John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world. John is a great American of courage and wisdom.  He loves his country and I appreciate his coming today to stand with me in my visit with you.

 Senator Talmadge used to refer to me as a work horse – not a show horse.  Herman was chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee when I arrived in Washington in 1973 to become the sixteen hundred and seventy-fifth Senator to be sworn in since the very first Senators took office in 1789.  

 And just in case you may have some interest in it, let me give you one more statistic: with the swearing-in of those 11 new ones eight days ago, there have now been a total of 1,862 U.S. Senators since the birth of the nation.  Some few of them – and I am one of the few –  have not aspired to one day being President.

 I am grateful that you invited this (very) old work horse to be with you today. I shall try to bear in mind that the mind can absorb no more than the seat can endure.  And I shall not pretend that I possess magical solutions to all the problems plaguing much of the world today.  

 The American Enterprise Institute has been around a while and you have a reputation that many other organizations wish they had.  In any event, thank you for inviting me – and thank you, John, for your kind words.  Thank you also, Chris Demuth, for your kind hospitality in hosting this event today.

 In contemplating the arrival of the Bush Administration, the several liberal think-tanks here in this city are bracing for tough times.  Adjusting to life on the sidelines of the public policy debates is not their dish of tea.  Eight years of Clinton spoiled them.  

 On the other hand, few institutions in Washington are more threatened by the Bush inauguration than your American Enterprise Institute.  If President Bush does the wise thing, he will raid your treasure trove of brilliant thinkers and appoint all of you to senior positions in his Administration.  (I hope that he will leave at least a few of you here to continue AEI’s important work.  Your scholarship is vital to so much of what many of us in Congress try to do.)

 You may have noticed, ever since the November election, the media have been bubbling in hopeful anticipation of my imminent demise.  In the past month, I am told, I have been diagnosed with having pancreatic cancer, terminal prostate cancer and a host of other life-threatening ailments.  According to some in the media, I even spent Thanksgiving on a respirator, barely hanging onto life.  So your invitation to be with you today enables me to rain on their parade a little.   

 My purpose in asking John to gather us together today is obvious, I think.  We meet at an important moment in the history of America.  As we prepare for the inauguration of the new president, one of the most important tasks America faces is restoring this nation's foreign policy back to the right course.  

 For six years, I’ve had the privilege of serving as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  And during those six years, Senate Republicans have had some important foreign policy accomplishments of which I hope we can all be proud. 

 For example, we enacted into law the LIBERTAD (or “Helms-Burton”) Act, tightening the noose around the neck of the last dictator in the Western hemisphere – Fidel Castro.  

 Working with our Committee's Ranking Member, Joe Biden, we took the first steps toward reforming our nation's foreign policy institutions for a post-Cold War world.

 We passed historic, bipartisan legislation – the “Helms-Biden” law – that pays America's so-called UN "arrears" only if there are specific, deep-seated reforms at that dysfunctional institution.  

 And we passed the National Missile Defense Act, mandating the deployment of missile defenses as soon as the technology is ready.

 These are typical important accomplishments of which we can all be proud.  But, as we look back on these successes, it is worth noting that – without exception – every one of these initiatives began either with presidential opposition, or the threat of a presidential veto.  

 Initially, President Clinton vetoed our bipartisan UN reform bill.  

 The President and his people refused -- for almost three years -- even to sit down with our Committee to discuss our State Department reform proposals.  

 President Clinton threatened to veto the LIBERTAD Act – he backed down only after Fidel Castro sent Cuban MiG fighters into the Florida Straits to shoot down two unarmed civilian planes (murdering three American citizens in cold blood).   

 And for eight years, President Clinton did everything in his power to block National Missile Defense.  He changed course only in 1999 after the Rumsfeld Commission delivered its stinging, bipartisan report, leading both houses of Congress to approve missile defense legislation by veto-proof majorities.

 The President opposed us on every one of our important initiatives.

