THE BUCHAREST CONFERENCE - REP. ELLEN TAUSCHER MEDIA AVAILABILITY
(Check against delivery)
APRIL 1, 2008
SPEAKERS: REP. ELLEN TAUSCHER (D-CA),
CHAIRWOMAN,
HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC RESOURCES
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QUESTION: Congresswoman Tauscher, you said you support NATO-ization of the missile defense shield. Does that imply less financial support
from an eventual Democratic administration?
And the second quick question. Would a Democratic administration
support a bilateral deal between Washington and Bucharest to get Romania
covered, as well? Thank you.
TAUSCHER: Well, that's a long series of questions. Let me just
state where the Congress is. I cannot speak for a future
administration, although I'm looking forward to hopefully having a
Democratic president in 2009.
But for the last year and this year, as the Democrats have been in
the majority in the House and the Senate, we have changed missile
defense policy. We've demanded more accountability from the Missile
Defense Agency, more testing.
And the relationship and the negotiations between the United States,
bilateral negotiations between Poland the Czech Republic were of concern
to the Congress. And what we want is an indivisible, comprehensive
missile defense system that meets our Article V considerations against
current threats.
And current threats are short- and medium-range missiles coming out
of the Middle East, and Iran, specifically. And the southern tier of
our NATO allies right now are unprotected against a current threat.
The long-range system that the Bush administration proposed, the 10
interceptors in Poland and the radar in the Czech Republic, are against
an emerging Iranian threat against the United States. That is a
long-range system.
What we have, what I have proposed -- and I've worked with
Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Secretary Gates and
Secretary Rice -- is to have a NATO-ized system, to have a
comprehensive, layered system with command and control in SHAPE under
the SACEUR that would be a comprehensive system, one that would have a
short- and medium-range component developed by NATO that the United
States would include our long-range system, and so you would have a
completely tiered, layered defense against all emerging and current
threats, indivisibly for all of NATO countries.
And that is what I hope will come out partly of the NATO summit. My
concern is that -- is this intelligence gap that I alluded to in my
remarks, that there doesn't seem to be the kind of sense of urgency that
I think that our European allies, NATO allies need to have about the
current threat and what we need to do to have a procurement decision to
move forward on this short- and medium-range system that would be --
it's called the ALTBMD system.
It's already on the drawing board in NATO. But I think we need to
move it past the conceptual and into a design and procurement phase.
Then we could, as I said, bolt together the long-range American system
and then we would have this comprehensive, layered system.
QUESTION: First question, Congresswoman, how would you comment on President Basescu's assertion that Romania asks the alliance to extend
its hand to Georgia and Ukraine and include all three candidate
countries at a time when most European allies, important European allies
seem to be against this?
And my second question would be, as a country participating with
troops in Afghanistan, we are regarding with some worry President Bush's
declaration that the U.S. is considering giving up its demand for more
German troops in Afghanistan.
What do you expect concretely to come out of the Bucharest summit in
that respect that would help ease our fears? Thank you.
TAUSCHER: Well, I have just had a very good meeting with the
president and reiterated Congress's support for what we consider to be a
very deep and abiding relationship with the Romanian people.
I said in my remarks that I support the MAP process for both Georgia
and the Ukraine. I support what President Basescu said. And I think
it's, frankly, what President Bush has said.
I hope that we will be bold, that NATO will be bold and make these
decisions to go ahead and have both the Ukraine and Georgia be part of
the MAP process. I've also suggested that the Balkan countries come in
as full NATO partners, continue with their reforms, but continue to go
forward. And your second question was about?
QUESTION: Afghanistan.
TAUSCHER: Afghanistan. We need NATO troops. And I've asked for
another 7,000 NATO troops. Apparently, the good news is that most
recently, we hope, that President Sarkozy will be contributing as many
as 1,000 troops. That will, I hope, satisfy a rightful request of the
Canadians for help and that they will continue their mission.
But I am baffled by our inability in NATO to come up with not only
the troops, but the strategic airlift and the helicopters that we need.
This mission cannot fail. It is vitally important for NATO's raison
d'etre and its reputation for this mission to prevail. We cannot have
Afghanistan fall back into the clutches of radical fundamentalism.
And it is a very difficult-to-govern country to begin with. You
cannot have parts of it that are accessible to terrorists and other bad
guys. And so we want this NATO mission to succeed. We're adding
another 3,200 American Marines.
But we need our NATO allies to step up. And part of that is what I
perceive to be the necessity for direct conversations between
parliaments and publics as to what the NATO mission is. I think that
we're disappointed that for too long the Bush administration conflated
Iraq and Afghanistan. They are very different missions.
And we want NATO's commitment to Afghanistan to remain strong. And
we need the troops. We need the strategic airlift. We need the
equipment. And we need the support of the publics, because, by the way,
it is their sons and daughters that will go and serve.
