[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18091-18101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 1585, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 1585) to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
     year 2008 for military activities of the Department of 
     Defense, for military construction, and for defense 
     activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military 
     personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other 
     purposes.


                           Amendment No. 2011

  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Levin, I 
call up his substitute amendment, which is at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Nelson], for Mr. Levin, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 2011.

  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I wish to begin my comments on 
this year's National Defense Authorization Act by thanking the members 
of the Personnel Subcommittee, and I would especially like to thank 
Senator Lindsey Graham. He and I have worked together for several years 
on the Personnel Subcommittee.
  Mr. WARNER. Would the Senator yield, so I might propose a unanimous 
consent request?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator from Nebraska yield?
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Yes.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. President, following the remarks of the Senator from Nebraska, I 
would like to ask unanimous consent that I be recognized so I can speak 
on behalf of the ranking member, Senator McCain, with regard to the 
bill which is now being brought up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
Senator Webb be recognized after Senator Warner for Senator Webb's 
comments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, as I was saying, Senator 
Graham and I have worked together over these past several years--he has 
been chairman and I have been the ranking member--and I have always 
found our time on the subcommittee to be decidedly nonpartisan. All 
members of the Personnel Subcommittee have tried to do what is right by 
the servicemembers and their families. We are always focused on how 
best to serve those who serve us. So I say to Senator Graham: Thank you 
very much.
  This year, as in past years, the Personnel Subcommittee focused on 
improving the quality of life of the men and women in the armed 
services, including Active-Duty, National Guard and Reserve personnel 
and their families. There is an old axiom in the military that you 
recruit the soldier, sailor, airman or marine, but you retain the 
family. In the wake of the difficulties exposed at Walter Reed, we felt 
especially compelled this year to focus not just on the servicemember 
but also on his or her family and I am pleased with the bill and 
recommend it to my fellow Senators.
  The bill before us authorizes $135 billion for military personnel, 
including pay, allowances, bonuses, death benefits, and permanent 
change of station moves. The bill contains many important provisions 
that will improve the quality of life of our men and women in uniform 
and their families.
  First and foremost, the bill authorizes a 3.5 percent across-the-
board pay raise, which is half a percent higher than the average pay 
raise in the private sector as measured by the Employment Cost Index. 
It is also half a percent higher than the administration's proposal of 
a 3-percent increase in pay. This increased pay raise recognizes the 
outstanding service and the sacrifice of the men and women of the armed 
services and their families.
  The bill also addresses the administration's request to increase the 
end strength of the Army and the Marine Corps. The committee supports 
the requested increases in end strength for the coming fiscal year but 
funds the entire authorized end strength in the base budget rather than 
in a combination of the base budget and the war-related supplemental. 
The committee believes the increases in end strength are no longer 
uniquely tied to the war effort. The bill authorizes fiscal year 2008 
end strengths of 525,400 for the Army and 189,000 for the Marine Corps.
  The bill would expand combat-related special compensation to all 
servicemembers eligible for retirement pay who have a combat-related 
disability. This special compensation is currently denied to our 
wounded warriors who are medically retired with less than 20 years of 
service.
  The bill would also reduce below age 60 the age at which reservists 
may begin to receive their retired pay by 3 months for every aggregate 
of 90 days of active duty performed under certain mobilization 
authorities.
  The bill authorizes all servicemembers to carry up to 90 days of 
leave from one fiscal year to the next and allows certain 
servicemembers to sell back up to 30 days of leave under special leave 
accrual provisions affecting deployed servicemembers.
  The bill would change the death gratuity and survivor benefit plan to 
allow servicemembers to choose to leave death benefits to a guardian or 
a caretaker of their minor child or children.
  The bill also amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to make it 
easier for spouses and children accompanying servicemembers assigned 
overseas to qualify for citizenship.
  The bill includes provisions that would allow the Department of 
Defense to continue to provide top quality health care to 
servicemembers and their dependents. The bill authorizes $24.6 billion 
for the Defense Health Program and takes steps to ensure that TRICARE 
is available to beneficiaries who desire to use it.
  The bill enhances the ability of the services to attract critically 
short health care personnel by authorizing a new bonus for referring to 
military recruiters an individual who is commissioned in a health 
profession, by authorizing an increase from $50,000 to

[[Page 18092]]

$75,000 in the maximum incentive special pay and multiyear retention 
bonus for medical officers and by authorizing the Secretary of Defense 
to pay an accession bonus of up to $20,000 to participants in the Armed 
Forces Health Professions Scholarship and Financial Assistance Program.
  The committee rejected the administration's proposal to give DOD 
broad authority to increase the cost of TRICARE for military retirees 
and their families and authorized the use of Federal pricing to reduce 
the cost of pharmaceuticals dispensed through the TRICARE retail 
pharmacy program.
  Finally, the bill authorizes $50 million in Impact Aid to local 
school districts, including $5 million for educational services to 
severely disabled children and $10 million for districts experiencing 
rapid increases in the number of students due to rebasing, activation 
of new military units or base realignment and closure.
  Before closing, I would like to say a few words about the Dignified 
Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act. The committee unanimously reported 
out this legislation on the 14th day of June as a stand-alone bill. It 
is very important to ensure that our wounded heroes and their families 
are provided the very best in medical care and transition services the 
Government can provide. I understand the Dignified Treatment of Wounded 
Warriors Bill will be offered as an amendment to this bill, so I 
encourage all my colleagues to support this extremely important and 
timely piece of legislation.
  Again, I would like to thank Senator Graham and all the members of 
the Personnel Subcommittee. I look forward to working with our 
colleagues to pass this important legislation as promptly as possible.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to say what a pleasure it is 
to join my good friend from Nebraska, a member of the Armed Services 
Committee, on the floor on the occasion of the 29th authorization bill 
that I have been privileged to join with other colleagues on the floor 
submitting to the Senate. Earlier today, I had a lengthy meeting with 
Senator Levin, our distinguished chairman, and I have also had the 
benefit of a report from the distinguished ranking member, Senator 
McCain, who has returned from a trip to Iraq. So on behalf of our two 
principals, we are here today to initiate consideration of this all-
important bill at a very critical juncture in the history of our great 
Nation.
  I am privileged to rise in support of this piece of legislation, Mr. 
President. The bill was voted out of our committee unanimously, and 
that has usually been the case. I say that with a sense of pride 
through the many years I have served on the committee, over half that 
time as either the chairman or the ranking member. Our committee is 
proud of the fact that members of the committee, as well as our 
respective professional staffs, work together to try to achieve the 
highest possible degree of bipartisanship, given that we are entrusted, 
under the Constitution, the Senate, and the Senate has entrusted our 
committee with bringing forth each year the recommendations on behalf 
of the men and women in the Armed Forces.
  I commend our distinguished chairman, Mr. Levin, and Mr. McCain, the 
ranking member, for the markup session, which my colleague and I were 
in attendance I think throughout. It was done expeditiously, fairly, 
and openly, in terms of all Senators being given every possible option 
to present their views in preparing for the bill that is now on each 
Senator's desk. So again, I thank and join my colleague from Nebraska 
in thanking the chairman and ranking member and our staffs because I 
think we have achieved a truly bipartisan endeavor on behalf of the 
committee and forwarded to the Senate.
  As the ranking member, Mr. McCain, and I worked with our 
subcommittees, and indeed Mr. Levin. I attended a number of 
subcommittee meetings. We were fortunate to have strong chairmen of the 
subcommittees and ranking members, as my colleague from Nebraska 
mentioned in his opening statement, together with a strong professional 
staff, and their reports, by and large, were incorporated in the bill. 
Therefore, the committee has met its responsibility and fully funded--I 
repeat, fully funded--the President's $648 billion budget request for 
national defense.
  As Members of the Congress, funding our Nation's defense is a 
fundamental responsibility. We must ensure our military is prepared, 
well trained, and well equipped to defend us and our allies in today's 
very complex world of threats. We must provide the best resources with 
the best value for our Armed Forces. We owe that to our service men and 
women, to their families, and, indeed, to the taxpayers. I am proud to 
say that, in my judgment, this bill meets those criteria.
  The bill approves $2.7 billion for items on the Army Chief of Staff's 
Unfunded Requirements List, including $775 million for reactive armor 
and other Stryker requirements, $207 million for aviation survivability 
equipment, $102 million for combat training centers, and funding 
explosive ordnance disposal equipment, night vision devices, and other 
weapons. These are critical items in our fight against al-Qaida, the 
Taliban, and other threats throughout the world. Given the dangers we 
face as a nation, our men and women in uniform should want for nothing 
in our battle against terror.
  I selected the Army to start with because I am very admiring of the 
Chief of Naval Operations, who is alleged to have said recently that 
while he is proud to be Chief of the Navy, his biggest concern today is 
that of the needs of the U.S. Army, and, indeed, the President has 
recently indicated that if all goes well in the course of the hearings 
in the Senate and our committee and the Senate confirms Admiral Mullins 
to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he truly inherits that 
mantel of heavy responsibility showing equal regard for our services. 
But he did single out the Army as an institution at this time badly in 
need of the attention, not only of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
office but indeed of the Congress of the United States.
  I believe with the increase in the end strength of the Army, we have 
met the President's request to do what we can at this critical time to 
keep our Army strong, particularly for those families who at this very 
moment--thousands and thousands of families--have their loved ones 
serving abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Likewise, the committee approved for the Navy the first next 
generation--that is the first ship in the next generation of our 
carriers, proudly named, in large measure by the urging of the Senate, 
the U.S.S. Gerald Ford for the former President of the United States, 
the former Republican leader in the House of Representatives.
  It has also restructured the littoral combat ship program to achieve 
maximum value and accountability. Moreover, we approved $4.1 billion of 
Mine Resistant Ambush Protected--that is the MRAP--vehicles for all the 
services.
  The committee also decided to assign fixed-wing, intra-theater 
airlift functions and missions to the Air Force and shift Army aircraft 
funding in 2008 to the Air Force, which was unusual but necessary to 
achieve improved efficiency and synergy in our airlift capability.
  While weapons and equipment are critical in any conflict, it is the 
support we give our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that 
determines success or failure.
  We are asking more of our troops today than we did a generation ago--
with longer and successive deployments. Our troops deserve our respect 
and gratitude for the countless sacrifices they and their families make 
daily. I welcome the committee's decision to approve a 3.5 percent 
across-the-board pay raise for all military personnel and the 
authorization of $135 billion in allowances, bonuses and other 
benefits. We are improving the quality of life for our men and women in 
uniform while enhancing our future readiness.
  The committee has approved measures that satisfy our current and 
future requirements. We've increased the end strengths of the Army and 
the Marines to 525,400 and 189,000, respectively. By

