BosNet Document:Senator Lugar on McCain Motion-Part 2
Steve Albert
B o s N e t -May 5, 1999
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Senator Lugar on McCain Motion
Part :The Need For a Plan
I have said to the President respectfully, `Mr. President, you have to have
at least plan B. There has to be a safety net. We cannot suffer failure. You
cannot suffer failure.' There may be some Members of Congress--we read about
these people in the paper who say, `This is President Clinton's war, and
when he falls flat on his face, that is his problem. He deserves it, having
ill prepared for this, having very little strategy that seems to be relevant to
getting the job done.'
Madam President, we got over that very rapidly. This is not the President
falling on his face. It is not a personal failure of the President. We are
in a war. The United States is at war--not President Clinton.
I think what Senator McCain, Senator Hagel, Senator Biden, and others have
been saying in essence is, `Mr. President, we need a much broader strategy.
We need more options.'
I have said specifically we need, at a minimum, a public declaration that we
are planning ground options--lots of them. We don't know what the situation
will be on the ground 5 months from now, but we had better have some
options, and it had been better be apparent we are doing that, for our own
credibility.
Furthermore, we could preposition supplies and equipment conspicuously so
forces can get there, as opposed to constantly saying it will be weeks or
months before we can do anything as an excuse for not doing so.
I am advised that the American people in various polls have a low tolerance
for casualties. Some people have crassly suggested: What if 100 Americans
lost their lives? Would you still be in favor of the war? Would you be in
favor of ground forces? How about 200 or 500? At what point do you say,
after America loses, we leave; that is an unacceptable set of circumstances?
In polls, however, it may test the political courage of the President, or
any of us. If the President is failing even to say, `I will think about
planning for the ground option,' because he is reading polls that say that
is very unpopular, very unacceptable, then the President needs to get over
that too, as we do here on the floor of the Senate.
We are talking now about the fate of our country--our credibility with
regard to foreign policy and the Armed Forces. We can say, regardless of
Kosovo, we are ready for the real war, or the big war, or whatever war comes
along. But, Madam President, with what? What kind of political will? What
kind of ability to pull this country together, and Congress, and the people?
What kind of ability to keep the alliance together with some credibility
that we are for real, and that when we go to war, we go to win? And having
set the objectives, knowing very clearly what they are, we have to get to
the point of winning.
The McCain resolution is tremendously important, because it simply says,
`Mr. President, you have got to do more--a lot more. You have to lead. You
have to have a strategy that finally says to whomever--President Milosevic
and anybody else--we are going to win, we are going to prevail, the United
States means it.'
If we are not prepared to give the President that support, if our debate
degenerates into the fact that: `Mr. President, we would like for you to
win. We would like for the alliance to be credible. But do we think
everything doesn't really work? We certainly don't want to do the ground
forces option. We are not really sure about the money, the humanitarian
relief, if the Europeans don't do their share. And we haven't worked it out
with them. As a matter of fact, we don't know why we are there and why we
got there, and we don't really want to know. We are tired of hearing about
the history of this part of the world over the past thousand years. What we
really want to know now is specifically, how do we get out of a bad dream?'
As Senators, we are not movie critics. We are not taking a look at a
scenario which is a bad dream. We have a responsibility, and the
responsibility today is to vote no. The responsibility is to say that it is
not simply the President who is responsible--the President's war, the
President's plan, the President's request that, if somehow he is inadequate,
we simply affirm that and say how sad that he is inadequate.
Madam President, if we lose the war, the fact is, the Congress is
inadequate. We also are elected by the people. We also have a constitutional
responsibility and, when it comes to war, a responsibility to win. If the
President needs shoring up, that may be our job. If the President needs
concerted advice and support, we ought to provide it.
There could be other resolutions today, but we have in front of us a big
one.
