[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 25917-25930]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE AND JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR 
                  FISCAL YEAR 2006--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will proceed to the consideration 
of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2862, which the clerk will 
report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendments of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 
     2862) making appropriations for Science, the Departments of 
     State, Justice, and Commerce, and related agencies for the 
     fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other 
     purposes, having met, have agreed that the House recede from 
     its disagreement to the amendment of the Senate to the text, 
     and agree to the same with an amendment, and the Senate agree 
     to the same, that the Senate recede from its amendment to the 
     title of the bill, signed by a majority of conferees on the 
     part of both Houses.

  (The conference report was printed in the House proceedings of 
November 7, 2005.)
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I would like to begin by thanking Senator 
Mikulski, the distinguished ranking member of this subcommittee. The 
Senator from Maryland and I have worked in a bipartisan manner to 
produce the bill that is now before the Senate.
  I thank Chairman Wolf and Congressman Mollohan. They have worked with 
us to resolve some considerable differences in our two bills, and I 
commend them for their efforts.
  Finally, I thank Chairman Cochran, the chairman of the full 
Appropriations Committee.
  The bill before us today is the conference report for H.R. 2862, the 
Science, State, Justice and Commerce appropriations bill. Overall, this 
is a very good bill. Make no mistake, this was a lean year, a very lean 
year. The subcommittee's 302(b) allocation did not account for several 
sizeable programs which were proposed for termination in the 
administration's budget, which this subcommittee restored.
  In the Senate, the subcommittee that I chair is called the Commerce, 
Justice, Science and Related Agencies, CJS, Appropriations 
Subcommittee. The Senate CJS Subcommittee no longer has jurisdiction 
over the operations budget of the State Department, which has been 
merged with the Foreign Operations Subcommittee. Under a previous 
arrangement, however, the State Department is being considered under 
the House framework, therefore the bill before the Senate is the 
Science, State, Justice and Commerce Appropriations conference report.
  The bill that we are considering today provides a total of $61.8 
billion in budget authority to agencies under the bill's jurisdiction, 
including the State Department. For those agencies under the Senate 
subcommittee's jurisdiction--the Departments of Commerce and Justice, 
NASA, NSF, and others--approximately $52.2 billion in budget authority 
is provided.
  The bill includes an increase of just over $1 billion above the 
budget request for the Department of Justice. The bulk of this increase 
is due to the restoration of many of the proposed cuts to State and 
local law enforcement grant programs.
  The bill provides $6.5 million for the Department of Commerce. 
Several programs within the Department of Commerce were proposed for 
termination in the President's fiscal year 2006 budget.

[[Page 25918]]

This bill restores funding for these programs, among them the Economic 
Development Administration and the Public Telecommunications 
Facilities, Planning and Construction grants.
  The bill provides increases for NASA to move forward with the vision 
the President has proposed, while fulfilling our commitments to 
important existing programs.
  At a time when there are so many demands being made on scarce Federal 
dollars, difficult decisions had to be made. We have tried to address 
the priorities that so many of our colleagues brought to our attention. 
Though we were able to accommodate many of our colleagues' requests, we 
were obviously not able to do everything everyone has requested.
  I believe that we endeavored to produce a bill that is bipartisan and 
that, we feel, serves the need of this country and we were successful.
  I yield to Senator Mikulski, my esteemed ranking member, for her 
statement.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, Senator Shelby and I have worked on a 
bipartisan basis to bring this bill back to the floor as a conference 
report. We are in agreement with the principles of the bill so we are 
able to bring the bill forward. On our side, we estimate that we have 
three other speakers. We note the Senator from Minnesota is in the 
Chamber and he wishes to speak. There are two others whom we expect to 
speak.
  This is a new subcommittee. The VA-HUD Subcommittee on Appropriations 
was dismantled and farmed out to different subcommittees, so some parts 
came to the Commerce Committee and the Justice Committee, and now we 
call it the Science Committee. It has a fantastic jurisdiction. Its 
jurisdiction is focused on saving lives and saving livelihoods. It is 
about investing in innovation through science and technology for our 
country's future, and it is about looking out for our communities and 
justice system.
  Despite a tough allocation, I believe this bill, as completed, is 
fair and we have done the best we could. The Commerce Department 
oversees many agencies, some of which are very important Federal labs 
such as NOAA and the National Institute of Standards. The Department of 
Justice is on the front line. It funds the FBI, DEA, the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the U.S. 
Attorneys.
  These are not just agencies; these are men and women who every single 
day are trying to find those people who are often criminals in our 
country, those who have committed terrible acts of arson. In my own 
home State, they detected the sniper who held the capital region at bay 
a few years ago. It is our U.S. attorneys, America's DAs, who are 
prosecuting drug dealers, organized crime, and white-collar crime, and 
also chairing the task forces on homeland security.
  The Justice Department tries to protect us from terrorists and 
protect our neighborhoods and our communities. It also provides grants 
to State and local law enforcement and helps fight gang violence. This 
year, this bill provides $21 billion to the Justice Department. That is 
$800 million more than last year. The Justice Department accounts for 
almost 50 percent of the entire cost of our bill. The FBI, with 
tremendous responsibility to fight both crime and to find terrorists, 
will receive $5.7 billion. This is a $500 million increase over last 
year. It will focus on things such as counterterrorism, in which we 
then try to use this as a domestic agency to fight terrorists.
  We also remember we have other obligations, particularly for missing 
and exploited children. We are working very closely with the President 
of the United States and our Attorney General to make sure we have a 
hotline and a way to identify those sexual predators who have been 
released from prison who come back to our communities, and also to 
recover missing children and to prevent abduction and sexual 
exploitation, whether it is on the Internet or in our communities. They 
are doing a great job.
  Also, they have been used to identify those children who were missing 
after Katrina. So we not only look for the kids on AMBER alert--as 
terrible and as chilling as that could be--but after the hurricanes hit 
we could not find a lot of our children. Moms and dads put their 
children on some of the last buses leaving Louisiana and now, thanks to 
the way we work, we have helped bring about family unification.
  At the same time, we have a new menace sweeping our country and that 
is gangs. We have certainly seen an increase in my own home State. We 
are providing Federal funds for initiatives, particularly focused in 
Montgomery County and Prince George's County.
  Our way of fighting gangs is going to follow a three-point strategy 
of suppression, intervention, and prevention. We believe this bill will 
work with law enforcement in our communities and community support 
groups to do that.
  At the same time, we have substantial funding to deal with the 
methamphetamine scourge that is sweeping our country. Many of my 
colleagues have spoken about that.
  While we are busy fighting criminals, though, we also have to protect 
the judges as we bring those criminals to justice. We are all aware of 
the great threat that often happens to our judges as they try to do 
their duty. So we have increased the funding for the Marshals Service 
to capture fugitives and protect judges in our Federal court system. 
Just this past week, the marshals captured a convicted murderer who 
escaped from a prison in Texas.
  Where we had a tough fight was in State and local law enforcement. 
The President's budget cut that by $1.4 billion. Working on a 
bipartisan basis, we did increase that budget by $1.1 billion, but that 
left us $300 million down. I am sorry that had to happen. We did the 
best we could, and I know others will talk about it.
  We put a great deal of effort into making sure we have a national 
effort that will be funded locally for the growing problem of 
methamphetamine--and, gosh, how it is affecting not only urban but 
rural communities is shocking--and also to fund counterterrorism and 
counterintelligence. These growing problems are facing us. We did the 
best we could.
  I know some of our colleagues will ask: Senator Mikulski, how did it 
all work out with the methamphetamine in conference? When the bill left 
the Senate, it was pretty good.
  I say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we have provided a 
record amount of money, over $60 million, to fight meth abuse. Meth 
abuse is one of our biggest problems and we hope this is a significant 
downpayment in dealing with this problem.
  While we are busy fighting crime, we also want to fight for America's 
future. We believe we need to focus more on innovation. A country that 
does not innovate stagnates. We are worried that we are losing ground 
in terms of our ability to innovate. We believe one of the ways to 
strengthen innovation is through our Federal laboratories. That is why 
this year we have funded an increase of $62 million at the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, raising their appropriations to 
$761 million. The NIST partners, working with industry, develop new 
technologies and new breakthroughs that create jobs. At the same time 
it creates standards for new products coming to the marketplace so they 
can file patents, they can be exported, and they can meet the demands 
of the EU and the WTO.
  In terms of our Federal labs, we want not only new ideas but also 
those ideas that protect America. So this year we have increased 
funding for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 
Everybody knows NOAA; they are known for their weather reports. We know 
them for their hurricane reports. We know them for their tsunami 
alerts. NOAA generally saves lives and saves livelihoods.
  The weather service has given us important forecasts and warnings so 
we can secure our property and get people out of harm's way. Also, we 
made a particular note that the conference prohibits the consolidation 
or reducing of hours of those weather forecast offices. For us coastal 
Senators, it supports our fisheries which are critical to our economy.
  While we are busy working on some of the new ideas, such as at NASA 
and

