[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8574-S8576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE

  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, when President Obama was sworn into 
office, the Nation's average price for a gallon of gasoline was under 
$2. We all know that is not the case today. In most parts of the 
country, gas remains well over $3 a gallon. In my home State of

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Arkansas, the price of gas ranges anywhere from just under $3 to $3.50 
a gallon. The reason it stayed at a steady price is because there is a 
decreased demand because of the poor economy.
  Business owners will tell you that when the price of gas hits $3.50 a 
gallon, it truly does affect how decisions are made. When it hits the 
$4 mark, things start to shut down in terms of the economy because the 
average person's disposable income is going to the gas pump instead of 
local businesses.
  Our country at this time lacks an energy policy. We are also facing a 
jobs crisis of enormous magnitude. And our President is standing in the 
way of one project that can help address both of these problems: the 
Keystone XL Pipeline.
  The proposed 1,700-mile pipeline would transport 700,000 barrels of 
oil per day from Canada to U.S. refineries in the gulf coast. Canada's 
oil sands are among the largest oil reserves in the world. As global 
demand for oil surges and Canada increases production, the addition of 
the Keystone Pipeline will ensure that Americans benefit from reliable 
and secure oil from our largest trading partner and trusted ally.
  The $7 billion pipeline cost will be paid by the Keystone consortium 
and will fund nearly $\1/2\ billion in salaries. It will result in the 
purchase of $6.5 billion worth of materials, services, and other local 
economic activity. None of this will be funded with any Federal money. 
It is a no-brainer.
  Some of these jobs are in my home State of Arkansas. Welspun Tubular 
Company, which makes pipes for the oil industry, has been producing 
pipe for the Keystone project. Unfortunately, due to the 
administration's delay on Keystone, the company has already begun to 
lay off workers in Little Rock. They have 500 miles of pipe that was 
produced for the project, ready to go, that is just sitting in the 
facility.
  By delaying the start of the project, it is putting Americans out of 
work instead of putting Americans to work. Delaying this project costs 
thousands of well-paying jobs when Americans need reliable employment, 
and it hurts Arkansas businesses that have invested millions of dollars 
to help produce the pipeline. It is also a major step backward for 
energy policy goals of reducing our dependence on oil from unstable 
regimes.
  When it comes to energy policy, I am kind of a T. Boone Pickens guy. 
I firmly believe that if it is American, we need to be using it. This 
goes for not only renewable forms of energy but the vast amount of 
fossil fuels we have been blessed with throughout the United States and 
directly off our shores. If we use what we have here in a responsible 
manner, we can be better positioned to pick and choose from whom we 
import our remaining oil.
  Importing oil from Canada would accelerate America's independence 
from overseas oil by increasing the petroleum trade with one of our 
most reliable allies, one of our most reliable friends, instead of 
depending on the likes of Saudi Arabia and hostile regimes such as 
Venezuela for much of our oil. The amount of oil provided through this 
project is equal to half the amount we import from the Middle East. I 
doubt that anyone in this body would argue that any of the countries we 
import oil from in that region are more stable than Canada.
  President Obama needs to quit pandering to the radical 
environmentalists. He needs to do what is best for the country, not 
what he perceives is best for his reelection. The Keystone Pipeline is 
what is best for America. Let's move forward.
  Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                          WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ

  Mr. McCAIN. Today the President of the United States traveled to Ft. 
Bragg, NC, to mark the end of the war in Iraq and to pay tribute to the 
more than 12.5 million men and women of our Armed Forces who have 
served and fought there since 2003. Those Americans deserve all of the 
praise and recognition they receive, for they have given up their 
comfort and safety. They have given up less demanding and more 
lucrative jobs. They have given parts of their bodies and cherished 
parts of their lives. They have given the quiet little sacrifices that 
often go unmentioned but often hurt the most: the anniversaries spent 
alone, the birth of a child missed, the first steps not seen, and the 
first words not heard.
  They have given all of that, and always they are prepared to give 
more. They deserve to be honored by us all. I know the President's 
words of praise and appreciation for our troops today were sincere and 
heartfelt. I have every reason to believe he will do all in his power 
to keep his promises to take care of our troops and their families at 
home and to never forget how those noble Americans have done far more 
than their fair share for the betterment of our Nation.
  The President is a patriot and a good American, and I know his heart 
swells with the same pride and sense of awe all of us feel when we are 
in the presence of our men and women in uniform. These are humbling 
feelings, feelings of wonderment and gratitude, and they unite all 
Americans whether they supported the war in Iraq or not.
  But let me point out a fact the President did not acknowledge today, 
which is this: Our men and women in uniform have been able to come home 
from Iraq by the tens of thousands over the past 3 years, and not just 
come home but come home with honor having succeeded in their mission 
for the simple reason that the surge worked.
  All of this is possible because in 2007, with the war nearly lost, we 
changed our strategy, changed our leaders in the field, and sent more 
troops. This policy was vehemently opposed at the time by then-Senator 
Obama and now President of the United States and his senior leaders 
right here on the floor of this Senate.
  On January 10, 2007, the day the surge strategy was announced, then-
Senator Obama said:

