[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 69 (Monday, April 30, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5267-S5269]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I come to the floor of the Senate today 
where there is an opportunity for a historic moment. We have passed, 
despite critics who doubted it, a bill which is being sent to the 
President tomorrow. This bill is the supplemental appropriations bill 
for the war in Iraq. It is the seventh supplemental bill the President 
has asked for. These bills by their nature are supposed to be 
unexpected appropriations bills for unanticipated disasters and 
emergencies.
  President Bush has decided to fund this war with these so-called 
emergency appropriations bills. It is hard to argue, in the fifth year 
of this war, that it is unanticipated that our troops need help. They 
are going to continue to need help as long as the President keeps them 
in Iraq and in the fight.
  The President has already signaled his punch. We know what he is 
going to do with this bill. He said he is going to veto this bill. This 
will be the second veto in the 6 years or more that George W. Bush has 
served as President. Only twice will he have used his veto pen. The 
first was to stop a bill for stem cell research, a bill that had passed 
the House and the Senate with bipartisan support. I will not go through 
the litany of Republicans and Democrats who supported it. I was one. We 
sent it to the President urging him to reconsider his position that we 
ought to cut off medical research if it meant using embryonic stem 
cells, that it was better to use them for research than to have them 
discarded, thrown away. Use them for the valuable pursuit of cures for 
illnesses and diseases so that people suffering from diabetes, 
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, spinal cord injury, so many other 
different diseases, heart disease, for example, that they would have a 
chance with this research.
  The President said, no, used his veto pen for the very first time and 
stopped that bill to continue to stop Federal funding of that research. 
I think the President was wrong and I believe others believe that as 
well.
  Now we have a bill that is also about life and death. This is a bill 
about war. What we have said to the President is: We will give you 
money to sustain our troops in battle. In fact, we will give you more 
than you asked for our troops, but we want you to understand, as most 
Americans do, that we need a plan to bring our troops home.
  The idea of funding this war indefinitely and watching it continue 
day by weary day, month by bloody month, is unacceptable to the 
majority of Americans, unacceptable to the majority of the Members of 
the House and Senate.
  When we started down this path just a few weeks ago, there were some 
who doubted that we would be able to find enough Democrats and 
Republicans to pass an alternative, a timetable for redeployment of our 
troops. But we did. Despite the fact that there were 50 Democrats and 
49 Republicans, that one of the Senators in our ranks voted with the 
other side of the aisle, we have been able to find at least two 
Republican Senators who will stand with us for the argument that it is 
time for American troops to start coming home.
  But the President has said he is going to veto this bill. It will be 
ironic if he vetoes it tomorrow because, you see, tomorrow is the 
fourth anniversary of the President's announcement that our mission had 
been accomplished in Iraq, 4 years ago today we were told.
  We have had 3,351 killed in Iraq, 3,351 soldiers, marines, sailors, 
and airmen. I called many of the families who have lost someone, 
dropped a note to others, attended a few funerals along the way when my 
schedule allowed. It is a heart-sickening feeling for a father like 
myself to walk into a funeral of a young man, 19, 20, 21 years of age, 
to watch parents with the pride, of course, in the service of their son 
or daughter, but the realization that they are gone, and what it means 
for the rest of their life. Madam President, 3,351 funerals. Maybe we 
don't realize that number because this administration has carefully 
avoided scenes where we would be reminded. They would not allow us to 
film the return of flag-draped caskets. What an irony that in the 
United Kingdom the flag-draped caskets have become the center of a 
national observance, the center of national respect as people pour out 
to show how much they cared for that fallen soldier. But in America it 
is kept quiet, but not quiet enough, because we know what is happening. 
We know what is happening to our country, and we know it has to change.
  Madam President, today the former Director of the CIA, George Tenet, 
has published his book, ``At the Center of the Storm.'' I worked with 
Mr. Tenet for 4 years as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 
There were times when I was inspired by his public face and times when 
I was angry at some of the things he did or said or failed to do. He 
was, indeed, a public servant, and one with a long career. In the 
preface to this book, which talks about the war in Iraq in many parts, 
we have a section which I would like to read into the Record. It is an 
important section for all of us to reflect upon.
  George Tenet speaks about the day after 9/11. Imagine, the head of 
the Central Intelligence Agency. America has been attacked for the 
first time since the British in the War of 1812. More

[[Page S5268]]

than 3,000 innocent Americans died. The Nation is in turmoil, fear, and 
anger over what has occurred, and you are the person responsible for 
gathering the intelligence to find out who did it and how to stop them 
from ever doing it again.
  He talks about the morning after, Wednesday, September 12, dawned as 
the first full day of a world gone mad. Nothing would ever be the same: 
Early that morning, operating on only a few hours' sleep, I headed out 
of my front door to the armored Ford Expedition that was waiting to 
carry me to see the President of the United States.
  He talks about his journey to the White House early on the morning of 
Wednesday, September 12. This is the part I think is important to note.
  George Tenet writes:

       All this weighed heavily on my mind as I walked beneath the 
     awning that leads to the West Wing and saw Richard Perle 
     exiting the building just as I was about to enter. Perle was 
     one of the godfathers of the neoconservative movement, and at 
     that time he was head of the Defense Policy Board, an 
     independent advisory group to the Secretary of Defense. Ours 
     was little more than a passing acquaintance. As the doors 
     closed behind him, we made eye contact and nodded. I had just 
     reached the door myself when Perle turned to me and said, 
     quote: Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. 
     They bear responsibility.