[[Page 25919]]

the National Science Foundation, which I will talk about in a minute, I 
want to talk about the issue of intellectual property, as I have talked 
about NIST. In America, we often invent great ideas. We win the Nobel 
Prizes, but we have to win not only the Nobel Prizes, we have to win 
the markets. When we go out there to win those markets, we have to 
protect our intellectual property. It is as important as defending the 
homeland because it is our jobs, our future, and our source of revenue. 
All around the world, particularly in southeast Asia, they are trying 
to steal our ideas. Well, we are not going to allow it. We have to make 
sure we fight it in our trade agreements, we have to fight it in our 
trade enforcement, but we have to begin at home to make sure we have a 
patent office that protects this intellectual property. We have 
increased their funding 30 percent to reduce the backlog of over 
500,000 patents.
  Who knows what those patents are. It could be the next generation of 
pacemaker. It could be the next generation of hybrid for an automobile 
or for a truck. Most of all, it is going to be the next generation that 
hopefully keeps jobs, and jobs in manufacturing, in the United States 
of America.
  So while we talk about labs, this is not some wonky legislation. We 
believe it is our ideas that are saving lives, saving property, and 
saving jobs.
  We do know we need to be on the cutting edge of science. We believe 
that cutting edge comes from the National Science Foundation, which we 
have funded at $5.6 billion, $180 million more than last year. The 
National Science Foundation funds a lot. It funds our basic research in 
chemistry, biology, and in physics. We all know about the National 
Institutes of Health and salute them, but at the same time we need to 
know it is the NSF that is doing the basic science and also 
breakthrough science such as in nanotech-
nology and in global warming. It also funds the post-doctorates and the 
graduate school stipends so our young people can go on to graduate 
school. That is that next generation.
  Then, of course, near and dear to my heart is NASA. This year, we 
have provided $16.4 billion, $260 million over last year. I know many 
people are wondering what is going to happen to the Hubble. Is the 
Hubble going to run out of steam? Will the Hubble stop discovering all 
that wonderful new science?
  Hang on. Hope and help is on the way. We have increased the funding 
for the Hubble budget to accommodate a servicing mission into space to 
rescue the Hubble. It will take new batteries. It will take new 
operating and optical equipment. What we do need, though, is to make 
sure the shuttle makes two more flights so it is safe for the 
astronauts to go up. We are helping our astronauts. We are providing 
full funding for the Space Shuttle, the space station, and the 
development of crew exploration vehicles. All science programs are 
funded at the President's request.
  We also have funded the Census Bureau at $812 million, which allows 
the census to move forward with the 2010 census. The census is 
America's database, and we need to keep it contemporary.
  What I have just given sounds like an accountant. I will submit a 
statement later on that will talk about what this means in terms of 
innovation. But today Senator Shelby wanted to brief our colleagues on 
the numbers and on the money.
  We think we have done a good job. What we have done is take our 
appropriations allocation, put 50 percent of our money into protecting 
America from terrorists, from crooks, from thugs, and from the 
exploiters of children. At the same time, we have used the other 50 
percent to promote innovation in science and technology and also to 
protect our intellectual property. We think we have done a very good 
job.
  I thank at this time my very good friend, Senator Shelby. Senator 
Shelby and I came to the House of Representatives together and served 
with the Energy and Commerce Committee. We came to the Senate at the 
same time. He is an excellent colleague to work with. We share the same 
priorities for this country. I want America to know that we do work 
together, and when we work together we always do better.
  I thank staffs who really function with collegiality and with great 
civility. I thank the Shelby staff: Katherine Hennessey, Art Cameron, 
Joe Long, Christa Crawford, and Allan Cutler.
  My own staff who worked so hard, I thank Paul Carliner, Gabrielle 
Batkin, Alexa Sewell, and Kate Fitzpatrick for all of the hard work 
they have done.
  This is kind of a thumbnail sketch for our bill in the interest of 
time. There will be Senators who will be coming to speak on the bill.
  I will yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Dayton. 
Later on in the afternoon I will yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan; to Senator Obama, from Illinois, for 5 
minutes; and 5 minutes to Senator Sarbanes, my esteemed and cherished 
colleague from Maryland.
  I now yield the floor to our excellent colleague from Minnesota, 
Senator Dayton, who, himself, has been an enormous advocate for local 
law enforcement and has been a real strong voice for increasing funding 
for fighting the meth scourge. We are so sorry it is going to be his 
last year with us, the great guy that he is. We know he will do well. 
We certainly wish him well, and I look forward to hearing him this 
afternoon.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. DAYTON. I thank the distinguished ranking member, the Senator 
from Maryland, for her kind words. I commend her and the chairman of 
the committee, Senator Shelby, for their outstanding work on this 
conference report. I know it was under very difficult circumstances.
  There are many good features to the report, as the Senator has just 
described. Again, I thank her for her leadership and her tenacious 
fighting on behalf of these efforts, whether they were successful or 
whether they were not.
  Tragically, however, the House and the administration largely 
prevailed in this conference report in cutting funding for the law 
enforcement programs to only 38 percent of the Senate's position. 
Senator Chambliss from Georgia and I cosponsored a bipartisan amendment 
to the Senate bill that passed the Senate unanimously, which increased 
the Byrne grant funding from $900 million for fiscal 2006. Yet the 
House and administration, in the conference, slashed that 
appropriations to $416.4 million, which is a one-third reduction from 
fiscal year 2005.
  Byrne grants fund local law enforcement to combat the most urgent 
public safety problems in their own communities. In my own State of 
Minnesota, Byrne grant programs have provided the critically important 
funds to fight the scourge of methamphetamine, which is an illegal drug 
crisis in many States, as the distinguished ranking member has 
outlined. She has been in the forefront in efforts to increase the 
Federal funding to fight this catastrophe that is afflicting our 
citizens, afflicting people of all ages--I am told by chiefs of police, 
those as young as 10, and senior citizens in their eighties, from all 
parts of Minnesota and from all walks of life and backgrounds. While 
the burdens on local police and sheriffs and other local law 
enforcement officials have been increasing, Byrne grants to Minnesota 
have decreased from over $8 million in 2000 to $7.5 million last year. 
This year's cut in this conference report will mean that Minnesota's 
share of Byrne grant funding will drop to less than $5 million next 
year, which is a 40-percent reduction from the year 2000.
  In addition, the COPS grants in this report are cut from $606 million 
to $416 million, another one-third reduction, with zero dollars 
provided for the hiring of new law enforcement officers, which was the 
program's original goal. Byrne grants and COPS are the two most 
important sources of Federal funds to boost police and sheriff forces 
throughout our country, to increase the drug prevention programs or 
drug court interdictions. They are programs that keep our neighborhoods 
safer, our communities safer, and our rural counties safer.

[[Page 25920]]

  Why do the administration and the House want to drastically cut 
Federal support from local law enforcement; to cut funds from the brave 
men and women who are on the frontlines against the forces of evil in 
our society, who are risking their lives day and night to defeat the 
evil predators who are destroying the lives of our citizens? Why? It is 
unconscionable, it is incomprehensible that the House and the 
administration are defunding local law enforcement.
  Here we have an administration that preaches national security but 
will not fund it at home. It is an administration that preaches the war 
against terrorism but will not fund the war against drug-dealing and 
drug-pushing terrorists on our streets and in our schools. How 
mistaken, how shortsighted, how wrong-directed could anyone be?
  Again, I thank the Senate's chairman and ranking member for doing 
their best against the administration, which would like to eliminate 
these programs because they were the good ideas of the previous 
administration and their allies in the House. Congress should be 
providing more money, not less, but more money to strengthen local law 
enforcement in their fight against organized crime, drug dealers, and 
other predators. For that reason, I regretfully cannot support this 
report.
  The citizens of America deserve better law enforcement and more 
Federal support to make it possible--not the lower, the cut position of 
the House and administration.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized for up 
to 5 minutes.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, first, I commend both Senator Shelby, 
the chairman of the subcommittee, and my colleague from Maryland, 
Senator Mikulski, the ranking member, for their hard work in bringing 
this conference report to the Senate this afternoon. I do want to 
express my regret that this report does not contain an important 
provision, to provide emergency housing vouchers to victims of the 
recent hurricanes.
  On September 14 of this year, the Senate unanimously approved an 
amendment to this bill to provide $3.5 billion in emergency spending to 
be used to ensure that any person displaced as a result of the 
hurricanes could receive a housing voucher. These emergency housing 
vouchers would have enabled displaced families to find and afford safe, 
decent, and stable housing.
  While FEMA and HUD are providing some housing assistance to evacuees, 
it is clear from news reports, as well as from people in the affected 
areas, that the promises of housing assistance from the Federal 
Government are falling far short of what is necessary. Just in the past 
week, there have been articles about the lack of stable housing for 
evacuees. The titles alone indicate the stress evacuees are under. For 
example:

       Hurricane Evacuees Face Eviction Threats At Both Their Old 
     Homes and New;
       Displaced in Crisis of Affordable Housing;
       FEMA Housing Slow In Arriving.

  The administration's housing policy for the victims of the recent 
hurricanes is unclear and inadequate. HUD is only assisting people who 
were assisted by HUD previously in the disaster areas, while FEMA has 
the responsibility for the vast majority of the evacuees. FEMA, an 
emergency management agency which is overwhelmed in the face of this 
unprecedented disaster, is now being tasked with the job of housing 
hundreds of thousands of people. This is not a job for FEMA. FEMA has 
provided people with 3-months' worth of rental assistance. However, it 
is clear that not all evacuees have received this assistance. Second, 
it is also not clear how evacuees and the landlords renting to them can 
be guaranteed that rental assistance will continue. Indeed, some 
Katrina victims are being threatened with eviction. FEMA seems to be 
handling the continuation of rental assistance on a case-by-case basis, 
with no clear rules or principles guiding these critical decisions.
  In the words of an editorial in yesterday's New York Times:

       The woefully inadequate program for housing put forward by 
     the administration is tantamount to stonewalling the Katrina 
     victims.

