[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2688-2712]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




PROVIDING FOR THE SAFE REDEPLOYMENT OF UNITED STATES TROOPS FROM IRAQ--
                      MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, another day in Iraq. Today American 
taxpayers' dollars will be spent in Iraq, almost a half a billion 
dollars. More than $400 million will be spent today in Iraq.
  Here is what we get from it as seen by--you pick about any 
newspaper--the Washington Post, which was at my doorstep this morning: 
``Suicide Bomber Hits Bus in Iraq's North, Killing at Least Eight.''
  A suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt outside a bus in 
Northern Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, injuring at 
least eight others.
  You drop down, it tells about all of the violence.
  The Tall Afar bombing followed a bloody weekend of attacks against 
Shiite pilgrims, the deadly incident taking place Sunday when a suicide 
bomber killed at least 63.
  As we learned yesterday, that one blast injured more than 100. You 
drop down in this news article:
  Even as overall violence has fallen, the recent attacks underscore 
the tenuous security environment and the resiliency of the insurgency.
  In volatile Diyala Province, it goes on to explain how 21 people were 
kidnaped yesterday. At the bottom of the page, it has the names of 
three of our soldiers who were killed. And then, of course, we have 
General Casey. General Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, said yesterday 
in testimony before the Armed Services Committee:
  The cumulative effect of the last 6 years plus at war have left our 
Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight and unable to do the 
things we know we need to do.
  We have had some good debate. My Republican colleagues think the war 
is going great. I think they are certainly entitled to their opinion. 
But it has been a good debate. We, of course, have spent time on Iraq 
on this side of the aisle, but also on how the war has done so much to 
damage our security and our economy.
  There is a book coming out tomorrow or the next day that talks 
about--it is by Mr. Stiglitz, who is a Pulitzer Prize winner--maybe 
Nobel; I think Nobel. It is called ``The $3 Trillion Mistake.''
  The book is on the war. Now, in actual numbers that I understand, in 
about a year they will be up to $1 trillion. Mr. Stiglitz, an 
economist, far smarter than I am, says it is $3 trillion. That is what 
we have talked about. This war that will soon be going into the sixth 
year has been devastating to our country.
  We had a meeting that just took place about the budget. The 
President's budget cuts virtually everything. One of the victims in his 
budget is Public Broadcasting, cut by 70 percent. I talked to Senator 
Conrad as we were leaving. I said: What did you do with Public 
Broadcasting?
  We restored the money.
  And even restoring it takes into consideration some of the cuts the 
President has made in that program over the 7 years he has been 
President.
  We do not have money to do the basics this country needs to do 
because we have borrowed $1 trillion to take care of the war.
  So we have had a good debate. Each side has spent a little over 3 
hours discussing these issues. I believe there has been sufficient 
debate on the motion to proceed.
  I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be yielded back and 
the motion to proceed be agreed to; that the Senate now vote on the 
motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2634, and that 
if cloture is invoked, notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate 
immediately proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 3221, the vehicle we will use for the housing 
market crisis.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I will make 
two quick comments. Certainly I respect the majority leader's comments. 
He talked about the fact that violence is down in Iraq. But, of course, 
the suicide bombers continue to wreak havoc. We all deplore that.
  I was in Israel last week at the border town in Gaza--Sderot is the 
name--and terrorism from Hamas continues to bedevil the people of that 
town with rockets coming over every day. But they cannot leave and 
leave the terrorists to prevail there. I think the same thing is the 
situation in Iraq.
  The majority leader talks about the costs, and they are significant. 
But the costs if we had to come back in and clean up after the 
terrorists take over, if we left prematurely, could be far greater than 
what we are expected to have to pay. In any event, it is very difficult 
to put a price on freedom and security.
  I think we have had a good debate. We have speakers on our side 
actually for about another about 4\1/2\ hours or so. But as I told the 
majority leader, we could yield back some time on our side to work with 
the majority leader to develop a schedule that would be convenient for 
all of the Members.
  At this time, because of the precise nature of the unanimous consent 
request, I object on behalf of the minority but would suggest it should 
be possible this afternoon, early this afternoon, for the majority and 
minority leaders to sit down and work out a schedule that would meet 
the needs of all of our Members and convenient for the entire body.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about Iraq. 
Following the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, our enemies 
tried to plunge Iraq into chaos, and in certain parts of Iraq they were 
succeeding. Terrorists and extremists were pitting Iraqi against Iraqi, 
Sunni against Shia, Shia against Sunni. In Baghdad, Iraqi families were 
being forced to leave their homes and to resettle in areas where other 
members of their religious community resided.
  Iraqi police and army units were nowhere near capable of taking the 
lead during operations. On the political front, progress was very slow. 
When the going got tough, many called for U.S. withdrawal and 
abandonment of Iraq.
  Thankfully, the President did not listen to the calls for defeat and 
retreat. The President reviewed our strategy and changed course. This 
change was needed. I visited Iraq twice before this change of strategy. 
I can tell you it was a dangerous place. During one of my trips, we had 
to take a helicopter from the Green Zone to Baghdad International 
Airport because of an IED threat.
  In January of 2007, the President and General Petraeus launched the 
surge of American forces into Iraq. The Iraqi people quickly realized 
that something dramatic had happened. Those who had worried that 
America was preparing to abandon them instead saw tens of thousands of 
American forces flowing into their country. They saw our forces moving 
into the neighborhoods, clearing out the terrorists, and staying behind 
to ensure that the enemy did not return. They saw our troops, along 
with provincial reconstruction teams, coming in to ensure that improved 
security was followed by improvements in daily life.
  The surge is now achieving its primary aims of improving population 
security in Baghdad and reversing the cycle of sectarian violence that 
plagued Iraq. Although there is much more work to be done, security has 
improved considerably since General

[[Page 2689]]

Petraeus began implementing this new strategy that became fully 
operational in mid-June.
  According to the U.S. military, monthly attack levels have decreased 
60 percent since that time. Civilian deaths are down approximately 75 
percent. Although al-Qaida in Iraq remains a dangerous threat, its 
capabilities are severely diminished. Thousands of extremists in Iraq 
have been captured or killed, including hundreds of key al-Qaida 
leaders and their operatives.
  Iraqi forces now have assumed responsibility for security in 9 of 18 
Iraqi provinces and are now leading combat operations all over the 
country. Iraqi security forces and concerned local citizen groups 
continue to grow, develop capabilities, and provide more security for 
their country. The Government of Iraq is committed to one day assuming 
fiscal and overall responsibility for CLCs, which some now call the 
Sons of Iraq, and has begun structuring vocational training programs 
for these CLCs who want to rejoin the civilian workforce.
  The President's strategy in Iraq has put us on a path to success. 
U.S. and Iraqi troops, working together, have achieved significant 
results. Violence is down dramatically and political progress is being 
made. The Government in Baghdad recently passed debaathification 
legislation and a pension law, and is sharing oil revenues with the 
different provinces.
  Significant bottom-up political progress is occurring at the local 
level in Iraq, where provincial governments continue to spend national 
revenue on reconstruction, and many people are engaging in local 
politics.
  On the economic front, the central Government of Iraq recently 
reached its 2007 target of $30.2 billion in budget revenue 1 month 
before the end of the year. The Government of Iraq recently completed 
early repayment of its outstanding obligations to the International 
Monetary Fund. The Baghdad Chamber of Commerce recently hosted a 
business expo which more than 8,000 executives, entrepreneurs, 
salesmen, and investors attended.
  Mr. President, approximately 2 weeks ago, I traveled again to Iraq 
and was briefed by General Petraeus, other commanders on the ground, 
and Iraqi security officials. Petraeus and his troops are obviously and 
undoubtedly doing a remarkable job at turning things around. This was a 
different trip for me. There was a more secure feeling in the air. I 
felt optimistic, more so than at any other time since the war started. 
You can tell that things have remarkably changed for the better. I 
visited a town south of Baghdad where 3 months ago al-Qaida had been in 
total control. I felt so safe that, along with 2 other Senators and our 
staffs, we walked through a local market without a helmet and spoke to 
dozens of residents, including children, through a translator. One of 
the Iraqi people's biggest fears is that America will surrender and 
leave prematurely. They fear for their lives, their children, and the 
future of the country if we surrender.
  Great, almost unbelievable strides have obviously been made, and we 
are headed in the right direction. Despite this fact, some of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to introduce 
defeatist legislation, such as what we have before us today, S. 2633, 
that call for tying our hands on this front line of the war on terror. 
So as things get better and better, the Democrats continue to call for 
retreat. They continue to politicize the war in Iraq, persisting in 
calls for troop withdrawal, when the surge is demonstrating real 
success, both military and political.
  Scaling back withdrawing when we are succeeding so brilliantly 
clearly equals defeat and makes absolutely no sense. The Democrats have 
concluded that America has lost and refuse to listen to the judgment of 
our military leaders.
  Responding to whether gains made in Iraq would be lost if we abruptly 
withdrew our troops, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently stated:

       There haven't been gains. The gains have not produced the 
     desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is 
     a failure. This is a failure.

  Such defeatist nonsense is not the way to boost the morale of our 
troops on the ground or to show gratitude for their success. I call on 
the Speaker to visit Iraq, to talk to our troops, to talk to the Iraqi 
people, and to see how successful the surge is working for her own 
eyes.
  Further, I find it peculiar that the Democrats keep calling for 
withdrawal over and over again when initially they criticized the 
administration for not sending more troops to Iraq. When plans for the 
surge were announced, they roundly attacked it, going so far as to say 
the war was already lost. Then when the surge began to show great 
success, Democrats again criticized it and said the only purpose of the 
surge was to enable political reconciliation in Iraq. Now that both 
military and political successes are being realized, the Democrats are 
once again going to have to redefine what failure looks like.
  When General Petraeus first took command, he said, ``Hard is not 
hopeless.'' Today, there is hope and optimism in Iraq. Amazing progress 
has been made. I should not have to say this, but we must support our 
troops, not just in word but in deed. The Democrats need to stop 
playing games with the brave men and women who are sacrificing so much 
for this country. They need to stop introducing legislation that ties 
strings to money for our troops. They need to stop introducing 
legislation that would prematurely bring our troops home and ruin all 
the gains they have made over the last 5 years. Partisan politics need 
to be set aside. We need to come together as a Congress, as a country, 
and get behind the effort and the mission in Iraq. Let's finish what we 
started, not just for today but for the future. We are all Americans 
first. It is time we started acting like that.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, yesterday one of our colleagues came before 
this body and stated for all who cared to listen that he was weary, 
weary of this war.
  I, too, am weary, but weariness does not lead me to embrace the 
policy of surrender or succumb to the nihilistic business that is 
defeatism.
  History is replete with examples of leaders who fell victim to the 
temptation of defeatism. Shall the Senate similarly repeat this folly?
  No, sir.
  In this country, commitment and dedication to noble pursuits have 
defined our great Nation. We must not give way to weariness now.
  The Senate is where great ideas and thoughts are to be put forth and 
considered, ideas and thoughts that are designed to lead to a better 
life for the American people and secure a safer world where the 
inalienable rights of all are respected.
  But I, too, am weary, weary of the policies of appeasement that have 
become the guiding principles of some in the majority party. Have they 
learned nothing? Has history not taught us, through the pain and 
suffering of millions, that the philosophy of appeasement only provides 
a slight respite from the forces of evil before they unleash 
incalculable pain and suffering on the innocent?
  What happens if we adopt the troop withdrawal legislation before us? 
Do they really think al-Qaida is just going to leave us alone? Make no 
mistake, the majority of the forces that oppose us in Iraq are 
affiliated with al-Qaida.
  Do the supporters of this bill think al-Qaida will conclude: ``Well, 
we have won in Iraq, now let's leave the Americans to live in peace?'' 
Does anybody really believe that?
  That is the question the American people have to ask themselves. What 
will happen if we pick an arbitrary time to leave Iraq based on a 
policy of appeasement rather than accomplishments of our new 
counterinsurgency strategy?
  I have been to Iraq twice. The first time, I admit to being a little 
discouraged. The second time was a year later. During this second 
visit, we actually flew into Al Anbar really before it was

[[Page 2690]]

completely as open as it is today. We walked the streets of Ramadi. We 
high-fived with the kids who were on the street. The difference between 
my two visits was striking. It was a complete change and that change is 
because of our current military leadership.
  Again, the question the American people have to ask themselves: What 
will happen if we pick an arbitrary time to leave Iraq based on a 
policy of appeasement rather than the accomplishments of our new 
counterinsurgency strategy?
  Simply put, what happens the day after?
  Will not al-Qaida use Iraq, with the world's third largest oil 
reserves, as a bank to fund their worldwide activities? Will they not 
use Iraq as a base to launch attacks against all those who disagree 
with their radical policies?
  What are the answers offered to these questions by the proponents of 
this legislation? From what I can discern from the Members who have 
taken to the floor to defend it, the answer is simple: nothing. They 
simply do not have a plan for the day after.
  What of the nearly 4,000 servicemembers who volunteered to fight for 
their country and who have now paid the ultimate sacrifice? Does their 
memorial in history read: Thank you for your service, but some Members 
of Congress grew weary, and therefore your sacrifice and the sacrifices 
of your family were in vain.
  I know what those sacrifices are like. Our family lost my only living 
brother in World War II on the Ploesti oil raid. That was the raid that 
attempted to knock out Hitler's oil reserves and it was one of the most 
important operations of World War II.
  My brother's loss was hard on our family. But we were proud of my 
brother. We were proud that he was willing to sacrifice his life for 
us, just as we are proud of our young men and women who are fighting in 
Iraq and Afghanistan today.
  What is General Petraeus's conclusion, if we begin a precipitous 
withdrawal? Almost everybody has praised General Petraeus. You just 
have to. My gosh, the man has completely transformed the situation in 
Iraq. He has been right in his approach toward these problems over 
there. He wrote the Army's manual on fighting in surgencies.
  As recently as February 15, General Petraeus stated what we all know 
to be true if we were to begin a precipitous withdrawal:

       You would see a resurgence of ethno-sectarian violence. You 
     would see al Qaeda regain its safe havens and sanctuaries. 
     There's no telling what would happen with displaced persons.

  In other words, if we leave, the chaos that could result might make 
the wholesale slaughter that occurred after the fall of Indochina look 
minuscule by comparison. I wonder what fanciful legislative fix our 
colleagues will offer then.
  So what is the alternative? Do opponents of this bill offer only 
empty rhetoric?
  No, we support the comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy devised 
and implemented by General Petraeus. It is a strategy that is producing 
remarkable results, results that point to only one conclusion. In 
little over a year, the coalition has regained the initiative.
  For example, General Petraeus stated in his December 30 briefing that 
overall attacks have decreased by 60 percent. Civilian deaths are also 
down by 60 percent. The ethno-sectarian component of those fatalities 
has decreased by 80 percent.
  Those findings are supported by other commanders in Iraq, including 
MG Joseph Fil, the commanding officer of the 1st Cavalry Division and 
the officer who until December was responsible for our operations in 
Baghdad. He stated in an interview late last year with the New York 
Times that coalition forces have dramatically reduced, if not 
eliminated, al-Qaida's presence in every neighborhood in Baghdad. The 
general also pointed out that murders in Baghdad are down 80 percent.
  In addition, during a recent briefing, LTG Raymond T. Odierno, who 
just returned from Iraq and has been nominated to become the Army's new 
Vice Chief of Staff, stated that terrorist operations in Baghdad have 
decreased by 59 percent. In the past year, suicide attacks in Baghdad 
have been reduced 66 percent, from 12 to 4 a month. The number of 
improvised explosive device attacks in Baghdad has also declined by 45 
percent.
  Baghdad is not the only area where we have seen success. During my 
trip to Iraq last year, I was able to witness the dramatic changes that 
have occurred in Al Anbar, where al-Qaida has been thrown out of vast 
areas of that province, including its major cities, Ramadi and 
Fallujah, areas that were once deemed refuges for al-Qaida's vile 
perversion of a dignified and peaceful religion.
  The success of Baghdad and Al Anbar is also being repeated throughout 
Iraq. In the north, Operation Iron Harvest has been launched.
  This operation has already achieved some important successes. For 
example, during the month of December, the coalition and Iraqi security 
forces have killed or captured over 20 al-Qaida emirs in the north. 
This included the capture of Haider al-Afri, who was the main security 
emir in Mosul and was responsible for organizing the flow of foreign 
fighters into the Mosul area. His replacement did not fare much better; 
he was captured on February 18.
  The number of attacks in Diyala has also decreased. No doubt that the 
recent killing of the al-Qaida emir of Diyala helped this trend.
  In addition, in the past two weeks, the coalition killed Abu Karrar, 
who was a senior al-Qaida intelligence operative and an individual who 
has the infamous distinction of organizing murders to be carried out by 
female suicide bombers.
  Which leads me to the inevitable question: What do you think these 
senior al-Qaida leaders would be doing with their time if we left Iraq? 
I wonder if they ever will grow weary as some in this body have?
  How are all these successes possible? The answer is our generals over 
there, led by General Petraeus. His strategy is based upon the classic 
counterinsurgency tactic of providing security to the local population, 
thereby enabling the Government to provide services to its people, 
which in turn creates in the population a vested interest in the 
success of Government institutions.
  One of the ways this is accomplished is through the use of joint 
security stations. Under this tactic, a portion of a city such as a 
neighborhood is cordoned off, then searched for insurgents. Previously, 
once this was accomplished, our forces would return to large forward-
operating bases, usually on the periphery of the city. The result was 
easy to predict. The insurgents would return once the sweep had 
concluded.
  Under General Petraeus's strategy, our forces remain in the 
neighborhoods and build joint security stations. These joint security 
stations then become home to a company-sized unit of American 
servicemembers as well as Iraqi Army and police units. These facilities 
not only help secure the surrounding areas but simultaneously enable 
our forces to train and evaluate Iraqi forces. Much like the local 
police officer in a major urban area, our forces use the joint security 
stations to learn about the locale to which they are assigned and can 
quickly adapt to meet the unique security needs of the individual 
community.
  The success of these joint security stations can be seen in their 
creation throughout Iraq, with over 50 of them in Baghdad alone. 
However, under this legislation, our forces will no longer be able to 
conduct operations from joint security stations. In fact, they would be 
banished to bases isolated from the Iraqi people and unable to 
accompany Iraqi forces on missions. Under this bill, the few remaining 
forces would only be able to conduct limited operations against al-
Qaida. The security provided to the Iraqi people, which is the 
foundation of our recent success, would be entirely lost.
  So let's review the policy advocated by this bill. No. 1, it 
guarantees defeat. No. 2, it provides al-Qaida with another base of 
operations, and, unlike Afghanistan, Iraq's oil wealth will provide

[[Page 2691]]

substantial financial resources to purchase whatever the terrorists 
choose. In the past, it has been publicly reported that al-Qaida has 
actively sought the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.
  Neville Chamberlain would be proud.
  So yes, I, like others, am weary, but I am weary of appeasement. I am 
weary of such defeatist legislation being debated on the floor of the 
Senate. This is a Chamber for great ideas and concepts that will ensure 
the betterment of the American public and lead to the freedom of 
oppressed people all over the world. This legislation falls far short 
of that August standard.
  Just think about it, here we have this country, Iraq, with 3 
different factions who are working together, who are making headway, 
who have enormous oil wealth that could be used for their people, who 
are tired of al-Qaida, who have been throwing them out of the various 
provinces, who are cooperating with the United States of America, and 
who are starting to cooperate with each other, who sit between two of 
the most roguish nations in the world, Iran and Syria. All of this 
success happening, and we have people who want to pull us out 
prematurely. I don't understand it personally.
  I respect the sincerity of the sponsors and of those who will vote 
for this. I think that if we are going to be weary, let's be weary of 
the way to handle things.


                        WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to reflect on the passing of William 
F. Buckley, Jr. I am aware of my limitations in speaking about Bill 
Buckley. Anything I might add to the eloquent words that have already 
come from his friends at the National Review and from his friend, and 
my friend, the Senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, will seem small 
by comparison.
  Still, as someone who knew Bill, as someone who admired Bill, and as 
someone who learned a great deal from Bill, I would be remiss if I did 
not say a few words about this extraordinary man and his extraordinary 
life.
  The life of William F. Buckley, Jr., reads like something from one of 
his many fiction novels. Growing up in Mexico, his first language was 
Spanish.
  As a prep school student, he demonstrated that he was a real 
entrepreneur, typing his classmates' papers for $1 at a crack. And 
consistent with the writer America got to know over the years, he would 
charge an extra 25 cents to correct their grammar.
  After graduating, he spent time at the University of Mexico, studying 
Spanish, and he served his country in the Army, making second 
lieutenant.
  Only after serving in the Army did he go on to college, something 
widespread in those days--when a hot war was followed by a long, cold 
war--and largely unknown today with the exception of those in ROTC and 
benefitting from the GI bill.
  As a student at Yale, he distinguished himself. In addition to his 
studies in political science, economics, and history, he cut his teeth 
as a debater and was elected chairman of the Yale Daily News.
  Following college, a year in the CIA, and the publication of his book 
``God and Man at Yale,'' he began a career as a writer.
  In 1955, his public life began as he founded the National Review. The 
National Review never had a massive circulation. It continues to be 
subsidized by the contributions of its readers. But its significance 
was titanic. Simply put, there was no conservative movement before 
William F. Buckley, Jr., and the magazine he founded and cultivated.
  For decades, the progressive left had been triumphant. Herbert Croly, 
The New Republic, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt--there was no 
real answer to the arguments they made on behalf of higher taxes, a 
comprehensive state, and a highly regulated economy. For sure, there 
was a Republican Party, and Republicans continued to have electoral 
success. But there was no real consistent conservative point of view. 
The battlefield of ideas had been abandoned to the progressive left.
  Bill Buckley, foot by foot, began retaking some of that ground, and 
establishing a framework of conservative ideas--themes of limited 
government, the protection of human liberty, economic entrepreneurship, 
and military strength in the face of a totalitarian threat bent on 
world domination.
  The development of these ideas was not always pretty. But through 
fits and starts a movement grew. We first heard its voice in the 1964 
Presidential election, an election in which Republicans were trounced. 
But by 1980, these conservative ideas had become a majority, one that 
helped to put Ronald Reagan in the White House.
  Bill was no doubt combative, but I think most would say he was always 
having fun. He was a real intellectual, but he was no dour academic. He 
loved to sail. He used to make his way around New York City on a 
motorcycle. When he made his long-shot run for mayor of New York City 
and was asked what he would do if he won, he responded, ``Demand a 
recount.''
  He took up the harpsichord at the age of 50. He became a novelist. 
His television show ``Firing Line'' ran from 1966 to 1999. I enjoyed 
being on ``Firing Line'' with him, basking in his wisdom, answering his 
questions, and on occasion irritating him to death. But I loved the 
man.
  Bill was a man who loved the written word, and it was fitting that he 
passed away at his desk and at his home. His son Christopher, also an 
accomplished writer, noted, ``he might have been working on a column.'' 
And I have no doubt we would have benefitted from it, Democrats and 
Republicans alike.
  As the authors of The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin 
Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan understood, America remains an experiment. 
It is an experiment in republican self-government. And that experiment 
is constantly being tested.
  Bill lived through extraordinary and challenging times, times like 
our own that tested that experiment, and I have no doubt he was very 
important in helping us through them.
  With wit and aplomb, he pushed the envelope. He argued and fought. He 
made us a better country. He was a great American who led a great 
American life, and America will miss him.
  I have to say I knew Bill Buckley. I appreciated Bill Buckley. He had 
an enormous influence on me. As a former liberal Democrat, he helped me 
to see the merit in intelligent conservative approaches.
  He appealed to so many of us, including some of my liberal 
colleagues, who loved to debate him and loved to chat with him, because 
he was at bottom a decent, honorable, funny, person who was open to 
basically everybody.
  No doubt the absence of Bill will be even more painful to the family 
he has left behind. But consistent with the Catholic faith, one kept 
deeply by Bill, I hope this is also a moment of happiness for them as 
they know that Bill is now in Heaven with the love of his life, 
Patricia.
  I offer my condolences to the Buckley family. All of you and Bill are 
in my prayers. His brother, James Buckley is in my thoughts in 
particular. It was my honor to serve with Bill's brother in a variety 
of capacities. His brother is a true gentleman, a wonderful human 
being. Although he was only here for one term, he was a great Senator. 
The examples of both Bill and Jim Buckley show how this unique American 
family has contributed so much to our public life.
  I can assure you that the Congress, including members who differed 
with Bill Buckley, will miss his humor and will miss him personally. I 
know one thing: This Senator from Utah will miss him deeply.
  Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Michigan and yield the 
floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about what is 
currently happening on the floor of the Senate and what I am hopeful 
will happen.
  Our leader, Senator Reid, has one more time brought us--and rightly 
so--to a point to debate and try to move forward on changing course in 
the war in Iraq. There have been 5 years of war, with the largest 
expenditure now of the Federal Government in terms of

[[Page 2692]]

monthly expenditures, and certainly in terms of loss of life. It goes 
on every day, day after day. All you have to do is look at the 
newspaper and see that families continue to pay a huge price for this 
war.
  I stood on the floor of this Senate 5 years ago and was one of 23 
Members who voted ``no'' on going into this war. But I have spent every 
other moment, every other vote, doing everything I can to support our 
troops, to make sure I do everything I can to make sure we honor them 
through our efforts to equip them and make sure they have the 
resources, and that when they come home and put on the veteran's cap 
that we are, in fact, providing the health care and the resources they 
need. I am proud to be part of a caucus, a new majority that has placed 
veterans health insurance, health care as a top priority to make that 
happen.
  But I often think back to the discussions before my vote, and 
discussions with my husband, who is a 14-year veteran of the Air Force 
and the Air National Guard, and him reminding me that the best way to 
support American troops, the best way to support our troops is to give 
them the right mission. The second thing is to make sure they have the 
resources they need. The third thing is to make sure there is a clear 
exit strategy for that mission.
  I did not support that mission and believe there was not the evidence 
that was needed to carry on that mission. I have supported those 
resources, however, that they need.
  Now it is important, it is critical, that we as a body, as a 
Congress, come together to support the exit strategy, the effort to 
change the mission that needs to occur in Iraq, to be able to bring our 
people home, to be able to stop the multiple deployments, redeployments 
that are going on, and that we refocus on those areas of the world and 
those groups such as al-Qaida that truly are a threat to us. That means 
Afghanistan, that means other kinds of strategies to be able to truly 
keep us safe. That is what we need to do.
  The most important thing is to keep us safe as a country, to be smart 
about our strategy. That is what we are debating, here: whether we are 
going to be smart about our strategy to keep us safe, whether we are 
going to pay attention to the daily loss of life in Iraq, and whether 
we are going to pay attention to the almost $15 billion a month that is 
being spent on that war, which is now a civil war, that is not being 
invested back home in America.
  That is what I want to speak about for a moment, understanding that 
the most important thing is the loss of life and what is happening to 
our troops and their families.
  As I said, I am extremely proud of the fact that we made a very top 
priority for us in the new majority coming in the full funding of 
veterans health care. We have done that. We have tackled the problems 
we have seen with Walter Reed and the inability for our troops, as they 
move between systems, to get the effective care they need by passing 
the Wounded Warriors legislation.
  We have continued to bring forward other efforts to be able to 
address what I consider to be the abuse of our troops by continual 
redeployment without enough dwell time, rest time, for them to be here 
at home, as the Army Manual would require.
  But we also have another very important piece of this which goes to 
what is happening when we have almost $15 billion a month that is being 
diverted from our economy, which from Michigan surely looks like a 
recession. I cannot speak to every other part of the country, but from 
our economy and our families and our communities, it is being spent on 
a war that a majority of Americans--not a majority of Democrats--a 
majority of Americans--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--people 
of all persuasions in all States are saying: We no longer want to go in 
this direction. We want to change this mission. We want to bring our 
people home.
  But we are now getting ready to do a budget. The distinguished Acting 
President pro tempore today is on the Budget Committee. He has served 
with distinction in the House and now in the Senate. Mr. President, you 
know as well as I do that we are now grappling with very tough 
decisions about how to address the needs here in America.
  I think that on top of the issues of national policy and how to keep 
us safe, and the loss of life, and how to support our troops, we have 
to grapple with the fact that last year, for instance, when we passed, 
with overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate, an effort to extend 
health care, health insurance to 10 million children of working 
families, the President vetoed it, saying it was too much money. Yet it 
was about half of the cost of 1 month of what we are spending in Iraq 
today.
  Investing in children, healthy children in our country, of working 
families who unfortunately are working in jobs where they do not have 
health insurance and do not have enough of a wage to be able to afford 
the $1,000 a month premium or more that they would have to pay--do we 
focus on supporting those families and change this direction or do we 
continue down this road of saying no to our children?
  We have the opportunity to create new jobs in the energy economy. In 
Michigan, we are moving full speed ahead on alternative energy, and not 
only in our vehicles. But windmills and solar and biofuels and all of 
these things take partnerships and investments.
  We have an energy tax provision--a measure for which we came one vote 
short of being able to override one of the multitude of filibusters 
that has gone on on this floor: a historic level of filibusters 
stopping us at every turn--we came one vote short. We are talking about 
having some resources to be able to put into tax incentives to be able 
to produce alternative energies and the infrastructures so the biofuels 
can actually get to the pump so you not only can buy a E-85 car but get 
E-85 at the pump. It takes some investments to be able to do that.
  We have been told no on being able to put dollars into that area. Yet 
the amount of money we are talking about is less than 2 months of 
spending in Iraq.
  Infrastructure, roads and bridges. We saw last year what happened in 
Minnesota in terms of a huge bridge collapse and what happened with 
human life and what happened to the community involved. We have roads 
and bridges across our country, water and sewer systems that are aging, 
that need a facelift, and we need to be able to get some additional 
dollars so we can bring ourselves into the modern age for much of our 
infrastructure. Yet we are told again: No, there are no resources to 
put money into our infrastructure. However, we are rebuilding roads in 
Iraq, we are rebuilding schools in Iraq.
  In fact, one of the original items I will never forget was to put 
wireless technology into schools. That was in the budget, but it wasn't 
the American budget, it was the Iraqi reconstruction budget. I have 
been working for years to get technologies in our schools, new 
technology, because every single student is going to face, at a 
minimum, working with a computer, whether you work at a gas station or 
whether you work at a high-tech company. Yet we can't do that in 
America. We have been told by this administration and by those who had 
been in the majority for 6 years: No. But at the same time, it was in 
the budget for Iraq.
  We now find ourselves in a situation with a tremendous housing 
crisis. In my State of Michigan, it has frankly masked a larger 
economic crisis, where people have been losing their jobs, they are 
losing their incomes, seeing all their costs go up, but they have had 
that equity in their home that was keeping them going. All of a sudden, 
all of the values go down, and we are seeing a collapse in the housing 
market which has rippled out way beyond housing now into our capital 
markets, into our entire economy. Yet when we come to the floor--and we 
are going to be asking shortly, after we vote to end this filibuster 
that is going on, on the change in the Iraq mission--we are going to be 
asking to come together around a housing proposal that, frankly, I 
think is pretty modest. It is important, it is good, it is the right 
thing

[[Page 2693]]

to do, but it certainly is something within the realm of 
reasonableness. Yet I know it is going to be difficult to be able to 
get this passed. The cost of it, again, is about 2 weeks in Iraq, to be 
able to focus on one of the most devastating crises going on in America 
today.
  Most middle-class families save through equity in their home. That is 
how most people are able to get into the middle class. We are talking 
about people who have worked hard, played by the rules, done all the 
right things, got a job, saved up the downpayment, were able to get a 
home, and then find themselves in a situation where they are looking 
around saying: Wait a minute. What is going on here? What about me? 
What is happening in our economy? I need some help. We are trying to do 
that. I hope we are going to be able to come together and do that. But 
if we hear one more time: No, we can't do that, we can't afford it--we 
are talking about less than 2 weeks of what is being spent in Iraq.
  How many times have we heard all the comments about Leave No Child 
Behind, about the fact that we are not keeping our promises as it 
relates to education. We passed new high standards. We all support the 
high standards. What we promised was that with that would come 
resources to help children, help schools succeed. We have seen dramatic 
underfunding. Again, in this President's budget, he eliminates 48 
different education programs, including efforts that focus on 
vocational education and other things that are important for the 
future--48 different programs. We will be told that if we try to invest 
in education, that it is too much. It is too much. We can't afford to 
keep the promise of Leave No Child Behind.
  We passed, on a bipartisan basis, something called the America 
Competes Act. I wish to congratulate my colleagues. This was a great 
bipartisan effort. I know the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, 
was a real champion of that. It focuses on math and science and 
technology and investments in the future. I wish we had seen those 
investments fully authorized, fully funded in the President's budget--
health research to save lives, science research, the National Science 
Foundation, those things that will make us competitive for the future. 
Every other country is racing to invest in science. We see China is 
racing, along with Japan and South Korea and other countries around the 
world, to get to that next technology, whether it is advanced battery 
technology research, whether it is biotechnology, whether it is new 
cures in health care. Yet we, the greatest country in the world, are 
seeing those things cut, but $15 billion a month is being spent in Iraq 
which is, by the way, not paid for and goes right on to the deficit for 
our children to pay for in the future. These priorities don't make 
sense. They make no sense when we look to the future.
  I would like to ask the President: How about just 1 month for 
America? How about just 1 month? We will take 1 month of $15 billion 
invested to help us with jobs, keeping American jobs here, opportunity 
through education and innovation, helping our own families with health 
care, and people being able to keep their homes. How about just 1 month 
for America?
  This debate we are having on the floor about Iraq is incredibly 
important on so many different levels, and that is why I appreciate 
Senator Reid bringing us to this point. There are other pieces of this 
that we are committed to addressing such as a modern GI bill. My father 
went to school on the GI bill after World War II. We ought to be doing 
the same thing for our returning veterans. It will cost some dollars. 
Are we going to hear once again: Well, we can't afford it. We can't 
afford to invest in our veterans. I hope not.
  The reality is there is a great connection between what is happening 
now in terms of filibustering our effort to move forward, to change 
direction in Iraq--one more time, one more filibuster--and what we want 
to do next, which is focus on the incredibly serious housing crisis in 
America. There is a connection because we are saying that not only are 
we not doing the smartest thing to keep us safe from a strategic, from 
a national security standpoint, we are also using dollars--precious 
dollars, taxpayer dollars--in a way that is actually making us less 
safe at home by undercutting our ability to have a strong economy, 
strong families, to support those who are in the middle class, who are 
trying to work hard to get into the middle class, struggling to stay in 
the middle class. The majority of Americans find themselves in great 
jeopardy right now on a number of fronts. This is the time they look to 
their Government to play a role to help create opportunity, to be able 
to make strategic investments here at home that will make sure we can 
continue to have the American way of life of which we are so proud.
  So this matters. This matters. I am looking forward to the time when 
we are going to change that direction in Iraq, and I hope it comes 
soon. I hope we are able to say to our men and women who are on their 
third or fourth redeployment now: Job well done. Thank you for your 
service. You can come home now. Hopefully, they will come home to a 
veterans system that works for them, that they will come home to a GI 
bill of rights that creates a way for them to have opportunity, that 
they will come home to an economy that works for them and their 
families. That is our goal. We are going to keep focusing on this issue 
until we create that change.
  I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

  Mr. KYL. Madam President, yesterday, I inserted into the Record a 
couple of items. I wish to speak to them briefly now.
  The primary item was a letter that had been sent to the chairman of 
the House Intelligence Committee by Attorney General Mukasey and 
Admiral McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence. It was a 
letter that tried to explain the problems we are having in gathering 
intelligence on terrorists as a result of the lapse of the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions, the so-called Protect America 
Act.
  What we are debating right now is a resolution that focuses on when 
and how we should leave Iraq. Presumably, the next resolution we will 
be debating focuses on developing a strategy to fight al-Qaida. Most of 
us appreciate the fact that the best way to deal with terrorists, the 
very first thing we should do is to have in place a good intelligence-
gathering capability, primarily in understanding the communications 
that terrorists are having with one another abroad.
  The reason that is the No. 1 part of a strategy in dealing with 
terrorists is that unlike a war in which we are fighting an enemy with 
uniforms representing another country, these terrorists are shadowy 
characters who live anywhere in the world, who travel all around, who 
get together in cells every now and then and plan some kind of activity 
which is designed to terrorize, whether in London or Spain or Malaysia 
or the United States or wherever.
  In order to fight the terrorists, we first want to understand what 
they are up to and then prevent it from occurring.
  If we are having to react to a terrorist attack after it has 
occurred, we are in a very bad situation.
  We created the Department of Homeland Security, and we have a lot of 
different plans and procedures for dealing with an attack after it has 
occurred. But in many respects, then it is too late.
  So in this war against these radical Islamists, these terrorists who 
would kill anywhere they can and target innocent people, the very first 
thing we want to do is to be able to have good intelligence on that 
activity.
  We collect intelligence in a variety of ways, but in modern times, 
one of the

[[Page 2694]]

best ways to collect intelligence is by intercepting communications. 
There are a variety of means by which that is done. One of the things 
the Congress did was to develop a law that provides protection to 
American citizens and others to ensure that this intelligence 
collection does not impinge on our civil rights. We do not want to have 
the Government eavesdropping on us, and that is appropriate for us to 
ensure.
  The problem is, because technology has outpaced the law back when it 
was written in the 1970s and technology now enables us to do electronic 
intercepts against foreign targets through some very sophisticated and 
new means, the law that set up the process for getting approval to do 
that takes far too long, it is far too complicated and, in fact, the 
bottom line is it just plain does not work. It is ``paperwork in an 
electronic era'' kind of comparison.
  So the President came to the Congress and said: You have to get a new 
way of doing this activity that enables us to utilize this new 
technology we have to intercept these communications. And last August, 
we passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FISA law--it 
has another acronym, Protect America Act--which enables us to utilize 
this new technology and also, importantly, to provide that the 
telecommunications companies that work with us do not have to worry 
about somebody suing them because they are helping the U.S. Government 
collect intelligence.
  The law we passed had two problems. No. 1, it expired after 6 months 
because some in the Congress felt they wanted to take another look at 
it; and, secondly, it did not have liability protection for these 
telecommunications companies for the previous work they had done for 
us. It was only for the work going forward. The telecommunications 
companies essentially said to the U.S. Government: We are not going to 
continue to do this work for you unless you can ensure we are not going 
to get sued and that the lawsuits that are currently pending go away.
  I am oversimplifying. The lawsuit said: You shouldn't have done what 
you did because the U.S. Government shouldn't have been engaged in this 
kind of surveillance.
  That is not the fault of the telecommunications companies. They were 
simply doing what the Government asked them to do. They were a 
volunteer to provide their services, their very essential services, to 
help us collect this intelligence. As with any other volunteer, you 
should not get sued just because you stopped to help somebody along the 
side of the road who got hurt in an accident. The same thing is here. 
The Government asked them to volunteer their services to help collect 
this intelligence, and they should not be sued. But lawyers being what 
they are filed some lawsuits, and those lawsuits need to go away.
  The President said: When you revise the law and pass it in February 
of 2008, make sure you have liability protection not only going forward 
but also for the suits that have already been filed. Sure enough, the 
Intelligence Committee in the Senate, by a bipartisan vote of 13 to 2 
or 12 to 2--but a very strong bipartisan vote--agreed to extend the law 
for another 6 years and add the retroactive liability protection, 
precisely what is needed.
  However, when the bill was sent over to the House of Representatives, 
the House Democratic leadership said: No, we are not going to take this 
up and promptly went on the recess that we just got back from, a 12-day 
period in which Congress was not in session. During that period of 
time, the law lapsed and General Mukasey and Admiral McConnell in this 
letter made it clear that during that period of time, we lost 
intelligence that could be very meaningful to us. We don't know whether 
it is or not because we lost it. We could not collect it. But the kind 
of intelligence that we have been collecting under this program has 
been very helpful for us to know what these terrorists are up to so 
that we can prevent attacks.
  We are now in a situation where we are not able to commence certain 
intelligence gathering. In addition, and perhaps more important in the 
long run, we have not done anything to solve the problem of these 
lawsuits, the retroactive liability, with the result that, as they 
write in this letter, the telecommunications companies are becoming 
increasingly concerned about their ability to continue to help us. They 
are all responsible to their shareholders, and their shareholders do 
not like to see their company is getting sued. It reduces the value of 
the company. It creates problems and costs. When they try to do 
business with other companies, the other companies say: Wait a minute, 
are you involved in these lawsuits? If so, we don't want to enter into 
a new contract with you.
  They work with companies all over the world. A lot of these companies 
are concerned that American telecommunications companies are going to 
have this kind of exposure, and they don't want to get involved in it.
  It can hurt business substantially, as a result of which some of 
these companies have conveyed to our intelligence community their 
distress, anxiety, and concern about continuing to participate in this 
program.
  Fortunately, through negotiations, according to this letter, 
companies are still working with us. They are still participating, but 
without them we have no program. This is not something the U.S. 
Government can do on its own. This is something that only works if all 
of the companies that provide our telecommunications services are 
working with us.
  So we have to act pretty soon or we could well be in a situation 
where the very companies that are critical to the operational success 
of this program decide that discretion is the better part of valor on 
their part and they are just not going to be able to continue to help 
us. At that point, we have lost one of the most important intelligence-
gathering operations in this war against terrorists.
  I want to go back to the days following September 11, 2001. There was 
a lot of finger-pointing. A commission was established to try to figure 
out what went wrong. There were a lot of areas identified where we 
should have known better, and had we done things differently, at least 
potentially 9/11 could have been prevented.
  We found that the FBI and CIA were not talking to each other, and the 
Justice Department had constructed a sort of wall between the two, even 
within the FBI itself which prevented one hand from communicating to 
the other very important information. In fact, there is information 
relating to a couple of terrorists that, had they been able to talk to 
each other, might well have resulted in these terrorists being picked 
up in the United States, people who were directly involved in the 9/11 
attack and, at least theoretically, could have been prevented had they 
been able to communicate with each other.
  The bottom line is, retroactive, after 9/11, we could have been doing 
more but did not. That report was very critical of the Congress, of the 
administration, of the intelligence community, of the FBI, CIA, and 
others for not doing everything that could have been done to prevent 9/
11.
  If there were to be, God forbid, another terrorist attack on the 
United States and the commission that is inevitably going to study what 
happened would look at the days prior to that event in the Congress, 
what they would find is a House of Representatives that is sitting on 
its hands, that is unwilling to take up the Senate-passed bill. That 
bill passed with 68 Senators voting yes, obviously Democrats and 
Republicans voting yes, a very strong bipartisan bill. The President 
says he will sign it. He said we need it. The intelligence community 
says we need it.
  Now it has been 2 weeks, and we don't have a law that enables us to 
engage in this intelligence collection.
  What happens if before we get that law there is an attack or even an 
attack after that based upon communications of terrorists that we could 
have intercepted but didn't because we didn't have the means to do it?
  There is going to be a lot of finger-pointing, and rightfully so. The 
Senate said we are going to do our part, we are

[[Page 2695]]

going to pass this law so there are no gaps in our intelligence 
collection.
  The House of Representatives continues to sit on its hands. What will 
it take to get the House leadership to take up the Senate-passed bill 
and send it to the President for his signature? I hope it doesn't take 
another terrorist event.
  This debate we are having about our policy in defeating al-Qaida and 
how Iraq fits into that is part of an overall debate about our approach 
to the war against militant Islam, the terrorists who strike innocent 
people. As I said in the beginning, the most important thing that we 
can do in starting our effort in the war is to have good intelligence. 
In this case, the best offense is not going to war in some foreign 
country, not bombing somebody, but finding out what these bad actors 
are up to and preventing them from putting their plans into effect.
  Partially because it has been quite a long time since 9/11, and 
partially because it is not possible to talk about some of these events 
because they are highly classified, the American public probably is not 
as aware as it should be of the kind of activities that go on every 
day. What happens every day is that there are all over the world 
thousands of would-be terrorists meeting, planning, communicating, 
training, and, in some cases, carrying out their intentions engaging in 
terrorist activity. And because we have had good intelligence 
collection, much of which is done through this electronic interception 
of communications, we have been able to stop specific terrorist 
attacks. Some of these are chronicled by the communications from the 
Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. Some are 
laid out in reports from the CIA and other unclassified reports--just 
to mention one: an effort to blow up elements of the Los Angeles 
Airport, LAX. There are others. I have kind of forgotten which ones are 
classified and which aren't, so I am not going to describe any more. 
But the reality is, it is going on all the time, and only by good 
intelligence can we find out in advance and then either infiltrate the 
cell, work with our counterparts in another country to round up the bad 
guys, or perhaps, if the plans haven't gotten to the execution stage, 
use our knowledge to gain additional information to track other 
terrorists. In any event, at some point, when it looks as if the plan 
may be about to be executed, either we or our allies have to come in 
and arrest the individuals so that the attack doesn't occur. But we 
can't do that if we don't know what they are up to.
  It is unfortunate that a lot of the information about how we collect 
intelligence has gotten out, but it is fortunate that we have companies 
in the United States that are willing to cooperate with their 
Government because they are in a position to help the Government 
intercept these communications. It just happens to be because of the 
way the modern telecommunications technology now works.
  We should be doing everything we can to protect these volunteers, in 
effect. They have relied, in good faith, on the representations of the 
Government that the President had the authority to engage in these 
operations and requested their services. This is not my conclusion, 
this is the conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Committee in its 
report on the legislation we passed. It pointed out that it had 
examined the record and found these communications companies had, in 
fact, acted in good faith. So there is no reason for them to be 
subjected to lawsuits. Unless those lawsuits go away, it is quite 
possible that one by one the companies that are assisting us are going 
to conclude that it is not in their financial best interests to do so 
and that, as much as they would like to, they are simply not in a 
position to continue to be able to do so. That would be disastrous for 
our intelligence gathering.
  So, as I said, the fix is the legislation that passed the Senate. It 
is a good bill. It reauthorizes this program for 6 more years and adds 
the one important additional element, and that is the protection from 
liability.
  It also adds some additional civil liberties protections, by the way, 
for Americans abroad. One of our colleagues, Senator Wyden, had 
inserted the provision that adds an extra layer of protection for an 
American who might happen to be abroad and find himself or herself a 
target of some of this interception because of a call made to the 
individual or that individual making a call to somebody else who is 
under surveillance and so on. It is a rather rare occurrence, but we 
have provided protections so that a warrant would have to be obtained 
in that circumstance, and Americans' civil liberties would be 
protected.
  So no one should be under the assumption here that somehow or other 
reauthorizing this law lets the Government loose to begin spying on 
people. Believe me, there is so much information out there which we 
don't even have the time or the ability to check out that we are not 
going to go out of our way to spy on people on whom we have no reason 
to spy. This is simply a matter of trying to identify those instances 
in which known terrorists, or people who affiliate with these 
terrorists abroad, are communicating with each other.
  By the way, importantly, if that communication comes into the United 
States, we want to know whom they are communicating with here because 
that could be the late stages of an operation. That could be an 
indication that there is an element embedded in the United States--a 
terrorist cell, perhaps, that is ready or at least is in the process of 
planning to engage in some kind of attack.
  So these are the kinds of things we need to know about and which have 
protected the American public since 2001. It is no accident that 
America has not had an attack on our soil since 2001. It is also no 
accident that, frankly, the number of attacks in other places around 
the world is far less than would have been the case had we and these 
other countries not had in place good intelligence-gathering operations 
and good cooperation, I might add, among our intelligence services once 
we find out something that needs to be acted upon.
  So as we debate these resolutions that focus on getting at al-Qaida--
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are insistent that we 
should be focusing our efforts not on extraneous aspects of this war 
against terrorists but on al-Qaida--I simply say to all of you that 
focusing on al-Qaida means first and foremost getting good intelligence 
on what they are up to. In today's modern world, that cannot be done 
without a reauthorization of this law that enables us to collect this 
telecommunications intelligence. That is not going to happen unless the 
bill passes and is sent to the President. Every day that goes by that 
the House leadership sits on the legislation we here in the Senate 
passed and doesn't send that to the President is another day of 
vulnerability. It is a day in which we will never get back the 
intelligence we might have collected.
  This is not something where we can catch up. It is not something 
where it is not doing us any harm. As General Mukasey and Admiral 
McConnell pointed out, it is lost information forever. That telephone 
call we might have communicated is not going to happen again. Now, 
maybe a subsequent call will, but we will never have the benefit of the 
communication that occurred yesterday or the day before or later on 
today because we don't have the ability to engage in that collection.
  I can't think of anything more important to our national security 
than getting this legislation adopted. It is one of the reasons we 
agreed with the majority leader's cloture petition to debate this 
question of how we should be focusing our effort on al-Qaida, because 
we wanted to ensure that the American people understood what is at 
stake here and understood what is at risk by the House of 
Representatives not taking up and passing the Senate legislation on 
intelligence collections abroad.
  Madam President, I hope the House leadership will take this up 
quickly, will get the bill to the President so that he can sign it into 
law and Americans will once again be protected by the most advanced 
techniques and technologies we have.

