[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1011-1015]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE THIRD REASON

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I don't very often do this, but I am going 
to make a presentation today, and I would like to give it a title, and 
the title is ``The Third Reason.'' The subtitle very likely could be 
``The third reason we are winning in Iraq, and we should be in Iraq.''
  I have to say that I have had occasion to be there many times, and 
there is no doubt in my mind and, I don't doubt, in many people's minds 
that we are actually winning in Iraq. But before I address this, I 
would like to point out something very few people are aware of; that 
is, the mess that was inherited by George W. Bush right after 9/11.
  First of all, if we look back during the 1990s, there was this 
euphoric attitude that the Cold War was over and we no longer needed a 
national defense system. So during the 1990s, during the Clinton 
administration, we started decimating the system. And I have the 
documentation here because a lot of people don't understand this.

[[Page 1012]]

  If you would take what happened in the first year, or the last year 
of the previous administration over the first year the Clintons had 
control of the budget, and if we had taken a flat amount to determine 
how much we were going to be spending on defending America, then draw a 
straight line and only add into that the inflation--in other words, 
that is what it would be if we didn't do anything else--well, the 
budget that came from the White House is this red line down here. If 
you take the difference between the red line and what would have been a 
flat budget, it is $412 billion. In other words, $412 billion came out 
of our defense system. However, the good news was that Congress looked 
at that and said that is too big of a cut, so they intervened and 
raised President Clinton's budget up to this brown line in the middle. 
So what was inherited by this President was an amount $313 billion less 
than it would have been if it had just been a static amount.
  Now, that would have been bad enough--and I have always contended we 
have to make that the No. 1 priority in America: To defend America--but 
to make it worse, on 9/11 we went to war, and then we were pushed into 
a situation of going into and liberating Iraq, and all of a sudden, 
people started standing on the floor of the Senate and saying things 
like: Well, how in the world could this President be getting into 
deficits, how could he be spending so much, and all of this. This is 
the reason: because we started off $313 billion less than during the 
time period of the previous administration. That is the seriousness of 
it.
  Now, I say that just because I recall so well the confirmation 
hearings for the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld. During his 
confirmation hearings, they were making statements at that time about 
what were they going to do with the problems that were there and that 
we are underfunded in the military, that our modernization program has 
gone sideways, our force strength is not what it should be, and what 
should we do about that. This was all live on TV.
  During the confirmation hearing--and I was on the Senate Armed 
Services Committee--I said: Mr. Rumsfeld, we have a problem I see as 
very serious, and that is you are going to get all of your generals 
around you, we are going to get all these smart people, and they are 
going to be asked what are we going to be confronted with 10 years from 
today, and the generals, as smart as they are, are going to be wrong.
  I can remember what I said at that meeting 7 years ago. I said: The 
last year I was in the House of Representatives, I was attending a 
House Armed Services Committee hearing, and in that committee hearing 
an expert witness said: Ten years from now, we will no longer need 
ground troops in America.
  Of course, we saw what happened in Kosovo and Bosnia, and we knew 
that was wrong. So I said: Since we can't tell where we are going to be 
10 years from now, and there is a lead time in preparing for war or a 
contingency, what is the answer to this thing? We don't know if we are 
going to have the best strike vehicles or lift vehicles or the best 
artillery pieces.
  He said: I have made a study of that, and you are asking the right 
person, because in the average year, for the 100 years of the 20th 
century, we spent 5.7 percent of our GDP on defense. At the end of the 
1990s, it went down to 2.7 percent.
  I said: Down to 2.7 percent. Where should it be?
  He said: We don't know for sure but somewhere in excess of 4 percent, 
probably 4\1/2\ percent, which is still less than it was for the 
previous several hundred years.
  That was kind of interesting to me because when you look right now, 
how many people in America realize there are some things we have that 
are not as good as some of our potential adversaries?
  I would say that one of my heroes prior to the time he was Chief of 
the Air Force was GEN John Jumper. General Jumper stood up and said 
publicly--in 1998, I believe it was--he said: Now the Russians are 
making a strike vehicle that is better than our best, and he talked 
about the SU-27s and the SU-30s. Our best were the F-15s and the F-16s. 
That was a shocking statement. So we started working on the F-22 and 
the F-35, the Joint Strike Fighter.
  Right now, the best piece of artillery we have in our arsenal is 
World War II technology. It is a Paladin. It is something where you 
have to get out after every shot and swab the breech the way you did 
back in World War II. So now we are stepping ahead. But this has all 
happened during this administration, where we now have the new FCS--
Future Combat System--that is going to revolutionize, for the first 
time in probably 40 years, how we fight battles.
  I only say that because this is something we are going to have to 
contend with in the future, and it also paints a pretty good picture as 
to where we were when this thing happened on 9/11.
  I would like to suggest there are three reasons we went into Iraq. 
The liberation of Iraq is the first one, and that is called to my mind 
now because I had an experience--you will enjoy this, I say to my good 
friend from Arkansas, who is occupying the chair-- two weekends ago 
when I happened to be in a place referred to now as JFK's winter White 
House. It was the Kennedy compound in West Palm Beach, FL. Ironically, 
it was sold to a very strong, wealthy, partisan Republican, and we were 
having an event down there. I looked out to the audience when giving a 
talk, and there were a lot of my heroes, among them Alexander Haig, who 
was previously Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan. He told the 
story of Saddam Hussein, that in 1991--and this is right after the 
first Persian Gulf war--we had what we called the first freedom flight 
into Kuwait. Now, it was so early in the end of the war that the Iraqis 
did not know the war was over, and they were still burning the fields 
down there, the oilfields, and all of a sudden, day would turn into 
night as the wind shifted and smoke went back and forth.
  It wasn't all Republicans, I might add. Tony Cuello, who at that time 
was the majority whip in the House of Representatives, was there also.
  Anyway, we had an occasion to go to Kuwait, and one of the persons on 
that trip was then the Ambassador from Kuwait to the United States, a 
man of nobility, and he had his daughter, who was around 8 years old, 
with him. They wanted to go see what their home looked like in the 
Persian Gulf. So we went there, only to find out that Saddam Hussein 
had been using that home as a headquarters. We went up to, I think it 
was the little girl's bedroom, or one of the bedrooms, and found that 
it had been used as a torture chamber. There were body parts strewn 
around the room, stuffed into walls, and horrible things had been going 
on. A little boy had his ear cut off because he was caught with a 
little tiny American flag within sight.
  We talked about the horrible atrocities going on and personally 
witnessed some stories of individuals, people who were sentenced to a 
torturous death by Saddam Hussein. Many of them would beg that their 
body be eased into a vat of acid head first so that they would be able 
to die quicker than feet first.
  We saw the fact that the weddings, any weddings that were taking 
place out in the streets at the time of Saddam Hussein, they would raid 
the weddings, they would kill the people, rape the girls, and bury them 
alive. We saw mass graves, hundreds of people had been buried alive or 
tortured to death.
  I guess what I would say is, the first reason we went to Iraq, as I 
think we would go anywhere, our country would go anywhere, is to aid a 
country that had this type of Holocaust-type of atrocities taking 
place. So that was the first reason was to end Saddam Hussein's regime 
of torture. It was successful. We did it.
  The second reason was because Iraq was a major terrorist-training 
area. There are four areas where they trained. You know about Samara 
and Ramadi because people now realize--they are pretty familiar with 
that. But you may have forgotten or may never even have known about 
some of the other areas. Sargat, for example, was an international 
terrorist training camp in northeastern Iraq near the Iranian border. 
It was run by Ansar al-

[[Page 1013]]