[[Page 18093]]

boosting the Army's and the Marines' numbers, I hope we can build a 
more flexible active-duty force and deploy reservists more prudently.
  I thank the chairman for his leadership. The committee has approved a 
bill that meets the President's request, the needs of our troops and is 
fiscally responsible to our constituents. I hope my colleagues will 
join me and members of the committee in supporting this year's Defense 
authorization bill.
  I wish to draw the attention of the Senate at this time to the 
following. We today start this bill amidst great concern. We start very 
important legislation at a time in our history unlike any I have 
witnessed. I share the privilege of being among the elder Senators in 
this Chamber. The conflict in Iraq in particular is posing 
extraordinary challenges both to our President, the Commander in Chief 
of the Armed Forces, and to the Congress which must provide the needed 
support. Indeed, we owe no less than the greatest obligation to the 
many people of our United States of America whose families, one way or 
another, are involved in these conflicts--largely by virtue of proudly 
wearing the uniform of one of our services--but there have been 
literally tens of thousands of other Americans who are taking risks in 
these conflicts to give support to the men and women of our Armed 
Forces.
  Many colleagues over the recess period have expressed their concerns, 
quite properly, about certain directions that our Nation could be 
taking and is now taking, and otherwise, to address the conflicts--
primarily in Iraq. I anticipate a number of amendments will be brought 
forward in the coming days--weeks, perhaps--as the Senate debates this 
bill. I encourage that. I thoroughly believe the depth of the 
complexity of the Iraq situation deserves the attention of each and 
every Senator. I hope they will avail themselves of such opportunities 
as they can to address their fellow Senators and convey their thoughts.
  Several have recently spoken out very strongly on this issue. I 
personally have commended each and every one, even though I may not 
fully agree with all of their statements. This is a critical time in 
America's history. That is the purpose of this Senate, which is 
recognized perhaps as the one forum among the legislative branches 
throughout the world where there is literally almost total freedom for 
any Member of this body to come forward and address his or her fellow 
Senators and express his or her views.
  I look forward in the coming days and weeks to engaging in debates. A 
number of us--I don't single myself out, but quite a few--have been 
asked by the press, do we have views at variance with the President's, 
at variance with those of some of our colleagues. I am speaking only 
for myself. I have decided to withhold some of the views I currently am 
looking at. I spent a good deal of time in the recess period visiting 
personally at the various agencies and departments of our Federal 
Government entrusted with intelligence responsibilities, security 
responsibilities, and other responsibilities with regard to these 
conflicts. I profited greatly. Each time, while I may not have agreed 
with everything that was related to me, I was certainly impressed by 
the quality of people and their professionalism throughout the Civil 
Service ranks of our Federal Government with regard to their 
discharging their individual responsibilities at this point in time in 
our history on issues which are extremely complex to resolve.
  I also briefly responded to press inquiries this morning about the 
timing of what thoughts I may have, and when I might share them with my 
colleagues. I am frequently--today being an example--speaking privately 
with a number of colleagues in this body on their views. But publicly I 
have decided to withhold some ideas I may have which may be 
incorporated in one or more amendments until such time as the President 
has had the opportunity to address the Nation.
  I wish to go back in a very respectful way and remind the Senate of 
the legislation, the appropriations bill passed some 6 or 7 weeks ago. 
That bill included a bill that I and others brought to the Senate 
floor. It received, I think, over a majority of votes. That bill that I 
brought to the floor together with a number of cosponsors--indeed, my 
distinguished colleague from Nebraska was very much an active party 
with it--that bill was embraced in the final version of the 
appropriations bill which became the law of the land.
  In that bill the provisions that we discussed and debated here in the 
Senate, and indeed which had passed by a majority vote, required as 
follows. I wish to read the ``Reports Required'' portion.

       The President shall submit an initial report, in classified 
     and unclassified format, to the Congress, not later than July 
     15, 2007, assessing the status of each of the specific 
     benchmarks established above, and declaring, in his judgment, 
     whether satisfactory progress toward meeting these benchmarks 
     is, or is not, being achieved.

  I had the opportunity this morning to join his senior staff at the 
White House and discussed my views with them. We discussed this report. 
I left that meeting this morning with the definite impression that the 
White House and other elements of our Government are approaching this 
legislative requirement--which originated in this Chamber and was 
adopted by this Chamber and eventually became law--they are approaching 
that responsibility with an absolutely sincere depth of commitment.
  I was asked by the press whether I thought they would brush it off. I 
resoundingly replied, ``No.'' As a matter of fact, I have reason to 
believe that the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense are 
very actively working with senior White House staff and others--the 
Director of our Intelligence, the Director of the CIA--they are all 
actively working in preparation of that report.
  I read the next provision in our bill.

       The President, having consulted with the Secretary of 
     State, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander of Multi-
     National forces--Iraq, and the United States Ambassador to 
     Iraq, and the Commander of U.S. Central Command, will prepare 
     the report and submit [it] to the Congress.

  Paragraph 3:

       If the President's assessment of any of the specific 
     benchmarks established above is unsatisfactory, the President 
     shall include in that report a description of such revisions 
     to the political, economic, regional, and military components 
     of the strategy, as announced by the President on January 10, 
     2007. In addition, the President shall include in the report, 
     the advisability of implementing such aspects of the 
     bipartisan Iraq Study Group--commonly referred to as Baker-
     Hamilton--as he deems appropriate.

  No. 4:

       The President shall submit a second report to the Congress, 
     not later than September 15, 2007, following the same 
     procedures and criteria, outlined above.

  No. 5:

       The reporting requirement detailed in section 1227 of the 
     National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 is 
     waived. . . .

  --given that these reports are going to be put in.
  Speaking only for myself, I am going to withhold any comments I have 
specifically in large measure out of deference to exactly what we asked 
the President to do and exactly which I feel the President is about to 
do. I have reason to believe and it is my hope that it is done possibly 
a little earlier than the 15th, since the 15th falls on a day this 
weekend, thereby giving Members the opportunity to see exactly what he 
has done in response--again I reiterate--to the law as written by the 
Congress and a law that originated in this Chamber.
  With that, I look forward to the week, working with my colleagues.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The junior Senator 
from Virginia is recognized.