  The emergency housing voucher proposal, which was adopted by the 
Senate, was, regrettably, not included in the conference report now 
under consideration. The Senate conferees met implacable resistance, 
apparently, from the House conferees and from the administration, as I 
understand it. But the emergency housing voucher proposal which this 
body adopted would have ensured that every evacuee in need would 
receive at least 6 months of rental assistance with an additional 6 
months of assistance available if necessary. The assistance would have 
been distributed by HUD and the existing housing network, which houses 
millions of people around the Nation. There is extensive experience at 
HUD.
  I am disappointed, very disappointed that this critical assistance is 
not included, and I hope that we can find some other way to provide the 
needed housing assistance to hurricane victims.
  Again, I commend my colleagues, Senators Shelby and Mikulski, for 
their successful completion of this report. I again underscore that 
this emergency housing voucher provision was included in the bill which 
passed the Senate under the leadership of Chairman Shelby and Ranking 
Member Mikulski. I regret that they met this resistance in conference 
and were not able to include it in the final version. It is the 
evacuees of the hurricanes who, unfortunately, will pay the price.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Before the senior Senator returns to the Banking 
Committee, I want him to know that I, too, regret that we could not do 
the housing vouchers, the small business administration loans, as well 
as the economic development assistance Katrina amendments. These would 
have really helped rebuild communities and rebuild lives. But the House 
was so resistant we could not. We were defeated on a voice vote.
  Mr. SARBANES. I thank the ranking member for that observation. I 
simply point out, as further stories are heard about the inability to 
get people back up on their feet and address their needs, it should be 
remembered that there were provisions in the Senate-passed bill which, 
if included in this conference report and therefore enacted into law, 
would have provided very important measures of assistance in a very 
timely fashion. I, too, regret very much that has not taken place.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have addressed this Chamber several 
times on the subject of global warming. Many times, over and over in 
the past few years in those speeches I have presented well-documented 
facts regarding the science and economics of the global warming issue 
that, sadly, many of my colleagues in the public heard for the first 
time.
  Today, I will discuss something else--scientific integrity and how to 
improve it. Specifically, I will discuss the systematic and documented 
abuse of the scientific process by an international body that claims it 
provides the most complete and objective scientific assessment in the 
world on the subject of climate change--the United Nations-sponsored 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. I will conclude 
with a series of recommendations as to the minimum changes the IPCC 
must make if it is to restore its credibility.
  When I became chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and 
Public Works, one of my top three priorities was to improve the quality 
of environmental science used in public policymaking by taking the 
politics out of science. I have convened hearings on this subject and 
the specific issue of global warming science.
  I am a U.S. Senator and a former mayor and businessman. I am not a 
scientist. But I do understand politics. And the more I have delved 
into the issue, the more convinced I have become that science is being 
co-opted by

[[Page 25921]]

those who care more about peddling fear of gloom and doom to further 
their own, broader agendas than they do about scientific integrity.
  I am committed to shining a light on their activities. Global warming 
alarmists will undoubtedly continue to accuse me of attacking the 
science of global warming--that is part of their game. But nothing 
could be further from the truth. I support and defend credible, 
objective science by exposing the corrupting influences that would 
subvert it for political purposes. Good policy must be based on good 
science, and that requires science be free of bias, whatever its 
conclusions might be.
  As nations meet again next month in Montreal to discuss global 
warming, the pronouncements of the IPCC leaders will gain renewed 
attention as they continue their efforts to craft a fourth assessment 
of the state of global warming science. If the fourth assessment is to 
have any credibility, fundamental changes will need to be made.
  The flaws in the IPCC process began to manifest themselves in the 
first assessment, but did so in earnest when the IPCC issued its second 
assessment report in 1996. The most obvious was the altering of the 
document on the central question of whether man is causing global 
warming.
  Here is what Chapter 8--the key chapter in the report--stated on this 
central question in the final version accepted by reviewing scientists:

       No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of 
     the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic causes.

  But when the final version was published, this and similar phrases in 
15 sections of the chapter were deleted or modified. Nearly all the 
changes removed hints of scientific doubts regarding the claim that 
human activities are having a major impact on global warming.
  It removes these doubts that were specific in the study.
  In the Summary for Policymakers--which is the only part of the report 
that reporters and policymakers read--a single phrase was inserted. It 
reads:

       The balance of evidence suggests that there is a 
     discernible human influence on global climate.

  The lead author for chapter 8, Dr. Ben Santer, should not be held 
solely accountable. According to the journal Nature, the changes to the 
report were made in the midst of high-level pressure from the Clinton/
Gore State Department to do so. I understand that after the State 
Department sent a letter to Sir John Houghton, co-chairman of the IPCC, 
Houghton prevailed upon Santer to make the changes. The impact was 
explosive, with media across the world, including heavyweights such as 
Peter Jennings, declaring this as proof that man is responsible for 
global warming.
  Notably, polls taken shortly afterwards showed scant support for the 
statement. The word ``discernible'' implies measurable or detectable, 
and depending on how the question was asked, only 3-19 percent of 
American scientists concurred. That is the very best scenario--less 
than 20 percent.
  In 2001, the third assessment report was published. Compared with the 
flaws in the third assessment, those in the second assessment appear 
modest. The most famous is the graph produced by Dr. Michael Mann and 
others. Their study concluded that the 20th century was the warmest on 
record in the last 1,000 years, showing flat temperatures until 1900 
and then spiking upward--in short, it looked like a hockey stick. It 
achieved instant fame as proof of man's causation of global warming 
because it was featured prominently in the summary report read by the 
media.
  Let us take a look at this chart. This is the blade of the hockey 
stick, and this is what Michael Mann tried to show. Since then, the 
hockey stick has been shown to be a relic of bad math and impermissible 
practices.
  This chart starts the year 1000, 1200, and so forth. If they had 
included the three centuries prior to that, that was the time called 
the medieval warming period. In the medieval warming period, you would 
find another blade such as this where temperatures were actually higher 
than they are in this exhibit.
  Since then, the hockey stick has been shown to be a relic of bad math 
and impermissible practices. Dr. Hans von Storch, a prominent German 
researcher with the GKSS Institute for Coastal Research--who, I am 
told, believes in global warming--put it this way:

       Methodologically it is wrong: Rubbish.

  In fact, a pair of Canadian researchers showed that when random data 
is fed into Michael Mann's mathematical construct, it produces a hockey 
stick more than 99 percent of the time, regardless of what you put into 
it. Yet the IPCC immortalized the hockey stick as the proof positive of 
catastrophic global warming.
  How can such a thing occur? Sadly, it is due to the institutional 
structure of the IPCC itself--it breeds manipulation.
  First, the IPCC is a political institution. Its charter is to support 
the efforts of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which 
has the basic mission of eliminating the threat of global warming. This 
clearly creates a conflict of interest with the standard scientific 
goal of assessing scientific data in an objective manner.
  The IPCC process itself illustrates the problem. The Summary Report 
for Policymakers is not approved by the scientists and economists who 
contribute to the report.
  In other words, the Summary Report for Policymakers is the one for 
policymakers and for the press. That is how people pick up their 
impressions as to what was in the report. However, the scientists and 
the economists who contributed to the report never did approve the 
Summary Report for Policymakers. It is approved by intergovernmental 
delegates--in short, politicians. It doesn't take a leap of imagination 
to realize that politicians will insist the report support their 
agenda.
  A typical complaint of scientists and economists is that the summary 
does not adequately reflect the uncertainties associated with tentative 
conclusions in the basic report. The uncertainties I identified by 
contributing authors and reviewers seem to disappear or are downplayed 
in the summary.
  A corollary of this is that lead authors and the chair of the IPCC 
control too much of the process. The old adage ``power corrupts and 
absolute power corrupts absolutely'' applies here. Only a handful of 
individuals were involved in changing the entire tone of the second 
assessment. Likewise, Michael Mann was a chapter lead author in the 
third assessment.
  One stark example of how the process has been corrupted involves a 
U.S. Government scientist who is among the world's most respected 
experts on hurricanes--Dr. Christopher Landsea. Earlier this year, Dr. 
Landsea resigned as a contributing author in the upcoming fourth 
assessment. His reason was simple--the lead author for the chapter on 
extreme weather, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, had demonstrated he would pursue 
a political agenda linking global warming to more severe hurricanes.
  Trenberth had spoken at a forum where he was introduced as a lead 
author and proceeded to forcefully make the link. He has spoken here in 
the Senate as well, and it is clear that Trenberth's mind is completely 
closed on the issue. The only problem is that Trenberth's views are not 
widely accepted among the scientific community. As Landsea put it last 
winter:

       All previous and current research in the area of hurricane 
     variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the 
     frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the 
     Atlantic or any other basin.

  When Landsea brought it to the attention of the IPCC, he was told 
that Trenberth--who as lead author is supposed to bring a neutral, 
unbiased perspective to his position--would keep his position. Landsea 
concluded that:

       Because of Dr. Trenberth's pronouncements, the IPCC process 
     on our assessment of these crucial extreme events in our 
     climate system has been subverted and compromised, its 
     neutrality lost.

  Landsea's experience is not unique. Richard Lindzen, a prominent MIT 
researcher who was a contributing author to a chapter in the third 
assessment, among others has said that the Summary did not reflect the 
chapter he contributed to. But when you examine how the IPCC is 
structured, is it really so surprising?

[[Page 25922]]

  Second, the IPCC has demonstrated an unreasoning resistance to 
accepting constructive critiques of its scientific and economic 
methods, even in the report itself. Of course, combined with my first 
point, this is a recipe for delegitimizing the entire endeavor in terms 
of providing credible information that is useful to policymakers.
  Let me offer a few examples of what I am talking about.
  Malaria is considered one of the four greatest risks associated with 
global warming. But the relationship between climate and mosquito 
populations is highly complex. There are over 3,500 species of 
mosquito, and all breed, feed, and behave differently. Yet the nine 
lead authors of the health section in the second assessment had 
published only six research papers on vector-borne diseases among them.
  Dr. Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, a respected entomologist 
who has spent decades studying mosquito-borne malaria, believes that 
global warming would have little impact on the spread of malaria. But 
the IPCC refused to consider his views in its third assessment, and has 
completely excluded him from contributing to the fourth assessment.
  Here is another example: To predict future global warming, the IPCC 
estimated how much world economies would grow over the next century. 
They had to somehow tie this into the economic activity. Future 
increases in carbon dioxide emission estimates are directly tied to 
growth rates, which in turn drive the global warming predictions.
  Unfortunately, the method the IPCC uses to calculate growth rates is 
wrong. It also contains assumptions that developing nations will 
experience explosive growth--in some cases, becoming wealthier than the 
United States. These combine to greatly inflate even its lower-end 
estimates of future global warming.
  The IPCC, however, has bowed to political pressure from the 
developing countries that refuse to acknowledge the likelihood they 
will not catch up to the developed world. The result: Future global 
warming predictions by the IPCC are based on a political choice, not on 
credible economic methodologies.
  Likewise, the IPCC ignored the advice of economists who conclude 
that, if global warming is real, future generations would have a higher 
quality of life if societies maximize economic growth and adapt to 
future warming rather than trying to drastically curb emissions. The 
IPCC turns a deaf ear.
  This problem with the economics led to a full-scale inquiry by the 
UK's House of Lords' Select Committee on Economic Affairs. The ensuing 
report should be required reading. The committee identified numerous 
problems with the IPCC.
  In fact, the problems identified were so substantial, it led Lord 
Nigel Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and a member of the 
committee, to recently state--in fact, he was here and testified before 
the committee I chair here in the Senate--Lord Lawson said:

       I believe the IPCC process is so flawed, and the 
     institution, it has to be said, so closed to reason, that it 
     would be far better to thank it for the work it has done, 
     close it down, and transfer all future international 
     collaboration on the issue of climate change. . . .