Islam, a known terrorist organization. Based on information from the 
U.S. Army Special Forces, operators who led the attack said: It is 
indeed more than plausible that al-Qaida members trained in that 
particular training camp.
  That is in Sargat. The Green Berets discovered, among the dead in 
Sargat, foreign ID cards, airline ticket receipts, visas, passports 
from Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran, 
and many other places.
  At Salman Pak, it was a facility south of Baghdad, and we have a 
number of videos and computer disks, documents, and other materials, 
including explicit jihadist propaganda, which revealed terrorist 
training footage, and the targets were clearly Americans. The foreign 
Arabs were being trained as hijackers of airplanes. That is 
interesting. They had a fuselage of an old Boeing 707 on the ground in 
Salman Pak, where they were training terrorists to hijack airplanes.
  Now, we have no way of knowing whether those were the perpetrators of 
the crime that took place on 9/11, but very likely that could have been 
the case. Now, the bottom line, though, is the second reason for the 
liberation of Iraq was to do away with all of the training camps, the 
four specific training camps that I am talking about, and we did that.
  So I would like, before getting into reason No. 3, to kind of compare 
what is going on from a perspective that most of you guys probably have 
not heard; that is, I have had occasion to be in what we call CENTCOM 
and Africa--that is where the major problems are--some 19 times. And 
let's go back and kind of compare the last three visits there--not the 
last three but three of the last visits.
  One was before the surge. It was June of 2006. And that was in the 
wake of Zarqawi's death. We remember that so well. The Iraqis were 
operating under a 6-month-old parliament. Al-Qaida continued to 
challenge coalition forces throughout Iraq. Things were not going all 
that well, but the coalition forces did launch 200 raids against al-
Qaida and cleared out some of the strongholds.
  But I had occasion to talk to Defense Minister Jasim. And in visiting 
with him, we talked about the current situation in Iraq. And he felt it 
could be done. It could be done--our people would be able to be trained 
over a period of time with proper training to take care of this. And we 
talked about some of these things that our press talked about back in 
the United States.
  He said the big conflict between Sunnis and the Shias was mostly a 
Western concept, and he used as evidence of that individuals in his own 
family. He happened to be married--I could get this backwards--either 
he was a Sunni married to a Shia or vice-versa.
  We had a good discussion. But we could see very clearly that we 
believed things might be getting a little better, but they were not as 
better as we hoped. Let's fast-forward to May of 2007.
  I returned to Iraq and visited Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdad, and some of 
the other areas. And this is after the surge. The surge took place in 
January. So this was in May; this was 3 months later. So Ramadi went 
from being controlled by al-Qaida and hailed as their capital. We might 
remember this. About 15 months ago they had a news conference over 
there where they said that Ramadi was going to become the capital of 
terrorism in the world, the world capital.
  Well, by May of 2007 it was under total control, totally secure not 
by U.S. troops but by the Iraqi security forces. The neighborhood 
security watch programs were working. It was kind of like the programs 
we have in this country. We have a neighborhood watch program, and they 
go out and they look and see what they can do to make things more 
peaceful.
  And you have heard the stories of how they would go out and they 
would take an orange spray can, and they would draw circles around the 
undetonated IEDs. This was going on, and it seemed to be going very 
well. That is the first time that I realized--I am kind of a slow 
learner--I realized that the leaders in Iraq were not the political 
leaders but the religious leaders, the clerics and the Imams.
  Prior to the surge, the average--we had intelligence people there--
the average of the messages that were in the mosques on a weekly basis 
were 80 to 85 percent anti-American. Since April there had not been any 
anti-American messages.
  The joint security stations seemed to be going very well there. That 
was where, instead of going back, our troops going back into the Green 
Zone in Baghdad after they were out on a raid or doing their work on a 
mission, they would instead go to some of the homes of the Iraqi 
security forces and actually bed down with them, they developed 
personal, intimate relationships with them.
  The burden sharing was increasing. Fallujah came under the control of 
the Iraqi brigade. And that was an area that we might recall where our 
Marines went World-War-II style door to door.
  In Anbar, it changed from the center of violence to a success story. 
In Baghdad, the sectarian murders decreased by 30 percent, and joint 
security stations stood up forming deep relationships between the 
coalition forces and the Iraqis. It was referred to by General Petraeus 
as ``brotherhood of the close fight.''
  And there is some other good news, too. The media became about 
halfway honest. This was kind of interesting because I can remember on 
earlier trips, the first thing the troops would ask me when I would go 
in is, they would say: Why is it the American people do not understand 
what we are doing? Why do they not like us? Why is it the media do not 
like us?
  I can remember LTC Tim Ryan. He said, as I have here:

       The inaccurate picture they paint has distorted the world 
     view of the daily realities in Iraq. The result is a further 
     erosion of international support for the United States' 
     efforts there, and a strengthening of the insurgents' resolve 
     and recruiting efforts while weakening our own. Through their 
     incomplete, uninformed and unbalanced reporting, many members 
     of the media covering the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting 
     the enemy.

