Military

DATE=5-17-02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT (CQ)

TITLE=CONGRESS NATO (L ONLY)

NUMBER=2-289924

BYLINE=DEBORAH TATE

DATELINE=CAPITOL HILL

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

///Eds: Resending to correct worong word in Hutchison act. Tweaked the INTRO///

INTRO: The U-S Senate (by a 85 to 6 vote Friday) endorsed a second round of NATO expansion -- in a move backed by the Bush administration. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is expected to decide at a Prague summit in November which countries to admit in another round of enlargement. Correspondent Deborah Tate reports from Capitol Hill.

TEXT: The Senate voted to give a total of 55 million dollars in security assistance to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Those nations, along with Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, are seeking membership in NATO.

The legislation which was approved by the House in November -- endorses NATO expansion in general but not any specific candidate.

Democrat Joe Biden of Delaware is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee:

/// BIDEN ACTUALITY ///

This bill will help NATO extend the zone of stability eastward and southward on the continent so that sometime in the next decade we will be able to say for the first time I think in all of modern history that we have a Europe whole and free.

/// END ACT ///

But some Senators expressed concerns about NATO expansion.

Senator John Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, voted against the measure because he believes prospective candidates are not sufficiently prepared to join the alliance.

/// WARNER ACTUALITY ///

We have got to be a watchdog of NATO as we begin to invite more and more countries in under this umbrella, and it could well weaken the alliance.

/// END ACT ///

Senator Biden responded the military aid included in the bill would help candidate countries meet the alliance's stringent membership requirements.

Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas voted for the bill, but questioned the cost to the United States of NATO expansion, and whether the alliance is needed at all.

/// HUTCHISON ACTUALITY ///

This is a defensive alliance to protect the democracies of Western Europe from the communist threat of the East. That threat has evaporated.

/// END ACT ///

The legislatures of all 19 current NATO members must ratify inclusion of the countries invited.

Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungry joined NATO in 1999 in the first round of enlargement. (Signed)

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