[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 178 (Wednesday, December 9, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8529-S8531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  PRESIDENTIAL STRATEGY TO DEFEAT ISIS

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to talk about the speech the 
President gave on the Islamic State, or ISIS. He spoke about this to 
the Nation last Sunday night. I read all the newsclips after having 
listened to what the President had to say, and I think the universal 
reaction was that the President did not come up with anything new. 
Basically, the message was that we are going to stay the course.
  Of course, this is the same President who called ISIS ``contained.'' 
I don't know of any other person--any other person with any knowledge 
of the subject matter--who would share the view the President 
expressed, that ISIS was somehow contained. Indeed, we have learned 
that the threat of ISIS is threefold: We have the battle raging in the 
country, what started out as a civil war in Syria. Now the borders 
between Iraq and Syria have essentially been erased, and ISIS is 
controlling large portions of those two countries. It is also about the 
foreign fighters who come from Europe and other places within the 
region and even from the United States. There have been examples of 
people who come from the United States over to the fight in Syria and 
Iraq in order to help ISIS. Then, as we sadly learned again, just as we 
learned in Paris recently, we have seen in San Bernardino, CA, the 
radicalization of people already in our country, using things such as 
social media and the Internet.
  It is troubling that the President did not choose to tell us what new 
strategy he was going to use in order to actually make sure we were 
able to accomplish his own stated objective of degrading and destroying 
ISIS. Instead, we heard that he had no interest in changing course. As 
I said a moment ago, this has dangerous and dramatic consequences right 
here at home too. In light of the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino--
one that killed 14 people and wounded more than 20--you would think 
that the President would reconsider whether the course we are on needs 
a midcourse correction.
  We saw that, for example, in Iraq. President Bush saw the war in Iraq 
going poorly, despite our best efforts--and then took a huge chance, 
upon advice of General Petraeus and other military leaders, to conduct 
a surge. It was a big risk, but it paid off.
  President Obama, on the other hand, does not seem to want to learn 
from his experience or his mistakes. This ``wait and see'' approach has 
served only to strengthen the stranglehold ISIS has on the Middle East, 
and it has enabled the recruitment of thousands of jihadists from all 
over the world.
  What we really need from the President is to listen to his military 
and national security leadership and to formulate a comprehensive 
strategy against ISIS and bring additional military means against them. 
The President likes to say this is a choice between what we are doing 
now and American boots on the ground. That is a false choice. That is 
not the choice. Those aren't all the options available to the 
President. But we need to bring means against ISIS that would inflict 
sizable losses, shatter their false narrative about their actually 
prevailing and making advances in their effort to reestablish or 
establish a Caliphate in the Middle East, and stop them from spreading 
their hateful ideology and their violence--not only in Syria, Iraq, and 
in that region, but around the world.
  In short, what we need is a dramatically different approach. This 
concern for our current trajectory in the fight against ISIS is not 
shared only by folks on this side of the aisle. A number of our 
colleagues across the aisle agree that the President's strategy isn't 
working, but some of their solutions are pretty puzzling. Just this 
week, the Democratic leader and some of the other senior leaders across 
the aisle said that the solution is for the President to appoint 
another czar--a czar that can eliminate ISIS.
  We don't need another appointed bureaucrat. We need a Commander in 
Chief who is willing to recognize the reality on the ground, one who 
will step up and lead, and one who will lay out for Congress and the 
American people a strategy that has a reasonable chance of success.
  Because of the President's refusal to change course and develop a 
serious and aggressive strategy to eradicate ISIS, several of my 
colleagues and I have sent a letter to the President with some 
hopefully constructive suggestions. We have urged him to take 
commonsense measures that are designed to accomplish his own stated 
goal of degrading and ultimately destroying ISIS.
  It is evident that any way forward must inflict significant 
territorial losses to ISIS. Right now we are engaged in bombing 
missions, which are necessary but not sufficient to actually hold any 
territory. That takes people on the ground. It takes military advisers. 
It takes the United States' leadership--not our U.S. military on the 
ground--but it takes somebody there to reclaim territory that Americans 
fought to secure just a few short years

[[Page S8530]]

