[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24983-24984]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE QUAGMIRE

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wish to speak about Iraq and 
about this amendatory process and this legislative quagmire in which we 
find ourselves.
  The American people are having difficulty understanding why the 
Senate can't get anything done. It is because we have a rule that says 
we can't pass something here without 60 votes out of 100 Senators. We 
need 60 votes to close off debate on a motion for cloture. That is a 
fancy term for closing the debate. We have to have 60 votes. With a 
Senate that is so partisan, and so split ideologically, it is hard to 
get those 60 votes. We see this on the amendments that have already 
attempted to be brought, either on a motion just to proceed, which 
takes 60 votes, or a motion to close off debate to get to the subject 
matter of the amendment. We can't get the votes. Thus, the American 
people are increasingly frustrated, as are the Senators, that we can't 
get more unanimity when, in fact, most of us know in this country what 
has to be done.
  Now, what is that? What needs to be done to make the best of a very 
bad situation? Now, I am not talking about why we got there; that is a 
debate in itself which we have had innumerable times here on the floor. 
We are where we are. We are there.
  What is the goal? The goal in the best interests of the United States 
is to stabilize Iraq, but there is not a soul who has testified in any 
of these innumerable hearings who says that you can get to that goal of 
stability in Iraq without political reconciliation between the Sunnis 
and the Shiites. The difficulty there is they have been at it for 1,327 
years, ever since the Battle of Karbala in 680 A.D. It is very 
difficult for them, with all of that history, all of that hatred, to be 
able to reconcile into some kind of stability so that a government can, 
in fact, function in Iraq.
  So given those circumstances, what is the very best we can do? I 
can't tell my colleagues that I have the complete answer, but the best 
answer I have is the plan that was laid out unanimously last December 
by the Iraq Study Commission consisting of very prominent people who 
know the defense business and who know the foreign relations business. 
They unanimously recommended a gradual withdrawal and to keep enough 
U.S. troops there to do three things: to train the Iraqi Army, to go 
after al-Qaida, and to provide force protection for the Americans who 
are there and, at the same time, they said, have a very aggressive 
diplomatic effort with the other nations of the world, and especially 
with the nations in the region, including Syria and Iran, to try to get 
a political settlement and then to have that political settlement 
stick.
  Now, what should that political settlement be? Well, I am not sure 
anybody within the U.S. Government can tell us, but the best plan I 
know of is going to be offered by the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Biden, 
which is to have a shared power arrangement under the Iraqi 
Constitution of an autonomous region--three in Iraq--with the Kurds in 
the north, Sunnis in the center, and Shiites in the south. Now, no one 
has been able to come up with a better idea as to how we can have a 
political solution where we ultimately get to the goal of political 
stability with reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites.
  Part of it is functioning right now in the north of Iraq. The Kurds 
virtually have their own self-government. Isn't it interesting that not 
one American troop has been killed in that region called Kurdistan? 
They have a measure of stability there. They have their own self-
government. Isn't it interesting--in an area almost exclusively Sunnis 
in western Iraq called Al Anbar Province is where our surge with the 
marines has, in fact, helped because it has turned the Sunni tribal 
chieftains into helping us to go after al-Qaida. We have had success.
  Where we have not had success with the surge is in the center part, 
in the Baghdad region, where the Sunnis and the Shiites are going at 
each other. Thus, what is happening is they are voting with their feet 
as they are voluntarily separating, since they can't get along.
  I think a solution such as Senator Biden's, which he will offer as an 
amendment and which I will support, is the best that has come up where 
there would be three autonomous regions. Then there would be the 
national government that would represent the country in its foreign 
relations but at the same time would have the ability, under an Iraq 
oil law, to distribute the oil revenues according to the percentage of 
the population. I don't know anybody who has a better plan. If they do, 
I want to hear it.
  But what we need to do is to come together, Republicans and Democrats 
together, and get over this threshold that has us in a political and 
legislative and procedural straitjacket, that we can't get anything 
done in this Senate because we can't get 60 votes because we can't get 
Democrats and Republicans together to start charting the course. It is 
clear that the White House isn't going to do it. They have their 
mindset and what they want to do, but that is not ultimately going to 
get us to the solution. Even General Petraeus has recommended--or has 
testified that a year from now, we are still likely to have 140,000 
troops there, with no plan of any of this political success, even 
though everybody who testified says you have to get political 
reconciliation in order to have that political success.
  Come on, Democratic Senators. Come on, Republican Senators. Let's get 
together. The amendment from Senator Biden is one we can get together 
on.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.


[[Page 24984]]


  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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