Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I would like to point out that this is a rule of which I do not believe the authors should be proud. This rule, I believe, strictly limits a serious debate with regards to our national defense and our involvement in war at this particular time.

Today, the International War Crimes Tribunal decided to indict Milosevic. Milosevic is obviously a character that deserves severe criticism, but at this particular junction in the debate over this erroneous and ill-gotten war in Yugoslavia, this indicates to most of the world that there is no attempt whatsoever on the part of NATO to attempt any peace negotiations. This is a guarantee of the perpetuation of war.

Milosevic is going to be further strengthened by this. He will not be weakened. It was said the bombing would weaken Milosevic, and yet he was strengthened. This same move, this pretense that this kangaroo court can indict Milosevic and carry this to fruition indicates only that there are some who will enjoy perpetuating this war, because there is no way this can enhance peace. This is a sign of total hypocrisy, I believe, on the part of NATO. NATO, eventually, by history, will be indicted.

But today we are dealing with this process, and this is related to the bill that is about to be brought to the floor because, specifically, as this bill came out of committee, it said that monies in this bill should be used for defense, not for aggressive warfare in Kosovo, and yet that was struck in the Committee on Rules. That is a serious change in the bill. I think all our colleagues must remember this when it comes time to vote for the final passage.

We could have had a bill that made a statement against spending this money to perpetuate this illegal NATO war, and yet it was explicitly removed from the bill. I think this is reason to question the efforts on this rule. Certainly it should challenge all of us on the final passage of this bill, because much of this money will not be spent on the national defense, but to perpetuate war, which is a direct distraction from our national defense because it involves increasing threats to our national security. It does not protect our national security.

It might be well to also note that this bill does not do much more for fiscal conservatives. The President asked for a certain amount for the defense of this country, but we have seen fit to raise him more than $8 billion, spend more money, more money that is so often not spent in our national defense. At the same time, we must also remember that when we vote on this bill, and this rule allows it, more than $10 billion will be in excess of the budget agreement of 1997.

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