[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 12, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9300-S9302]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES--Continued
Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the
resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask that all Senators take their
desks and that we vote from our desks on this resolution. I appreciate
the cooperation from both sides.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the engrossment and third
reading of the joint resolution.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading
and was read the third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass? The yeas
and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 100, nays 0, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 277 Leg.]
YEAS--100
Akaka
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Cantwell
Carnahan
Carper
Chafee
Cleland
Clinton
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Corzine
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Helms
Hollings
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Miller
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Torricelli
Voinovich
Warner
Wellstone
Wyden
The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 22) was passed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. For the information of all Senators, this will be the
only vote cast today. We will stand in recess until 3:30 this afternoon
to accommodate the briefing that begins--now at 2:30, not 2 o'clock, in
room 407.
Tomorrow it is my hope to renew the deliberations and hopefully
complete our work on the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill.
That will be tomorrow.
After 3:30 this afternoon, we invite Senators to come back to the
floor to express themselves if they have not yet had the opportunity to
do so.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. THOMPSON. Madam President, was it the intention to recess
immediately or will there be an opportunity to make a short statement
with regard to yesterday's matters? May I ask the leader?
Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, if I may respond, under the previous
unanimous consent request, two of our Republican colleagues had sought
recognition and we had locked in time for those two speakers prior to
the time we recess. That will still be the order.
Mr. THOMPSON. I thank the leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. THOMPSON. Madam President, we meet here today to express our
outrage even though words cannot express the sorrow and anger that
fills our hearts. But we must express these feelings--on behalf of the
family and friends of thousands of innocent victims, many whose
identities we do not yet know--and on behalf of our entire nation.
Our young people must wonder why the United States who they are
taught is the beacon of hope and liberty for the world--why we of all
countries--should be the world's main target of such savagery.
I suggest it is because those teachings to our young people are true.
It is because our history and the principles on which our country was
founded go against the trend of thousands of years of human history.
Thousands of years of ``might makes right,'' of rulers and
dictatorships of all shapes and forms, of religious intolerance and
subjugation. We have shown the world that it doesn't have to be that
way. And today's tyrants and would-be tyrants cannot afford to let that
example stand.
But stand it will. If this giant, America, has been sleeping as some
say, it has been awakened once again and will not rest until an example
is make of those who would murder our innocent citizens and tear at the
very fabric of our national existence. Part of a great nation's
responsibility for keeping peace in the world is the threat it must
pose to those who would upset that peace. Therefore, we must act as a
deterrent to outrageous activity when our interests are involved.
And America's response in this matter should set a lasting example of
what happens to those who unleash bloody attacks especially on our own
soil.
The time for carefully measured pinprick responses to terrorists
activities has passed.
But we in this body and in the House do not have the luxury of simply
expressing our outrage demanding retribution. We, along with the
President, set policy and we must quickly reconcile ourselves to some
of things that we must do.
Since our victory in the cold war, we have become somewhat complacent
in the notion that the most significant danger to our nation has
passed. We see it in our military budget and we hear it in our
rhetoric. We see it in our debates over which threat to our country is
most probable even though yesterday's events should remind us once
[[Page S9301]]
again how faulty such predictions can be. We attempt to decide with
precision what the chances are of a missile attack by a rogue nation or
by terrorists versus a suitcase bomb versus a biological attack versus
a cyber attack. Surely, we must now realize that as the world's number
one target, we must protect our citizens from all of these
possibilities. While protection can never be complete, who is going to
decide which window of vulnerability we are going to allow to remain
open. The old Soviet threat has been replaced by new ones that are in
many ways more dangerous and more insidious. We have been warned about
this repeatedly--by the Hart-Rudman Commission, the Gilmore Commission,
by the Bremer Commission, and by experts in numerous committee
hearings. Surely, now we will listen. Surely now we will resist the
temptation to continue to squeeze out more ``peace dividends'' from the
cold war which place our defense requirements in a secondary position
to our domestic wish list.
And surely, we will reanalyze the wisdom of America contributing to
the proliferation of militarily useful technology simply because we
want the sales. It is my belief that this is what we did as late as
last week with the passage of the Export Administration Act.
