[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 52 (Monday, March 26, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3744-S3747]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the 
amendment to strike section 1315 of the supplemental appropriations 
bill now before the Senate. The motion to strike was proposed earlier 
today by the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran. I am honored to be 
a cosponsor of it. I wish to explain to my colleagues why I am 
cosponsoring it.
  This is a bill that is quite necessary to the funding of our military 
effort in Iraq and more broadly. The bill has kind of grown like Topsy 
and has a lot of other stuff in it. Maybe I am reflecting on the fact 
that I am going to see my grandchildren soon. One of my favorite Dr. 
Seuss books is about Thidwick the moose. Thidwick is a glorious moose 
with large antlers. Various creatures in the forest begin to occupy, 
ultimately quite unjustifiably, Thidwick's antlers until they fall off. 
There are parts of this supplemental appropriations bill that in my 
opinion, respectfully, do not belong there. Most significant of those 
is section 1315, which our motion would strike.
  Section 1315 would order a withdrawal of American troops in Iraq to 
begin 120 days after passage, regardless of conditions on the ground, 
regardless of the recommendations of General Petraeus, regardless of 
the opinions of our partners in Iraq and throughout

[[Page S3745]]

the region, regardless of whether security is improving or 
deteriorating, the most significant of all. The withdrawal would be 
ordered by this section of the bill regardless of whether security was 
improving or deteriorating on the ground. It is the wrong measure at 
the wrong time. Ultimately, it will be a lot of sound and fury that 
signifies nothing but, more importantly, that accomplishes nothing and 
may do harm.
  Why do I say it will accomplish nothing? Because everyone in this 
Chamber knows that the President of the United States could not have 
been more clear: If section 1315 is in this bill and is sent to his 
desk, he will veto it. In my opinion, he should veto it. Everyone in 
this Chamber knows there are not the votes in either House of Congress 
to override that veto. So that all that would have been accomplished is 
a delay in getting essential support to our troops in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, support they need and on which they are counting. That is 
unacceptable.
  Obviously, Iraq and what has happened there, what is happening now is 
on our minds. We should discuss it. There are ways in which we can 
appropriately legislate with regard to Iraq. In fact, in this bill 
before us, there is a section on benchmarks which establishes for 
ourselves and for the Iraqi Government some benchmarks, some goals that 
we have in mind for what they primarily, on their own, should be 
achieving as they move to secure Baghdad and the rest of the country 
and to take control of their own destiny, an Iraqi Government governing 
the Iraqi people, which was the aim of our overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
  The benchmarks are in there, inspired by the good work done by 
Senator Nelson of Nebraska, Senator Warner of Virginia. Senator McCain 
and I, earlier in the debate on Iraq a couple of months ago, were 
prepared to introduce an amendment to have such benchmarks. So there 
was constructive work that could be done. The benchmarks in this bill 
are in the form of a sense of Congress. They are a message. But they 
are not tied to a deadline. The measure that passed the House last week 
actually has some benchmarks that are tied to triggers that would begin 
withdrawal from Iraq.
  President Eisenhower, speaking as a general, once said, now famously 
because it has been quoted often in these debates about Iraq, and I 
paraphrase: Anyone who sets a deadline, who argues for a deadline to be 
set in war doesn't understand war.
  I believe what General Eisenhower was saying is that war is a dynamic 
process, a terrible process, a deadly process, one we try, through the 
exercise of all our diplomatic strength, to avoid. But when you are in 
a war, you have to give some deference not just to the generals you 
authorized to be in command but to the reality on the ground. War is 
ever changing. I believe Eisenhower must have intended, when he said 
deadlines should not be set in war, that there are two occasions which 
would justify a withdrawal. One is when the mission is accomplished. 
When the purpose for which a nation entered a war is accomplished, then 
one withdraws in victory. The second occasion when one would withdraw, 
based on what is happening on the ground, not some arbitrary deadline 
