Speech by Rep. David Obey (D-Wisconsin), March 29, 2000

Speech by Rep. David Obey (D-Wisconsin), March 29, 2000
[Page: H1504]
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, at the end of last year, the President had asked for $568 billion in appropriated spending, and Congress had approved $578 billion. In this supplemental as it now comes before us, the President has asked for additional funds which would take his total request for the year to $573 billion. The supplemental has been added to by the committee so that, if this bill passes as it is now before us, we will wind up spending $587 billion over this existing fiscal year, which is $13 billion more than the President asked.

In addition, the amendment that will be offered today and which will be supported by the Republican leadership will add yet another $4 billion to this package in the DoD arena. That will take total spending for this fiscal year to $591 billion, some $17 billion above the President's request.

That additional $4 billion which is being asked for by the House leadership is there for a very simple reason. There is nothing wrong with what that money is actually being spent for. But the fact is it is being spent on routine items for one simple purpose, and that is to get around the very budget resolution that was passed just 5 days ago on this floor. Because by moving that $4 billion in expenditures into this existing fiscal year, my colleagues make room in the next fiscal year for $4 billion for Members' projects and Members' pork. Nice game if they can get away with it.

I suggest Senator McCain get out his pencil. He better get ready, because a lot of stuff is going to come over there he is probably not going to like. This is one major reason to vote against this bill before us today.

But there is another, in my view, even more serious reason. We are being asked by the President and the Speaker of the House to support $1.3 billion for Colombia. In my view, that is the camel's nose under the tent for a massive long-term commitment to a military operation in Colombia that has as much to do with the domestic situation in Colombia as it has to do with our drug problems here at home.

General Wilhelm from SouthCom has indicated that this is the first year of a 5-year commitment, in his judgment. It seems to me if a can-do Marine like General Wilhelm is predicting that this is going to be a 5-year operation, that it is likely to last a lot longer, because things have a way of getting more complicated than Congress originally expects.

As I said in the Committee on Rules, I detest Vietnam analyses under most circumstances, but I believe that, in this case, there is a very real parallel. In fact, there are two. When the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was debated in 1964, it took 2 days in the Senate. It took 40 minutes on the floor of this House. This Congress has rued the day ever since that it did not give more time to consider that proposition.

Today, when my amendment comes before us to eliminate the most dangerous parts of that Colombian package, we will have exactly 20 minutes to discuss it, 10 minutes for those of us who are opposed to undertaking that involvement at this time.

Let me tell my colleagues what I think the unanswered questions are that we ought to be asking. In my view, this Congress has no real knowledge of what it is we are about to embark upon. I do not see any real plan by the administration. I see a plan to have a plan, but I do not see a real plan. There is no specific authorization for this proposition. Before we slide into this operation, I think we ought to ask some questions.

First of all, is this really an anti-drug campaign, or is it a political campaign, a pacification in Colombia? Will this really produce a reduction in drug availability in the United States?

The House, in the rule it just adopted, has eliminated its ability to vote on the Pelosi amendment. The Pelosi amendment was an attempt to add additional money to fight drugs here at home by expanding our drug treatment and prevention program.

I would point out that the Rand Corporation, in a study financed in part by the U.S. Army, indicated that a dollar spent to eliminate drug use here at home is 23 times more effective than a dollar spent to try to interdict or to reduce supply in some foreign land. Yet we are being prevented from voting on the most effective way to deal with drugs in this country.

I also think we need to be aware of the fact that in Colombia itself there is substantial doubt about whether that society is ready to take this issue on. If they are not, we cannot do it for them.

I do not know, for instance, how many Americans understand that if we take a look at the ruling elite in Colombia, their sons do not serve in combat. Because if one is a high school graduate, one is exempted from having to serve in combat in the Colombian armed forces.

[TIME: 1245]

Do my colleagues really think we are going to be able to sustain a 5- or 10-year military operation with that kind of divided duty in that society? I doubt it.

What happens if the battalions that we are now training do not succeed? We are training a few thousand men so they can try to root out the narcos in 40,000 square miles of jungle. Let us say we succeed, which I think is highly unlikely. What is to prevent them from simply moving into the other 150,000 square miles of jungle in that country? I do not think very much.

I think this is ill conceived and ill thought out. If this does not work, what is the next step? Will we then cut and run, or will we then deepen our involvement? I do not think, given our past experience in Vietnam, that we are likely to just say, `Oh, well, we gave it the good old college try, so now we are going to yank the plug.' I do not think whoever is the future president is going to be able to make that decision. That means a long-haul problem.

What I am going to be asking this House to do, eventually, is to allow the money for police training to flow, to allow their helicopters to go down to Colombia, but I am going to be asking my colleagues to delay until July the vote on the over $500 million in additional funding that is meant to expand our basic military commitment in Colombia until the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on International Relations, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence can hold more hearings on this so that Congress knows what it is doing before it acts. And my amendment will provide expedited procedures to assure that we would be able to vote on it in July.

We are being told that lots of very bright professional people have put this package together so we need have no fear. Well, I respect Secretary Albright, I respect General McCaffery, I respect Mr. Pickering in the State Department, I respect the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). But with all due respect to them, every individual Member of this House has a constitutional duty to exercise his or her own judgment on an issue of this gravity, and I do not think we are able to do that under this truncated arrangement.

So I would urge, for those and other reasons, that my colleagues oppose this bill today. I have no illusions that my amendment will pass. I think it is incredible we could not even vote on the Pelosi amendment, but I would urge Members not to make the same mistake that was made on this House floor in the Gulf of Tonkin. This may not be the same as Vietnam. There are undoubtedly major differences. But there are some very disturbing similarities, and I would urge my colleagues to take those similarities into consideration and delay consideration of this crucial vote until the Congress knows a whole lot more than it does today about what the proper course of action ought to be.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-173: