[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 17, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9434-S9436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
prayer
The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
Let us pray.
Eternal Father, Creator of the season, as the Members of this body
run a legislative marathon, may they feel Your devine presence. Allow
contact with You to calm their fears, to silence their anxiety, to hush
their restlessness and to fill them with Your peace. Strengthen them so
that they are not weary in pursuing a worthy goal knowing that a
harvest awaits those who persevere in doing Your will.
Give them gratitude for the opportunities You have given them to be
stewards of our national destiny. And as You remind them that to whom
much is given, much is expected.
We pray for Your will to be done here in this Chamber as in heaven.
In Your mighty Name I pray. Amen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will
report the motion to invoke cloture.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the Levin-Reed,
et al., amendment No. 2087, to H.R. 1585, Department of
Defense Authorization, 2008.
Carl Levin, Ted Kennedy, Byron L. Dorgan, Russell D.
Feingold, B.A. Mikulski, Debbie Stabenow, Benjamin L.
Cardin, Amy Klobuchar, Pat Leahy, Richard J. Durbin,
Jeff Bingaman, Jack Reed, Ron Wyden, Barbara Boxer,
Patty Murray, Robert Menendez, Daniel K. Akaka, Charles
Schumer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on Senate
amendment No. 2087 offered by the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin, to
H.R. 1585 shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and names are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call
the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from South Dakota (Mr.
Johnson) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 47, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 252 Leg.]
YEAS--52
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Clinton
Collins
Conrad
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Hagel
Harkin
Inouye
Kennedy
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
McCaskill
Menendez
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Rockefeller
Salazar
Sanders
Schumer
Smith
Snowe
Stabenow
Tester
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--47
Alexander
Allard
Barrasso
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Coleman
Corker
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
Dole
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Kyl
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Reid
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
NOT VOTING--1
Johnson
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are
47. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by
which cloture was not invoked on the Levin-Reed amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, this has been a long week, and it is hard to
comprehend, but it is only Wednesday, Wednesday morning. We have now
been in session continuously for 2 days. On Monday, I submitted a
simple request for consent to proceed to an up-or-down vote on the
Levin-Reed amendment to the Defense authorization bill. As I have
stated, this amendment provides a clear, binding responsible path to
change the U.S. mission and reduce our combat presence in Iraq. It
honors the sacrifice of our troops, reflects the will of the American
people, and lets us rebuild and focus our military on the growing
threats we face throughout the world.
Regrettably, Republicans chose to block this amendment. They chose to
block a bipartisan amendment, Mr. President, to deny the American
people an up-or-down vote. They chose to continue protecting their
President instead of our troops, no matter the cost to our country.
[[Page S9435]]
In contrast, my Democratic colleagues and a number of brave
Republicans came to the floor of the Senate throughout the night to
make our case. I am proud of what they have said and what they have
done. We spent 2 days showing America that we are not going to back
down, we are going to continue to fight, and that if President Bush and
his allies in Congress refuse to budge, we will continue to show them
the way.
How could we possibly shrink from this fight? How could we possibly
try to avoid this fight? As we speak, many of our 160,000 men and women
serving in Iraq are wrapping up another day of war, real war on foreign
sands. For them, it was yet another day caught in an intractable civil
war, Sunni versus Shia, Shia versus Sunni, Shia versus Shia, Sunni
versus Sunni, and--what other combinations can we come up with--with
our troops caught in the crossfires, our troops trying to protect the
Shias, Sunnis, and the Kurds, and all of them after our troops.
As the Iraqi people have said in poll after poll, about 70 percent of
them think we are doing more harm in their country than good.
The high temperature today in Iraq was about 115 degrees, and our
troops were wearing about 100 pounds of equipment. This was the 1,583rd
day of the war. They have served us each and every day with courage,
despite being taken to war falsely, prematurely, and recklessly. They
have served us each and every day with courage and valor, despite a
President who still lacks a plan for success. They have served us each
and every day with courage, despite too many in Congress who remain
unwilling to change course.
Those 160,000 troops deserve more. They and all Americans deserve a
debate and votes on legislation that will finally provide them a
strategy to honor their great sacrifice.
As we have just seen, a bipartisan majority of the Senate supports
Levin-Reed. A bipartisan majority of the Senate supports a binding new
policy that would responsibly bring the war to an end so we can return
our focus and resources to the real threats and challenges our great
country faces. Yet a Republican minority blocked a vote on the
bipartisan amendment that would deliver that new course, and instead
they chose to stand behind the President and this tragic failure he has
led.
