 25,000 U.S. ground troops to cover a U.N. retreat. “Clinton’s war” risks American lives
only when defeat is certain.

The White House is irritated at the attention being given the rape of Bosnia because this was
supposed to be Vietnam reconciliation week.

Consider the march of his “commercial-Communist complex.” It began by giving trade
advantages to increasingly repressive China; it moved to conferring diplomatic recognition on
Communist Vietnam; soon it hopes to help Castro maintain Communist control in Cuba.

Why? Because “the time has come” — the bored slogan of the irresolute.

Clinton’s shock-of-recognition theory is that trade and aid weave a web of contacts that
promotes civilized behavior and democratic reform. But the new Clinton detente with China is not
working any better than the old Nixon detente with the Soviet Union. Today’s pragmatic passivity
has emboldened Chinese hard-liners to crush human rights, to threaten expansion into the South
China Sea, even to snatch a Sakharovian U.S. citizen.

Global sharks can detect blood in the water anywhere: If the U.S. isn’t going to make a fuss
about one of its planes being shot down in Bosnia, why should it complain about the seizure of
the annoying Harry Wu?

Contempt is contagious. When you act weakly in one place, you are presumed to be weak
elsewhere. That presumption of weakness guarantees that you will be tested, resulting in the need
to make a showing of military might. Contrariwise, when you have earned the right to be judged
tenacious, you are less likely to be challenged, and seldom if ever forced to use force.

That is why Clinton’s Carteresque avoidance of duty in the Balkans hits home: It is the source of
the infection of weakness that now pervades his foreign policy.

Bosnia has given the world’s bullies good reason to believe that the U.S. under this President
can be had. Clinton piously preaches “engagement” but wimpishly practices detachment; he
denounces isolationism but joins perfidious Albion in isolating a victim of aggression.

Clinton has turned a superpower into a subpower, stumbling down the U.N.’s road to defeat.
Though the hour is late, in Bosnia “the time has come” to follow Dole.

A McCAIN MUTINY? HAVING SECURED DIPLOMATIC RECOGNITION FOR HANOI, WILL HE DRAW THE LINE ON U.S. TAXPAYER AID?

(Washington, D.C.): Bill Clinton is expected tomorrow to
perform one of the most extraordinary, if odious, feats of his
presidency: Even though the 1992 campaign established that one of
Mr. Clinton’s greatest political vulnerabilities is his record of
opposition to the war in Vietnam, he reportedly will announce the
normalization of diplomatic relations with the same communist
government whose side he took twenty-five years ago. By so doing,
the President intends not only to exchange ambassadors but to
clear the way for substantial U.S. underwriting of American trade
and investment with Vietnam.

If President Clinton does pull off this initiative, he will
largely have one individual to thank: Senator John McCain.

Runners-Up

At first blush, it may seem that many are in contention for
this dubious distinction. First, there are the gaggle of vehement
opponents of the Vietnam War holding senior positions in the
Clinton Administration. To be sure, National Security Council
Senior Director Morton Halperin, his boss — NSC Advisor Anthony
Lake — and State Department Assistant Secretary Winston
Lord have been beavering away for years to reward the
communist rulers of Vietnam for their breach of the Paris Peace
Accords and the subsequent brutal repression of America’s
erstwhile ally, the Republic of South Vietnam.

Then, there is Major General Thomas Needham, the
former commander of the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTFFA).
He used that position artificially to reduce the number of
outstanding cases of unaccounted-for Vietnam-era POW-MIAs by,
among other things, reorganizing the JTFFA. This allowed him to
eliminate competent civilian personnel who might resist his
orders effectively to close out investigations, even when that
could only be done by making unjustified determinations
concerning the fate of missing personnel. Gen. Needham also
personally shredded immense quantities of irreplaceable
investigative field reports and other relevant information in the
U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. And, like special envoy General John
Vessey before him, Gen. Needham made a point of stressing to
every congressional delegation and friendly reporter that the
Vietnamese were cooperating “superbly” with the effort
to achieve a full accounting.

In fact, the communist regime in Vietnam is doing today
what it has done all along. It is cynically exploiting the wealth
of information, archival data, warehoused artifacts and, yes,
American remains in its possession to extract concessions
from Washington. Predictably, the more the Clinton
Administration has been willing to provide Hanoi — for example,
access to the resources of international financial institutions,
lifting the trade embargo, opening liaison offices — the less
forthcoming the Vietnamese have actually become.