  To regain its credibility, the IPCC must correct its deficiencies in 
all of the following areas before it releases its fourth assessment 
report. Structurally, there are four ways we suggest changes be made.
  The first is to adopt procedures by which scientific reviewers 
formally approve both the chapters and the Summary Report for 
Policymakers. Government delegates should not be part of the approval 
process.
  The second thing is to limit the authority of lead authors and the 
Chair to introduce changes after approval by the reviewers.
  The third is to create an ombudsman for each chapter. These ombudsmen 
should consult with reviewers who believe valid issues are not being 
addressed and disseminate a report for reviewers prior to final 
approval which is made part of the final document.
  Fourth is to institute procedures to ensure that an adequate cross-
section of qualified scientists wishing to participate in the process 
is selected based on unbiased criteria. The ombudsmen should review 
complaints of bias in the selection process.
  That is structurally what the IPCC should do.
  Now, there are many specific issues that the IPCC must address as 
well. For instance, the IPCC must ensure that uncertainties in the 
state of knowledge are clearly expressed in the Summary for 
Policymakers. When you read the Summary for Policymakers, which is not 
approved by the scientists and the economists, it does not say anything 
about the fact that there are doubts in these areas. That should be a 
part of it.
  The IPCC must provide highly defensible ranges of the costs of 
controlling greenhouse gas emissions. They have to talk about how this 
is going to be done.
  They must defensibly assess the effects of land-use changes in 
causing observed temperature increases. In other words, there are a lot 
of things we hear about, we are aware of; that is, the heat island 
effect that takes place in a lot of the major cities, the various 
agricultural changes where trees are cut down and crops are planted. 
These need to be considered.
  Fourth is to provide highly defensible ranges of the benefits of 
global warming. If we know the cost that is going to be incurred, as we 
learned in the Wharton econometric survey--that for each family of four 
in America, it would cost them about $1,715 a year in the cost of 
electricity, the cost of fuel; everything just about doubling--then 
people need to know what kinds of benefits the global warming will 
produce.
  The fifth thing is to examine the costs and benefits of an adaptive 
strategy versus a mitigation strategy.
  Sixth is to adequately examine studies finding a cooling trend of the 
Continental Antarctic for the last 40 years, as well as increases in 
the Antarctic ice mass.
  Seventh is to adequately explain why the models predict greater 
warming than has been observed, avoiding the use of selective data 
sets.
  Eighth is to ensure an unbiased assessment of the literature on 
hurricanes.
  Ninth is to ensure adequate review of malaria predictions by a range 
of specialists in the field, ensuring all views are expressed.
  Going back to No. 8, I am reminded every time something happens--it 
can be a hurricane or a tornado--there is always somebody standing up 
and saying: Aha, it is due to global warming. It is a level of 
desperation that I cannot believe people are becoming subjected to.
  There are dozens more issues, most of which are as important as the 
ones I have just raised. Instead of trying to list them all here, I 
intend to post on my committee's Web site this winter a more exhaustive 
and detailed list of issues that must be addressed in the fourth 
assessment.
  In conclusion, I quote from an article in Der Speigel by Dr. von 
Storch and Dr. Nico Stehr, who is with Zeppelin University. They wrote:

       Other scientists are succumbing to a form of fanaticism 
     almost reminiscent of the McCarthy era. . . . Silencing 
     dissent and uncertainty for the benefit of a politically 
     worthy cause reduces credibility, because the public is more 
     well-informed than generally assumed. In the long term, the 
     supposedly useful dramatizations achieve exactly the opposite 
     of what they are intended to achieve. If this happens, both 
     science and society will have missed an opportunity.

  It is my solemn hope that the IPCC will listen to the words of Dr. 
von Storch and Dr. Stehr and not miss the opportunity to reestablish 
its credibility, which I believe is totally lost at this time. Only 
then will its work product be useful to policymakers. If the IPCC 
remains committed to its current path, however, then Lord Lawson's 
solution is the only viable one--the IPCC should be disbanded.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks not be charged 
against the time on the CJS appropriations conference report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 25923]]


  Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, as my colleagues know, we continue to 
discuss the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations conference report. 
We note that our colleague from Illinois wishes to speak, and I yield 
to Senator Obama 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I thank Senator Mikulski.
  Mr. President, I know I speak for all Members of the Senate when I 
say we wholeheartedly support our Nation's law enforcement officers and 
we want to do every single thing possible to assist their efforts to 
keep our communities safe. Unfortunately, the Commerce-Justice-Science 
conference report before this body today does not send this message. In 
fact, it sends the exact opposite message.
  The conference report provides important funding for programs such as 
the Office on Violence Against Women, the National Science Foundation, 
and important juvenile justice programs. But I am very troubled by the 
drastic cuts it makes to an important law enforcement program, the 
Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program.
  This bill further eviscerates a program that has suffered significant 
cuts in the last few years, despite providing real results and benefits 
around the country. The conference report cuts the Byrne Program from 
the $900 million we passed in the Senate to $416 million, which is a 
34-percent cut from the fiscal year 2005 funding level.
  Now, in Illinois, these cuts will have an immediate and direct effect 
because law enforcement has been using Byrne grant funds to fight one 
of the gravest drug threats facing the Nation today--methamphetamines.
  In downstate Illinois, as in other rural communities all across the 
country, there has been a tremendous surge in the manufacture, 
trafficking, and use of meth. Illinois State Police encountered 971 
meth labs in Illinois in 2003, more than double the number uncovered in 
2000.
  According to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, the 
quantity of meth seized by the Illinois State Police increased nearly 
tenfold between 1997 and 2003. This surge is placing enormous burdens 
on small-
town police forces, which are suddenly being confronted with a large 
drug trade and the ancillary crimes that accompany that trade.
  These police departments rely on Byrne grant funding to participate 
in meth task forces, such as the Metropolitan Enforcement Group or the 
Southern Illinois Enforcement Group. These task forces allow police in 
different communities to combine forces to battle a regional problem. 
There are a total of seven meth task force zones in Illinois, and these 
task forces have seen real results with Byrne grant funding.
  In 2004, the Southern Illinois Enforcement Group accounted for more 
than 27 percent of the State's reported meth lab seizures. This group 
pays 5 of its 12 agents through Byrne grants.
  In towns such as Granite City and Alton, cuts in Byrne grant funding 
will force them to make difficult choices about how to allocate already 
scarce police resources. Indeed, the chief of police in Granite City 
told my staff yesterday that cuts in Byrne grant funding will threaten 
the viability of his meth task force. At a time when meth use is 
growing, it is inconceivable to me that we would be cutting the 
resources needed by law enforcement to fight crime and clean up the 
streets.
  This is yet another example of the misplaced priorities of our 
country. We all know that we are facing a real budget crisis. The 
deficit is growing, and we need to enforce some fiscal discipline. But 
I don't believe we should be balancing the budget on the backs of our 
Nation's law enforcement officers who keep our families and communities 
safe each and every day.
  I am disappointed by this bill. I hope next year we will be able to 
find the necessary funding that local law enforcement needs. I would 
ask those who are on the conference and who are looking at this to 
recognize that it is going to have an impact not just in Illinois but 
in rural communities all across the country, particularly farming 
communities in the Midwest that have been devastated by the plague of 
meth. This has been primarily a program to help prevent it. It is being 
cut drastically in this bill. It is a bad decision and reflective of 
misplaced priorities by this Senate.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  Iraq

  Mr. DURBIN. Since the war in Iraq began, 2,067 Americans have died; 
15,568 have been wounded. Today, I joined my colleagues, Senators 
Levin, Biden, Harry Reid, and others, in offering an amendment to honor 
their sacrifice and service and to seek a new course in Iraq in the 
coming year. I was proud to cosponsor the Levin amendment. I thought it 
made three critical policy statements about Iraq.
  First, the amendment demanded that the administration provide 
Congress and the American people with a plan for success and a 
timetable with estimated dates for the phased redeployment of American 
forces. Second, the amendment makes it clear that 2006 will not be just 
another year on the calendar when it comes to the war in Iraq. The next 
year represents a critical transition period for Iraq, when a newly 
elected government, as of this December, will take office and must 
assume the authority and responsibility that comes with sovereignty. 
This is the year when Iraqi forces must help create the conditions that 
will finally lead to the phased redeployment of U.S. troops.
  The Levin amendment also stated that the administration had to make 
it crystal clear to the Iraqi people that we were not in Iraq 
indefinitely. We are neither permanent occupiers nor are we a permanent 
police force for the Iraqi people. That is a job for Iraq, not for the 
United States. Building a broad-based and sustainable political 
settlement is also essential for defeating the insurgency and it, too, 
is an Iraqi responsibility, not an American responsibility.
  President Bush has said over and over again, as the Iraqis stand up, 
we will stand down. The amendment we offered asked the basic question, 
When are they going to have capable forces so that American troops can 
stand down? How many are standing now? How well is the Iraqi Government 
doing in defending and caring for its people and training its own 
military and security forces?
  This isn't the first time we have asked these questions. Over 40 of 
us have asked the President over and over again for a report on this 
war. Sadly, we are still waiting for an answer, unless you count the 
reply we received from someone at a lower level in the White House 
stating that he had received the letter and would send it to the 
appropriate person to take a look at. That was over a month ago. That 
is not the answer that Senators were looking for. It is certainly not 
the answer the American people were looking for. The amendment required 
answers in an unclassified report because we want the American people 
to know what is going on in Iraq--the challenges, the progress, and, 
frankly, if there are contingencies we had not anticipated, let us know 
that.
  What we were seeking to do with this amendment was finally to 
establish