 And that is just the legislation that we succeeded in forcing through an unwilling White House!  The number of important measures that the outgoing Clinton Administration succeeded in stopping is simply staggering. 

 Well, a week from Saturday, on January 20th, all that will change.  

 On that day we will inaugurate a new President, on whom we can rely to work with us – not against us – in advancing America's interests in the world.   And with the appointments of Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Don Rumsfeld, we will have one of the finest national security teams in this history of this nation.  And that will necessarily affect the agenda of the Foreign Relations Committee.  Because it expands – dramatically and exponentially – the realm of the possible in terms of what can be accomplished for the American people. 

 Of course, we will continue to work in a bipartisan manner wherever possible, and I must say that Joe Biden and I have built an excellent working relationship.  I believe that the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that Joe and I have established will continue and grow.  And while the margin in the Senate has certainly narrowed, let’s be honest: Unless either party has 60 votes (enough to invoke cloture and stop debate) then very little can be accomplished in the U.S. Senate without some measure of bipartisan support – no matter who is in control or by how narrow a margin. 

 But we cannot, and must not, ignore the fact that something has changed in Washington.  For the first time in five decades, Republicans will control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.  And that means Republicans can have an unprecedented opportunity to set the policy agenda – especially in the realm of foreign affairs. We must, and we will, seize that opportunity.  

 And that is why today my purpose is to share with you some of the vital issues on the Foreign Relations Committee's agenda as we prepare for a new Administration and the start of the new 107th Congress.  

 One of our first priorities come January 20th will be to assist President Bush in implementing his vision of “compassionate conservatism.”   Now, it might surprise you to find “compassionate conservatism” at the top of the Foreign Relations Committee’s agenda; allow me to explain why it’s there:

 During the Fall campaign, President Bush outlined a philosophy of empowering private charities and faith-based institutions to help the neediest of Americans.  He declared that: “Government can spend money, but it can't put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives.... Often when a life is broken, it can only be rebuilt by another caring, concerned human being.  Someone whose actions say, ‘I love you, I believe in you, I'm in your corner.’”  

 President Bush continued with this pledge: “In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based institutions, charities and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change lives.... We will rally the armies of compassion in our communities to fight a very different war against poverty and hopelessness.... This will not be the failed compassion of towering, distant bureaucracies.... [I]t will be government that [takes] the side of the faith-based organizations and private charities who are helping change lives, one person at a time."

 I submit to you, my friends, that the wisdom of this “compassionate conservative” vision must not stop at the water’s edge.

 During the campaign, President Bush talked about some of the many wonderful faith-based institutions with which he has worked and now admires.  One of them is a remarkable organization in my state with which I have been involved – a North Carolina  foundation called “Samaritan's Purse.”  

 Samaritan’s Purse is led by my longtime friend, the Rev. Franklin Graham – the son of a very dear friend, Dr. Billy Graham.  I believe that Franklin and his folks at Samaritan’s Purse do more good, with less money, for more people around the world than the entire U.S. foreign aid bureaucracy combined.  

 Want an example?  In southern Sudan, where a brutal civil war is tearing a nation apart, Samaritan’s Purse runs hospitals and clinics which – despite repeated bombings by government forces – provide desperately-needed medical and surgical services to the suffering Sudanese people.  Not far from the front lines in the south, (in a town called Lui), Samaritan's Purse operates an 80-bed hospital which has treated more than 100,000 patients – some of whom walk for days across Sudan's plains and swamps to get medical care.  More than 40 bombs were dropped in March and April last year, and they were bombed again just this week.  But the hospital has remained open, and Franklin Graham reports that the brave doctors and nurses there have saved more than 10,000 lives.  

 Samaritan’s Purse has similar projects in more than 100 countries around the world.  In Kosovo, their volunteers have distributed food and medicine, counseled more than 3,000 families, and rebuilt at least 800 houses.  In Central America, after Hurricane Mitch wreaked havoc across the region, they rebuilt more than 5,000 homes.  And their project “Operation Christmas Child” has distributed more than 1 million shoe-boxes filled with Christmas toys and gifts to children around the world – in most cases giving these children the first Christmas present they have ever received. 

