[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 12, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9302-S9332]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from
Oklahoma, the assistant Republican leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. Yesterday was a
tragic day in U.S. history. It is a tragic day for people who love
freedom, who cherish freedom. Some may claim it was a victory for
terrorism. I don't think so.
This act of terrorism has brought our country together in a way that
we haven't been able to do among ourselves. Yesterday I was with
Democrats and Republicans who said: We are going to be united against
this type of senseless violence. We are going to stand together and say
it will not stand. It will not be successful.
I compliment President Bush and his Cabinet, not only for his speech
last night but also for the Cabinet he has assembled. He has assembled
a Cabinet of unequaled reputation, quality, who have proven themselves
to meet the challenge in the past, whether we are talking about Vice
President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell or Secretary of
Defense Don Rumsfeld.
In witnessing the events yesterday, it took me back to the tragedy we
suffered 6 years ago in Oklahoma City where 168 people lost their lives
to another act of terrorism. The most deadly act of terrorism in U.S.
history happened in Oklahoma City that year on April 19. Until we saw
it replaced by an even more horrendous act, an act that certainly was
designed by people who wanted to do the maximum amount of deadly
operations they could against the United States.
They will not be successful in any way, shape, or form. The United
States, under the leadership of President Bush and his administration
and a united Congress, Democrats and Republicans, will stand up and say
that type of violence will not stand. It will be punished.
Our condolences go to the families, to the victims of this terror. It
comes home to all of us in different ways. The thousands of people who
were injured or lost their lives in the World Trade Center, the many
people in the Pentagon, the hundreds of people who were on the
airplanes, those were husbands, mothers, fathers, wives, children,
grandparents. They disrupted thousands of lives. Those were friends.
I happen to have a friend who was on one of the planes: Barbara
Olson. She worked for me for 2 or 3 years in the Senate as my general
counsel. Many people in the Senate got to know Barbara Olson. I got to
know her very well. I got to admire her, to respect her. She was an
outstanding staff member and friend, a frequent visitor on the
television shows. I think many Americans, when they saw her face on CNN
yesterday, realized this has an impact. This brings the real tragedy
home.
My prayers and condolences go to her husband and also my very dear
friend, Ted Olson, who happens to be Solicitor General of the United
States. What a tragic loss, the loss of life for Barbara Olson and the
countless others, thousands of people whose lives were destroyed or
families who were broken as a result of this terrorist activity.
We must act together. I am confident that we will. I am confident
that Congress will act and give the administration the tools necessary,
both legal and financial, to rebuild, to assist in fixing the damage.
Through FEMA and the capable leadership of Joe Allbaugh, I think we
will do that. I know that was important in my State of Oklahoma. I am
sure we will do that both with the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
It is also important that we stand together and confront terrorism.
It is important that we combat terrorism. In
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some cases in the past our rhetoric has maybe exceeded our success. I
don't believe we were successful in bringing the perpetrators of the
bombings in Kenya and Tanzania to justice. I don't believe we were
successful in bringing the perpetrators of the Khobar Towers bombing to
justice. I don't believe we have been successful as of yet in bringing
the perpetrators of the bombing of the USS Cole to justice and bringing
those people and/or possibly even countries to justice and who may have
helped finance and orchestrate and maybe even organize these terrorist
activities.
It is important that we do so, not just in rhetoric but in deed, not
just today and not just in the next week but, frankly, on a continual
battle. We must, when we say this type of terrorism won't go
unpunished, we must mean what we say. I feel confident with this
President we will show the resolve. Our country will show the resolve.
Freedom-loving people all across the world will show the resolve that
this will not go unpunished.
Yesterday was a very sad and tragic day in our U.S. history, a very
tragic day, one that I believe our country will pull together and say:
This type of terrorism will not prevail. We have so many good people in
the United States, so many people who are coming together to assist the
victims, so many people who are coming together worldwide to assist to
make sure this type of tragedy will not go unpunished and also to
alleviate the pain and suffering of the innocent victims in this
terrible tragedy. My heart, my sympathy, my prayers go out to the
victims. Our resolve has never been stronger to stand together to fight
this type of terrorism.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Landrieu). The Senator from Nevada is
recognized.
Mr. REID. There is an order in effect now that each Senator will have
10 minutes to speak. The way the day has been going, we have
approximately 85 Senators still wishing to speak. If we use the 10
minutes each, we simply cannot finish and allow each Senator to speak.
I have conferred with the minority and they are in agreement that each
Senator should have 5 minutes, and we alternate back and forth. I
propound a unanimous consent request that Senators be allowed to speak
for up to 5 minutes each rather than 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield? I want to express on behalf of the
majority leader and minority leader appreciation for the cooperation.
Everyone wants an opportunity to speak. But for this unanimous consent
agreement, that would not be possible.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, as a Senator from Minnesota, I rise
to thank the religious community, the faith community in my State--
Christians, Jews, and Muslims--for coming together and for their
prayers for all of the men, women, and children who were murdered in
our country. That is the very best of Minnesota. That is the very best
of our country.
Let me also thank and pray for all of the loved ones of our
firefighters and law enforcement community who have lost their lives in
trying to protect people and save people's lives.
I believe people in our country will come together and that one
message for these terrorists who have committed this murder on a mass
scale is that they will not change our values. They will not change our
way of life. They will not change who we are as Americans. We will
never give way to the politics of hatred. We are a diverse people of
many different colors and religions and backgrounds. We will continue
to respect and support one another.
President Bush is certainly right when he says we will leave no stone
unturned in getting to the bottom of who committed this act of murder.
As a Senator, I certainly believe we must hold them accountable.
Most importantly, we have to do everything within our power,
regardless of political party, to take the steps and to do what is
necessary to make sure people in our country are safe and secure.
Madam President, one more time, I want to finish up in the few
minutes I have by saying that murder is never legitimate, and this was
a mass murder of men, women, and children. I think the thing that I
will never be able to get out of my mind is that so many innocent
people, so many innocent Americans could be murdered in a single day in
our country. To me, in my adult life, yesterday was the worst day for
our country, and there are going to be many more difficult days because
we don't even have a sense of the loss of life.
I am absolutely convinced this will bring out the best in us. I am
absolutely convinced that Americans will be their own best selves. I am
absolutely convinced that these terrorists will see Americans coming
together and I hope the whole international community that represents
civilization will come together so these kinds of acts of murder can
never be committed again.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I have no words to describe or condemn
adequately the enormity of yesterday's attacks on the United States or
the depravity of those who are responsible for them. All we can really
offer now are our prayers and support for the victims and their
families, and the assurance to our fellow citizens that America will
recover from these atrocities, resume the life of a great nation,
strong, resolute and free, and destroy those who seek to destroy us.
We are greater than our enemies. We are greater because the very
virtues our enemies revile and seek to destroy make us so. Our enemies,
those who unleashed these attacks, and those who support them, are not
our enemies alone. They are the enemies of freedom and independence and
justice and peace, and they wage war on the United States because we
are and will remain the principal guarantors of freedom for ourselves
and for all nations who claim their right to that condition. All people
who possess or aspire to freedom were attacked yesterday, and when we
answer we do so in their name as well as ours. And answer we will.
These were not just crimes, they were acts of war, and have aroused
in this great nation a controlled fury and unity of purpose not just to
punish but vanquish--vanquish our enemies. Americans know now that we
are at war, and will make the sacrifices and show the resolve necessary
to prevail. I say to our enemies, we are coming. God may show you
mercy. We will not.
We must break the back of this international network of terror in all
its guises, and deprive its architects, executioners and sponsors of a
safe harbor anywhere in this world. We will commit all necessary
resources to its accomplishment. Our responses must be diplomatic,
economic and military.
Let us go to our allies, all of our allies, to ensure them of our
resolve and to enlist them in this war against our shared values and
security. The Atlantic Charter claims an attack on one member of NATO
is an attack on all NATO members. We will expect our allies in NATO,
Asia and elsewhere to respond to this attack on us as we would respond
to an attack on their territory.
We should make an immediate statement of our resolve that we no
longer intend to tolerate sanction given to our enemies by any nation.
We should demand that Afghanistan immediately extradite to the United
States Osama bin Laden. We will know in due course if he is the
architect of yesterday's attacks, but we already possess sufficient
evidence to have indicted him for orchestrating the attacks on our
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He has claimed responsibility for the
1992 attempted bombing of 100 U.S. servicemen in Yemen who were there
to assist U.N. famine relief operations in Somalia. He proudly
announced his material and personnel support for the Somali forces that
fought and killed American servicemen in Mogadishu. The mastermind of
the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was a known associate of bin
Laden. He is a declared enemy of the United States and our allies. And
it is long past time that we and our allies brought an end to the war
he began.
Should the Taliban refuse our demand, then they must know that they
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will be treated as allies of our enemy, and thus, are themselves our
enemies, and will suffer much for their allegiance.
This campaign will be long and difficult, and will not end with the
capture or destruction of Osama bin Laden alone. The American people
must, and I am sure, will understand that we will wage this war to its
complete resolution however long and difficult the road ahead. But they
should not be expected to wait one day longer than necessary for our
enemies to be vanquished, for the full measure of justice to be done,
for freedom and righteousness to prevail.
We will prevail. We will prevail because the foundations of our
greatness cannot be vanquished. Our respect for Man's God-given rights
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness assures us of victory
even as it has made us a target for the unjust enemies of freedom who
have mistaken hate and depravity for power. The losses we have suffered
are grave, and will never be forgotten. But we should take pride and
unyielding resolve from the knowledge that we were attacked because we
are good.
May God bless us in this trial, comfort us, strengthen our resolve,
and make our justice as terrible and certain as His.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Arizona has
expired.
The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, yesterday was a day that will live in all
of our memories. America was struck by an unprecedented and unprovoked
act of violence, so vicious and calculated that the entire world has
reacted in horror and revulsion. In that hour when so many were taken
from us, America did not bend or buckle. We stood strong.
That strength is best exemplified by the police, firefighters, and
emergency services personnel who courageously raced to the scene. When
everyone was running away from the danger, they were running toward it.
Here in Washington, as the U.S. Capitol was being evacuated, our
Capitol Police were standing guard.
All of these public servants deserve our thanks. And their families,
especially the families of the police and firefighters in New York who
are currently missing, should know that our prayers are with them in
this difficult time.
We pray for those lost and for their families. In Iowa, Doug and
Betty Haviland, our former neighbors in Ames, IA, are going through a
difficult time right now. Their son, Tim, worked on the 96th floor of
the World Trade Center, and Tim is currently missing. I want Doug and
Betty to know that my thoughts and prayers are with them today. I am
hoping for the best.
The sister of my long-time friend Kasey Kincaid, an attorney in Des
Moines, Karen Kincaid, an attorney here in Washington, born in Waverly,
a graduate of Drake Law, was on the ill-fated flight that crashed into
the Pentagon yesterday.
When the smoke clears, we will comfort all the families in their time
of need. We want them to know that although their loved ones may be
gone, they are not alone. All of America stands with them. We are
Americans and we take care of our own. The tallest buildings may
crumble, but no one will bring down our spirit.
We have survived tough times before; we will do so again. Let me be
clear. These cowardly acts against our great Nation will not stand. I
stand with President Bush in calling on every resource of our
Government to track down the cowards who committed these acts and to
bring them to swift and certain justice. We will seek out not only the
terrorists but their backers and financers as well. Americans will do
what we have always done. We will come together, get down to work, and
we will demand justice.
Mr. President, when we do strike back, we must be very careful. We
must ensure that when we train our sights on the enemy, we do not harm
innocent people in the crossfire. I want to quote the words of Cardinal
Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington, who spoke at a mass
yesterday. He made a point that we should all take to heart:
Let us pray for those who have lost their lives or who have
been seriously injured in this calamity. But we must resist
the temptation to strike out in vengeance and revenge and, in
a special way, not to label any ethnic group or community for
this action, which certainly is just the work of a few
madmen. We must seek the guilty and not strike out against
the innocent or we become like them who are without moral
guide or direction.
I could not agree more strongly. We must not use these events of
yesterday to paint with a broad brush all Muslims, those of the Islamic
faith or of Arabic descent. It has happened before; it should not
happen again.
Those who perpetrated these murders yesterday are not associated with
Muslims or with the Islamic faith. If they claim they are on some kind
of mission for Islam, that is just a lie. They are using the cloak of
religion to justify the murder of innocent people. Again, we have seen
this before.
We must also make sure we do not fall prey to the theory that in
order to defeat this enemy, we must become more like them. I am old
enough to remember the McCarthy era, when there were those who said in
order to defeat communism, we had to become a police state. There were
reasonable voices that said: No, we do not have to; we can defeat
communism and still maintain our freedoms. That, Mr. President, is what
we must do.
We as Americans respect civil rights and human rights and diversity.
We are of diverse backgrounds and faiths. Muslims are part of the
fabric of America, part of our strength. Let us be sure we go after the
real enemy, and let us not paint with a broad stroke those who are of
the Islamic faith who are Americans, who are Muslims, who are part of
our great society.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Carper). The time of the Senator from Iowa
has expired.
The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask that the distinguished Senator from
Wyoming be recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Wyoming is
recognized.
Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank the Senator
from North Carolina.
We all have very strong feelings at this time, and most of all those
feelings have been expressed, eloquently I might say, and now we have
time for the real challenge.
Yesterday was a very sad day. The sadness, of course, continues for
those who were injured and the families of those who were lost.
Acts of war have been committed against our Nation. Forces of evil
have struck at the center of our Government, our families, and our
communities.
There are no words that can possibly explain the devastation or
convey sufficient sympathy for the men and women who lost their lives,
nor even do words exist to describe our collective anger.
It is a somber day, but our sadness will lead to resolve.
Powerful symbols of our democracy have been destroyed, but the root
of our strength--our personal commitment to our country and our
families--is even stronger.
Our focus now must be on the victims, of course, and those who still
face the challenge of life and rescue. America will take care of its
own.
Let me assure people today that the functions of Government will
continue. As you can see, Congress is meeting and most Federal agencies
in Washington are open and doing their jobs. There is no amount of
terror that can be committed that will throw us off our course to
protect and serve democracy today.
The next great test for the Government and for every American will be
the challenge to move forward--and that is a necessary part--to comfort
those who have lost everything in their lives and rebuild the physical
structures that have been lost. Our democracy will continue to exist
uninhibited and unintimidated.
Next we must strive to devise updated security and intelligence
measures to serve us better in the future so this will not happen
again.
Next, and at the appropriate time with the intelligence information
that is required, the United States will exact a supreme measure of
justice against the criminals who have perpetrated terror on this
country, and
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they are not long for this world. Those terrorists should understand
well we are coming for them and nothing will deter us from seeing that
they are eliminated, as well as other terrorists around the world, even
though they may not be specifically involved with this terrorism.
We all offer our condolences and prayers to the families of the
missing. I offer my hopes for those who are working these tragedies
today and rescue efforts. God bless them. God bless America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming yields back his time.
The Senator from Washington.
Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, on Tuesday morning this Nation witnessed an attempt to
pitch into darkness the light of American liberty. It was nothing less
than an offensive against the freedom our Nation represents. It was
nothing less than pure evil that cast a shadow over our country darker
than the smoke from any explosion.
Yesterday, fanatics challenged our Nation to war, striking at
civilians and service members alike. Today the Senate is making it
clear that we will not bow to this brutality. We believe passionately
in our country in due process, in the rule of law. But the effort to
find justice cannot be allowed to degenerate into the all-too-frequent
endless debate. America must act decisively.
Families across this country are in their darkest hour right now. At
the moment, not all of the victims' names are known out of the
thousands believed lost in the tragedy. In the coming days, they are
going to become familiar to us, and their lives and legacies will be
shared with the world. But we already know them. These victims are
husbands and wives, daughters and sons, brother and sisters to every
American.
We honor the memory of those whom we have lost, but we also make it
clear today that we will not allow this Nation to be sapped by terror.
America is not going to be drained by devilish acts of rage.
The light of hope is burning across this country. The voice of a New
York firefighter who says he will not stop searching until the last
stone is turned is a voice of hope.
The courage of the Federal employees who returned to work today
across the country is a courage ground in hope.
Hope shines in the people willing to wait for hours to help, as we
saw yesterday when they donated blood. It shines in the hearts of those
who are praying today in churches and synagogues and mosques across the
country.
Here is my bottom line, Mr. President: The light that shines in
America is going to be relentless when it is turned on those who have
declared themselves our enemies. The dark forces that perpetrated these
acts ought to make sure today that they are in their hiding places
because we are going to come after them. The blinding beam of our
determination and the long arm of the United States of America is going
to expose them and extract justice.
Our entire Congress stands united behind the President of the United
States and against our enemies and against those who would shelter
them. Our whole Nation stands together with a very clear intention: To
endure.
Our enemies should know the entire free and democratic world stands
unmoved in its dedication to liberty for all. We speak with one voice,
and we will move in concert to protect principles that we hold dear.
The flame of democracy is going to be fanned even brighter. We will
not just carry the torch, but we are going to make sure that standard
is held higher than ever before.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon yields back his time.
The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask that the distinguished Senator from
New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, be recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from New Mexico is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first, it is a pleasure to speak to the
Senators who are present and listening.
An era has come to an end. As many commentators have noted, most say
it was an era of innocence. I agree. Americans now know firsthand the
kind of mindless terrorism and brutal disregard of all concepts of
morality that afflict our world. What will be our measure of response
as a nation?
Our people in the world will watch, listen, and wait, for, as
Franklin Roosevelt said, ``We defend and we build a way of life not for
America alone but for mankind.''
We will, of course, support the President in every respect, provide
any and all resources, including emergency funding for New York City,
for Washington, DC, for Arlington, VA, sparing no expense to save our
neighbors who need our help in this time of great distress.
Whatever it takes--and I repeat, whatever it takes--to pursue those
who planned, funded, aided, harbored, and carried out yesterday's
destruction, we will go to the fullest extent possible. All the
resources of this great nation must be brought to bear to demonstrate
our unity and our power. We know something else now. We understand that
the threshold of possible terrorism has gone up.
We know more, but the terrorists know more, too. We must commit to an
all-out effort, not just to a war against terrorism but to new weapons
in this war. We must do everything possible to prevent the possibility
of calamities above this threshold. The Federal Government must pursue
every avenue. Our defense programs--our national laboratories,
universities, and other research institutions--must take the next
technological steps to win the war that terrorists declared yesterday
on our people.
Congress can do two or three things, less obvious perhaps, but more
important in the long run. We can set aside petty bickering. We can
unify in concrete terms by attending to the Nation's business. The
American people can judge barbarians who committed this act of war
yesterday, but they will judge us in Congress, too.
We in this time of grave challenge must rise above the political
bickering that has affected us for too long. We must quickly unify on
the issues that have divided us, whether it is defense spending or
energy policy. By doing so, we can show by our actions that truly
yesterday was the end of an era.
I am not naive. I understand politics. But now is the time to lay
them aside and, as the American people, unite behind our President. Let
us in Congress rise to this historic challenge by joining hands and
hearts and doing the Nation's business now.
A final word of advice, too, for those who committed these
atrocities. How little you know of our Nation, for you are so cowardly
you have no way of understanding us. No act these criminals could have
contemplated will unify this Nation more, nor galvanize our will more
firmly than yesterday's destruction. They have done what many feared
perhaps could no longer be done. They have hardened this Nation's
resolve, prompted our patriotism, and unleashed our power. They have
committed an act of war. They have awakened a sleeping giant, and they
will inherit the whirlwind.
My heart goes out to all of those suffering today. I know that New
Mexicans have suffered losses but, we understand, nothing like New
York. I know other Americans have suffered losses. I share in their
grief, and I hold them up in my prayers and in the prayers of our
family.
Let us understand if we have been awakened, as I believe we have, by
unifying and eliminating the bickering, we can move our Nation ahead
and we can begin to solve and get rid of terrorism here and everywhere.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the
distinguished Senator from New Mexico for that eloquent comment, thank
him for his extraordinary leadership on this particular subject, and
for the years he has served as a leader to our Nation.
Let me begin by thanking the many people in Louisiana, first our
spiritual leaders, our military leaders, our elected officials at every
level, our emergency personnel, every citizen who through prayer or
action is engaged in helping this Nation at this time. We all
appreciate their efforts.
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In the darkest hours, America has always risen to her promise. We
find ourselves again in the very darkest of times. For only the second
time in American history, our borders have been penetrated and
Americans attacked.
The greatest generation of Americans responded to the first attack,
Pearl Harbor, with an unwavering commitment to defend the ideals of
democracy around the globe.
Our generation will be remembered for how we respond to this attack
against our Nation, our liberty, and our freedom. I have no doubt our
Nation will rise to the challenge and find light in our darkest hour.
Through the endeavors of our people and the providence of God, our
Nation prevailed in the struggle with the Soviet Union. It was a
struggle lasting over 40 years, spread over every continent, costing
this Nation the treasure of its youth and resources beyond imagination.
After yesterday, the American people must understand that today we
begin to undertake a task no less daunting. President Kennedy's
inaugural address is remembered for its impact in rallying the resolve
of our Nation at that time. I can think of no better place to turn to
today. His eloquence is as relevant this morning as it was 40 years
ago: Now the trumpet summons us again. Not as a call to bear arms,
though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are,
but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle year in and
year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in our tribulation, a struggle
against the common enemies of man--tyranny, poverty, disease, and war
itself.
Yesterday we heard the pages of history turn in explosions which
brought down skyscrapers. The sound heard around the world was
deafening, perhaps a fitting beginning to what we may come to know as
the silent war; a silent war where cowardice of our enemies is their
greatest asset. Yet no deception, no amount of subterfuge, no resort to
villainy will protect our enemies from the righteous anger of the
American people called to war.
It is important for our people to know we are all being called into
this struggle. In a silent war, we are all targets and, therefore, we
are all combatants. Sacrifices to the unparalleled freedom that we
enjoy, costly expenditures, and the employment of our military men and
women may all be required before this war is over.
Yesterday's terror may have broken the hearts of American families,
but it will not break the American family. Yesterday's terror may have
destroyed lives but it will not destroy this Nation's destiny.
Yesterday's terror may have shattered buildings, but it will not
shatter the American spirit.
This morning, not that long ago, over the crater that used to be part
of the Pentagon, the Sun broke and hit an American flag flying over the
rubble. It is in that spirit America will prevail.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from
Maine is recognized.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, as did all of my colleagues and all
Americans, I woke up this morning with a broken heart but not a broken
spirit.
The unimaginable and horrific attack on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon was an attack on all Americans and against every freedom-
loving nation of the world.
Today, our prayers and our deepest sympathies are with the families
of those innocent victims who lost their lives, as well as those who
were injured in these monstrous tragedies. We can scarcely comprehend
the images that have flashed before our eyes over the past 24 hours,
but we know that so many of our fellow Americans are grieving for lives
cut short and possibilities ended. And so today we grieve as one
nation, under God, indivisible.
