In a speech to a labor group, President Clinton argues the case for sending U.S. fliers on a NATO mission over Serbia. (AP Photo)

By Charles Babington and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 24, 1999; Page A1

President Clinton acknowledged yesterday that most Americans can't find Kosovo on a map. But in an emotional, almost folksy speech, he pleaded with the public and Congress to embrace his decision to send U.S. pilots on a risky mission there to "stand up to brutality and the killing of innocent people."

Prodded by congressional leaders to make a plain-spoken case for airstrikes against Serb targets, Clinton adopted the colloquial tone of a patient teacher, urging Americans to "get down an atlas." He compared the need to act now with the failure of Allied forces to react to Adolf Hitler's aggression preceding World War II. In that light, Clinton said, Americans should support possible airstrikes against Serb aggressors for both humanitarian reasons and self-interest.

"You've got to decide, my fellow Americans, if you agree with me that in the 21st century that America, as the world's superpower, ought to be standing up against ethnic cleansing," he said, recalling the atrocities of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

"And you have to decide whether you agree with me that we have a clear interest – after what we saw in World War I, World War II and the Cold War and all the people who died – in a Europe that is united, not divided, democratic, not dictatorial," Clinton said in what many assumed would be his last address before airstrikes began.

His plaintive and pleading tone appeared driven by his conclusion that this was the moment to persuade Congress and the nation of the justice of what could become the largest and most costly military action of his presidency.

In his midday speech to a convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Clinton eschewed the somber language of geopolitics and rehearsed pronouncements and eased into informal asides, such as saying that a strong U.S.-European partnership "is what this Kosovo thing is all about."

In the Senate, a resolution stating "the president of the United States is authorized to conduct military air operations in cooperation with our NATO allies against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," passed 58 to 41. An earlier effort by conservative Republicans to block funds for airstrikes fell short.

While many Republicans continued to complain that Clinton lacks a coherent postbombing strategy, key lawmakers of both parties said the likelihood of airstrikes required the White House and Congress to speak as one.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who criticized Clinton's handling of Kosovo, nonetheless said it would be "extraordinarily dangerous" for Congress now to challenge his authority as commander in chief. "We must not compound the administration's mistakes by committing our own."

Many congressional Republicans also put aside their lack of trust in Clinton, which deepened during the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, and adhered to the tradition of rallying around the president at times of war.

"In the end, the mood was to lock arms," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) after he and other lawmakers met with Clinton at the White House in the morning.

The labor union luncheon was an unlikely setting for a major foreign policy statement. But it was Clinton's only scheduled public event between his morning meeting with congressional leaders and the evening's round of private consultations that many felt would lead soon to airstrikes against Serbian forces. Several congressional leaders had told Clinton it would be easier for them to support him if he would make a more detailed and emphatic public case for the attack.

"The congressmen and senators began to speak up and say, basically, 'Mr. President, we think we have to be with you, or we should be with you, but make your case to the American people more clearly,' " Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said after the White House meeting.

Presidential press secretary Joe Lockhart said Clinton quickly revised and ad-libbed portions of his AFSCME speech.

"The president responded to some of the things that were said to him this morning about delineating this and describing this in historical terms and in terms that related to domestic concerns here at home," Lockhart told reporters. "The American public is just sometimes disengaged with foreign policy because they see it as something separate and apart from the domestic policies that are probably more often talked about around the kitchen table. And the president has made an effort over the last six years, with mixed results, to tie the two together."

In his speech, Clinton said he wants an America that believes in "the idea of community. ... What we have in common is more important than what divides us. ... You look all over the world – that's what Kosovo is about. ... People are still killing each other out of primitive urges because they think what is different about them is more important than what they have in common."

Clinton added: "I ask you to talk to your friends and neighbors about this. I ask you literally, to go get down an atlas and look at the map. ... Think about the arguments that I have made."

The Senate vote for airstrikes was 58 to 41, with 42 Democrats and 16 Republicans voting yes and 38 Republicans, including Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), and three Democrats voting no. All Washington-area senators voted for it. "The case of inaction is unacceptable to the world," said Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.).

The Senate's actions evoked memories of congressional arguments over use of force against Iraq in 1991 and deployment of peacekeeping forces in Bosnia in 1995. President George Bush requested congressional authorization for use of troops against Iraq, which passed over objections from Democratic leaders. Four years later, the Senate voted grudgingly to support dispatch of U.S. troops to Bosnia, while the House declined to do so.