 This is incredible work.  But Samaritan’s Purse is far from alone in this humanitarian endeavor.  Their work is complemented every day by the equal efforts of groups such as Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Save the Children, Hadassa, and many others who are changing lives around the world “one person at a time.”

 My dear friends,  these are the “armies of compassion” that President Bush is talking about.  And I put it to you: if we can deploy those “armies of compassion” across America, then we can and must deploy them across the world.  The time has come to reject what President Bush correctly labels the “failed compassion of towering, distant bureaucracies” and, instead, empower private and faith-based groups who care most about those in need.

 The principle at work here is found in the Christian doctrine of “subsidiarity.”  Pope John Paul II has put it this way: “Primary responsibility [for helping those in need]... belongs not to the State, but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society.... By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, [government produces]...a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients.... [The] needs of the poor are best satisfied by people who were closest to them and who act as neighbors in need.” 

 Not since Ronald Reagan and John Paul II took on Soviet communism have a Pope and a President been right on target on such an important issue.

 Too often, however, faith-based charities are dismissed by the U.S. foreign aid bureaucracy.  The bureaucrats treat them as if the efforts of these faith-based charities are quaint but unworthy of government support.  For example,  my good friend, Father Angelo D’Agositino, a Jesuit priest who runs an orphanage for children suffering from HIV/AIDS in Nuyumbani, Kenya. “Father Dag,” as we call him, approached the Agency for International Development for help in supporting his orphanage.  AID turned him down.  Why?  Because, they explained, his project did not “fall within USAID’s priorities.”  (You see, since most of the babies he was helping would eventually die of AIDS, his project – by definition – did not meet AID’s criteria for “sustainable” development).  

 I’ve got news for the AID bureaucrats: What is not sustainable is their cold, heartless, bureaucratic thinking.  We must – I repeat, we must – reform the way America helps those in need  (not only at home but abroad as well).  We must replace the bureaucracy-laden U.S. Agency for International Development with something new.  

 I intend to work with the Bush administration to replace AID with a new International Development Foundation whose mandate will be to deliver “block grants” to support the work of private relief agencies and faith-based institutions such as Samaritan’s Purse, Catholic Relief Services and countless others like them. 

 We will reduce the size of America’s  bloated foreign aid bureaucracy -- then take the money saved and use every penny of it to empower these “armies of compassion” to help the world’s neediest people. 

 Those who know me are aware that I have long opposed foreign aid programs that have lined the pockets of corrupt dictators, while funding the salaries of a growing, bloated bureaucracy.  And I remain adamantly opposed to waste, fraud and abuse in foreign aid.  

 But I will make this pledge today:  If we can reform the way in which we deliver aid to the needy, based on President Bush’s “compassionate conservative” vision – if we can ensure that the taxpayer’s money is going to people like Franklin Graham and Father Dag, rather than funding a wasteful federal bureaucracy – then I will be willing to take the lead in the Senate in supporting an increased U.S. investment in support of the important endeavors that I have referred to.  

 While we work to improve the ways America helps those in material need, we must also be attentive to another need – the need for human liberty.  Because a foreign policy that does not have freedom at its core is neither compassionate nor conservative.

 The 1990s were a decade of enormous democratic advances.  In the first years of that decade, we witnessed the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe; and in the final year of the decade, we saw the peaceful transfer of power from long-ruling parties to democratic oppositions in Taiwan and Mexico, and the fall of authoritarian leaders in places like Yugoslavia and Peru. 

 This progress notwithstanding, the global movement toward rule of law, democracy, civil society and free markets still meets resistance in many quarters.  Our challenge in the start of this new millennium – and the start of this new administration – must be to consolidate the democratic advances of the last ten years, while increasing the pressure on those who still refuse to accept the principle that sovereign legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed.