Our hearts are heavy but our resolve is strong. This outrageous
attack has reverberated through every level of our society. But let
there be no mistake, and let the word go forth from the Halls of
Congress and from the White House and from every house across our
indomitable Nation that we will find who is responsible, we will hold
them accountable, and we will persevere.
The soul of this country and the ideals upon which it was built
cannot be torn asunder neither by war, nor by assassination, nor by the
blunt and bloody instruments of faceless cowards. The forces of
darkness have challenged our country's determination before. As we rose
to the challenge then, so will we rise at this most solemn of times.
Clearly, the attacks on our Nation were coordinated, and they were
calculated. Yet clouded by their own twisted fanaticism--whatever brand
of fanaticism that may prove to be --the perpetrators of this crime
against humanity and the American people failed to understand that ours
is a nation in which the principle of individual freedom is exceeded
only by our commitment to protect our freedom.
The American spirit is stronger than stone and water, tougher than
steel and glass, and more enduring than any pain or suffering that can
be inflicted on our national conscience. It cannot be collapsed by fire
and terror.
To the contrary, today we stand united behind our President and the
entire leadership of the Congress. Today, solidarity eclipsed politics
and partisanship. And this will remain so for every minute of every
hour of every day that it takes to right this injustice.
We must remain always vigilant but never fearful. We must
relentlessly seek justice, and we must do all that is within our power
as a free nation to prevent such catastrophic terrorist attacks both at
home and abroad.
There are events in our lives that will be forever etched on the
landscape of our consciousness. We all know where we were and what we
were doing at the precise time they happened. As we remember the
assassination of President Kennedy and, for many of my colleagues,
Pearl Harbor, our children will remember this day.
We are angry as a nation, and we have every right to be angry. But
now it is time to focus our energies on responsible actions and swift
responses when the masterminds are found. Now is also the time to heal
and to tend to our neighbors and families and friends.
In typical American fashion, heroes rushed to the aid of those in
peril, even as the sounds of blasts still echoed across Manhattan and
our Nation's Capital.
For the unthinkable numbers of people in New York, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, military personnel at the Pentagon, passengers on planes
from across America, policemen, firefighters, and emergency personnel
who gave their lives, their memory will live on with the memory of this
tragedy. To the families, our Nation shares in your unspeakable loss.
America will never be the same, just as we were forever changed by
two World Wars and numerous other conflicts throughout the world. Now
terrorism has come to American soil on a scale most dared not imagine.
We are changed, but we are far from broken. Ours is a nation born of
adversity, forged by perseverance, and defined by our ability to unite
against those who would tear us down. We must never forget that some of
America's finest hours have followed our darkest days.
To whomever is responsible for this tragedy, hear this loud and clear
because America speaks with one voice: You will be found. You will be
held accountable, and this injustice will not stand.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues. Very
frankly, my heart is filled with a great deal of mixed emotions. On the
one hand, I want this country to smash back. On the other, I want us to
be sure that we are on firm ground, that we know what we are doing, and
that we are successful in our mission.
Yesterday was one of the darkest days I can remember. Many have
speculated that the loss of life may well only be exceeded by the
battle, 1-day battle at Antietam during the civil war. It will
certainly be more than the loss at Pearl Harbor.
One of the things that I have recognized, and what should be
abundantly clear, I think to all of us, is that there are those out
there without a heart who are willing to carry out this kind of attack,
and to do it with malevolence and cunning that defies conscience and
humanity. That is really what we are up against.
I really consider what happened in New York and at the Pentagon to be
a
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declaration of war against the United States. I believe we must respond
accordingly in a well-considered military way.
I join the President, the congressional leadership, and particularly
Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose remarks this morning share that
same determination.
Let there be no mistake. This attack was deliberately planned. It was
planned to have the largest possible impact and to maximize the loss of
innocent human life.
The terrorists deliberately selected the largest planes with the
greatest fuel loads to create the biggest explosion, to kill the most
people, and to do it at a time of day when that would happen.
They deliberately selected important symbols--one, the military
headquarters of the United States, and the other a major center of
American economic entrepreneurism.
What is now emerging is genuine acts of heroism aboard our planes.
Heroism aboard UAL Flight 93, which left Dulles International Airport,
may well have prevented Flight 93 from striking the White House or the
United States Capitol.
Californians were aboard that plane. One Californian, Thomas Burnett
of San Ramone, phoned his wife. He told her the flight was doomed but
that he and two other passengers were determined to do something about
it. ``I love you honey'' were Burnett's last words to his wife. He
said, ``I know we are all going to die, but there are three of us who
are going to do something about it.'' He worked for a company called
Thoratec. He leaves three children. You might say he and others made
the ultimate sacrifice.
Yesterday firmly establishes in my mind that the major threat and No.
1 national security problem facing the United States is the
asymmetrical attack, the unconventional and unpredictable horrific act
of terrorism.
I don't believe America can be a paper tiger in response. I think the
United States should spare no effort to uncover, to ferret out, and to
destroy those who commit acts of terrorism, those who provide the
training camps, who shelter, who finance, and who support terrorists.
Whether that enemy is a state or an organization, those who harbor
them, who arm them, who train them, and permit them must, in my view,
be destroyed.
It is interesting to note that 3 weeks ago the British press carried
articles which said that the bin Laden operation was prepared to
launch--and this a quote--``an unprecedented attack against the United
States.'' We know that the organization is wanted as well for two prior
major terrorist attacks against the United States.
It seems to me that there is a good indication we will shortly find
who is responsible for this act of war against our country. And then we
must strike back against them hard.
It is also critical that America lead an international effort that
makes clear to all nations that countenance terrorism, that harbor
terrorists, that aid and abet their actions, that that country is an
enemy of the United States.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have a couple additional
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
All civilized nations, whether it is NATO, our European allies,
Russia, China, the moderate Arab States, or anyone else--I received a
call this morning from the Chinese Embassy saying the President of
China had called our President yesterday to indicate China's solidarity
with the United States and to offer any help. Indeed, that is a giant
step forward. It is a beginning. I believe we must create a critical
divide between civilized nations that will not sanction terrorism and
spell out those that do and do something about it.
Presently, the United States spends about $12 billion, spread among a
number of Departments dealing with terrorism. The proposed budget will
shortly be before the Senate. If we are to engage against this threat,
I think we must also organize and coordinate our Government's effort. I
speak now as chairman of the Technology and Terrorism Subcommittee of
the Judiciary Committee and also as a member of the Intelligence
Committee. We must see that these dollars are wisely spent, not
frittered among more than 40 Departments. I do not believe those
dollars are well spent at the present time.
We must also understand that homeland defense should be our highest
priority: coherent and carefully balanced, with trained personnel in
every State, and an intelligence network that provides a coordination
between all branches of Government and each of our States.
America has at its disposal a wide array of tools, but these tools
must be directed carefully, with a coherent policy. This is not now the
situation. I believe we must remedy it promptly.
We Americans are a resilient, a determined, and a patriotic nation.
We will not lose the spirit that makes us the greatest democracy on
Earth by going after terrorists full scale. We have always been ready
to respond in defense of freedom. And now that challenge is before us
in a manner, shape and form that offers unprecedented challenges. We
must respond.
Let me also speak a few moments as a Californian. The four planes
that were hijacked were all going to California; three to Los Angeles,
one to San Francisco.
Two hundred sixty-six people died on the planes. It is certain that
many of them have families in California. To them, I extend my
heartfelt sorrow. But I also extend a commitment that I will do
everything in my power as one Senator to see that these deaths were not
in vain.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask that the able Senator from Arkansas
be recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, on this day of mourning and on behalf
of all Arkansans, I offer my deepest and most sincere condolences to
the families of the victims of the cowardly attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon.
I especially want to mention the Arkansas flight attendant, Sara
Lowe, and offer my sympathy and condolences to her parents Mike and
Bobbie, and to her sister Allison. There may well be other Arkansans
who were aboard, but Sara served, and served well, on Flight No. 11.
While New York bears the brunt of the pain today, I am reminded, as I
think of Sara Lowe from Batesville, AR, that there are hundreds of
towns and hamlets and villages all across the Nation that share in the
grief and the suffering today. Our Nation is grief stricken but our
Nation is strong. Our Nation is united, and our Nation is resolved to
bring those responsible to justice.
I honor today the courage and compassion of the rescuers in New York
City and at the Pentagon. Your Nation is grateful and your Nation is
indebted.
We all woke up yesterday and prepared to go about our normal business
in a world that looked the same as it did the day before. Today
everything is different. The New York skyline is changed, and so is the
geopolitical landscape of the world.
We stand at the violent birth of a new era in international relations
and national security. The strategic pause that we enjoyed after the
cold war ended is over. I pray that we have used this interlude
properly; and I fear that we may not have.
But this needs to be clear: Any nation that harbors, shelters, or
abets these terrorist thugs will be regarded as full participants in
these acts of war and will be held equally accountable.
We will devote as many resources as necessary to find and punish the
perpetrators of these acts. We must make a national commitment to
breaking the back of international terrorism.
On the Armed Services Committee, I am fortunate to have served as a
member of the Emerging Threats Subcommittee under the leadership of
Senator Roberts from Kansas.
As frightening and as horrific as the toll and the results of the
incidents yesterday are, I fear that a biological or a chemical attack
upon this country would make the tens of thousands of victims yesterday
pale in comparison to the millions that might be the victims of such an
attack. But the American people should be assured that we will utilize
every resource at the disposal of our great country to protect them.
[[Page S9308]]
We Americans will stand together, united, determined, and ultimately
victorious.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, I was sickened by the actions that were
taken against our country yesterday. I felt very much like I was back
in the Vietnam war in the Tet Offensive of 1968 of which I was lucky to
survive. When I looked out my window and saw the smoke coming from the
Pentagon, I literally felt, for the first time, that I was under attack
in my own country. That is a terrible feeling. I think many Americans
shared that feeling.
My staff is still trying to recover. They still have traces of tears
in their eyes and on their faces from the suffering that we have seen
on television by our fellow Americans.
For the first time, I guess certainly in a long, long time, American
blood has been shed on American soil by a foreign enemy. That gives us
all pause to get the most out of this historic moment. That is what I
am trying to do in my own mind as I rise to pay tribute to those
wonderful rescue workers who have come to the aid of our fellow
Americans in New York and in this great city of Washington, DC.
But I think of the families as well who have suffered forever the
loss of a loved one. Many children will go without fathers tonight.
Many families will go without loved ones. And that grieves me greatly.
But what are we to do? What are we to make of this?
As a member of the Armed Services Committee for the last 5 years, I
have been growing impatient, and in many ways frustratingly concerned,
about the growth of terrorism and its impact on this country. In fact,
Senator Warner, a couple years ago, created the Emerging Threats
Subcommittee, which the distinguished Senator from Kansas, Mr. Roberts,
chaired for a couple years. And now Senator Mary Landrieu from
Louisiana chairs that subcommittee.
Without speaking for them, I can say that over the last couple years
we have had increasing evidence in testimony before our committee that
the real threat, the emerging threat to America was going to come
through some terrorist act, maybe biological, maybe chemical, maybe no
more than just an explosive in a backpack, some terrorist act below the
radar screen, someone or something that had no return address. This has
indeed happened. What are we to make of it?
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I feel this challenge
very personally, to make something of this worthwhile for our Nation
and for our country, to come to terms with what we ought to do about
it.
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, I know there was a board of inquiry set
up to find out what happened. Admiral Kimmel there in Hawaii got blamed
for the attack, probably wrongfully so. Those of us on the Armed
Services Committee, those of us in this great body, do have some
responsibility, maybe through the regular committee structure, to find
out what happened, find out what the recommendations from our best
professionals are, and then go about the business of making sure this
never happens to our country again.
My heart is sickened at the loss of life. I would be even more
sickened by the loss of this incredible opportunity, this spur for
action, this spur for greater knowledge about where we are in our
intelligence community. Do we not have the resources? Do we not have
the human intelligence? Do we not have the people? Have we not been
mindful of the real threats to this country as evidence upon evidence,
testimony upon testimony continues to grow, as we hear increasing
evidence in background briefings from our intelligence community that
these are the kinds of threats we can expect not only now but in the
future?
Are we underfunding some aspect of our homeland defense? Are we
overmatched and undercoordinated in our ability to respond? Are we
forever to live from crisis to crisis under threat of terrorist attack?
I don't think that is the way Americans are supposed to live or were
born to live.
My mind recalls the great words of F.D.R. that launched the greatest
generation on its great crusade, World War II, the four freedoms,
Roosevelt's famous speech. What are the four freedoms that Americans
have an inherent right to enjoy? First, freedom of expression, the
ability to talk in this great Chamber and express our opinion and the
ability of any American to express the same; second, freedom of
religion, which unquestionably is part of our national Bill of Rights;
third, freedom from want; all of us feel this country is, as Lincoln
said, the last best hope of Earth; finally, as F.D.R. put it in 1941,
freedom from fear.
Many Americans are fearful today. They are fearful for the future of
their homeland, their communities, their families. We do not deserve to
live in fear.
I dedicate myself, as a Member of this body, as an American, as
someone who has seen combat and who has lived in fear, to make sure
that I rededicate myself to the task remaining before us: That we will
work out, with the President of the United States and this
administration, every aspect of a plan to rid ourselves of
international terrorism and to work with other nations, other civilized
nations, other nations committed to democracy and opportunity that
believe in the four freedoms as we do, to work out with them, in
coordination with them, an assault on terrorism.
Yesterday was a declaration of war by terrorists on this country.
This resolution we pass today in a unanimous fashion is, in my opinion,
a resolution of guts and courage that this body sends forth, that we
declare war on international terrorism.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I yield to the able Senator from Kansas,
Mr. Roberts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in expressing
support for this resolution, a resolution of the Senate of the United
States expressing our very prayerful condolences to those who lost
their lives as a result of this heinous crime, not only against
themselves but against America and, just as important, against
democracy and freedom.
First, let me say this Congress stands behind our President and his
determination to punish those who harbor terrorists as well as the
terrorists themselves.
Second, our fight against terrorism will necessitate more cooperation
than we have ever seen or experienced from our allies and other
governments. I am a little encouraged. They know we are not alone.
Several Arab state leaders, long American allies, have expressed
support. I understand that similar expressions have come from Russia.
This will take an unprecedented diplomatic and foreign policy
undertaking.
As we determine how best to address this ongoing threat, it will not
be necessary to start anew or to reinvent the antiterrorism wheel. I
have had the privilege, as some have said, of serving for 3 years as
the chairman of the newly created Subcommittee on Emerging Threats.
That is a subcommittee created by our distinguished former chairman,
John Warner. The committee is now ably chaired by Senator Mary
Landrieu.
Our subcommittee is now compiling the testimony of the many witnesses
we have had over the past 3 years and the recommendations we have made
which we will make available to the administration, to the Pentagon, to
the American public, and, yes, to the 46 Federal agencies that have
claimed jurisdiction of one kind or another with regard to homeland
security.
In this respect, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a
letter that five Senators representing the Senate Armed Services,
Intelligence, and Appropriations Committees and two subcommittees,
including the Emerging Threats Subcommittee, sent to Vice President
Cheney as of last July.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, July 13, 2001.
Hon. Richard B. Cheney,
Vice President of the United States,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Vice President: The hearings conducted by the
Senate on May 8, 9 and 10, 2001 demonstrated that some
Federal agencies do not have a firm grasp of their roles and
responsibilities for preventing, preparing for, and
responding to acts of domestic terrorism. This lack of
clarity is due to the absence of a true, comprehensive
national
[[Page S9309]]
strategy. Currently, our national policy is embodied in two
Presidential Decision Directives, the Attorney General's Five
Year Plan, and two Federal response plans, one maintained by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and one maintained
by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This
``patchwork quilt'' approach is not a substitute for a
national strategy, the purpose of which would be to
coordinate our Federal agencies into an effective force.
The attached report contains seven recommendations that
emerged during the course of the hearings. They merit your
strong consideration as you move toward bringing all of the
Federal entities involved in combating terrorism under a
single umbrella of clear leadership and a consolidated
national strategy. The recommendations identify and propose
actions to address weaknesses in our overall national system
to combat domestic terrorism.
We hope these recommendations will be useful to you as you
chart a new course for this nation's domestic terrorism
policy. With respect to the review itself, we strongly
recommend that you solicit input from and incorporate the
worthwhile suggestions of members of the first responder
community, including fire, law enforcement, medical, and
emergency management personnel. In addition, just as you have
requested the assistance and support of the Director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, we urge you to also draw
upon the experience and expertise of the Attorney General and
the Department of Justice. This will ensure that you have all
the necessary information and resources at your disposal, and
that your review is balanced and thorough. We in the Senate
stand ready to assist you in this historic and critical
enterprise.
Sincerely,
Ted Stevens,
Committee on Appropriations.
John Warner,
Committee on Armed Services.
Richard Shelby,
Select Committee on Intelligence.
Pat Roberts,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats & Capabilities, Committee
on Armed Services.
Judd Gregg,
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary,
Committee on Appropriations.
Report to the Vice President
Findings Pursuant to the Senate Hearings on U.S. Federal Government
Capabilities to Combat domestic Terrorism
I. Leadership.--During the course of the hearings, several
agencies announced the creation of a new position that would
coordinate those agencies' terrorism-related activities. HHS
is appointing a Special Assistant, DOD is designating an
Assistant Secretary of Defense, and FEMA has appointed a
Deputy Director. To improve coordination and centralize the
policy-making structure within the Department of Justice, we
recommend establishing in law a Deputy Attorney General for
Combating Domestic Terrorism (DAG-CT). The position would
have as its principal duty the development and coordination
of the department's overall policy for combating domestic
terrorism. The DAG-CT would report directly to the Attorney
General. The DAG-CT and the Deputy Director of FEMA, as Co-
Coordinators, should share responsibility for coordinating
the Federal structure for combating domestic terrorism,
including all of the relevant agencies, and for coordinating
the national strategy.
II. The National Strategy.--The Congress, the President,
and the National Security Advisor must be able to look to the
Co-Coordinators to coordinate a single national strategy to
safeguard this country from domestic terrorism. The national
strategy should establish the policies, objectives, and
priorities of the Federal government for preventing,
preparing for, and responding to domestic terrorist attacks.
The strategy should include specific objectives to be
achieved. Also, it should include a recommendation concerning
the role each Federal department and agency and State and
local government entity should perform in combating domestic
terrorism, as well as a recommendation concerning Federal
training, equipment, exercise, and grant programs. The
strategy should rest on four pillars: prevention/
intelligence, preparedness, crisis management, and
consequence management.
The sharing of information, especially by intelligence
agencies and law enforcement organizations, will be critical
to preventing acts of domestic terrorism. The Department of
State also has an important role to play in preventing
terrorism through its diplomatic and non-proliferation
activities. The Co-Coordinators should work in close
cooperation with the Department of State to ensure that we
have a unified strategy for combating both domestic and
international terrorism. Our level of preparedness will
depend on our commitment to training, equipment programs, and
regularly scheduled exercises which allow us to hone our
skills. Our ability to respond to a domestic terrorist attack
will require the close coordination of all entities with
responsibility for combating domestic terrorism. Pre-
established guidelines outlining agencies' missions and order
of operations during a range of plausible threat scenarios
must be developed and distributed.
The Co-Coordinators should be responsible for coordinating
agencies' and departments' programs and policies so that they
complement the national strategy. It will be the
responsibility of the Federal departments and agencies to
keep the Co-Coordinators appraised of any changes in their
organization, management, or budgets as they pertain to
combating domestic terrorism. All agencies and departments
involved in combating domestic terrorism should participate
in an annual review process coordinated by the Co-
Coordinators, who should undertake this review on behalf of
the President. In conducting this review, the Co-Coordinators
should consult with the appropriate entities, including
Congress and the State and Local Advisory Group. The Co-
Coordinators should make specific recommendations regarding
agencies' policies, programs, and objectives for combating
domestic terrorism as well as monitor their progress in
implementing the national strategy.
III. Justice Reorganization.--One office within the
Department of Justice should oversee the work of the entire
Department on domestic terrorism issues. This office must
work on a daily basis with FEMA as well as with the FBI's
Counterterrorism Division. The DAG-CT, along with the Deputy
FEMA Director, should be nominated and confirmed by the
Senate. The DAG-CT would not be in any other chain of command
within the Department of Justice and would not be considered
as a successor to the Attorney General. As with the Deputy
FEMA Director, this position is recommended solely to address
domestic terrorism, and in no way should compete with the
present Deputy Attorney General position.
The National Domestic Preparedness Office (NDPO), currently
under the FBI, should be transferred to the DAG-CT. The
original mission of the NDPO was to serve as a point of
contact for State and local governments. Because of its
strong ties to the emergency management community, FEMA
should assume the role of ``one stop shop'' for State and
local responders seeking information about Federal assistance
and training programs.
IV. Budget Reviews.--There is currently no mechanism for
coordinating Federal spending for combating domestic
terrorism and domestic preparedness programs. There is no
process through which the President may determine what is
lacking and what is redundant in our national strategy to
combat domestic terrorism. A five year budget plan to
implement the national strategy should be coordinated by the
Co-Coordinators in consultation with the program managers
from the relevant departments and agencies. The Co-
Coordinators should work closely with the departments and
agencies as they prepare their annual budget submissions.
V. Chain of Command.--The Senate hearings demonstrated that
there is still a need for a coherent chain of command at the
Federal level during the response phase of a terrorist
incident. During a recent exercise, agents from the FBI and
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) argued for an
hour over who was ``in charge'' at the scene, while actors
playing the part of the wounded and dying got hypothermia.
This confusion is the result of a poorly understood and
communicated chain of command.
The Federal Response Plan (FRP) and Concept of Operations
Plan (CONPLAN) identify which agencies must respond at what
point in time and what function each agency must perform or
lead. These plans have not been effectively communicated to
responders at all levels, from local to Federal. Furthermore,
these plans were designed for a number of different disaster
scenarios. This ``one size fits all'' approach coupled with
the lack of detailed understanding of the plan at all levels,
is responsible for the confusion encountered by responders at
the scene.
We recommend that the Co-Coordinators develop ``challenge
specific'' plans based on the FRP and CONPLAN to suit each
particular type of terrorist incident: nuclear, chemical,
biological, radiological, cyber, agricultural, and
conventional. The plans should focus on application of the
unified command structure across territorial, jurisdictional,
and intergovernmental lines. The resulting matrix of response
plans should also reflect the possibility of a simultaneous
attack involving two different types of weapons, particularly
a cyber attack.
The purpose of creating a separate response plan for each
type of attack is to minimize delays in decision-making and
expedite action-taking. A plant that is tailored to the
specific response requirements of a chemical, biological,
nuclear, radiological, or conventional attack will provide a
chain of command that is automatic. We further recommend that
FEMA expand its efforts to provide FRP and ``challenge-
specific plan'' training and education to Federal, State and
local response personnel. To this end, FEMA should support
and cooperate with existing DOJ training and planning efforts
to ensure the broadest dissemination and to avoid
duplication.
