[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 22 (Monday, February 27, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1493-S1495]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING THE ADMINISTRATION

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise to talk a little bit about this 
administration, the administration of George W. Bush. Unless there is a 
significant turnaround, this administration will not be remembered for 
its accomplishments. It, in fact, will be remembered for its 
incompetence. And this dangerous incompetence has made America less 
secure.
  From Social Security to border security, the American people know 
that incompetence lies at the heart of this administration's failures. 
Ultimately, this incompetence has come with a price. It has made our 
country less safe and less secure.
  We can talk about a lot of things, but this afternoon I will talk 
about a few. Let's talk about the prescription drug program. I support 
a Medicare drug benefit, but this administration has botched the 
program so badly that relatively no one has signed up for it. The 
President, in his Saturday address, said 25 million Americans have 
signed up for this program.
  That is simply not true. Twenty of those twenty-five million, prior 
to this legislation passing, already had prescription drug benefits. 
And now, under this program, they have a lot less than they had before. 
So after all this talk, there are a few million new people who have 
signed up, and tens of millions of people are still left trying to 
figure out what to do and how to do it.
  Of the seniors currently in the program, millions are paying more for 
their drugs than they were under the previous coverage. This includes 
thousands of seniors in Nevada who face more restrictions and higher 
costs. Millions more seniors were wrongly dropped from the system, 
leaving them without coverage for the life-saving drugs.
  I had the opportunity, this morning, to meet with the Governors. They 
are terribly concerned because of this legislation being so poorly 
managed and, frankly, poorly written. The States have had to advance 
their hard-earned moneys to pay for the drug coverage of people who 
simply are cut off. They want to know when they are going to be 
reimbursed.
  What about the President's incompetence in the war on terror?
  In 2002, Osama bin Laden was trapped in the mountains of Afghanistan.
  But instead of redoubling our resources to capture him, the President 
shifted to Saddam Hussein, and bin Laden was left to fight another day. 
As a result, the al-Qaida leader continues to plot and threaten us as 
we speak.
  Meanwhile, terrorist attacks across the globe are up sharply over the 
last 5 years, and al-Qaida has morphed into a global terror franchise.
  Government reform. What has the President done? President Bush 
promised to create a new tone in Washington. He has, but it hasn't been 
a pleasant tone. His incompetence has created the biggest culture of 
corruption our Nation has ever seen, with scandals in the House, the 
Senate, and the White House, and the country is paying a price for this 
corruption: higher gas prices, higher health care costs, and deficits 
year after year. Every Bush budget has broken a record of paying a 
higher deficit than the year before. But the problem is that he keeps 
breaking his own record.
  It is difficult for me to comprehend how my friends on the other side 
of the aisle can allow this to go on. We were told by Alan Greenspan, 
when we were in the majority, that the deficit was the most important 
thing facing this country. So we did something about it--the Budget 
Deficit Reduction Act of 1993--and not a single Republican voted for it 
in the House or the Senate. Vice President Gore had to break the tie in 
the Senate. In the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, less 
money was being spent than we were taking in. We retired the debt by 
about a half trillion dollars. That certainly has not been the case 
during the Bush years.
  Whether we like it or not, President George W. Bush will be President 
for the next 2\1/2\ years. We need him to govern competently. We cannot 
afford more of what we have seen since 2001. So today I offer three 
issues: The port security issue, Iraq, and Katrina--these are only 
three--where President Bush can work with us in order to turn his 
record into a record of progress and competence.

[[Page S1494]]

