Jeremiah Smith: “For the Senator from Massachusetts and others now to basically prevent the committee from updating the language based on…”

“For the Senator from Massachusetts and others now to basically prevent the committee from updating the language based on the President's own words, and based on the words of Sandy Berger and others, sends a terrible message, a message that I simply do not understand, for the life of me, why we have to fight this battle day in and day out, year in and year out, on the floor of the Senate. There is nothing wrong with this language, I say to my colleague, with all respect. The President still has the right to certify. And he does in spite of the fact that I disagree, many times, with his reasoning for the certification. To prevent the committee from updating this language sends, I think, a terrible message to the Government of Vietnam: It is OK, do whatever you want. Go ahead, provide us documents, don't provide us documents; provide us access, don't provide us access, it doesn't matter. The families of 2,000-plus American service personnel still unaccounted for, don't worry about it. Our Nation's veterans, we no longer attach the same priorities to the POW/MIA effort in our development of relations with Vietnam which we had in the last 3 years. Don't worry about that. Let's go ahead, pursue lines of trade, sell oil, buy oil, whatever. Set up a full diplomatic mission. Don't worry about these things. Don't worry about POW/MIA. That is a side issue that is not really important. That is reason alone for the Senators and my colleagues to table this amendment.”