VI. Risk and Threat Assessments.--Federal programs to
combat domestic terrorism are being initiated and expanded
without the benefit of a sound threat and risk assessment
process. Although it is not possible to reduce risk for all
potential targets of terrorism, a rigorous and continuous
assessment of risk can help ensure that training, equipment,
[[Page S9310]]
and other safeguards are justified. Such programs must be
implemented based on the threat, the level of uncertainty
surrounding that threat, the vulnerability to attack, and the
criticality of assets.
Because the threat terrorists pose is dynamic and
countermeasures may become outdated, risk assessments must be
continually updated. A multi-disciplinary team of experts
selected by the Co-Coordinators should generate these
assessments as well as a plan for ensuring their currency.
Regularly scheduled exercises will provide an opportunity to
demonstrate and validate the national strategy. This process
is crucial to ensuring that initiatives are based on
reality and are proportional to the threat.
VII. Research and Development.--The research, development,
testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) of technologies to combat
domestic terrorism is currently under-exploited, yet holds
enormous potential to prevent--mainly through detection--
domestic terrorist incidents. The United States will never be
able to prevent all domestic terrorist incidents, but we have
an obligation to do more. If we fail to prevent, then we must
be ready to respond. Our expertise must be more aggressively
focused on technologies for detecting and analyzing chemical,
biological, explosives, nuclear, and radiological materials.
We recommend that the Co-Coordinators coordinate with all
the institutes in this country currently involved in RDT&E of
combating terrorism-related technologies. Among these
entities should be the first responders, the training
centers, the National Laboratories, the National Institute of
Justice, the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of
Sciences, private universities, and private industry.
Terrorist cells are increasingly adaptive with respect to
technology, and we must be able to anticipate future
capabilities. The Co-Coordinators should therefore be tasked
with coordinating a technological blueprint for the remainder
of the decade. This plan should be based on sound needs and
threat asscssments and should be set specific goals to be
accomplished within a defined time frame.
Mr. ROBERTS. This letter followed 3 days of hearings in which
bipartisan Members of Congress asked detailed questions of some 46
Federal agencies. Senators Stevens, Warner, Shelby, Gregg, and Roberts
offered this letter as a blueprint from which to eliminate the current
patchwork quilt approach and renew attempts to forge a national
strategy to combat terrorism and safeguard our national security.
Let me warn that this act of terrorism may well be just the
beginning. We must understand our enemy. In this regard, I quote from a
retired Army officer and author, Ralph Peters, who warned several years
ago:
These warriors are made up of the true believers, those who
will die for a cause, whether religion, a nationalist vision,
or a conviction of ethnic superiority, and a desire to avenge
wrongs suffered whether real or imagined. Even when they are
our enemies, they are heroes to their own people--another
thing we do not understand--witness the young Palestinians
waving flags upon learning of the terrorist attack against
the United States.
They do not deal rationally with our standards and we
falter when we rely on them to do so. Repeatedly, we have
failed to see the appeal of the upright man, perceived as
such by his own people, who hates us and who is willing to
propagate endless slaughter to drive us away and to use
weapons of mass destruction when required.
This pool certainly includes the Osama bin Ladens of the
world.
Again, we should not underestimate the nature and character of our
enemies. And they are our enemies. Let me recommend to all of my
colleagues the book by Samuel P. Huntington, ``The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.'' His book should be
required reading for all of my colleagues and those within the national
media and all interested in preserving democracy, freedom, and Western
values.
He quotes Arthur Schlesinger Jr. as stating Europe and America are
the unique source of individual liberty, political democracy, and the
rule of law, not to mention human rights and also cultural freedom. It
is precisely these unique concepts that are now under attack and why we
must have an international response.
The principal responsibility of Western leaders, especially now, is
not to attempt to reshape other civilizations in the image of the West,
which is beyond our power, but to preserve, to protect, to renew the
unique qualities of Western civilization where they have been nurtured,
appreciated, and taken root. That responsibility overwhelmingly falls
to the United States of America.
That statement has foreign and national security policy ramifications
that deserve a great deal more comment on this floor at a later time.
I will add one other thing. Every witness before the Emerging Threats
Subcommittee, when we asked about the threat against the United States,
said: It is not a matter of if but when.
When is now. The tragedy is now. It will not stand. It will not
stand.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
Mr. CANTWELL. Mr. President, yesterday's vicious terrorist attack
left an uncounted number of Americans dead and injured, and countless
others grieving for friends and loved ones they have lost. We offer our
hearts and prayers to those people, who have suffered a pain so deep it
is beyond understanding. We support them in their pain and grief, we
also share it.
Every American was wounded in yesterday's attack, because it was an
attack on our freedom and fundamental values as a people. Some have
called this attack an act of madness, but it was not. It was an act of
war--an organized, coordinated, premeditated murder of thousands of
Americans, designed and carried out for political advantage. We will
not allow it to go unpunished.
We will stand behind our President as he brings our law enforcement,
military, and intelligence forces together to find these murderers and
their allies. And as he takes the steps necessary to demonstrate
clearly to all the world that terrorism against our nation will not be
tolerated.
Here at home we must continue to work together to bind up the wounds
of this nation and heal the widespread injuries and anxieties that
these acts have caused. We are profoundly grateful for the efforts and
sacrifices made by the relief workers, police, and firefighters--and we
deeply grieve for those heroes who lost their lives yesterday in New
York trying to save others.
This isn't the first time terrorists have tried to attack the United
States--and it won't be the last. An orchestrated terrorist attack was
stopped in Washington State when terrorists bringing explosives into
the United States from Canada were intercepted. They intended to plant
bombs at a New Years Eve celebration in downtown Seattle and to kill as
many people as they could. Fortunately, that plot was uncovered and
stopped. This time, we weren't so lucky.
Attacking this country is not enough to defeat it. It never has been.
This is something our enemies have discovered again and again.
America's history is the story of a Nation, of a people, who have
repeatedly overcome what have seemed like insurmountable challenges.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, America began as a nation by overcoming tyranny. We
will continue by overcoming terrorism, and we will do it without
sacrificing who we are as Americans. We will do it by supporting those
who have been injured and giving sympathy and support to families who
have lost loved ones. We will do it by refocusing our efforts on more
security efforts, and we will do it by upholding the principles that we
all believe in of ``liberty and justice for all.''
I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, as our Nation mourns, my prayers--our
prayers--are directed to the victims and the families of the victims
who died yesterday at the hands of world terrorism.
As many have noted today, America finds itself at war. The question
still must be answered: Against whom? And what exactly will be our
response? But the fact itself cannot be doubted. At this time, most
observers suppose that yesterday's terrorist attacks were perpetrated
by a well-known terrorist group. My remarks will be based on that
reasonable supposition. It is further supposed that these attacks could
not have been mounted without state complicity. There are strong
suspicions as to which state has primary culpability. Once that
determination is made with reasonable certainty, the U.S. response must
include a strategic assessment toward that regime, or possibly regimes,
as well as tightening domestic security and reassessing our attitude
toward terrorism as war.
In the comments about yesterday's events, it is good to note that
most are
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talking about being at war rather than our usual tendency to look at
these acts as exclusively criminal acts. For example, in past U.S.
policy toward foreign-instigated terrorist attacks, such as the World
Trade Center bombing in 1993, the U.S. Embassy attacks in Kenya and
Tanzania, Khobar Towers, or the U.S.S. Cole, they have been based on
the ``criminal model.'' This is the notion that our main task is to
gather evidence, identify and apprehend perpetrators, and build a case
sufficient to convict them beyond a reasonable doubt in the court.
This criminal model obscures the strategic implications, which should
be our main concern. The criminal model should be replaced with a
warfare model adapted to 21st century conditions in which war no longer
means a confrontation along a defined front between armies fielded by
industrial states. Instead, under conditions in which the distinction
between state and private violence is not relevant, war means
determining within a moral certainty the responsible actors--state or
nonstate--and delivering a devastating punitive and exemplary reprisal.
Consideration should be given to a congressional declaration of war
against such state and nonstate actors.
Based on past experience, it is inevitable that part of the response
will involve a further tightening of security procedures right here in
this country. These measures, which almost never are removed once they
are put in place, have little utility, except to tighten Federal
control over Americans, and it really should be minimized. That is not
to say we ought not look at them, consider them, and where they are
best used, estimate their value--but not overestimate the outcome. More
importantly, they are a measure of our failure of strategic vision.
Instead, we should concentrate on identifying the hijackers who flew
the airplanes to their targets, and determining how they entered the
United States. This is what we ought to be about. Misguided efforts to
relax bars to aliens on whom security agencies have derogatory
information should be shelved. Border controls should be tightened.
While targeted reprisal is a necessity, it should be accompanied by a
comprehensive reexamination of U.S. post-cold war strategy. Currently,
that strategy is largely based on cold war inertia, consisting
primarily of maintaining, extending, and perpetuating our status as
``the world's sole-surviving superpower''--in effect, exercising global
hegemony, and preventing the emergence of any potential rival, such as
China or Russia.
This policy, with its focus on global dominance rather than domestic
defense, where it should be, makes the United States more vulnerable to
terrorist attack, not less. We have to look at global policy, but
clearly we must focus now more than ever on domestic defense.
This policy must be replaced by one that places a priority on the
defense of our sovereignty, our people, and our territory. With regard
to yesterday's attacks, our global strategy should be reexamined to
include undermining the harboring regimes or regimes by diplomatic and
possibly military means; adopting a more positive policy toward nearby
countries opposed to such regimes; and pressuring countries with which
the United States has friendly relations, but that may be supporting
the harboring regimes, to cease that support.
These efforts will require a thorough assessment of American policy.
No part of it can be left out. We do not stand in a situation of
isolation today. Our neighbors will gather around us. Let us examine
ourselves into the 21st century. Let us use our ability in that context
to shape a new foreign policy and resolve that what happened yesterday
in this country shall never happen again.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, the calendar and history rarely
perfectly coincide. It was remarked that the 20th century really began
in August of 1914 with the commencement of European hostilities. It
may, on reflection, prove to be true that the 21st century did not
begin when that famous ball fell in Times Square; it began on September
11, 2001.
The world has now been introduced to a new and difficult struggle
against terrorism, asymmetrical war, held along the fissure lines of
culture, prosperity, and commitment to law.
I regret that the front lines of this new struggle have formed
through the communities I represent in northern New Jersey and our
neighbors in New York City. Last night, children waited at home for
parents who never arrived. Spouses held dinner for husbands and wives
who never came home. The battlefield of this new war was Manhattan and
Jersey City and Fort Lee and Queens. We are all soldiers.
There is a temptation to accept that this new chapter in the war on
terrorism in a new century is merely a continuum of the same. Perhaps
the scale and the intensity is only different from Lebanon or Saudi
Arabia or, indeed, the World Trade Center itself 8 years ago.
By definition, it is fundamentally different. The very scale of this
attack and the premeditation of those involved suggest that the
organizations or the nations that planned this attack intended to
strike at the Government of the United States itself.
I offer these observations not because I differ from the President of
the United States but because I offer my support and because I believe
that, as a Congress and as Americans, we must all stand together in
this moment when we are all tested. But I do offer a difference in my
observation. The arbiter of this act of terrorism will never be a jury.
It is history. It is not those who were agents in the commission of
this crime that we seek but the organizations that are responsible.
At the outset, it must be made clear this is not a law enforcement
matter. It does not matter who rented the cars or even who flew the
airplanes. They are agents of others. I will find no satisfaction in
their indictment, whether they are alive or deceased. It is those who
wrote the plan, harbored the conspirators, gave them sanctuary within
their borders.
It is not enough that we are pursuing a legal case against those who
are responsible for this crime. It has become axiomatic to suggest an
act of war has been committed against the United States. Those are our
words. But our deeds are suggesting that we believe we were simply
victims of a hijacking, that a murder was committed, a crime of large
proportions but ordinary in concept.
We are missing the point. If those who committed this crime wore
uniforms or had a flag or a capital, the response of the United States
would be clear: This operation would be run from the military, not the
Justice Department. It would be the Air Force, not the FBI, conducting
operations.
I support the President of the United States, but I do believe, with
all respect, we are not properly conceiving the magnitude of the
moment. A fissure of history was reached yesterday, and in all of our
sorrow and our grief, we are not yet seizing the moment.
It is my belief the President of the United States should come to
this Congress and ask for a declaration that since September 11, 2001,
the U.S. Government is engaged in general hostilities against a series
of terrorist organizations; that in these hostilities, we will not
respect the sovereignty of those nations that give safe harbor to those
who committed acts against our country and our people.
I recognize that it is not possible with precision to identify every
organization that was complicitous or involved. I also do not believe
that it is necessary. Many of these terrorist organizations previously
committed acts against the United States. Others are known to have
planned such operations. Many have the intention of committing such
acts. Together they represent a network that is a worthy and legitimate
target of our hostilities.
Second, I cannot return to the people of New Jersey who have lost
hundreds or, tragically, even thousands of citizens without explaining
the role of the U.S. Government in their defense. The scale of what
occurred in the last 48 hours may have been unpredictable, but the
source and the means and the targets were not.
The American people have trusted this Government through our
intelligence communities to defend our Nation and its people and our
varied interests. This has not occurred. It is my
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belief that the President of the United States should form a board of
general inquiry to review the actions of the U.S. intelligence
community and the failures which led to this massive loss of life and
compromise of national security.
It can never be enough to explain that the unforeseeable happened to
the unprotectable because neither is the case.
Only two decades into the 20th century, Winston Churchill remarked:
What an extraordinary disappointment the 20th century has been.
Here in our first year of a new century, on behalf of all those at
home who suffer, who have dealt with unconscionable acts, let me simply
say what a disappointment the 21st century has already been.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, today our entire Nation confronts an evil
inflicted upon it by those who resent our values and our way of life.
All of us address the Nation as Americans, not partisans. That is as it
should be when we are hit by a tragedy of this magnitude.
I first want to join my colleagues in assuring our fellow Americans
our Government is carrying on the business of the people. Our Nation
has not bowed and will never bow to violence and terror.
Second, I join in expressing our love and concern for the victims of
these evil deeds. We will never forget them.
Third, if our words are to have effect, we have to change the way we
deal with terrorism. Things have changed. No nation can ever be
completely safe from threats to its security, but sadly today our
Nation is forced to recognize what many of us have long known: that
America is vulnerable to attack. But there are steps we can take to
make it safer.
As members of the Intelligence Committee, and as chairman and ranking
member of the Senate Judiciary's Subcommittee on Terrorism,
respectively, Senator Dianne Feinstein and I have held a series of
hearings on recommendations about how to deal with terrorist threats.
Some have to do with the overall organization of our Federal Government
to deal with these threats and the aftermath of such attacks. Others
bring Federal law into conformity with law enforcement and the
intelligence community needs to pursue evidence and information
necessary both to thwart terrorist attacks or to prosecute the
perpetrators.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified before our Terrorism
Subcommittee for several years that he needed certain legal authorities
to investigate these kinds of crimes, including things such as trap and
trace authority which would give the FBI greater ability to trace
computer crimes to their source; additionally, recommendations to put
countries on the terrorist lists that are not currently there but that
ought to be; to make a better effort to limit fundraising of terrorist
organizations right here in the United States; to examine the so-called
Deutch requirements pertaining to criteria for recruiting agents--this
cripples our efforts to infiltrate certain terrorist organizations--to
enhance information sharing and cooperation between law enforcement and
intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the CIA; to examine the
safety of our airlines and our airports. Clearly, measures must be
taken to increase security here.
Two years ago, the major airlines at Boston's Logan Airport and the
Port Authority were found to have committed 136 security violations. In
the majority of incidents, screeners hired by the airlines to staff
checkpoints in terminals routinely failed to detect test items such as
pipe bombs and guns. These glaring security failures must be the
subject of prompt congressional scrutiny. We must reevaluate our
intelligence-gathering activities worldwide and devote appropriate
resources.
The Nation had no warning of this attack, though it was clearly long
planned and very well coordinated. I join my colleagues in calling for
prompt hearings to examine this failure of our intelligence network.
We must now assess how we ascertain what information is credible
about attacks from abroad and how we might have missed what was clearly
an elaborate plot to undermine and demoralize the United States. In the
process, we should recognize the information which would justify the
action is very difficult to come by in cases such as this.
A very important point is that our Nation must decide how it is going
to deal with terrorists and the nations that harbor them after attacks
of this kind. President Bush, in his statement yesterday, emphasized
this point.
Terrorists are frequently protected internally by certain nations or
they are very much on the move and difficult to find. But after we have
identified who is responsible, if the perpetrators cannot be brought to
justice in the United States, then, as other speakers have noted, we
must be prepared to take other appropriate action.
The legal authority to do that could be in a new form of declaration
of war, a war on the terrorists who engaged in this evil activity, as
well as those who harbor and support them. In the end, the greatest way
for us, as leaders, to confirm our commitment to the victims of this
evil is to dedicate ourselves to a real and forceful battle against
this terrorism. Action not words, that is the challenge before us. As
Prime Minister Winston Churchill said in 1940, ``Let us brace ourselves
to our duties.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, we awoke yesterday to a much different
world than the world we are required to accept today. On the most basic
and fundamental level, we have lost the lives of heroes and victims,
and we know that behind the devastating numbers we have all been seeing
are real people, with real families, with real lives, with real
accomplishments, and real hopes. We also know sadly for all of us that
we can never, ever reclaim those lives.
We can honor them and remember them, and in their names we can devote
ourselves to take every action to assure that no other Americans have
to make this supreme sacrifice.
My Scripture teaches us to weep with them that weep and be of the
same mind one toward another.
I speak now to the families of those who have been taken. We in this
Chamber cannot erase yesterday, although we wish with everything inside
us that we could. In the difficult days and years to come, we will keep
their lives and their names and their sacrifices in our hearts, and we
will translate our grief and our anger into a determination to prevent
this tragedy from ever being repeated.
I know this is little solace for their extraordinary loss, but it is
an important commitment that I truly believe every one of them would
wish us to make. We will not forget, and we will act.
For 225 years now, America has been more than a nation--state, more
than a set of borders, more than a piece of land. America is an idea,
and that idea is freedom: Freedom of thought, freedom of movement,
freedom to shape our lives and our society the way we choose.
Yesterday morning, it was not just America that came under attack. It
was the hopes and aspirations of freedom-loving people all over this
world.
There is a reason America does not bow to terrorism. There is a
reason we live by the rule of law and not the rule of the jungle. There
is a reason we return to our homes and offices and reclaim our skies
and our pride. There is a reason we will marshal our resources, all our
resolve and the awesome strength of our military to catch these death
mongers, to punish them, to make them pay for what they have done to us
and our people because we surrender our freedom to no one.
I commend President Bush for his leadership in this extraordinarily
difficult time. I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to
stand with him.
From time to time, from issue to issue, the votes in this Chamber are
divided, but when it comes to defeating terrorism and hate, the Senate
will not be divided.
Some have wondered, in the aftermath of this tragedy, whether our
country will ever be the same. We need to make our airports safer, and
we will. We need to make our flights more secure and their flight
patterns more inviolate, and we will. We need to do
[[Page S9313]]
more to root out terrorism in the countries where it is tolerated,
funded, and harbored, and the world can rest assured that we will.
The strength of our Nation is measured not in airport scanners or in
flight controls; it is measured in the grit and the will of our people
when it is needed the most. By that standard, America is the strongest,
toughest, most resilient Nation on the face of the Earth.
Scripture also tells us ``whoever shall be great among you, let him
be your minister; and whoever shall be chief among you, let him be your
servant.''
Mr. President, we glimpsed that greatness yesterday in the rescue
efforts in New York City and at the Pentagon--policemen, firemen,
military personnel, and so many brave volunteers putting themselves and
their lives in harm's way to help others. Too many of them paid the
ultimate price for their acts of courage.
My Senate office was flooded yesterday with calls from concerned
people in North Carolina, people who wanted to give blood, to donate
clothes and blankets, to open their hearts in this time of solidarity.
I am especially proud that a group of Marines from Camp LeJeune in
Jacksonville, NC, is preparing to leave for New York now to assist in
any way they can.
Today, we can't help but think how fragile is the safety and security
we have been taking for granted. But throughout our history, we have
weathered war and pestilence; we have met every kind of disaster, both
natural and manmade; we have mastered every challenge and conquered
every foe.
The spirit of America is strong. The power of freedom will overcome.
And by reaffirming that freedom through strength, justice, and
compassion, we will honor the memory of those who have departed and
give renewed purpose to those of us who must now carry on.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. ALLARD. How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five minutes.
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, President Bush last night did what many of
us do in times of trouble: He prayed. When we prayed last night, we did
so not only for those who were injured or killed yesterday, but for
what our nation and people are still to face.
After the horror of yesterday, there are still other horrors to come.
One of those horrors will be the casualty figures. The disaster is so
large we don't even yet know how large it is. Some time, in the next
few weeks, we are going to hear a number, the number of the dead and
permanently missing. It will probably be in the thousands.
I would like to take a moment to mention Capt. Jason M. Dahl, the
pilot of United Airlines Flight 93. This 43-year-old Ken-Caryl Ranch,
CO, father spent most of his workdays training others to fly Boeing
757's and 767's. That way, according to newspaper reports, he got to
spend more time with his wife and teenage son, Matthew. But trainers
must fly every so often, and Dahl apparently scheduled himself on
Flight 93. He died yesterday morning when the plane slammed down into a
Pennsylvania field. This is one name, one short background, and there
will be thousands more.
But America is strong. No terrorist can undermine our country. There
is no casualty figure that could come from this that will make us lose
our fundamental purpose as a nation and a people. Anyone who doubts
this only needs to look at the flags popping up on streets, the lines
outside blood donation centers, the supplies being gathered for the
survivors. America has long exported compassion by responding to
African droughts and Central American hurricanes and European
earthquakes. Now we have to deal with a massive tragedy in our own
land, and I am sure we will do so strongly.
I was in a meeting yesterday dealing with Middle East security when
my Chief of Staff came in and told us that the building was being
evacuated. It occurs to me that aspects of life in the Middle East--
terrorist attacks, public fear and public mourning, heavy domestic
security, checkpoints, rigid airline safeguards--could quite possibly
be incorporated into the American way of life as well. Things that we
have seen before only on TV broadcasts from foreign lands could be
brought home to us, right here in America.
I trust the Nation will understand that these new measures might
change our lives, but not our way of life. Increased security might,
for instance, add to travel time, but not effect our ability to travel.
Just as we learned to live with safety wrapping on store bought items
and metal detectors in public buildings, we are going to have to learn
with new airport and border security.
Our Nation once also learned, through necessity, to deal with the
potential of nuclear war. Some of the old Cold War defenses we
incorporated into our lives were even able to assist us in this new war
we face. The North American Areospace Defense center--NORAD--in
Colorado Springs was monitoring the highjacked airplanes yesterday.
We in the Government are going to have to answer ``What next?'' The
Senate has already approved supporting increased resources in the war
to eradicate terrorism, and supporting the president in punishing the
perpetrators of the attacks.
The phrase ``war on terrorism'' has been used lightly before. This is
a war. And this war cannot be fought by, as I have heard it mentioned,
by just using cruise missiles to blow up tents in a desert.
I thank again the thousands of personnel who have responded, in New
York, Pennsylvania and Washington, to the crisis. Especially those
whose response only meant that they themselves became victims of this
hostile tragedy.
This morning New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said ``we are better than
they are.'' A simple statement, but it accurately reflects a truth.
America is better than evil terrorists, America is better than sneak
attacks on innocent civilians, America is better than fanatics, and
America will prevail in this crisis.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today we know our duty as Americans. We
will bury our dead, we will comfort our wounded, we will honor our
heroes, and we will protect and defend our Nation. We will stand as one
against the treachery visited on America on Tuesday, September 11, in
the year 2001.
We invite our friends and allies among the civilized nations to not
only share our grief but also to share our determination to end the
scourge of terrorism. The enemies of America, the enemies of freedom,
unleashed their fury yesterday in New York and at the Pentagon in an
effort to destroy our resolve. Our enemies have failed.
Today our hearts are heavy for all of the innocent lives lost and
scarred by these barbaric terrorists. But our resolve has not been
shaken. We stand as one, committed to freedom. We stand as one,
committed to tolerance. We stand as one against those who kill the
innocent in the name of righteousness. We stand as one against those
who in the name of God perpetrated godless acts.
In the days ahead, we will undoubtedly learn of unparalleled,
selfless courage by so many, the firefighters and police, who awakened
yesterday as they did every day of their professional lives, pinned
their badges and shields over their hearts, and risked their lives for
people whose names they never knew, of the hundreds of firefighters who
streamed into that inferno at the World Trade Center while every human
instinct told them to flee the overwhelming danger. We will never know
the details of their many courageous acts nor about the battles waged
on the airliners hijacked by the terrorists. But we owe the deepest
debt of gratitude to all of those Americans who demonstrated remarkable
heroism at America's time of testing.
I say to the families of those fallen heroes and to all of those who
suffered a loss from this violence: This Nation will stand by you as
you rebuild your community and your life.
I say to our friends in Israel: This attack on America was an attack
on our alliance and our common values.
The terrorists set out to bring America to its knees. Instead, they
have brought America to its feet, stronger than ever in our alliance
with Israel and more understanding of the price terrorism exacts from
the heart and soul of people.
[[Page S9314]]
A word of caution to all of us: As we identify the sources of
terrorism, it is possible we will look to an Arab person, or a group of
Arab people, or those of the Muslim faith. We should never allow those
facts, if they turn out to be true, to cloud our judgment when it comes
to our fellow Arab Americans and those who believe and practice the
Muslim faith. Many of them share with us the pain and sorrow of
yesterday's tragedy.
Let me bring this tragedy very close to home. During the course of
the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln came to Washington as the new President.
The States began to divide into the Confederacy and the Union. When he
arrived, this Capitol dome which you see outside was under
construction. Many people went to the President and said: Mr.
President, we can't afford to wage a war and build this Capitol dome.
He said: Yes, we can, because that Capitol dome represents the unity of
this country and what we will be after this war. During the Civil War,
he continued the construction of that great dome we see today. And
Lincoln was right.
We should a take lesson from that. As we talk about security in
America, we should understand that one of the prime targets is the
building I speak from--this Nation's Capitol, which attracts millions
of visitors every single year. We owe those visitors, their families,
and the thousands of people who work here the security and peace of
mind of knowing that we have done everything we can to protect them in
this age of terrorism. That means building a national visitors center,
one which provides the security they deserve. This beautiful 19th
century building should have 21st century security. I am happy to say
that Senator Bennett of Utah as well as leaders on both sides of the
aisle believe this is the moment when we should make that commitment to
the national visitors center.
The last item to which I will make reference is a small one, but it
is especially irritating. Yesterday in my home State of Illinois, after
this tragedy was reported in New York, many gas stations across our
State raised the price of gasoline dramatically to as high as $5 a
gallon. Profiteering in a time of national crisis is the lowest form of
citizenship. It is little better than looting during a national
tragedy. I have called on the residents of Illinois to report to me
those stations that did it. They should be ashamed. And we will report
their findings and their stories to the investigation of the unfair
gasoline prices we have seen in the Midwest.
Let me close by saying this: America will be tested now. We will be
tested because of this tragedy yesterday. Some people said if we can
just identify that one person who is the leader of this terrorist group
and somehow capture or take him away, we will end the terrorism. That
is so naive. Cutting off the head of one serpent doesn't clear a
viper's nest. This is a network of terrorism throughout the world that
really threatens every civilized nation, and we have to understand the
complexity of the challenge we face.
In closing, I am reminded of the comments of Winston Churchill in the
House of Commons on October 8, 1940:
Death and sorrow will be the companions of our journey;
hardship our garment; constancy and valor our only shield. We
must be united, we must be undaunted, we must be inflexible.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, perhaps because I represent the State
that has the youngest age population in the country, I approach this
subject from a different point of view.
Many have said that this terrible, cowardly attack against our
country by terrorists is similar to the experience we had at Pearl
Harbor. I think perhaps Senator Inouye and Senator Akaka might have had
similar experiences. But those of us who were alive and part of the
younger generation then did not have the experiences that our young
people had yesterday as they watched and were just mesmerized by the
live coverage as two great buildings collapsed, of people jumping from
those buildings, of the knowledge of how many people were killed and
injured, of seeing our Pentagon struck.
This vividness has affected the young people of our country much more
than Pearl Harbor affected us. We had been acculturated to the fact
that we were going to war. We had watched in the newsreels in 1939, in
1940, and 1941 the Germans marching across Europe and the Japanese
raping Nanking. Such things came at us in a small bite, as we might
call it today, with a little exposure here and there.
If our generation truly is the greatest generation, it is because of
our parents and our guardians and our teachers. They prepared us for
what we knew would be our duty to fight a war to restore freedom in the
world.
Our young people yesterday saw just this total exposure to death and
the effects of terrorism. I think we have to be aware of that. They
have not been prepared as young people in this period of time, when
they have all of these freedoms to the exposure through so many means
of communication and acquisition and knowledge. I believe our young
people are in a state of shock. It is time we thought about that and
what it means to America to have this sudden awareness by so many
people, particularly young children and the younger generation,
becoming exposed to the visible impact of terrorist activity.
We don't live in a country like Israel where they have been attacked
on the streets and they have seen bombing every day. We have really
been living the life of luxury in terms of not being exposed to this
type of activity. But it is here now. We were exposed to it yesterday.
I don't think it is over.
I call on the Senate and the Congress and the President. I hope we
think about the young people. I hope we take the time to explain to
them why we are going to retaliate. I hope we take the time to explain
to them why we are going to change some of the security procedures of
our country in terms of getting on and off interstate and even local
transportation. I hope we explain to them why there are no people in
the gallery here today--which I object to, by the way.
But I think it is incumbent on those of us who are mature to try to
guide these people toward the goal we hope they will pursue with us;
that is, the goal of pursuing the perpetrators of these vicious
terrorist attacks against the United States, and to support us in what
we have to do. We should take time to understand their feelings. We
should take the time to try to explain to them why we may not react the
same way they would.
I had calls from all over the country yesterday. I don't know if
everyone else did. I assume so. I certainly had an enormous number of
calls from home. They were asking if I was safe and if my family and my
staff were safe. And the totality of the experience they had, people
around the country, in viewing what went on--I have to say myself, I
was totally shocked when I saw that first tower come down. And then
when the second one came down, I just felt a lump in my stomach.
The point is, I hope we act in terms of understanding that we have a
job to lead the country, to have people understand what we are going to
do in the future. If I have anything to do with it, we will finish our
work here very quickly. I think we should bury our differences, find a
way to move the appropriations bills, deal with the subjects we have to
deal with, and go back to our homes to try to assist people in
understanding why we are going to act as we must act; that is, we must
deliver the most fierce retaliation against these people that the world
has ever seen, because if we do not--if we do not--we are going to have
some copycats around the world who think they, too, can take a crack at
this country. That is something I would not like to see.
But I hope we all keep in mind and think of the young people, think
of the children, and try to explain to them what they saw and why we
are going to do what we must do.
Mr. President, II Corinthians, 4:8-9, states:
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
Perplexed, but not in despair;
Persecuted, but not abandoned;
Struck down, but not destroyed.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, yesterday's terrorist atrocities against
innocent Americans were vicious and horrifying. They were acts of
unspeakable cruelty unleashed against the American people in a shameful
attempt
[[Page S9315]]
to spread chaos throughout our nation and instill fear in the hearts of
our citizens. But such acts will not succeed, and they never will
succeed.
No American will ever forget watching a hijacked civilian aircraft
crash into the towers of the World Trade Center, or seeing the plume of
smoke rise from the Pentagon in the aftermath of the terrorist attack.
No American will ever forget the sense of anger and vulnerability that
swept our nation yesterday, when thousands of innocent lives were
suddenly, and senselessly ended by the vicious acts.
My heart goes out to the victims of this attack and their loved ones.
The American people share our anger, our grief--and our resolve. We
cannot bring back the lives of the fathers, mothers, sons, daughters,
brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends--although we wish desperately
that we could. We cannot yet fully answer the complex questions that
haunt the country about this atrocity. As we search for and find the
answers, we pray for the victims and their loves ones, and we hope that
they will find a measure of peace and comfort from our prayers.
This is a massive tragedy for America, and we must make clear that
our national resolve will not be weakened. Our country has been tested
and tried in the past, and we have always emerged stronger and wiser.
We will do so again now. America's commitment to the values of freedom
and justice has not been shaken in the past. It will not be shaken by
these acts of terrorism.
I commend President Bush for his strong statement last evening about
finding and punishing the perpetrators of this atrocity. Those who
murder American citizens must have no safe hiding place, and those who
shelter terrorists must be punished as well. America will do everything
possible to apprehend the perpetrators and to identify and punish those
who give them aid and comfort.
Like December 7, 1941, September 11, 2001 will be remembered as a day
that will live in infamy. Just as the Pearl Harbor attack galvanized
the American people in their resolve to prevail in the war against
fascism and tyranny, I am confident that yesterday's attack on the
American people will galvanize our citizens and strengthen our spirit
to prevail in the ongoing war against global terrorism.
It is tragic that these criminals were able to succeed in carrying
out the most brutal terrorist attack in history on American soil. I
pledge to work with the President, the Congress, and the families of
the victims to seek answers to the many questions that exist, and to do
all we can to strengthen the security of our people and to prevent such
atrocities in the future. The American flag flies high today, and so
does our commitment to our ideals here at home and all around the
world.
Mr. President, I want to commend my friend from Alaska for talking
about the impact of this extraordinary violence on children. I think
many of us have heard about and seen, as we were getting ready to come
to work this morning, the counseling that is being provided to
America's parents and children about how to cope with this violence.
As we seek to find those who perpetrated the crimes, we must also be
resolute and sensitive to the extraordinary concerns about violence
that will have an impact on a whole generation of children.
We have not focused extensively on this subject in the hours that we
have discussed this resolution, but I thank the Senator for bringing
this up. He is active in supporting the interests of children, and I
think his point is extremely well taken.
This resolution was overwhelmingly supported by all Members. It is
what we can do today. There will be other opportunities to support
activities to address this tragedy.
The resolution recognizes the extraordinary suffering and the losses
that have been experienced by so many families in America today. I
think the focus, rightfully so, has been on New York, Pennsylvania, and
also the Pentagon. But in my own State of Massachusetts, we have 39
parents who will not be returning home this evening. We have dozens of
children who will be missing one parent, and in some instances, even
two parents. There are scores of people who worked in the World Trade
Center who were from Massachusetts as well. And that has been generally
true about so many other States.
Although the targets were in New York and the Pentagon--and Lord only
knows where the other plane was headed--all families feel an
extraordinary threat to their lives and well-being and to the lives and
well-being of their children. So we all reach out to them.
I can remember very well the extraordinary way people came together
in my State when five extraordinary firefighters perished in a fire in
Worcester, MA, just a little over a year ago. They were brave
volunteers, who sought to save two homeless people, and we now know
that the homeless people had left after the fire had started. Because
of the concern for the two homeless people, they volunteered and went
in, and all of them perished. I remember the impact that this had not
only on Worcester but on our State.
When I heard, for the first time yesterday, of the loss of some 225
firefighters, more than 50 police officers, and scores of rescue
workers, it is something that families in my State felt very deeply
about. I know Americans across this country feel very deeply about it.
We say our prayers for the victims and their families. We reach out
to them. We feel, to the greatest extent that we possibly can, the
senselessness of this violence. And we resolve with them to bring to
justice the perpetrators.
I support this resolution because it commits this Nation to bring the
perpetrators of the terrorism to justice. We have all heard the
speeches here, and we are all resolute in this.
I join with my colleagues who hope that we will have the opportunity
for resolution. It appears from the briefings we have received that we
have had good fortune in moving the investigation forward, and I hope
that we will be able to identify those who perpetrated the crimes and
those that supported them. There is some indication for that hope, as
we have heard over the last days. But as has been pointed out, we will
need to be resolute in this undertaking.
We have 13 families in Massachusetts who lost relatives Pan Am Flight
103. Yet, it was only a few months ago that many of our colleagues were
talking about lifting the sanctions. Many of our European allies, many
of our oldest friends in Europe wanted to abolish those sanctions.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. I can still name the names of those families who lost
people on Pan Am flight 103.
Years after the Pan Am flight, if we are interested in combating
terrorism, we are going to have to stay the course, stay resolute,
persevere, and stay consistent.
Finally, I hope at this time we will not look for scapegoats. I hope
that we are going to be careful, particularly with regard to our Arab-
American friends. I hope that we will free ourselves from scapegoating
and from the kind of conduct which would be helpful to terrorists who
are interested in dividing this Nation in so many different ways.
We reject that. We must stick with the facts and follow them where
they lead us and not involve ourselves in that kind of activity.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I think all of us who have an
election certificate and who have been called upon to represent the
citizens of our State feel an obligation today to come together as
Americans, not as Republicans and Democrats but to come together in a
way that says symbolically and in reality to our constituents that our
ship of state is still on course.
Yesterday, America was called to endure yet another day of infamy.
And in times of infamy, in times of tragedy, I find it helpful for us
to refocus on the fundamentals that make us a great nation and a great
people.
So I say to my friends, my constituents of the great State of Oregon,
that this is a time to come together as a country the way the U.S.
Senate today is showing it can.
Indeed, it is time, as individuals, to reach out to our neighbors, to
love them better, to hold our families closer, and to serve our country
with more
[[Page S9316]]
determination than ever in the way we live our lives.
Yesterday I was, like all, shaken beyond words at this tragedy and
was soon hustled into a room--a secure room--where I was in the
presence of Senator Daschle, Senator Lott, Senator Nickles, Senator
Reid, Tom DeLay of the House, and a number of others.
It was not a large group, but it was a group that normally has daily
differences. Those differences melted away, and what remained were
Americans determined to seek the greatest good of our country.
That is the kind of unity that has preserved America through days of
infamy of the past and can sustain us yet again today and in the
future.
When I spoke about focusing on fundamentals, this morning I got out
my little copy of the Constitution. The preamble is worth reading, as
we, Members of this body, consider our responsibilities:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
That preamble, that set of values, brought people of diverse
interests together to make of States united States and the United
States the leader of the free world. Freedom is not free. America knows
that now in a renewed fashion.
Our duty in this Senate, in this Congress, and in this country is now
to rescue what victims remain alive and to comfort the families of
those victims who have perished. It is to restore our institutions and
set aright the shaken confidence many feel.
Then it is to seek retribution that is careful but certain and as
swift as possible. When I say that freedom is not free, I believe the
American people will expect of us a heightened sense of security, but
the balance, we must remember, is that as we seek security we not
trample on liberty.
The great test of our time in this tragedy, as one who supports
without reservation the State of Israel, is how we treat our Arab
brothers and sisters who are citizens of this land. We must not repeat
the mistakes of the past. We must be careful.
We are the leader of the free world. We must not trample on freedom,
as we continue to lead. We are the leader of the civilized world. Our
retribution must not target in any way innocent civilians. They are the
leaders of the uncivilized world, and we saw their work yesterday.
America is called to lead in a different way. We are called to lead the
civilized and the free.
I say, God bless our fellow citizens who perished yesterday. I say,
God bless America.
I take this opportunity to recognize some Oregonians who are doing
their part to respond to this tragedy. The Oregon Disaster Medical
Assistance Team has assembled and is prepared for immediate deployment
by the Office of Emergency Preparedness. Many of their colleagues have
already been deployed; the Oregon team is still on the ground awaiting
availability of air transport. Their courage and willingness to serve
is one of many bright lights that have brightened this dark day.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to support this resolution.
Yesterday was a terrible day of terror. Today to me seems even worse.
Yesterday, perhaps because the acts of war that were carried out
against our people were so horrific, we responded. We moved forward.
But it all seemed unreal. Today when I awoke, it seemed painfully real.
It reminded me of terrible days in my personal life when I have
experienced a loss of a loved one. You cope, and then you wake up with
the reality and the pain is deeper.
We all feel that today, and we can only imagine, therefore, how deep
and pervasive is the pain of those many families whose lives have been
devastated by the acts of terror that were carried out yesterday.
I pray that God will be with them and the souls of their loved ones
who are gone, that they will find comfort in good memories and strength
from their faith in God.
I have been very proud to be a Member of the Senate over these last
few days. And it continues today, as I listen to the statements we have
heard in this Chamber which should leave no doubt of our resolve nor
our unity in holding accountable those who attacked us yesterday and
sought to destroy our Nation.
Today we are filled with the deepest feelings of anger and outrage.
We want retaliation, and we will have it. We will not rest until we
know who perpetrated these evils, and we will then respond with the
full force of the righteous might that President Roosevelt summoned in
1941.
We must be careful not to mistake swift punishment for lasting peace.
We are at war. That is true. But this war is dramatically different
from the one we engaged in after Pearl Harbor. In this struggle,
vengeance is not victory. Retaliation for yesterday's atrocities is
only the end of the beginning of what should be our response, not the
beginning of the end of that response.
If, in fact, as this resolution says, we are acknowledging that we
are in a war against terrorism, then we must understand that this war
is not against a single known enemy but a broad and elusive threat from
the forces of terror. And if we are to win this war, if we are to
protect our security and freedom, we must adapt both offensively and
defensively to the true nature of this threat and commit ourselves to a
long and difficult struggle.
We have several challenges ahead of us. First, of course, we must
identify and punish the perpetrators. We must also honestly then assess
our vulnerability here at home and then take swift and strong action to
fortify the security of our critical national infrastructure from
attack and to improve the ability of national and State and local
authorities to respond to such attacks. We must consider with renewed
purpose the proposals that have been made to create a new agency with
responsibility for defense of our homeland, for the decades of security
that our two oceans have given us are over. Our enemies can strike at
us with terrorism, with cyberattacks, or with ballistic missiles. We
must raise our guard here at home to those attacks.
We have been warned by many experts that the threats we will face in
the 21st century would be different and more diffuse than those we had
faced over the last half century. That is why we have embarked on a
path of transforming our military and other Government agencies to
better prepare to wage and defend this new warfare.
We must now move, after yesterday, with far greater urgency, for our
enemies will not wait. They will not delay. They will continue to work
with single-minded determination to find our points of weakness and
strike at them.
We must match and exceed their focus and determination. In doing so,
we must not work and fight alone. This is not just our war. This is a
war against democracy itself. In defending against those attacks, the
world's other democratic nations must join together with us.
I am grateful for the decision by the North Atlantic Council today to
find the acts of yesterday essentially acts, under article 5, acts of
war against us which are acts of war against all of them.
If we are truly involved in a war against terrorism, then our allies
in Europe and elsewhere must come to our side as we came to theirs in
World War II and not tolerate and deal with and maintain normal
relations of commerce or diplomacy with nations that harbor terrorists.
We must convince them that they will either be allies of allies or
allies of our enemies.
History rarely offers respite to victors. We won a magnificent
triumph in the cold war. After World War II, we were once again at the
pinnacle of power. But, once again, we face a new form of tyranny. I am
confident that we can and will rise to defeat this new challenge just
as we defeated the communism that rose to face us after World War II.
Our love of liberty has not diminished, nor has our common sense of
purpose in protecting it.
Succeed we can and succeed we must. The lives of our people, the
security of our society, and the strength of our democracy depend on
it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
[[Page S9317]]
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, yesterday was a day of great darkness, the
likes of which we have never seen before. Yesterday we saw the face of
evil in a cowardly and reprehensible act against the United States. The
tragic events were a grave reminder of our Nation's vulnerability.
Sadly, the light of a new day has continued to show us that the
horror of yesterday was all too real. Our worst nightmare has come
true.
We all lost something yesterday, something very precious and
something very real. I don't think we will ever again look at the
footage of terrorist activities overseas quite the same way again. The
comforting thought that protected us in the past, ``It can't happen
here'' is no longer comforting, because it has been shown to us in very
real and stark terms--it can happen here.
President Bush has stated his resolve to find those responsible for
this attack and bring them to justice. I support him in this effort and
I am confident that President Bush, together with the members of
Congress and the people of America will come together in the next days
and weeks as we mourn our dead and honor the memory of those who died
in the attacks or subsequent rescue efforts.
Yesterday threatens to increase the anger we already feel in our
hearts and make us cry out for revenge against someone, anyone.
We will not allow that to happen. We all know the real goal of
terrorism is to turn neighbor against neighbor to make us fear and
mistrust the people of our communities. With God's strength and
support, and our faith and trust in Him, we can show that we are bigger
and stronger than that.
Our strength as a nation comes from the different backgrounds,
cultures, talents and abilities of our people. E Pluribus Unum, One out
of many, is our Nation's motto for a reason. Yesterday we saw people of
every race, religion and creed working together as Americans to help
those affected by yesterday's attacks.
We will continue that work in the coming weeks, and, as we do, we
will do something we have not had to do for many, many years. The task
of cleaning up, repairing and building that looms before us is great,
even for the greatest nation on earth.
Yesterday's events will raise a lot of questions that will need to be
answered as we do our work. How did it happen? Why did it happen? What
can we do to ensure it does not happen again?
They are all good questions and they will be investigated and
answered. Vice President Cheney has already been working on ways to
improve and increase our intelligence gathering efforts. Now these
improvements must be given the highest priority. As the Ranking Member
of the International Operations and Terrorism Subcommittee of the
Foreign Relations Committee, I pledge my time and my efforts to work
with Members on both sides of the aisle and the Administration to
address all the issues raised by these cowardly attacks.
As do most Americans, I find it difficult to understand how someone
could plan and carry out an attack such as the one we witnessed
yesterday. Part of our work will be to review and reconsider our
foreign policies and to increase our awareness and sensitivity to the
fact that our actions abroad are not always supported by some members
of the international community. We need to be aware that there are
those who hate the United States for who we are and what we represent
in the world. There are those who view our nation and the freedom we
represent as a threat to themselves and their way of life.
We will rebuild our cities, we will refresh our spirit, and we will
renew our commitment to the principles upon which our country was
founded. As Mayor Giuliani said this morning, as we roll up our sleeves
and get to work, we will emerge stronger than ever and face the future
with a renewed spirit, united more strongly as one nation under God
than we ever have been before.
It is time for us to reassure each other, to reach out to our
neighbors, and to console our children that the world isn't a bad
place, although there are bad people who live in it to be sure.
As we prepared to go to bed last night, I thought about the days
years ago when I, as a father, would listen to my children say their
prayers before they went to sleep at night. ``And now I lay me down to
sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.''
I thought about our children all over this country and around this
world who went to bed last night who said those words and found a
terrifying and frightening new meaning in them. They will all need the
calm and reassuring touch of their mothers and fathers to assure them
that they are safe and we are there to protect them.
Those that are responsible for this act of terrorism tried to take
our spirit just as certainly as they tried to take as many lives as
they could. They acted without regard for those in their path, just as
they acted without regard for our freedoms or our way of life.
There is a price that will be paid for their actions. Maybe not today
or tomorrow, but we will soon know who is responsible for these
terrible acts of violence and they will be held accountable.
There will be a time for that, someday in the future. As the Bible
tells us, there is a time for everything and a season for all things.
Now is the time to find the facts, develop a plan and make sure that
every step we take in these next few days is warranted and necessary.
For we are the most powerful nation on earth, and that brings with it a
certain responsibility. The world looks to us now to see what we will
do next, how we will handle the leadership the world has seen us
exercise so well for so many years.
Now is also a time for healing and rebirth--for coming together in
pride as Americans. Now is the time to renew our commitment to freedom
and the principles upon which we are founded. Now is the time to reach
out in prayer to God and to each other.
But for those who hear the sound of my voice and think we may falter
in our commitment to America and our way of life, make no mistake. The
light of freedom may flicker from time to time, but it always returns
to a brilliance and luster just like the torch held proudly aloft by
the Statue of Liberty.
One thing the terrorists never understood is that we are a nation of
more than just symbols, and landmarks and monuments, though they are
all important and beloved by us all. We are a nation of strength and
spirit and freedom and we will never yield our commitment to our
principles, to each other and to our shared future.
Last night, today, and for a long time to come, people in Wyoming, in
Washington, in New York and all over the country will be holding prayer
vigils, attending Church services, and reaching out to one another in
an embrace of faith, hope and love. That is how we will continue, one
people, one step at a time, to assure each other of our support for
each other and to ensure that this terrible tragedy never happens
again.
We also join in prayer for the victims of this tragedy, for their
families, friends and loved ones. We proudly recognize the efforts of
our brave firemen, police and rescue workers who risked their lives to
help those in need. Your efforts were greatly appreciated. You will
never be forgotten.
Yesterday we witnessed both chambers of this great Congress come
together as one, united in plan, purpose and resolve. May we continue
to work together to make our nation stronger and the world a better
place for us all. It won't be easy, but that never has not and never
will stop us. May God bless and keep us all firm in our resolve.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise today not as a Democrat or as a
Republican, but as an American. The vicious, premeditated terrorist
attack on our country cannot stand. We are joined in common purpose to
defend our Nation and to strike back against those who have committed
these crimes against humanity. Operating under the cloak of secrecy,
they destroyed the lives of thousands of men, women, and children who
were completely innocent.
Those innocents were not combatants in any cause. They were merely
traveling to rejoin their families, or going to work, or heading for a
holiday. They were harming no one. But terrorists bent on destruction
transformed airliners into flying bombs and attacked them, attacked us,
and attacked America.
[[Page S9318]]
Let the word go out that we will not be deterred, we will not be
defeated, we will not be denied basic justice. These evil perpetrators
of mindless violence will be pursued and found, and they will be held
to account.
Let these adversaries understand that they have aroused the awful
wrath of a mighty nation. We are united, we are determined, we are
committed, and we will prevail. God bless America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, let me, on behalf of the people of the
State of Wisconsin, express our condolences to all those who have lost
loved ones and, of course, offer our expressions of concern to those
who are injured, and all the family members and friends who are
suffering today from this tremendous tragedy.
I want to join with others who have thanked the courageous
individuals in New York and Washington and elsewhere who are helping to
try to save whomever they can. And, of course, I share the intense
feeling of rage and resolution when it comes to these acts. I had the
same reaction a lot of other people did when I heard the news. It
happened when, for the first time in my life, during the recess I had a
chance to visit Pearl Harbor and tour with the admiral there and get a
sense of just how terrible and surprising that attack was.
For many of us, that is why this action yesterday was so reminiscent
of Pearl Harbor. It was an attack on our territory. It was an evil act.
So when some of us make the comparison, that is not to suggest which
situation was more dangerous or what was a greater sacrifice. Really,
what it is about is an expression of gratitude and love across the
generations but at different times in our history. Whether it be Pearl
Harbor or yesterday's attack, the American people are asked to do
extraordinary things --to defend our freedom.
In that context, I want to mention two elements of resolve and two
cautions. The first resolve is that, obviously, this situation is
almost certain to require military action. As a number of people have
said today, this is not about simply bringing people to trial or
finding a legal standard. I agree with those who say that these were
``acts of war.''
As one who has frequently questioned our military intervention and
the wisdom--for example, our intervention in Kosovo and Bosnia, whether
we really went about it the right way--this situation is different. It
requires a strong and aggressive military response when we are able to
determine exactly who we should be going after, and I understand we are
pretty close to being certain of that.
One reporter already asked me if what we did today constituted
something similar to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Of course not. It
is not a blank check.
We as Americans are all united on this issue. We can respect article
I of the Constitution if we are talking about a declaration of war. We
can respect the War Powers Act. We can act together as an executive and
as a Congress to be sure we are unified, not just emotionally, but as a
government and a country when the necessary acts have to be taken to
retaliate against those who have committed these deeds.
The second resolve relates to the suggestion by some that perhaps the
American people will grow weary of our involvement in the Middle East
and our concern about the Middle East. We will not retreat from our
commitment to peace in the Middle East and, more specifically, we will
not reward these terrorists by reducing one iota our support for the
State of Israel, which is the only democracy in the Middle East, which
is our steadfast ally militarily and otherwise. If those who committed
these deeds believe this is the way to destroy Israel or destroy the
link between our two nations, they have just made a very large mistake.
Let me also mention two cautions, and others have already done this
today, but it is important to express this. One is, as we look for
answers and we look for solutions and we look for the things we must
do, domestically as well as externally, we must continue to respect our
Constitution and our civil liberties in this country. I am the chairman
of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. I
recognize this is a different world with different technologies,
different issues, and different threats, but we must examine every item
that is proposed in response to these events to be sure we are not
rewarding these terrorists by giving up our cherished freedoms that
they do not believe in and that they would like to destroy.
Finally, the other caution, which has been mentioned by so many,
particularly eloquently by Senator Schumer, the senior Senator from New
York, this should not be an occasion for ill-treatment of Arab
Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asians, or others in this country.
It is wrong. They are as patriotic as any other Americans and are
feeling extremely stressed as a result of this situation. I have
already heard some reports of some acts, and I roundly condemn them. We
must stand together, all Americans of all backgrounds, to condemn these
actions.
Let me finally say, already in the middle of this enormous sadness, I
can already see our country responding. I can already feel from the
contacts we have had back home and the comments and actions of our
colleagues here that we are responding in the best possible way to this
unprecedented challenge.
I thank all my colleagues for the way in which things have been
handled in the last day, and I look forward to working together to make
sure our enemies understand that we will not stand back and we will
remember this, we will remember it every day until we have rooted out
those who perpetrated these vicious actions against our country. I
yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Murray). The Senator from Kansas is
recognized.
Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the Chair.
Madam President, I appreciate the words of my colleagues on such a
serious matter before this body. I, as an American, as a Kansan, and a
Member of the Senate, am deeply saddened at the loss and tragedy our
Nation has suffered, the shock of which still stuns us today.
I also express the complete unity of all of us in the Congress in our
absolute determination to respond to this atrocity quickly, wisely, and
forcefully. We will rescue survivors, bury our dead, rebuild our
centers of commerce, and find the killers. Already there is order; soon
there will be justice.
Kansans and Americans must be assured that our country will remain
strong and will become stronger through this trial. Every hour I hear
of new reports of Americans volunteering their time, their medical
experience, their resources, and their blood to help their fellow
citizens. We are responding to the evil of terrorism with the best of
human nature, and I thank everyone who has sacrificed to help those in
need in Washington and New York. The unsung heroes and untold stories
are the bright lights in this dark sky.
We will not only help the hurting, but we will seek out and find
those killers. To terrorists and the nations that harbor them, we have
this to say: We will find you, and we will deal with you as you
deserve. Justice will be done.
If there are rogue nations or terrorist groups that think they can
intimidate our country, they are mistaken. I strongly agree with
President Bush's statement that:
America and our friends and allies join with all those who
want peace and security [and that]. . . .We will make no
distinction between the terrorists who committed these
acts and those who harbor them.
I hope, from this dastardly act of terrorism, we will find support
coming from many quarters of the world to fight this global scourge of
terrorism. Already I have been in touch with people in several
countries and spoken with them about their need to help us and found
their quick statements of willingness to help us in support.
I have spoken with Jordan's King Abdullah, who is vigorously
assisting the United States, and also there are other Arab countries,
to encourage calm and reason in the Middle East and to support us in
finding those who have conducted these heinous acts. We appreciate the
efforts of Jordan and thank her people and her King.
There is another point that needs to be made. The culprits are
terrorists, not the Arab people or those of the Muslim faith generally
or any other group. Individuals are guilty of crimes,
[[Page S9319]]
not classes of people. In this instance, as always, we should reject
unfair characterizations or generalizations targeted at groups of
people.
We had already been investigating reports on another matter in our
State associated with gasoline price gouging. We are confident that the
problems will be resolved in short order. Oil supply channels remain
open. Measures are being taken to ensure the uninterrupted flow of oil,
and anyone who does engage in the disgusting practice of price gouging
in a time of tragedy will be prosecuted.
I encourage my fellow citizens to contact offices in their States and
public authorities if there is any way we can be of assistance in
dealing with this matter.
The Congress will be convening in both joint and special sessions
throughout the remainder of this week. That is an important statement
of our resolve to continue to conduct business, even though it is not
business as usual. I certainly intend to be at every session and
meeting that involves our current national crisis.
I assure every American, particularly Kansans back home, that we are
united, we are resolved, and we will seek justice to be done, swift and
sure.
I ask for your prayers for all the victims and their families and
offer my deepest condolences to the families and appreciation for the
many prayers that have been offered and the help that has already
flowed so richly to those who need it.
I finally note, in the weeks and months ensuing, we will be a changed
nation. There are many things with which we will need to deal. We will
need to deal with this battle, this war that we are in with terrorism,
and we are going to have to fight it much more aggressively. It is an
insidious conflict. We are going to have to get at it at its roots
around the world, and we are going to need much help from many
corridors. We will seek that, and we will fight and win this battle
even though it is different from any other we have fought. We will pull
together as a nation and do it. This will not be a Republican or a
Democrat issue; this will be an American issue, as wars have been in
the past, and we will wage it successfully.
I pray we will continue and we will grow from this experience. May
God keep the souls of those who have lost their lives. May God save
those who at this hour await rescue. May God lift the weighted hearts
of the families of the missing and the dead. May God preserve all those
who love freedom in this world. May God bless the United States of
America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.
Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, not since December 7, 1941, has the
United States suffered such a damaging blow on our own soil as the
cowardly and hateful terrorist attack our Nation sustained on what will
become, I am certain, a new day of infamy: September 11, 2001.
While our enemy may not be another nation in the traditional sense,
the strike against America was, in fact, an act of war. Our Nation now
needs to demonstrate the same kind of moral clarity and courage that
characterized the World War II generation. Three immediate steps need
to be taken.
First, of course, is that our Nation extends its prayers and its
assistance to the victims of this monstrous and shameful attack. I am
proud that South Dakotans have overwhelmingly responded with offers of
blood and other assistance.
While our Dakota homes may not often be at direct risk from attacks
of this nature, we fully understand the strike against New York and
Washington was a strike against all Americans, wherever we might live.
The numbers are staggering, but we recognize in those numbers are
real lives and real people, real children who have lost their parents,
real parents who have lost their children. The people of South Dakota
are grateful to the heroes who did so much to save so many, many of
whom gave their own lives in the course of that effort. We share the
sorrow of the rest of the Nation for those lives that were lost, those
families who have forever been devastated by this hateful and shameful
attack.
Second, we recognize we must respond in a spirit not of revenge but
of justice. Our enemies, however, must understand that justice can be
severe indeed. We must make careful but swift determinations about the
guilt of our enemy and make it very clear we will not distinguish
between terrorists and those who attempt to provide a safe harbor for
terrorists.
Anything short of the capture and punishment of these people will
only serve to encourage more terrorism against the United States and
against all other liberty-loving nations throughout the world.
Third, the United States, in conjunction with its democratic allies
all over the world, needs to make substantial improvements in our
antiterrorist strategies. That means far better intelligence gathering
and infiltration of terrorist cells so that plans for violence against
innocent people, wherever they may be, can be intercepted before they
are carried out. It means far better air transportation security
efforts than anything, frankly, that has yet been developed.
As a new member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I vow I will
do all I can to work with this administration to make certain that
adequate financial resources are made available for all of these
efforts.
Make no mistake, the recent attack against the United States of
America was intended as an attack against the principles of democracy,
of personal liberty, and of religious tolerance. Our security is at
stake, but even more importantly our fundamental values are under
siege.
American citizens, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, have denounced this
terrible violence. It is important we condemn the guilty but recognize
that our American principles, the principles of our Constitution, keep
us from unfairly stereotyping any ethnic or religious group. We need
now, more than ever, to remain united as Americans, to put aside
partisan politics, in this new war against the evil forces of hatred,
intolerance, and barbarism.
God bless our Nation, and on this very difficult day, God bless the
families who have lost so much. God bless our effort for renewed vigor
in maintaining the principles of our democracy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I have heard so many sincere speeches by
Members of the House and Members of the Senate, and I have heard a lot
of redundancy. We certainly have the resolve to do all we can to go
after those who were responsible.
The one question I have heard over and over again is: Did we receive
a warning? Were we warned this was going to happen? I look at this in a
little different context in that this should serve as a warning to us.
It is time to get something on the record in the Senate as to what this
means and what it really could mean in the future.
Ironically, at the time this happened I was on the ninth floor of the
Hart Building in the Nation's Capitol complex, and I was looking out
the window as I was speaking to a group. The last phrase of my speech
was the same as it has been since 1995, and that is: We in the United
States are in the most vulnerable and threatened position now as a
nation than we have ever been in this Nation's history. As I said that,
it happened to be right at 9:30 and I saw this billowing smoke come up
from the area of the Pentagon, to find out later the tragedy really
took place.
We are vulnerable, and we are vulnerable in three areas, certainly in
conventional forces being one-half the force strength we were in 1991.
We have to understand this; the American people have to understand
this: We deployed our very rare resources to places where we should
never have sent an American, such as Bosnia or such as Kosovo.
More than any other reason our vulnerability is that we had the
opportunity to have a missile defense system in place by fiscal year
1998, and I say this criticizing the previous administration because
they did not realize the threat was out there, the threat was real. We
have veto messages from President Clinton that said: I will veto any
bill that has money in it for a national missile defense system because
the threat is not there. In fact, a threat is there. So in looking back
at what
[[Page S9320]]
happened yesterday, I think we should have that as a warning to us of
what could be even more devastating than what we witnessed yesterday.
I mention what I consider to be six incontrovertible facts. First of
all, we are facing enemies who have the weapons and the skills and the
mentality to strike without warning. We know that.
No. 2, they are willing and able to target innocent civilians within
our borders.
No. 3, virtually all countries have weapons of mass destruction
today, biological or chemical or nuclear.
No. 4, at least three countries--I say at least because we know North
Korea, Russia, and China have ICBMs that will reach the United States
from anyplace in the world but we do not know for sure that they are
the only three countries because we do know China has been trading
systems and technology with countries such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria,
and Pakistan. So we do not really know how many there are, but we know
at least they exist out there.
No. 5, we have absolutely no defense. I hope Americans understand
that if a missile came over from anyplace in the world, we would be
totally naked. We have no defense against an incoming ICBM.
No. 6, the will is out there. No one can question that the will is
there. We can remember even China saying back during the Taiwan Straits
demonstration: We are not concerned about America coming to the aid of
Taipei because they would rather defend Los Angeles than Taipei. Then
we remember what Saddam Hussein said in 1991: If we had waited just 10
years to go into Kuwait, the Americans would not have come because we
would have had the ability to launch a missile. And here it is, 10
years later.
I hope no one has any doubt, there should not be one Member of the
Senate that has any doubt--of the fact that if someone is willing to
drive an airplane into those towers, they would deploy a missile to the
United States of America.
I, like everybody else, watched TV. I watched that skyline and the
devastation in New York. I saw the skyline of New York City and the two
towers imploding. If that weapon had been, instead of an airplane, a
nuclear warhead, we would be looking at a cinder. It would not be
10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 people who lost their lives; it would be
everybody in that area. We would be talking millions. It is a very real
threat. The ultimate weapon of a terrorist is a missile with a nuclear
warhead. We now know that. We have been warned.
We should make our No. 1 priority not just to go to our intelligence
system and our conventional forces but to immediately get busy on being
able to deploy a system at least to defend America against a limited
missile attack. This should be our No. 1 priority. We are now warned.
The ultimate weapon of a terrorist could become a reality very soon.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, no words can ever convey our regrets, our
sadness, our shock, our loss from the great tragedy of September 11,
2001. The newness of the century, of a millennium, has been tarnished
forever by the blood of innocent victims shed by anonymous assassins,
terrorists whose only motivation is an evil hatred.
All our prayers are with the victims and their families and friends.
When the final list of casualties is known, I am certain that every
state, and perhaps every nation in the world, will have been touched by
this calamity. Our prayers will be with them forever. We will remember
each and everyone as long as we live and then our descendants will
remember them too. It will be their memories that guide us in the
difficult days ahead.
Their deaths have reminded us of our common humanity, that what we
share is greater than what separates us, and that the fabric of beliefs
which makes us Americans is strong enough to resist any cowardly act by
terrorists. Where one American falls, another will stand. Each of us
shine as a beacon of our shared beliefs in freedom, liberty and
justice. In the dawn after this dark day we will all shine. Those who
expect us to be weakened will be sadly mistaken.
Those who think Americans are soft and fearful will be astonished by
our strength and determination. I was a young man when Pearl Harbor was
attacked. I witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese torpedo
and bomber planes from my dormitory in the hills above Pearl Harbor.
Then we knew our enemy and he thought our will could be shattered by
one frightful day of disaster. Instead our enemies in Europe and the
Pacific learned that where we had been broken, we healed and became
stronger.
Today we begin to become stronger. We begin by mourning our dead
brothers and sisters. We begin by comforting the survivors. And as we
pick up the bricks and the steel and sweep away the glass and dust, we
begin to identify our enemies and design the strategy for defeating
them.
There will be no place that our enemies can hide, no sanctuary for
them to cower in. We will seek them out and justice will be done. It
will be a long process but it will be thorough. We have come brutally
to understand that terrorism is an evil beyond our borders that still
threatens our homeland. We have come to understand that our enemies
want to extinguish the light of freedom which shines from America. We
have come to understand that the only way to resist the darkness of
hatred is to spread that beacon of light even farther from our shores.
From this battle we hope will come not just a stronger, safer America,
but a better, more secure, freer world.
May God bless America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, yesterday, terrorists attacked the temple
of American capitalism and the center of American democracy. With all
of their terrible sophistication, they naively have seemed to believe,
by destroying buildings and killing our people, that they can kill an
idea. Capitalism and democracy are the most powerful ideas in the
world. They are the crowning achievement of mankind on this Earth and
they are not going to be destroyed by terrorists.
Our task today is to find out with certainty who did these terrible
deeds, and then it is our obligation to make war on them. I am not
talking about criminal justice. We are not going to be reading anybody
their rights. No one is covered by Miranda. Any country, any city, any
region, and any person who makes common cause with those who make war
against America is making war against America, and the wages of sin is
death. I believe these people have a hate that we cannot comprehend or
understand. We are only going to be safe when these people are captured
or killed.
We are hearing a lot of talk today about what we can do to be safer.
I want to be safe. But let me make it clear: I don't want to change our
way of life. I want to change their way of life. If we start infringing
on our own freedom, if we start limiting our own freedom to move about
our country and engage in our business and live our lives, then we are
giving up what this war is about. We want to change their lives. We
want to hunt them down in any dark corner, in any hiding place on this
Earth.
We want to be relentless, and we don't want to be constrained.
I believe it is important that the people who did this terrible thing
pay for it. I think if they pay for it, then we can make the world
safer.
Finally, let me say that any American who watched the bravery of
ordinary citizens in New York and in Washington, who watched police
officers and firemen risk their lives, had to be proud of what
Americans did yesterday. I have never been more proud to be a citizen
of America than I was yesterday--ordinary people doing extraordinary
things under terrible circumstances.
I know when we start getting the names of people, especially in New
York and here at the Pentagon, who were killed, there are going to be
many people on that list who we know. I knew Barbara Olson who was
killed on the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon. She was a
staffer here--a dedicated, brilliant woman. She called her husband, Ted
Olson, our Solicitor General, and even facing death was talking about
what she could do to try to resist. I am not surprised that she was
brave because I knew her. My heart goes out to her and to everyone else
who suffered.
[[Page S9321]]
We cannot tolerate this act. We cannot simply go through the motions.
We have to hunt these people down and kill them. They deserve it. They
made war against America.
I want people to stop talking about bringing them to justice. This is
not about justice. This is about war. These people brought war to the
mainland of America and killed thousands of our citizens. They have no
rights. I think we have to hunt them down wherever they are and use
whatever power we have in order to see that they don't do this again,
and that no one else ever has the courage to do it again.
Thank you, Madam President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. MILLER. Madam President, I am pleased to have been on the floor
to hear that speech from the senior Senator from Texas. The Senator is
a great patriot, and his forthrightness is going to be missed.
The victims and the loved ones of this horrible act of war should be
in our prayers. The perpetrators and those who give them shelter should
be in our bombsights.
After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese remarked that the ``sleeping giant
has been awakened.'' I pray that ``the sleeping giant'' has again been
awakened, and that we are ready to change the way we do things.
For too long, after terrorist attacks have happened, it seems
America's first and foremost interest has been to please our friends,
and then, if permitted, punish our enemies.
After yesterday and from here on out, that must be reversed.
America's first and foremost interest must be to punish our enemies,
and then, if possible, please our friends.
Our response should not only be swift but it must be sustained. As I
said yesterday, our will as a country has been tested. Too often in the
past terrorist attacks have not been answered as forcefully as they
should have been. Oh, yes, there has been indignation, even outrage.
There has been wringing of hands and sad talk. We have shaken our
collective heads in dismay, sighed over our cocktails, then have gone
home, had a nice dinner and got into a comfortable bed, feeling safe
and secure that it is not going to happen here, that it is not going to
happen to us.
