[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 31, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6106-S6108]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 SYRIA

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as we prepare to head out for the August 
recess, I have returned to the floor today to speak, once again, about 
the horrific and worsening situation in Syria--a conflict that, we 
learned this week, has now claimed 100,000 lives.
  I would like to take a few minutes to read from a remarkable 
statement that was delivered on Monday by Mr. Paulo Pinheiro, the chair 
of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry 
on Syria. The excerpts I wish to read are long, but they are shocking, 
and worth quoting in full.
  Here is the assessment Mr. Pinheiro gave to the U.N., and I quote:

       Syria is in free-fall. Relentless shelling has killed 
     thousands of civilians and displaced the populations of 
     entire towns. An untold number of men and women have 
     disappeared while passing through the ubiquitous checkpoints. 
     Those freed from detention are living with the physical and 
     mental scars of torture. Hospitals have been bombarded, 
     leaving the sick and wounded to languish without care. With 
     the destruction of thousands of schools, a generation of 
     children now struggle to obtain an education. The country has 
     become a battlefield. Its civilians are repeatedly victims of 
     acts of terror.

  Mr. Pinheiro concludes with this powerful plea for action:

       That civilians should come under such sustained unlawful 
     attacks should shock your conscience and spur you to action. 
     But it has not. As the conflict drags on, you--and the 
     world--have become accustomed to levels of violence that were 
     previously unthinkable . . .
       It is time for the international community to act 
     decisively. There are no easy choices. To evade choice, 
     however, is to countenance the continuation of this war and 
     its many violations . . . The world must hear the cry of the 
     people--stop the violence, put an end to this carnage, halt 
     the destruction of the great country of Syria!

  Again, this is not my assessment; it is that of a senior United 
Nations leader. And I applaud Mr. Pinheiro for his moral leadership on 
behalf of the Syrian people. At the same time, I say with the utmost 
respect that I disagree with Mr. Pinheiro's counsel for what is 
required to achieve the goal we share, which is to create conditions 
that favor a negotiated end to the conflict in Syria. I continue to 
believe that, while there is not a purely military solution to the 
conflict in Syria, I find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that 
military intervention by the United States and our allies must be a 
critical part of the solution we seek. Indeed it is unrealistic to 
think we can arrive at a diplomatic solution otherwise.
  Let's be absolutely clear about the realities in Syria today and 
where this conflict is headed. Asad is never going to negotiate himself 
out of power or seek to end the conflict diplomatically so long as he 
believes he is winning on the battlefield, and right now, he clearly 
has the advantage on the ground. This is thanks, in critical part, to 
his air power, which not only allows Asad to pound opposition military 
positions and civilian populations--including with chemical weapons, 
which nearly everyone believes he has used and will use again--but also 
to move his troops and supplies around the battlefield in ways that he 
cannot do on the ground.
  Asad's growing military advantage is also thanks to the influx of 
thousands of Hezbollah fighters who are leading offensives in key parts 
of the country, Iranian special forces who are training and advising 
Asad's troops and private militias, Shia militants from Iraq and 
Lebanon, as well as a steady and decisive flow of weapons and other 
assistance from Iran and Russia, which is being brought into Syria with 
impunity, including through overflights of Iraq.
  The consequences of this onslaught for Syria are bad enough. The 
strategically vital city of Homs is expected to fall imminently, which 
would be a major victory for Asad that would strengthen his position 
immeasurably. The consequences for the region, however, are arguably 
worse. Syria's main export today is its civilian population, which is 
flooding into Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, by the hundreds of 
thousands. Indeed, 15 percent of Jordan's population is now Syrian 
refugees, and the fourth largest city in the country is now a Syria 
refugee camp.
  At the same time, Syria's primary import today seems to be foreign 
extremists from all across the region and indeed the world. It is well 
known from estimates in published reports that as many as several 
thousand people from all across the Middle East have moved into Syria 
to fight with Al Qaeda and other extremist groups. But, in addition, 
the New York Times reported this week that Western counterterrorism and 
intelligence officials now believe that hundreds of Muslims from 
Western countries have joined the fight in Syria, including 140 French, 
75 Spaniards, 60 Germans, a few dozen Canadians and Australians, as 
well as fighters from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, 
Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. As many as a dozen 
Americans are believed to be among them. It is difficult to conclude 
that Al Qaeda does not enjoy safe haven in Syria today, and no one 
should believe that it won't be used eventually to launch attacks 
against us.
  Make no mistake, this is where we are headed. Syria is becoming a 
failed state in the heart of the Middle East and a safe haven for Al 
Qaeda and its allies. It is becoming a regional and sectarian conflict 
that threatens the national security interests of the United States. 
And it is becoming the decisive battleground on which Iran and its 
allies are defying the United

