[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S179-S181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAN
Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, as we go back through the calendar
just a few months and get some context of what has been building for a
while, in May of 2019, four different vessels that were traveling just
outside of the Gulf of Oman were hit by mines laid by Iranian
leadership. In June, just a month later, two different vessels hit
Iranian mines. Those mines weren't just placed in the water flippantly;
they were actually placed on the ship. In June of 2019, a U.S. Navy
surveillance drone was flying through the Strait of Hormuz in
international airspace and was downed by an Iranian missile attack.
As we continue to move forward, we tracked an increase in Iranian
activity in cyber attacks across the United States, but at the same
time, individuals within our military bases in Iraq were facing more
and more of a push against them in not just an external conversation,
an actual kinetic attack.
Our supply lines in the fall of last year, as trucks that were
leaving from Baghdad and driving down to Kuwait for our supply lines
there, were increasingly facing improvised explosive devices, something
we had not seen in a long time. Those explosive devices were created
and placed by Shia militias with materials provided by Iran.
Then, in October, there were multiple attacks on our facility in
Baghdad. In November, there were multiple attacks again on our facility
in Baghdad. In December, there were multiple attacks again, each time
increasing with more and more attacks.
We hear that term ``attack,'' and it seems almost flippant, but we
realize, for the thousands of Americans who work in that area of that
diplomatic mission that is there in Iraq, there is a day that happens--
it could be the middle of the night, it could be the middle of the
afternoon, but a moment happens, month after month, week after week,
and sometimes within that, day after day--where the sirens go off, and
everyone on campus runs into a bomb shelter, and then the explosions
begin around the grounds.
These were not just random attacks. These were designed kinetic
rocket attacks coming into our Embassy that built up toward an attack
on the U.S. Embassy on December 31, where thousands of people broke
through the outer section, setting fires to the building, attacking the
facility, smashing
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against the glass, trying to get into the next layer that they were not
able to penetrate--into the inner layer in the Embassy. But thousands
and thousands of rioters were moving toward the base.
As calm was restored on the outside and a security perimeter was
established on the outside, they could read what was written on the
walls, spray-painted now on the Embassy: ``Soleimani is our leader.''
I was interested in talking to a friend of mine just a couple of
weekends ago, and he made an interesting comment to me. He said: I
didn't know who Qasem Soleimani was. I had never heard that name
before, and then I went back and started doing some research to find
out who this guy is and what he is all about.
His comment to me was: I went back and did some research and found
out he is a bad guy.
I said: Yes, you don't know the half of it.
Soleimani is the leader of the Quds Force for the Iranians, was
responsible for training the Shia militias in Iraq on how to kill
Americans. Over 600 Americans died because of the training and
equipping that Soleimani did for the Iraqis who were fighting against
us at that time, specifically the Shia militias that Soleimani actually
directed.
My neighbor was surprised to learn that Soleimani was the one who
actually organized all things with Hezbollah in Lebanon. He had
organized Hezbollah also in Iraq. He is the one who was coordinating
all that was happening in Yemen, in the civil war that is currently
ongoing in Yemen.
He was surprised to see that he was in Syria working with Bashar
Assad and to see all that he was doing for that ruthless leader that
murdered thousands of his own people. That was Soleimani.
For those of us who are tracking the direct threats against the
United States, we are very aware of who he was and what he was all
about because he was the point person to try to take the fight to the
United States. In the past 6 months, that fight had gone from an ``I am
going to try to find individuals within Hezbollah or Shia militias
somewhere to attack the United States'' to being more strategic to
bringing the attack directly from his forces under his command to try
to take the attack to us. He had become more and more overt and more
and more obsessed with attacking the United States.
Over the course of that time period, the Trump administration, over
and over again, sent a message to the Iranian leadership: You are
playing a very dangerous game, continually attacking American
facilities, launching rockets randomly in there, starting fires,
stirring up militias to attack us at every turn, attacking our supply
lines. If an American is killed, President Trump made it very clear,
the United States will respond.
In December, Soleimani pushed it to a whole new level, with a
multiple rocket attack into an American facility, killing an American
and wounding four others. The President responded with a very reasoned
response: taking an attack to where the Shia militias and Hezbollah
were storing the munitions they were using to attack us, destroying
that facility, destroying those munitions, taking the fight to four
different training facilities where they were equipping the people to
bring the attack to us but then also tracking very carefully the person
who was actually planning the next set of attacks--Soleimani himself.
The time came in January, when Soleimani had been traveling through
Syria, through Lebanon, working with Hezbollah, and then back into
Iraq, and he was personally meeting with another terrorist leader in
Iraq--one terrorist leader, Soleimani, leading a terrorist
organization, meeting with another terrorist leading a terrorist
organization there. Both of them were planning together and met up that
morning at the airport. A little after 4 o'clock in the morning, they
left from the airport, headed to go have their next meeting and
planning their next set of attacks.
At that time, the Trump administration took the opportunity, while
they were both far from civilians and no one else was on the road, to
have a surgical strike and take out two different terrorist leaders,
both in the process of planning their next attacks.