A Critical Congressional Hearing

The Administration points, nonetheless, to quantities of
remains and documents Hanoi is turning over as evidence that
further rewards are in order. The truth — as borne out by sworn
testimony at a marathon hearing of the House National Security
Committee’s Personnel Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Robert Dornan
(R-CA) on 28 June — is very different. Most of these remains
are eventually established to be those of animals or non-American
individuals. Similarly, Administration representatives
were obliged to tell Congress that none of the several
hundred pages of documents finally served up by Hanoi to a
visiting presidential delegation last May is expected to be of
any help in resolving outstanding POW-MIA cases.

Even more damning was the record compiled by non-governmental
witnesses like Garnett (Bill) Bell and Michael Janich
— two highly experienced and respected Vietnam vets turned
POW-MIA investigators. Mr. Bell assailed both Hanoi and
Washington:

“If one takes a close look at documentation of
their wartime accounting procedures, it should be obvious
that the Vietnamese are merely using a ruse in the hope that
our policy-makers will cooperate with them in creating an
illusion of tangible progress when, in reality, none
exists.”

For his part, Mr. Janich confirmed that the Vietnamese
routinely went to great lengths to interfere with joint field
investigations:

“During the period I served as a team leader in
Vietnam, I experienced and reported in detail to my superiors
regular occurrences of witness coaching, prompting and
intimidation by my Vietnamese counterparts. I also
experienced and reported the intentional withholding of
information and documents by Vietnamese officials and
witnesses and levels of cooperation so low that they would
more properly be considered obstructions of our investigation
efforts.”

According to Mr. Janich, Vietnamese skullduggery was
complemented by Gen. Needham’s. He described for the Committee a
number of steps the general took to effect “changes to
[JTFFA’s] mission under his command”:

“The combination of untrained, unqualified infantry
team leaders and sometimes marginally qualified team members
was alone enough to seriously degrade the quality of the
investigation process. This decline was hastened, however by
the relentless pressure placed on team leaders by Brigadier
General Needham. He demanded that greater and greater numbers
of cases be investigated during each field activity and
reduced the time allotted for preparing investigation
reports. Investigation and report writing standards were thus
further compromised to meet these demands.”

Mr. Janich recounted how “one infantry officer, who
established the record for the greatest number of cases
investigated during a single Joint Field Activity, averaged two
case investigations per day.” The military has an expression
for this approach: You want it bad, you get it bad.

Among the other witnesses providing critical testimony from
the perspective of veterans organizations and families groups
were John Sommers, Executive Director of the American
Legion, and Ann Mills Griffiths, Executive Director of the
National League of POW- MIA Families. As two of the Nation’s most
knowledgeable and influential public figures on the question of
Vietnam-era POW-MIAs, they were routinely asked to participate in
presidential missions to Hanoi. That is, they were until
the decisive May 1995 mission — a trip that was evidently
scripted to result in a finding that Vietnamese accounting was
full enough for government work. Their presentations to the
Committee make clear that neither Mr. Sommers nor Ms.
Griffiths agree with that assessment; both believe that Vietnam
has failed to satisfy any one of President Clinton’s stated
four-point litmus test for normalization.

Perhaps the most damning testimony of all, however, was that
supplied by Major Sandra Caughlin, who evaluated field
investigations of live-sighting reports being performed in Laos.
Major Caughlin told the Committee she stood by the following
harsh judgment contained in an official reporting cable she
authored in September 1994:

“In summary, not only does [her critique of
specific investigative practices] lead us to believe the
results of these investigations are not credible, it forces
us to question the validity of all the live-sighting
investigations (LSI) that have been conducted in Laos to
date. In light of the questionable results, the Defense
POW-MIA Affairs Office believes that this may be an opportune
time to [re]assess the value of conducting LSI investigations
in Laos, knowing full well that the investigations are going
to be hindered by the government of Laos. Under the present
circumstances for conducting investigations in Laos, it may
be impossible to establish a credible LSI mechanism.”

As Chairman Dornan dryly observed, “It is hard to
believe that this could take place in Laos and not take place in
Vietnam — the coaching of witnesses, the threatening of people
in the area, the threatening of witnesses. These are [both]
police states.”