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States and our allies and prevailing in a test of wills, which is 
fundamentally undermining America's credibility among both our friends 
and enemies throughout the region and the world.
  Some may see this as an acceptable outcome. I do not.
  I know Americans are war weary. I know the situation in Syria is 
complex, and there are no easy answers. That said, all of us must ask 
ourselves one basic question: Are the costs, and risks, and potential 
benefits associated with our current course of action better or worse 
than those associated with America becoming more involved militarily in 
Syria? I believe our current course of action is worse, because it 
virtually guarantees all of the bad outcomes that are unfolding before 
our eyes and getting worse and worse the longer this conflict grinds 
on.
  Now, some would have us believe that military action of even a 
limited nature is too cost intensive, too high risk, and too marginal 
in its potential impact in Syria. In a letter dated July 19, 2013, to 
the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and myself, the Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN Martin Dempsey, described the 
requirements to conduct various military options in Syria. He spoke of 
scenarios that would demand hundreds of military assets and thousands 
of special forces to resource military options that no one is seriously 
considering.
  Now, in my many years, I have seen a lot of military commanders 
overstate what is needed to conduct military action for one reason or 
another. But rarely have I seen an effort as disingenuous and 
exaggerated as what General Dempsey proposed.
  The option that many of us have proposed is limited standoff strikes 
to degrade Asad's air power and ballistic missile capability. But here 
is General Dempsey's description of what would be needed to conduct 
``limited standoff strikes'':

       Potential targets include high-value regime air defense, 
     air, ground, missile, and naval forces as well as the 
     supporting military facilities and command nodes. Stand-off 
     air and missile systems could be used to strike hundreds of 
     targets at a tempo of our choosing. Force requirements would 
     include hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other 
     enablers. Depending on duration, the costs would be in the 
     billions.