  Well, that is what I heard from many of them, but this is one that we 
can actually quote.
  Well, that is something that is changing. I think we saw a few months 
after I returned from that trip, two of the journalists--one was 
Michael O'Hanlon, the other Kenneth Pollack--wrote an op-ed piece in 
the New York Times, and this was actually above the fold on the front 
page, to let you know. If you want to look it up on your Web site, it 
was July 30, 2007.
  They said things such as: Troop morale is high, and they had 
confidence in General Petraeus and his strategy. Civilian fatality 
rates were down roughly a third since the surge began. Streets in 
Baghdad were slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers and so 
forth. American troop levels in Mosul now numbered only in the hundreds 
from where they were before. More Iraqi units are well integrated in 
terms of ethnicity and religion. And, keep in mind, these were 
statements that were made and were in the New York Times, which has not 
really been a bastion of support for the President or the war.
  But here is another one. I happened to see this one September 2, 
2007. Bob Schieffer had an interview televised with Katie Couric. Katie 
Couric is another one who has never been a supporter of the President. 
And they said this. This is a quote now. She was responding to 
questions.

       Well, I was surprised, you know, after I went to eastern 
     Baghdad. I was taken to the Allawi market which is near Haifa 
     street--

  Which several of us have been to--

     which was the scene of a very bloody gun battle back in 
     January, and, you know, the market seemed to be thriving, and 
     there were a lot of people out and about, a lot of family-
     owned businesses and vegetable stalls, and so you do see 
     signs of life that seem to be normal. . . . The situation is 
     improving.

  That was not me. That was not Senator Jim Inhofe who has always been 
supporting this effort. That was Katie Couric.

[[Page 1014]]

  Before giving the press too much credit, though, let me suggest to 
you that if you look at this chart--this is something I stumbled onto 
yesterday--and since the success has been there, you notice they are 
not saying it is not successful, but they are not covering it. This is 
the coverage in September of 2007. It dropped down by about half in 
October, then it dropped down again in November. So I guess what we are 
saying is, if they cannot print something bad because nothing bad is 
happening there, they do not print anything at all.
  Well, I returned to Iraq on August 30, and the surge continued its 
success. I traveled to the Contingency Operating Base Speicher in 
Tikrit and to the Patrol Base Murray south of Baghdad and visited 
Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus. And so, again, the same 
changes that took place 3 months later were taking place and were much 
better. Less than half of the al-Qaida leaders who were in Baghdad when 
the surge began were still there. There was a 75-percent reduction in 
religious and ethnic killings in the capital, double the seizure of 
insurgents' weapons, and a rise in the number of al-Qaida killed and 
captured.
  So, you know, the surge knocked out some six media cells which make 
it harder for al-Qaida to spread their propaganda. Anbar's incidents 
and attacks were down from 40 a day to less than 10 a day. Economic 
growth, you heard what Katie Couric said about the markets. I was in 
the same crowded markets. They were selling fresh food like normal 
times.
  The large hospital project in the Sunni Triangle is back on track. 
The Iraqi Army is performing very well. The Iraqi citizens formed a 
grassroots movement called the Concerned Citizens League.
  Baghdad returned to normalcy. Little kiddie pools, the lawns that 
were cared for, amusement parks and markets, and the surge provided 
security. Security allowed the local population and governments to 
stand up. Basic economics has taken root. Iraqis are spending money on 
Iraqi projects.
  Now that is the good news. Here is the bad news. General Petraeus, 
after all of his success, the far left had crossed the line--I think we 
all remember this--when a full-page ad, paid for by moveon.org, 
besmirched the motives and the honor of our No. 1 commander on the 
ground in Iraq, General Petraeus.
  Remember, they called him General ``Betrayus.'' I supported Senator 
Lieberman's condemnation of moveon.org's attempt at character 
assassination, as well as Senator Cornyn's resolution. Senator Cornyn's 
resolution stood behind General Petraeus. And there were 28 Senators in 
this Chamber who supported moveon.org, an act, I am sure, will be 
remembered.
  While no American is above scrutiny, this was clearly a calculated 
move on the part of this organization to undermine the noble efforts of 
this patriot to execute the duties that we in the Congress unanimously 
sent him to accomplish.
  You simply have to wonder whose side some of these people were on. 
This goes to show how far some will go to root for American failure in 
Iraq. These organizations are clearly placing their political agenda 
ahead of the best interests of the United States and particularly the 
men and the women who are in uniform.
  So let's just for a minute set Iraq aside and look at Iran. Beyond 
the obvious consequences that would befall an Iraq without U.S. 
support, lack of a secure and stable Iraq means instability in the 
Middle East; namely, an unimpeded rogue Iran. A crippled Iraq will 
create a power vacuum. Remember what Ahmadinejad said on August 28, 
2007.

       Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of 
     course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of 
     neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with 
     the help of the Iraqi nation.

  Maybe it was good that was said because people know what kind of 
person he is, and they know he was prepared and wanting to fill the 
gap, a gap, a vacuum that is not there now.
  Arab nations in the region have expressed their concern about Iran 
and are eager to contain the growing Iranian power. The world knows 
what Iran is capable of. The world has seen their aggression.
  BG Jimmy Cash, U.S. Air Force retired, former command director inside 
the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, that was 1987 to 1989. He was the only 
person who could initiate a nuclear attack after advising the sitting 
President of a missile launch by our enemies and our need to respond.
  No political or civilian had more knowledge about day-to-day military 
actions around the world. He said--and this is a quote. This is BG 
Jimmy Cash:

       I watched Iran and Iraq shoot missiles at each other every 
     day, and all day long, for months, they killed hundreds of 
     thousands of their own people. . . . They were fighting for 
     control of the Middle East.

  Iran's nuclear work continues, including the enrichment of uranium, 
which could easily be used as part of a nuclear weapons program. I 
think we all understand that.
  In the last 2 years, Iran has continued developing ballistic missile 
technology, launching missiles over 2,000 kilometers. Coalition forces 
have intercepted Iranian arms shipments in Iraq, including materials 
that are used to make explosively formed penetrators--that is EFPs--
which are the most deadly of IEDs, which are being used against our 
American troops.
  Coalition forces have also detained Iranian agents in Iraq. On 
January 7, Iranian gunboats--we remember that, how they were harassing 
some of our U.S. warships at the time.
  Iran has now turned their attention to the only other threat to their 
dominance--freedom-loving nations throughout the globe. The world 
cannot afford to have Iran in control of the Middle East.
  So Iraq remains as the critical link. Iraq is at a decisive turning 
point in their journey toward democracy. The surge has created 
opportunities that the Iraqi people have not taken for granted. The 
``awakening'' is spreading from Al Anbar Province to Diyala Province. I 
saw it coming years ago. Years ago, I can remember going, as many of my 
colleagues had, from place to place in Iraq--long before the surge--
seeing that our troops, when they would receive goods from home, such 
as cookies and candies, and they would take their packages and 
repackage them in small packages and throw them out to these kids way 
out in the countryside, and the kids would wave American flags. That 
was out there. We knew that success was taking place.
  The once turbulent and violent Al Anbar Province is returning to 
Iraqi control--Iraqi control, not our control. The Government of Iraq 
enacted The Justice and Accountability Act--that law--on January 12, 
showing real progress toward former baathist reconciliation.
  Al-Qaida is a spent force in Iraq. It is retreating to the Horn of 
Africa.
  Speaking of Africa, I have had occasion to be in Djibouti in the Horn 
of Africa. I have to say this with some degree of pride--this picture 
you are seeing in the Chamber now is of a little girl who was actually 
found as a little orphan girl who was 3 days old, south of Djibouti. My 
wife Kay and I are blessed with 20 kids and grandkids. Our daughter had 
nothing but boys, so she has now adopted this little girl, and that 
little girl is my granddaughter.
  Some good things are happening over there. But I have to say that 
looking at the squeeze that is taking place in the Middle East, a lot 
of the terrorist activity is going down into the Horn of Africa. The 
occupier of the chair is fully aware that we--both sitting on the 
Senate Armed Services Committee, we are very proud of the fact that we 
are setting up and helping the Africans set up African brigades.
  Syria has ceased supporting foreign fighters in Iraq. The Saudis are 
cracking down on supporters of Islamic terrorists in their own country. 
Iran is isolated. The world must remain focused and steady.
  Iraq is an example to the world of how to reject terror and confront 
those who practice it. It is not going unnoticed. Political leaders see 
this. The world sees now that little kids are not being tortured to 
death in Iraq. Girls are now going to school instead of

