The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TRADE AND FOREIGN POLICY” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S14080-S14081 on Nov. 5, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRADE AND FOREIGN POLICY
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, with the recent passage of a Senate Finance Committee trade package aimed at liberalizing trade with African and Caribbean countries, and providing Trade Adjustment Assistance for American workers who need help transitioning into different jobs, I thought it an appropriate time to come to the floor of the Senate to discuss the insidious propaganda campaign the Clinton Administration is orchestrating over the phoney charges of
``isolationism'' he has leveled at Congress.
In some ways, I am reluctant to get into this name-calling argument. As I told my six children as they faced the normal school yard taunts, you shouldn't dignify the name caller with a response. Something like the old adage, ``Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.''
The difference between Washington and the school yard, however, is that it seems that if you repeat a lie long enough, and in enough places, the media will parrot it out to the country and around the world as if it were true. And that is very, very serious for two reasons.
First, it distorts the political process and deceives the American public. More importantly, it sends a false and dangerous signal to the enemies of America that their dream of disengaging America from world leadership may, in fact, be happening. Nothing could be further from the truth, but when the President of the United States, and his flunkies, says it, terrorists around the world applaud.
Certainly there are Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members and independents who proudly wear the isolationist label, but to try and smear Congress with that label is reprehensible.
So I want to look at what actions the Clinton Administration calls isolationist, and to separate fact from fiction.
Two weeks ago, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations decrying as ``isolationist'' and
``defeatist'' such actions as the Senate's refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (``CTBT'') and, as Mr. Berger characterized it, a Congress ``reluctant to support the Climate Change Treaty.''
Mr. President, it should not even pass the straight face test to label Senators such as Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel, among others, as isolationists just because we voted against a treaty that we did not think would preserve our national security in the years and decades ahead.
Would Sandy Berger have the audacity to call former Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Henry Kissinger an isolationist because he was ``not persuaded that the proposed treaty would inhibit nuclear proliferation'' and therefore recommended voting against the treaty?
Does Berger's isolationist tag also apply to six former Secretaries of Defense--James Schlesinger, Dick Cheney, Frank Carlucci, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Rumsfeld and Melvin Laird because they wrote the Senate leadership and stated:
We believe . . . a permanent, zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty incompatible with the Nation's international commitments and vital security interests and believe it does not deserve the Senate's advice and consent.
Mr. President, the Senate rejected a flawed treaty; the fault lies not with so-called isolationists in Congress, but with the appeasers and former ``nuclear freeze'' people who are now in the Clinton Administration and negotiated this treaty which was not in America's national security interest.
As to the Climate Change Treaty, Congress is not reluctant to consider the Treaty. In fact, we have been asking this President to send the Treaty up, but he refuses. And he refuses because 95 Senators expressed the strong sense of the Senate that the Kyoto protocol contain commitments from developing countries to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, this has not happened. This is not an isolationist fear of technological change. This is a realistic assessment of how you accomplish your goals.
On Monday, USTR Barshefsky also took up the isolationism call. At a speech to the foreign press describing the U.S. agenda for the upcoming WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle, Ambassador Barshefsky said that isolationists ``at times believe that a growing economy and a clean environment cannot coexist.''
Mr. President, I hope the Ambassador does not mean to imply that simply because Congress has not signed off on loading up trade agreements with the baggage of the extreme environmentalist agenda that we are isolationists?
In fact, I wonder if this cry of isolationism is not simply to divert attention from the failures of this Administration to pursue trade opening measures in the face of domestic pressure from Unions?
If expanding trade is so important to the President, he could have welcomed the April 8 offer by the Chinese Premier to make extraordinary concessions to bring China into the World Trade Organization.
But he did not.
If expanding trade is so important to the President, he could have directed his Administration to work with the Finance Committee to craft a compromise on fast track trade negotiating authority that would address the legitimate concerns of those who do not want to see labor and environment slogans used as smoke screens for protectionist measures.
But he did not lift a finger to support fast track for fear of offending his protectionist political supporters in organized labor
So Mr. President, I don't think President Clinton should have sent his National Security Advisor or his USTR out to falsely label my party as the one turning its back on the world.
This is not to say that there are not some countries who should receive a cold shoulder rather than a warm embrace. I do not support aiding and comforting our enemies--like Iraq and North Korea. This is not about a choice between isolationism or engagement. This is about what form of engagement will bring the desired results.
It is in these areas where I think the Administration has a backwards policy--rather than rewarding good behavior, we are rewarding bad behavior.