                Amendment No. 2012 to Amendment No. 2011

  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I call up a bipartisan amendment with 29 of 
my colleagues that is focused squarely on supporting our troops who are 
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I now send the amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Virginia, Mr. Webb, for himself, Mr. 
     Hagel, Mr. Reid, Mr. Levin, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Murray, Mr. 
     Schumer, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Byrd, Mr. Tester,

[[Page 18094]]

     Mrs. McCaskill, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Salazar, Mr. 
     Harkin, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Brown, Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Pryor, 
     Mr. Sanders, Mrs. Boxer, Ms. Klobuchar, Ms. Mikulski, Ms. 
     Cantwell, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Akaka, Mr. Biden, Ms. Stabenow, and 
     Ms. Landrieu proposes an amendment numbered 2012 to amendment 
     No. 2011.

  Mr. WEBB. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To specify minimum periods between deployment of units and 
 members of the Armed Forces for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation 
                           Enduring Freedom)

       At the end of subtitle C of title X, add the following:

     SEC. 1031. MINIMUM PERIODS BETWEEN DEPLOYMENT FOR UNITS AND 
                   MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES FOR OPERATION IRAQI 
                   FREEDOM AND OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM.

       (a) Minimum Period for Units and Members of the Regular 
     Components.--
       (1) In general.--No unit or member of the Armed Forces 
     specified in paragraph (3) may be deployed for Operation 
     Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom (including 
     participation in the NATO International Security Assistance 
     Force (Afghanistan)) unless the period between the deployment 
     of the unit or member is equal to or longer than the period 
     of such previous deployment.
       (2) Sense of congress on optimal minimum period between 
     deployments.--It is the sense of Congress that the optimal 
     minimum period between the previous deployment of a unit or 
     member of the Armed Forces specified in paragraph (3) to 
     Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom and a 
     subsequent deployment of the unit or member to Operation 
     Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom should be equal 
     to or longer than twice the period of such previous 
     deployment.
       (3) Covered units and members.--The units and members of 
     the Armed Forces specified in this paragraph are as follows:
       (A) Units and members of the regular Army.
       (B) Units and members of the regular Marine Corps.
       (C) Units and members of the regular Navy.
       (D) Units and members of the regular Air Force.
       (E) Units and members of the regular Coast Guard.
       (b) Minimum Period for Units and Members of the Reserve 
     Components.--
       (1) In general.--No unit or member of the Armed Forces 
     specified in paragraph (3) may be deployed for Operation 
     Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom (including 
     participation in the NATO International Security Assistance 
     Force (Afghanistan)) if the unit or member has been deployed 
     at any time within the three years preceding the date of the 
     deployment covered by this subsection.
       (2) Sense of congress on mobilization and optimal minimum 
     period between deployments.--It is the sense of Congress 
     that--
       (A) the units and members of the reserve components of the 
     Armed Forces should not be mobilized continuously for more 
     than one year; and
       (B) the optimal minimum period between the previous 
     deployment of a unit or member of the Armed Forces specified 
     in paragraph (3) to Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation 
     Enduring Freedom and a subsequent deployment of the unit or 
     member to Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring 
     Freedom should be five years.
       (3) Covered units and members.--The units and members of 
     the Armed Forces specified in this paragraph are as follows:
       (A) Units and members of the Army Reserve.
       (B) Units and members of the Army National Guard.
       (C) Units and members of the Marine Corps Reserve.
       (D) Units and members of the Navy Reserve.
       (E) Units and members of the Air Force Reserve.
       (F) Units and members of the Air National Guard.
       (G) Units and members of the Coast Guard Reserve.
       (c) Waiver by the President.--The President may waive the 
     limitation in subsection (a) or (b) with respect to the 
     deployment of a unit or member of the Armed Forces specified 
     in such subsection if the President certifies to Congress 
     that the deployment of the unit or member is necessary to 
     meet an operational emergency posing a threat to vital 
     national security interests of the United States.
       (d) Waiver by Miliary Chief of Staff or Commandant for 
     Voluntary Mobilizations.--
       (1) Army.--With respect to the deployment of a member of 
     the Army who has voluntarily requested mobilization, the 
     limitation in subsection (a) or (b) may be waived by the 
     Chief of Staff of the Army (or the designee of the Chief of 
     Staff of the Army).
       (2) Navy.--With respect to the deployment of a member of 
     the Navy who has voluntarily requested mobilization, the 
     limitation in subsection (a) or (b) may be waived by the 
     Chief of Naval Operations (or the designee of the Chief of 
     Naval Operations).
       (3) Marine corps.--With respect to the deployment of a 
     member of the Marine Corps who has voluntarily requested 
     mobilization, the limitation in subsection (a) or (b) may be 
     waived by the Commandant of the Marine Corps (or the designee 
     of the Commandant of the Marine Corps).
       (4) Air force.--With respect to the deployment of a member 
     of the Air Force who has voluntarily requested mobilization, 
     the limitation in subsection (a) or (b) may be waived by the 
     Chief of Staff of the Air Force (or the designee of the Chief 
     of Staff of the Air Force).
       (5) Coast guard.--With respect to the deployment of a 
     member of the Coast Guard who has voluntarily requested 
     mobilization, the limitation in subsection (a) or (b) may be 
     waived by the Commandant of the Coast Guard (or the designee 
     of the Commandant of the Coast Guard).
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I wish to point out as of this point there 
are 29 cosponsors on this amendment. They include our majority leader 
as well as Senator Hagel as the lead Republican cosponsor, Senator 
Levin, the chair of our committee, Senators Obama, Clinton, Durbin, 
Tester, Byrd, McCaskill, Kennedy, Salazar, Kerry, Harkin, Feinstein, 
Schumer, Brown, Pryor, Sanders, Murray, Klobuchar, Boxer, Mikulski, 
Cantwell, Stabenow, Akaka, Dodd, Biden, and Landrieu.
  This is an amendment that is focused squarely on supporting our 
troops who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It speaks directly to 
their welfare and to the needs of their families by establishing 
minimum periods between deployments for both our regular and reserve 
components.
  I offer this amendment having grown up as a military family member, 
having watched a father deployed, as one who has served as a marine and 
been deployed, as one who has had a family member deployed in this war, 
and also as someone who, for 3 years, was privileged to oversee our 
National Guard and Reserve programs as Assistant Secretary of Defense, 
during which time I also spent a good bit of energy looking at 
mobilization issues, including how manpower flow issues were predicted 
to have occurred if we went to war.
  The manpower policies that are feeding the situations in Iraq and 
Afghanistan presently are unprecedented in our history. This not only 
involves the repeated use of a small pool of active Army and Marine 
Corps forces, it also regards the use of the National Guard and 
Reserves at a tempo that we never could have anticipated when we were 
designing the total force concept.
  It also involves the use of contractors doing so-called security 
work, performing missions that historically have been the 
responsibility of American military men and women. Now in the fifth 
year of ground operations in Iraq, this deck of cards has come crashing 
down on the backs of our soldiers and marines who have been deployed 
again and again, while the rest of the country sits back and debates 
Iraq as an intellectual or emotional exercise.
  These men and women are doing a wonderful job. They are also paying a 
heavy price. That price became clearer in a wide variety of statistics, 
which I will address momentarily, as well as in the personal stories 
that we who have positions of authority are hearing on a daily basis. I 
and other supporters of this amendment believe no matter what one's 
view is of America's involvement in Iraq, the time has come for the 
Congress to place reasonable restrictions on how America's finest, our 
military men and women, are being used.
  Stated simply, after more than 4 years of ground operations in Iraq, 
we have reached the point where we can no longer allow the ever-
changing nature of this administration's operational policies to drive 
the way our troops are being deployed. In fact, the reverse is true. 
The availability of our troops should be the main determinant of how 
ground operations should be conducted.
  Other amendments will be debated during the days ahead relating to 
the withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, the proposed timetables and 
future course

[[Page 18095]]

of the war, but this is one area where we all, as Democrats and 
Republicans, should be able to come together. This relates in some 
measure to what the distinguished senior Senator from Virginia was 
talking about a few minutes ago--whether there is a report coming out 
in a week, whether there is an evaluation taking place in September. 
And no matter what any of us believe about the future conduct of the 
war or about this timetable or that timetable, we owe it to our troops 
and to their families to establish a minimum floor for their combat 
deployments.
  If we are serious about supporting our troops, there is no better 
place to start than to correct the current troop rotation policy by 
requiring a minimum amount of time between deployments. I said this in 
the Chamber in March: The motivation behind this amendment is simple. 
It is the same motivation that impelled me more than 30 years ago when 
I first started working on veterans issues: How do we support the 
troops? What does that mean? Who speaks for the troops?
  Like you, I listen to what they are saying. Here is what a 
constituent in Virginia wrote to me recently. Her husband is an Active-
Duty Infantry officer who is presently deployed in Iraq. She wrote:

       As an Army wife I brace myself for the possibility that he 
     may be extended for a few months based on the recent troop 
     surge, and, of course, he was. This morning on the news I 
     heard that President Bush is extending the Army troops again. 
     Enough is enough.

