[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 66 (Wednesday, April 15, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1765-S1766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAN
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, we are now 46 days into President Trump's
war on Iran and Lebanon. This war is wrong. This war is hurting the
United States, our citizens, and our security. This war is
destabilizing the Middle East and spreading to Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain,
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, and, of course, not to mention
Lebanon.
This war has imperiled our economy, imposing unsustainable burdens on
the American family. The average American family will pay $2,000 more
for gas each year if prices stay this high. The average Vermont
household will pay another thousand dollars to heat their home this
year. Farms across rural
[[Page S1766]]
America are going to pay tens of thousands of dollars extra for
fertilizer because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The war is imperiling our world economy. The IMF has concluded that
the growth in the economy around the world could drop by 2 percent,
risking a global recession. Food prices are increasing around the
world. In Sudan, the price for wheat is up 70 percent because of the
war, and that is in a country on the brink of absolute starvation.
How did this happen? How did it happen? We got here because the
President disregarded his own promises of staying out of Middle East
wars. He disregarded the American people by not leveling with them
about what his plan was and what his intentions were. He disregarded
Congress entirely, and he has totally disregarded our allies. So is it
any surprise that we find ourselves right now with President Trump
stuck dealing with this situation that he created pretty much by
himself?
Instead of consulting with our allies or even his own administration,
the President relied on Prime Minister Netanyahu, inviting him to the
Situation Room--never been done before.
Netanyahu assured him: No problem. You bomb, we bomb--the regime will
collapse. You bomb, we bomb--the Strait of Hormuz will stay open.
President Trump accepted that advice and rejected the advice of his
own Cabinet officials, who called that for what it was. The Netanyahu
advice was farcical. We have seen what happened. Oil has gone from $70
a barrel to a high of more than $120 a barrel. Fertilizer prices have
jumped from $400 a ton to $700 a ton. Helium prices, which none of us
really thought much about, have gone up 100 percent, and that has
created an enormous supply chain crisis for the semiconductor industry
upon which all of us are dependent.
President Trump is now in the remarkable position of closing the
Strait of Hormuz himself, supposedly for the stated purpose of opening
it. For those of us who were here in the Vietnam years, that is very
reminiscent of the administration position that we had to destroy a
village in order to save it.
It has just become indisputably clear that the President and
Secretary of War Hegseth really had no plan other than, as President
Trump put it, to bomb Iran into the stone age. And that is what is
happening. The bombing has been among the most intense bombing
campaigns in the history of air warfare. The United States has carried
out more than 13,000 airstrikes. Israel has carried out more than
10,000 strikes, dropping over 18,000 bombs. In the first 100 hours, the
United States and Israel hit more targets in Iran than in the first 6
months of the bombing campaign against ISIS.
These strikes have taken a devastating toll on civilians and clearly
civilian targets. Just talk about in Iran. U.S.-Israeli strikes have
hit 60 hospitals; 44 schools, including that girls school that was
horrifying to all of us; the major B1 highway bridge, used by
civilians, killing 13 civilians; major pharmaceutical plants that were
producing anti-cancer drugs and had associated with them 200,000 jobs;
desalination plants; sports stadiums; Tehran's synagogue.
While the President says the Iranian people are not our adversary,
thousands of civilians have been killed in these strikes. On average,
10 children a day have been killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. Nearly
40 percent of the attacks have taken place in the heart of Tehran, a
dense urban area, and 95 percent of those killed by bombs are
civilians.
This kind of bombing tells us that President Trump has made the
Iranian people--the very people he promised to save--the adversary, the
enemy, much more so than the ayatollahs.
It is time to end this war of choice, this war that was chosen by a
very intemperate decision by our President, this war that is making
Americans less secure, and this war that is and will continue to impose
extraordinary economic pain on our citizens.
It is very clear that President Trump and his negotiators--Mr.
Witkoff and Mr. Kushner--have a fundamental misunderstanding of the
regime they are dealing with.
In the course of this war, President Trump has changed the narrative.
Three months ago, we were focused on the violence of the Iranian regime
toward its own people. Today, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz
and the economic pain that the ayatollahs have been able to inflict on
the world, the narrative is about the ayatollahs standing up to the
United States and Israel.
Trump's bombing has damaged Iran, and it has hurt the Iranian people,
but it has also given everyone and the ayatollahs leverage over our
economy and the world economy. The threats that the President makes to
the ayatollahs don't particularly move them, and it is something he
doesn't understand. This is not a real estate deal. What the ayatollahs
have shown--and this is horrifying--is that they are prepared to
destroy their own country if that is what it takes for them to stay in
power. So these threats the President makes fall on deaf ears.
As a first step in ending this war, I urge my colleagues to support
Senator Sanders' joint resolutions of disapproval, which we will be
taking up later today. Those resolutions would stop the United States
from sending bombs--thousands of bombs--and armored bulldozers to
Israel.
These weapons are paid for by the American taxpayers. We will be
sending bombs to Israel at a time when we are in a cease-fire, which I
hope will continue. These bulldozers are being used, literally--
literally--to bulldoze entire villages in Lebanon on behalf of Israel's
intentions.
And I want to note that if this vote is successful on the JRDs, it
would simply force a debate. It wouldn't stop anything. It would
require those of us in the U.S. Senate, those of us who by virtue of
our election have the article I authority to declare war--it would
require us to say yes or no on where we stand. It would require us to
accept our responsibility under the Constitution to do our job on the
most profound question that affects the people of this country, and
that is when, whether, and why to commit this country to war.
I hope my colleagues will vote in favor of these JRDs, and I am
disappointed that we rejected Senator Duckworth's resolution. We need
this cease-fire to continue. We need the bombing to stop and stay
stopped.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
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