set far from the battlefield, would be if those in charge conclude that 
it is impossible to achieve the mission, to achieve the purpose for 
which the military action, the war, was commenced. Then a retreat 
occurs, a retreat which is a retreat in defeat.
  As difficult as it has gone in Iraq and as many mistakes as have been 
made, as many setbacks as have occurred, as much as these mistakes and 
setbacks have stirred feelings of anger and frustration among the 
American people, which are totally understandable, justified, we have 
not reached the point in Iraq, in my considered judgment, where it is 
ready for a retreat because we have lost all hope of achieving our 
purposes there, which are to create a self-governing, self-sustaining 
Iraqi Government that will be our ally, particularly in the war against 
terrorism, as opposed to our enemy, and would create a model, a path, 
an alternative path to a better future in the Arab world, the Islamic 
world, than the death, hatred, and suicidal ambitions of al-Qaida and 
the other Islamic extremists, such as those who attacked us on 
September 11.
  We are in a long and difficult war, and the price paid by our heroic 
soldiers and their families has been heavy. I understand the feelings 
of anger and frustration among the American people. But what is not 
understandable, with all respect, is for Congress now to let the 
passions of this moment, in Washington, obscure what is happening at 
this moment in Baghdad and in Anbar. Our actions should be driven by 
the real-war conditions in Iraq, not by the mindset here in Washington.
  So I ask my colleagues to keep their minds open as we begin this very 
important and, critical debate. Our national security, in my opinion, 
is on the line in the outcome of this debate. The lives of our troops 
in Iraq and Afghanistan are on the line, quite literally, in the 
outcome of this debate.
  I ask my colleagues to keep their minds open and to make a judgment 
as to whether this section--ordering a withdrawal from Iraq within 120 
days, regardless of what happens on the ground; to be essentially 
completed by March of next year when most American troops would be 
withdrawn, regardless of what is happening on the ground in Iraq--to 
keep their minds open as to whether this is the right time for such a 
measure, whether it is the right measure, and whether it has any chance 
to do anything but to send a mixed message from this Congress, 
particularly to those who are fighting for us.
  I ask my colleagues to look from here, for a moment, at what is 
actually happening on the ground in Baghdad and in Anbar Province, to 
the west, under the new security strategy with the new troops GEN David 
Petraeus is implementing.
  Here is what I hear people saying--this is preliminary, this is 
early, but it is encouraging--sectarian fighting between Sunni and Shia 
is down significantly in districts in Baghdad where American and Iraqi 
forces have entered. That means the number of people killed in 
sectarian conflict, violent acts, death squads in Baghdad is down 
significantly in those districts where Iraqi and American forces have 
entered and established a presence.
  As security improves, many Iraqi families that fled from their homes 
are returning to Baghdad. Moqtada al-Sadr, the head of the Mahdi 
militia, who has been so anti-American, has disappeared and many of his 
top lieutenants have been arrested.
  The Government of Prime Minister Maliki, the Government in Iraq, has 
shown the kind of strength and decisiveness that is an obvious and 
necessary precondition for progress there.
  I ask my colleagues to consider the testimony given to the Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which I am privileged to 
chair, last Wednesday by Stuart Bowen, Jr., the Special Inspector 
General for Iraqi Reconstruction. Anybody who has followed Mr. Bowen's 
work knows this is a straight shooter. He is not in there to protect 
anybody. He is not in there to spin. He has told it as he sees it. He 
has been extremely critical of so much of what has happened in Iraq, 
particularly, obviously, within the jurisdiction the law gives him as 
Inspector General, which is to see how our money has been spent. He has 
documented waste in ways that are truly infuriating.
  So when Stuart Bowen says something encouraging about what he sees in 
Iraq, that matters to me, and I believe it should matter to others. 
Last Wednesday, before the committee, Mr. Bowen said the week before he 
had returned from his 15th visit to Iraq. He said:

       It's been about twenty months--

  Almost 2 years--

     since I have returned from Iraq with a sense of cautious 
     optimism. I have that now.