[[Page 25924]]

that 2006 will not be just another year. I am hoping that no Senator 
will stand on the floor a year from now and recount that we have lost 
hundreds more of our best and bravest in Iraq, thousands more injured, 
wondering if there is any end in sight.
  The amendment made it clear as well that we were holding Iraqis 
responsible. It is their country. It is their future. They need to take 
control of their own fate and future with their own security force and 
a political arrangement that works.
  Third, we want accountability from this President. It is not good 
enough for the President to make speeches about staying the course when 
the course has led to so many lives being lost, so many dollars being 
spent. Senators Warner and Frist saw our amendment when it was offered. 
It is interesting because I think what they did is probably a very 
positive thing. They took the amendment, which we had prepared, and 
basically made changes on its face. If you take a look at this 
amendment, this is what we offered. Senators Warner and Frist scratched 
out the names of all the Democratic sponsors and put their own names on 
there on the Republican side. Then they went through, without even 
retyping, and made handwritten changes on the Democratic amendment. 
Some of the changes are innocuous, but some are not.
  One of the changes is significant. We made it clear, in language the 
Iraqis and the American people could understand, what the future course 
will be. Let me read what Democratic language said:

       The United States military forces should not stay in Iraq 
     indefinitely and the people of Iraq should be so advised.

  Simple and declarative. The Republican change: They struck the word 
``indefinitely.'' Now it reads:

       The United States military forces should not stay in Iraq 
     any longer than required and the people of Iraq should be so 
     advised.

  That is quite a difference. Our sentence was clear and more decisive. 
Theirs is ambiguous, leaving open the possibility of American permanent 
military bases in Iraq, something I hope does not occur. But the most 
important thing that they did was to delete the last paragraph of this 
amendment. In the last paragraph, we have asked for President Bush, 
every 3 months, to report to the American people on scheduled changes 
in Iraq: How many soldiers were to be trained to replace American 
soldiers; how many policemen were to be prepared to provide for the 
defense of and order in their country; what progress is being made when 
it comes to basic human services, whether it is electricity, water, 
employment, the guideposts that we use to determine whether we are 
establishing a civil society, a stable society.
  The Republicans accepted most of those, but they did not accept what 
I consider to be one of the key paragraphs of the Democratic amendment. 
That said: We expect a report from the President of a campaign plan 
with estimated dates for the phased redeployment of the United States 
Armed Forces from Iraq as each condition is met, with the understanding 
that unexpected contingencies may occur.
  That was critical because it says to the President and to the 
administration: Let us start talking now about bringing our soldiers 
home. We are not setting a date to cut and run, which the critics said, 
but we are saying to the President: We have to take seriously the 
161,000 Americans risking their lives every single day, and many--
sadly, too many--losing their lives and being injured in the process.
  It is interesting to me that this morning's news tells us that the 
Iraqis are now saying to the British: You can start thinking about 
going home now. That is great. I am glad they can. I am glad that they 
will return to the safety of their families and their homes. Shouldn't 
that same conversation be taking place about American troops, and 
shouldn't the President be telling us that we are going to move forward 
in a phased, orderly redeployment of our troops back home, as the 
Iraqis take over responsibility of their own country?
  That is what the Democrats offered. That is what the Republicans 
refused. The vote came down. There were about 40 who voted for the 
Democratic amendment. Then there was a following vote. That vote is 
significant. It was a vote on the Warner-Frist amendment, an amendment 
which was offered to the Defense authorization bill. It is true that it 
was an amendment which was a cut-and-paste job on the original 
Democratic amendment. I have in my hand the original amendment and the 
changes that were made. It didn't go as far as I would like to have 
gone. It didn't say American troops will not stay in Iraq indefinitely. 
It didn't talk about the phased redeployment of American forces. But it 
did say several important things that were included in the original 
Democratic amendment.
  It did say 2006 is a year of significant transition. It did serve 
notice on the Iraqis that they have to accept responsibility for their 
own fate and future. And significantly, this Republican amendment 
called on their President in the White House to report to the American 
people, on a quarterly basis, as to the progress being made in Iraq so 
we can monitor whether the President truly has a plan that can lead to 
success.
  That is significant, maybe historic. The President's own party 
overwhelmingly voted today for this amendment, an amendment which 
started on the Democratic side but became bipartisan in the end, an 
amendment which calls on this administration to be held more 
accountable in terms of this war in Iraq.
  Now, the President did something on Veterans Day which is unusual. 
The President used Veterans Day, of all days, to make a political 
speech. He criticized the Democrats who were not agreeing with his war 
policy, on Veterans Day. I can tell you that I was back in my home 
State of Illinois visiting communities with Veterans Day celebrations 
in Carlysle, in Flora, and in Paris, IL. It didn't even cross my mind 
to make a partisan speech. You don't do that on Veterans Day, for 
goodness' sake. We don't ask our soldiers their political affiliation. 
We don't designate on their tombstones what political party they 
belonged to. Soldiers and veterans serve their country regardless of 
political affiliation.
  But the President used Veterans Day to raise a political issue, and 
then flew to Alaska yesterday and repeated it, saying that his critics 
are somehow undermining the morale of the troops and showing they don't 
appreciate the contributions of the troops. Nothing could be further 
from the truth. Whether you are Democrat or Republican, whether you 
voted for the war or against it, as I did--I have given this President 
every single penny he has asked for for our troops. I have always 
thought in the back of my mind if it were my son or my daughter in 
uniform, I would want them to have everything they needed to be safe, 
to come home with their mission truly accomplished. So for the 
President to suggest that anyone who questions his foreign policy is 
not respectful of our troops is just plain wrong.
  It is up to us as policymakers to make critical decisions about the 
policy of this country. But we have learned through bitter experience 
that even if you disagree with the policy of this country, for 
goodness' sake don't take it out on the troops and, I might say the 
flip side of that, don't use the troops as a shield so that you don't 
have to defend your own public policies. This administration has to 
stand up to defend those policies for what they are.
  So this amendment, with some changes, passed. And what does it say? 
Well, the purpose of the amendment as it passed says to clarify and 
recommend changes to the policy of the United States on Iraq. It is 
significant. For those who said stay the course, make no changes, they 
lost today. For those who wanted change on both sides of the aisle, we 
prevailed. I think that is important. I think the national dialog is 
going to change because of this vote. I sincerely hope it is a good-
faith effort. I hope it doesn't go into a conference committee and 
disappear. I hope it is part of the Defense authorization bill 
ultimately signed by the President.
  There is another thing that concerns me as we get into this whole 
debate,

[[Page 25925]]

and that is this question about intelligence. You may recall that when 
we decided to invade Iraq it was not just the decision to invade that 
country but to change America's foreign policy. The Bush 
administration, for the first time in our history, said we can no 
longer afford a policy of defense. We can no longer say to the world, 
If you attack us, we will attack you back tenfold. We have to be 
preemptive, have a policy of preemption.
  What is the difference? The difference is the President believes we 
should be prepared to attack countries even before they attack or 
threaten us. Well, that is a new course in American foreign policy and 
one which is dangerous. It is dangerous if the information you are 
receiving about potential threats and potential enemies is wrong. And 
what happened when it came to the invasion of Iraq? Virtually all of 
the intelligence was wrong.
  It is true we knew Saddam Hussein was a dictator and a butcher and a 
tyrant, that he had precipitated a war against Iran that went on for 
years, claiming thousands of lives. We knew that he invaded Kuwait. All 
of that was part of history. But before the invasion of Iraq we were 
told by this administration that based on the intelligence that they 
gathered, there were other compelling reasons for us not to wait for 
the United Nations, not to wait for other allies, not to wait and 
exhaust all possibilities but to move decisively and invade.
  What were those reasons? Weapons of mass destruction, which we later 
learned didn't exist; the possibility that Iraq was becoming a nuclear 
power, as Secretary of State Condo-
leezza Rice said, mushroom clouds in the Middle East and around the 
world from Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons; the aluminum tube 
controversy, evidence that they imported aluminum tubes which the 
administration said was proof positive that they were reinstituting, 
reconstituting their nuclear weapons program; connections with Saddam 
Hussein and al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden. It was argued that 
9/11 and Iraq were the same story.
  All of these were given to us together with the assertion that 
somehow the Iraqis were importing this yellow cake from Niger in Africa 
to make nuclear weapons. We were told all these things to reach a high 
level of intensity and anxiety to lead to an invasion of Iraq. We found 
after the invasion virtually every single statement was false, was not 
true.
  We analyzed what the intelligence agencies did in the first phase of 
our investigation and found utter failure. The agencies we most counted 
on to tell us of threats against America and how we could defend 
against them completely dropped the ball. I was part of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee at the time, and I listened as our staff people 
went over and reported to us about what they found at these 
intelligence agencies.
  In the ordinary course of events, before you invade a country there 
is a very careful analysis of intelligence data. You just don't start a 
war without looking at every possibility and understanding information 
that has been collected.
  Well, that National Intelligence Estimate was not even prepared when 
the administration started talking about the invasion of Iraq. It was 
ordered, prepared in a manner of 2 or 3 weeks, just a fraction of the 
time usually required, and when we finally saw it in the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, it was embarrassing. It was a report given to 
us which really didn't carefully evaluate the intelligence data that 
had been collected, and it is one of the reasons we made this colossal 
error in judgment when it came to evaluating intelligence.
  That was the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation. The 
President has been saying repeatedly that those who are critical of his 
decision to invade Iraq today had the same intelligence he had, and so 
if he made a mistake, they made a mistake, too. I disagree. The 
President of the United States receives what is known as the daily 
briefing. Each day he sits down with intelligence officials, including 
the head of the CIA and others at the highest level, for a briefing 
about intelligence gathered around the world and what the threat is to 
America on that given day. He has more information than anyone, as he 
should, as President, as Commander in Chief. By the time you come to 
Congress, that information has been filtered and chopped and divided 
and diced and very little of it makes it to Congress. Most of it comes 
to the Intelligence Committees. Then it goes to the chairman, ranking 
member, and then down the chain less information is given to members of 
the Senate Intelligence Committee and even less to the regular rank-
and-file Senators and Congressmen. That is just the food chain, if you 
will, on intelligence data.
  So for the President to suggest that Members of Congress had the same 
information he did is just not factual. He is given much more 
information. He was before Iraq; he is every single day given more 
information. So if Members of the Senate relied on the President's 
representation, the President's statement, the Vice President's 
statement, and they were misled into it, it is because they believed 
the President and Vice President had more information about it than 
they did.
  Now, I sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee shaking my head day 
in and day out listening as the members of the administration would 
debate issues like nuclear weapons. This is all unclassified now, but 
there was a serious disagreement between the Department of Defense and 
the Department of Energy as to what those aluminum tubes meant. The 
Department of Energy said: We don't think they have anything to do with 
nuclear weapons. The Department of Defense said: Oh, yes, they do. And 
the two of them would have at it in front of us. Then I would walk 
outside the Intelligence Committee room and hear Vice President Cheney 
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying aluminum tubes equal 
nuclear weapons, and I am thinking to myself: They are not suggesting 
there is a difference of opinion even in their own administration.
  It was frustrating because serving on that Intelligence Committee I 
could not discuss what was being debated in that room, but I knew in my 
heart of hearts that many things being told to the American people were 
just not backed up with sound, concrete evidence, and that is what is 
at issue here.
  We believe the American people deserve the truth, and the truth comes 
down to this: The Senate Intelligence Committee promised us over 20 
months ago that they would do a thorough investigation to see if any 
elected official made a statement about the situation in Iraq that 
could not be substantiated with background intelligence. In other 
words, did any elected official in this administration, or even in this 
Congress, deliberately or recklessly mislead the American people?
  Is that important? It could not be more important. I cannot think of 
a greater abuse of power in a democracy than to mislead the people into 
a war, and to ask the people of a country to offer up the people they 
love--their sons, their daughters, their husbands, their wives, their 
friends and their relatives--in defense of the facts.
  That is what this investigation is about. We have been waiting 20 
months, 20 months for it to take place. I don't know what it will find. 
There is certainly a lot of questions that need to be asked and 
answered about statements made by members of the administration. But as 
of today, we still don't know. We are not certain as to whether that 
investigation will take place.
  I would like to know why, on February 7, 2003, Defense Secretary 
Donald Rumsfeld told the U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy:

