New Cox report may target Gore
Democrats suspect partisan motive behind foreign-policy critique
By Robert O'Neill
NATIONAL JOURNAL WASHINGTON
June 30
In late March, shortly before Vladimir Putin�s election as
Russian president, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.,
announced he had formed a panel of Republican lawmakers charged
with the indelicate task of evaluating what went wrong in Russia
and with U.S. policy toward the former superpower. The man
Hastert selected to lead the panel, Rep. Christopher Cox,
R-Calif., said the transition from Boris Yeltsin to Putin would
be a perfect time to reassess a relationship that had, by any
standard, soured.
Capitol Hill�s frustration had obvious roots: Russia�s support of
Yugoslavia during the war in Kosovo; the brutal prosecution of
the war in Chechnya; the scandalous disappearance of capital from
Russia, including reports alleging that some international aid
landed in accounts in the United States; and, finally, the
meteoric rise of Putin, a former KGB officer, from near obscurity
to power.
LITANY OF PROBLEMS
�The state of affairs in Russia is not what we would wish,� said
Cox, the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, who
also led a special House GOP panel that issued a highly
publicized report in May 1999 charging China with stealing U.S.
nuclear secrets.
Now Cox�s panel on Russia has finished its research and is
beginning to draft a report, expected to be issued in late July,
that will detail a litany of problems in that country, from
financial scandals to organized crime to weapons proliferation.
But the report will focus largely on �the apparent mismanagement�
of Russian policy by the Clinton Administration, according to a
Republican congressional aide.
The task force has heard from visiting Russian officials and
senior Russian lawmakers, experts on the region, and even former
foreign service officers who were critical of the Clinton
Administration�s handling of U.S.-Russian relations.
DEMOCRATS EXCLUDED
Democrats have been excluded from the panel, named the Russia
Advisory Group. In fact, they have taken to calling it by the
acronym RAG, which reflects their view that the policy review and
forthcoming report are politically suspect. The report�s release
will come shortly before the Republican National Convention
convenes at the end of the month in Philadelphia and the
Democrats meet in Los Angeles in mid-August. Democrats expect
the report to be a thinly veiled attack on one of the most
visible architects of the Clinton Administration�s policy on
Russia: Vice President Al Gore, the presumptive Democratic
presidential nominee.
Republicans concede that their panel moved quickly to develop its
policy critique, but they say the panel did a thorough job. Cox
began by traveling to Russia to monitor the March 26 presidential
elections, and upon his return, he directed several House
committees to scour their files for Russia-related materials.
Staff members from those committees met twice a week, while the
12 senior Republican lawmakers who sit on the panel-including the
chairmen of the Appropriations, Armed Services, Banking and
Financial Services, International Relations, and Select
Intelligence committees-met every Wednesday to review staff work
and discuss policy issues.
In May, Cox and Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., the chairman of the
Armed Services Military Research and Development Subcommittee and
a member of the Russia panel who is highly knowledgeable about
the country, traveled to Russia with Defense Secretary William
Cohen.
OVERPERSONALIZING THE RELATIONSHIP?
Republicans say the panel�s objective is to re-evaluate the
underpinnings of U.S. policy during a time of crucial change.
�Our goal in this task force is to set the stage for a new,
positive U.S.-Russia relationship based on strong ties not just
between a small clique of wealthy ex-communists and our
government, but between the Russian people and the American
people,� Hastert said in announcing the formation of the panel.
Congressional Republicans have long been critical of the Clinton
Administration for overpersonalizing the relationship between the
two nations and investing U.S. trust in the often-erratic
Yeltsin. But the GOP report is also expected to hone in on
Gore�s personal role in developing bilateral policy, especially
his co-chairmanship of the U.S.-Russia Binational Commission
since its inception in 1993.
The commission was created to bring the two countries together on
a number of technical issues, such as space exploration and
energy. It was led by Gore and his Russian counterpart,
then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who fits the prototype
of Hastert�s �wealthy ex-communists� as much as the infamous
oligarchs who have taken control of so much of the Russian
economy.
The commission met about twice a year until the rapid succession
of premiers made its work difficult, and its biannual meetings
stopped in 1997. It claims successes in a number of fields,
including assisting U.S. agribusiness in developing ties with
Russia and helping Russians draft new rules for their money
markets. The Administration also cites Gore�s personal
relationship with Chernomyrdin as crucial to enlisting Russian
help in negotiating an end to the war in Kosovo.
Republicans, however, have criticized the Clinton Administration
for turning a blind eye to official corruption in Russia. As an
example of this indifference, they cite an incident in which Gore
reportedly scrawled an expletive across a U.S. intelligence
report and dismissed its details on the Russian premier�s
questionable financial activities.
But Gore is standing behind his record on Russia. The Vice
President�s office is not in �damage-control mode� in
anticipation of a critical report by the House Republican panel,
said Matt Gobush, Gore�s foreign policy spokesman. �We�ve got a
pretty solid record of accomplishment.�
Most Russia experts agree that if there is an architect of the
Administration�s Russia policy, it is not the Vice President, but
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. But for the
Republicans, giving Gore more credit for shaping U.S.-Russia
policy may prove to be a useful political tool by helping define
the policy differences between Gore and George W. Bush, the
presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Bush has opted for a tougher line on Russia than has Gore. For
instance, Bush would tie continued international assistance to
Moscow to an end to the brutality in Chechnya.
TAP INTO VOTER UNEASE
Clearly, in this election season, Republicans are hoping to tap
into voter unease about the often-volatile political situation in
Russia. Americans don�t see Russia as the threat that the Soviet
Union was-recent polls show that only about 14 percent of
Americans describe Russia as an enemy-but they do regard the
handling of U.S. relations with the former superpower as
extremely important. And Steven Kull, the director of the
University of Maryland�s Program on International Policy
Attitudes, said that Americans are somewhat disappointed with the
lack of progress in Russia.
Raising the stakes on Russia policy just before the political
conventions may also highlight a growing public confidence in
Bush�s ability to handle foreign policy. In February, Bush
trailed Gore in most polls by about 7 points on foreign policy
issues, Kull said, but has since pulled even with his Democratic
rival. This improvement, however, may have more to do with
Bush�s rise in the overall ratings than to any specific policy
position.
On Capitol Hill, the Republicans� Russia panel has not yet
decided whether it will issue specific recommendations, but Cox
says that the committee will serve as a �prologue, not an
epilogue� to congressional action. In fact, members of Congress
have already shown an active interest in Russia this year.
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