So today I am filled with a mixture of pride and regret--pride for my
colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, who have risen to this crucial
cause in giving the American people the debate they deserve, yet regret
for my colleagues who have blocked the will of the people and the
majority of this Congress. I believe the will of the people must be
heeded, and I believe this critical vote must proceed.
In an effort to make progress on this issue and this bill, I will,
therefore, request unanimous consent to move to a vote on the four Iraq
amendments to the Defense authorization bill outlined yesterday morning
in my letter to Senator McConnell. My unanimous consent request is
eminently fair. It would provide up-or-down, yes-or-no votes on three
other bipartisan Iraq amendments in exchange for the same on Levin-
Reed.
Under my proposal, we would vote on these Iraq amendments: Levin-
Reed, Lugar-Warner, Salazar-Alexander, and Nelson-Collins. In addition,
I also indicated in my letter that I am prepared to agree to up-or-down
votes on other amendments as well.
Therefore, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the
Senate considers the following Iraq amendments, they be subject to
majority votes: the pending Levin-Reed amendment, the Byrd-Clinton
deauthorization amendment, the Warner-Lugar amendment No. 2208, the
Salazar-Alexander Iraq Study Group amendment, the Nelson-Collins
amendment No. 2124, and Senator Landrieu's al-Qaida amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, not many
Americans of our generation have failed to see the movie
``Casablanca.'' There are many memorable lines in that movie. My
favorite was uttered by the actor, Claude Rains, when he walked into
the casino and said incredulously: ``Gambling in Casablanca?'' Followed
by the comment: ``Round up the usual suspects.''
Sixty votes in the Senate? As common as gambling in Casablanca.
I think we can stipulate, and my good friends on the other side of
the aisle stipulated from time to time over the years when they were in
the minority, that in the Senate it takes 60 votes on controversial
matters. What is more controversial than the war in Iraq? Of course, it
is going to take 60 votes. No one in the galleries and certainly no one
in this town and even casual observers of the Senate across the country
would be surprised that on a controversial matter of this consequence
it would require 60 votes.
Now the leader has also made some observations about the status of
the war. Most Members on this side of the aisle don't believe it is any
accident that we haven't been attacked again since 9/11. They believe
it is because we have been on the offense in places such as Afghanistan
and Iraq, and we have taken it to the enemy. A lot of them are dead,
many of them are in Guantanamo, and the rest are on the run.
There is no plan after the Levin amendment. Withdraw, and then what?
What happens then? We haven't been dodging this debate. We offered to
have the Levin amendment voted on yesterday. The only reason we stayed
in all night was to provide a bit of theater on an extraordinarily
important issue.
This is a serious debate. Members on this side of the aisle engaged
in this debate throughout the evening. We were not afraid of the
debate, but we certainly were not delaying the vote. We would have been
happy to have the vote at any point over the last few days.
So, Mr. President, the request was that we have additional Iraq
votes----
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may we have order?
Mr. McCONNELL. With a simple majority.
Mr. BYRD. May we have order?
Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, this is not a movie in which we are
involved. This is a debate on one of the most serious issues this
country has ever faced. Thousands of Americans have been killed in
Iraq, tens of thousands have been wounded, and we are depleting the
National Treasury by more than half a trillion dollars. But my
distinguished friend's statement clearly indicates what has happened in
Iraq since we last took up this debate.
We passed the Defense authorization bill last November. We had Iraq
amendments then. There were no 60-vote margins. But in the last 7
months since that debate took place, this war has gone in the wrong
direction--in the wrong direction. That direction is the way that
President Bush has managed this war. That is why all of a sudden now
that 7 months has gone by with thousands more Americans being wounded,
and hundreds and hundreds more being killed, suddenly this is an issue
that requires 60 votes.
If there were ever a picture, look at what happened last November and
look what happened today. Of course, they need 60 votes because all
these amendments would pass with simple majority--all of them, every
one of them telling the President he should change course. The
difference is how to tell the President to change course. The Levin-
Reed amendment did it by mandating a timeline.
I am disappointed to see that my friend is leading the Republicans to
obstruction over progress. I understand the Senate rules. Other than
this man sitting behind me, I think I know the rules about as well as
anyone in this Chamber. I understand the Senate rules allow for
minority filibuster over the will of the majority, but that is not the
tradition of this bill, and it should not be the path that is chosen
given the stakes involved.
