[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 143 (Tuesday, September 25, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12014-S12016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wish to speak to two items that are before
us as we are considering the Defense authorization bill this morning.
The first has to do with an amendment that has been offered by Senator
Lieberman and myself and others to declare the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps a terrorist organization, which would, if we do that,
permit us to engage in economic sanction activity against the financing
operations of the IRGC.
That is important, because according to all of the evidence we have,
it is the IRGC that has been primarily responsible for the infusion
into Iraq of the very dangerous equipment that has been causing great
harm to our troops there, especially the new superpenetrator devices
that are blowing up not just humvees but also even Abrams tanks.
It is the IRGC that is responsible for the training of Iraqis to be
fighting our troops in Iraq and generally bringing the Iranian
Government's anti-American activities from Iran into Iraq.
It is because of the IRGC's activities as a terrorist organization
that our troops are dying in portions of Iraq today and, therefore,
totally fitting for us to express our sense to the administration that
it should designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, thus,
permitting us to invoke these economic sanctions against it.
The IRGC, interestingly enough, engages in a great deal of financial
activity around the world, which makes these particular sanctions
especially appropriate and potentially very effective. I am pleased it
appears there will be an agreement on some slight modifications of
language of the amendment which will permit us to, presumably, have a
near unanimous vote when this amendment is considered, perhaps later
this morning but certainly today.
I am looking forward to a colloquy with Senator Levin and Senator
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Lieberman so we can discuss our joint understanding of precisely what
this joint resolution means and be able to act upon it so we can send a
very clear message to the Iranian Government that its involvement
against U.S. troops in Iraq will not be countenanced.
That is especially poignant today after the appearance by the Iranian
President at a major U.S. university and his appearance today at the
United Nations, in which it is pretty clear he will say just about
anything to advance what he believes is the cause animating Iran's
activities in the world today, whether it is truthful or not.
It seems to me, until there is a firm push back against this man and
against the regime which he runs and the terrorist arm of that regime,
the IRGC, they are going to continue to do what they do. And that is
why it is especially poignant today, as I said, that the Senate act on
this sense-of-the-Senate resolution to designate the IRGC as a
terrorist organization.
The other matter I wish to briefly talk about is another amendment
that is pending before us offered by the Senator from Delaware. This is
an amendment that contains several preamble statements about the
situation in Iraq, and then calls upon the Iraqi Government to convene
a council which will result in the creation of federal regions within
Iraq.
This is something the Iraqi Constitution and a special law that was
passed permit but does not mandate. It seems to me it would be a very
big mistake on the part of the U.S. Government to be seen as demanding
that the Iraqi Government take this step, which some would see as a
breaking apart of the nation of Iraq, a partitioning of the country of
Iraq into different pieces.
The people of Iraq have the authority to do that under this special
law and under their Constitution. They fully have intended to have some
kind of a conference to consider whether to do it. But I think it would
be a big mistake for us to be seen as dictating to the Iraqi people how
they want their Government ultimately to be governed, to exist, and to
operate.
The creation of federal regions may be an appropriate way for them to
do this; it may not. But that decision should be left to them. I think
there has been an assumption that at least one federal region in the
Kurdish north would be recognized, but there are questions about
whether other federal regions would be.
I recognize there are some in the United States, and even in this
body, who believe it would be best for Iraq if it were divided into
federal regions. Maybe they are right; maybe they are not right. But it
is clearly up to the Iraqi people to make this decision.
So were we to express ourselves on this, I think it would also be
important for us to confirm our understanding and belief and commitment
to the sovereignty of the people of Iraq to make this decision, and to
make it clear nothing in this particular resolution in any way is
intended to undercut the sovereignty of the Iraqi people to make this
decision for themselves. Otherwise, I fear the resolution could be read
as the United States dictating to the Iraqis what their country is
going to look like in the future and especially because it relates to
the partitioning of the country. It seems to me this would be a very
arrogant step on our part and something that obviously we do not want
to be seen as doing.
I also would make the point that some of the recitations at the
beginning of this resolution are misleading, if not outright wrong. It
talks about the sectarian violence in the country. There is sectarian
violence, but it totally ignores the activities of al-Qaida. Since al-
Qaida has spawned much of the sectarian violence, it seems to me this
is an incredibly important omission, especially because there are some
in this body who talk about a change in mission, eventually having our
mission in Iraq evolve to simply a counterterrorism mission,
recognizing that al-Qaida is a significant force in the country, and we
need to deal with al-Qaida.
We have al-Qaida on the run in the country, but al-Qaida is not gone
by any means. In addition to that, al-Qaida spawns some of the
sectarian violence as, for example, it did when it blew up the Golden
Mosque in Samarra, thus inciting Shiites to attack Sunnis and starting
a cycle of violence which continues to this day.
To simply refer to sectarian violence without any reference to the
terrorism that is occurring because of al-Qaida would, I think, be a
glaring omission and would raise significant questions. Especially if
there are those who suggest we should eliminate a message of
counterinsurgency, this is also totally contradictory because if you
refer to all of the violence in the country as sectarian violence, but
there is no counterinsurgency mission for the United States, then
basically what you are saying is we simply leave that country to the
tender mercies of all those groups engaged in this sectarian violence.
That, we know, is antithetical to any kind of peaceful resolution to
the disagreements that exist in that country and the eventual
reconciliation of the people of that country.
