[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 19943-19945]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT OF 2006

  Mr. LOTT. If I could speak on this very important issue addressed 
previously by the Senator from Illinois, the Military Commissions Act 
of 2006, I have been restrained in making comments on this process, 
although I admit I have had to bite my lip a few times because I 
believed the process that was underway was responsible.
  Let me go back and talk a little bit about the beginnings of why this 
act is necessary and where we are now. We have been in some very 
difficult times and some uncharted waters when it comes to the war on 
terror since September 11. It has challenged us in many ways to deal 
with problems we have not had to deal with before, with an amorphous 
enemy which does not line up in uniform, in rank, but takes the vehicle 
of suicide bombers or roadside bombs--the worst of all possible attacks 
on innocent men and women and children--with no uniform, with no 
concern for what it does to these innocent people, not to mention those 
who are trying to bring about greater peace and democracy and 
opportunity and security in the world, in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 
Middle East and, yes, here at home.
  We are working through this as we go forward. These are unique times. 
In this process, we have been able to capture and deter some of the 
worst of the worst jihadists in the world, intent on killing our 
soldiers and innocent men and women. We have had to deal with them. 
These are not people who ordinarily have been captured who would be 
covered by the Geneva Conventions. They are not serving in a country's 
military; they are murderers of the worst sort.
  We have had to deal with this issue. This administration has dealt 
with it. They have done it responsibly. Have they made some mistakes? 
Why, of course; we are human beings.
  All of this led to a very unfortunate Supreme Court decision, 
referred to--again, unfortunately--as the Hamdan decision. The Supreme 
Court clearly made a mistake. I must admit I was disappointed in some 
of the rulings of the judges, but it has forced our hand to try to make 
it clear in the law and with the administration how we are going to 
deal with this question of interrogating these terrorists, how we are 
going to deal with some of the evidence that is acquired through that 
process. The administration has been working with the lawyers, with the 
Congress, and with the Senate to try to work through this issue.
  Some people were very distraught last week that we seemed to be 
having disagreement within our own ranks on the Republican side of the 
aisle where three or four Senators or some Senators had some concerns. 
I felt very differently. Finally, we were dealing with issues that 
really matter. Questions of law, how we deal with the terrorists, how 
we deal with the evidence--these are very serious discussions, the 
kinds of things the Senate should be doing a lot more of.
  While one can disagree with who was doing what, we went through a 
process, took up legitimate questions of the law--how to deal with the 
Geneva Convention; how is it perceived--and came to an agreement. I 
still had my doubts. There are parts I still do not particularly like. 
I thought it was a very good process, with a lot of different people, a 
lot of lawyers, a lot of military people, a lot of leadership in the 
Congress, and they came up with a conclusion. I have had occasion now 
to take a look at what they came up with, had questions about, and it 
is pretty good. However, it is an area where we must act because if we 
do not act, we are not--the administration, the Government--going

[[Page 19944]]