Well, it has happened to us. It has happened here. Our world has been
turned upside down. It will never be the same again, and it shouldn't.
We must strike the viper's nest--even if the viper is not there. We
know that the Taliban and the Government of Afghanistan have nurtured
Osama bin Laden for years. The diabolical plot was probably hatched
there. Certainly similar plots have been. And it is time for us to
respond.
I say, bomb the hell out of them. If there is collateral damage, so
be it. They certainly found our American civilians to be expendable.
I also believe that we could immediately turn our attention to the
security of our airlines. There is a large pool of willing ex-military
personnel out there who possess the rudimentary skills to be effective,
temporary air marshals if given a crash training course on the basic
requirements of that job. Another option may be to have active duty
military personnel do that job.
We should also install ``communications hardware'' aboard each
aircraft that would let pilots make emergency transmissions to air
traffic controllers. With today's ``star wars'' capability, I believe
it is possible to outfit each aircraft with an emergency transponder
combined with an ``open mike'' type system that would be strictly for
one-way communication from aircraft to air traffic control. The pilot
or crew members could push a button, much similar to a silent bank
alarm, that would instantly alert authorities. It could also serve as a
hidden microphone in the cockpit or in the passenger cabins.
Those are some of my thoughts today for whatever they are worth at
this terrible time.
To paraphrase President Roosevelt, this Nation will endure as it has
endured, but we must change the way we do business drastically.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I am honored to have the opportunity
to say a few words today after the most terrible tragedy that we
suffered yesterday. It was a dastardly attack on our Nation that has
occasioned the greatest loss of life domestically I suppose in our
Nation's history--men, women, and children, police, firemen, soldiers,
and all of the families and friends will be with us on this Earth no
more. Our hearts go out to those who suffered pain and injury. Our
hearts go out to the families and friends who are grieving tonight. All
over America, this great Nation hurts.
My own church, just for example, the Ashland Place United Methodist
Church, had a time of prayer yesterday for our families, our Nation,
and its leaders. That is happening all over this country. As President
Bush said, prayer is an important factor in providing this Nation
strength.
We must ask ourselves: Now what can we do? What are our
possibilities?
I believe we can do a better job of preventing these events. Our
techniques work for some time, but after a period of time people learn
how to get around them. We can improve that. We can do a very good job
of identifying the people who commit these crimes.
Second, in almost every single terrorist act that has involved the
United States, this Nation has been able to identify the people who
were behind it.
Third, we can take steps at which we have not been so successful;
that is, taking action against the people who perpetrate these horrible
acts.
We have been, to some degree I think, handicapped by seeing these
events in terms of our criminal justice system. As a Federal
prosecutor, I know about the difficulties that have to be overcome to
prosecute a person and convict them beyond a reasonable doubt. You
don't have that burden when you are in war. We are in war today, or at
least much closer to war than we are to a criminal justice case.
Thinking in terms of war will give us more freedom, once we identify
who the people are, to act effectively against them. Locating them,
however, is a difficult problem. We can identify them, but where are
they at a given time?
I believe it was Branch Rickey who said: Luck is merely the residue
of design. As a prosecutor, I know in investigating cases you have to
have some luck, but you won't have luck if you are not out there
working. You will not have the break in the case that identifies where
these people are until and unless you are out there shaking that tree,
doing everything possible throughout this world to identify where they
are. Then you make your luck.
So that is what we have to do with regard to locating these people.
And make no mistake, I am absolutely confident that, if we remain
steadfast and determined, we will locate these people. Then we have to
develop a plan to apprehend or destroy them. We have to trace them back
to their lairs and make sure they are no longer capable of inflicting
this kind of death and destruction on this Nation or the world.
The Romans, a number of years ago, in the Mithridatic wars faced this
problem. The pirates had grown in strength. They were all over the
Mediterranean. There were tens of thousands of them. Shipping was
threatened very seriously. They had to face a decision; and they made
that decision. According to ``Appian's Roman History'' this is what
happened:
When the Romans could no longer endure the damage and
disgrace they made Gnaeus Pompey, who was then their man of
greatest reputation, commander by law for three years, with
absolute power over the whole sea within the Pillars of
Hercules, and of the land for a distance of 400 stades from
the coast. They sent letters to all kings, rulers, peoples
and cities, that they should aid Pompey in all ways. They
gave him power to raise troops and to collect money from the
provinces. . . .
And they raised an army. And they developed a plan. They set about to
execute that plan, and it was a brilliant plan. They killed 10,000 of
the pirates, and the rest surrendered. It was the end, and it broke the
back of this kind of activity.
We have a similar time today. We simply have to be determined. We
have to remember the friends that have been lost. And I, too, as
Senator Gramm, remember, with so much sadness, Barbara Olson, such a
wonderful, vivacious person who loved life and gave herself to it. It
is just a tragedy that she will
[[Page S9322]]
not be with us, one who worked in this Senate as a staffer. So all of
us have those whom we have lost.
In conclusion, every single person, every group, every organization,
every nation must know that if they perpetrate an attack on the United
States, or they support those who attack the United States, they will
pay a cost far more than their gain. Those individuals and groups must
be hounded to their lairs and destroyed. We simply cannot tolerate this
kind of activity in the future. Only in this way can we ensure that the
lives lost yesterday will be given their full meaning. And only in this
way can we prevent further attacks on this Nation. Because to fail to
act effectively we will everywhere encourage more groups to attack this
great Nation. And a great nation never encourages attacks upon itself
but discourages attacks upon itself.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. Our Nation will, I am confident,
fulfill its role as the greatest nation in the world, defend its people
and its territory, and bring justice to those who have damaged us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. For the information of Members, we have a prayer service
tonight, as has been previously announced. It starts at 7:30. We are
going to have to end business today at about 7:15 so Senators have an
opportunity to gather here to move over there.
I see Senator Hatch and Senator Breaux are here. I hope we will
understand that at 7:15 we are going to end the proceedings for
tonight. There appears to be enough time for everybody if they stick to
the 5 minutes. There will be some time perhaps tomorrow. The leaders
are talking about that now. Maybe in the morning, before we go to the
appropriations bill, we could do that. Perhaps we might not, but that
announcement will be made later.
If everyone would do what they could to expedite matters, we will
have another announcement later.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Madam President, we have suffered an egregious loss. We
mourn for those who have perished. We pray for those who suffer. We are
inspired by the courage and heroism of the people of New York,
particularly the brave firefighters and police officers. We are
inspired by the fidelity to duty of our men and women in uniform at the
Pentagon and around the world.
Ages ago, the Greek historian Thucydides reminded us:
[T]he bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet
notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
Yesterday we saw the bravest: firefighters and police officers who
rushed into a burning and collapsing skyscraper, a chief of the New
York City fire department, a deputy chief, and department chaplain who
stayed at their posts as the building collapsed around them; soldiers,
sailors, airmen, airwomen at the Pentagon who struggled through
wreckage to take out survivors, and returned today to work at their
posts; office workers in New York who carried fellow workers down 60
flights of stairs to safety.
Their bravery and their courage is an inspiration to all of us. And
we are profoundly angered by those terrorists who have struck this
devious, horrific blow against us all.
The emotions of yesterday and today must and will coalesce into a
steely resolve to mete out justice to the terrorists, to those who
harbor them, to those who train them, and to those who encourage them.
We must work with our allies to destroy the network of terrorism that
is committed to imposing its fanatical and suicidal pathology on free
men and women everywhere.
Yesterday we lost what little innocence that remained in our view of
the world. We have been bloodied. But we retain a common and constant
faith that free men and women, committed to individual progress, and
mindful of the dignity of all men and women, will prevail over the
fanatic dedicated to destruction and darkness.
Archibald MacLeish, the American poet, gave voice to many of the
emotions we feel when he spoke of those who fell in battle:
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not
heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when
the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished
it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no
one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will
mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and
a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who
must say this.
They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We will rebuild New York and the Pentagon. And although we can never
replace the lives that were lost, we will give them their meaning. Let
our foes everywhere know that our words are more than a lamentation;
they are a call to action and a promise of swift and certain justice.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, yesterday was one of the bloodiest days in
American peacetime history. When suicide terrorists attacked New York
and Washington, DC, they attacked our whole country.
The horror we witnessed yesterday when we saw New York's proud
skyline shattered will be with us forever. Few Americans will remain
untouched by the mass graves of our citizens that we will now have in
downtown New York, in the Pennsylvania countryside, and, of course, at
our Pentagon.
These terrorists killed innocent Americans from every part of our
country. We were so saddened to learn that Mary Alice Wahlstrom and her
daughter, Carolyn Beug, of Kaysville, UT, were struck down by this
senseless violence.
Mary Alice's husband of 52 years, Norman, described Mary Alice as the
``happiest lady you'll meet.'' As one of the ``kids,'' she joined with
her only daughter to help her twin 18-year old granddaughters settle in
at art school on the East Coast. In this time of grief, we join Norman,
her four sons, and eighteen grandchildren in hoping that our love and
faith will continue to sustain each of us during this tragedy.
We also were devastated to hear of the loss of Barbara Olson, who
perished on the plane hijacked to the Pentagon. Barbara was one of the
bright lights among conservative commentators and legal experts, and
her passing will most certainly leave a void not easily filled. My
deepest condolences go to her husband, Ted, our Solicitor General, at
this terrible, terrible time. I called him yesterday. He was
devastated. This is a terrible time for him and all of us.
Many of us were equally grief-struck to learn that Lisa Raines, was
on board American Airlines Flight 77. Lisa, although only 42, was a
senior officer of Genzyme Corporation. In Congress, we recognized Lisa
for her incredible talent, intelligence, integrity and energy. She was
seen a key leader in the biotechnology industry and one of the most
effective biotechnology leaders with whom I have worked. My staff and I
will miss her terribly. We share in her family's sorrow and extend our
prayers and deepest sympathy to Lisa's husband, Steve Push.
The grief all Americans feel today is barely speakable. I, for one,
cannot express in words the sorrow I feel for the thousands of families
profoundly shattered by the acts of war perpetrated against us
yesterday by the cowards. I commend my colleagues who have spoken so
eloquently at such a great moment of national tragedy.
As many of my colleagues have noted, our grief is leavened by the
countless stories of sacrifice and heroism. News reports yesterday from
New York said that approximately 50 percent of New York's first
responders to the attacks on the Twin Towers are missing. These were
the policemen, firemen and emergency personnel who rushed to the
buildings and entered them in a race against collapse--a race that they
lost. I hope that every American who sees a fireman or a policeman
today thinks of the sacrifice that these everyday individuals are
prepared to make for the good of our society, for the good of ourselves
every day.
There is no calamity America will withstand that will not be met
with,
[[Page S9323]]
and overwhelmed by, the decency, courage and selflessness of Americans
coming to the aid of their own. It will be years before we can collect
all of these stories and I expect, we never will, because it is
impossible to measure the courage and bravery of Americans. As John
says in the Bible, ``Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay
down his life for his friends.''
I also commend my colleagues for their unanimous support for the
administration of President George W. Bush. Americans are not partisan
when we are to face a common foe, nor are their representatives.
We will face this foe together, and together we will prevail.
At this moment, we do not know definitely or definitively who is the
perpetrator of this calculated, coordinated and devastating attack on
American's citizens, symbols, economy and government. And it is up for
the administration to determine when they want to announce the
perpetrator. I suspect that when that announcement comes, our
retaliation will already be underway. The administration knows that
they have the complete, unwavering support of this Senator, as the
resolution we passed this afternoon will record the support of this
body for the administration as it prepares its response to this act of
war.
President Bush was absolutely correct last night when he said that we
would make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these
attacks and the countries that harbor them.
We have reached the end of ambivalence when it comes to dealing with
terrorism.
And while we may have a difficult battle before us, the United States
will prevail, and the world of freedom-loving people will benefit.
My colleagues know that I have focused a great deal of time on the
Osama bin Laden through the years, who is widely believed to be the
major perpetrator of this attack. While the United States government
has made no official determination over the mastermind behind
yesterday's barbarisms, we have previously determined that bin Laden is
an armed and active threat against this country and its interests--and
he has been for over a decade.
We will have plenty of time to discuss policy in the coming days and
weeks, but I say today that the threat of Osama bin Laden and his
cohorts must be eliminated. And his protectors--the Taliban regime of
Afghanistan, which has become a front for the violent, anti-American
internationalist jihad movement that the vast majority of the Afghan
people reject--must be removed from power. The government of Pakistan,
a country with whom we have had many constructive relations in the
past, must fully cooperate with us on these goals from this day on.
I am very grateful for the expressions of support we have heard from
around the world. But I am extremely troubled by the reports I have
read and watched of some communities celebrating this attack against
the U.S. The United States was attacked yesterday and thousands of our
citizens perished. Now is the time that we note where the rest of the
world stands, and I assure you that I will forever appreciate all of
the support we receive from our allies and friends around the world--as
I believe American policymakers must take note of all of those who
offer rhetorical or other support for the attackers on America.
The U.S. Congress will, I know, provide all of the support and
resources the administration needs to respond to this act of war, so
that we can pursue the perpetrators, eliminate them where we need to
and bring them to justice where we can.
I commend my colleagues for this resolution. Elaine and I offer our
prayers for the victims and their families, as well as the thousands of
brave rescue workers, including Utah's Urban Search and Rescue team.
The team consists of fire department personnel from Salt Lake City and
County. Our prayers go to the members of our armed forces--the greatest
defenders of freedom a nation has ever known. And our prayers go to
President Bush and his administration, who are dedicated to peace and
must now respond to war.
May God bless America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mrs. CARNAHAN. Madam President, today--all across America and the
world--hearts are heavy with grief.
We mourn for the victims and families whose lives have been ripped
apart by yesterday's horrific and unprecedented attack on innocent men,
women and children.
Like all Missourians, I am deeply grateful to the rescue workers and
volunteers whose heroism saved thousands of lives.
Tragically, many of those heroes are now among the victims.
Their sacrificial deeds stand in sharp contrast to the barbaric acts
we witnessed during yesterday's air attacks on peaceful people.
The terrorists wanted to do more than destroy our buildings. They
wanted to destroy our influence in the world, the core of who we are as
a people, and the beliefs we stand for as a democracy.
They will not succeed.
I can remember as a young girl the shock and sadness we felt with the
sneak attack on Peal Harbor.
But I also recall the undaunted spirit of America and our resolve to
win a victory over tyranny.
We dropped everything we were doing and devoted our full energy and
resources to eradicating the threat to our freedoms.
That resolve is as firm today as it ever was.
The pursuit of freedom is our destiny as a people.
We will not now, or ever, flinch in the face of any aggressor or
threat to our homeland.
Let those who practice terrorism or harbor terrorists have no doubt
about America's resolve. There is no hiding place.
We will find you.
And you will pay a heavy price for your acts against mankind.
We have withstood worse enemies than you.
We conquered the evil of fascism in Europe and Asia, we rescued
democracy, and we built a better world.
We defied communism for decades powered by the certainty that freedom
would ultimately triumph over oppression.
Tyrants will not take these gains from us.
Admittedly, today's foes are different.
They are faceless fanatics with no clear address or even purpose.
They target innocent people, sitting in offices and airplanes.
But they are sophisticated and well-funded.
Their days are numbered. We will stand united against their
aggression, and we will do so in a manner that is consistent with the
Constitution that is the foundation of our greatness.
During this time of national tragedy, we stand behind our President
and our national leaders.
We will make the necessary sacrifices, direct the necessary
resources, and use American might, technology, and ingenuity to secure
our homeland.
But most of all, we will rely on America's courage and faith, knowing
that our country has been a source of progress for humankind for over
two centuries; knowing that peace-loving people around the world will
join with us to eliminate this evil that plagues us all.
To the families who grieve and the victims who suffer, I say we mourn
with you this day.
But there will be a dawn tomorrow and many tomorrows after that.
There will be many dawns for America.
We will prove again what the poet Carl Sandburg once said: ``We are
Americans. Nothing like us ever was.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I join my colleagues in support of
today's resolution condemning those who perpetrated these barbaric and
godless acts against our country. Our hearts ache for those who have
lost loved ones even as our minds struggle just to comprehend this
unspeakable horror.
The scope of these evil acts is breathtaking. The economic losses are
staggering, but they pale in comparison to the loss of life that
touches so many. The greatest and most immediate losses, of course,
have been suffered by the tens of thousands of Americans who have lost
family members, who have lost loved ones. Those are wounds that time
will never heal.
[[Page S9324]]
As a nation, we have not faced a sterner test in modern times. So I
want to say to those responsible: Do not doubt our resolve. We will not
stop until we find you and destroy you.
Our country is united. I have never before seen the unity that is
everywhere in this country. In Tennessee, all across the country,
Americans are joined together in their commitment to the destruction of
this evil. We invite freedom-loving people from around the world to
join our cause. The American spirit is alive. Americans are also united
in our desire and willingness to help. Blood banks are overwhelmed with
donors. Special response teams from around the country are organizing
to help. A medical group just arrived from Tennessee to assist at the
Pentagon.
In the coming days, those of us in Government will be making
decisions intended to help restore the protections and the peace of
mind that all too often we take for granted.
This is no simple task, and I realize that America will never be the
same after the events of September 11. As an open society with enormous
respect for civil liberties, we are vulnerable to those who would
target innocent civilians. Airplanes used as flying bombs have joined
other terrorist weapons from which we have been working hard to protect
ourselves.
Devastating as yesterday's damage is, we are forever exposed to huge
risks from biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. All Americans
should know that we are rededicating our efforts to better protect
ourselves from all of these risks, even as we strive to maintain the
freedoms that we all hold so dear.
President Bush will take the lead, and we in Congress will work
closely together with him in the search for answers. Pray for us as we
go about our work. But take comfort in knowing that even though our
challenges are great, our commitment is greater. As the President said
just this morning, this is a monumental struggle between good and evil,
and good will prevail--the good of the American people and civilized
people everywhere.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Miller). I recognize the Senator from
Louisiana.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, for so many Americans the day began with a
bright, sunny morning, with beautiful, clear skies. It ended with
darkness and a profound sense of vulnerability and a profound sense of
anger of all Americans. It will certainly be a day that we as Americans
should, and I argue will, never forget. Our greatest sympathies go out
to those who have suffered the greatest of losses, the death of members
of their families, their loved ones. Especially our thoughts today are
with those people from the New York area and also for the people from
the greater Washington area who are most directly touched by this
travesty.
Indeed, all of us have been touched in our own ways by what happened
yesterday. My own office has been working with a Louisiana constituent
who is trying to find out the status of her husband who was attending a
meeting yesterday at the World Trade Center. She talked with him after
the first plane struck the first tower, but she has not been able to
hear from him ever since.
Mr. President, the American people want and expect us to act. They
expect us to act quickly, they expect us to act decisively, and they
expect us to act with great determination so that this will never
happen to us again. President Bush and his team have given us their
assurances, and all of us pray for his leadership and pledge our
strong, bipartisan cooperation and support in his efforts.
We must all act as one. We must all act as one Nation and we must all
speak with one voice. Let us at the same time all be mindful of some
points that I think need to be remembered. First, these perpetrators
are not American citizens. They are not entitled to the protection of
the U.S. Constitution. They are not entitled to a presumption of
innocence. They are not entitled to a trial by jury of their peers, and
they are not entitled to the services of a free attorney. They have
themselves, in fact, chosen the field on which they will be judged, and
the field that they have selected is clearly the battlefield and not a
courtroom.
I urge our Government to proceed carefully but also to proceed not as
if we were preparing for an indictment to be followed by a trial in
which we must prove our case beyond the shadow of a doubt. What they
did to us was to physically invade our country and slaughter innocent
people in the process. What they did was to declare war on the United
States of America and the people of our country.
We must respond in kind. Our military must be fully utilized. The
world is watching our Nation and what we do should be remembered for
longer than what they did. After they are removed as a cancer in this
world, we must also address our own internal security. People in our
country must know that they can fly without fear, that we can gather in
large numbers and celebrate and be entertained without worry, and that
our loved ones can live in a country in which we are all safe and also
secure.
That is our goal. That is our challenge. We will meet that challenge.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, this has been quite a day for
all of us. I have the very sad duty in the State of Florida to call the
loved ones of a number of people who were on the respective flights.
Indeed, I have the sad duty that I will be calling the widower and the
daughter of a mother from Boston, who also lived in Miami, who was on
the flight from Boston to Los Angeles. And it just brings all the more
home the poignant tragedy for all of us and for this Nation.
Mr. President, we need to go get the perpetrators. The resolve of
this Nation and of this Congress is clearly there. We need to find
these people. We need to hunt them down and we need to let the message
go forth that no terrorist act such as this will ever be tolerated in
this country again. That goes for the terrorists and that goes for the
people who are harboring the terrorists.
We have experienced all too personally a new kind of warfare, and in
the process of us exacting this justice--I say justice; I did not say
revenge--we will protect the constitutional rights of all people; we
will respect them.
It is important for people in this country to rise above ethnic or
religious prejudice because we are a nation of all peoples and all
faiths. But we are going to get the perpetrators in the cross hairs of
the bull's eye, and we are going after them.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from
Maryland.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, we have all experienced a daunting
national tragedy. It touches every single one of us. As Americans, we
stand united behind our President, speaking with one voice as we move
forward in the wake of this tragedy, and move forward as a nation we
will.
This is the time to bring to bear all of our country's formidable
resources of heart and mind. We must reach out to those families who
have suffered grievous loss and to the communities torn apart by this
savage act.
The challenge we now face will not be surmounted overnight. We must
seek out the facts which will be the basis for our response. We must
have a binding determination, a steely resolve to see that those
responsible for these heinous acts will be held accountable.
We should not fool ourselves that we will find a quick or simple
answer, but we will persevere, and we will work in concert with
democratic forces the world over to see that this terrible scourge,
which has just had such devastating consequences, is eliminated
altogether.
I thank and praise the heroic efforts, the courage, and the sacrifice
of our police, our firefighters, our emergency medical service
personnel--all of the rescue workers who have been involved in
addressing this tragic situation in New York, in Pennsylvania, and here
in Washington.
In fact, numerous firefighters and emergency medical service
personnel from my own State have responded to the attack upon the
Pentagon, and my thanks go out to all of them for their prompt efforts.
This morning, the Baltimore Sun ran a very strong editorial entitled
``Answer Terror with Resolution.''
Answer terror with resolution. It went on in the course of that
editorial to say:
[[Page S9325]]
The Nation needs unity, clarity, purpose . . .
Courage and steadfastness of an unremarkable, everyday
persevering kind, are required. A well-directed and effective
response from government is required. Resolve is required to
continue on our path to do what is right. These are the ways
the terrorists lose.
We are resolved and determined that they shall lose.
I ask unanimous consent that the full editorial from this morning's
Baltimore Sun be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From The Sun, Sept. 12, 2001]
Answer Terror With Resolution
Attacks on u.s.: nation needs unity, clarity, purpose to thwart
terrorists' objectives.