[[Page 2696]]

  I see my colleague from Tennessee is here, our distinguished 
conference chairman, and I will relinquish the floor so that he may 
speak. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arizona, and 
I appreciate his remarks. I agree with his sentiments.
  I might start with that. I thought the Congress got off to a pretty 
good start this year. The President and the House of Representatives 
agreed on an economic stimulus package. All of us had different ideas 
about it, but the President and the House agreed on something, sent it 
over here, and we had what I would call a principled debate about it--a 
disagreement over whether to spend $40 billion more on it than the 
House-passed legislation, and the Senate objected to that. That was 
dropped. Then we passed it, sent it to the President, and he signed it. 
That spirit of having a principled argument, resolving it, and helping 
the American people got us off to a good start. We did the same thing 
on the FISA legislation Senator Kyl, the Senator from Arizona, just 
described. He was a major force in that. That was a principled debate 
as well.
  Samuel Huntington, the distinguished Harvard professor who is the 
former president of the American Political Science Association, says 
that most of our conflicts in our democracy are conflicts between or 
among principles, with which most of us agree--for example, liberty and 
security. Each American has a right to liberty, each American values 
security, and we debated that here for nearly 6 months, from August 
through today: If we are going to intercept communications from 
terrorists overseas calling into this country, under what conditions 
may we do that and still respect our traditions of liberty? Security 
versus liberty. Differences of opinion.
  The Judiciary Committee got in the middle of it. The Intelligence 
Committee was in the middle of it. In the end, the members of the 
Intelligence Committee produced a piece of legislation by a vote of 13 
to 2, a bipartisan piece of work they believed respected liberty and 
security--and after a good debate here on the floor of the Senate, 
nearly 70 Senators agreed. That is about as well as you can do in the 
Senate when you have a major difference of opinion. And off that went 
to the House of Representatives.
  Well, if what happened here was an example of what Americans like to 
see from their legislators, what happened in the House of 
Representatives is not what Americans like to see.
  What I think most Americans want to see in Washington is not that we 
always agree. I mean, this is a debating society. It is the Senate. The 
issues are here because we don't agree, in many cases. So we have these 
debates on liberty versus security, for example, and then we resolve 
them. We show that in the end we resolve them. That is what people 
like.
  Then it goes over to the House of Representatives. And let me put it 
in the words of some Tennessee folks last week. I was in Tennessee last 
week when the Senate was out of session, and the most frequently asked 
question, the most frequently made comment went something like this--
and I will paraphrase, but just a little bit:
  Senator Alexander--someone in the back of the room at Ashland City 
might rise and say--I have a question for you. How is it that the House 
of Representatives has time to investigate baseball, has time to play 
politics with the White House staff members, has time to take a 10-day 
vacation, but doesn't have time to deal with an intelligence bill?
  And I had to say to them: I am disappointed with what happened in the 
House of Representatives because it did so well with the economic 
stimulus package that I thought we were off to the kind of start the 
American people would have agreed with.
  So I believe most Americans understand that the failure to deal with 
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation means this: It 
means fewer surveillances. It means fewer companies and individuals 
willing to cooperate with our Government in overhearing conversations 
between those who would destroy us when they call in to our country to 
talk about it. And it means we are less safe as a result of that.
  My hope would be that we can deal with this Intelligence bill quickly 
and promptly. The House of Representatives is certainly capable of 
that. There are good men and women there. We recognized that when we 
basically adopted the House's economic stimulus package, with minor 
adjustments. Some Senators said: Well, the Senate ought to have a lot 
to say about that. Well, we--most of us in the Senate--are rarely 
guilty of an unexpressed thought, that is true, but it is not a bad 
idea for us also to recognize wisdom and good ideas when they come from 
the other part of the Capitol. We saw in the economic stimulus package 
some wise decision making and, for the most part, adopted it, with some 
amendments.
  My hope would be that the House of Representatives would do the same 
with the Senate's 68-vote decision on the Intelligence bill. My 
understanding is that there is a majority of Democrats and Republicans 
in the House of Representatives today who agree with the Senate bill 
and who would vote for it if it were brought up. If they will do that, 
that would be very helpful.
  I see the Senator from Oklahoma is here. Would he like to make some 
remarks between now and 4 o'clock?
  Mr. INHOFE. Yes, I would.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I would like to take 4 or 5 minutes to say a word 
about William Buckley and then turn the floor over to the Senator.
  Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield? I would like to know what the 
regular order is here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no order.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the 
Senator from Oklahoma be recognized for 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Tribute to William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the news came today that William F. 
Buckley died. For most Americans, that brings back a lot of memories. 
Since the early 1950s, he has been synonomous with public television. 
``God and Man at Yale'' was an important book, even though he was a 
very young man when he wrote it. And William F. Buckley's style, his 
choice of words, his manner of speaking, and his unfailing courtesy 
have set an example for debaters of important issues in this country 
for more than half a century.
  In 1984, a couple of years after I had been a guest on ``Firing 
Line,'' which was William Buckley's television show, I sat next to him 
at a dinner. It was a Howard Baker fundraising roast in Washington, DC. 
William Buckley was the master of ceremonies.
  I wrote about that visit in a little book I put out after I was 
Governor called ``Steps Along the Way.''

       ``When do you write?'' I asked him.
       ``Anytime,'' he replied. ``Books are about the only thing I 
     write in a methodical way. I do them in Switzerland, after I 
     ski, between about 5:30 and 7 p.m.''
       I told him that when our family had visited Chartwell, 
     Winston Churchill's former secretary said that Churchill 
     sometimes dictated 5,000 words in a night.
       Buckley was surprised. ``I can do 1,100 or so in a couple 
     of hours,'' he said, ``Sometimes more, maybe up to 2,800 
     words at a time, but 5,000 would be a very productive night. 
     With the advent of computer technology I can know exactly 
     what I do each time I write. For example, my last book took 
     112 hours.''
       ``When do you make corrections?'' I asked him.
       ``I do that in about thirty minutes the next morning, 
     before I go skiing.''
       ``You mean that you finish off the last day's work so you 
     can be ready to start when you return from skiing?''
       ``That's right. Then I send the transcript to five friends. 
     When the transcripts come back, I put the five edited 
     versions side by side and decide what changes to make.''
       ``What about your columns?'' I asked him.
       ``How long do they take to write?''
       ``You mean after I get them in mind?'' He said.
       ``Yes.''
       ``About twenty to thirty minutes. Westbrook Pegler once 
     told me it took him eleven hours to do a column.''
       ``Do you make changes?'' I asked him.
       ``No.'' Said William Buckley.
       ``I've been doing it for nineteen, no, twenty-two years. I 
     know the rhythm, the internal consistency of the column. I 
     have it

[[Page 2697]]

     down. I don't change it. That would be like asking a jazz 
     pianist to change his improvisation.''

  That was William Buckley in 1984. He was a pianist. He really 
preferred the harpsichord, the clavichord. He told me he played Bach 
because you played what you loved the most. He loved music. He loved 
talking. He loved people. He loved his family. He was, of course, a 
wonderful conservative leader. He changed the way many Americans 
thought about our Government and our society. And he always seemed to 
have the right thing to say.
  In 1996, after I had competed for the Presidency, I was at some 
dinner. He walked all of the way across the room. You never know what 
to say to someone who has lost an election. It is kind of like what do 
you say to someone at a funeral? But he walked all the way across his 
room and put his hand on my shoulder and said: That was a noble thing 
that you did. That has always struck me as the one of the nicest things 
anybody has said to me after having lost an election.
  So I will miss William Buckley. So will our country. So will the 
conservative movement. My family and I send our condolences to the 
Buckley family. We know they are proud of his life. They will miss him. 
I am glad to have these few minutes on the Senate floor to remember 
William F. Buckley's contribution to our public life.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. I understand I have 15 minutes. I might wish to take a 
little bit longer than that. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for as long as 30 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, I was supposed to be 
recognized next on our side. I was not going to speak long. I had 
rearranged an appointment.
  Mr. INHOFE. You go ahead. I want to hear everything you have to say. 
Let me suggest that after the Senator from New Mexico, at the 
conclusion of his remarks, I be recognized for up to 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, might I say to the Senator from 
Oklahoma, I greatly appreciate what you have done. I thank you very 
much.
  I have always been in complete support of our troops who risk their 
lives every day to defend the United States of America. I voted for 
every dollar requested to fully fund our troops and against every 
effort to dictate the tactics of war from the Halls of Congress.
  However, last year I began to express my concerns about the 
deteriorating conditions in Iraq and called on the Iraqi Government to 
do more and to do more quickly. I pointed to benchmarks laid out by the 
President and Congress that had a great deal of resonancy to them and 
that were rather unanimous in terms of support.
  These were benchmarks on the ways that the Iraqi Government could and 
should move its country forward. I am glad to say that since General 
Petraeus took charge in Iraq, conditions have improved and the 
benchmarks have been met. I am glad to say that since General Petraeus 
took charge in Iraq, conditions have improved.
  Iraq's different sects are working together. There has been a renewed 
spirit of reconciliation among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. A 
debaathification law has been passed. Iraqis are taking an interest in 
their own safety and security, forming neighborhood watch groups and 
looking out for each other.
  There is no question, I know there are some who would not like to 
admit the facts, but the facts are the facts. Things have changed since 
last year in Iraq and they have changed for the better. I have briefly 
outlined how it happened and who made it happen.
  There can be no doubt that the military hero of this war is General 
Petraeus. There can be no doubt he carries a heavy burden on his 
shoulders now to see if things can be wrapped up in a way that is good 
for the Iraqis, good for the entire Middle East and obviously in many 
ways would vindicate America's activities and what we have done there.
  Iraqis are taking an interest in their own safety and security. They 
are forming neighborhood watch groups and are looking out for each 
other. One thing, and this kind of disturbs me, is that much of the 
information which I have to get, because I am not able to go to Iraq, 
is to talk to our own Senators who have been there. Because even though 
things have changed, Baghdad is safe, we just are not getting the 
coverage from the press of the United States or the press of the world 
that the change deserves. Because everybody in America should know what 
I am saying in this speech.
  The very simple fundamental things that have happened have happened 
since General Petraeus set about with his approach that he told the 
country about. He named it. He told the President about it, and he did 
not ask for too much in order to exhibit and exercise his leadership.
  Moreover, an Iraqi Army brigade recently deployed itself for 
operations against al-Qaida. Partially because of these efforts, there 
is less violence in Iraq now than when the insurgency began.
  The Iraqi Government has passed an amnesty law for the country's 
Sunnis. Many said it would never be done. It was. The Government has 
further passed a budget--maybe we will not even pass ours this year, 
but they passed theirs for $50 billion for 2008. That is a compromise 
between the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds. They were able to sit 
down and solve their problems, their budget problems, and to pass a 
budget.
  That is truly significant and truly different and obviously indicates 
that things have changed for the better. Oil revenues are going to 
Iraq's provinces to fund reconstruction efforts. That is another one 
everybody said would never happen, they will never be able to reach 
agreement on that. They have.
  Even the New York Times has noted progress in Iraq, reporting that 
the newly passed legislation in Iraq:

       Has the potential to spur reconciliation between Sunnis and 
     Shiites and set the country on a road to a more 
     representative government, starting with new provincial 
     elections.

  That is something when the New York Times would choose to say that. 
They have not covered it very well, but at least the words I read are 
words found in the New York Times, which would clearly indicate that 
even they, they of little faith and they of quick judgment on the war 
in Iraq, had to say what I have quoted.
  Now, I am proud to be here today to note this progress, the progress 
of the Iraqi Government, because it is the progress of the Iraqi 
people, the people whom we went there to help.
  It is their progress, their victory, their win. Yet we are proud it 
was led by an American who has apparently an exceptional capacity in 
these areas, the areas that festered and caused these people to remain 
far apart until the last 18 months.
  They have made significant, notable progress in the past 6 months and 
are on the right path to a stable and secure Iraq. General Petraeus and 
our soldiers deserve our thanks, our thanks and support for their 
efforts in Iraq and in the larger global war on terror.
  I yield the floor and thank my friend once again for yielding to me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. I understand my friend is here wishing to speak. I have a 
quick unanimous consent request.
  I ask unanimous consent that at 6:30 tonight, all postcloture debate 
time be yielded back and the motion to proceed be withdrawn; the Senate 
then proceed to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 2634; 
further that the time until 6:30 p.m. be equally divided and controlled 
between the two leaders or their designees, with the final 20 minutes 
equally divided between the leaders, with the first half under the 
control of the Republican leader and the final 10 minutes under the 
control of the majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, for all Members, we will have a vote at 
6:30 tonight on the second Feingold piece of

[[Page 2698]]

legislation. Following that, if cloture is invoked, of course, there is 
30 hours on the motion to proceed. I have had a number of conversations 
today with the distinguished Republican leader. He and I will discuss 
later this evening and tomorrow how we are going to work through the 
rest of this week. My goal, as has been indicated a number of times 
over the last 24 hours on the Senate floor, is to make sure that 
sometime this week we are on the housing stimulus package, and we will 
do that. We will see if we can do it with an agreement rather than 
running out all the time.
  As I indicated earlier today, I think the debate on this Iraq 
legislation has been good. My friends on the minority side think the 
war is going great. We have some concerns on this side.
  Just in passing, I had a meeting in my office about an hour ago. We 
have a wonderful facility being built in Las Vegas, a performing arts 
center. It will be wonderful. It will be like the Kennedy Center. They 
have raised all but $50 million of this $475 million project. I told 
those who were assembled: This is about the same amount of money being 
spent in 1 day in Iraq, the $420 million, the money they have raised.
  It has been a good debate, a good discussion. I think it is good that 
the body spend some time on this very important issue. One thing that 
has been quite good, and I commend Senators on both sides, is it has 
been a very civil debate. We have a significant disagreement on the 
situation in Iraq, but we have had a good debate. The American people 
should feel good about the discussion. It has been very tempered and 
dictated by actual feelings on both sides.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, let me echo in part the majority 
leader's comments with regard to the process. As he has indicated, we 
will have a vote at or around 6:30, and then he and I tomorrow will 
discuss how we move forward on the housing issue. It would be our 
intent to either get to a vote or get on, based upon a consent 
agreement, that subject matter no later than sometime at a civilized 
hour tomorrow.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time at 
5:55 today--Senator McConnell and I have from 6:10 to 6:30. Senator 
Feingold has asked that he be recognized at 5:55 until we speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I would like to take a little longer 
view of what is going on right now in the war for the liberation of 
Iraq, the good things that are happening, the surge, and kind of go 
back to give a better perspective as to how we got here in the first 
place.
  There was this euphoria that was going around back in the early 
1990s: The Cold War is over, we don't need a military any longer. They 
talked about such things as the peace dividend at that time, and this 
is what precipitated 9/11. The Clinton administration came in, and this 
is the amount of the actual DOD budget at that time. This was the 
baseline. This is a very simple chart that tells us a lot. If we were 
to merely have maintained the level of defense spending as it took 
place in the last year of the Bush 1 administration and then had 
nothing except the inflation rate, which wasn't all that great, it 
would be this black line taking us up to fiscal year 2001. This was 
what would have happened if we didn't do anything else. But down here 
the red line indicates where President Clinton made his budget request. 
That was his annual DOD request. If you forget about the middle line, 
the difference between his request and if we just maintained the same 
position that we were in in fiscal year 1993, it would have been $412 
billion less; in other words, in that short timeframe, we would have 
cut defense real spending in constant dollars by $412 billion.
  The Congress didn't let that happen. This middle line, the green 
line, is what actually was budgeted. So what we did was to say to the 
White House: You are not taking good enough care of our military needs. 
And so we raised it by about $99 billion over that period. That means 
the real shortfall was $313 billion in that timeframe.
  I show this chart because there was an attitude in this country at 
that time that there weren't any real serious problems. People kept 
saying we were the world's greatest superpower, and we appropriated 
more money than anyone else. I wanted it to continue that way, but 
there were some things that were going on that I would like to remind 
us of. That was called an acquisition holiday or a peace dividend. I 
think it was more of a holiday in leadership at that time. 
International terrorism took to the forefront as bin Laden began his 
war against freedom. Afghanistan was used as a training ground for 
terrorists, and the Taliban regime allowed al-Qaida unfettered 
mobility. We were on holiday. We were not fighting back. They took 
advantage of this in some major attacks.
  Somehow I think the memory of the American people isn't very long 
because they forgot about these attacks that were taking place. 
Remember the first attack on the World Trade Center was in 1993, 
February 26. It was a car bomb that was planted in an underground 
parking garage below the World Trade Center, and that was way back in 
1993. In 1996, the Khobar Towers, we remember that well. They were 
bombed by Hezbollah with the intelligence pointing toward al-Qaida, 
still al-Qaida. At the same time this was going on, in northern Africa 
their presence was visible at that time. Further on down in southern 
Africa we had the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. That was in 
1998. That was in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. It went unanswered at that 
time. So we had all of this going up through 1998.
  Then there is the year 2000, when suicide bombers used a boat to 
attack the USS Cole while it was moored in Yemen.
  Yemen is right at the horn of Africa on the other side. And now we 
know that as the squeeze has taken place, that has become a very 
prominent place for al-Qaida and for the terrorists. So you had 
Djibouti, we were starting to put troops in there, but we had that 
suicide bombing. That was a major thing. It let us know, it reminded us 
that we could have a ship, the USS Cole at that time, and have nothing 
but just a little outrigger going out there and blowing it up and 
causing the deaths and the damage that took place.
  The response--this was back in the first of the Clinton years--was 
pretty benign. It was restrained and at best inconsistent. Operation 
Infinite Reach included cruise missile attacks against Afghanistan and 
Sudan. There was no real change. The administration was distracted at 
that time. This inadequate response has been cited as a factor 
emboldening al-Qaida to undertake further plans. Yet we continued on 
our holiday at that time. In Operation Restore Hope, we became 
embroiled in Somalia, and we remember what happened in the streets of 
Mogadishu when finally the people woke up when they saw the naked 
bodies dragged through the streets. President Clinton directed U.S. 
forces to stop all actions except those required in self-defense, and 
we withdrew from the country shortly thereafter.
  It is kind of hard for America to get in the habit of withdrawing. We 
stake out our position, and we have historically stood strong and 
carried it out. In 1999, as a NATO member, the United States became 
involved in a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia and a subsequent U.N. 
peacekeeping force. The holiday that we were on at that time ignored 
the rising threats against our national security, mortgaged our 
military, leaving a bold challenge for the next administration.
  The first Rumsfeld confirmation was rather enlightening because what 
we did at that time was to try to determine what our needs were going 
to be for the future. We had to rethink where we were before. And at 
that time we were trying to reevaluate where we were. We were recalling 
some of the bad things that had happened. We remember so well the 1991 
Persian Gulf war. There was a group that went over, a bipartisan group. 
I remember Tony Coelho at the time. He had been the Democratic lead in 
the House. I was in the House at the time. We had the first

