Jeff Bingaman: “let me just make clear what I intend by this amendment and what I think the language of it says. As much as I like to…”

“let me just make clear what I intend by this amendment and what I think the language of it says. As much as I like to think that the U.S. Senate is all powerful, we are, in NATO, only one of the members. NATO is an entire organization. The United States and the other members have set about to develop this revised strategic concept. As I understand the history of this, in July of last year, in Madrid, there was agreed upon--NATO Ministers agreed at that time to develop a revised strategic concept, which would be presented to them in their planned summit of April of 1999. What my amendment says is that until such time as the North Atlantic Council agrees on a revised strategic concept, whatever it is, for NATO, then we will not go ahead. At least the U.S. position is that we should not go ahead and participate in inviting new members. So I am talking about a very formal procedure here which is well underway. It was agreed to in July of last year in Madrid. As I understand it, it is a three-stage process for conducting the review of the strategic concept. That three-stage process is well underway. There is no indication that I have seen that these deadlines will not be met. In fact, I have heard from people in the administration that they expect the revised strategic concept to be ready this summer, not in April of next year.”