[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 189 (Tuesday, December 11, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15085-S15087]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about an 
issue that should be the first priority of this Congress, and that is 
to fund our troops during a time of war, to make sure they have the 
funds they need, to have the equipment, to have logistical support and 
other support they need in order to fight this global war on terrorism.
  There have been a lot of rumors circulating around Congress about 
what the way forward is going to be on the appropriations--I can only 
call it a mess--that confronts us when only 1 appropriations out of 12 
bills has been signed by the President.
  Yesterday I heard the reports for the chairman of the House 
Appropriations Committee, David Obey, which said he was pulling the 
proposed omnibus appropriations bill because he was upset with 
negotiations on that.
  He said this--and this is the one part I do agree with--

       I want no linkage whatsoever between domestic [spending] 
     and the war. I want the war to be dealt with totally on its 
     own. We shouldn't be trading off domestic priorities for the 
     war.

  I would rephrase that that we should not be doing anything to tie the 
fate of our troops to wasteful pork projects or excessive Washington 
spending.
  I am glad to see the distinguished majority whip on the floor because 
I do have a unanimous consent request that I know he will be interested 
in.


                   Unanimous-Consent Request--S. 2340

  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate 
consideration of Calendar No. 484, S. 2340. I ask unanimous consent 
that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider 
be laid on the table, and that any statements relating to the bill 
appear at this point in the Record.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent 
that the remarks I am about to make not be taken from the time allotted 
to the Senator from Texas in terms of morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object--and I will object to this 
request--let me say at the outset that what the Senator has asked for 
is to return to a bill which was considered by the Senate on November 
16, 2007. There was a failure of a cloture vote, which is a vote 
requiring 60 Senators to vote affirmatively before the bill goes 
forward. The final vote was 45 to 53. In fact, three Republican 
colleagues of the Senator from Texas joined in opposing that cloture 
vote. This is a Senate appropriations bill. As the Senator from Texas 
knows, the Constitution requires that spending bills originate in the 
House. So the House would either object or ignore this bill or blue 
slip the bill in a way that would mean that whatever we would do here 
would not achieve the result asked for by the Senator from Texas.
  As of today, we have lost 3,888 American lives in Iraq. The amount of 
money which we have provided, according to the administration, would 
allow them to continue the war at least to the end of March and perhaps 
beyond. So the troops are not without the resources they need. What the 
Senator from Texas has proposed is an approach which is on its face 
unconstitutional and has been rejected by the Senate on November 16, 
including three Republican Senators. For that reason, I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. CORNYN. I differ with the distinguished Senator from Illinois. 
Obviously, the bill that was voted on earlier contained numerous 
restrictions and deadlines on deployment of our troops in Iraq. For 
that reason, cloture was denied. It is not that there wasn't support. 
Indeed, I would hope there would be unanimous support to make sure our 
troops get the emergency funding they need in order to continue 
military operations until such time as Congress can appropriate the 
remainder of the President's request of $196 billion.
  It is important to note that this is emergency bridge funding for the 
troops. While I don't disagree with the distinguished Senator from 
Illinois that the military can borrow from Peter to pay Paul and move 
funds around within their budget to avoid disaster up until about mid-
February, the fact is, the White House has now warned that 100,000 
civilian jobs depend on this emergency funding.
  Here is a story from the Army Times dated December 10, 2007, that 
says the Department of Defense is sending notices of layoffs this 
week--2 weeks before Christmas--to 100,000 civilian employees warning 
them, unless Congress

[[Page S15086]]