       It is unknowable how long that conflict in Iraq will last. 
     It could last 6 days, 6 weeks. I doubt 6 months.

  Secretary Rumsfeld, February 2003. That was over 2\1/2\ years ago. 
The Defense Secretary was not just overly optimistic, he was profoundly 
wrong. His failure to plan for the conflict that could last years and 
not weeks has had tragic consequences.
  On my first visit to Walter Reed Hospital to visit a soldier whose 
leg had been amputated, who was from an Ohio Guard unit I asked: What 
happened?

[[Page 25926]]

  Well, I was in one of those humvees, Senator. It didn't have any 
armor plating on either side, and one of those homemade bombs went off 
and blew off my leg.
  Were we ready? Did we have a plan to win, to protect that soldier and 
others? Clearly not. It was not until recently, and all of our findings 
after 3 years they finally had the armor plating they needed.
  On May 1, 2003, that banner on the aircraft carrier proclaimed that 
the Iraqi mission was accomplished and President Bush landed on the 
carrier and celebrated the end of the war.
  Tragically, at that time the real war was just beginning. Of those 
Americans who paid with their lives in this war, only 140 were killed 
during the phase the President called major combat. We have lost almost 
2,000 since then. That means 93 percent of our troops who have been 
killed in Iraq died after Saddam Hussein was overthrown and his army 
defeated and since that banner was displayed on that aircraft carrier.
  Last May, Vice President Cheney said the Iraqi insurgency was in its 
death throes. Well, I can tell you, as we see the casualty reports 
coming from Iraq, it is clear that the insurgency is not in its death 
throes. I truly wish it were. Our generals don't agree with that 
statement. I do not understand what the Vice President used as his 
basis for making it.
  There is one other element I would like to raise which is 
contemporary, timely, and troubling. For the last week we have had a 
visit by a foreign Head of State. His name is Ahmed Chalabi. Mr. 
Chalabi is rather well-known in Washington circles. For years and years 
he was an Iraqi expatriate who was critical of Saddam Hussein, and he 
created an Iraqi national congress organization of defectors and those 
who felt as he did that Hussein should be replaced. That is a good 
thing. I don't know of anyone who was applauding Hussein in those 
years, and certainly Chalabi was on the right track in that area.
  He ingratiated himself to some of the leaders in this administration, 
people making policy in this administration, and became, sadly, a 
source of information. I say ``sadly'' because we have come to learn 
that much of the information given by Mr. Chalabi to members of our 
administration turned out to be just plain wrong.
  Ahmed Chalabi helped weave a web of deceit about what turned out to 
be nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He helped provide 
the infamous and aptly named source known as ``Curveball,'' who 
fabricated information about biological weapons labs. This information 
became a cornerstone, sadly, of Secretary of State Colin Powell's 
speech and slide show to the United Nations, and it turned out to be 
all wrong. I suspect that in his decades of distinguished service to 
the United States there are very few moments that Secretary Powell 
regrets more than being led into repeating some of these assertions by 
Ahmed Chalabi and his followers. Chalabi seems to have no such regrets.
  I took a look at Mr. Chalabi, who was confronted recently. It was in 
February of last year, as a matter of fact. He was confronted with the 
fact that many of the things he told the United States about Iraq 
turned out to be false, completely false. And here is what they wrote 
in this article on February 19 of 2004 in the London Telegraph:

       Mr. Chalabi, by far the most effective anti-Saddam lobbyist 
     in Washington, shrugged off charges that he deliberately 
     misled U.S. intelligence. ``We are heroes in error,'' he told 
     the Telegraph in Baghdad.

  He goes on to say, and I quote Mr. Chalabi:

       As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. 
     That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. 
     What was said before is not important. The Bush 
     administration is looking for a scapegoat. We are ready to 
     fall on our swords, if he wants.

  Unrepentant, giving bad information to the American Government, which 
it followed in planning this invasion of Iraq. Ahmed Chalabi, no 
regrets. He achieved what he wanted to achieve: Saddam Hussein is gone. 
The Americans are in Baghdad. The fact that the American people were 
misled obviously does not trouble him, but it should trouble others.
  What about Mr. Chalabi today? He has a title. He is Deputy Prime 
Minister in Iraq, and he received a hero's welcome from this 
administration over the last 7 days.
  The other part of this story I haven't mentioned is that on May 20 of 
last year, the Iraqi security forces raided Mr. Chalabi's home in Iraq, 
seizing documents and other evidence, and charging him with having sold 
American secrets to Iran, one of the countries in President Bush's axis 
of evil, a code that could have endangered American troops and American 
security.
  That is a high crime, as far as I am concerned, the kind of thing 
which no one can excuse or overlook. In fact, the FBI initiated an 
investigation of Chalabi for selling or giving those secrets to Iran, 
and twice last week the FBI told us it was a continuing active 
investigation. It is ironic they told us that while Mr. Chalabi was the 
toast of the town in Washington, moving from one Cabinet official to 
another, from Treasury Secretary Snow to Secretary of State Condoleezza 
Rice, where he was greeted as warmly as a dignitary from overseas, and 
then going to visit with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and 
finally, of course, with Vice President Cheney.
  This man under active investigation by the FBI was being warmly 
received as a Head of State in these agencies. Why, one might ask, 
isn't the FBI doing its job? Why aren't they calling him in for 
information, whether he sold secrets that could have endangered 
American lives? Mr. Chalabi is no hero to me. He seems to be one to 
some members of the Bush administration. This is a man who should not 
be treated like a hero. He ought to be treated like a suspect. That is 
what the FBI said he was last week. The fact he is being vetted by 
high-ranking officials rather than being questioned by the FBI speaks 
volumes. Mr. Chalabi went on to say when he was asked about this during 
his visit to Washington:

       As far as we're concerned, we have been entirely 
     successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and Americans are in 
     Baghdad.

  He said: Let's look to the future. Let's not look to the past.
  I think it is clear, as the New York Times editorial stated on 
November 10, 2005:

       Mr. Chalabi is not just any political opportunist. He more 
     than any other Iraqi is responsible for encouraging the Bush 
     administration to make two disastrous mistakes on the Iraqi 
     intervention. Basing its justification for war on the false 
     premise that Saddam Hussein had active unconventional weapons 
     programs and falsely imagining that the Iraqi people would 
     greet the invasion with undiluted joy.