  That is significant. Why on Earth--with independent testimony from 
Iraq that there are preliminary, encouraging signs of the effect of the 
new troops, the new plan, the new leader--why on Earth would we at this 
time order a withdrawal of those troops to begin within 120 days 
regardless?
  Why, in the face of these encouraging developments, would this 
Chamber demand that the essence of the plan that has brought about 
these encouraging developments should end? Why, just several weeks 
after confirming GEN David Petraeus to lead our effort in Iraq, would 
this Chamber block him from carrying out the strategy he

[[Page S3746]]

shaped, is now implementing, and appears to be working?
  In my opinion, the deadline for withdrawal from Iraq that is in this 
bill now is a deadline for defeat, where victory and success are still 
possible. There are no guarantees, of course, in war. That is why we 
adjust our judgments according to what is happening on the ground. So 
there are no guarantees that the encouraging first results of the 
implementation of the Petraeus plan will continue and go to full 
success--no guarantees.
  But I can tell you this: If we adopt an arbitrary order to begin to 
withdraw our troops, regardless of what is happening on the ground in 
Iraq in the war, it will guarantee failure. That failure will have 
profound consequences for Iraq, which I believe will break up into not 
just full-fledged civil war but the kind of ethnic slaughter that drew 
us a decade ago into Bosnia to stop. And we will have withdrawn and be 
expected to stand by and let it happen.
  Of course, ultimately it will lead to what will be claimed as a 
victory for the forces of Islamic extremism, our enemies in this war we 
are fighting. It will, in my opinion, ultimately embolden them to 
strike us here at home again.
  So I appeal to my colleagues, as this debate on this amendment to 
strike begins, let's have a good debate. That is our nature. That is 
the essence of our democracy and of this Senate in which we are 
privileged to serve. But I ask my colleagues, in the end, to step back 
and think carefully about what this section 1315 would bring about, and 
instead of undermining General Petraeus, or at best sending a mixed 
message to him and his troops, let's give him and his troops the 
unified support and time they need to succeed for us.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  I withdraw the suggestion of an absence of a quorum, seeing my friend 
and colleague from Oklahoma now on the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the Senate is going to take up, tomorrow, 
in rather full detail, an emergency supplemental spending bill. I think 
it is real important, first, for the American people to know what an 
emergency supplemental bill is supposed to be. It is supposed to be 
about funding unforeseen problems we could not have anticipated in the 
regular appropriations process. For a very small amount of this bill, 
that may be true.
  This bill is $121 billion of your grandchildren's and great-
grandchildren's money. This bill does not have to stay within the 
budgetary limitations Congress sets on itself. This bill goes outside 
every rule we have in terms of controlling the budget, living within 
our means, and it says: Here is a credit card.
  Now, by the way, on the way to funding the war in Iraq, the wisdom of 
the Senate has added--and it is $21 billion in the House--about $18.9 
billion in a wish list. It is a Christmas tree. If each of us in our 
own personal lives ran our businesses or our households the way 
Congress is running the emergency supplemental process, we would do it 
for about 1 year. Then we would be going to bankruptcy court, and we 
would be losing the vast majority of our possessions because we would 
not have been deemed to be responsible with the assets we had.
  There lies the problem. It is the culture of Congress that thinks we 
can put a hood over the American people's eyes so they will not know 