  She wrote.

       I am a patriotic American and an Army wife, but even we 
     have our limits. My husband has lost numerous soldiers, we 
     have dozens of amputees at Walter Reed and elsewhere, and 
     morale is dropping. These men need to come home. Please speak 
     out against another extension. Please bring our overextended 
     soldiers home.

  After 4 years of combat, we must provide our troops and their 
families with a predictable operational tempo that has adequate dwell 
time between deployments. We owe this to our active participants but 
also to the participants in the National Guard and Reserves.
  Why is this bipartisan amendment so important? We all know the reason 
well enough: a small group of people is answering the call time and 
again. The result is that our ground forces in particular are being 
burnt out. The evidence is everywhere. We see it in falling retentions 
of experienced midgrade officers and noncommissioned officers. The 
increasing attrition rate among Army company-grade officers is serious 
enough that our committee, the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 
included a reporting requirement on the Army's retention programs and 
incentives in the authorization bill that is now before us.
  We see it in the West Point classes. In 2000 and 2001, the most 
recent classes that finished their initial 5-year obligations, we are 
told that their attrition is five times the level that it was before 
Iraq for such classes. The statistics we have been shown indicate that 
54 percent of the West Point class of 2000 left the Army by the end of 
last year, and 46 percent of the class of 2001 left the Army by the end 
of last year.
  Senator Warner mentioned Admiral Mullen who is a longtime friend, a 
Naval Academy classmate, now waiting for confirmation as the next 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was recently asked what was 
the thing about which he was most concerned. He said, ``The Army.'' And 
we are not talking about equipment. We are talking about the Army.
  The Marine Corps is also seeing an upward trend in the loss of 
critical midgrade noncommissioned officers. We also find new evidence 
of troop burnout in more numerous mental health issues arising from 
multiple combat deployments. These are statistically observable. There 
is a new report by the Department of Defense that documents a higher 
rate of mental health issues for servicemen deploying multiple times or 
for more than 6 months. A survey of servicemembers after their 
deployments found that 38 percent of our soldiers, 31 percent of our 
marines, and 49 percent of the National Guard report psychological 
problems following their combat deployments.
  The failure of current rotation policies to protect the welfare of 
our troops and their family members in both Regular and Reserve 
components is well documented. This is an example drawn from the pages 
of our servicemembers' own newspaper, the Stars and Stripes.
  Last week, the paper described how Army SGT Troy Tweed, newly 
assigned to the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, is slated to 
deploy to Iraq before a full year of dwell time at home. Sergeant Tweed 
returned home 5 months ago from his last deployment to Iraq. He is one 
of many former members of his old brigade who is slated to deploy 3 to 
4 months early because they received a new assignment. This will be 
Sergeant Tweed's fifth deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.
  He says to the Stars and Stripes:

       It feels like the individual situation of soldiers isn't 
     taken into account, you are just like a number.

  The newspaper said it best.

       Soldiers like Tweed fall through the cracks.

  Closer to home, the Virginia Army National Guard, roughly 1,400 
members of the 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, the famous Stonewall 
Brigade, has been mobilized. I would point out as an aside that this is 
a brigade with a long history that dates back to the Civil War, and, in 
fact, one of my ancestors fought in that brigade during the Civil War, 
was wounded at Antietam, and lost his life at Chancellorsville.
  The brigade presently is in training in Mississippi and will deploy 
to Iraq in September. Deploying with this brigade are 700 members of 
the 3rd Battalion who returned only 2 years ago from a deployment in 
Afghanistan. Forty percent of this battalion will be making its second 
combat deployment in less than 3 years as members of the National 
Guard.
  One colonel, a brigade commander stationed in Iraq, recently 
described his soldiers this way: They have spent the last 4 years on a 
continuous cycle of fighting, training, deploying, and fighting, and 
they see no end in sight. They have seen their closest friends killed 
and maimed, leaving young spouses and children as widows and single-
parent kids. They want time for themselves and time to raise families 
for a while.
  When they look forward to a 15-month deployment with 12 months in 
between, they see their home station time as being compressed, with 
intensified training, which means more time away from families and 
personal pursuits.
  I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have heard similar 
stories. I would just like to point out that this cycle, the strategy 
driving our troop rotation, must be reversed. The bipartisan amendment 
I introduced this afternoon takes a modest step to reverse this 
practice by establishing a floor for minimum periods between 
deployments for both units and members.
  It says if a unit or member of a Regular component deploys to Iraq or 
Afghanistan, they will have the same time at home, dwell time, before 
they are deployed; for Guard and Reserves, they will have three times 
the amount of time that they were deployed.
  This is not a grand scheme to achieve an ideal troop rotation 
scenario. The ideal rotation scenario is two to one for Active, and 
five to one for Guard and Reserves, which we put in this amendment as a 
goal. What we are attempting to do is to put a floor under this and 
state what would be optimal. I would point out that the Adjutant 
General of my State of Virginia, MG Robert Newman, told us today that 
it is important to consider alternatives like this, like a minimum 
dwell time that will provide this sort of predictability.
  Active Army units now deploy for 15 months with a 12-month period 
between deployments. Many Active Marine Corps units are also below the 
one-to-one rotation cycle. Individual soldiers and marines who have 
recently returned from deployment are also reassigned as backfills to 
new units marked for deployment.

[[Page 18096]]

  Dwell time is not downtime. It entails frequent absences as units 
retrain, refurbish, reequip, and assimilate new members. After the 
first month at home, for example, a marine generally spends 48 days in 
the field away from family, firing on the rifle range, or on weekend 
duty.
  This amendment provides for fair and reasonable waivers. It gives the 
President the waiver authority in the event of an operational emergency 
that poses a vital threat to our national security. This is a low 
threshold. It will allow the President to respond to any emergency 
operational requirement, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan by 
certifying a need to waive the amendment's limitations.
  It provides military departments the authority to waive individual 
volunteers. In other words, if you want to go back sooner you can.
  Contrary to some critics, the amendment does not micromanage the 
President in his role as Commander in Chief, nor does it tie the hands 
of our operational commanders in theaters. A more predictable dwell 
time will be transparent to our forward-deployed commanders. Military 
departments have long experienced managing people as individuals. We 
fought the Vietnam war on an individual rotational policy, before the 
widespread use of today's information technology systems that make it 
far easier for us to monitor when an individual returned from a 
deployment so that you have a date certain for when his dwell time 
would expire.
  There was some comment about constitutional authority. The 
constitutional authority of this amendment is clear. Article I, section 
8, of the Constitution empowers the Congress to make rules for the 
Government and regulations of the land and naval forces.
  As Acting Secretary of Army Geren stated during his confirmation 
hearing last month:

       Article I of the Constitution makes Congress and the Army 
     full partners.