acts, they are going to be out of a job. This is not the way to show 
our support for the troops. In fact, this is nonsupport for the troops.
  It is important to note what is included in this emergency funding 
that should be voted on today and decoupled from the debate over the 
Omnibus appropriations bill or any other continuing resolution. Here 
are the most notable provisions: One, operation and maintenance 
funding--this finances a broad range of activities, including combat 
operations, transportation of personnel and equipment, fuel, equipment 
maintenance, and general base support for our troops.
  It also funds the Iraqi security forces and Afghanistan security 
forces. If we have any hope of bringing our troops home sooner rather 
than later, it is because we have succeeded in training the Iraqis to 
take our place, to provide that security so we can bring our troops 
home as soon as possible. By not providing the funding, we are delaying 
that prospect, not advancing it.
  The third general category is funding for the Joint Improvised 
Explosive Device Defeat Organization--the Joint IED Defeat 
Organization--which is dedicated to finding new ways to neutralize the 
primary threat to our troops in Iraq, which is improvised explosive 
devices. We ought to be providing the funding for this Joint IED Defeat 
Organization so they can save the lives and limbs literally of American 
troops.
  This emergency funding being blocked by Senate Democrats would go to 
repair, replace, and upgrade military equipment. It also provides for 
military personnel funding, special pay and benefits, including 
hazardous duty pay for our troops, as well as the Defense Health 
Program. Those are the categories of items being blocked by today's 
objection by the Democratic leadership.
  I am disappointed by the decision to block this emergency funding for 
our troops in Iraq. This is the material support we can provide to show 
our troops we are behind them, regardless of our differences on the war 
or how the war is being conducted. We see time and time again how this 
Congress, egged on by special interest groups such as Moveon.org, has 
been willing to use our troops as part of their political debate. This 
is particularly appalling when we are the ones who first asked and 
voted--by a vote of 77 to 21, I believe, 77 affirmatively--for the use 
of force in Iraq. We are the ones who voted and have the responsibility 
for authorizing that use of force. For us now to deny the funding they 
need to foster a situation where money has to be moved around from 
accounts just to get by and 100,000 civilian employees are being put on 
notice that they are going to be out of a job unless Congress quits 
playing a game is simply unsustainable.
  Last January, of course, we unanimously confirmed GEN David Petraeus 
to lead our forces in Iraq. As we all know, there was serious concern 
about the way the military operations in Iraq were being conducted, and 
many, if not all, of us called for a new way forward. We unanimously 
agreed that General Petraeus was the right man for that job. In fact, I 
am proud to say that vote to support General Petraeus's nomination and 
that vote of confidence in the new strategy, the so-called surge of 
forces in operations in Iraq, proved to be a correct one.

  General Petraeus, with his counterinsurgency strategy and with the 
hard work and dedication of our men and women in the military, has 
brought us closer to a stable Iraq that many had simply given up and 
thought not possible. Reports are appearing daily in the newspaper and 
on the electronic media showing that violent attacks continue to 
decline in Iraq and communities across that country. Reports show 
people not only feel safer, they are safer. Refugees who have left Iraq 
to go to Syria and other places to protect their lives and their 
families are now returning to Iraq because Iraq is safer. Taxi drivers 
have resumed their old routes in neighborhoods without regard for 
whether predominantly Shiite or Sunni, and neighbors and families 
previously separated by the war are reuniting as refugees are returning 
by the busload.
  My colleagues have had a chance to show their support for the troops. 
Unfortunately, we see that support sorely lacking. The call of groups 
such as Moveon.org seems to be so loud and has such command on the 
other side of the aisle that it drowns out these positive reports about 
the improved security situation in Iraq. It leads some, unfortunately, 
to block emergency funding that our troops need in order to carry out 
continued security operations and training for Iraqis to take our place 
so we can bring our troops home. Unfortunately, they end up being part 
of the partisan political games that tend to dominate Washington, DC. 
My colleagues who continue to insist that Iraq is lost and that the 
surge has failed or that Iraq is not making political progress are not 
talking about the Iraq of today.
  I have said it before and I will say it again: Betting against the 
men and women of the U.S. military is always a bet you will lose. When 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle said that all is lost 
even before the surge started, frankly, they have been proven wrong. 
They lost that bet by betting against the men and women of the U.S. 
military.
  Michael Totten, a reporter embedded in the once volatile region of 
Fallujah, wrote last week in the New York Daily News:

       There's a gigantic perception lag in America these days. 
     The Iraq of the popular imagination and the Iraq of the real 
     world are not the same country.

  Secretary of Defense Gates said on Saturday that:

       Civilian deaths across Iraq are down about 60 percent.
       Recently, there was the lowest number of single-day attacks 
     across the nation in three and a half years.
       The progress is real. But it is also fragile.