ago, such as in Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul.
  I said before that I think the President made a terrible mistake when 
he precipitously pulled the plug on the American presence in Iraq, 
because what happened is we simply squandered the lives and the 
treasure lost in securing cities such as Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul. 
It breaks my heart to think about the Gold Star Mothers and other 
people who lost family members in those fights only to see now that 
territory squandered. Think about our veterans who perhaps lost a limb 
from an IED, a roadside bomb. It is really a terrible thing. Now the 
President does have a chance to try to change his strategy in order to 
reclaim the territory from Iraq and, again, to undercut this false 
narrative of ISIS invincibility.
  First, in this letter that we wrote to the President we suggested 
that the United States should embed military advisers alongside of the 
Iraqi Security Forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga, and Sunni tribal forces 
to strengthen their hand on the battlefield. These are some of the 
people who can be the boots on the ground and not American soldiers and 
service men and women. This could include additional U.S. troops to 
serve as joint terminal attack controllers--or JTACs--who can help 
ensure that our airstrikes against ISIS are much more accurate, timely, 
more lethal, and avoid collateral damage to innocent civilians.
  We know the United States has the most powerful military in the 
world--equipped with the most advanced aircraft and the best trained 
pilots to fly them. But in order to leverage the advantage in the air, 
we need to work more closely with those on the ground. Again, this 
isn't going to happen without American leadership. By deploying 
additional close air support platforms--including Apache attack 
helicopters--for use in coordination with embedded JTACs, we can bring 
real support to those who find themselves in close contact with ISIS.
  Again, the President likes to say ``no American boots on the ground'' 
but the fact is there are about 3,500 or so U.S. service men and women 
in Iraq, and the President recently announced he was going to deploy a 
contingent of special operators to help do exactly what I described 
here. But he has not yet come up with a strategy that will actually 
help them accomplish their goal.
  The President also needs to understand the real need for a thorough 
review of the current approval process for coalition airstrikes. By 
making this review process less unwieldy, we can remove barriers that 
inhibit our pilots from striking strategically significant ISIS targets 
and doing it in a timely manner. On the battlefield, seconds matter. 
Our pilots who are engaging ISIS and putting their lives on the line 
should be allowed a shorter strike-approval timeline.
  Finally, the letter my colleagues and I sent to the President asks 
him to establish safe zones inside Syria to protect the Syrian 
refugees. I have had the occasion to travel to some of the refugee 
camps in Turkey and Jordan, for example. Ever since the Syrian civil 
war occurred a couple of years ago, there have been massive dislocation 
of people from Syria into adjoining countries, further destabilizing 
those countries and, obviously, being a huge burden upon them. But what 
we need is a no-fly and no-drive zone so Syrians can stay in Syria 
rather than having to flee to adjacent countries or Europe or now come 
to the United States, for example. It would help safeguard innocent 
men, women, and children who are getting caught up in the crossfire.
  We can do this. We have done it before in Northern Iraq. It takes a 
plan, and it takes American leadership. We can help take a lot of 
pressure off of Europe and surrounding countries in the Middle East, as 
well as our own country, by people who understandably are fleeing the 
devastation and the danger in their own country. Of course, the 
President and the United States can't do it alone. That is why we also 
encourage the President to leverage our partnerships in the region and 
hopefully find ways to mobilize NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization, in the planning and implementation process. NATO is very 
much engaged in Afghanistan, for example, and there is no reason why 
NATO, with American leadership, can't make a big contribution to what 
is happening in Syria and Iraq.
  I hope President Obama reads our letter, and I hope he seriously 
considers how the United States can move forward with our partners in a 
much needed direction to accomplish the goal that he himself stated of 
degrading and destroying ISIS. Unfortunately, the current plan is not 
ever going to succeed. Just bombing, as I said earlier--airstrikes--is 
not sufficient.
  Unfortunately, the recent attack in San Bernardino reveals that the 
extremist ideology of ISIS is not contained in the Middle East, as I 
mentioned earlier--the radicalization of people already here in the 
United States. We saw that, for example, in 2009 with MAJ Nidal Hasan 
at Ft. Hood, TX. We saw it earlier this year in Garland, TX. 
Unfortunately, we saw that in San Bernardino last week.
  By the way, this is another item on the President's and on our to-do 
list. The FBI Director this morning testified that before the attacks 
in Garland, TX, where two people traveled from Phoenix in full body 
armor and with automatic weapons and tried to attack an exhibit in 
Garland, TX, one of the attackers sent 109 encrypted messages overseas 
to a terrorist contact there. But because they are encrypted, even with 
a court order, the FBI has not been able to see the contents of those 
messages. The FBI Director and the Deputy Attorney General have said 
this is a big problem for the United States because many technology 
companies are marketing their ability to encrypt their messaging and, 
thus, keep it out of the eyes--away from the eyes--of law enforcement, 
even with a court order.
  Again, recently we voted to eliminate the bulk data collection at the 
National Security Agency. To remind everybody, this was about taking a 
known terrorist's phone number overseas and comparing that against call 
records here in the United States that don't reveal content but do 
reveal the domestic phone number so that the law enforcement 
authorities can go to a court and ask the court to allow them to look 
into the content of that communication. But, of course, this was 
misrepresented by some who claimed the privacy interests trumped 
national security interests.
  Certainly, we have to find the right balance between privacy and 
security. But this encryption technology, which, again, is being 
marketed by certain companies in order to increase their market share, 
is being used by terrorist organizations. In fact, the FBI Director 
said this has now become part of the terrorist tradecraft--that is the 
way he put it--to use these encrypted devices.
  My point is that whether it is the fight in Syria and Iraq or whether 
it is the foreign fighters traveling from the United States or Europe 
to Iraq and Syria and returning to the United States or whether it is 
radicalization of people already in place here in our own country, this 
is a war we cannot afford to lose. In a way, it seems like we are not 
using all of the resources available to us to fight a war against the 
terrorist threat when clearly they are using every resource they have 
available to fight a war against the United States and our freedom.
  I hope the President will reconsider his course of action dealing 
with ISIS. I am sorry to say that unless the President does, I think we 
are going to see other attacks--not just in Europe, not just people 
dying unnecessarily in Syria and Iraq, but further attacks here in the 
homeland.
  The President has some very talented military advisers. General 
Dunford and General Milley, the Army Chief of Staff, and others can 
provide him a strategy that actually will have a better chance of 
succeeding if he will listen and if he will reconsider. I know that 
sometimes when people like me have criticized the President for having 
no effective strategy, people have said: What is your strategy? Well, 
it is not our responsibility. It is the Commander in Chief's 
responsibility to come up with a strategy. But taking that challenge 
on, my colleagues and I have sent this letter where we list some 
options for the President that I hope he will consider.
  We need a more focused, a more effective, a more robust strategy--one

[[Page S8531]]

that is undergirded with a political framework that can sustain a 
lasting rejection of the bankrupt ideology pedaled by ISIS. We don't 
have time to stick to a plan that has proven not to work.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TOOMEY. 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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