  This is a completely disingenuous description of both the problem and 
the solution. No one is seriously talking about striking Asad's naval 
forces as part of a limited campaign. And no one seriously thinks that 
degrading Asad's air power would require hundreds of American military 
assets. The whole thing is completely misleading to the Congress and 
the American people, and it is shameful.
  For a serious accounting of a realistic limited military option in 
Syria, I would strongly recommend a new study that is being released 
today by the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, which was overseen 
by GEN Jack Keane, the author of the surge strategy that enabled us to 
turn around the war in Iraq. This new study confirms what I and many 
others have long argued: That it is militarily feasible for the United 
States and our friends and allies to significantly degrade Asad's air 
power at relatively low cost, low risk to our personnel, and in very 
short order--and to do so, I want to stress, without putting any U.S. 
boots on the ground.
  Specifically, the ISW study reports that Asad's forces are only 
flying a maximum of 100 operational strike aircraft at present, an 
estimate that ISW concedes is likely very generous to the Asad regime. 
The real figure, they maintain, is more likely around 50. What is more, 
these aircraft are only being flown out of 6 primary airfields, with an 
additional 12 secondary airfields playing a supporting role. What this 
means is that the real-world military problem of how to significantly 
degrade Asad's air power is very manageable--again, as I and others 
have maintained.
  ISW calculates that U.S. and allied forces could significantly 
degrade Asad's air power using standoff weapons that would not require 
one of our pilots to enter Syrian airspace or confront one Syrian air 
defense system. With a limited number of these precision strikes 
against each of Asad's eight primary airfields, we could crater their 
runways, destroy their fuel and maintenance capabilities, knock out key 
command and control, and destroy a significant portion of their 
aircraft on the ground. The ISW study estimates that this limited 
intervention could be achieved in 1 day and would involve a total of 3 
Navy surface ships and 24 strike aircraft, each deploying a limited 
number of precision-guided munitions--all fired from outside of Syria, 
without ever confronting Syrian air defenses.
  This should not come as a surprise. After all, hitting static targets 
from a distance is what the U.S. military does best. And hitting static 
targets in Syria, without ever confronting Syrian air defenses inside 
of Syrian airspace, is something that our Israeli allies now seem to 
have done on several occasions. Surely we can too.
  There are other things we should do in conjunction with targeted 
strikes against Asad's air power. We could expand the list of targets 
to include Asad's ballistic missiles, as well as key regime command-
and-control sites. This would be an equally minimal number of targets 
that could be hit with the same standoff weapons. We should also stand 
up a far larger train-and-equip operation than what published reports 
suggest has been authorized to date. What all of the Syrian opposition 
leaders have told me their forces need most of all is antitank weapons 
that can destroy Asad's artillery and armor, which would remain a major 
threat even if we significantly degrade Asad's air power. We should 
give the Syrian opposition these kinds of capabilities to level the 
playing field themselves.
  If we were to do all of these things--degrade Asad's air power and 
ballistic missiles and train, equip and advise the opposition on a 
large scale--it probably would not end the conflict in Syria 
immediately. But it could turn the tide of battle against Asad's forces 
and in favor of the opposition, and begin to create conditions on the 
ground that could make a negotiated end to the conflict possible.
  We cannot afford to lose the moral dimension from our foreign policy. 
If ever a case should remind us of this, it is Syria. Leon Wieseltier 
captured this point powerfully in The New Republic last month. His 
words are as true today as they were then, and I quote:

       The slaughter is unceasing. But the debate about American 
     intervention is increasingly conducted in ``realist'' terms: 
     the threat to American interests posed by jihadism in Syria, 
     the intrigues of Iran and Hezbollah, the rattling of Israel, 
     the ruination of Jordan and Lebanon and Iraq. Those are all 
     good reasons for the president of the United States to act 
     like the president of the United States. But wouldn't the 
     prevention of ethnic cleansing and genocidal war be reason 
     enough? Is the death of scores and even hundreds of 
     thousands, and the displacement of millions, less significant 
     for American policy, and less quickening? The moral dimension 
     must be restored to our deliberations, the moral sting, or 
     else Obama, for all his talk about conscience, will have 
     presided over a terrible mutilation of American discourse: 
     the severance of conscience from action.

  We have had these debates before. In Bosnia, and later in Kosovo, we 
heard many arguments against military intervention that we now hear 
about Syria. It was said that there was no international consensus for 
action, that the situation on the ground was messy and confused, that 
it was not clear who we would actually be helping, and that our 
involvement could actually make matters worse. Fortunately, we had a 
President who led--who explained to the American people what the stakes 
were in the Balkans, and why we needed to rise to the role that only 
America could play. Here is how President Bill Clinton described Bosnia 
in 1995:

       There are times and places where our leadership can mean 
     the difference between peace and war, and where we can defend 
     our fundamental values as a people and serve our most basic, 
     strategic interests. [T]here are still times when America and 
     America alone can and should make the difference for peace.

  Nearly two decades ago, I worked with both my Democratic and 
Republican colleagues in Congress to support President Clinton as he 
led America to do the right thing in stopping mass atrocities in 
Bosnia. The question for another President today, and for all of my 
colleagues in this body, indeed for all Americans, is whether we will 
once again answer the desperate pleas for rescue that are made uniquely 
to us, as the United States of America.

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