[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17786-17788]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe the Senate will be voting this 
afternoon on a judiciary nomination, but in the meantime, most of this 
afternoon, and I expect tomorrow and perhaps even the next day, we will 
be on one of the most important appropriations bills we consider in the 
Senate, and that is the appropriation for the Department of Defense.
  Most of us know that in recent years we have been faced with some 
very unusual circumstances that deal with national security both at 
home and around the world. National security is critically important to 
this country, both protecting our homeland against acts of terrorism 
and also dealing with trouble spots around the world that threaten our 
national interests.
  So as we consider a bill providing the funds for our national defense 
through the Department of Defense, I wish to say a couple of things. 
First, I thank Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye. I happen to serve on 
the subcommittee on which they are chairman and ranking member, and I 
think they have done a remarkable job with this legislation. They 
should be commended by every Member of the Senate for the work they do 
on national defense. I think if all America could see them as they work 
through subcommittee and committee and work with the Department of 
Defense trying to understand

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and analyze all of the programs that are involved with defense issues, 
they would understand how blessed this country is in having the 
leadership of the Senators from Alaska and Hawaii at this point.
  But, in this debate, I think we are missing a piece to the puzzle of 
national defense. This bill is a very large bill, it is a very 
complicated bill, and in introducing the bill I believe my colleagues 
indicated that this legislation, while very large, does not have any 
funding in it for the military operations in the country of Iraq.
  Now, why is that an issue and why is it important? Because at this 
point we are spending $3.9 billion, nearly $4 billion, a month in Iraq. 
There was an aggressive war fought in Iraq with valiant and brave young 
men and women who answered the call to duty, and now, following the 
major part of that war, hostilities continue in Iraq. It breaks the 
hearts of all of us to see the deaths and the continuing struggle many 
of our soldiers are going through in Iraq, but they will and we will 
prevail.
  However, it is clear to everyone from the testimony last week of 
Secretary Rumsfeld and others that this will not be done quickly. This 
country is not going to pull out of Iraq in 1 month or 2 months or 4 
months. We now have roughly 140,000 to 150,000 troops in Iraq, and this 
weekend Secretary Rumsfeld and others suggested that that we may have 
to be increase that number. If we are in fact spending nearly $4 
billion a month in Iraq, and there is a suggestion perhaps that we will 
do that for a year, we are talking $48 billion to $50 billion a year in 
expenditures.
  We know that is happening. We know that at the start of the fiscal 
year we will be spending money in Iraq. It is likely to me it will be 
at least at the level that exists this month, last month, or the month 
before. If that is the case, then the question is: Where is the money 
going to come from? As I understand it, there is not one penny in this 
Defense appropriations bill to fund those needs that exist to support 
the troops in Iraq.
  What would typically happen, I suppose, is the funding of $4 billion 
a month would be taken out of other programs and shifted around to fund 
the programs in Iraq and the soldiers who are in Iraq and all the 
equipment and the needs month after month. And then at some point the 
administration would send a supplemental appropriations request saying, 
we have an emergency request for Congress to appropriate $36 billion to 
$40 billion to fund those items that respond to the needs of the 
military that is in Iraq.
  It seems to me that, rather that the administration coming to us 6 
months or 10 months from now, asking to come up with another $30, $40, 
or $50 billion on an emergency basis and adding it to the debt and not 
paying for it, a far better approach would be, since we know the 
expenditure will exist, since we know this requirement exists, a better 
approach would be for the President to send us a budget amendment; a 
budget amendment by which this President would say to the Congress, 
here is the need and here is how we pay for it.
  The administration should say this is what is happening today in the 
country of Iraq. We have American soldiers, men and women wearing 
America's uniform, in substantial numbers, costing $3.9 billion a 
month, according to the Secretary of Defense. We know that exists now. 
We also know that this country is not going to withdraw from Iraq any 
time soon.
  So we know on October 1, when the next fiscal year begins, this 
requirement exists. Therefore, we request the Congress to appropriate X 
billions of dollars to meet that requirement.
  That is a straightforward way for this administration to say: Here is 
what it is costing us and here is how we think we ought to pay for it. 
We should not be in a situation in this country where we say to 
America's sons and daughters: You go to war; and by the way, when you 
come back we will have you pay the bill. If they are risking their 
lives and answering the call to duty for this country, the very least 
we ought to do is to decide how much this is going to cost and how we 
will pay for it.
  There will be, I am sure, many voices of criticism of many items in 
all of these issues dealing with national security and the war in Iraq, 
intelligence, the state of the intelligence information, the quality of 
the information, who knew what when. All of those are important issues 
for our country. My point is not to be critical of any operation or 
anyone. My point is to say this Congress knows when we pass this 
appropriations bill that we have a responsibility to fund the 
operations in Iraq. Those operations now cost somewhere between $45 and 
$50 billion a year at an annual rate. Yet there is not a penny in this 
Defense appropriations bill for those purposes.
  Why? Because the administration has not asked for it. They might say, 
but we have not done that in the past, not only this administration but 
other administrations. That is true. In the past, other operations have 
been funded later by emergency requests. This operation, however, is 
much larger, is much more certain to go on for a lengthier period of 
time, and this operation in Iraq requires the President to send an 
amended budget request of some type, saying here is what we expect the 
estimate to be for the next fiscal year, and here is the funding we 
would like. Then this Congress has a responsibility to respond to the 
President in an appropriate way.
  It is Byzantine to be passing a Defense appropriations bill 
pretending that the $4 billion a month we are spending on the military 
operations in Iraq does not exist. We know it exists. We have a 
responsibility to provide the funding for it, not 10 months from now 
but now.
  Let me make one additional point. I mentioned the men and women who 
have answered the call to duty. Many of them are National Guard men and 
women, reservists. They are the citizen soldiers of this country. They 
have regular jobs, they live in regular homes, have regular families, 
and they lead a normal life. But they are citizen soldiers. They drill 
on weekends. They go to a summer camp for the National Guard and 
Reserve and from time to time during emergencies they are deployed. 
They are called up to active duty.
  In the last 4, 5, or 6 years, the National Guard has been used in a 
much different way than ever before. Especially now with Afghanistan 
and Iraq, we routinely see substantial numbers of National Guard forces 
called up and deployed.
  Nearly one-third of those who are engaged in the National Guard and 
Reserve in my State of North Dakota have been deployed on active duty. 
Many of them were deployed in Bosnia, Kosovo, and now the same ones are 
sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. There will come a time to rethink what we 
are doing with our National Guard and Reserves. I fear that many of our 
citizen soldiers--probably at the urging of their families--will not be 
reenlisting if we continue to use the National Guard and Reserve the 
way they have been used the last several years. To ask them to go and 
be deployed for 6 months, 9 months, a year, with no notion of when that 
deployment ends is a very troublesome circumstance for the Guard and 
Reserve.
  They are proud to serve. They have done a magnificent job. I think 
all of America is proud of the National Guard and Reserve. But at this 
point the Secretary of Defense needs to think through how we develop a 
rotation plan in order to be able to tell them and their families when 
they might be rotated back to this country, when they might rejoin 
their families, and when they might be reporting back to their jobs.
  It is a very difficult circumstance for everyone who serves in these 
theaters, but it is especially difficult for those who have been 
mobilized and deployed as a part of Guard and Reserves. They do not 
complain about it. They are wonderful, brave young men and women, as 
are all of those who wear America's uniform, but the Secretary needs to 
think through how we begin rotation plans to let them and their 
families understand how long these rotations will last.

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  I yield the floor.

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