Date: 1982-02-25
Speaker: ROBERT C. BYRD (democrat)
Chamber: S

Mr. President. on October 21. 1981. in a speech before this Body. I announced my opposition to the administrations proposed sale of AWACs to Saudi Arabia. I based by decision largely on the fact that the Senate was being called upon to acquiesce in a major arms sale to a highly volatile region of the world in the absence of a clearly defined or workable policy for the Middle East on the part of the administration. At that time. the administration argued that the sale was important to achieving its goal of a "strategic consensus" among moderate Arabs - and Israel to meet the threat in the region posed by the Soviet Union. The administration continues to pursue this elusive policy of "strategic consensus" as evidenced by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinbergers recent trip to Saudi Arabia. Oman. and Jordan. It has been 4 months since the sale was approved by the Senate. It is time to assess events in the region during this 4month period. I will offer my assessment within the framework of the warnings I issued in my October 21. 1981 speech. I warned the following* Our policy in the Middle East was nothing more than a series of ad hoc and illconceived responses to events rooted primarily in the ArabIsraeli dispute and not the Soviet threat. The administration made a serious mistake in using the assassination of President Sadat as a pretext for pushing the AWACS sale. It symbolically transferred the mantle of a U.S. client state from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. forcing the Saudis to demonstrate they were not a U.S. client. The Soviet threat was of secondary concern to the players in the region who viewed the ArabIsraeli dispute as the primary threat to peace and stability in the Middle East. With the sale. we were escalating the arms race in the region and we would be faced with annual litmus tests of our relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia in particular. In light of the assassination of President Sadat. the burden of continuing the peace process fell more heavily on Prime Minister Begins shoulders. Therefore. the Prime Minister had to be given some maneuvering room to make decisions he had not been compelled to make in the past. The sale would not give him this maneuvering room. We had all but abandoned the Camp David process. leaving the future of EgyptIsraeli peace talks uncertain at best. Unfortunately. my warnings at the time were prophetic. My worst fears have been confirmed. Yet. I do not take much solace in the fact that events in the region have proven me correct. Our policy remains one of a series of ad hoc responses to developments in the region. We still do not have a viable policy in the Middle East. This set of circumstances is complicated further by the fact that the administration still speaks with many voices on foreign policy. Who is formulating policy toward the Middle East? Is it Secretary of State Alexander Haig or is it Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger? The Secretary of Defense still perceives the primary threat in the region to be the Soviet Union. Therefore. his response to this perceived threat is the pursuit of his elusive "strategic consensus." So how does the Secretary propose to implement his "strategic consensus"? He engages in what I characterize as F16 diplomacy. Prominent news coverage was given to the Secretarys discussions with King Hussein on the question of the transfer of F16s and mobile Hawk missile batterles to Jordan. Once again. we have the specter of another arms transfer involving weapons of significant sophistication to potential adversaries in the Middle East. The Secretary of State. on the other hand. while concerned with the Soviet threat to the region. does appear to be somewhat sensitive to Israels security concerns. Thus. we are greeted with the continuing public spectable of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense competing for primacy in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy. As a consequence. we have contradictory statements coming from the administration regarding our policy in the Middle East. This not only jeopardizes our interests in that region and elsewhere. it also seriously calls into question our credibility as a reliable and consistent major power. As to the issue of Saudi Arabia distancing itself from the United States to demonstrate it is not one of our client states. the record speaks for itself as well. The December 24. 1981. edition of the Washington Post reported: Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Fahd . . . cancelled his January 19 visit to President Reagan. and. despite efforts to minimize the implications. U.S. officials said privately that the Saudis (did) not want to call too much attention to their relations with the United States at the present time. The officials said the cancellation was a disappointment because it marked the second time in almost three years that Fahd. the effective head of the Saudi government. has indefinitely postponed a U.S. visit.... On November 11. 1981. the Washington Post reported that the Saudi Foreign Minister criticized Oman for participating in the U.S. military exercise "Bright Star." Prince Saud al Faisal. addressing the opening meeting of the Gulf Corporation Council. complained that OmaniU.S. cooperation was contrary to the councils principle of nonalignment. On December 2. the Washington Post reported the following: The official Saudi view that the Gulf states must keep a certain distance from the U.S. seems unchanged even by the U.S. Senates approval of the sale of AWACs. There are problems posed by such a close SaudiAmerican military strategy in the absence of a settlement of the Palestinian issue. That report was reinforced during Defense Secretary Weinbergers recent trip to Saudi Arabia. According to the February 13. 1982 New York Times an aide to the Secretary told correspondents that Saudi Arabia was "pivotal in the administrations plan for building a strategic consensus of Arab nations to block Soviet expansion into the region." The Defense Secretary outlined. to newsmen. what he hoped to achieve while in Saudi Arabia. This included the following: To complete the details of the $8.5 billion sale of AWACS radar surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia. To persuade Prince Fahd to come to Washington to meet with President Reagan. To see whether the United States and Saudi Arabia could coordinate security assistance for the other nations around the Persian Gulf. To ease the Saudis away from their obsession with Israel. But as the New York Times reported: All that came out of the marathon session. however. was a grudging Saudi agreement to form a Joint committee for military projects that would oversee existing programs such as deliveries of F15 fighters and the AWACS planes. To my astonishment. the Times reported the following concerning the Saudi perception of the AWACS sale: As a Saudi general put it. You are just arms salesmen and we pay cash. .. . the Saudis have made it abundantly clear. and did so again this week. that United States forces are unwanted here. The issue of the Soviet threat once again apparently fell on deaf ears. The same edition of the New York Times reported: As for turning Saudi Arabias attention to a Soviet threat and away. from its almost singleminded obsession with Israel. nothing seems able to dissuade them. The Defense Secretary should not have been surprised by this reaction. The Saudis chief lobbyist in Washington. Mr. Frederick Dutton. was quoted in the November 28. 