  Tenet writes:

       I was stunned but said nothing. Eighteen hours earlier, I 
     had scanned passenger manifests from the four hijacked 
     airplanes that showed beyond a doubt that al-Qaida was behind 
     the attacks. Over the months and years to follow, we would 
     carefully examine the potential of collaborative roles for 
     state sponsors. The intelligence, then and now, however, 
     showed no evidence of Iraqi complicity.
       At the Secret Service security checkpoint, I looked back at 
     Perle and thought: What the hell is he talking about? Moments 
     later a second thought came to me: Who has Richard Perle been 
     meeting with in the White House so early in the morning on 
     today of all days? I never learned the answer to that 
     question.

  That is not a surprising story, although it is stunning because we 
have heard the same. This administration, hours after the attack of 9/
11, decided that Iraq had to be our next target. The Director of the 
Central Intelligence Agency, a man privy to all of the classified 
information, said then and now there was no connection. Yet here we are 
today, 3,351 fallen soldiers, 25,000 or more seriously injured, 8,000 
or 9,000 returning as amputees and victims of traumatic brain injury.
  Many of us believe it is time for the Iraqis to take responsibility 
for their own country. We have spent over 500 billion American dollars 
in Iraq, not just for our military but for the Iraqi people as well. We 
have given them our most precious treasure, the lives of our soldiers. 
We have given them from our Treasury freely in an effort to try to give 
them a chance to rule their own country.
  Their dictator, Saddam Hussein, is gone. They have been given free 
elections and an opportunity to write their own constitution. We have 
waited patiently as they have failed time and time again to meet their 
own targets for progress.
  April 4, a few weeks ago, Leon Panetta, a former Member of the House 
of Representatives from California, former Chief of Staff to President 
Bill Clinton, a member of the Iraq Study Group, wrote an article in the 
New York Times entitled, ``What About Those Other Iraq Deadlines?'' 
Everyone should read this because what Mr. Panetta has done is to lay 
out all of the deadlines which the Iraqis set for themselves, not 
deadlines we imposed on them but set for themselves, to bring order to 
their country.
  Mr. Panetta shows, time and again, how they have failed. The Iraqis 
promised to achieve, by the end of 2006 or early 2007, the approval of 
a provincial election law. So far no progress. Approval of a law to 
regulate the oil industry and share revenues. While the Council of 
Ministers has approved a draft, it has yet to be approved by 
parliament. Approval of the debaathification laws to reintegrate 
officials of the former regime and Arab nationalists into public life. 
No progress. Approval of a law to rein in sectarian militias. No 
progress. By March, the Government promised to hold a referendum on 
constitutional amendments. No progress.
  By May the Prime Minister committed to putting in place the law 
controlling militias. No progress. The approval of the amnesty 
agreement. No progress. The completion of all reconciliation efforts. 
No progress. The Iraqi Government promised to hold provincial 
elections. No date has been set. The list goes on and on.
  The point I would like to make for the record is that while the 
Iraqis take their sweet time deciding the tough political decisions 
that they face to have a stable country, our soldiers die.
  Tomorrow, the President is likely to veto our suggestion that our 
soldiers start coming home. What message will that send the Iraqis? It 
will send the message it is business as usual: Problems in your 
country? Dial 9-1-1. Order up 20,000 American soldiers. Political 
difficulties? Take your time. The Americans are standing guard over 
your country while your civil strife continues. That is the message of 
President Bush's veto. It is a message which says to the Iraqis: 
Continue business as usual.
  Many of us on a bipartisan basis in the House and Senate think that 
is exactly the wrong message. If there is anything Prime Minister 
Maliki should understand it is that the American people and their 
representatives in Congress have had enough. It is our belief that the 
Iraqis need to take responsibility for their own future.
  I think we understand, as we listen to these missed deadlines, that 
these are not just shortcomings but symptoms of a reconciliation within 
Iraq that may not be possible. That is a hard thing to say, but it is a 
conclusion which we have to at least consider.
  There was never an exit strategy for this war, a war which was 
conceived in the hours after the attack of 9/11, and a war which the 
former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency cannot link to that 
tragic event. There was never an exit strategy and without setting 
benchmarks we have given our issue of national security to an Iraqi 
Government that cannot get it together.
  Primary Minister Maliki has fallen in and out of favor with this 
White House. Stephen Hadley, the President's adviser on issues of 
national security, at one time had a memo leaked which suggested he was 
running out of patience. Then the White House said later, that is not 
the official position. But it is a reality of what we face today, a 
reality that suggests that Mr. Maliki may not be up to this job.
  If the President does not care for our exit strategy to bring 
American troops home, what is his exit strategy? Is it to stay there 
indefinitely? To wait, as he has suggested, for another President, 20 
months from now, to take up this challenge? Twenty months? Twenty 
months of losing more soldiers, twenty months of spending $8 to $10 
billion a month rather than spend it in the United States for our own 
people, for their security and their prosperity?
  What would happen if the President's escalation of this war, which 
has gone through many different names--surge, augmentation, you name 
it. What it means is 20,000 to 30,000 more soldiers are put in harm's 
way. What happens if it is successful and secures Baghdad? Does that 
mean our soldiers can come home? I don't think so. I am afraid in the 
President's view of things it is just one step in a long series of 
steps that continue to require the presence of our troops.
  Madam President, last week I came to the floor of the Senate for the 
ninth time recounting my personal experience in the lead-up to the vote 
on this war. I talked about the fact that I was a member of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee when this vote came up.
  As a member of the Intelligence Committee, we meet in closed session, 
no access by the press or public. The room is carefully guarded. It is 
swept to make sure there are no listening devices. People in our 
Government come in to brief the Intelligence Committee with the most 
sensitive, delicate, and important intelligence information. It is an 
understanding of every member of the committee that, unlike other 
committees, we are not supposed to talk. What we hear in that room is 
supposed to stay in that room. I am sure there are breaches from time 
to time, but conscientious Senators do their best to avoid doing so. We 
understand that many times that nugget of information, as important as 
it may be, could involve a human life somewhere, someone who has risked 
their life to tell us

