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(Mr. EDWARDS of California asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous matter.)
Mr. EDWARDS of California. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues the editorial in this morning's New York Times, entitled `Mr. Bush Sells Out Arms Control.' The editorial calls for Congress to delay consideration of the proposed sales of F-15 fighter-bombers to Saudi Arabia and F-16 fighters to Taiwan. As the editorial points out, there is no strategic rationale for these dangerously destabilizing sales.
Even from a purely economic standpoint, these sales are penny-wise and pound-foolish. They will save some short-term jobs, but those gains will be more than offset by the damage regional arms races do to our economy. The U.S. taxpayer will be called upon to provide more military aid to U.S. allies trying to match their neighbors' new capabilities. In addition, the sales will continue the terrible drain on the international economy caused by developing countries' $200 billion in annual military spending. Those funds would generate far more growth and far more American export jobs if they were redirected to the civilian economies of these countries.
In notifying Congress of these sales so late in the session, the administration has violated longstanding congressional rules requiring 50 days of session before a sale can take effect. The notifications should simply be returned to the administration so that they can be resubmitted in the normal fashion next year. Barring that step, though, they should be rejected. I applaud my colleagues Representative Howard Berman and Representative Mel Levine for introducing a resolution of disapproval for the F-15 sale, and I urge all my colleagues to sign on as cosponsors.
From the New York Times, September 29, 1992
Mr. Bush Sells Out Arms Control
One happy consequence of the end of the cold war is that defense budgets around the world are shrinking. One unhappy consequence is that nations are scrambling to peddle arms abroad in order to keep their arms makers in business.
The U.S. is not alone in this ruinous practice. Russia, China and France, among others, are eager sellers. But America's arms sales dwarf anyone else's. So, too, does its capacity to insure a more stable world by restraining sales.
It has failed, however, to exercise such leadership. The most recent example was President Bush's pledge to sell F-15 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia and F-16's to Taiwan. These potentially destabilizing moves mock Mr. Bush's professed desire to curb proliferation--all in the name of winning a few votes in Missouri and Texas.
Until recently, Mr. Bush had been trying to talk the four other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council into providing advance notice of their arms sales to the Middle East. That would have provided time to talk them out of destabilizing sales.
He has now made that policy unworkable. How can he expect to dissuade Moscow from selling submarines to Iran? Or tell China not to market missiles in the Middle East?
It's up to Congress to halt this mindless trafficking in arms. It can hold up the F-15 and F-16 sales until January, when election pressures have eased. And it can try to induce other countries to curb their sales by imposing dollar limits on next year's U.S. sales.
By deciding to sell F-15's to the Saudis without a serious attempt to negotiate multilateral restraints, Mr. Bush threw open the doors of the Middle East arms bazaar. The deal would raise
total U.S. sales to the region since the Persian Gulf war to $19.3 billion, far greater than the combined sales of the rest of the permanent Security Council members. Mr. Bush bought Israel's acquiescence by giving it surplus American arms.
The agreement on the F-16's, meanwhile, betrays a pledge the U.S. made in 1982 not to increase the quantity or quality of arms it sold to Taiwan. It also gives China a reason to boycott the arms control talks among the permanent five in the Security Council.
Had Mr. Bush sent a message that the F-16 sale was intended to deter Beijing's rising assertiveness in the region, the sale might at least have reassured China's neighbors. Instead Mr. Bush let his medium be his message. By announcing the sale in Fort Worth, he made it clear to everyone that he was motivated by jobs, not deterrence. To China's nervous neighbors, Mr. Bush seemed to be baiting Beijing for purely political purposes. And that did not please them at all.
At the same time, the Administration had the gall to denounce France's proposed sale of Mirage fighters to Taiwan--persuading Paris that Washington was out to monopolize the market. As a result, it will now be easier to get a Parisian maiÿAE3tre d' to take back an opened bottle of Bordeaux than to get France to restrain itself in the international arms bazaar.
A moratorium on all sales to the Middle East may be asking too much. But Congress could impose a 50 percent cut in the dollar volume of deliveries for the coming year and try to induce other sellers to follow suit. A cogent case for such ceilings has been made in a report just issued by the Congressional Budget Office.
By taking its advice, Congress could stop Mr. Bush's costly and dangerous abandonment of his earlier pledge to curb proliferation.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Illinois [Mrs. Collins] is recognized for 5 minutes.
[Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois addressed the House. Her remarks will appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Annunzio] is recognized for 5 minutes.
[Mr. ANNUNZIO addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]
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