24 February 1998
(Administration witnesses also warily back Iraq deal) (1010) By Ralph Dannheisser USIA Congressional Correspondent Washington -- NATO enlargement moved a step closer to reality February 24 as testimony from top Clinton administration officials closed a set of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the issue. Senior committee members of both parties voiced strong support for the plan to add the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to the alliance, and Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, projected a committee vote during the week of March 2. A favorable vote by the panel could, by the following week, bring the issue before the full Senate for debate leading to a final vote on the NATO treaty amendment needed to effect the historic enlargement plan. While the committee's hearing was called on the specific issue of NATO enlargement, the senators closely questioned the administration witnesses as well on developments in Iraq. For their part the witnesses -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and General Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- cautiously echoed President Clinton's tentative endorsement of the deal on weapons inspections achieved by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a brief visit to Baghdad. Cohen stressed that "ambiguities" in the agreement must be clarified, and that a heightened U.S. military presence will remain in the Gulf area while U.N. inspectors test the deal -- which presumably gives them full and free access to any Iraqi sites they choose. Albright added a warning that, if Iraq backs out of the arrangement negotiated with Annan, the United States and its allies will respond "forcefully and without delay. "We will not allow (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein to take us from crisis to crisis," Albright said, adding she believed the United States would have "much greater international support," presumably for military action, "for having gone this extra mile" in backing Annan's last-ditch diplomatic mission. On the matter of NATO enlargement, both Helms and Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel's senior Democratic member, voiced their strong support in statements opening the hearing. Helms said prior testimony by Albright had convinced him that the inclusion of the three nations "will make America safer, NATO stronger, and Europe more peaceful and united." "I believe that, and I am confident that the Poles, Hungarians and Czechs will work with us to that end," he said. But Helms expressed some continuing concerns over financial burdensharing, and he predicted that the committee would emphasize in its resolution of ratification the point that "the majority of the cost of making and keeping NATO militarily effective will be the responsibility of our allies." Should some members of the alliance fall short of meeting their commitments, he warned, "the expansion of NATO this year may be followed shortly thereafter by NATO's collapse -- and nobody wants that to happen." Biden expressed himself as "squarely in support of enlargement." The issue is not "whether to expand NATO or maintain the status quo," Biden said. "In light of the dynamic change in Europe it is essential for NATO to adjust or risk losing its viability and purpose." The senior Democrat said that, assuming Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are added to the ranks, there should be no timetable set for inviting other countries to join the alliance. Nor, he said, "should there be a mandated pause in the consideration of future candidates," as some senators and others have suggested. Biden rejected the argument that adding the three countries to NATO could damage U.S. relations with Russia. "I don't believe current differences with Russia, such as their failure to ratify (the) START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) or their stance on Iraq are based on a reaction to NATO enlargement," the senator said. Recent discussions with a wide range of Russian leaders convinced him that, while many may consider NATO enlargement an insult, "I don't believe any of them see NATO enlargement as a military threat." Addressing the same issue, Albright said the prospect of joining NATO has given the three candidate nations "the confidence to avoid arms buildups and to work constructively to establish lower limits on conventional forces." If barred from NATO, she argued, they "would undoubtedly spend more on their own defense and they might reject regional arms control." Thus, she said, "Ironically, the problems Russia fears a larger NATO will cause are precisely the problems a larger NATO will avoid." As for U.S.-Russian relations, Albright said she is "confident America can build a true partnership with a new Russia." But, she said, "the partnership we seek cannot be purchased by denying a dozen European countries the right to seek membership in NATO. A partnership built on an illegitimate moral compromise would not be genuine and it would not last." Cohen proposed increased contacts between the U.S. Congress and the Russian Duma "to enhance confidence" between the two nations. With respect to costs, Cohen cited new NATO estimates that taking Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into membership would add $1,500 million to NATO's common-funded budget over the next decade -- far less than the Defense Department estimated last year. He cited three reasons for the difference: the fact that the original estimate assumed adding four, rather than three, new members; the sounder-than-expected state of infrastructure in the would-be members; and "differences in methodology." The only strongly negative note at the hearing was sounded by Senator John Ashcroft, a Missouri Republican. Ashcroft cited prior Albright statements that he said project a NATO that will advance members' "out-of-area" interests in addition to carrying out its traditional defense role in Western Europe. He voiced fears that such "broad mission statements" threaten the future of the alliance. Without a clear post-Cold War mission, NATO could become nothing more than a mini-United Nations with a standing army for ill-defined peacekeeping operations," Ashcroft said.