[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

[[Page S12015]]

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.

[[Page S12016]]

  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.

                          ____________________