what we are about to do in the next 4 or 5 days in this Chamber. You 
are going to hear all the reasons in the world why somebody needs 
something, except it is never going to be held in contrast to the loss 
of the standard of living of our grandchildren. Yes, there are 
agricultural needs out there we should have funded a year ago.
  The chairman of the Budget Committee said when he would get in power, 
when the Democrats would get in power, they were going to pay for it--
except here we have an emergency agriculture supplemental bill, a good 
portion of which is needed but it is not paid for. There is no offset 
anywhere else in the hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of waste in 
the discretionary side of the budget alone, to reduce something else so 
we can take care of those who need us now.
  There is another aspect to this funding bill; that is, the politics 
that plays into it over the debate on the Iraq war. What we are seeing 
play out is a double-edged sword of how do we hurt the troops in the 
field by adding things to a supplemental bill to take care of them, 
when there has already been a threatened veto over the bill because it 
adds $18.9 billion more than what the President asked for to fund the 
war.
  So as you listen, in the next 4 or 5 days, to the Senate debate this 
bill, there are a couple things you ought to pay attention to, and you 
ought to ask yourself the question: Where is the money coming from to 
pay for this bill? Where is the sacrifice from the generations today to 
do what the Members of this body want to do?
  There is no sacrifice. We are not calling on anybody to sacrifice. 
What we are saying is: Those unborn, those young, those who are about 
to be born, and the children of those who are young, unborn or about to 
be born are the ones who are going to pay for it.
  It portends a great moral question of our society today: How is it we 
can totally turn upside down the heritage of this country, the heritage 
of a country that has been built on the following premise: ``I am going 
to work hard. I am going to sacrifice. And I am going to serve so that 
my children and grandchildren get ahead''? Have we become such a 
selfish country that we do not care about the next two generations?
  I think the Senate has spoken, at least the appropriators have 
spoken. They have said ``yes,'' it is OK to do things such as pay for 
the conventions, in August, of the Democratic and Republican Parties 
for the additional funds that will be needed for police enforcement 
with an emergency bill. Our grandchildren are not going to benefit from 
that. The political process today is. But we put it in this bill 
because it means if we put it in this bill, it will not be charged 
against the regular budget process. It is another way to spend more 
money. So let's move more things into the emergency category, so we do 
not have to be responsible when the rest of the appropriations bills 
come through the Senate.
  Think about this: You have a grandchild sitting on your knee and you 
say: Yes, back in 2007, they had a party in Minneapolis and in Denver, 
and they charged it to you. You may get to go to college, you may not, 
but I just want you to know we had a good time at our conventions. How 
about $100 million for businesses that have under $15 million in 
revenue a year that have suffered some loss from a drought over the 
last 2 or 3 years. We already have several organizations within the 
Federal Government: Farm Service Agency, loan capabilities from the 
Department of Agriculture, the Small Business Administration. All are 
qualified to loan money to businesses that work in the agricultural 
area but, no, we set aside. We expanded the farm program with this bill 
to give $100 million to small businesses that have been hurt. If you 
are not connected to agriculture and you have been hurt, where is the 
bill to help you? Where does the precedent stop in terms of your small 
business?