       I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is 
     going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think 
     it will do the reverse.

  On November 15, 2007, when it was clear to GEN David Petraeus and 
Ambassador Ryan Crocker and many of us that the surge was working, 
then-Senator Obama said:

       The overall strategy is failed because we have not seen any 
     change in behavior among Iraq's political leaders.

  Finally, on January 28, 2008, when it was undeniable the surge was 
succeeding, he had this to say:

       President Bush said that the surge in Iraq is working, when 
     we know that's just not true.

  At the time the President's preferred alternative was to begin an 
immediate withdrawal and have all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 
2009. I will let future historians be the judge of that proposed 
policy. All I will say is that for 3 years, the President has been 
harvesting the successes of the very strategy he consistently dismissed 
as a failure. I imagine this irony was not lost on a few of our troops 
at Fort Bragg today, most of whom deployed and fought as part of the 
surge.
  The fact is, the President has consistently called for a complete 
withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq at the earliest possible date, 
and he has never deviated from this position as President. Indeed, he 
always reaffirmed his campaign promise to end the war in Iraq and 
withdrawal of our troops. So perhaps it should not have come as a 
surprise when the President announced in October that he was ending 
negotiations with the Iraqi Government over whether to maintain a small 
number of U.S. troops in Iraq beyond this year to continue assisting 
Iraq security forces.
  I continue to believe this decision represents a failure of 
leadership, both Iraqi and American; that it was a sad case of 
political expediency triumphing over military necessity, both in 
Baghdad and in Washington; and that it will have serious negative 
consequences for Iraq's stability and our national security interests.
  I sincerely hope I am wrong, but I fear that GEN Jack Keane, who is 
one of the main architects of the surge, could be correct again when he 
said recently:

       We won the war in Iraq, and we are now losing the peace.


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  Let me be clear. Like all Americans, I too am eager to bring our 
troops home. I do not want them to remain in Iraq or anywhere else for 
a day longer than necessary. But I also agree with our military 
commanders in Iraq who were nearly unanimous in their belief that some 
U.S. forces, approximately 20,000, should remain for a period of time 
to help the Iraqis secure the hard-earned gains that we had made 
together.
  All of our top commanders in Iraq, by the way, chosen by the 
President of the United States--all of our top commanders in Iraq--
General Petraeus, General Odierno, General Austin, all of them believed 
we needed to maintain a presence of U.S. troops there, and they 
consistently made that clear to many of us during our repeated visits 
to Iraq.
  On February 3, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, GEN Lloyd 
Austin, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Jim Jeffrey testified to the 
Committee on Armed Services that for all of the progress the Iraqi 
security forces had made in recent years--and it has been substantial--
they still have critical gaps in their capabilities that will endure 
beyond this year. Those shortcomings included enabling functions for 
counterterrorism operations, the control of Iraq's airspace, and other 
external security missions, intelligence collection and fusion, 
training and sustainment of the force.
  Our commanders wanted U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond this year 
to continue assisting Iraqi forces in filling these gaps in their 
capabilities. Indeed, Iraqi commanders believed the exact same thing. 
In August, the chief of staff of Iraq's armed forces could not have 
been any clearer. He said:

       The problem will start after 2011. The politicians must 
     find other ways to fill the void after 2011. If I were asked 
     about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians, the U.S. 
     Army must stay until the Iraqi Army is fully ready in 2020.