If we place short term considerations, our desire for profit, or our
desire to maintain record high surpluses above our national security,
we will become much more vulnerable to the potential of experiencing
other days like yesterday.
Historians tell us of another democracy which, after major military
success, cut its military budget, turned inward, and failed to react to
provocation in hopes of maintaining peace--a nation of leaders who
followed the popular demand for more butter and fewer guns and who felt
that if worse came to worse technology could bail them out and that
treaties with dictators would substitute for defenses. That country was
England after World War I and those policies contributed to causing the
biggest war in the history of the world. We must not make a similar
mistake.
We cannot alter the past. But we can affect the future. I sincerely
urge that we keep these things in mind as we consider our
appropriations bills and especially as we consider what monies are
necessary to keep this country safe. It is not only the right and
necessary thing to do. It is the real tribute we can pay to our
citizens who have so recently paid such a dear price simply for being
Americans.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, as some of my colleagues here today and
so many Americans across our country, I rise to express great sorrow,
and send our prayers to those who lost loved ones and who have been
injured. Unfortunately, in my own community right next door, the
copilot of the American Airlines Flight 11, Tom McGuinness, came from
Portsmouth and leaves behind a 14-year-old son and a 16-year-old
daughter. One of the fire chiefs who went into the building to save
lives, Jack Fanning, testified before our committee on the issue of
terrorism just a few weeks ago. This touches all of us in
extraordinarily personal ways, and it touches our Nation dramatically.
We wish to also congratulate and express great appreciation to those
people who are risking their lives to rescue the injured and the
harmed--firefighters, policemen, the citizenry who are stepping forward
during this time of crisis.
There has been significant harm to our Nation. But we are a resilient
people and a resilient country, and we shall not allow these doers of
evil, these perpetrators of such huge criminal activity to
fundamentally harm our society.
The fact that we meet today and the fact that our Nation goes forward
is a reflection of our strength and our commitment to maintaining the
openness and freedom that comes with the greatest democracy in the
world.
We stand here united and resolute that we shall not allow this
democracy to be undermined by such horrific and criminal acts.
We as a Congress have recognized for a fair amount of time that
terrorism is the threat which we as a nation see as most imminent.
Clearly, since the end of the cold war that has been true. We have
attempted to address that threat. Obviously, in this instance we were
not successful. But I think it is important that we review where we are
and what we need to do as we move forward because this is not the end,
regrettably, of the issue. This is simply a sign of what our times are
going to bring. We need to prepare, and we need to plan the battle
lines.
The issue of terrorism and the confrontation of it basically divides
itself into three categories. The first is maintaining adequate
intelligence capability. The second is apprehension of people who would
commit terrorist acts. And the third is dealing with the events should
they occur, as they regrettably have in New York and here in
Washington.
In hearing after hearing, we have heard regrettably that we were not
ready but that we were moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, it
was predicted that there would be a major terrorist event in this
Nation. In fact, at three different hearings that I know of when I was
chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that has jurisdiction over
the Justice and State Departments, it was clearly stated by our
intelligence community that they anticipated a significant terrorist
act sometime in the future. No one was specific as to when. We now know
when. It has occurred.
How do we prepare so it does not occur again or so we can mitigate
the damage?
First, our commitment to intelligence must be dramatically increased.
During the 1980s and into the 1990s, we allowed our intelligence
community to basically atrophy in the area of human intelligence--
people on the ground.
We have electronic intelligence of immense capability. It needs to be
improved, especially in the area of encryption. But specifically, we
need more people involved in intelligence efforts. We have to, as a
nation, recognize that this is, for all intents and purposes, a war,
and that it is going to take soldiers, and that some of those soldiers
are going to have to participate in counterintelligence activities that
are covert and personal, something from which we have shied away as a
society. We are going to need to commit significant resources to this.
In the area of apprehension, we need to get more coordination between
our Nation and those other nations that should be helping us so that
when individuals whom we know are threatening us or some other
democratic government are on the move, when those individuals are
planning, we have the capacity to apprehend them. This means
significantly increasing the efforts of the FBI in reaching across
international boundaries, something our committee has tried to do,
something to which former Director Freeh made a major commitment: the
expansion basically of the overseas activities of our premier and key
law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Most importantly, we need to get coordination within our own house,
not only in the area of apprehension but, even more importantly, in the
area of response. We have watched what has happened in New York. We
congratulate the city of New York, the State of New York, and the
Federal people who are on the ground. An extraordinary effort and a
heroic and courageous effort has been undertaken.