What has been interesting to me has been the response of the U.S.
Senate and the U.S. House and some of the debate there. We should
debate issues like this. These are difficult moments in difficult days.
We are not at war with Iran, nor should we be at war with Iran. There
are millions of peaceful people in Iran. Thousands and thousands of
those people are protesting on the streets right now in Iran against
their own government. They are furious at the corruption in their
government. They are furious that the people in Iran can't get food and
can't get fuel because the regime there is spending their money
attacking Yemen, attacking Syria, feeding money to Hezbollah and Iraq,
feeding money to Hezbollah and Lebanon. The money that should be going
to help their own people, the Iranian regime is sending out all over
the region to spur their terrorism.
The people there are frustrated and upset with their own government,
and they are taking it to the streets under a threat of their own life.
In the not-too-recent past, Iranians--whether it be the Green
Revolution 10 years ago or just in days past and months past--had taken
to the streets by the thousands, and some of them have faced all kinds
of retribution coming back at them.
We should be supporting the good people of Iran who are miserable
living under that regime. We are not at war with the people of Iran,
but we are very clear as a nation, when you are planning an attack
against us, and we are aware of that attack and you have shown the due
diligence to take prior attacks, we know you are not just thinking
about it. You are actually planning it and about to carry it out.
We have learned our lesson from 9/11, and for the last three
administrations, the policy has been very clear. If we know you are in
the process of bringing an attack to us in the days and weeks ahead, we
will strike first to protect American lives. We will not wait until you
kill Americans to come bring a strike to you. That is what happened
with Soleimani.
The debate that is happening on the floor now about a War Powers
Resolution has been interesting to me because much of the language just
affirms the current law. It almost seems to imply the Trump
administration didn't follow the law when they did. The Trump
administration continued to track an imminent threat that was coming
into the United States. There has been some argument about how imminent
is imminent. Some of my colleagues want to know that Soleimani was in
the process of carrying out an attack within the next 30 minutes, and
if he wasn't carrying out an attack immediately, in the next day or
next hours, we shouldn't respond. I will tell you, intelligence is not
that exquisite. You only know in the movies that someone is about to
attack an exact spot at an exact time. That is not real life. With
real-life intelligence, you gather information to track what you think
is coming, but you don't get exact dates and exact locations like that.
We knew he was planning this attack. They were zeroing in on the
locations, but he was very specific as to the Americans he was coming
after.
To be able to bring the attack to him and to notify Congress within
48 hours, which is the law, is consistent with the War Powers
Resolution. The President did follow the law. He was justified in being
able to carry out the strike against a known, declared terrorist
leader--in fact, two of them--in the process of planning their next
attack against Americans.
The key thing I join my colleagues in talking about is not trying to
be able to press back on the administration but to say that none of us
want a war in Iran, including the Trump administration. In every
conversation I have had with anyone in the administration, they have
all been very clear. They are not planning a war with Iran. They don't
want a war with Iran, but they do want Iran to stop their belligerent
terrorist activities against us, against our allies, and against any
American they seem to find in the region. I join my colleagues in
warning Iran and assuring Iran at the same time that we have no desire
for a war with the regime or with the good people of Iran. We should be
able to find a way to work together.
Since 1979, when this regime was coming into power, they have taken
the fight to Americans and to all of our allies. It is time we pushed
back and
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said: Stop shedding blood, and let's sit down at the table and be able
to work this out.
In the meantime, let's not assume that Soleimani was some innocent
bystander. He had a lot of American blood on his hands. Let's take into
real life what it really means to live in Baghdad and serve in our
diplomatic mission and hour after hour run to bomb shelters as rockets
are raining down randomly on your facility. There is plenty of
provocation. Now it is time for diplomacy. Let's get this worked out.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Romney). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, first, I want to say to my colleague from
Oklahoma that I appreciate his remarks. I was on the floor last week
talking about this issue. He is absolutely right. Soleimani was a
recognized terrorist, not by the Trump administration but by the global
community, including the Obama administration, the United Nations. The
two organizations that he had were both considered terrorist
organizations. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of our
constituents and thousands more who were maimed or injured.
When I have been at these briefings, I am sort of getting a different
briefing than, apparently, some of my colleagues are. The briefings
have been very explicit about the degree with which this particular
individual had already attacked and killed so many Americans and, in
fact, there were more plans, of course, in the future. That is why he
was traveling around the Middle East, meeting with other commanders,
including the commander of the Islamic militia group in Iraq that very
day.
I think this is a time for us, as the Senator from Oklahoma has said,
to be sober and to be realistic about the great threat that he posed to
us, and not just in this administration but in previous
administrations, and now talk about a way forward, avoiding war with
Iran but making sure Iran is held accountable.
To the people of Iran, I say today that we are with you. We
understand the fact that your country is one where your own rights have
been repressed and you have not had the ability to achieve your dreams.
We want that for you, as well. Our arguments are not with you. They are
with the Government of Iran.
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