to know how to deal with interrogation or with the terrorists or how to 
deal with the evidence. This is a case where we do not have the luxury 
of not dealing with this issue. We have to do it.
  In some other areas, we should act. The electronic wiretaps matter--
we should deal with that, but we don't have it. We can go forward on 
the law as it is. In this case, we have to clarify the situation, or 
these people who are being held in Guantanamo Bay are going to be 
hanging in limbo. If you are worried about them, which I am not 
particularly, there needs to be a process of how we will deal with 
them.
  That is how we got where we are. That is now pending as an amendment 
to the border security bill that provides for a fence along our 
southern border with Mexico. That is not the way it should be done. It 
should be considered clean. But it is typical of what has happened all 
year long in the Senate. The whole operation from the other side of the 
aisle is delay it, drag it out, don't cooperate. Why can't we at least 
debate? Why have we gone through a day and a half of nothingness 
instead of considering and debating the substance of the amendment 
which should be a bill and also the substance of border security? Does 
anyone here want to leave to go home for an election period--and that 
is what this is really all about--without having addressed how we do 
the military trials and without having done something more significant 
about border security? Not me, although I suspect there are some who 
say: Yes, let's don't let anything happen; then we can blame Senators, 
certain people, leaders, whatever, the administration, because nothing 
happened. Nice deal if you can pull it off. I don't believe the 
American people will buy that deal.
  Also, in listening to some of the comments in the Senate, it stuns 
me. First of all, I am an attorney. I have not practiced for a long 
time. I find myself now involved in a lawsuit. Whenever they say, 
``Bring on the lawyers,'' look out, because now we are going to get 
into a huge, big discussion of the niceties of trials and evidence and 
all of that, and we are guaranteed to have a lot of confusion moving 
forward.
  I wish to again emphasize what we are dealing with. We are dealing 
with, I believe Colin Powell was quoted as saying, the most vicious 
killers in the world. These are bad people. These are the people who 
admit they are jihadists. And if they get out, they would do everything 
to kill Americans, Europeans, Asians--anyone they think does not agree 
with their religious positions. These are not citizens, these are not 
employees of the government, and these are not soldiers. These are 
extremist jihadists of the worst sort.
  Now we have people worrying about how they are going to be 
incarcerated or interrogated or what evidence would be admissible. 
Lawyers can work that out. I know enough about the law to know that 
judges and juries can decipher the legitimacy of evidence and how it 
was obtained. The parsing we have been through is a disgrace, in my 
opinion.
  In terms of the interrogation, yes, we have to be concerned about our 
treaty obligations. Our President and our Government have to be 
concerned about that. Senators, too. We have already voted, and I 
voted, to clarify our position that we are opposed to torture. I voted 
for the McCain position. But now, what we are arguing over, I am 
concerned. What are we going to do in terms of interrogation to get 
information that can save one marine's life or thousands of innocent 
people? Are we going to ask them: Please, pretty please? When they let 
on like some of the techniques that have been used are such horrible 
things--being threatened by a dog? Come on. Have they never delivered 
laundry to someone's house and had a dog come after them? Have they 
never lived? Now being threatened by a dog is considered what--torture? 
Oh, by the way, we can't have them in stressful positions. What is 
that? You mean like standing up? Some of these complaints are 
absolutely ludicrous. Are we going to be careful not to insult them in 
some way? How are we going to get this information?
  And by the way, now our men and women who have to find a way to get 
information from these worst of the worst vicious killers in the world 
could be liable, and even worse than that, when they thought they were 
complying with the law as they understood it and as their superiors 
told them, they could be liable to be tried--after the fact.
  This legislation at least says that prospectively, here is going to 
be what is expected. If you exceed this, if you get over into the 
torture area, yes, you will be liable. But to go back and say, now, 
wait a minute, what you did could make you liable, when we have people 
trying to do their job for the American people--our soldiers in Iraq 
and Afghanistan now could be sued, and there are complaints that we are 
not going to make sure these people are not going to be, after the 
fact, ex post facto, tried? These same people are talking about amnesty 
for people illegally in America. Yet when they talk about amnesty for 
people doing their job as best they could, as they understood the law, 
no, we do not want to give them amnesty. That would be a horrible 
mistake, if we do not provide some clarity and some protection for 
those who may have exceeded that clarity in the past even though they 
understood what they were doing was wrong.
  Now we have this huge discussion about habeas corpus. Bring on the 
lawyers. What a wonderful thing we can do to come up with words like 
this. Our forefathers were thinking about citizens, Americans. They 
were not conceiving of these terrorists who are killing these innocent 
men, women, and children. These are not citizens. These are not people 
in America. We want them turned loose arbitrarily and then on the other 
hand turn around and, say, criticize the administration because some 
people who were caught in this process were subsequently released when 
you find out maybe they shouldn't have been?
  Ladies and gentlemen, this is the political season, I am sorry to 
say. I would have thought the Senate could rise above all this partisan 
political stuff. Everybody is trying to rewrite history or rewrite the 
law or prove a mistake was made or this intelligence was available 
which was different from that intelligence. Who is taking the time and 
looking at where we are now? Where do we want to be? How are we going 
to handle interrogations? How are we going to handle evidence? How are 
we going to do a better job for our men and women in the decisions we 
make in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who is looking for the future around 
here? No, we are all throwing political spears at each other. I don't 
think the American people appreciate that. It is embarrassing, quite 
frankly, to me.
  I have been on the Intelligence Committee for 4 years, and for 4 
years we have been going back trying to refigure the intelligence. We 
have found out the intelligence we were receiving in that committee--
the Senators, Congressmen, and the President--was not as good as it 
should have been. Okay, good. Admit that. Now what are we going to do 
about it? How many hearings do we have where the CIA and the Director 
of National Intelligence were asked: What are you doing to implement 
the law we put in place to address the problems we found? Where are we 
going to be in the future? What have we done to actually go to meet 
with our CIA agents around the world and hear what the real country 
situation is in critical parts of the world? Not one time have we done 
that.
  No, even the Intelligence Committee, which for years the Senate 
worked to make sure it stayed nonpartisan, bipartisan, and worked 
together for the good of the country, in close quarters, now is just 
another partisan committee. Staff fight each other; intelligence 
information is leaked; classified intelligence information is leaked to 
the New York Times and the Washington Post. No one is identified. No 
one is punished for that.
  What worries me, this is not just about politics; this is about 
people's lives. People get killed based on the intelligence we get or 
don't get or the oversight we have.
  I hope we can complete our work. Hopefully, it will be good work by 
the end of the week.

[[Page 19945]]

  Let's go home and get this political period over with, but when we 
come back next year, I think it is time we assess where we are. How are 
we going to do a better job? What is America's agenda? What can we do 
together in a bipartisan way? Is there anything left? And if we do not, 
I think there will be a pox on all of our houses.
  So on this particular subject of the Military Commissions Act of 
2006, let's get it up, let's debate it, and let's have a vote. We have 
to do it. I think they have done pretty good work. If I could get in a 
room with my lawyers, yes, I would write it differently. I think more 
of that evidence should be admissable with less restraints. I think 
more of the techniques that have been used in the interrogation of 
terrorists should be used than are in this provision. Once again, it is 
not perfect, but it is good enough. It is the right thing to do.
  Madam President, observing no Senator wishing to speak at this time, 
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed 
to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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