  What about the fact that gas prices rose and some auto dealers went 
out of business? Where is the $100 million for them? What about the 
fact that energy prices have gone up and small business profits all 
across the country have been severely damaged because if they are 
energy dependent, their costs have risen significantly? Where is the 
$100 million? Where does it stop? Where does it stop that we steal--
when do we stop stealing from our grandchildren?
  There is also in this emergency provision $3.5 million for tours of 
the Capitol. An emergency, that we have to have the money now, 
otherwise we won't have tours in the Capitol? That isn't right, but 
that is what is in the bill: $3.5 million. Why? So we can have $3.5 
million more to play with when we get inside the budget now that we are 
outside the budget.
  Oh, and I forgot to mention the fact the administration isn't 
innocent in this either, because the war in Iraq is hardly an 
emergency. As a matter of fact, it is in its fourth year. The 
administration should know what they need. Rather than send a 
supplemental up here, it should be in the Defense appropriations bill. 
It should have been in the bill we passed this last year. But instead, 
even the administration is complicit.

[[Page S3747]]

  Who is going to stand and speak for the future against the processes 
the Congress uses today to fund and grow the Government, not worrying 
about how we pay for it in the future? Will you? Will you challenge 
this process? Will you say enough is enough? Will you do your part as a 
citizen of this country to make a difference, to hold people 
accountable here, rather than let the continued culture--and I call it 
a culture which actually the majority party ran on. It is a culture of 
corruption. When you do for you and steal from those who are weak and 
have no access or ability to pay it, that is corruption. It is morally 
corrupt. It is a process by which we undermine the very foundation upon 
which our country has become strong. If we continue it, what we will 
see is a weakened nation.
  We now have $70 trillion of unfunded liabilities for Medicare, 
Medicaid, and Social Security. Think about that for a minute. Go figure 
out how many zeroes are associated with $1 trillion. If you had 
everyone who was worth more than $1 billion in the world sell all of 
their assets tomorrow and give every bit of that to the U.S. 
Government, it wouldn't even pay the interest for 1 year. How is it we 
can be going down this road? How is it we can be turning our backs on 
the principles that made us great as a nation--the idea of personal 
responsibility even applied to Senators, and accountability, and 
transparency. We are going to hear a lot of stories about what is and 
isn't happening with this bill over the next 3 or 4 days, but the 
question I hope the American people will ask themselves is where is the 
money coming from? Where is the money coming from? If it is not in a 
pot somewhere and if it is not saved, somebody is going to have to pay 
for it.
  This money is coming from the big Visa card of the Federal 
Government. We are going to ``cha-ching'' and we are going to say: 
Grandchildren, you have to pay for this war in Iraq, plus another $19 
billion, because we don't have the courage to hold this Government 
accountable. We don't even have the courage to hold ourselves 
accountable. We don't have the courage to eliminate the duplication, 
the fraud, and the waste that accounts for over $200 billion every year 
in this $3 trillion budget. There is no courage here to face that. We 
can do oversight hearings, and we have done so. Senator Carper and 
myself did 46, more than any other committee of Congress, over the last 
2 years. What we found was almost $200 billion of either duplicative 
programs, wasteful programs, or outright fraud. Yet where is the 
Congress offsetting those with this bill? No. It is too hard work. You 
might offend somebody. The next election is more important than the 
next generation. Being here is more important than doing what is the 
best thing for our Nation.
  So I hope as we approach this bill, the American public will ask that 
question about where the sacrifice comes from to do this. Where does 
the sacrifice come from? Unfortunately, it is going to come from the 
next 2 generations. It is hard to identify what that means, but with $9 
trillion of actual outstanding debt we have now and the $70 trillion of 
unfunded liability, it doesn't take a great imagination to understand 
how that might impact our children and grandchildren, with high 
interest rates, lack of ability to afford a college education, 
inability to own a home, buy a new car. All of those things are coming 
as we continue to steal the future from our children and our 
grandchildren. The big government credit card. It is only available 
because there is a lack of backbone and spine in the Congress to do 
what is necessary to give the American people true value from their 
Government. It is hard. A lot of people get upset. But I would much 
rather stand here and try to change it now than try to explain to my 
grandchildren why we didn't change it, why we didn't do that.
  I have some hope the American people are starting to wake up to the 
budgetary gimmicks and processes the Congress uses. When they really 
awaken, what they are going to do is change who runs this place. It is 
going to be real citizen legislators. It is going to be people who care 
about the future more than they care about today. It is going to be 
people who care about a heritage that continues to be and create and 
hold forth the greatest experiment in freedom that has ever been. 
Without that change, as Will Durant said:

       Great societies are never conquered from without until they 
     rot from within.

  This is part of the rotting process we are going to see over the next 
5 days in the Senate. If people summon courage, summon long-term 
viewpoint, summon sacrifice of giving up of themselves, whether it be 
position or power so we can create something better, the country will 
be all the better for that. If we don't, there won't be a headline that 
says: ``Grandchildren hurt by supplemental bill,'' but it doesn't mean 
they won't be. The fact is they will.
  It is interesting the accounting that Washington uses. Last year the 
official number on the deficit was $175 billion, but the real number, 
the amount the debt went up, was $360 billion. If you are at home and 
you have a checkbook and you spend $175 more than you had in the 
checkbook, but at the end of the year you charged another $200 on top 
of it, you really spent it all, and you went into debt for that whole 
amount. But we don't do what national accounting standards say. We play 
a game. We take the Social Security money and we lessen the effect of 
what we are doing through Social Security and 30 some other trust funds 
such as the inland waterway trust fund and several others, and the 
retirement of the employees of the Federal Government that is not 
funded, and we add all that back and we make it look better than it is.
  The idea behind a half lie is a whole truth, but it is not. A half 
truth is a whole lie.
  So my hope is when we have this debate on this bill, this $121 
billion bill, America will say: Wait a minute. Why aren't you paying 
for it? Why aren't you trimming some of the fat? Why aren't you 
trimming some of the problems? Why aren't you doing that? Because it is 
hard. That is not a good enough reason to undermine the future of this 
country.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak this 
evening and the staff staying here.
  Mr. President, I note 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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