But because Republicans continue to block votes on important
amendments to the Defense authorization bill, we can make no further
progress on Iraq and this bill at this time.
Progress is also blocked by two other troubling realities. First of
all, more than 300 amendments have been filed. We have not been able to
get a finite list of amendments for consideration. Majority and
minority staffs of the Armed Services Committee have been
[[Page S9436]]
unable to work in a bipartisan manner to clear large numbers of routine
amendments due to the objections of one or two Members on the other
side of the aisle. The chairman and ranking member have been able to
clear amendments in this fashion for as long as I can remember, but not
this year, not with this handful of dedicated obstructionists--not all
but a few.
Seated in this front row is one of the managers of this bill, Senator
John McCain. John McCain is not known for putting things in managers'
amendments that shouldn't be in managers' amendments. If there ever was
a guardian of something in a managers' amendment, it is the senior
Senator from Arizona. But in spite of that, in spite of his reputation,
the reality is that no one puts anything in a managers' amendment
unless this man looks it over--and he is a comanager of this bill--and
we still haven't been able to clear these managers' amendments.
For these and other reasons, I temporarily laid aside the Defense
authorization bill and entered a motion to reconsider. But let me be
clear to all my colleagues, and especially my Republican colleagues, I
emphasize the word ``temporarily.'' We will do everything in our power
to change course in Iraq. We will do everything in our power to
complete consideration of the Defense authorization bill. Why? Because
we must do both.
I remind my Republican colleagues, even if this bill had passed
yesterday, even if this bill passed today, its provisions would not
take effect until next October.
So we will come back to this bill as soon as it is clear that we can
make real progress. I have spoken with Senator Levin, the manager on
this side. I have spoken with the assistant leader, the whip, Senator
Durbin. I have asked them to sit down with their counterparts, Senator
McCain and Senator Lott, to work on a process to address these
outstanding issues, especially the managers' amendment, so that the
Senate can return to it as soon as possible.
In the meantime, we will continue to work with our Republican
colleagues who are saying the right things--a number of them, a
significant number of them--on Iraq but aren't yet committed to voting
in the right way. But we will get there. As Gladstone once said:
You cannot fight against the future. You cannot fight
against the future. Time is on our side.
In this case, time and the American people are also on our side. The
Levin-Reed amendment would allow us to rebuild our badly overburdened
military and return our focus to the real security threats posed by al-
Qaida and other terrorist organizations.
I think it is important, Mr. President, that I mention the other
procedural roadblock that was thrown up trying to do this bill: the
Webb amendment. What did the Webb amendment do? If you are in country
15 months, serving in the military, you should be able to stay home for
15 months. There was a procedural block.
The Levin-Reed amendment would allow us, as I have indicated, to take
a look at our overburdened military and do something about it and
return our focus to the real security threats posed by al-Qaida and
other terrorist organizations. As the new National Intelligence
Estimate makes very clear, these growing threats demand our attention.
In today's newspaper, and there are other places, but here is only
one headline: ``Problems Spur Efforts in Protection of Federal
Buildings.'' The Homeland Security Agency needs more help, is what this
news story is all about.
President Bush likes to say we must fight the terrorists in Iraq so
we do not have to fight them at home, but we all know there were no al-
Qaida forces in Iraq prior to the war. And as the President's own
intelligence experts admit, the war has only stoked the flames of
terrorists and made us more vulnerable to attack.
These experts concluded in the National Intelligence Estimate that
the threat to our homeland is growing as al-Qaida has regenerated its
capacity to launch attacks. While the Bush administration's
preoccupation with Iraq has prevented us from addressing that threat,
there is important action the Senate can take and should take.
Therefore, I am going to ask unanimous consent to move to
consideration of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, chaired by
two of our most senior Members, Senator Robert Byrd and Senator Thad
Cochran. This critically important legislation provides $37.6 billion
for Homeland Security activities. It is more than the President asked,
$2.3 billion. This bill was reported unanimously by the Senate
Appropriations Committee--unanimously--and it will give the Senate an
opportunity to show who is serious about protecting America from
terrorist attacks.
I would hope that given the urgency of the national security issue,
as highlighted by the National Intelligence Estimate and the need to
make progress on appropriations bills, we can move to consideration of
this most important bill.
The President, in his Saturday address 2 weeks ago this coming
Saturday, said: Why aren't we doing appropriations bills? Well, we have
an opportunity to do a very important appropriations bill dealing with
homeland security. Our security--not dealing with Iraq, not dealing
with Afghanistan--dealing with our security.
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