The American people will rise to the challenge of the most
depraved terrorist atrocity in history. We were all attacked.
We are all in it together, sharing shock, fear and grief.
Acts of heroism and altruism amid the carnage in New York
and Washington were too many to be noticed, honored and
rewarded.
The nation's heart goes out to the victims, the pawns, the
innocent chosen at random and their loved ones.
Terrorism is war. It is also publicity stunt. Its purpose
is to be noticed, to spread fear, to undermine confidence and
to provoke the wrong responses so as to alienate more people.
Terrorism has little function if the cause is not known.
Usually the perpetrators seek recognition, as well.
This plot showed extreme sophistication in coordinating
four plane hijackings, apparently inserting suicide pilots,
and going for targets that could be hit with weapons that
were not the ones against which the United States was
conspicuously guarding.
All that suggests a large and well-funded operation, not a
lone wolf. A great deal of thought went into the terrorism. A
great deal of cool rational thought should go into the
responses.
A civil and open society is vulnerable. But this attack
brought the nation and much of the world's business to a
standstill. Clearly, airport security for all its nuisance to
passengers is not as good as U.S. experts thought, and the
terrorists must have experimented and known how to
penetrate it.
The president has vowed to find and punish the terrorists,
as indeed he should. Virtually all Americans must want that.
In this kind of war, it is important to get the identifies
right. To hit the wrong ones, to make people suffer who did
not do it or even help those who did, only archieves what the
terrorists want.
Most suspicion points to Osama bin Laden and the network of
affinity groups linked to him. The Saudi-born, Yemenite-
descended exile in Afghanistan has orchestrated a great deal
of terrorism, including the bombings of the New York World
Trade Center in 1993, of two U.S. embassies in Africa in
1998, for which he has been indicted, and of the USS Cole in
port in Yemen last October.
Vows to get bin Laden have only fueled his mystique. Yet
knee-jerk assumptions he was behind the 1995 Oklahoma City
bombing were made foolish by the home-grown terrorist Timothy
McVeigh.
Attacks at wrong targets would only help him. The notion of
a war between Islam and the United States of America is his.
The United States has no quarrel with Islam. Most of the
world's Muslims have no quarrel with the United States.
The attacks produced all sorts of precautions across
Maryland and the nation. A review must examine which were
sensible and which were not. Certainly transportation was
needed to get school children and commuters home, whether
from Washington or the Baltimore suburbs.
Panic, chaos, confusion and unnecessary shutdown all reward
the terrorist.
Terrorism must be fought with steely resolve, but also with
common sense and precision.
The United States is supposed to be the only superpower, in
an era of peace. Clearly the very good things about American
society make it vulnerable. But we are not the first people
to endure terrorism.
Now Americans understand better what Israelis have been
living through, what British people lived through before the
IRA cease-fire, what ordinary law-abiding Colombians are
living through from FARC.
Life, the nation's business and civil society go on.
Otherwise, the terrorists win.
The policies of the nation, including the search for a just
peace in the Middle East, go on. Otherwise, the terrorists
win.
Courage and steadfastness, of an unremarkable, everyday
persevering kind, are required. A well-directed and effective
response from government is required: Resolve is required to
continue on our path, to do what is right. These are the ways
the terrorists lose.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, Yesterday's horrific and tragic events
were much more than a carefully planned terrorist attack against the
United States. The slaughter of innocent civilians, the total
destruction of the World Trade Center, and the significant damage to
the Pentagon by hijacked commercial airplanes were a brutal and
outright assault on America, and all humanity.
Make no mistake, our country is at war, and this Congress should
consider a formal declaration. The world must understand that America
will respond with the overwhelming force and conviction that her
citizens demand and expect. Let me be clear: America will identify
those responsible for yesterday's violence, and they will be destroyed.
There shall be no mercy.
America is at war against fanatics who appear threatened by our
freedoms, prosperity, and respect for the rule of law. In the past,
this war was undeclared, but undeniable. The American lives lost in the
1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the terrorist attacks against
U.S. facilities in Kenya and Tanzania, and the more recent assault
against the U.S.S. Cole serve as concrete evidence of the ongoing and
escalating battle.
As we sift through the rubble of buildings and comfort those whose
lives have been shattered, America stands as a strong and united
Nation. The shocking events of yesterday did not weaken or undermine
the foundations of our democracy, foundations that were forged over two
hundred years ago and have been continuously strengthened throughout
our history. We fought for our freedoms then, and we will continue to
defend them now. Whatever the political objectives of yesterday's
terrorists, they have failed. And the extent of their failure will
become abundantly clear in the coming days.
America did not seek this conflict, but we will not shy away from our
responsibility to protect life and liberty. Nations that harbor or
shelter terrorists must also be treated as terrorists themselves. A
declaration of war would make clear to the world that the United States
will no longer stand for violence against innocent men, women, and
children be they in midtown Manhattan or Murray, Kentucky.
As the world's sole superpower, we bear an awesome responsibility to
assist those democracies with shared values and strategic interests.
These nations, in turn, bear a responsibility to support the United
States in times of emergency. Israel, a nation long at war against some
of the very radicals who may be responsible for yesterday's death and
destruction, has already pledged to join arms with the U.S. in the
struggle against fanaticism. We should embrace Israel's offer, and
enlist the assistance of other democracies in what may be a long and
difficult war.
In the days, weeks, and years to come, America, alone, or with her
allies will take action to prevent and lessen the opportunities for
such carnage to occur in the future. These measures should include: (1)
reassessing and improving intelligence operations and capabilities that
must provide early warning to deter terrorist attacks at home and
abroad; (2) identifying terrorist organizations worldwide and actively
subverting their capabilities and very existence; (3) reassessing and
improving airport security and the integrity of aircraft cockpits; (4)
enhancing security and emergency response procedures for America's most
vulnerable targets, including mass transit systems and historic or
symbolic sights; (5) increasing citizen awareness of suspicious
activities; (6) restricting assistance and imposing sanctions against
those countries harboring terrorists; and, (7) investing in the
promotion of democracy and the rule of law abroad.
Once before in our history, America was the target of a surprise and
deadly attack. As with Pearl Harbor, violence has been met with resolve
and common purpose to defeat the enemies of our Nation. As in December
1941, our Nation is led by capable and dedicated leaders who are up to
the task of responding to terrorist attacks, both foreign and domestic.
President Bush and the Administration know full well that they have the
support and backing of the American people.
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the
Nation on ``America's Answers to Japan's Challenge.'' His words ring
true nearly six decades later: ``When we resort to force, as now we
must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward
ultimate good as well against immediate evil. We Americans are not
destroyers, we are builders. . . . We are
[[Page S9326]]
going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that follows.''
The dark minutes and hours of yesterday failed to bring our country
to its knees. America's strength is its diverse people, just
institutions, and shared values. No terrorist attack will ever
extinguish the flames of freedom and democracy.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, a brutal and cowardly act of
terrorism has taken thousands of lives, destroyed great symbols of U.S.
power and wealth, and stolen from every one of us a measure of the joy
and confidence that Americans take as our birthright. As the poet Yeats
once wrote, ``everything is changed, and changed utterly.''
In this dark hour we all stand with President Bush and the military
and intelligence leadership of this Nation in the search for the
propagators of this great evil, and for an appropriate and strong
response.
America must respond to this crime, this act of war, rapidly and
decisively, with an intensity and determination that reflect the
outrage every American and I feel. A response whose violence and
magnitude makes it clear to every terrorist that their lives are in
danger, and makes it clear to every nation that the cost of supporting
terrorism is too high to bear. We will not hesitate to put the
strongest military on earth to use as it was intended: to protect the
lives, safety and property of American citizens, everywhere in the
world.
But we must also respond with a defiant embrace of our way of living.
The United States must continue to make military and foreign policy
decisions based on our understanding of what is right and what is
wrong, and what is in the best interest of the American people and
allies with whom we are proud to stand.
This Nation must remain a free and open society, people of every race
and background must be accepted and embraced without fear and without
prejudice.
And America must continue to prove to the world the worth of our
beliefs and of the society we have created by remaining the most
dynamic force for growth, creativity and opportunity this earth has
ever seen.
For all that must and will change, for all that has changed already,
some things must remain constant: America must remain a moral, open and
vital society embarked on a new era of triumph.
Franklin Roosevelt said that ``the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself.'' Fear is the terrorists' greatest weapon. Together, looking
confidently ahead, we can disarm this cowardly and elusive foe.
The Senate will be searching for the reasons behind this tragedy and
for strategies that will prevent another, similar disaster. I will
report to the people of West Virginia regularly, consistent with
national security.
Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I would normally express that
`it's at a moment like this' when words cannot suffice to express the
anguish of yesterday's attack, but there has never been a moment quite
`like this' in our history as a sovereign nation.
The magnitude of the events that transpired yesterday will be
measured in an infinite number of ways for years to come. We will mourn
with words and photographs and stories as we try to wrap our arms
around this tragedy and try to make sense out of that which seems so
senseless.
We are One Nation Under God--a God who is bigger than terrorism, who
is bigger than hate, and who cannot be destroyed by acts against
humanity.
As I have listened to my colleagues today, I have been deeply moved
by their compassion and I share their grief and sense of loss. I join
with them in expressions of determination to hold those who are
responsible accountable--to the fullest extent possible.
In an effort to find hope in the midst of this pain, I have focused
on the truth that terrorism cannot expunge the virtues on which this
country was built. Yes, the landscape has been irrevocably changed and
lives on Earth tragically and abruptly ended, but our composition, our
principles and our freedom remain the same.
We Americans are a people whose spirit of freedom and democracy will
not be defiled by those who choose terrorism over the lives of our
mothers and brothers and sisters and fathers.
America's freedom and democracy--the real targets sought by the
enemy--will never be compromised. Ever.
Yes, those virtues can be challenged. And they have been to a most
unconscionable degree. Make no mistake. We are at war. But this is not
a conventional war fought by conventional means, rather this is an
invisible war where the targets are uncertain and the attacks are
unpredictable. There are no tanks, no troops, and no clear military
objectives in this new war. We have worked to define and counter these
new threats to world stability. But yesterday those new threats, which
we have sought to define, were made real.
But just as those threats were made real, the spirit of America was
renewed. Firefighters and policemen in Pennsylvania and New York and
Washington have worked--and continue to work--selflessly to salvage
lives, as well as clues from the wreckage. These men and women are
heroes--every one of them. Over two hundred workers have perished in
the line of duty. Each has made the ultimate sacrifice. This display of
courage has been an important first step toward healing.
As we survey the emotional and physical damage, we will not brush
aside the implications of the attack. The world is on notice. America
is more than bricks and mortar. Her citizens are strong. I am convinced
we will show the world how great nations stand resolute in the face of
great adversity. The American people have responded with the will and
the spirit that has served as the mortar in the construction of our
country. America is back on the job, and will continue to lead the
world.
In the days ahead, we will investigate, pursue, prosecute and punish
those responsible for these despicable acts. America will not be
deterred. America will not negotiate or compromise in our pursuit of
justice.
Let our enemies know, and let those who harbor our enemies know, that
we have declared this to be a new day, a new chapter in history, a time
in which America will renew and strengthen its resolve and its
commitment to defeat terrorism and those who give succor or shelter to
terrorists.
To our friends, we thank you for your expressions of sympathy, and to
all people committed to peace, we ask for your cooperation, your
support, and your common dedication to defeating the forces of terror
and championing the ideals of free societies.
So as we move forward to sustain life and freedom, we will continue
to meet challenges with resolve and resiliency. We will learn from this
experience and put that knowledge to good use. We will overcome this
tragedy. But we will never forget.
Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, on September 11, 2001, a day that will be
seared into our national memory, the United States was suddenly,
deliberately and viciously attached by ruthless terrorists. Thousands
of innocent civilians were killed in a brief, violent, and
unprecedented massacre. They died because they were Americans.
Through the actions of Tuesday, the United States was violently
shaken from a post-cold-war stupor. The attacks were well planned, well
resourced, and well coordinated by deadly warriors willing to kill
innocent civilians. It was an act of war. From a formidable, unseen
enemy.
Today, in the aftermath, America sifts through the rubble and debris,
searching for survivors, victims, evidence, and answers. While the
smoke still billows from the Pentagon and site of the World Trade
Center, the sickening feeling of senseless devastation places an icy
grip on our hearts. The outrage builds in our national soul as we hear
of the phone calls to loved ones that ended with a dead line and of
rescuers who became victims; as we learn the identities of the lost and
began to understand the scope of this deliberate act of war perpetrated
on American soil.
September 11, 2001, is likely to emerge as the deadliest day in the
history of the United States. More than 2,400 Americans perished in the
attack on Pearl Harbor and nearly 1,500 lost their lives on the beaches
of Normandy during the D-Day invasion. The Battle of Antietam, the
bloodiest day of the Civil War, resulted in more than 4,800 deaths and
2,800 missing. The death toll
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of Tuesday's terrorist attacks may reach the tens of thousands. The
magnitude of these losses is unimaginable and is yet to be fully
comprehended.
The cold-blooded murderers who committed this act attempted to strike
not just the twin towers of the World Trade Center but the twin pillars
of America, our economic strength and our military might. They damaged
the symbols of each--but they could not penetrate the essence of our
Nation. America's indomitable spirit is undaunted. We've seen it in the
actions of rescue workers who risked, and gave, their lives to save
others. We've seen it in reports of brave actions attempted on the
hijacked planes. We've seen it in the lines of volunteers outside blood
banks and the prayer services held throughout this Nation. We've seen
it in the steely determination of those ready to rebuild what has been
lost. We've seen it in the resolve of a President and our military,
ready, willing, and able to strike back at whoever we determine
committed this horror. Our Government stands in unity. Republican and
Democrat. House and Senate. In support of our Commander-in-Chief.
We are at war with the scourge of our time: terrorism. This was not
just an attack upon America. As Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair
commented, it was an attack upon democracy. It was a blow against the
civilized world. Our allies and those opposed to terrorism must unite
with resolve and commitment to rid the earth of this plague. We cannot
deliver a glancing blow, we must go at the root and strike at the heart
of terrorist organizations and those nations granting them safe harbor.
America will be forever changed. As with Pearl Harbor, our very way
of life has been threatened. We must look at whatever shortcomings in
either intelligence or security procedures allowed this tragedy to
happen. But we must not relinquish the freedoms that make us Americans.
If we abandon the liberties we cherish, the terrorists will have won.
America will stand together, as we always have when our Nation is
threatened. We will defeat this enemy.
As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said on December 8, 1941:
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this
premeditated invasion, the American people, in their
righteous might, will win through to absolute victory . . .
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our
people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our Armed Forces, with the unbounding
determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable
triumph. So help us God.
As I arrived at the Capitol early Wednesday morning, I was greeted by
the sounds of fighter jets and military helicopters in the air above
Washington. But I heard something else as well, a clear sound that
pierced the morning air, a lone trumpeter nearby played the National
Anthem.
God bless the United States of America.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, America, sadly, has a new date that will
live in infamy for the rest of our lives and generations to come.
Today, more than 24 hours after the first terrorist strike that took
the lives of countless U.S. civilians, we are only now beginning to
realize that we will spend many days, weeks, months and years trying to
come to grips with the magnitude of yesterday's attack on our freedom.
We are left with searing images of a horror that could not be
contained, acts of terrorism that unfolded before our eyes, gripping
this Nation and the world in raw and vivid devastation, touching all of
us with feelings expressed in public and in private; from panic to
helplessness; helplessness to anger; and anger to loss.
This morning we stand in this capital as one to condemn these
attacks, comfort the victims and their families and commit our full
support to bring those responsible to justice. Our heartfelt thoughts
and fervent prayers go out to those who have been lost.
Our response in the days ahead to the mass murderers who planned and
carried out the attack and to any nation or nations that gave them aid
must be as decisive as was our steadfast determination to defend our
homeland and punish the aggressors in the immediate aftermath of a day
that we will remember as one of the worst in American history.
The challenge ahead will require strengthening U.S. defenses and
intelligence at home in ways consistent with American values. Embassies
and military bases must be better defended along with domestic airports
and other civilian targets.
But this does not mean that we can allow terrorists to alter the
fundamental openness of U.S. society or the government's respect for
civil liberties. If we do so, they will have won.
Some have rightfully declared that yesterday's attacks amount to an
all out declaration of war against America. If so, then we will have to
make sacrifices by accepting greater inconvenience in public places and
perhaps developing and cultivating a heightened sense of awareness
common in other free nations that have come to accept terrorist
activity as a price for openness and democracy.
But above all, a state of war means a national bipartisan commitment
to attack and defeat our Nation's enemies. There can be no greater
purpose to our foreign and defense policy in the years ahead.
This means that we must embark on an unprecedented effort that will
take us beyond arresting individual suspects or engaging in isolated
attacks as has been done in response to previous incidents such as the
attack on U.S. military in the 1996 Khobar towers bombing in Saudi
Arabia, or the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania by Osama bin Laden's network to name a few.
In the past, the United States has failed to fully confront those
linked to terrorist attacks against Americans. Yesterday, it was made
clear that we can no longer afford to do so.
The United States must now seek to assemble an international alliance
to identify and eliminate all sources of support for the terrorist
networks that would wage war on our nation including the identification
and destruction of the larger networks behind these attacks.
So many have drawn a comparison between September 11 and December 7,
1941. And while there are differences, what President Franklin D.
Roosevelt said after Dec. 7 in Pearl Harbor, ``a date which will live
in infamy,'' applies to yesterday just as well. ``Always will we
remember the character of the onslaught against us,'' Mr. Roosevelt
said. ``No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated
invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through
to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and
of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to
the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery
shall never endanger us again.''
Yesterday the world changed for every American. What those
responsible for these barbaric acts will come to learn is that our
resolve has not.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, as a Nation we mourn the loss of so many
Americans whose lives were tragically ended by these vicious attacks,
the folks on the airplanes, the soldiers and civilians at the Pentagon,
the office workers at the World Trade Center and the rescue workers who
tried to save them. Each one of them had family, friends, and loved
ones, and plans for the future. We cannot begin to fathom the
incomparable grief their deaths have produced--of mothers who lost
sons, husbands who lost wives, children who lost parents.
While we bow our heads in prayer for those whose lives were taken, we
remain unbowed in the face of this heinous assault on our Nation. The
terrorists who perpetrated this crime may have succeeded in striking
the symbols of American power, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
but they cannot touch the spirit of the American people or our
commitment to defend our liberty, our democracy and our way of life.
I have full confidence that the United States has the will and
ability to determine which terrorist group is responsible for this
assault on our homeland, as well as those states that are giving them
refuge, and those entities that are providing them aid and financial
support.
We must deliver a punishing blow to these terrorists and those who
aid and abet them, because terrorists only understand one language, the
language of force.
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Anything less than a full response to these cowardly attacks within
our borders would be appeasement. And history shows that appeasement
against a determined enemy only encourages more attacks. The terrorists
who came to our country to kill and maim its citizens, along with those
who protect them, must be made to pay a price. And the United States
should be ready to act with a clear conscience in its self-defense.
Let there be no doubt: We are at war. It is not a war we choose to
fight, but one that we will finish and win.
The last time an act of war was committed against the U.S. on our
soil, at Pearl Harbor, our military and economic power combined to form
the greatest fighting force the world had ever seen. Admiral Yamamoto
had called us a ``sleeping enemy.'' He woke us to his great regret. The
terrorists who committed these crimes have made a similar mistake, they
have awoken a sleeping giant. Americans are slow to anger, but once
roused we are indomitable.
Today, the men and women in this great chamber are not Democrats or
Republicans, but Americans. And as Americans, we in Congress stand
united in support of our Nation's leader, the President of the United
States. You will not hear partisan bickering. You will not see members
trying to lead from Capitol Hill. The United States must speak with one
voice and act in concert for the good of our nation.
We will stand united, because Americans always unite in the face of
adversity. We cannot allow these acts of terrorism to divide Americans
by race, ethnicity, or religion. If we start fighting, neighbor against
neighbor, then the terrorists have won. We will have destroyed the very
foundation of our country's greatness, the fact that people of all
backgrounds can join together in the great American experiment.
As our Nation prepares to confront the threat of terrorism, we must
be careful not to destroy the freedom which makes this country great.
We must not abandon civil liberties within our borders or our ability
to act unilaterally outside our borders if we want to be safe. As
Thomas Jefferson warned us, ``Those who desire to give up Freedom in
order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve either
one.''
Nevada is proud of our slogan, that we were ``Battle Born.'' It is on
our State flag. It reflects the firmness of purpose and the willingness
to fight for what is right that is so much a part of the character of
the Nevadan people.
This is as true today as it was when our state entered the Union
during the Civil War. The nature of the challenges may have changed
over the years, but not the nature of the Nevadans fighting to overcome
them.
I know that Nevadans--and, indeed, all Americans will rise to this
challenge. We can give blood and donate to charities that are helping
the victims like the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. We can go out to
our front yards and proudly fly the American flag to send a signal
across oceans that we will not be cowed by terrorists.
The Nevadans in our Armed Forces stand ready to fight and die to
defend their Nation. Let us pray for them, for all our men and women in
uniform. Let us pray for President Bush our military leaders, and for
all the rescue workers and victims. And most importantly, let us pray
that, in this struggle between good and evil, the righteous will
prevail.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, today, I join with my Senate colleagues in
united support for this joint resolution. I share their horror and
outrage at the terrible atrocities committed yesterday against our
country and our citizens. Those criminal acts will not be forgotten,
and they will be avenged, at the right time, against their evil
perpetrators.
One hundred years ago, at our Minnesota State Fair, Theodore
Roosevelt spoke his famous words: ``Speak softly, and carry a big
stick.'' Today is a day to speak softly and briefly. Words can barely
describe our reactions, our revulsion, and our resolve.
Let there be no doubt: our Nation will recover from these despicable
acts. We will learn the painful lessons necessary to strengthen our
domestic and foreign intelligence capabilities, our air traffic
emergency system, and our guarantee to our citizens of their safety
wherever they live, travel and work.
We will support our President and his associates as they identify
those responsible for these vicious assaults and retaliate against
them. We will move forward and we will move ahead. No one anywhere
should doubt our national strength and resolve; our private and public
actions in the days and months ahead will prove it.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, Americans woke up this morning a sadder
and angrier people. It is very difficult to wrap one's mind around the
terrible tragedy this country suffered yesterday, and still harder to
comprehend what must have been in the hearts of the people willing to
commit such atrocities against their fellow human beings. It is very
hard even to find the words to speak about it.
But speaking about it is something that we must do. The American
people and the government of the United States of America must today
speak with crystalline clarity. The families and friends of those
killed or wounded in these awful terrorist attacks must know that the
prayers of every American, and of millions upon millions of people
around the world, are with them this day. The heroic firefighters,
police officers, rescue workers, National Guardsmen, doctors, nurses,
and volunteering citizens who are even now struggling to find and save
the lives of surviving victims must know that our hearts and deepest
gratitude are with them in their vital work. Our commander-in-chief and
all the men and women of our armed forces, our law enforcement
community, and our intelligence agencies must know that we stand behind
them as perhaps never before in my lifetime, as they set about with
grim resolution to ensure that justice is done to those responsible.