  During repeated travels to Iraq with my colleagues, I have met with 
all of the leaders of Iraq's major political blocs, and they too said 
they would support keeping a presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. So let's 
be clear. This is what our commanders recommended, it is what Iraqi 
commanders recommended, and it is what all of Iraq's key political 
leaders said privately that they were prepared to support. So what 
happened? What happened?
  Advocates of withdrawal are quick to point out that the current 
security arrangement which requires all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq 
by the end of this year was concluded by the Bush administration. That 
is true. But it is also beside the point. The authors of that agreement 
always intended for it to be renegotiated at a later date to allow some 
U.S. forces to remain in Iraq.
  As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose State Department 
team negotiated the security agreements, has said:

       There was an expectation that we would negotiate something 
     that looked like a residual force for our training with the 
     Iraqis. Everybody believed it would be better if there was 
     some kind of residual force.

  So if that is not the reason, I ask again: What happened? The 
prevailing narrative is that the U.S. and Iraqi leaders could not reach 
agreement over the legal protections needed to keep our troops in Iraq. 
To be sure, this was a matter of vital importance. But while this may 
have been a reason for our failure, the privileges and immunities 
issues are less causes than symptoms of the larger reason we could not 
reach agreement with the Iraqis. Because of his political promise to 
fully withdraw from Iraq, the President never brought the full weight 
of his office to bear in shaping the politics and the events on the 
ground in Iraq so as to secure a residual presence of U.S. troops. This 
left our commanders and our negotiators in Baghdad mostly trying to 
respond to events in Iraq, trying to shape events without the full 
influence of the American President behind them.
  Last May, I traveled to Iraq with the Senator from South Carolina, 
Mr. Graham. We met with all of the major Iraqi leaders. All of them 
were ready to come to an agreement on a future presence of U.S. troops 
in Iraq. But as Prime Minister Malaki explained to us, the 
administration at that time and for the foreseeable future had not 
given the Iraqi Government a number of troops and missions that it 
would propose to keep in Iraq.
  For weeks after, the administration failed to make a proposal to the 
Iraqis, and when the Iraqis finally united in August and publicly asked 
the administration to begin negotiations, the response from Washington 
was again characterized by delay. This ensured that a serious 
negotiation could not begin much less succeed.
  I know Iraq is a sovereign country. I know it has an elected 
government that must answer to public opinion. I know there could be no 
agreement over a future U.S. military presence in Iraq if Iraqis did 
not agree to it and build support for it. So this is as much a failure 
of Iraqi leadership as it is of American leadership. But to blame this 
on the Iraqis does not excuse the fact that we had an enormous amount 
of influence with Iraq's leaders and we did not exercise it to the 
fullest extent possible to achieve an outcome that was in our national 
security interest.
  In fact, in the view of many, they deliberately refused to come up 
with a number. They deliberately refused to engage in serious 
negotiation with the Iraqis, with the ultimate purpose of fulfilling 
the Presidents's campaign pledge that he would get all U.S. troops out 
of Iraq.
  That is not a violation of sovereignty. That is diplomacy, that is 
leadership. Leaders must shape events and public opinion not just 
respond to them, and starting in early 2009, from their desire to 
accelerate our withdrawal from Iraq faster than our commanders 
recommended, to their hands-off approach to the Iraqi process of 
government formation last year, to their record of delay and passivity 
on the question of maintaining a presence of U.S. troops beyond this 
year, this administration has consistently failed at the highest level 
to lead on Iraq.
  I say again, perhaps this outcome should not have been a surprise. It 
is what the President has consistently promised to do, and that 
decision makes good political sense for this President. But such 
decisions should not be determined by domestic politics. The brave 
Americans who have fought so valiantly and have given so much did so 
not for political reasons but for the safety and security of their 
fellow citizens, for their friends, for their families, for their 
children's future, and for us.
  This is a decisive moment in the history of America's relationship 
with Iraq and with all of the countries of the broader Middle East. 
This is a moment when the substantial influence we have long enjoyed in 
that part of the world could be receding--in fact, it is receding. We 
cannot allow that to be our Nation's future. We must continue to lead. 
We must not let short-term political gains dictate our longer term 
goals. We need to continue working to shape a freer, more just, and 
more secure future for both Iraq and for people across the Middle East, 
for it is in our own national security interest to do so.
  Over 4,000 brave, young Americans gave their lives in this conflict. 
I hope and I pray--regardless of these decisions made in large part for 
political reasons--that their sacrifice was not in vain. I hope their 
families will not mourn the day their sons and daughters went out to 
fight for freedom for the Iraqi people.
  Unfortunately, it is clear that this decision of a complete pullout 
of U.S. troops from Iraq was dictated by politics and not our national 
security interests. I believe history will judge this President's 
leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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