 A good place to start is our own hemisphere, and specifically just across our own border.   In Mexico, after 71 years of one-party rule, the corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party (or PRI) has finally been voted out of office.  President Vicente Fox's victory opens avenues for genuine friendship and cooperation between the United States and Mexico.  

 President Fox and President Bush already share a constructive vision for dealing with the problems that challenge both of their countries.  Working together, we can secure our border, discourage illegal immigration, and strengthen our nation’s second-largest trading partner by helping President Fox rejuvenate Mexico's economy.  And, we can broaden and deepen law enforcement cooperation against the deadly drug trade if both countries attack corruption and impunity.

 I will do everything I can to help both Presidents set a new course for U.S.-Mexican relations, and I look forward to collaborating with the Bush Administration to help set our relationship with the new Mexican government on the right course.

 And while democracy has finally taken root across the border in Mexico, just ninety miles from our shores the hemisphere’s last totalitarian dictatorship still sputters on.  Like a cat with nine lives, Fidel Castro is about to survive his ninth U.S. president. Well I have a message for Mr. Castro: the last of the cat’s nine lives has begun. 

 Fidel Castro survived the Clinton years for one reason: the Clinton Administration never made Castro’s removal from power a goal of its foreign policy.  Embargo opponents correctly sensed that the Clinton people were never really committed to Castro’s isolation and removal, and the Administration did nothing to dissuade them of that notion.  So they pushed on, dominating the debate.  As a result, instead of focusing on developing strategies to undermine Castro and hasten his demise, the last several years in Washington were spent wasting precious time and energy on a senseless debate over whether to lift the Cuban embargo unilaterally. 

 With the Bush election, the opponents of the Cuban embargo are about to run into a brick wall on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.  President Bush is a committed supporter of the embargo.  Cuban-Americans recognized the real thing when they saw it, and they turned out in record numbers to support him in Florida – giving Mr. Bush the margin that secured Florida’s 25 electoral votes and the White House. 

 What this means is that, with the embargo finally off the table, the new Bush Administration has a golden opportunity to develop a new Cuba policy.  The model for such a new Cuba policy should be the successful polices that the Reagan-Bush Administration used in the 1980s to undermine Communism in Poland. 

 In the 1980s, the U.S. hastened Poland’s democratic transformation by isolating the communist regime in Warsaw, while at the same time actively lifting the isolation of the Polish people – supporting the democratic opposition and cultivating an emerging civil society with financial and other means of support. 

 We must now do the same thing in Cuba.  In 1998, I introduced legislation – the “Cuban Solidarity Act” – which proposed, among other measures, giving $100 million in U.S. government humanitarian aid to the Cuban people (to be delivered, not through the Cuban government, but through private charitable institutions functioning on the island).  Such private assistance will help give Cubans independence from the State, which now controls their lives by controlling their access to food, medicine and other daily necessities.

 Come January 20th, I intend to work with the Bush Administration to do for the people of Cuba what the United States did for the people of Poland twenty years ago.  And I will make a prediction here today:  Before his term is up, President Bush will visit Havana – to attend the inauguration of the new democratically-elected President of Cuba.

 Another place where democracy desperately needs renewed American support is in Taiwan.  A remarkable thing happened in Taiwan at the close of the 20th century.  With the election of President Chen last year, the people of Taiwan presided over the first peaceful transfer of power from a ruling party to its democratic opposition in 5,000 years of Chinese history.

 This was an incredible achievement – and an ultimate repudiation of the myth spread by Beijing’s dictators and their allies that Western democracy is incompatible with so-called “Asian values.”  How sad, therefore, that while Taiwan was undertaking these incredible democratic advances, the Clinton policy of deliberately eroding U. S. support for Taiwan did enormous damage.   

 President Clinton repeatedly let down our friends in Taiwan, first by going to China and repeating Beijing’s fictitious constructions on the future of Taiwan; and then by refusing to meet America’s legal obligations to provide for Taiwan’s self-defense under the Taiwan Relations Act.