[[Page S5269]]

something important to keep us safe. We have to take that information 
just that seriously.
  In the lead-up to the war in Iraq, we were given these briefings by 
members of the Bush administration about why they felt we had to 
invade. I would sit in that room and listen day after day to hours and 
hours of testimony. What I heard then has now been declassified, so we 
can speak of it openly, but at the time, we couldn't. It was classified 
information, top-secret information, not to be disclosed. As I listened 
to the administration debating one another about whether there was a 
potential for nuclear weapons or whether there were weapons of mass 
destruction, it became obvious to me that even within the 
administration there were serious doubts about some of the things which 
were being told to the American people. It troubled me. I said as much 
on the floor last week and say it again this week.
  It was interesting, after having said that, one of the more 
ultraconservative publications, the Washington Times, has been critical 
of me for not disclosing classified information. Senator Nelson knows 
what I am talking about. Had I walked out to the microphones and said: 
The Bush administration is in a battle within its own ranks as to 
whether this is true, you can imagine the next morning's headline: 
``Durbin Discloses Classified Information From the Intelligence 
Committee.'' I couldn't do it. None of us could from that committee.
  I accept the challenge from these ultraconservative publications and 
some of their blogs. I think I did the only thing I could do. With my 
conscience and with my own knowledge, I voted against this war, feeling 
at the time that it was a mistake for us to go forward. I still feel it 
was a mistake. Now we to have do something to turn that around. We have 
to start bringing our soldiers home.
  I hope that when the President has a chance to veto this bill or sign 
it tomorrow, he will stop and think for a moment. If he fails to sign 
this bill, he will, unfortunately, endanger the lives of American 
soldiers who are wedded to his failed policy in Iraq. These fine men 
and women in uniform are the very best in America. They are doing their 
duty. They didn't write this policy. That was written by the Commander 
in Chief and those who work for him. They will go into battle as 
instructed and risk their lives day in and day out. But we know, with 
3,351 dead and no end in sight, we have to move forward.
  When the President vetoes this bill, if he chooses to make that 
decision, he will be vetoing billions of dollars for National Guard 
equipment that we added to his request. He will be vetoing billions of 
dollars for military hospitals so we don't have the scandal we had at 
Walter Reed a few weeks ago. He will be vetoing billions of dollars for 
us to put into veterans hospitals to take care of returning wounded 
soldiers. He will be vetoing billions of dollars for Hurricane Katrina 
relief that is long overdue. The President has a chance in signing this 
bill to not only move us in an orderly manner to bringing American 
troops home but serving so many other important needs for this country. 
I hope he won't just instinctively and reflexively veto the bill. I 
hope he will consider that it is time for change and it is time for a 
new direction.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I commend my colleague from 
Illinois for the very cogent and heartfelt plea he has made that this 
Government function as it should between the three branches and that 
the appropriations process is one which is joined between the executive 
branch and the legislative branch. It was never intended to be all one 
way or not. Yet that is what publicly has been insisted by the White 
House on this Iraq funding bill. It is expected that the President is 
going to veto this legislation. Then the question is, Are we going to 
be able to have a meeting of the minds? Can we have a little bit less 
partisanship and a lot more, as the Good Book says, come let us reason 
together? It is my hope that we will see more of that.

                          ____________________