So it seems to me a resolution of this type can do more harm than
good in creating confusion about what the understanding of the United
States of the situation in the country is, No. 1; No. 2, failing to
recognize the prominent role that al-Qaida is playing and the
importance of our mission in dealing with al-Qaida; and, third,
suggesting it is the position of the United States to dictate to the
Iraqi people that they need to partition their country when, in fact,
that is a decision that needs to be left to them, which they could make
if they wanted to under their Constitution, but certainly are not
required to, and nothing we do should suggest we would require them to
do so. We have to recognize the sovereignty of that country.
The final point I wish to make is simply this: We have been on the
Defense authorization bill now for 2 weeks--14 days. We were on it for
many days a couple months ago, until the bill was pulled. There has
been a lot of criticism, especially by my colleague, the ranking member
on the Armed Services Committee, who has made the point that the time
is long past that we should have passed this Defense authorization
bill, which contains so many important elements for our troops--the pay
raise for the troops, the wounded warrior legislation, and other
important elements that are critical for our Armed Services.
For us to continue to simply use this bill as a vehicle to deal with
endless resolutions dealing with Iraq--I gather there are a couple more
that are on the way--is a misuse of the legislative process and of this
important piece of legislation.
So I hope my colleagues would conclude one of these days that we have
to pass the Defense authorization bill for the good of the troops and
stop this endless debate about trying to change our policy or missions
in Iraq. We have had that debate over and over and over again. We are
going to have it again in the future. But let's not let it dominate
everything we do in this body. I hope we can get on to the final
passage on the Defense authorization bill soon.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for 5 minutes in
morning business.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has that right.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to add my voice to what
Senator Kyl has echoed. There are two votes today--I hope sometime
today--and one is about whether we should adopt a resolution
designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist
organization. I think that would be a pretty easy vote for most of us,
given the evidence out there about their involvement in international
terrorism, particularly the Quds Force, which is sort of a subsidiary,
regarding our troop presence in Iraq.
The question, I guess, we need to ask ourselves is: Why would the
Iranian Government, through the Quds Force and other organizations, be
sponsoring militia groups that are trying to kill Americans in Iraq?
There is a purpose for everything. I know why we are there. From my
point of view, we are there to try to stabilize a country in a post-
Saddam Hussein era that would allow the three groups to live tolerantly
together and be an ally in the war on terror, be a place to check Iran,
and deny al-Qaida a safe haven, and it could be a model for future
Mideast expansion of representative government and the democratic
process.
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What would Iran be up to? My belief is the reason the Iranian regime
is so hellbent on making sure the Iraqi experiment in tolerance fails
in representative government--from a theocracy point of view, from the
Iranian Government's point of view, the biggest nightmare for them
would be a representative government in Iraq on their border. So they
are not going to give that to the Iraqi people without a fight. They
certainly are not going to give it to us without a fight.
We need to realize we are in a proxy war with Iran over the outcome
of Iraq. For those who have determined this is a civil war only in
Iraq, that the outcome is about who runs Iraq, I think you
misunderstand the role Iran is playing. Iran is trying to shape Iraq in
a way not to be a threat to the theocracy in Iran. They are trying to
shape Iraq in a way that would be detrimental to our long-term national
security interests. They are trying to be able to say to the world they
stood up to America and drove us out. They are trying to expand their
influence by defeating us in Iraq and in trying to destabilize their
representative form of government, which would, again, be a nightmare.
So this resolution designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a
terrorist organization is well founded based on the evidence that is
being gathered against this organization. There is more to come. I have
had a chance to be over in Iraq a couple times now looking at some
cases involving Iranian involvement with the killing and kidnapping of
American soldiers. So there is more evidence to come about Iran's
involvement in trying to kill Americans and destabilize this
representative government in Iraq.
Now, the second resolution is: What role should we play in dictating
the outcome of this representative experiment in government in Iraq? I
have great respect for Senator Biden. I think it is ill advised for us
in the Senate to be adopting a resolution basically dictating or trying
to give our sense of what should happen in Iraq because that destroys
the whole underpinning of what we are trying to do.
The idea that the three groups can live separate and apart from each
other without regional consequences is unfounded. The Shias, who wish a
theocracy for Iraq, could never achieve that goal without pushback from
their Sunni Arab neighbors. The Kurds, who wish to have an independent
Kurdish state in the north, are going to run right into the teeth of
Turkey. The Sunnis, who wish for the good old days of Saddam where they
ran the country--that is never going to happen. The region is not going
to allow that to happen.
So at the end of the day, I believe the effort to reconcile Iraq in
central Baghdad will be successful not by a sense-of-the-Senate
resolution but by a desire and sense of the people of Iraq. The one
thing I have learned from my last visit is that local reconciliation in
Iraq is proliferating because people are very much tired of the
killing. They are war weary. There is a suicide bomber wave going on
right now against reconciliation efforts in Diyala Province, where 21
people were killed who were meeting to reconcile that province.
So al-Qaida is alive and well in Iraq. They are greatly diminished,
but they show up where reconciliation is being discussed. The reason
they show up where reconciliation is being discussed is because their
big nightmare is to have Iraq come together and a woman to have a say
about her children and Sunnis and Shias and Kurds living in peace and
rejecting their extremist view of the Koran.
So the players in Iran and al-Qaida are very much pushing back hard.
The question for this country is, Will we stand up to them and push
back equally hard and stand by the moderate forces in Iraq, imperfect
as they may be?
So I hope one amendment is adopted, designating the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. I hope the other
amendment, trying to give our sense of what to do in Iraq from the
Senate's point of view, fails and we allow the Iraqi people to work out
their problems with our help but insist they get on with it.
So with that, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask to proceed in morning business for 5
minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has that right.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, as I understand it, morning business on our
side has been extended to 10:35.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 8 minutes 45
seconds.
Mr. GREGG. Thank you, Mr. President.
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