Since 1994 when the U.S. adopted an ``Agreed Framework'' with North Korea, here are just some of the acts by North Korea:
Launched a three-stage missile last summer, and continues to work on and export missiles capable of hitting the United States;
Worked on vast underground construction complex--historically used by North Korea to cover work on military or nuclear installations;
Taken actions to hinder work of international inspectors sent to monitor North Korea's nuclear program;
Sent submarine filled with commandos to South Korea; and
Violated the military armistice agreement by firing on ROK soldiers.
Today, the North Korea Advisory Group in the House of Representatives released a report that found that ``the comprehensive threat posed by North Korea to our national security has increased since 1994.''
What has been the U.S. response?
DPRK is now the No. 1 recipient of U.S. assistance in East Asia: $645 million since 1995 includes providing at least 45% of fuel needs and over 80% of food aid; and sending 500,000 tons of oil a year, as well as trying to get other countries to come up with the funds for KEDO
(Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) and for two light-
water reactors.
I cannot say for certain that North Korea's government would have collapsed without our help. But I do not think that it will ever fall with two strong American legs holding it up.
And how about U.S. policy toward Iraq?
The U.S. spent $4.5 billion during the Desert Shield operation. From the end of the war until 1999, U.S. spent $6.9 billion on our ongoing operations--including the Desert Fox bombing, enforcing the no-fly zone, monitoring the seas, etc. It is estimated that we are spending
$100 million a month currently to police the Northern and Southern no-
fly zones. We have dropped over 1,000 bombs on Iraqi radar, air defense, and communications facilities. Occasionally, we've also hit an oil production facility.
But while we are spending all this money to ``keep Saddam in his box'', we are allowing him to rebuild the oil production that funds his war machine.
At the end of the war, a multilateral embargo was imposed on all Iraqi exports, including oil. This embargo was supposed to remain in place until Iraq discloses and destroys its weapons of mass destruction programs and undertakes unconditionally never to resume such activities. This has not happened.
But we allowed the UN Security Council to implement an ``Oil-for-
Food'' program that lets Hussein sell $5.2 billion of oil every six months.
In the year preceding Operation Desert Storm, Iraq's export earnings totaled $10.4 billion, with 95% attributed to petroleum exports. Iraq's imports during that same year, 1990, totalled only $6.6 billion.
The U.N. has lifted the sanction on the only export that matters. Iraq's oil production now equals production prior to the war (over 2 million B/D). And now we're going to let Saddam sell even more oil. And we're buying his oil. The U.S. is importing 700,000 barrels a day of Iraqi crude--almost twice what we import from Kuwait.
United Nation's recently announced that Iraq could export $3.04 billion more in oil. This is in addition to the $5.26 billion already authorized for the six-month period.
Incredibly, this new resolution, UNSR 1266, was adopted on the same day that reports surfaced that nearly 10,000 tons of oil smuggled from Iraq was seized from five ships in the Persian Gulf in less than a three week period.
Again, although I cannot say for certain that some of Iraq's friends in the world would not find ways around a total embargo, I do know that without cutting off Saddam's oil lifeline we still face an emboldened dictator.
The Administration seeks to defend this oil-for-food program as a humanitarian gesture, but our own State Department pointed out in a recent study that Saddam Hussein is subverting the program to his own gain.
September 1999 Report by the Department of State finding that Saddam's regime was illegally diverting food and other products such as baby milk, baby powder, baby bottles and other nursing materials obtained under the oil-for-food program. In one example cited by the Department of State:
Baby milk sold to Iraq through the oil-for-food program has been found in markets throughout the gulf, demonstrating that the Iraqi regime is depriving its people of much needed goods in order to make an illicit profit.
Moreover, the report found that ``the government of Iraq is mismanaging the oil-for-food program, either deliberately or through mismanagement.''
A few weeks ago, Kuwait seized three Iraqi cargo ships illegally exporting dates, lentils and jute seed and cloves used in animal feed.
But we continue to let money flow into this program. We've even allowed Baghdad to use about $900 million of oil revenue to rebuild its oil industry. Perhaps to make up for the fact that we occasionally bomb a facility that we know is used for smuggling gas oil?
The U.S. State Department Report concluded that:
Saddam Hussein's regime remains a threat to its people and its neighbors, and has not met its obligations to the UN that would allow the UN to lift sanctions.
With this conclusion in black and white, why in the world did the U.S. vote to lift the ceiling on oil. Oil is Saddam's lifeline? It is the only sanction that matters.
Fueling and feeding the enemy is unacceptable to this Senator. Unfortunately, I don't have a vote at the UN and this President has continued to bypass Congress as it pursues appeasement of these two rogue regimes.
If these actions define this Administration's approach to engagement, then I don't want to get married.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I have another statement with which I would like to conclude. How much time is remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 12 minutes.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. I might need a couple of more minutes to finish. I ask unanimous consent I may extend my time to a full 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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