1981. National Journal as saying: "We need to quit being so preoccupied with the Soviets." He and others have argued that from the Arab view. the threat to the Middle East peace comes not from the Soviet Union. but from Israel. Until the United States can force Israel to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state. these critics say. there can be no real progress in meeting the Soviet threat. My warning that the administration was launching an everescalating round of sophisticated weapons transfers to a highly volatile region of the world went unheeded last October. Let us take a look at the record since that time. Secretary Weinberger looks favorably upon providing F16s and mobile Hawk missiles to Jordan. The administration has promised Israel additional foreign military sales credits to compensate for the Saudi AWACS sale. Egypt has requested additional arms sales from the United States. In addition. less than a month after the administrations AWACS victory. the Washington Post reported the following: Saudi Arabia. concerned that Israel will carry out one of its "famous military strikes" here sometime in the next two years. In seeking a cloper defense alliance with the U.S. Saudi Arabia wants the U.S. military cooperation to close what amounts to a "window of vulnerability". the official said. but the principal obstacle continues to be the unresolved Palestinian issue. The unidentified Saudi official stated further. Obviously at some stage we will try to reach (military) parity with Israel either through our own means or through alliances. How has the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia impacted upon the ability of Prime Minister Begin to deal flexibly with the Egyptians on the autonomy talks? The November 18. 1981 edition of the Wall Street Journal. answered this question by observing: Fear is growing here (meaning Washington) that President Reagan is in some danger of losing his major achievement in the Middle Easta ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and the PLO. Israel has reached a state of paranoia we hlvent seen In years. a State Department official says. In this mood. anything could provoke an Israeli reaction and military ex plosion. ... Israeli apprehension has been heightened by American attentiveness to Saudi Arabia and the possibility that Egypt may rejoin the Arab fold. And what has happened to the Camp David process. As the February. 16. 1982 New York Times reported: ... For months hardly any efforts were made toward keeping life in the Camp David negotiating process between Israel and Egypt. that period was followed by two quick trips by Mr. Haig to the area. And what of Saudi Arabias role in fostering the peace process as claimed by the administration? On November 25. 1981. the Arab summit broke up in disarray after it opened in sharp disagreement over the Saudi peace proposals which implied Arab recognition of Israel. Did the Saudi eightpoint peace plan recognize the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign and secure state in the Middle East? Even the Saudis have flipflopped on this issue. The Saudi delegate to the United Nations said yer in ealy November. On November 16. 1981. the Saudi Government said their United Nations delegate had not been authorized to interpret its peace plan for the Middle East. However. the clincher came on January 5 of this year when the New York Times reported that the Saudi Foreign Minister stated there was absolutely no truth to published reports that the Saudi Government was prepared to recognize Israel. These are but a few examples of why I believe the administrations Middle East policy is based upon misperceptions and miscalculations. If the stakes in the region for the United States. Israel. and her Arab neighbors were not so high. I would feel vindicated that my warnings of October 21. 1981. should have been heeded. But the stakes are indeed too high. And peoples lives are jeopardized if the United States continues to make the kinds of miscalculations that I believe this administration has made in the Middle East. Israel is scheduled to complete a total withdrawal from the Sinai by the end of April in fulfillment of its obligations under the Camp David process. They do so at a time when their confidence in the reliability of the United States has been shaken badly. Prime Minister Begin is under increasing pressure from his own populace to launch an invasion of southern Lebanon to knock out the twin threats posed by the Syrian missiles in the Bekaa Valley and the PLO military buildup. Unfortunately. because of the infighting between the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense over Middle Eat policy. which has resulted in contradictory signals coming out of Washington. Israeli confidence in the United States as an arbiter has been shattered. War clouds loom very heavily on the Middle East horizon. On January 9. 1981. Secretary of State Alexander Haig appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing. During his hearings he emphasized the following: Consistency. reliability. balancethese three attributes are essential. not because they guarantee a successful foreign policynothing can do thatbut because their absence guarantees an unsuccessful one. Mr. President. I would submit that this administrations foreign policy has been inconsistent. unreliable. and unbalanced. As a consequence. their own words are coming back to haunt them. The foreign policy of this Nation is in complete disarray and as such. according to Secretary Haigs own criteria. is not only unsuccessful. but also disastrous for U.S. interests. The news media has noted the disarray in this administrations foreign policy. inparticular the vying for primacy in policy formulation between the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State. Editorials in the February 17 New York Times and the February 18 Washington Post. and columns in the February 23 Washington Post by Philip Geyelin and Edwin Yoder. Jr.. make the points forcefully. We have serious problems and they will get worse. unless the President gets his foreign policy house in order. I ask unanimous consent that the editorials and columns be printed in the RECORD. . There being no objection. the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD. as follows: (From the Washington Post. Feb. 18. 19821