  There are precedents for this action. Congress has acted in a similar 
way in the past. The best recent example was in 1961 during the height 
of the Korean war when Congress intervened to ensure our servicemembers 
were not sent to war before they were properly trained. The Selective 
Service Act was amended to provide that every person inducted into the 
Armed Forces would receive full and adequate training for a period not 
less than 4 months.
  The law also stipulated that no personnel during this 120-day period 
would be assigned for duty outside the United States.
  It could have been argued in the Korean war that we had manpower 
requirements that should have allowed the Department of Defense or the 
operational commanders or the President as Commander in Chief to send 
military people outside of the country before they had 120 days of 
training. But the Congress intervened and said: No; 120 days is 
essential for the well-being of our troops, just as this amendment 
today says that dwell time, time back home, is essential for the well-
being of our troops.
  This Chamber has a clear duty to assert our authority to prevent 
further damage to our military. The current strategy, the current 
operational policy does not justify the way we are deploying our 
troops.
  I urge my colleagues to recognize this common interest we share in 
addressing the welfare of our troops and their families. I have been 
encouraged to hear sentiments echoed recently by some of my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle who are equally interested in forging a 
new road to the future, including Senators Lugar, Domenici, Voinovich, 
Collins, and even my senior colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner. 
They have studied the course of the war in Iraq. They ask the same 
questions that trouble us all: How can we continue to ask our troops to 
sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi Government is not making 
measurable progress, and many other questions.
  The bottom line in all of this is that as we move forward responsibly 
to relocate our military from Iraq over a period of time, we cannot 
continue to do what we are doing to the troops we are sending over and 
over again. We seek a conclusion at the end of this engagement that 
will enable us to withdraw our combat forces from Iraq, that will lead 
to progressively greater regional stability, that will allow us to 
fight international terrorism more effectively, and that will enable us 
to more fully address our broader strategic visions around the world. 
The American people expect us to do that, to move our country forward 
in a collaborative way, but they also expect us to use our troops in a 
way that addresses their welfare and uses them in a way that is more 
properly related to the tasks at hand in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we 
can no longer continue to place such a disproportionately large burden 
on the shoulders of so few people. We need a balance. It is up to the 
Congress to establish that balance.
  As a young Army wife wrote to me recently: Enough is enough.
  I thank my colleagues who have signed on as original cosponsors, and 
I urge all colleagues to support the amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Durbin). The Senator from Florida.


             Unanimous-Consent Agreement--Executive Session

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 
4:30, the Senate proceed to executive session; that there be 1 hour for 
debate equally divided between Senators Leahy and Specter or their 
designees; that at 5:30 p.m., the Senate vote on Calendar No. 138, 
followed by 20 minutes for debate on Calendar No. 140, equally divided 
between Senators Leahy and Brownback; that at the conclusion or the 
yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on Calendar No. 140; that 
if Calendar No. 140 is confirmed, the Senate then vote on Calendar Nos. 
139 and 154; that the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, the 
President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the 
Senate return to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Hagel 
as a cosponsor to my amendment No. 2000 to the 2008 National Defense 
Authorization Act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 2013 to Amendment No. 2012

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Florida [Mr. Nelson] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2013 to amendment No. 2012.

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of the amendment add the following:
       This section shall take effect one day after the date of 
     this bill's enactment.

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is my understanding Senator Hagel wants to 
speak on an amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.


                           Amendment No. 2012

  Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I appreciate the time.
  I rise to support the Webb amendment on troop readiness. The 
distinguished junior Senator from Virginia has taken, once again, an 
important leadership role on an issue that is as important to our 
country, to our military, and their families as any one issue, and that 
is readiness, because it is the men and women whom we ask to fight and 
die for this country who must always be our highest priority. The men 
and women who serve this country in uniform and their families deserve 
a policy worthy of their sacrifices. I appreciate the leadership of my 
friend from Virginia on this issue. This is part of an amendment 
Senator Webb and I had introduced a couple of months ago.
  In February of this year, GEN Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, reported to Congress that there

[[Page 18097]]

is now, in his words, ``significant'' risk that our military will not 
be able to respond to an emerging crisis in another part of the world. 
Since that time, the United States has sent more of our soldiers and 
more of our military equipment to Iraq.
  The war in Iraq has pushed the U.S. military to the breaking point. 
I, like most of my colleagues, have been told by military leaders, both 
on active duty and those who are retired, that we are doing tremendous 
damage to our Army and to our Marine Corps, as well as our Army 
National Guard. Our troops are being deployed longer than they should 
be, more frequently than they should be, and without full training and 
equipment. We are eroding our military power at a time when our country 
faces an increasing arc of challenges and threats across the globe. We 
are abusing our all-voluntary force in a dangerous and irresponsible 
way. Senator Webb recited a number of the facts--facts, not 
interpretations, not subjective analysis, but facts--as to what is 
happening to our military today because of the burden we are placing on 
them in Iraq, our fifth year in Iraq, our sixth year in Afghanistan.
  This amendment goes to the heart of ensuring the readiness of our 
military and the time between deployments. This amendment will ensure 
that all Active units that have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan have 
time at home that is at least equal to the length of the previous 
deployment. If we can't commit at least that to our forces, then what 
can we commit to them? For the National Guard and Reserves, our 
amendment establishes a minimum 3 years between deployments. Longer and 
more predictable dwell time will allow soldiers to rest, reequip, 
retrain, and return to their families. Our amendment has waiver 
authority because there can be extraordinary circumstances that require 
extraordinary use of our military. We have used that over and over and 
over in Iraq.
  Today, in our fifth year in Iraq, in the middle of a civil war, we 
must return to the standards that allowed us to create the finest 
military force the world has ever known, the best led, the best 
educated, the best trained, the best equipped, and the most committed 
military the world has ever known. You can't make those kinds of 
militaries. You can't build those kinds of militaries overnight or even 
over 5 years. It took some of this country's greatest military leaders 
post-World War II--more importantly, post-Vietnam--such as General 
Powell, General Schwarzkopf, and many others, to commit their lives, 35 
years of their lives to rebuild a broken military after we broke it in 
Vietnam. We are headed in the same direction unless we get control of 
this disaster now. Nothing is more important to our country, to our 
society than our people.
  I urge my colleagues to support this important amendment. I 
appreciate the leadership of the junior Senator from Virginia who knows 
something about the military, who knows something about war.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to the Senator 
from Nebraska for his leadership on this issue and his support for this 
amendment. It is my firm hope that people on the other side of the 
aisle will understand this amendment for what it is and, no matter what 
their views of the propriety of the war in Iraq or the direction of the 
President's strategy, will understand this is a minimum bottom line in 
terms of how the U.S. military is used around the world.
  For the record, Senator Hagel and I, to my knowledge, are the only 
veterans of ground combat in Vietnam in this body. It is a privilege 
and a pleasure to have him with me on this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I commend Senator Hagel and 
Senator Webb. I was serving as a lieutenant and a captain in the U.S. 
Army during Vietnam. I was not sent to Vietnam but clearly dealt with 
all of its aftermath in the duties I did carry in the military. I 
support the Webb amendment and appreciate his statement and the 
heartfelt statement of Senator Hagel.
  Earlier, Senator Hagel had joined me in being an original cosponsor 
of an amendment the two of us will be offering later having to do with 
widows and orphans. Senator Hagel is a longtime supporter of the effort 
to repeal this offset to the Survivor Benefit Plan by the dependent 
indemnity compensation.
  What we have is Active-Duty servicemembers who pay for an insurance 
plan called the Survivor Benefit Plan. If they are killed in active 
duty, their families have some subsistence to carry on which they have 
provided for because they did that additional paying for what is in 
effect an insurance plan. In another part of the law under the 
Veterans' Administration, there is something known as the dependent 
indemnity compensation, and it, too, takes care of survivors and 
families. The problem is, the two offset each other and, as a result, 
particularly with some of the privates and the corporals and the young 
sergeants who have provided for their families when they are deceased, 
those young widows are having difficulty making financial ends meet. We 
have to correct this.
  Isn't it interesting all this goes back to statements made by 
President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In his second inaugural 
address, he said that one of the greatest obligations of war was to 
take care of the widow and the orphan. If we look at the cost of war--
guns, ammunition, tanks, trucks, airplanes, body armor, all of that is 
a cost of war. Transportation, logistics, all of that is a cost of war.
  Well, there is another cost of war, and it is the cost of war in 
taking care of the survivors. The U.S. Government ought to plan on, as 
a cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, taking care of our veterans 
and their widows, widowers, and orphans.
  So as we get into this Defense authorization bill, we are going to 
have the privilege of honoring the men and women and families who have 
given the ultimate sacrifice in service to this Nation. We are going to 
have the opportunity to remove the injustice facing our veterans. That 
injustice is this offset which offsets the indemnity compensation--a 
benefit from the Veterans' Administration--with the Survivor Benefit 
Plan, which is paid for by our veterans.
  So when a veteran, as an Active-Duty military member, has paid out of 
their own paycheck into the Survivor Benefit Plan--it is similar to an 
insurance program--they do not get the full benefit because of the 
surviving spouse's and the children's eligibility under the Veterans' 
Administration program, the Dependent Indemnity Compensation program.
  Now, to offset those two is not right. So this amendment, No. 2000, 
is going to end that injustice. Senator Hagel and I will be offering it 
later on, as we get on in this next 2 weeks, down the road on this 
Defense authorization bill. But for 7 years, this Senator has been 
trying to pass this legislation that will remove this offset.
  Last year, we passed it in the Senate by a whopping vote of 92 to 6, 
only the leadership in the conference down in the House whacked it out 
last year. We are going to try to prevent that from occurring. The 
objection to it is it costs $8.2 billion over 10 years. But isn't it an 
obligation of the U.S. Government to take care of the families of their 
loved ones? I believe it is.
  When the Senate passed this amendment that left out some 
beneficiaries and required repayment of funds in the past, it was even 
more. It was $9.6 billion. Well, it has now been calculated right at $8 
billion.
  So that is coming down the road, and I am looking forward to getting 
into it. I am looking forward to getting a lopsided, whopping vote 
again in the Senate that will send a strong message to the conference 
committee to reconcile the House-passed and Senate-passed versions.
  Now, I rise in my capacity as chairman of the Strategic Subcommittee 
of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This overall bill is a good, 
balanced bill, and it works to ensure the troops