And the evil people who planned and committed these atrocities, and
those who may have aided and abetted them, must know that far from
paralyzing the American people and dividing us fearfully against each
other, what they have done instantly is to unite us into one people. We
awoke this morning united in the solidarity of grief and commitment to
our fellow-citizens, and utterly single-minded in our determination to
remain unbowed and to see justice done.
These, then, are the messages that we must send today--and that we
must keep sending with relentless determination in the difficult weeks
and months ahead. America lost a measure of innocence yesterday, a
degree of that special separateness that has helped to keep our land of
liberty safe from some of the storms that have long battered other
peoples in an often turbulent world.
We are clearly not as separate, nor as safe, as once we thought. But
no one should doubt our resolve and our resilience. It is in moments
like this that the special character or our great Republic can and
should shine through with particular brilliance. It shines through in
our sacrifices in helping our fellow citizens in terribly trying times.
It shines through in our commitment, even in adversity, to the bedrock
values that make our system of government worth protecting even as
these values draw the murderous ire of twisted souls whose only answer
to the discourse of liberty is a vocabulary of violence, terror, and
death.
As we rescue survivors and comfort the bereaved, we also will set
about finding those responsible. We must respond to these horrors in
ways befitting our voice as a free and united people. But let there be
no doubt. Respond we must, and respond we shall.
As difficult as it is to find a voice to talk about the horrors we
experienced yesterday morning, I believe that by finding our voice
amidst such shock, rage, and pain, we reaffirm our most cherished
principles. With God's help, we will persevere, find comfort in our
grief, and find strength in the days ahead.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, yesterday I was in a meeting here in the
Capitol, when I looked out the window and I saw something that I will
never forget.
I saw black clouds of smoke filling the sky over the Pentagon.
Yesterday, terrorists attacked our country, our financial center, our
military headquarters, and our sense of security. Yesterday's horrific
pictures are fixed in our minds forever.
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But today, we see something else. We see a country that's come
together. We see a government that speaks with one voice to denounce
terrorism. And we see people who have volunteered--to search the
rubble, to help the injured, and to donate blood.
These acts of terror were meant to divide us. But the truth is
they've brought us all closer together.
This afternoon, I want to extend my prayers to all the victims, their
families and friends.
I want to thank all of the emergency personnel who responded with
such courage: including the brave men and women of our armed forces,
police, firefighters and medical personnel.
And I want everyone to know that our country is unified behind the
President. We will help the injured. We will protect our citizens. And
will punish those who committed these cowardly acts. Every resource we
have will be made available to support the recovery effort.
Yesterday we were attacked, but today, we stand united.
As our work resumes, we will work together to plug the security holes
that this attack has uncovered.
I want all of my colleagues to know that, as chair of the
Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, my top priority is the
safety of the traveling public.
We will do what it takes to ensure the safety of our Nation's
transportation system.
In the coming days and weeks, we must evaluate our security system,
our intelligence abilities and the safety of our transportation
network.
Out citizens have a right to feel secure at home, at work, at school,
and on our Nation's transportation system. We are going to make sure
Americans have the safety and security they deserve.
Ours is a great Nation. We have withstood many challenges. We will
learn the lessons of this challenge, and together, we will build a
stronger country.
So as we take stock of this unspeakable tragedy, as we learn the
names of the victims, as we hear stories of the heroism and compassion
in the wake of this attack, we are standing together we are speaking
with one voice and will do everything we can to ensure our safety and
to answer this evil act with justice.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, yesterday the United States of America
suffered a horrible national tragedy the images of which will forever
etch the date, September 11, 2001, in the collective minds of the
American people.
As Father Eugene Hemrick of St. Joseph's Church said this morning at
mass, our lives will never be the same.
As one who has lost a child, I know this is especially true for the
families of those who were the victims of this act of war and of those
who laid down their lives to save them. My thoughts and prayers are
with them.
As Members of Congress, our first responsibility, working with the
President on a bipartisan basis, is to secure the support that the
victims and their families will need in the days and months ahead--
their grief should not be compounded by worrying about how they will
deal with their tragedy financially.
We must provide the resources our country needs to guarantee that
yesterday's tragedy will not be repeated during the lifetime of our
children and grandchildren.
We must prioritize how we allocate these resources including the
money to upgrade the technology and personnel that secure our airports,
and we must respond to the human capital needs that caused former
Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, who now represents the U.S.
Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, to say before the
Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee earlier this year:
. . . it is the Commission's view that fixing the personnel
problem is a precondition for fixing virtually everything
else that needs repair in the institutional edifice of U.S.
national security policy.
We must also dedicate ourselves to meeting a number of other
challenges, including: providing the resources that will help improve
our signals intelligence capabilities, or, in other words, our ability
to ``listen in'' on unfriendly nations; stepped-up law enforcement to
prevent terrorism; coordination of effort between various Federal
agencies such as CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.; coordination of effort between
Federal, State and local governments and law enforcement to maximize
our ability to stop terrorist activity; and greater use of electronic
surveillance and satellite imagery to track the enemies of peace.
Finally, we must identify those responsible for committing these
cowardly acts of war as well as those who have encouraged them by
silence, assistance or asylum and we must hold these individuals or
Nations accountable.
I agree with what President Bush said in his address to the Nation
last evening:
we will make no distinction between the terrorists who
committed these acts and those who harbor them.
We must also join the President and declare war on terrorism and
convince world religions and political leaders that terrorism is a
threat to peace in the world and a prelude to Armageddon. We need more
voices in the world like Pope John Paul II who said:
. . . the ways of violence will never lead to genuine
solutions to humanity's problems.
Our determination to winning the war on terrorism must have the same
high priority that we gave to winning World War II, and we must engage
our allies in this war.
We should make the same preparation that we made for D-Day and the
world's entry into the Persian Gulf war. Our actions must be ongoing
and relentless, and be dedicated to excising the cancer of terrorism
wherever it raises its ugly head.
Our efforts cannot be another catharsis after a national tragedy, and
they must not fade with time into business as usual. We owe it to
yesterday's victims and their families, especially their children and
grandchildren.
Most of all, we owe it to the American people and the world community
to bring an end to terrorism everywhere and forever.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, all of us share in the overwhelming
shock and grief at the horrible events of these past 24 hours. All of
us are struggling to find the right words to say--struggling to
understand our own emotions--struggling to answer the question, ``Where
do we go from here?'' Despite our uncertainties, we share a common
bond--the deepest sorrow and sympathy we feel for those innocent people
who have lost their lives or their loved ones in those instants of
unspeakable inhumanity. I join with the people and leaders of the world
in expressing my profound sadness and extending my personal condolences
to all of those who have been victimized by these acts of terror.
Ten years ago, the Soviet Union crumbled and the Warsaw Pact
disappeared. The cold war, many have said, is over. The nation moved
quickly to reduce the size of our military and to reorder our national
priorities to attend to pressing national issues of health care,
education, justice, and so forth. All of us celebrated the nation's new
priorities. Hopes for the future of our nation and the evolving
international system were high. What we were only beginning to
understand, however, was that the end of the cold war did not mean the
end of America's need to ensure its security in new and different ways.
In the wake of the cold war, military experts around the country
began to discuss their concerns about the nation's new vulnerabilities.
The prospect of a pitched battle between heavy tanks on the fields of
Europe was no longer the most likely threat to which our military
forces would be asked to respond. Experts began discussing the idea of
``asymmetric warfare''--that is, the ability of America's enemies to
attack us where we are most vulnerable. The cold war structure of our
military and its weaponry was designed to meet adversaries with similar
capabilities--not to meet adversaries who chose different, often less
sophisticated ways to get the job done.
Slowly, too slowly, we have begun to understand the full extent of
our country's vulnerability. Many are concerned that potential enemies
are developing intercontinental missiles with destructive warheads and
that we have no missile system capable of thwarting an attack of that
kind. Others have warned that our enemies could deliver packages of
destruction in suitcases, rental trucks, or on shipboard. Still others
have observed our inability to
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intercept low flying aircraft or cruise missiles heading to American
targets. The events of the past 24 hours demonstrate another horrible
scenario of America's vulnerability to terrorist attack, an attack that
was indiscriminate in those who were targeted.
Our priorities are clear at this point. First, rescue these victims
and help those who survive, their families, their children. Second,
resolve to identify and punish those who perpetrated these heinous
acts. And finally, we must put in place the safeguards and protections
so that this type of heinous act can never occur again in this country.
My colleagues have referred to September 11th as a day of infamy--
recalling the same shock and horror the nation experienced at the news
of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. President Roosevelt offered the
nation some vital words on that occasion. He said:
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this
premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous
might will win through to an absolute victory. This is a time
of national resolve. This is a time for us to also recall
President Roosevelt's directive that ``the greatest fear we
have, is fear itself.''
We cannot permit ourselves to stand still, overcome by shock, in
times such as these. We must move forward as one, resolved to seek
justice, and solutions to our national security laid bare by this
horrible event.
Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, on September 11, 2001, the United States
suffered the worst combined acts of domestic terrorism in our Nation's
history. The world stood shocked and outraged at unprovoked acts of
violence committed upon thousands of innocent Americans.
President George W. Bush has ordered the Federal Government to assist
the victims of violence, investigate these acts of terror, and take
steps to bring those responsible for these tragedies to justice. I
fully support President Bush's actions, and will do whatever I can to
help him, and our country in this time of need. Terrorism cannot and
will not be tolerated. I know the President will take all measures
necessary to seek out and punish those who so viciously attacked
innocent and defenseless Americans.
As Americans, we are a strong and resilient people. We will heal and
emerge stronger than ever. Our strength and spirit of democracy will
shine through. We will not simply endure, we shall prevail. And we will
send a sharp message to these cowards, showing that terrorist acts will
not be tolerated. They will never be able to destroy our freedom and
our way of life.
My heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to those who so tragically
lost their lives and those friends and families who lost their loved
ones. This was far more than a tragedy--it was an outrageous act of
terrorism that killed and injured so many innocent and decent citizens
of our country. Nothing I can say to express my sympathy for those
suffering is enough. My outrage toward this cowardice act remains
unwavering. For now, we must mourn those who have passed on and care
for those injured.
We must let the President, law enforcement, military and the
intelligence community do their work. As a law-abiding Nation, we must
be sure to place blame on the guilty. Taking independent action against
the innocent and guests in our country is wrong. Many like me are
filled with anger and an unyielding desire for revenge, but we must
remain calm and focused. In the heat of passion fired by the outrageous
and despicable acts of those who are guilty, our leadership must be
calm and dispassionate in determining who is responsible and how we
must deal with them. Have no doubt: we will find those responsible. I
say to those responsible, ``You have no where to hide.'' Justice will
be served swiftly and harshly.
September 11, 2001, is another day that will forever live in infamy.
Yesterday's acts represented a well-planned, well-financed attack on
our freedom by a faceless and gutless enemy. Make no mistake, we are at
war. Our military is on highest alert. Our armed forces are ready.
I stand firmly behind our Commander-in-Chief, President Bush. There
is no doubt of our unity and resolve to track down, root out and
relentlessly pursue terrorists and the states that support them and
harbor them. I stand by to support our military and intelligence
community and fight for any and all of the resources they need to
ensure our national security. Let us not forget this as we consider our
funding bills.
This is a great Nation with a strong and brave history. Americans
have come together and triumphed through difficult times like these. We
will again, and we will punish those responsible. America is united and
strong. Our military might remains unchallenged. America remains
resolved in its efforts to find those who so cowardly committed these
horrific acts.
To quote a few words from out Battle Hymn of the Republic, those
responsible will soon understand the true meaning of the line, ``he
hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword'' as
America will indeed march on.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, first and foremost, my thoughts and
prayers are with the hundreds of injured and the families of the lost.
Words cannot fully describe what happened to these victims yesterday.
But our actions in the days and months ahead must do them justice as we
honor their ultimate sacrifices.
I also extend my gratitude to the scores of emergency service
providers police, firefighters, medical personnel who rushed to the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon to save lives, only to lose their
own. And we remember the many military and federal law enforcement
personnel who were working in those buildings at the time of the
attacks who also lost their lives.
As we sort through the details of the savage terrorist attacks
yesterday, and the wreckage left in their wake, we begin to comprehend
more fully the scope of this tragedy in our history. On December 7,
1941, more than 2400 lives were lost at Pearl Harbor. And, during the
Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 the day with the highest death
toll on American soil--approximately 22,000 lives were lost. No matter
what the final count will be of lives lost yesterday, what
distinguishes us from the terrorists is the value we place on those
lives as we learn more about the enormously sad events of this newly
written chapter in our nation's history.
This morning all Americans woke up to a different world. The horrific
terrorist attacks yesterday on our economic and military institutions
were a frontal assault not only on America, but on freedom and
democracy enjoyed by millions of people around the world.
We Americans learned again that our freedom comes with a cost, and
the new battlegrounds are not on foreign soils or far away beaches.
While we must always seek peace we, as a nation, will always defend
ourselves from any enemy.
America has been challenged before, and now America once again will
rise to meet this challenge head-on.
The terrorists who perpetrated yesterday's carnage will be held
accountable for their senseless acts of violence. Towards that end, I
strongly support the statement President Bush made last night to the
nation and his commitment that ``we will make no distinction between
the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.''
The time has come to quit treating terrorists as mere civil
disobedients, and begin treating their acts as acts of war.
The time has past when renegade nations can give safe harbor to
terrorists with impunity. The President and the U.S. military have my
full support to strike and strike hard when the perpetrators and their
accomplices are identified and found. For this Senator, that time can't
come soon enough.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to add my voice in our united
support for the Joint Resolution we are adopting today.
American citizens, American aircraft, American buildings have been
brought down by barbaric terrorist attacks. Yet the American people, we
as their elected representatives, and our free and open society stand
unbowed and united.
America's spirit and resolve remain strong.
Today, we express condolences to those who suffered unspeakable loss.
The victims and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.
We commend the rescuers, working even now to save lives, the brave
firemen and police, doctors and nurses and
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generous volunteers helping others and giving blood.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which my Appropriations
subcommittee funds and oversees, is coordinating Federal assistance.
Director Albaugh and FEMA have mobilized urban search and rescue teams.
A top-notch team from Montgomery County and 7 others from around the
country are hard at work at the Pentagon and in New York. All 20 other
teams are ready to go. FEMA has also mobilized Army medical support,
the Army Corps of Engineers to help debris removal, and Army mortuary
teams.
We are cooperating to confront this tragedy with President Bush and
the Administration, within Congress, and with allies around the world.
We condemn these barbaric attacks.
We are committed to tracking down the terrorists, punishing them and
those who harbor them, and preventing future attacks.
America is being tested by terrorism and America is rising to the
challenge. I am proud of the American people, who are responding not
only with shock and grief, but with unity, resolve, and generosity.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise in support of the resolution
condemning yesterday's terrorist attacks. These assaults were a strike
not only against America, but against freedom itself.
My deepest condolences go out to those who lost loved ones during
this tragedy, and also to those rescue workers who risked, and many
times lost, their lives in an effort to save the victims of this
horrific event. Even as we pause to pray for the victims and their
families, we promise to be unwavering in our pursuit of the cowards
responsible for these acts. It is a day we will never forget, but a day
that only strengthens our resolve to protect the freedoms that are the
cornerstone of our society.
Watching this tragedy unfold, I recalled the day when our sovereign
country was violated by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Over the years, I
hoped and prayed that our hallowed lands would never again be defiled,
and now they have once again been attacked. This time, however, our
enemies remain nameless. These cowardly acts of terrorism will not be
tolerated, and those who are responsible for these atrocities will
suffer the consequences of their actions. Let there be no mistake, we
have faced adversity before, and the United States of America will once
again prevail.
If this assault was intended to weaken the American spirit, these
cowards will be very disappointed. When speaking on the purpose and
means of war, the military theorist Carl Clausewitz stated that the
fighting forces of the enemy ``must be put in such a condition that
they can no longer carry on the fight''. Mark my words, we stand united
and prepared to use whatever means necessary to respond and destroy
those responsible.
The acts of heroism and generosity by Americans in New York City,
Washington, D.C., and across the Nation has been extraordinary, but not
surprising. It is in difficult times that we are fortified by unity,
and this will be no exception.
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed
Congress in response to Pearl Harbor. His words then inspired our
Nation to victory. Once again, his words ring true, ``With confidence
in our armed forces--with the unbounding determination of our people--
we will gain the inevitable triumph--so help us God.''
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, much has been said on the Senate floor
about the events of the last 24 hours. I, too, want to express deep
sadness and remorse for those that lost family and loved ones. We, as a
Nation, share your loss. The free world shares your grief. This was an
attack on liberty, an attack on freedom, we are all victims.
As a veteran of the last World War, I know personally the horrors of
war. Pearl Harbor woke us from the dream that we would not be dragged
into World War II. Many commentators have made the parallel between
yesterday's attack and the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. We were
compelled to act to defend our country from an unprovoked attack.
The events of yesterday, like those during Pearl Harbor, shattered
our innocence and exposed our vulnerabilities as a Nation. In my view,
yesterday's attack was worse than an act of war because, unlike Pearl
Harbor, the enemy preyed upon unsuspecting, defenseless civilians to
maximize the loss of innocent human life and spread terror. Our freedom
and the openness of our society, essential virtues that define us as a
Nation, were exploited to inflict terror upon our society. These were
coordinated, well-organized attacks on our Nation. Unlike the wars of
the past, today we face an enemy we cannot immediately identify and
whose exact location is unknown. The President and his national
security team have committed all the resources possible to find those
who are responsible. I stand with the President and the American
people, we must seek those who are responsible and respond with
overwhelming force.
While this is still an emotionally charged time, we must begin the
process of looking forward and addressing our security vulnerabilities
exposed by yesterday's attacks. It is important to note that as the
events were unfolding, the Senate was debating the appropriations bill
for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State, the funding
legislation that directly addresses counter-terrorism. And while it may
not provide immediate relief for the situation that we're faced with
today, it is one of the legislative vehicles through which we can
impact the Nation's ability to address counter-terrorism.
We must have better organization and coordination of our counter-
terrorism efforts. Sen. Judd Gregg and I have worked to organize an
Office of Counter-terrorism under the Attorney General and provide
adequate funding for the Department of Justice. As we have argued, we
must redouble our national commitment and sustained effort to address
counter-terrorism. It begins with a coordinated effort organized in the
Department of Justice, it is enhanced by improved security standards,
and it is sustained through adequate funding.
This attack has highlighted the need for a new national security
paradigm. It has showed us that the tools of our economic strength,
such as civilian aircraft, can be used as instruments of destruction.
Therefore, we must analyze the security threats associated with all
modes of commerce. Obviously, we must take immediate action to review
and enhance the security at our Nation's airports. Moreover, we know
that current, inadequate security at our nation's ports makes us
vulnerable to future attacks. With this knowledge, Senator Graham and I
introduced a bill to address security at our ports. The legislation
seeks to enhance security at U.S. seaports through better interagency
coordination and more sufficient resources.
Seaports are international borders that currently are not subject to
any security guidelines enforced by the federal government. Drug
smuggling, immigrant smuggling and trade fraud are prevalent crimes
along the Nation's seaports, and the lax security measures make
terrorist activity an imminent threat as well.
Terrorism affects us all. We as a nation must stand together and
state resolutely that we will not tolerate terrorism, in the United
States or abroad. We will work in Congress to put in place the
protections necessary to defend our country from future terrorist
activity and uphold the liberties and freedom we hold dear. As stated
by the Commander-in-Chief, the United States and its allies will stand
firm and take decisive action.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, yesterday a cowardly act of terrorism
was committed against this Nation. But, today, this Nation stands
strong and unified--a Nation of freedom and of hope, a Nation hurting,
but resolute in our determination to stamp out terrorism, now even on
our own shores.
We can no longer ignore the threat that international terrorist
groups present to other nations. Yesterday, we faced the reality of
that threat. Until yesterday, we had rested in the belief that such an
atrocity by foreign hand could not occur on U.S. soil, but now it has,
and we must respond. We must safeguard our shores from further acts of
violence. We are at war with an enemy of rogues and cowards and they
must be crushed. We have received a rude awakening, and now we must
act. There is a lot for us to do. More than a year ago, I was critical
of the diversion of funds from human intelligence
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to high tech counter-terrorism efforts. Tomorrow, we will resume that
debate, but today is a day for national mourning.
My prayers go out to all the victims and their families. I pray that
God will grant a comfort and peace that is unspeakable in its depth to
those who are hurting and for the families of the victims. I cannot
adequately express my sympathy to those who lost loved ones in these
tragedies, and across America we share in their grief.
Outside of Union Station, a block from the Capitol, fly the flags of
all 50 States. It is right that these 50 flags now fly at half mast,
for this is a day that will directly touch millions of families across
this Nation. We have already learned that at least one Iowan, Karen
Kincaid, a native of Waverly, IA, was abroad the hijacked plane that
struck the Pentagon on Tuesday morning. Our prayers go out of Karen's
family and her loved ones. I fear that in the days to come we may
learn of other Iowans whose lives have been destroyed by these
tragedies. We all must look for ways to help. We can pray for peace. We
can give blood.
In the face of all of yesterday's evil, thousands of courageous
Americans rose to the challenge. Men and women, filled with the basic
decency and goodness that embodies all that is America, rushed to the
rescue of the injured and the dying. Firefighters, police, EMTs,
doctors and other volunteers have been working around the clock, and we
thank them. Unfortunately, we have learned that many of these brave men
and women have given that last full measure of devotion. We mourn for
them and honor their sacrifice. The greatness of our people stands in
sharp contrast to the unnamed cowards who have perpetrated this evil.
I also want to recognize and thank Secretary Thompson for his effort
to bring 7000 doctors, nurses, and health care professionals to New
York.
Now, we must go on, unified behind President Bush's leadership.
Today's resolution demonstrates the unity of Congress to stand behind
the President in the effort to bring the perpetrators to justice. We
must commit ourselves to the task of preventing tragedies such as this
from ever again happening on our shores. We are a Nation strong and
dogged in our commitment to seek out and crush the men who committed
these acts of violence against our country.
Terrorism is our national enemy and we must fight it as a Nation.
These great tragedies were perpetrated not against a particular race,
color, religion, or creed. Yesterday's violence was born in a hatred of
America and what it stands for. It was an open attach on all our people
and our values. Freedom itself was under assault. Truly this was an act
of war on America, and we must act accordingly.
Our friends in the International community, we now ask you to work by
our side to quash those who have engaged in these heinous acts. We will
need your assistance to identify and punish those who are behind these
acts.
State sponsored terrorism is an enemy to all democracies. To see
victory over terrorism, we must not just retaliate against the
terrorist, but as President Bush said last night, we must also punish
those countries who harbor and assist them. Justice must be brought to
the terrorists and to the States from which they plan and wage their
evil schemes.
We must all be unified in this effort to combat terrorism. I am proud
to be an American.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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