It does not come as a surprise that Senator McCain's resolution has been
well debated throughout the country, even if not here. What will be a
surprise today, Madam President, is if Senators, Members of this body, are
prepared to take some responsibility as opposed to arguing, as I have
already heard, that the resolution is too broad, too sweeping, a blank check
for a President in whom many Senators are not certain they have confidence
to prosecute the war.
These are useful rationalizations before a war but not in the middle of one.
It is a war, not just an exercise; however divorced it may be from our
lives, that is not the case for those who are involved.
I am hopeful we will vote no on the tabling motion. I propose that we leave
the options open to the President. I propose that as opposed to proscriptive
motions--that, in the future we offer advice as to how we can help the
President and we try to affirm that certain things should be done, as
opposed to taking off the table the necessary means that he may need.
A Question:
In response to my colleague from Pennsylvania, I am happy to yield for a
question.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank my colleague from Indiana. I passed a note to the
Senator because I did not want to interrupt the chain of thought.
I think there is no one in this Chamber who carries greater respect than
Senator Lugar on issues of foreign policy. I noted your comments earlier
calling for Presidential leadership and referring to your op-ed piece which
appeared in the Washington Post. I think it not inappropriate to comment at
this time that the President noted your op-ed piece in the Washington Post
at a meeting with you, Senator Warner, and myself in attendance. We were the
last three to meet with the President in a very extraordinary meeting that
lasted a little over 2 hours. At the very end of the meeting, Senator
Warner, Senator Lugar, and myself stayed and he commented about your op-ed
piece.
The Senator made a comment, again referring to your op-ed piece, that the
President has a dubious strategy to meet a limited goal.
The problem that I have, which leads to my question, is the President's
leadership. He has initiated the airstrikes along with NATO without a
clear-cut strategy, and an overused word, the so-called end game. The
Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the National Security
Advisor speculated that Milosevic might relent after the first wave; that
there might be a pause; that they might have a different attitude after
there was some substantial damage done.
Absent a relenting on the part of Milosevic, where do we go from here? In
lengthy meetings--the President has now had four with Members--the President
has not asked for troops nor has he asked for the authority which is present
in the pending resolution to allow him to use whatever force is necessary.
The question I have for my distinguished colleague: In light of the absence
of any request by the President and in the absence of any showing of
leadership by the President and acknowledging the correctness of Senator
Lugar's assertion that the situation calls for Presidential leadership, why
is it sensible to, in effect, give the President a blank check when he has
not asked for the resources and has not demonstrated any capability to
exercise leadership to effectively carry out that broad guarantee of
authority?
Mr. LUGAR. I respond briefly to my colleague that I believe the President
must begin to offer that leadership, that he must begin to offer the
strategy. I find it unacceptable if we were, as critics of the President,
simply to note that he has failed to do so.
In other words, it seems to me there is about this war a sense of unreality.
Clearly, if we had been in the so-called cold war period and we were at war
with another country at that point, and
the President apparently did not have an adequate strategy and we were
losing, it would not be a useful question to ask why the President hasn't
asked for what he needs. We have to say at that point that the President
needs to ask.
We respectfully request the President to accept some advice and to accept
some strategy that we have a responsibility to offer.
Simply left to an inadequate President, history would condemn him, but we
would lose and the country would suffer grievous harm. That is our
predicament in this situation. The President clearly hasn't asked for the
authority, the arms, or whatever he needs. We are saying he needs to ask,
and he needs to do so rapidly. We cannot sit around and simply wish that he
did so and then lament that he failed to ask. We have a responsibility to
act along with him. I hope and pray that he will do that.
I think the President, in this conversation the Senator cited, indicated he
could ask General Shelton and General Shelton could produce a plan. In fact,
allied armed services could be over there about 5 months and the President
felt that might win the war.
We need to define very carefully, if that is the case, what the ground
forces' objectives are, where they come in, and include all the options. In
other words, that was a rather sweeping statement, but it has gone through
the President's mind and what we are suggesting might have some impact.
I hope this debate pushes that forward.
I thank the Senator for his question.
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