  Even after the invasion when people were beginning to ask where are 
these weapons of mass destruction, Chalabi insisted the U.S. forces 
were simply in the wrong places and asking the wrong people.
  In spite of all these transgressions, Mr. Chalabi is being warmly 
received by this administration.
  Mr. President, I know Senator Stevens is on the floor to deliver a 
eulogy for our former Sergeant at Arms, and in deference to him and his 
purpose for coming----
  Mr. STEVENS. No, I am not going to deliver a eulogy.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I will close and give the floor to Senator 
Stevens for whatever purpose brings him here.
  We believe what happened on the floor of the Senate is significant. 
We said there must be a change of course in Iraq; we cannot continue. 
This failed policy brought us to this point. We owe it to our 
servicemen and their families and the American people to have a plan 
for success that will bring stability to Iraq on a timely basis, give 
them responsibility for their own future, and start to bring American 
troops home.
  Our critics say we want to cut and run. No, we want to stop the loss 
of life by Americans in Iraq. We want to make sure the Iraqis know it 
is their responsibility for their future.
  I certainly believe, as others do, that someone such as Ahmed Chalabi 
is one of the reasons we made fatal errors in the beginning of this 
invasion of Iraq. He should not be treated as a hero. I didn't vote for 
this war. In the fall of

[[Page 25927]]

2002 when we were debating use of force, I offered an amendment to 
defend the United States from an imminent attack by Iraqi weapons of 
mass destruction. That amendment got to the heart of the matter with 
the intelligence of weapons of mass destruction so cloudy. It would 
have raised the threshold for war. It failed.
  Now we have to move forward making certain that we keep in mind first 
and foremost our commitment to our troops and our commitment to our 
mission. This is a historic vote today with the adoption of the 
Democratic amendment as changed by Senators Warner and Frist. I 
sincerely hope this vote will mean a change in policy to bring our 
troops home safely.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his 
courtesy. I do intend to attend the ceremony to eulogize the former 
Sergeant at Arms of the Senate.
  (The remarks of Mr. Stevens pertaining to the introduction of S. 2012 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Republican-controlled time on the Commerce-Justice-Science 
appropriations conference report be reserved for later in the day.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. STEVENS. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             War On Terror

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I was just across the way in my office 
working on several things that I think are important to the country. We 
were working on a bill to stop the increases in taxes that will occur 
unless we act immediately. This is another bill that the Democrats are 
trying to obstruct, but it is critically important that we pass this 
stop-the-tax-increase bill in order to keep our economy growing and to 
keep creating jobs in this country.
  I was also working in my office, with some of my staff, on some of 
the things we can do to move this country more toward energy 
independence. But I kept listening to my distinguished Democrat 
colleague from Illinois and heard him talking about our President and 
this war. The more I listened, the more frustrated I became. As a 
matter of fact, I would have to say I became very angry because what I 
was hearing was baseless accusations and shameless criticisms, things 
that were said that I think diminish the Senate as an institution, 
which I feel must be refuted.
  I am afraid that my Democratic colleagues are playing the war on 
terror similar to a political game. It is a dangerous game that 
endangers our troops, and it is a dangerous game that the Democrats 
have played before. Over the last 25 years, terrorist attacks in this 
country and around the world have increased. During the Clinton 
administration, Americans were killed in our embassies, on our warships 
and even in New York City when the World Trade Center was attacked by 
terrorists. From the Democrats and the Clinton administration, there 
was a lot of talk, but there was no action. It was all left to the next 
President to deal with. Instead of dealing with it in a way that would 
help secure our future, the Clinton administration instead decimated 
our intelligence network with politically correct ideas that greatly 
reduced our ability to gather intelligence in difficult places around 
the world. John Deutsch, President Clinton's Director of the CIA 
created rules that hurt our intelligence community's ability to gather 
human intelligence.
  Now my Democrat colleagues accuse President Bush of using poor 
intelligence to do what they said needed to be done before he was even 
elected President.
  In 1998, with President Clinton's leadership, we supported regime 
change in Iraq. This was something that was determined as a national 
policy years before President Bush took office. There are some reasons 
we did this. Saddam Hussein had demonstrated that he was a danger to 
civilization years before 
9/11. He not only attacked Kuwait and tried to assassinate an American 
President, he committed mass murder all over his country using weapons 
of mass destruction. He was a deadly killer.
  He supported terrorism in other countries. If a terrorist in Israel 
blew himself up and killed Israelis, the family of that terrorist would 
receive a check from Saddam Hussein.
  To suggest that Iraq was not supporting terrorists is not true. 
Saddam Hussein, as part of the original gulf war settlement, agreed to 
document and prove the destruction of his weapons of mass destruction, 
which he acknowledged he had. But he did not disarm. He did not 
document the destruction. The inspectors had to play a cat-and-mouse 
game with him. The world did not know what Saddam Hussein had. Our 
decimated intelligence network had to guess whether he had them. 
President Bush made the only decision he could.
  Knowing the history of Saddam Hussein, having a national policy that 
was written by the Democrats to remove him from power, he made a 
decision to take action instead of talking about it. The justification 
for removing Saddam Hussein from power happened before President Bush 
was elected and had been supported by Democrats. But now they come down 
to the Senate floor and suggest that because the President had some bad 
information that he rushed us to war. In fact, leaving Saddam Hussein 
in power would not have been acceptable to any administration that 
looked at the facts.
  This country cannot allow murderous dictators who have attacked our 
allies, threatened civilians and destabilized the Middle East to stay 
in power.
  Now we have Democrats, whose attitude basically embolden terrorists 
for a decade during the 1990s by talking but not doing, on the Senate 
floor attacking our President for doing what we knew had to be done. 
But this is the Democrat pattern. They say anything, but they do 
nothing.
  We are dealing with a serious energy situation in this country today, 
but for the last decade they have obstructed any development of our own 
domestic energy supplies. Now they are on the floor blaming President 
Bush for the high energy prices, while the President and the Republican 
Congress have managed, despite the Democratic obstruction, to pass an 
Energy bill that will move us toward energy independence.
  The Democrats are on the floor often complaining about American job 
losses, but when we try to pass legislation that improves the business 
climate in this country, they obstruct. They obstructed passing our 
elimination of junk lawsuits and the elimination of fraudulent 
bankruptcies. They tried to stop that, voting en bloc against it. But 
the President and the Republicans have been able to pass that and move 
us along.
  There are a whole list of things that Republicans, with the 
President's leadership, have done from the Energy bill, to class action 
and bankruptcy reform. We have passed a budget that reduced the growth 
in spending. We have passed a number of things that improve vocational 
training. There is a huge list.
  On the back side of this list is what America needs to know about: 
The Democrat agenda, of which they have none. The reason they are 
misleading the American people about our President and the importance 
of winning the war on terror is they have no agenda. They are not 
willing to step out and take any leadership on any issue. So all they 
do is obstruct, attack, distort, and complain with their ``do nothing'' 
agenda.
  It is hard for some of us, as we try to go about our work, to move 
America forward and address the difficult problems of today and create 
more opportunities for tomorrow, when we have to carry a concrete block 
we call the Democrat Party. But when they go across the line and start 
misleading America about the importance of this war on terror and 
treating it akin to some kind of political game, when we and our 
children and future generations are in danger, as is the rest of the

[[Page 25928]]

world. As we see almost every day, this war on terror is real--we 
cannot treat it as some kind of silly political debate where they are 
trying to give the Commander in Chief of this country a time line as to 
when our troops need to go home. It is like they have not bothered to 
go to Iraq themselves and meet with the troops, as I have had the 
chance to do twice this year, and talk with the generals. The President 
has met every deadline he set for elections, to approve the 
constitution, and we are moving exactly as he said we would move, to 
turn more of the defense of that country over to their military. That 
is happening. They are opening businesses, schools, and hospitals, and 
we are helping them along the way. When we get them to the point where 
they can defend themselves, the President will bring our troops home, 
but continue to stand firm against terror, wherever it exists around 
the world.
  This is not a game. Terror is a real enemy, and many Americans have 
already died because we did not take the war on terror seriously. It is 
time to take it seriously and to stop playing political games with the 
most important issue of our generation.
  I do not think we as a Nation should ever yield to terror or the type 
of rhetoric we have had to listen to today.
  Mr. DeMINT. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Defense Authorization Bill

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly about the events 
this morning, the votes we had prior to our adoption of the Defense 
Department authorization bill, particularly on the Frist, Warner, and 
Levin amendments, and try to put this in some context.
  First of all, I think we would all agree that our young men and women 
in uniform who are fighting for freedom's cause in Iraq and Afghanistan 
and elsewhere are doing a magnificent job, one that they have 
volunteered to do since we no longer have had the draft. Only people 
who want to be in our military join our military. Certainly we have 
nothing but honor and respect for those who put themselves in harm's 
way in order to make us safer and, beyond that, to engage in the noble 
cause of delivering the blessings of liberty to those who have known 
nothing more than the boot heel of a tyrant, as 25 million or so have 
in Iraq, and those who lived under the Taliban--a similar number--where 
al-Qaida trained, recruited, and exported its terror in Afghanistan 
before we were able to turn both of those countries toward the path of 
democracy and self-determination as peaceful states.
  I regret that this war in which we are engaged, the global war on 
terror, with its central front being in Iraq today, has become such a 
political football. Unfortunately, we see it is just too tempting a 
target to partisans, some partisans, to try to engage in revisionist 
history in order to score political points or, as we have seen this 
morning, an attempt to impose an arbitrary deadline on the withdrawal 
of our troops in a way that would jeopardize everything that we have 
invested in terms of our young men and women, the lives lost, the 
injuries sustained, and the treasure we have invested in an effort to 
try to restore Iraq to a self-governing democracy.
  I wish to be clear that I am not questioning the patriotism of those 
who supported this arbitrary timetable for withdrawal in voting for the 
Levin amendment, but I am questioning their judgment. I think it is 
simply too important for us to engage in the partisan push and shove 
here on the floor of the Senate when there is so much at stake. To me 
it seems clear that a vote on the Levin amendment today was a 
bipartisan rejection of an artificial timetable for withdrawal.
  I have already seen some of the Web sites and even fundraising 
appeals that have taken place ever since these amendments were voted 
on. That is the kind of world we live in here in Washington, inside 
this big fishbowl where politics sometimes overtakes people's common 
sense or sense of duty. This clearly was not a Democrat victory, to 
change Iraq policy as some have already suggested, the spin doctors, 
those who attempt to spin the message of what happens here on the floor 
for some partisan advantage. I regret that some are attempting to use 
this message for political gain. This should not be about whether 
Republicans have scored points or whether Democrats have scored points. 
Rather, this should be about our military strategy on the ground in 
Iraq that is being implemented as we speak to restore Iraq to a self-
governing democracy.
  How are we doing that? By a three-pronged plan that, No. 1, says we 
need to train the Iraqis to provide the security necessary so democracy 
can flourish; No. 2, to build basic infrastructure so the quality of 
life in Iraq is such that people feel they have a stake in the outcome, 
the success of this new democracy; and No. 3, to build democratic 
institutions, beginning with the passage of a constitution on October 
15 and now leading up to election of their permanent government on 
December 15.
  The people of Iraq have been through a lot in these last years. They 
have been through, even since the fall of Saddam, a lot of turmoil 
since government after government has been created in this transition 
to permanent self-government. It is a shame, it seems to me, that there 
are those who would call for an artificial deadline for withdrawal, 
unfortunately to try to generate public opinion in a way that breaks 
our resolve and increases the likelihood that we will leave before we 
get the job done.
  I am grateful that a bipartisan majority of the Senate rejected that 
artificial timetable for withdrawal and made a commitment, as I see it, 
to stay and get the job done until Iraq gets back on its feet and has a 
reasonable chance of succeeding as a peaceful and democratic country.
  Last week, our country celebrated Veterans Day, last Friday, the day 
we set aside each year to honor the bravery and the sacrifice of our 
men and women in uniform who serve our country. I had the chance, as 
did many of us, to return to my home State. I returned to Texas. I went 
to a ceremony at the Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial to honor these 
brave men and women. I have must say, I was struck once again at the 
great chasm that seems to separate the rest of America from the echo 
chamber here inside the beltway in Washington, DC. I was reminded of 
the differences in perception of what it is we are about and the 
obligation we have to support those men and women in uniform who are 
fighting for what we believe in. We know they are fighting for what 
they believe in, and they do so even when the going gets tough. They do 
not cut and run when it becomes politically expedient to do so.
  I had the chance to look across that audience. We had a large 
collection of World War II vets, people like my dad who flew in the 
Army Air Corps out of Molesworth, England, flying a B-17. Ultimately he 
was shot down and captured and spent 4 months in a German prison camp 
before General Patton and his colleagues came along and liberated him 
and his fellow POWs. But as I looked across that audience, I saw people 
like my dad, a generation that is certainly getting older and 
unfortunately leaving us at a relatively rapid pace. There were those 
present who had previously served, and there were some there who 
currently are serving. There were family members of loved ones who are 
now overseas and families of those who had paid the ultimate sacrifice.
  Although the circumstances differed from person to person there in 
that audience, they all had several profound things in common. I don't 
know that I could tell you that every single person at that veterans 
event was in complete agreement with the decision of this President or 
this Congress to authorize

