Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

GOP Senators Voted To Limit Troops in 1990s

by Travis Sharp [contact information]

April 12, 2007

In the fog hovering over congressional debate on Iraq, some Republican war supporters have argued that restrictions on troop deployments are somehow unconstitutional or unprecedented. "I can't think of another conflict in which a deadline was set in the middle of the war that one side would withdraw from the conflict," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) during one rhetorical flourish.

Surprisingly enough, many of Kyl's Senate Republican colleagues relentlessly criticizing Democrats for seeking to limit troop deployments in Iraq supported the exact same policy during American conflicts in Somalia and Haiti in the 1990s.

In 1993, Robert Byrd (D-WV) introduced an amendment that clarified the U.S. mission in Somalia and cut off funding after March 31, 1994, unless President Clinton obtained specific reauthorization from Congress. Eleven Republicans still serving in the Senate voted to approve the Byrd amendment, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who argued on the Senate floor at the time that "The only issue here tonight is how we leave, and, in my judgment, the Byrd Amendment better defines the proper exit for the United States."

The following year, after the horrors of Blackhawk Down had sunk in, the Senate passed an amendment by Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID) cutting off funds for U.S. troops in Somalia after September 30, 1994. Current Republican senators voting in favor included Bennett, Bond, Cochran, Craig, Domenici, Grassley, Gregg, Hatch, Hutchison, Lott, Lugar, McConnell, Smith, Specter, Stevens, and Warner.

Later in 1994, the Senate further asserted itself in foreign policy through a George Mitchell (D-ME) resolution calling for "a prompt and orderly withdrawal of all U.S. armed forces from Haiti as soon as possible." This legislation was approved overwhelmingly, with Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) calling on President Clinton "to set the parameters of this mission...to set a timetable for withdrawal" and Judd Gregg (R-NH) demanding "a prompt and orderly withdrawal of all United States Armed Forces from Haiti as soon as possible."

Many of these Republican senators may oppose cutting off funds for our troops currently serving in Iraq, but they didn't oppose cutting off funds for our troops in Somalia and Haiti back in 1994. It is extremely hypocritical for any of them to claim that Democratic efforts to bring an end to the war in Iraq are unprecedented or unconstitutional when many of them favored similar courses of action in these earlier conflicts. Republicans may object to placing restrictions on American soldiers in Iraq now, but their voting records prove that they do not object to the practice itself.

The debate over how best to protect American strategic interests in Iraq--whether through withdrawal or a continued military presence--is a legitimate one, and the Congress needs to be having it. But the question of whether or not Congress should involve itself in U.S. foreign policy has become a smoke and mirrors distraction that takes away from the spirited debate that is the only way to achieve a more balanced, deliberative Iraq policy.

The best allocation of lawmakers' time and resources at this point is to generate a political consensus regarding what to do next in Iraq. So-called "constitutional" objections to alleged Democratic "micromanaging" of the war through timetables and funding detract from building this consensus and stifle what has become the most critical U.S. foreign policy debate in the past 30 years.

The Congress has enmeshed itself in foreign affairs before and should continue to do so now.