 This damage must be undone.  The military balance of power of the past 20 years is quickly shifting in Beijing's favor. Because of the Clinton Administration’s neglect, Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities are not keeping up with Beijing’s rapid military modernization.  It is imperative that we act quickly to reverse the decline.

 Yes, we must engage China.  But Beijing also must be made to understand that its avenues to destructive behavior are closed off, and that Taiwan will have the means to defend itself. During the campaign, President Bush gave his enthusiastic endorsement to the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act.  And I intend to work with him to enact the TSEA, and to help ensure Taiwan’s democracy remains secure from Chinese aggression.

 Another place where aggression is being rewarded because of the Clinton administration’s neglect is Iraq.   For the last eight years, we have watched as the Clinton Administration has presided over the collapse of our Iraq policy.  The Clinton people have abandoned weapons inspections, abandoned sanctions and ultimately, abandoned the people of Iraq themselves.  

 We must have a new Iraq policy, and such a policy must be based on a clear understanding of this salient fact:  Nothing will change in Iraq until Saddam Hussein is removed from power.  Almost a decade has gone by since the United States liberated Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.   The time has come to liberate Iraq as well.  With the passage of the bipartisan Iraq Liberation Act, Congress took the lead in promoting the democratic opposition to Saddam Hussein. (The Clinton Administration failed to implement the act).  I look forward to working with President Bush to implement effectively the Iraq Liberation Act help the people of Iraq get rid of Saddam Hussein. 

 Perhaps the greatest moral challenge we face at the dawn of a new century is to right the wrongs perpetrated in the last century at Yalta, when the West abandoned the nations of Central and Eastern Europe to Stalin and a life of servitude behind the Iron Curtain. 

 We began the process of righting that wrong in 1998, when the Senate voted to admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the NATO alliance.  I consider it one of my proudest moments as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to have helped usher in those three nations’ admission to NATO, and thus to have helped them secure their rightful place in the community of Western democracies.  

 But the admission of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic has not yet fully erased the scars of Yalta.  During the Cold War, I was one of a group of Senators who fought to defend the independence of what came to be known as the “Captive Nations” (the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) – and who worked to make sure that the United States never recognized their illegal annexation by the Soviet Union.  

 With the collapse of Communism, those nations finally achieved their rightful independence from Russian occupation and domination. Yet Russia still looms menacingly over these countries.  In looking at the current Russian government, one gets the distinct impression that the Russian leadership considers Baltic independence to be a temporary phenomenon.  That is an impression that the Russians cannot be allowed to long entertain.

 Just as we never recognized the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, we must not repeat the mistakes of the 1940s today by acknowledging a Russian sphere of influence in what Russian leaders ominously call the “near abroad.”  These nations’ independence will never be fully secure until they are safe from the threat of Russian domination and are fully integrated into the community of Western democracies.

 I intend to work with the Bush Administration to ensure that the Baltic States are invited to join their neighbors Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as members of the NATO alliance.  This is vital not only for their security, but for ours as well.  If we want good relations with Russia, we must show Russia’s leaders an open path to good relations, while at the same time closing off their avenues to destructive behavior.  That means taking the next step in the process of NATO expansion, by issuing invitations to the Baltic nations when NATO’s leaders meet for the next alliance summit planned for 2002.

 Another immediate priority is National Missile Defense.  After eight lost years under President Clinton, we have no time to waste in building and deploying a truly national missile defense that is capable of protecting the United States and its allies from ballistic missile attack.  

 Last year, when President Clinton threatened to negotiate a revised ABM Treaty with Russia that would tie the hands the new Administration, I went to the Senate floor and warned Mr. Clinton that any such agreement would be dead-on-arrival in the U.S. Senate.   

 Now, as President Bush prepares to take office, I want to make something perfectly clear to our 
friends in Russia.   The United States is no longer bound by the ABM Treaty – that treaty expired when our treaty partner (the Soviet Union) ceased to exist.  Legally speaking, the Bush Administration faces no impediment whatsoever to proceeding with any national missile defense system it chooses to deploy.