[[Page 25929]]

the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, but what I can tell you is 
that these people were all patriots. They support our troops 100 
percent, and they support the ideals upon which our country was founded 
100 percent. They know the contributions of our troops represent the 
Iraqi people's best hope for freedom and for democracy.
  So while there may be some here in Washington--in fact, there are--
who, of course, criticize what we are about and armchair generals who 
want to direct our combatant commanders and those who actually have the 
responsibility of conducting our national security and national defense 
operations, I thought it appropriate to point out that even though 
there are those who dramatically undervalue our efforts in Iraq, there 
is a huge chasm, it seemed to me, between what I saw there in Bryan-
College Station at the Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial Friday night and 
what I hear argued in the halls of the U.S. Congress, including this 
morning. I am glad to report the obvious to all of us who live and 
represent constituencies around the country, that patriotism is alive 
and well, and our fellow citizens realize that we must continue to 
support our men and women in uniform in their brave and selfless and 
noble efforts.
  I have come to this Chamber several times during the past few weeks 
to speak about the situation in Iraq and to do my small part in 
refuting the false charges by some partisans that the administration 
has manipulated intelligence in the lead-up to the war. I wish to 
reiterate my view that we must not let the politics of the moment 
undermine the path to democracy in Iraq. Such a decision, such yielding 
to such a temptation would be incredibly shortsighted considering how 
much has been accomplished in a relatively short period of time and how 
dear our investment has been, both in terms of the lives lost and the 
money the American taxpayer has committed to this noble effort. We must 
stay the course in Iraq.
  If our troops were to leave prematurely, what would happen? It is 
likely that the country would collapse into chaos. Terrorists such as 
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No. 2 operative and Osama bin Laden's 
deputy, and Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's chief terrorist in Iraq 
and the one principally responsible for the terrorist attacks we saw 
last week in Jordan at the wedding reception that killed other innocent 
civilians--these are individuals who vowed to destroy America and 
everyone who stands in their way in their attempt to seize power.
  A letter from Zawahiri and Zarqawi makes this threat exceedingly 
clear. If there is any doubt about who our enemy is and what their 
goals are--on which there should not be after September 11--all one 
needs to do is read this letter. It is easily available to anyone who 
wants to read it. It is found in full on the Web site of the Director 
of National Intelligence. That is www.dni.gov. In that letter, Zawahiri 
clearly describes al-Qaida's vision to establish an Islamic caliphate 
that would rule the Middle East, destroy Israel, and threaten the very 
existence of our way of life.
  The consequences of a United States pullout from Iraq should not be 
in question, either. In this letter, Zawahiri tells Zarqawi that when 
the United States leaves Iraq, al-Qaida must be prepared to claim the 
most political territory possible in the inevitable vacuum of power 
that would arise.
  Yes, that is right; a premature withdrawal of our troops from Iraq 
would create a safe haven for al-Qaida. Iraq would be more dangerous--
not less--if we fail to finish the job. An early arbitrary withdrawal 
from Iraq would empower and embolden the sworn enemies of America and, 
indeed, all civilization and anybody who disagreed with them. Failure 
to stay the course and continuing to lay the foundations of a 
functioning democracy would result in more--not less--terrorist 
attacks.
  Let me say that again because there are actually some who make the 
specious argument that our very presence in Iraq results in more 
terrorist attacks. But the failure to stay the course, the failure to 
finish the job that we started in Iraq, and to continue to lay the 
foundations of a functioning democracy, would result in more--not 
less--terrorist attacks.
  This letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi makes that clear. Once they see 
America leave Iraq, once they fill the vacuum that exists, that is 
where they would continue to train, that is where they would continue 
to recruit, and that is where they would continue to export terror. 
Anyone who believes there would not be a greater probability of our 
sustaining another 9/11 on our own soil is kidding themselves.
  Some of the administration's critics are now arguing, as we heard 
this morning, for a timetable to withdraw from Iraq. Their actions are 
nothing more than an attempt to gain the attention of a concerned 
nation for political advantage rather than a serious strategy for 
victory. Armchair generals in Washington, DC, are hardly in a position 
to know what is the best military strategy in Iraq. We ought to listen 
to our combatant commanders, such as General Abizaid, the CENTCOM 
commander, and General Casey, who is in charge of coalition forces in 
Iraq. They have told us we have to finish the job, that we can finish 
the job, that there is no military on the face of the Earth that can 
defeat the United States of America; that the only one who can defeat 
the United States of America is the United States itself--by losing our 
resolve, by prematurely withdrawing, by cutting and running, and 
leaving the Iraqis to fend for themselves in what would surely descend 
into chaos.
  Our withdrawal from Iraq should be determined by the military 
commanders on the ground and our Commander in Chief. All of us who have 
been to Iraq to visit our troops on the ground are confident that over 
time the 210,000 or so Iraqis who have now been trained to provide 
security for their own people sooner or later will be able to take this 
job upon themselves and we can begin to gradually, as circumstances 
dictate on the ground, bring our troops home.
  Do all of us wish our troops could come home sooner rather than 
later? You bet we do. We want them to come home as soon as we can get 
them home, consistent with our duty to finish the job we started in 
Iraq. But we should not under any circumstance impose an arbitrary 
timetable on our forces, signaling weakness to our enemy, emboldening 
them to stay with their strategy because it must be working, and we 
must keep going even though it is tough. Our troops in Iraq are 
committed to victory.
  I mentioned the chasm that separates Washington, DC, and these 
Chambers from the rest of America when it comes to the perception of 
what we are about in Iraq and the fight for freedom's cause. There is 
also a huge difference when you travel to Iraq and talk to our troops. 
They wonder at some of the news reports and some of the 
politicalization of what they are about, that they aren't confused 
about their job, they aren't confused about the nobility of their cause 
and the importance of what they are about. Our troops in Iraq are 
committed to victory. I hope our elected officials would show the same 
resolve here at home.
  As every one of our military personnel in Iraq understands, Americans 
do not cut and run, Americans do not abandon their commitments, and 
Americans do not abandon their friends.
  We must remember that it is in the absence of democracy, in the 
absence of the rule of law that extremism appears. When the rule of law 
is implemented, when people have a forum by which to redress their 
grievances as we do in democratic circumstances, this is when the 
radical ideologues are stifled and even extinguished.
  We have to remember how far the Iraqi people have come in such a 
relatively short time--from a time when they were ruled by a dictator 
who cared nothing for human life and who used weapons of mass 
destruction on his own people. I have seen, as have others in this 
body, the mass graves where at last count at least 400,000 Iraqis lie 
dead because of the ruthlessness of this blood-thirsty dictator. It was 
only 2 short years ago that the

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people of Iraq were oppressed by this brutal dictator. Those who 
privately yearned for freedom kept silent out of fear for their lives 
and the lives of their family and other loved ones. But that is no 
longer the case.
  We have seen and continue to see that our strategy is working. The 
Iraqi people will vote in elections next month. I make a prediction 
that their turnout in these elections will be broad-based, across all 
the sects in Iraq, and their turnout will exceed the turnout we see in 
this country in our national elections. We saw that happen with, I 
believe, the 63-percent turnout in the vote to ratify the Constitution. 
It now appears that the Sunnis, many of whom boycotted that election, 
will finally participate in full force in electing their first leaders 
in a permanent government.
  I hope the Members of this body who yield to the temptation to 
politicize this issue realize their remarks run the real risk of not 
only dividing Americans but undermining the resolve for the important 
task we have at hand, and devalue the sacrifice of our brave men and 
women in uniform and the noble cause they are about.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________