The fact is that within our own Federal agencies we have considerable
overlap, inconsistency, and lack of command and control.
Our committee has suggested, on innumerable occasions, that we
centralize control over counter terrorism activity and, specifically,
response activity and consequence management, both in FEMA and in the
Attorney General's office. We have to have budgetary line-item
operational personnel control. There are 46 agencies in this Government
today that have some level of responsibility to counter terrorism. The
overlapping confusion of purpose is dramatic.
As the hearings showed--which I chaired, along with Senator Stevens
and Senator Warner and Senator Shelby from the Intelligence Committee;
the first tripartite hearing of that nature, where we had every major
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agency come before us to discuss their role--we saw that unquestionably
there is confusion.
This has to be sorted out. One way to sort it out we will have a
chance to vote on tomorrow in the Commerce-State-Justice bill when we
approve a Deputy Attorney General whose sole purpose will be the
coordination of counterterrorism activity across agency lines. That
must be done.
We were not fortunate, of course, but the fact that this occurred in
New York, a city that is extraordinarily well prepared, I am sure,
saved many lives. The next event we do not know where it will occur,
and we need to be ready.
The last issue we must address is, who do we respond against? It is
very obvious that we are dealing with people who are fundamentally
evil. We have, as a nation, confronted such people in the past, but
they have been sponsored by a nation, whether it was Adolf Hitler or
the forces of Japan during World War II. But today there is an
amorphousness to the threat which is hard to identify. The people who
have committed this act are, for most purposes, religious fanatics, it
would appear. They are driven by a cause for which they are willing to
give their life and take innocent lives in order to make their point.
That is a threat that is extraordinarily difficult to overcome.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. But we must be careful, as a nation, as we hunt these
people down--and we have to do that--and as we seek retribution against
anyone who will have supported them, that we not cast our net so wide
that we catch nations which do not threaten us and people who are not
our enemies.
We must be careful to use the rule of law so that we do not abandon
what has made us great in order to confront this type of evil. We are a
nation which is built on openness and law, and it would be a mistake if
we abandon it as we attempt to pursue these individuals.
No rock must be left unturned to find them; it is clear they live
under rocks. But in that process, let us not paint with a brush that
causes us to create enemies that do not exist today. Let us also not
act in a way that creates martyrs of those people who would also act in
this way.
This is a time that will test America. America has been tested before
and we have met it. We shall certainly be resilient in the face of this
test.
I appreciate the courtesy of the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Akaka). The Senator from Michigan is
recognized.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we be allowed
to proceed--the two of us--for 2 minutes each.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, through our rage at the terrorist attacks
on our people and our free institutions shines a focused determination
to recover our loved ones and friends who are still lost, and to assist
their loved ones to cope with the devastating void into which they have
been plunged.
Our fury at those who attack innocence is matched by our united
determination to protect our citizens from more terror and by our
resolve to track down, to root out, and to relentlessly pursue
terrorists and those who would shelter or harbor them.
Last night, at the Pentagon, I joined Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld,
Senator Warner, and General Shelton in sharing that determination with
the American people. That resolve is reflected by the fact that the
Pentagon is functioning and the men and women who work there are
assisting the heroic recovery efforts, although a few feet away loved
ones and friends are still missing or presumed to have been killed, and
while the smoke of the savagery is still permeating the Pentagon.
The President, last night, spoke for all Americans and all civilized
people everywhere about his commitment to recover, to deter, and then
to root out and destroy the terrorists.
Debate is an inherent part of democracy. And while our democratic
institutions are stronger than any terrorist effort to shake them, in
one regard we operate differently in times of national emergency. We
set aside our differences to join forces together, with decent people
everywhere, to seek out and defeat a common enemy of the civilized
world.
Our unity is unshakable, and, God willing, we will persevere and
prevail.
I yield the floor.
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