 President Bush may decide that it is in the United States’ diplomatic interests to sit down with the Russians and discuss his plans for missile defense.  Personally, I do not think that a new ABM Treaty can be negotiated with Russia that would permit the kind of defenses America needs.  But, as Henry Kissinger told the Foreign Relations Committee last year: “I would be open to argument, provided that we do not use the treaty as a constraint on pushing forward on the most effective development of a national and theater missile defense."

 With that caveat by Dr. Kissinger, I concur – President Bush must have, and will have, the freedom to proceed as he sees fit.  And I look forward to working with the President to ensure he achieves his goal of a rapid deployment of an effective and truly national missile defense.

 Last but not least, ladies and gentlemen, there is the issue of the International Criminal Court.
 Let me be perfectly clear: All of the issues I have discussed today are of immense importance.  But if I do nothing else this year, I will make ceratin that President Clinton’s outrageous and unconscionable decision to sign the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court is reversed and repealed.

 Two years ago, President Clinton refused to sign the Rome Treaty.  The reason for his refusal, as Mr. Clinton’s chief negotiator, Ambassador David Scheffer, told Congress at the time was simple:

“The [Rome] treaty,” Ambassador Scheffer declared, “purports to establish an arrangement whereby United States armed forces operating overseas could be conceivably prosecuted by the international criminal court even if the United States has not agreed to be bound by the treaty.  Not only is this contrary to the most fundamental principles of treaty law, it could inhibit the ability of the United States to use its military to meet alliance obligations and participate in multinational operations.”

 This brazen assault on the sovereignty of the American people is without precedent in the annals of international treaty law. 
 
 There are two things I will press for with the new Administration.  First, the Bush Administration should simply un-sign the Rome Statute.   I mean, quite literally, that the Administration should instruct someone at the U.S. Mission in New York to walk across the street to the UN, ask to see the treaty document, and then take out a pen and draw a line through Ambassador Scheffer’s name.  I think that will send a clear message.

 Second, we must enact the American Servicemembers Protection Act.  This legislation, which  Senator Warner and I introduced last year along with a number of our House and Senate colleagues, is designed to protect U.S. citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. 

 Our effort was publicly endorsed last month by a bipartisan group of former senior U.S. officials, including (among others) President Bush’s Defense Secretary-designate Don Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Caspar Weinberger, and Jim Woolsey.

 Why is passage of this legislation important?  Because by signing this flawed treaty, President 
Clinton has effectively endorsed the ICC’s fraudulent claim of jurisdiction over Americans.  We must take action to make clear that, unless and until the United States ratifies the Rome Treaty, we reject any claim of jurisdiction by the ICC over American citizens.  Period.

 The nations pushing this Court on the American people may have thought that they could push, cajole and triangulate the self-proclaimed “Man from Hope.”   Well, they need to understand that, come January 20th, there is a new President in town with a new motto they had better learn: “Don’t mess with Texas.”

 These, ladies and gentlemen, are my priorities.  As you can see, the Foreign Relations Committee will have a full agenda in the coming year.  From revolutionizing the way America delivers foreign assistance; to consolidating the last century’s democratic advances and continuing the march for freedom in the next; to preserving, protecting and defending the security and sovereignty of the United States – we will have our work cut out for us as we seek to restore a foreign policy that is both compassionate and conservative. 

 And to accomplish these tasks, we will need your invaluable assistance.   As I said at the outset, AEI is one of the most exceptional institutions in Washington.   I am enormously proud of the work you do, and honored that you’ve taken time from your busy schedules to be with me this afternoon. 

 I  hope that we can count on your help in the coming year to make this ambitious agenda a reality.  And –  whether as AEI scholars or representatives of the Bush Administration – I look forward to seeing many of you at the witness table of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the months ahead.

 Thank you for your patience -- and your thoughtful invitation for me to be with you today.