Enter John McCain, U.S.S., Ex-POW

While the President’s men, Gen. Needham and others associated
with JTFFA and the communist despots of Vietnam have all played
their part, the fact remains that no one has been more helpful
to President Clinton in his bid to embrace Hanoi than Senator
McCain, a Republican from Arizona. As a Vietnam veteran who
suffered at the communists’ hands for 5 1/2 years while a
prisoner of war, Sen. McCain enjoys great deference from his
colleagues on Capitol Hill.

When John McCain asserts that the Vietnamese are
cooperating fully, it sounds more believable than when Mr.
Clinton says it. When he talks about the need to build up Vietnam
as a counterweight to China, there seems to be a realpolitik
rationalization for financial and perhaps even security
assistance that might otherwise appear to be the sort of
guilt-alleviating reparations which the United States has
heretofore refused to make. And when he, with his fair claim to
vengeance, says it is time finally to end the Vietnam conflict,
it is easier to ignore the abiding presence of the repressive,
totalitarian regime the U.S. went to war with in the first place.

It is regrettable that Senator McCain has chosen to play such
a part. On the one hand, the legerdemain of both the
Clinton Administration and the Vietnamese government with respect
to accounting for U.S. POW/MIAs should not be condoned, let alone
endorsed.

On the other, economic engagement with a
still-totalitarian Vietnam will surely result — as it has in
communist China — in a hemorrhage of American manufacturing
industries willing (provided they can get taxpayer-guaranteed
investment insurance, of course) to exploit the slave labor
conditions that exist in most of Vietnam. Under present
circumstances, the upshot will likely be to produce yet another
U.S.-Asian trade deficit, as the government in Hanoi endeavors to
keep the Vietnamese people too poor to buy many of the consumer
goods American firms hope to sell them.

The Bottom Line

Offering Vietnam both normalization and American
taxpayer resources at this time will basically eliminate
Washington’s leverage to get a real full accounting —
while helping to extend the lifespan of the brutal regime in
Hanoi that is currently preventing such an accounting. If
Senator McCain insists on helping President Clinton establish
diplomatic relations with Vietnam, he would be wise to separate
that move from the granting of Most Favored Nation status or
otherwise qualifying the communist Vietnamese for access to the
U.S. Treasury via the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and
the Export-Import Bank. By bifurcating these initiatives, the
Senator and his admirers in Congress could take a large step in
the direction of reconciliation without offering an
as-yet-unwarranted, and possibly blank, check to Hanoi.

The Center for Security Policy understands that House
International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman
(R-NY), Rep. Dornan and another distinguished former Vietnam-era
POW, Rep. Sam Johnson, (R-TX), intend to oppose Mr. Clinton’s
efforts to saddle the American taxpayer with what amounts to
foreign aid for Vietnam. It looks forward to a hearing of the
International Relations Committee scheduled for Wednesday, 12
July. Such a hearing should build upon the extremely important
record compiled by Rep. Dornan and his colleagues on 28 June. It
should also make the case for continuing to withhold OPIC and
EximBank funding from an undeserving, communist Vietnamese
regime.

The Clinton Missile Gaffe

In the detritus left behind after President Clinton’s summit meeting with Boris Yeltsin last week, it may seem difficult to determine which U.S. interests sustained the worst damage. While unchecked genocide in Chechnya, a legitimated Russian nuclear deal with Iran and apparent acquiescence to Russian interference in NATO expansion decisions would figure high on any list, Mr. Clinton may have done the most harm in an area that has received far less public attention — the imposition of new constraints on U.S. options to defend against missile attack.

Specifically, President Clinton agreed to perpetuate America’s current, absolute vulnerability to ballistic missile attack. This was the effect of issuing a joint statement saying, "The United States and Russia are each committed to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a cornerstone of strategic stability." After all, the 1972 ABM Treaty — signed with the Soviet Union, a country that no longer exists, in a Cold War environment very different from today’s — effectively precludes the U.S. and its people from being defended.

One need look no further than the Clinton-Yeltsin summit meeting to appreciate how absurd such a stance is. How can a president prepared to tolerate Russia’s sale of nuclear weapons-related technology simultaneously assert that it is prudent to remain defenseless against the weapons Tehran might thus obtain and deliver by ballistic missile?