[[Page 18098]]

are trained, equipped, and supported. The bill was reported favorably 
to the Senate with a unanimous vote by our committee. It is a good 
indicator of the bipartisan support for the bill and a reflection of 
the manner in which this committee has been led by Senator Levin, the 
chairman, Senator McCain, the ranking member, and Senator Warner, the 
immediate past chairman, who has stepped in so often for Senator 
McCain, as he is right now but 7 or 8 feet from me in overlooking and 
managing this legislation.
  I wish to discuss the work of the subcommittee. The Strategic 
Subcommittee had a good year, and it has been a considerable pleasure 
for me to work very closely with Senator Sessions of Alabama, as the 
ranking member. Last year it was reversed. Senator Sessions was the 
chairman, and I was the ranking member. So we have worked together for 
several years with very difficult issues, sometimes contentious, but 
they did not become contentious this year. We worked out almost all of 
them.
  We held five hearings and several briefings on a wide range of 
issues. These issues cover everything from space and intelligence, 
strategic systems, such as bombers, submarines, ground-launched 
ballistic missiles, the nuclear weapons programs, the missile defense 
program, and the bulk of the Defense-funded activities of the 
Department of Energy.
  In the last several days, I have had the privilege of visiting our 
three major National Defense Labs that concentrate on Department of 
Energy nuclear weapons programs: first, Sandia and then Los Alamos--
both of them in New Mexico--and then on to Lawrence Livermore in 
California. I would commend to all Senators to go and see the work and 
be briefed on the extraordinarily important stuff that is going on in 
these national labs, being done by extraordinary people.
  In the area of missile defense, this committee, our subcommittee, has 
continued implementing a policy we established last year, placing a 
priority on the development, testing, fielding, and improvement of 
effective near-term missile defense capabilities, particularly to 
protect forward-deployed U.S. forces and allies against existing 
threats from short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles.
  Where are the threats? The threats the ballistic missile defense is 
being developed for now are different than what was announced 20 years 
ago by President Reagan. After President Reagan and Gorbachev was--
well, then he was the head of the Communist Party, and I do not 
remember if his title was President. But he was, in effect, the leader 
of the Soviet Union. After their meeting at Reykjavik, Iceland, they 
started to bring down the numbers of these strategic systems, such as 
the missiles and the warheads.
  Later, President Reagan offered to Mikhail Gorbachev: Well, we will 
develop this system of national missile defense and we will give it to 
you and we can both then have, in effect, two systems that assure 
mutually assured destruction because of so many thermonuclear warheads 
that we can have to blunt each other.
  Well, things changed along the way. The Soviet Union crumbled. But 
the bulk of all that capability in the Soviet Union is retained by 
Russia. Happily, there has been the continued progress on the 
dismantling of the warheads in both the United States and Russia.
  But as to the ballistic missile defense program, which had fits and 
starts, the technical requirements are exceptional, and it has been 
very difficult to achieve. The requirements of using it changed, and 
so, in effect, it is being developed now to protect against missiles 
that may be launched by North Korea against us or against any allies--
and Iran. Looking into the future, Iran does not have this real 
capability today, but we are concerned they will in the future, 
particularly if their nuclear program continues as they are threatening 
it will. So the ballistic missile defense program has considerably 
shifted over the last two decades into a different kind of program.
  Now it is facing a crucial test coming up this next month. We will 
see if all it has been advertised to be able to do, in fact, is done 
through this test that is going to try to calibrate if, with kinetic 
energy, with an incoming missile warhead, we can have a ballistic 
missile defense system that can hit in outer space that incoming 
warhead and/or warheads--you can imagine what kind of accuracy that has 
to be--in the midcourse phase in outer space or in the reentry phase, 
as it is coming back through the Earth's atmosphere.
  In order to provide protection against these existing or near-term 
missile threats, our committee, in the bill, has authorized an 
additional $315 million to increase or accelerate work on the near-term 
missile defense capabilities. That includes $255 million for the Aegis 
BMD, the Patriot PAC-3, and the THAAD systems, which I will describe in 
a minute. It also authorizes an additional $60 million for the joint 
Israel-U.S. work on the Arrow missile defense system and on the short-
range missile defense. These increases are offset by reductions in far-
term and lower priority programs.
  With respect to the overall funding, our committee authorized a total 
of $10.1 billion for the ballistic missile defense programs. That is a 
net reduction of $231 million below the budget request for the Missile 
Defense Agency. That is a 2-percent reduction.
  Let me summarize what is in the bill. The bill is going to authorize 
the entire Army funding request for the Patriot PAC-3 program, 
including funding for its ``Pure Fleet'' initiative. The committee also 
authorized an additional $75 million to procure 25 additional PAC-3 
missiles.
  The Patriot PAC-3 system is our only ballistic missile defense system 
that has already proven to be effective in combat, and we do not have 
enough PAC-3 units or missiles to provide the capabilities our 
combatant commanders need today. The committee authorized an additional 
$75 million for the Aegis ballistic missile defense program to increase 
the production rate of Standard Missile 3 interceptors, procure 15 
additional SM-3 missiles, and accelerate the work on the Aegis BMD 
single processor and open architecture program.
  Now, in a unanimous consent request I previously made to go into 
executive session at 4:30, since I am not through with my statement, 
what is the pleasure of the Presiding Officer?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is up to the Senator to ask for unanimous 
consent at this point if he wants to continue speaking and to revise 
the earlier unanimous consent request.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I 
understood that at 4:30 the Senate was to turn to the debate on the 
pending judicial nominations which will be voted on at 5:30. Now, the 
two Senators who were to come to the floor at this appointed time--
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, why don't I suggest to the 
Senator that I continue with my statement until the Senators arrive.
  Mr. WARNER. I wish to speak to the judicial nominees. I will tell my 
colleague what I will do to accommodate the Senator, if he will give me 
a few minutes and I will put this into the Record.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, why don't you, since I am in 
mid sentence, let me take about 5 more minutes and complete my 
statement.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I want to accommodate my good friend in 
any way he wishes to be accommodated, if that is his desire, but with 
the appearance of one of the Senators on the floor, I hope I can get in 
under this unanimous consent agreement.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to 
proceed for 5 more minutes, to be followed by the Senator from 
Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the Aegis BMD program provides 
an important and improving missile defense capability of $105 million, 
and that is to increase the missile production rate. The THAAD system 
has shown good success in its testing program thus far. The bill offers 
$25 million new for the coproduction of the Arrow system and $10 
million to study the suitability of the THAAD missile