  Why in the world, given this progress and given the fragility of the 
conditions in Iraq, would my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
deny the emergency funding that our troops need? What possible 
rationale could there be for making that part of the political games 
and dysfunction that seems to dominate the Congress?
  We have to make our policy decisions based not on the Iraq many have 
remembered from the past but the situation on the ground today which is 
improving, rebounding, and growing. Yet we still hear the doomsayers 
and those admonishing General Petraeus and his strategy. I am reminded 
of something a professor once told me when he said speaking louder 
doesn't make you any more right. We need to listen to the facts and not 
the loudest voices.
  We all have an important question to ask ourselves. It is not about 
should we have gone into Iraq or why we went into Iraq. Those questions 
are now relegated to the history books. The fact is, we are there. The 
question we must ask now is, Given the current situation in Iraq and 
the Middle East, what is the best course of action for the United 
States? We should ask ourselves, Will withdrawing troops from Iraq 
before securing it make us any more or less secure at home? I have no 
doubt--and history will agree--that the more stable we can make Iraq, 
the better chance they have of becoming a fully functioning partner in 
the Middle East, a democracy governed by Iraqis.
  A precipitous withdrawal, whether caused by deadlines imposed by 
Congress or by cutting off funding or by leaving funding in doubt, as 
our Democratic colleagues have done by objecting to this unanimous 
consent request today, would be detrimental to the security and 
stability of Iraq and would endanger American lives at home.
  How could that be? The intelligence community tells us that a power 
vacuum in Iraq left by a rapid American withdrawal would create a 
failed state and an opportunity for al-Qaida to reassemble and 
reorganize.
  It would create an opportunity for a training ground and an 
organizing location for al-Qaida and Islamic extremists to launch 
future terrorist attacks against the United States or our other allies 
or American forces in the Middle East. Such action would also likely 
necessitate future American military operations in the region that 
would put us behind where we are today, not advance where we are today.
  I think we can all agree that kind of scenario is completely 
unacceptable and certainly not in the best interest of the United 
States. The situation in Iraq, as it stands now, needs a continued 
military presence with a force large enough to handle potential 
problems until the Iraqis are able to govern and defend themselves. The 
more capable the Iraq military and police forces

[[Page S15087]]

become, the fewer of our troops are necessary to assist them in that 
effort. But it does not help them to cause them to question whether we 
are going to provide the financial support for our troops and for the 
training of Iraqi military and police forces. But that is exactly what 
the Senate is doing today by blocking this unanimous consent request.
  Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, still now, are 
left to claim that the lack of Iraqi political reconciliation is the 
reason they are dissatisfied with the outcome in Iraq, having lost the 
argument by the improved security arrangements as a result of the surge 
and the counterinsurgency strategy of General Petraeus.
  I have to wonder whether we are holding the Iraqi Government--Mr. 
President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, by now moving the goalposts, saying first 
the surge would not work to now having to declare the obvious, that the 
surge is working and the military situation is better, our colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle and the naysayers are saying: Well, 
really the problem is a lack of political reconciliation. But I have to 
ask whether we--a Congress that has proven itself to be dysfunctional 
over the last 8 months or 11 months now--whether we are holding the 
Iraqis to a different standard than we would actually hold ourselves 
to. We have not exactly been a model for how Congresses should 
function.
  I think it is unfair for us to continue to move the goalposts and say 
that the significant reconciliation efforts that are occurring in 
tribal areas, in the provinces, and local areas do not count because 
clearly they do count, with things like the Anbar awakening and the 
work being done around Iraq now from the bottom up, as opposed to the 
top down, which is helping to make for a more secure Iraq, and making 
sure that Iraqis, rather than Americans, are principally responsible 
for maintaining security and safety in Iraq, in conjunction with 
American military troops.
  I am discouraged and disappointed that our colleagues have blocked 
this emergency funding for our troops, putting 100,000 civilian 
employees of the Department of Defense in doubt during this Christmas 
season as to whether they are actually going to have a job come 
February and causing our troops to question our commitment to support 
them during a time of war. That is not the message this Senate ought to 
be sending, and I urge my colleagues to reconsider.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, is it my understanding I am recognized for 
15 minutes. Is that correct?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Fifteen minutes, without objection.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President.

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