QUESTION: Congresswoman Tauscher (inaudible) you said believe that
Georgia and Ukraine should be involved and included in MAP process, but
France and Germany seem to oppose. So two questions connected.
Do you include involved in your answer a time limit? Do you mean
now at this Bucharest summit, these two countries should be involved in
the MAP process?
And the second question connected, do you, in your knowledge,
President Bush convinced President Sarkozy or Angela Merkel to accept
Georgia and Ukraine? Thank you.
TAUSCHER: I believe that Georgia and Ukraine should be invited at
this summit this week to be part of the MAP process. I believe it is
important for us to influence as best we can our allies, including
countries that are not currently persuaded.
I think it is important for us not only to include both Georgia and
the Ukraine because of the advances and the reforms they have made, but
as a very strong signal to other countries in Eurasia, where I think we
need to extend the opportunity to join the alliance, and to countries
that can make a choice, our kinds of values, our kinds of indivisibility
of defense, our collective security, or somebody else.
And I hope that we raise our hand and say, "Please come with us."
And I think that's an important signal that we would send if we did, in
fact, overcome some of the opposition and, indeed, invite Georgia and
Ukraine this week.
QUESTION: Congresswoman Tauscher, you mentioned the call for 7,000 more European troops in Afghanistan, which is a figure which goes
substantially beyond what COMISAF and, indeed, SACEUR are publicly
calling, based on what they know of the Combined Joint Statement of
Requirements.
The question is, on what basis have you come to this figure? And is
it indeed coordinated with the U.S. administration or the Pentagon, for
example?
TAUSCHER: I did not coordinate with the administration. It is
larger than is being asked, and it is larger primarily because of my
concern about dwell time for the troops that are committed.
Currently, the United States cannot maintain its dwell time, which
is a two-for-one ratio, one year in a war zone, two years resting,
recuperating, and re-training for active duty, five years for Guard and
Reserve.
And we've got troops cycling into Afghanistan (inaudible) because we
have such a large commitment in Iraq. I think that there are other of
our NATO allies who have made big commitments to Afghanistan. They're
going to face the same issues.
So I ask for more troops primarily because I don't want the existing
forces to continue to maintain such a long period of deployment and I
want to know that we have a cushion, so to speak, of troops that we can
call on, if we believe that we need more troops in order to continue to
stabilize the country.
QUESTION: Congresswoman, how is the United States prepared to deal
with Russian opposition for (inaudible) for Ukraine and Georgia? And
second question. If there is a plan for Ukraine and Ukraine will join
NATO at one point, what will happen with the island of Moldova, which
will be in between two NATO countries?
Thank you.
TAUSCHER: Well, as I said in my remarks, no country has a veto on
the United States security and I don't believe on alliance security,
especially a country that's not a member.
And on the other hand, I think we understand that we want to have
engagement with Russia, we want to have a strong relationship, but
saber-rattling does not provide illumination of the debate and does not
provide an environment where people can actually listen to facts.
And we are deeply disappointed that President Putin over time has
(inaudible) missile defense system (inaudible) had visits from senior
Russian military. We certainly met with President Putin and others and
made clear that we are very interested in showing them what the system does.
They've come to see the system. They understand that it's defensive
in nature.
On Ukraine and Moldova, we believe that this is the right thing for
those countries. They will make their choice. The alliance will make
its choice.
Regarding Moldova, I think it's important that the neighborhood and
countries in the neighborhood make advances with and for each other.
And I understand that that is a very important place, especially for
Romanians, but I think it's important for us to advance in a timely way
and move countries as they begin the reforms, not too quickly, but as
soon as there possibly can, into the MAP process. And I expect that
that could happen in the not-too-distant future for Moldova.
QUESTION: President Basescu has made a bold suggestion tonight that
Serbia should receive somehow a sign of goodwill at the summit in some
way as a political something, something on the political level.
TAUSCHER: Well, I think that we should be always interested in
engagement without confusing it with endorsement. And I certainly think
that there are -- I have concerned, for example, that there are a number
of former military that are still at large that we would like to capture
because of terrible atrocities done during the war in Yugoslavia.
And there are a number of other people that we would like to be able
to talk to. I think that the government of Serbia needs to understand
that we're serious about these things and that we are looking to have
cooperation on those issues.
Engagement is not endorsement, but engagement, I believe, is the
path that we take as a free people in democracies and that we want to
extend every opportunity for governments to work together and that
diplomacy is the coin of the realm, in my opinion, for civilizations.
So I am very much open to talking to the government of Serbia and
certainly outreach to the people of Serbia. But at the same time, I
think we need to be very mindful that the reforms have not been
completed that I think we all believe have to be done and there are
these other issues that are not completed, and that regional engagement
is very, very important.
And I think that, from the United States' perspective, we encourage
our friends in the region to engage with the Serbian government. But I
think we'll take a wait-and-see attitude.
Thank you.
END