[[Page 18099]]

to serve as a follow-on to Israel's Arrow system. We also have an 
increase of $25 million for the accelerated joint development of short-
range ballistic missile defense, and that is for Israel.
  In our bill we had a budget request, and it included $310 million for 
the proposed development of long-range missile defenses in Europe. That 
was 10 interceptors in Poland and a large radar in the Czech Republic. 
The U.S. is just starting negotiations with those nations, and it 
appears unlikely there are going to be any final agreements before 
2009. The proposed interceptor has not yet been developed and is not 
planned to be tested until 2010. As a result, the proposed construction 
and deployment activities are premature. So what we do in the bill is 
reduce the request $85 million for construction activities, and we 
fence the remaining 2008 funds requested for deployment until two 
things happen: No. 1, that the host nations have approved any missile 
defense deployment agreements; and No. 2, that the Congress receives an 
independent assessment examining the full range of options for missile 
defense in Europe.
  Let me tell my colleagues about the airborne laser. This is a program 
that has been in some difficulty. What we did was reduce the funding of 
$548 million requested by $200 million. We discussed it at length in 
the markup. The airborne laser is a very expensive, high-risk 
technology demonstration program of a chemical laser, and you have to 
take huge quantities of chemicals and put them in a 747. There is 
excellent technology that is being developed on a solid-state laser 
system, which would fill the volume only from me to Senator Warner. It 
could easily be put into an airplane, but we think the cost of this 
program is exceptionally high. It is going to cost $5 billion; $3.5 
billion has already been spent. We felt to hold back on this 
development by only $200 million out of $548 million would be wise. I 
will go into more detail at a later time.
  We also authorized provisions to improve acquisition and oversight of 
ballistic missile defense programs, and I won't go into the details on 
that.
  I will tell my colleagues, in conclusion, on our strategic forces 
with regard to the B-52 bomber modernization program, we had unanimity.
  With regard to the space programs where there has been difficulty 
with a number of them, we had unanimity on that in the committee, and 
we bring that forth in the report. I will provide those issues later.
  Then on nuclear weapons issues, the reliable replacement warhead, we 
continue unanimously through the next year in what is called the phase 
II activities. Then an evaluation can be made as to whether to go 
forward in phase III. But there is a great deal of promise that is 
shown in the reliable replacement warhead, which has a great deal of 
promise of being safer and more secure and less explosive power, more 
geared to today's targets.
  So that is the report from our committee.
  Mr. President, following the bloodiest of America's wars, President 
Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, said that one of the 
greatest obligations in war is to take care of the widow and the 
orphan. The U.S. Government ought to plan, as a cost of the wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan, for taking care of our veterans and their widows, 
widowers, and orphans.
  Over the days ahead, this body will have the privilege of honoring 
the men, women, and families who have given the ultimate sacrifice in 
service to the Nation. We will have the opportunity to remove the last 
injustice facing our veterans. That injustice is the one that offsets 
dependents indemnity compensation, a benefit from the Veterans' 
Administration, with the Survivor Benefit Plan, which is paid for by 
our veterans. Those who pay out of their own paycheck into the Survivor 
Benefit Plan, which is like an insurance program to which survivors 
would be entitled, don't get the full benefit because of the surviving 
spouses' and children's eligibility under the dependents indemnity 
compensation through the Veterans' Administration.
  I have filed amendment 2000 to end that injustice. I am pleased that 
Senator Hagel will join me in this endeavor as an equal cosponsor. For 
7 years I have been trying to pass this legislation that will remove 
this offset to take care of the widows, widowers, and orphans who have 
lost a loved one to combat- or service-connected injuries. Last year, 
this body passed a similar amendment by 92 to 6. I hope that all of my 
fellow Senators and the majority of the House will pass this amendment 
to the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act.
  Some who object to this amendment will say the cost is too high, $8.2 
billion over 10 years. But to those who object, isn't it an obligation 
of the Government to take care of the families affected by the loss of 
their loved ones? This Senator passionately and firmly believes it is. 
Last year, when the Senate passed this amendment that left out some 
beneficiaries and required repayment of refunds, the cost was $9.6 
billion. Now, the cost is lower, all beneficiaries are covered, and the 
beneficiaries will not have the burden of repaying refunds that should 
not have been required in the first place. There should never have been 
an offset.
  However, because of the offset, airmen, seamen and privates will find 
it difficult to make financial ends meet. I say that the families of 
the men and women who do not return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, who 
have already lost so much, should not have to endure financial 
hardships because of this benefits offset.
  Now, the Senate has an opportunity to change this injustice as we 
debate the National Defense Authorization Act. If we respond as we did 
last year, passing this legislation with overwhelming support, then 
when it gets down to a conference committee, we must insist that the 
House support this provision in conference.
  Mr. President, I wish to speak on the Senate Armed Services Committee 
bill being considered by the Senate, S. 1547, the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Overall it is a good, balanced 
bill that works to ensure the troops are trained, equipped, and 
supported. The bill was reported favorably to the Senate on a unanimous 
vote of the committee, a good indicator of the bipartisan support for 
the bill and a reflection on he manner in which the committee operates 
under Senator Levin's leadership, and Senator Warner's leadership 
before that.
  Specifically, however, I wish to discuss the work of the Subcommittee 
on Strategic Forces, which I have had the privilege of chairing this 
year. The Strategic Subcommittee had a good year and it has been a real 
pleasure to work with Senator Jeff Sessions and his staff. We have 
worked together to resolve a number of difficult issues.
  The committee held a total of five hearings and several briefings 
covering the wide range of issues under the jurisdiction of the 
subcommittee. This includes space and intelligence programs, strategic 
systems such as bombers, and submarine and ground-launched ballistic 
missiles, nuclear weapons programs and issues, the missile defense 
program, and the bulk of the defense-funded activities at the 
Department of Energy.
  In the area of ballistic missile defense, the committee continued 
implementing the policy we established last year--placing a priority on 
the development, testing, fielding, and improvement of effective near-
term missile defense capabilities, particularly to protect forward-
deployed U.S. forces and allies against existing threats from short- 
and medium-range ballistic missiles.
  In order to provide protection against existing and near-term missile 
threats to our forward-deployed forces, allies, and friends, the bill 
would authorize an additional $315 million to increase or accelerate 
work on near-term missile defense capabilities. This includes $255 
million for the Aegis BMD, Patriot PAC-3, and THAAD systems, which I 
will describe shortly. It also authorizes an additional $60 million for 
joint US-Israeli work on the Arrow missile defense system and on short-
range missile defense. These increases are offset by reductions in far-
term and lower priority programs.

[[Page 18100]]