  First, our ports. Now, the President said he would not allow any 
legislation to go forward; he would veto it. Of course, there has been 
a change of tone because even Michael Savage--I was in Reno and I 
wanted to listen to the news, and I flipped it on about 10 to 9 or 8--I 
don't remember the hour. Michael Savage was on. I never listen to him. 
I heard a lot about him, so listened. He spent that 10 minutes berating 
the President. Michael Savage does not very often do that. It is not 
only Michael Savage, but everybody in America is so upset about this 
port situation. Their decision to outsource our ports to Dubai shows 
they still don't understand the realities that exist in this world.
  How in the world was the decision made to give another country 
control of our ports? It is not another company but another country 
that will be taking care of our ports. That is a state-owned company. 
The administration's decisionmaking process could not be more flawed. 
On the one hand, we have Secretary of Treasury Snow, who I am told from 
his CFX retirement got about $100 million, being asked to rule on this. 
Part of his CFX responsibility was CFX's involvement in ports. He was 
the one who made the final signoff on this, not Chertoff. This was not 
a security issue; it was a business issue. I am sorry to say that any 
time in this administration when it is business versus security, 
business wins.
  No effort was made to brief Congress, relevant States, or the port 
authorities. The decision seems to have ignored the truth about Dubai, 
one of the seven city states of the United Arab Emirates. Of course, we 
are told now that the United Arab Emirates wants to be a friend of the 
United States. Everybody knows we need more friends in the world, that 
is for sure. But we cannot ignore the historical connection of the 
United Arab Emirates to terrorism and the proliferation of terrorism. 
The United Arab Emirates was only one of three nations in the world to 
recognize the government of the Taliban, the government which allowed 
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida development.
  The 9/11 Commission found that UAE represented a persistent counter-
terrorism problem for the United States. Terrorism money has been 
laundered through UAE, and 11 of the hijackers flew from Dubai to the 
United States in preparation for the attacks.
  Bin Laden's operatives are said to have used Dubai as a logistical 
hub after 9/11. In 2004, it was exposed that Dubai was the center of 
the world's largest nuclear weapons proliferation ring, as the AQ Khan 
network used Dubai to traffic nuclear weapons technology to the highest 
bidders.
  Finally, according to Freedom House, a nonpartisan and highly 
respected organization often cited by the Bush administration, the 
United Arab Emirates is not free, not democratic, and has been found to 
engage in human trafficking and forced child labor. So, of course, we 
need them to be our ally. I think they can be our ally on a range of 
issues, but right now we better stop and look at what we are doing.
  There are significant national security considerations involved in 
this deal that have never been considered by the President. They must 
be considered in the post-9/11 world. That is what the law and our 
Nation's security require. After fumbling this process so badly, the 
President decided yesterday to accept the company's 45-day 
investigation of the port sale.
  While this is a good first step, the administration's consistent 
involvement in this, which has not been positive, makes me skeptical. 
There is no indication that they will do better in 45 days than they 
did in 14.
  The lesson of 9/11 is that we cannot leave any stone unturned. So I 
call upon this administration to take three steps concerning our ports 
and this sale, in particular. First, during the next 45 days, I urge 
the President to take a hard look at the national security implications 
of this arrangement. He cannot leave this decision to under secretaries 
and deputies. He needs to get involved and provide leadership.
  Second, he needs to work with Congress to fix the review process. We 
need to make sure that all future sales of critical infrastructure go 
under an automatic 45-day review, and that the President personally 
signs off on deals such as this, and that Congress is kept informed 
throughout the process.
  Finally, there is something else the President needs to do with our 
ports: Make a real commitment to port security. We have known for years 
how vulnerable our ports are. Only 5 percent of the containers coming 
into this country are inspected. For years, we have tried to make them 
more secure. Unfortunately, every time we bring a measure to the floor, 
it is defeated on a party-line vote. They have fought us every step of 
the way, going as far as eliminating grants to port security in next 
year's budget.
  If the President is serious about protecting our ports, he will 
reconsider this decision and join with Democrats to do everything we 
can to keep our ports safe.
  The President's second chance to turn incompetence into progress 
comes in Iraq. To be successful in Iraq, there must be victory on three 
fronts: the security front, the political front, and the economic or 
reconstruction front. Unfortunately, on all three fronts there is only 
incompetence by the administration right now.
  On the security front, we have gone from having one Iraqi battalion 
capable of operating independently to zero. We have gone backward. Our 
troops and our generals are performing bravely, doing their job with 
honor every day. Unfortunately, they have been let down by our civilian 
leaders time and time again. The political leaders of this 
administration didn't have a plan to win the peace. They sent our 
troops into battle without the equipment they needed. According to Paul 
Bremer, Provincial Governor of Iraq, in his book, this administration 
denied the military's request to put more troops on the ground so we 
could control Baghdad and Iraq's borders. We know that General Shinseki 
said we would need more than 200,000 troops. He was fired. We know 
Larry Lindsay, who was the President's chief economic adviser, said the 
war would cost us $100 billion. He was fired.
  The political front has been mired by similar incompetence. To 
achieve political victory, we need the Iraqi people to work together, 
but the raging violence between the Shia and Sunnis last week shows how 
far we are from that goal.
  President Bush cannot fulfill his responsibilities simply by placing 
a periodic phone call to the Iraqi leadership. He needs to be 
personally involved. The job of bringing all the factions together has 
been delegated to our fine Ambassador on the ground. The Secretary of 
State was in the region last week, but she apparently didn't have time 
to stop in Iraq and impress upon the Iraqi leadership the importance of 
coming together to form a government.
  On the reconstruction front, things are just as bleak. The Iraqi 
people still lack basic infrastructure. We don't know how many Iraqis 
are getting drinkable water. Their oil and electrical output continues 
to decline, and it is lower than before the war started. On 
reconstruction, only $3 billion has been delivered. The money has been 
spent, mired in fraud, with teams of Justice Department lawyers 
investigating contractor fraud and crimes by Americans running this 
civil authority.
  It is long past time for President Bush to come forward with a 
strategy to complete the mission in Iraq. We are losing ground on the 
three key fronts: economic, military, and political. The window of 
opportunity for the Iraqi people and this administration to get things 
right grows smaller every day.
  If the President is serious about our security, he will identify a 
strategy for achieving the remaining objectives that must be met in 
Iraq. We will pay a real price if the incompetence continues in Iraq. 
As the New York Times reported Friday, leaders across the Middle East 
fear that violence could spread from Iraq across the entire region. The 
President must get a handle on Iraq and do it now.
  On these three issues and other issues, we reach out to the 
President. We are willing to work with the President, but he must 
understand that it cannot be only his way; we have to work together. If 
we do this, we can have a better country.

[[Page S1495]]



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