[[Page 1015]]

being raped and murdered. No more mass graves, no more vats of acid. 
And the butcher, Saddam Hussein, is dead.
  Yes, we are doing a difficult thing, but we are doing the right 
thing. Just as Americans always try to do the right thing, we are doing 
the right thing there. But think of it for a minute. Isn't Iraq trying 
to do what we were trying to do 230 years ago? We were seeking a 
parliament at that time 230 years ago, and that is what Iraq is doing 
today. We were seeking a constitution. That is what Iraq is trying to 
do. We were seeking democracy. We were seeking freedom. Iraq is seeking 
the same things we were seeking some 230 years ago.
  The Iraqis are watching us. They are risking their lives, the same as 
we were risking our lives some 230 years ago. I think of that first 
election that took place up in Fallujah, when the Iraqi security forces 
were going--knowing they were going to be shot at, but they were 
willing to do that--to go vote. Remember the purple fingers. That is 
what was taking place.
  I would have to say this: We went through the same thing in this 
country. I have always said one of the best speeches made was Ronald 
Reagan's ``Rendezvous With Destiny,'' when he talked about the Cuban 
who trying to escape Castro's Cuba. As his ship washed up on the shore 
of Florida, a lady was there and said--and he was talking about the 
atrocities of Castro's Cuba--and she said: I guess we in this country 
don't know how lucky we are. He said: How lucky you are? We are the 
ones who are lucky because we had a place to escape to.
  I would have to say that the first reason was to end the murderous 
regime of Saddam Hussein. The second reason was to shut down the 
terrorist training camps. The third is they are doing exactly what we 
did 230 years ago.
  When you stop and think about the message and the inspiration we had 
from our forefathers, and when you stop and think about the message 
that was given when a tall redhead stood before the House of Burgesses 
and made a speech for them at that time--and it is certainly for us 
today, and certainly for Iraq today--he said:

       They tell us, sir, that we are weak--

  This is exactly what they have been saying to the Iraqis.

       They tell us, sir, that we are weak--unable to cope with so 
     formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will 
     it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are 
     totally disarmed . . . ? Shall we gather strength by 
     irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of 
     effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and 
     hugging the delusive phantom of hope . . . ? [W]e are not 
     weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of 
     nature has placed in our power. . . . armed in the holy cause 
     of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, 
     are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against 
     us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.

  This is important.

        . . . we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a 
     just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who 
     will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The 
     battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the 
     vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides. . . .if we were 
     base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from 
     the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and 
     slavery! Our chains are forged.

  Some would say that we should retreat, we should leave. But that man 
stood before the House of Burgesses and said:

       Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? 
     What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as 
     to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid 
     it, Almighty God!--I know not what course others may take; 
     but as for me--

  Said Patrick Henry--

       give me liberty or give me death!

  I guess what I am saying is, the Iraqi freedom fighters are not 
unlike what we were some 200 years ago. Wouldn't it be great if we were 
to provide the inspiration for them that our forefathers provided for 
us?
  That is what is happening right now. We are winning. We are doing the 
right thing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.

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