  With respect to the overall level of funding, the committee 
authorized a total of $10.1 billion for the ballistic missile defense 
programs of the Missile Defense Agency and the Army. That is a net 
reduction of $231 million below the budget request for the Missile 
Defense Agency, just barely 2 percent.
  In terms of specific budget actions, let me summarize what is in the 
bill. The bill would authorize the entire Army funding request for the 
Patriot PAC-3 program, including funding for its ``Pure Fleet'' 
initiative. The committee also authorized an additional $75 million to 
procure 25 additional PAC-3 missiles.
  The Patriot PAC-3 system is our only ballistic missile defense system 
proven to be effective in combat, and we do not have enough PAC-3 units 
or missiles to provide the capabilities that our combatant commanders 
need today.
  The committee authorized an addition of $75 million for the Aegis 
Ballistic Missile Defense, BMD, program to increase the production rate 
of Standard Missile-3, SM-3 interceptors, procure 15 additional SM-3 
missiles, and accelerate work on the Aegis BMD Signal Processor and 
Open Architecture program.
  The Aegis BMD program provides an important and improving missile 
defense capability to our regional combatant commanders to defend 
against existing short- and medium-range missile threats. But our 
senior military leaders responsible for missile defense have 
acknowledged that we need more of the SM-3 interceptors.
  The committee approved an increase of $105 million for the Terminal 
High Altitude Area Defense, THAAD, system to increase the missile 
production rate, begin the upgrade of the evolved THAAD interceptor, 
and to conduct an additional test.
  The THAAD system has shown good success in its testing program so 
far, and it holds significant potential to defend many regions against 
most ballistic missiles. But again, the Department has not planned or 
budgeted for enough THAAD missiles or systems to provide the capability 
our combatant commanders need.
  The bill would add $25 million for co-production of the Arrow 
missile, and added $10 million to study the suitability of the THAAD 
missile to serve as a follow-on to Israel's Arrow system.
  The bill authorizes an increase of $25 million for accelerated joint 
development of a short-range ballistic missile defense, SRBMD, system 
for Israel. This is intended to provide a capability to defend against 
the type of short-range missiles and rockets that were fired at Israel 
last summer from Lebanon.
  I mentioned that the funding for these additions was offset by 
reductions in funding for lower priority, high-risk, or far-term 
programs. I want to describe two of these reductions in the bill.
  The budget request included $310 million for a proposed deployment of 
long-range missile defenses in Europe: 10 interceptors in Poland and a 
large radar in the Czech Republic. The United States is just starting 
negotiations with those nations, and it appears unlikely there will be 
any final agreements before 2009. In addition, the proposed interceptor 
has not yet been developed, and is not planned to be tested until 2010. 
As a result the proposed construction and deployment activities are 
premature.
  In the bill the subcommittee reduced the $85 million requested for 
construction activities and fenced the remaining fiscal year 2008 funds 
requested for deployment until two things happen: 1) The host nations 
have approved any missile defense deployment agreements; and, 2) The 
Congress receives an independent assessment examining the full range of 
options for missile defense in Europe. All other activities could 
continue, such as studies, planning, and design activities, and 
negotiations.
  The bill would reduce funding for the Airborne Laser Program by $200 
million from the $548 million requested. This is an issue we discussed 
during the markup, and I want to provide some background on the 
committee's decision to reduce ABL funding.
  The Airborne Laser is a very expensive, high-risk technology 
demonstration program that is not scheduled to provide an operational 
capability before 2018. So everyone should be clear that it is NOT a 
near-term system.
  The cost of the ABL program is very high, and the capability it might 
be able to provide--if the technology can even work--appears rather 
limited. The program has a history of cost overruns and schedule 
delays.
  Since the program started, the total cost of the development program 
to complete the first ABL shoot-down test in 2009 has ballooned to be 
$5 billion. And the Congressional Budget Office has an initial cost 
estimate that the ABL program could cost as much as $36 billion to 
develop, build, and operate a fleet of just seven Airborne Laser 
aircraft.
  For that huge sum of money, we could fund a very robust set of 
missile defense capabilities with near-term programs like PAC-3, Aegis 
BMD, and THAAD.
  The funding reduction in the bill would not terminate the ABL 
program, but it would cause some delay in the program. There have 
already been four delays in the planned date of the first shoot-down 
test, and this would probably mean an additional delay.
  The policy we established in law last year makes it clear that our 
priority is on near-term, effective missile defense systems that can 
provide needed capabilities against existing and near-term threats. The 
bill authorizes additional funding for exactly such systems, and 
reduces funding for systems like the Airborne Laser to offset the 
increases.
  The committee considered this matter during our markup, and defeated 
an amendment to restore the $200 million to the ABL program. I 
anticipate that we will consider the ABL again and at some length.
  The committee also authorized provisions to improve acquisition and 
oversight of ballistic missile defense programs. For example:
  The bill would extend by 5 years the requirement for the Comptroller 
General to assess the ballistic missile defense program annually.
  The bill would require the Department of Defense, starting in fiscal 
year 2009, to submit the budget request for the Missile Defense Agency 
using regular budget categories (research and development, procurement, 
operation and maintenance, and military construction), and make certain 
acquisition and oversight improvements.
  Until now, DOD has requested and Congress has approved MDA's use of 
exclusively RDT&E funds for all MDA activities, including fielding, 
operating, and building of missile defense systems. This is the only 
program for which this exception has been made, and it is no longer 
necessary.
  The bill would also ensure that the Director of Operational Test and 
Evaluation has full access to missile defense test and evaluation data, 
just as is the case for all other major defense acquisition programs.
  In the area of strategic forces, the bill includes additional funds 
to continue the B-52 Bomber modernization program and consolidates 
funds for prompt global strike into a single defense-wide account. 
Moving the money from the Navy and Air Force lines to the combined line 
for prompt global strike should allow a more focused approach to the 
technology challenges, such as thermal protection, and allow more 
options to be explored, such as the Army's approach to prompt global 
strike, which is currently not funded. In addition, consolidation 
should allow the Strategic Command to have a more balanced program that 
more closely meets the command's requirements. The bill also includes a 
3-year extension of the annual prompt global strike report.
  The space programs continue to be one of the more difficult areas for 
the subcommittee. Although there has been improvement in the management 
of most of the many space programs, the scope of the programs continues 
to challenge both the services and the contractors. All of the 
communication; missile warning; position, navigation, and timing--GPS; 
and weather satellite systems have simultaneous modernization programs 
under way. In

[[Page 18101]]

some instances the move to the next generation of programs is occurring 
before the current modernization program is in place, and in some cases 
the current modernization program is being terminated early to start 
the next one. All of this activity serves to exacerbate financial, 
technical, and schedule pressures on all of the programs.
  The Transformational Communications Program, T-Sat, the Global 
Positioning Satellite III and the Space-Based Infrared Satellite 
program--SBIRS--are all systems that fall into the category of multiple 
upgrade programs.
  The bill includes additional funds for several satellite programs 
that are being terminated early and where there is very high risk that 
the follow-on program might not be ready on time. To alleviate the risk 
of these programs' gaps, funds are included to buy a fourth Advanced 
Extremely High Frequency communications satellite to ensure that there 
is no communications gap if there is an issue in the T-SAT program, and 
for the third SBIRS missile warning satellite program, to ensure that 
there is no gap in missile warning capability.
  The T-SAT program itself is fully funded. While there is hope that 
the first T-SAT will launch on time in fiscal year 2016, I would note 
that there hasn't been one satellite to make its scheduled launch date 
8 years in advance.
  The bill also terminates the space radar program and provides funds 
for alternative approaches for space radar capabilities.
  For the past several years the subcommittee has addressed a variety 
of contentious nuclear weapons issues. Again this year, the 
subcommittee is faced with a difficult decision. The Departments of 
Defense and Energy, through the Nuclear Weapons Council, have approved 
the start of a Reliable Replacement Warhead, RRW, program. This new 
warhead could eventually be a replacement for the current W-76 warhead 
in the reentry vehicle for the Trident D-5 missile on ballistic missile 
submarines.
  The Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, 
NNSA, budget request for fiscal year 2008 includes a request for funds 
for the RRW for phase 2A and phase 3 activities. At the time the budget 
was submitted, the NNSA thought that it would be further along with 
phase 2 activities than it is, and considered the possibility of moving 
to phase 3 in fiscal year 2008. The bill includes funding for the RRW, 
consolidated in a single line, but $43 million less than the $238 
million requested. The bill clearly limits the work by the NNSA and the 
Navy to activities for RRW to phase 2A activities.
  Let me explain what I mean by limiting activities to phase 2A 
activities and why we took this action. The nuclear weapons acquisition 
process is organized in a phased approach from phase 1 to 7, with 6 
being deployment and 7 being dismantlement. Any decision to manufacture 
or deploy an RRW, which would occur at phases 5 and 6 respectively, 
will no doubt be very controversial. Over the course of the next 4 to 5 
years significant policy and technical discussion and debate will 
surely take place on the RRW.
  To begin the discussion, however, the bill recommends a cautious 
first step, recognizing that many questions need answers before any 
final decisions are made. The bill does not decide the fate of the RRW. 
That is a decision for a future Congress and a future administration.
  The bill also includes a requirement for new nuclear posture review 
and a sense of the Congress to help frame the nuclear policy debate for 
the next administration. To ensure that weapons dismantlements 
continue, the bill includes an increase of $20 million to the budget 
request of $52 million to support nuclear weapons dismantlement.
  I would like to note that last night I returned from an extensive 4-
day visit to all three of the Department of Energy nuclear weapons 
laboratories. While I discussed many issues with the laboratory 
directors and their staff, including nonproliferation issues, we spent 
a considerable amount of time on the RRW. Most of the discussions were 
highly classified, and so I cannot go into substantial detail here. But 
I want to ensure my colleagues that the progress made by the 
laboratories under the Stockpile Stewardship Program is remarkable and 
that there are many new opportunities to improve the safety, security, 
and reliability of nuclear weapons, which in turn should lead to very 
substantial reductions in the overall size of the stockpile--without a 
return to nuclear weapons testing.
  Wrapping up the balance of the Department of Energy issues, the bill 
includes two provisions that would task the GAO to review two 
significant areas of concern at DOE. The first study is on the 
structure and management of the protective forces at DOE sites, and the 
second one on the future plans for the environmental restoration 
programs.
  In closing, the Strategic Subcommittee has a broad area of 
responsibility, much of it controversial, but working with Senator 
Sessions, we have been able to resolve the issues so the national 
security interests of our country are foremost.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________