BosNet Document:McCain Floor Speech on Kosovo Resolution Vote
Steve Albert
B o s N e t -May 7, 1999
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TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1999
McCAIN FLOOR SPEECH ON KOSOVO RESOLUTION VOTE
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today
delivered the following statement immediately prior to the Senate
vote on the McCain-Biden Kosovo resolution:
"Mr. President, I want to thank Senators Lott and Daschle for
allowing the Senate more time for this debate than was their
original intention. I think it has been a good debate, not as long
as I would have liked, but better than I had expected yesterday
morning. Many members, on both sides - or should I say on all the
multiple sides of the question -- have had the opportunity to
express themselves, and most have done so with distinction.
"I also want to thank the co-sponsors of the resolution for having
the courage of their convictions. Senators Hagel, Biden, Lugar,
Kerry, Dodd, and all the other co-sponsors, you have made the case
for the resolution far more persuasively than have I, and I
commend you for fighting this good fight.
"Mr. President, I want to speak plainly in the few minutes
remaining to me. What I say now may offend some people, even some
of my friends who support this resolution. I am sorry for that,
but I say it because I believe it is the truth, an important
truth, and it should be said. The President of the United States
is prepared to lose a war rather than do the hard work, the
politically risky work, of fighting it as the leader of the
greatest nation on earth should fight when our interests and
values are imperiled.
"We all know why this resolution is going to lose in a few
minutes. It is going to lose because the President and members of
his cabinet have joined with the opponents to the war and lobbied
hard for the resolution's defeat. Do not believe administration
officials when they tell you that the resolution would have been
defeated even without their active opposition. Had they worked
half as hard in support of it as they did to defeat it, the result
would have been different today.
"No, Mr. President, it is not that they couldn't win, it is
because they did not want to win that we are facing defeat this
morning. That is a shame, a real shame.
"I have said repeatedly that the President does not need this
resolution to use all the force he deems necessary to achieve
victory in Kosovo. I stand by that contention, and I have the good
company of the Constitution behind me.
"I had wanted this resolution considered in the now forlorn hope
that the President would take courage from it, and find the
resolve to do his duty, his duty by us, by the American people, by
the alliance he leads, and by the suffering people of Kosovo who
now look to America and NATO for their very lives. I was wrong,
and I must accept the blame for that. The President does not want
the power he possesses by law because the risks inherent in its
exercise have paralyzed him.
"Let me identify for my colleagues the price paid by Kosovars for
the President's repeated and indefensible ruling out of ground
troops. Mr. Milosevic was so certain of the limit to our
commitment that he felt safe enough to widely disperse his forces.
Instead of massing his forces to meet a possible ground attack, he
has deployed them in small units to reach more towns and villages
in less time than if the President had remained silent on the
question of ground troops. In other words, he has been able to
displace, rape and murder more Kosovars more quickly than he could
have if he feared he might face the mightiest army on earth. That,
Mr. President, is a fact of this war that is undeniable. And shame
on the President for creating it.
"Now, what is left to us, as our war on the cheap fails to achieve
the objectives for which we went to war? Well, bombing pauses seem
to be an idea in vogue. They were popular once before, in another
war, and I personally witnessed how effective they were. No, Mr.
President, I don't have much regard for the diplomatic or military
efficacy of bombing pauses. As matter of fact, it was only when
bombing pauses were finally abandoned in favor of sustained,
strategic bombing that almost six hundred of my comrades and I
recovered our freedom. I dare say, some of the years that we had
lost were attributable to bombing pauses. I will not support a
bombing pause, Mr. President, until Milosevic surrenders, not a
moment before.
"My father gave the order to send B-52s -- planes that did not
have the precision guided munitions that so impress us all today -
he gave the order to send them to bomb the city where his oldest
son was held a prisoner of war. That is a pretty hard thing for a
father to do, Mr. President, but he did it because it was his
duty, and he would not shrink from it. He did it because he didn't
believe America should lose a war, or settle for a draw or some
lesser goal than it had sacrificed its young to achieve. He knew
that leaders were expected to make hard choices in war. Would that
the President had half that regard for the responsibilities of his
office.
"Give peace a chance. Yes, peace is a wonderful condition. Sweeter
than many here will ever fully appreciate. The Kosovars appreciate
it. They are living in its absence, and it is a horrible
experience. But the absence of freedom is worse, they know that
too. They know it well. And if the price of peace is that we
abandon them to the cruelty of their oppressors, then the price is
too high.
"Some have suggested that we can drop our demand that NATO keep
the peace in Kosovo. Let the UN command any future peacekeeping
force instead. But a UN peacekeeping force led directly to the
Srebinica massacre in Bosnia. I think the Kosovars would rather
they not have that kind of peace, Mr. President. And we should not
impose it on them.
"Give peace a chance. If we cannot keep our word to prevail over
this inferior power that threatens our interests and our most
cherished ideals, than it is unlikely that we will long know a
real peace. We may enjoy a false peace for a brief time, but that
will pass. Whatever your views about whether we were right or
wrong to get involved in this war, why would you think that losing
will recover what we have risked in the Balkans. If we fail to win
this war our allies and our enemies will lose their respect for
our resolve and our power. You may count on it, Mr. President. And
we will soon face far greater threats than we face today. We will
know a much more dangerous absence of peace than we are
experiencing today.
"Mr. President, I ask my colleagues, in this late hour, to put
aside our reservations, our past animosities, and encourage,
implore, cajole, beg, shame this administration into doing its
duty. Shame on the President if he persists in abdicating his
responsibilities. But shame on us if we let him."
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