President Clinton also agreed in Moscow to a number of "basic principles" that the U.S. and Russia say should "serve as a basis for further discussions in order to reach agreement in the field of demarcation between ABM systems and Theater Missile Defense (TMD) systems." Unfortunately, "demarcation" is a code word for new constraints on a class of missile defenses not currently limited by the ABM Treaty — defenses against shorter-range, or "theater," ballistic missiles. The following quoted "principles" merit critical analysis:

     

  • "Both sides must have the option to establish and to deploy effective theater missile defense systems. Such activity must not lead to violation or circumvention of the ABM Treaty."

    • While the first sentence sounds fine as far as it goes, the U.S. currently has not only the option but the unencumbered right to establish and deploy theater missile defenses. The second sentence, however, is an invitation to Russian complaints about future U.S. cooperation with allied governments on TMD programs.

     

  • "Theater missile defense systems may be deployed by each side which (1) will not pose a realistic threat to the strategic nuclear force of the other side and (2) will not be tested to give such systems that capability."

    • The term "realistic" was reportedly inserted at Russian insistence. The reason? Since the extent to which a threat is "realistic" is clearly in the eyes of the threatened, it is predictable that Moscow will be claiming that American TMD systems — particularly highly capable ones — are a threat to individual Russian missiles. This can be said to be true even if they are wholly inadequate to pose a "significant" or "meaningful" threat against a Russian attack in a "force-on-force" scenario.

     

  • "Theater missile defense will not be deployed by the sides for use against each other."

    • This principle appears to introduce a basis for the Russians to argue that there should be geographic limitations on the deployment of U.S. TMD systems. The ABM Treaty imposes no such limitations on nonstrategic antimissile weapons.

     

  • "The scale of the deployment — in number and geographic scope — of theater missile defense systems by either side will be consistent with theater ballistic missile programs confronting that side."

    • This principle appears to offer the Russians a "two-fer": It establishes that there should be some relationship between the scale of theater missile threats faced by a "side" and the number of theater missile defenses that "side" may have. And it creates a basis for establishing numerical as well as geographic limitations on U.S. TMD capabilities.

    According to this logic, since Russia faces a potentially enormous danger of attack from shorter-range ballistic missiles, it would be entitled to an enormous number of TMD systems. Since Russia’s TMD systems (e.g., the SA-12 and S-300 surface-to-air missiles) have considerable strategic missile defense potential, the Kremlin could proceed with what amounts to a nationwide defense against missiles of all ranges. On the other hand, since the U.S. faces no theater missile threats, its TMD capabilities would presumably be limited to overseas deployments and possibly just to those numbers and regions where U.S. forces are still forward-deployed.

     

  • "The Presidents confirmed the interest of the sides in the development and fielding of effective theater missile defense systems on a cooperative basis. The sides will make every effort toward the goal of broadening bilateral cooperation in the area of defense against ballistic missiles. They will consider expanding cooperative efforts in theater missile defense technology and exercises, study ways of sharing data obtained through early warning systems, discuss theater missile defense architecture concepts, and seek opportunities for joint research and development in theater missile defense."

    • This appears to mean that instead of the "cooperation" contemplated by President Reagan between the two sides on a global — read, strategic — antimissile system, there will now be "cooperation" only on theater missile defenses. It amounts to a substantial departure even from the commitment made by President Yeltsin in January 1992 when he expressed a desire to participate in a "global protective system." All other things being equal, the "cooperation" contemplated by this far more narrow statement will mean the transfer of extremely sensitive technical information, software and hardware that could lead to its irreparable compromise.

There is, however, potentially some good news in President Clinton’s mischief in Moscow on missile defense: with it, he has invited a major confrontation with the Republican-controlled Congress. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and virtually the entire Republican congressional leadership have formally and repeatedly expressed their opposition to the Clinton administration’s approach.

It now falls to Congress to take up the president’s challenge. Few issues offer Republicans — and particularly Republican candidates for Mr. Clinton’s job — a better vehicle for contrasting their differences with this administration. And now, thanks to an important new study due to be released next week by the Heritage Foundation, they have an option for relatively inexpensively and quickly deploying missile defenses aboard the Navy’s AEGIS cruisers as the first step in fielding effective global antimissile protection. If Congress endorses this program in the course of action over the next few weeks on the 1996 Defense authorization bill, it will go a long way toward undoing the damage Bill Clinton did in Moscow. And far more important, it will begin to correct our people’s most serious strategic vulnerability.

 

Mr. Gaffney is the coordinator of the Coalition to Defend America.