[[Page 2699]]

freedom fight, and we sent a group over to Kuwait. It was the day that 
the war was officially over. The problem was the Iraqis didn't know 
that the war was over at that time, and so we had the first freedom 
fight. We went over there.
  Al Haig, I ran into him the other day. We kind of relived that 
experience we had over there. We had with us a very special guest. He 
was the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States. He had his daughter. 
They were a family of nobility. They had a palace on the Persian Gulf. 
But, of course, they hadn't been there because that was a war zone, 
that was Kuwait. So we went over there, this group of nine of us, 
Democrats and Republicans, and I remember when the wind shifted, the 
oil fields were still burning. It was a mess over there. But they 
wanted to go back, the Ambassador wanted to go back and see what their 
house looked like, if it had been damaged in the war.
  When we got there, we found that his house had been used for one of 
Saddam Hussein's headquarters. His daughter, she was either 7, 8, or 9 
years old. I remember so well because she wanted to go up and see her 
bedroom and the dolls and all of that. We went up into this mansion on 
the Persian Gulf, a beautiful place, only to find out that her bedroom 
had been used as a torture chamber. There were body parts stuck to the 
walls. I saw a little boy who had his ear cut off, maybe 6 or 7 years 
old, because they found him carrying a tiny American flag. That was 
back at the time when unconscionable murders were taking place where 
Saddam Hussein, after that was over, started killing anyone who was 
suspect and torturing them to death. There are stories documented that 
people would beg to be dropped, lowered into vats of acid head first so 
they would die quicker.
  Being put through grinding machines, like you are shredding 
documents; the open graves; the documentation of weddings that were for 
a while taking place--many of them outdoors; that is the way they did 
it over in that area--and Saddam's sons, at that time they were alive 
and the regime was in there, they would go through and bust up weddings 
and rape all the girls and take them and bury them alive. I actually 
looked down into those open graves, and people were so quick to forget 
what a monster he was.
  I have often said, even if that had not happened, even if we did not 
have the problems with the terrorist activity in Iraq and the fact that 
they were training people in Iraq to be involved in terrorist 
activity--al-Qaida was very prominent--that even if that had not been 
the case, how could we as a country allow the hundreds of thousands of 
people to be tortured to death in such a cruel way? I do not think we 
could. Certainly, we could not if people had a chance to see it.
  So the time went by, and they started talking about, of course, going 
into this liberation movement in Iraq.
  Now, there has been a lot of discussion over the years about weapons 
of mass destruction. Those of us who were over there--I would say to 
you, Madam President, that while I have not been this many times to 
Iraq, I have actually been in the area 27 different trips--27 different 
times. Sometimes it was at CENTCOM, sometimes the Horn of Africa and 
other areas. But, see, the terrorist activity and the war was not just 
in Iraq. It was in the whole surrounding area. So in all those times I 
was there, I had a chance to, on a firsthand basis, see what was 
involved.
  We know we had to go in there. We know we had to go in there and 
finish what had been started in Iraq.
  Now, there are 3 things that were started. No. 1, we had to liberate 
Iraq from a tyrannical leader--we have already talked about him--No. 2, 
eliminate a safe haven for terrorists and their training camps; and 
then, No. 3, to help the Iraqi people create a free and democratic 
country strategically located right in the Middle East where we have 
the greatest needs.
  Well, No. 1, the liberation of Iraq: After the first Persian Gulf 
war, I told you, we had what we called the first freedom flight into 
Kuwait. But that liberation was necessary to put an end to Saddam 
Hussein's regime of torture.
  Now, when they talked about weapons of mass destruction, yes, weapons 
of mass destruction were not found. We know they were there. They were 
used on the Kurds in the north. Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass 
destruction to painfully murder thousands of his own people using gas 
that burned them alive. That was happening. But, nonetheless, for those 
of us who were aware, that was not the real reason.
  If you look at the second reason, that Iraq was a major terrorist 
training area--a lot of us are familiar with Samarra and Ramadi, but 
some have forgotten or may have never even known about some of the 
other areas.
  Sargat was an international terrorist training camp in northeastern 
Iraq near the Iranian border, run by Ansar al-Islam, a known terrorist 
organization. Based on information from the U.S. Army Special Forces, 
operators who led the attack on Sargat said: It is indeed more than 
plausible that al-Qaida members trained in that particular training 
camp.
  Now, one of the interesting places where this was taking place was a 
place called Salman Pak. In Salman Pak they had--and I think it is 
still there to this day--on the ground an old fuselage of a 707, and 
that was used to train people on how to hijack airplanes. I have often 
wondered if that could have been where the perpetrators of 9/11 got 
their training. I have no way of knowing. We never will know. But we do 
know this: That location, along with the problems in Sargat, had major 
training areas for the terrorists. So we were able to shut those down. 
I would say this: That alone would be enough motivation for us to go 
and liberate the people of Iraq.
  But the third one is to help the Iraqi people create a free and 
democratic country. Iraq is trying to do what we tried to do 230 years 
ago. They are risking their lives, as we risked our lives some 230 
years ago. They are seeking a constitution, a parliament, freedom, and 
democracy. These are things they are trying to accomplish.
  I think of that first election that took place out in Fallujah, when 
the Iraqi security forces were going to vote. I was there. I was in 
Fallujah actually for all three elections, I believe. But I remember 
the Iraqi security forces in that first election. Everybody remembers 
the purple fingers so they could identify who was voting in those 
elections. And these guys--the security forces--went out and voted the 
day before the elections. They did not wait for the elections. They 
were doing it the day before so they would be there on election day to 
provide the security.
  People were risking their lives to go out and vote. We know the cases 
of people being attacked by the terrorists to keep them from voting. 
They were easy to identify because of the purple fingers. But these 
guys were gladly going in there at that time, going to vote, and then 
returning the next day to protect our people who were there.
  Our men and women serving in Iraq are providing the Iraqis the same 
inspiration our forefathers provided us. Iraq is becoming an example to 
the world of how to reject terror and confront those who practice it. 
The world sees now the Iraqi citizens are realizing their potential, 
signing up as Concerned Citizens, sons of Iraq--72,000.
  It is a pretty amazing thing when you look and see that instead of 
the mass graves and all these things, you are seeing a mass 
participation in Iraq. They are returning to normalcy now. A lot of 
people are asking: Is the surge really working? I do not believe anyone 
is out there who can conscientiously deny that the surge has worked.
  It was about a year ago that General Petraeus went in. What happened? 
Three things happened. One was that Petraeus--by far, the greatest guy 
for the job out there; and I do not think anyone except moveon.org 
disagrees with that now--that Petraeus took over. Secondly, the surge, 
in certain strategic areas, increased in numbers. But the third thing 
that happened was there have been so many resolutions like the one that 
is before us right now that I refer to as ``resolutions of surrender'' 
that got the attention of a lot of the religious leaders.
  I often draw a distinction from my own personal experience. I have 
met

[[Page 2700]]

with the political leaders, of course, like all the other Members who 
have gone over there. I have done it more because I have been there 
more times. But the religious leaders are the ones who have the 
greatest impact on what is going on in Iraq. Up until--and this is a 
statement no one has refuted--up until about a year ago, our defense 
intelligence people would attend and monitor the Friday night mosque 
meetings that took place throughout Iraq. These are with the clerics 
and the imams, the religious leaders. Prior to that time, 85 percent of 
the messages that were preached, I guess you would say, in the mosques 
were anti-American. To my knowledge, there has not been an anti-
American message given from a mosque in Iraq since last April because 
they realize if we leave, then the terrorists will move in.
  So that is why we are getting--it has been talked about by many 
people on the Senate floor--the attitudinal change. The neighborhood 
watch programs--in my hometown of Tulsa, OK, we have a neighborhood 
watch program. We have them in Washington. They have them over there, 
with private citizens who have the courage to go out without any arms 
and confront terrorists; where they can, through their own intelligence 
and sheer numbers, determine where there are RPGs and IEDs that are not 
detonated, and then they identify them by little orange paint cans, 
where they draw a circle around there, and then we can go in there and 
detonate these and save many lives.
  Well, we are today experiencing all that help. I can remember when 
our troops who were working out of Baghdad would come back to the Green 
Zone every night. They do not do that anymore. They go out and they 
actually bed down and live with the Iraqi security forces and their 
families, develop intimate relationships with them. It is a totally 
different thing there altogether.
  I can remember there was not a way in the world you could walk 
through the markets in Baghdad. The last time I was there, I walked 
through, and I intentionally did not take anybody with me except an 
interpreter because I did not want to give that image that you have to 
have armed guards and all that, and I remember stopping and talking to 
people. I like to single out people who are holding babies. They have 
this love for us that they did not have before.
  So we now see these changes that are taking place. We see that basic 
economics is taking root and Iraqis are spending money on Iraqi 
projects. Iraqis are taking back control of their country. We are 
helping the Iraqi people create a free and democratic country where 
representation and the rule of law are replacing coercion and terror.
  The Iraqi Parliament has passed legislation that reforms 
debaathification. They have enacted pension reform that allows former 
Baathists to collect their pension. They have enacted laws defining 
provincial and central government roles and responsibilities to 
delineate what each person is supposed to do--the distinction between 
the police and the security forces, what their functions are, what 
their missions are.
  They passed a 2008 budget. They did it sooner than we did it in this 
country. They enacted an amnesty law that could lead to the release of 
thousands of detainees, removing a stumbling block standing in the way 
of reconciliation.
  More than any previous legislation, these new initiatives have the 
potential to spur reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites and set the 
country on the road to a more representative government, starting with 
new provincial elections.
  Now, in the future, where do we go from here? Our Nation has paid, 
and continues to pay, a heavy price. People in this Chamber have talked 
about the heavy price. They are right. It is not cheap. It is very 
expensive. We have paid a heavy price in dollars and lives, with our 
sons and daughters and brothers and sisters. We are doing a difficult 
thing. But just as Americans have always tried to do the right thing, 
we are doing the right thing in Iraq.
  Iraq is at a decisive turning point in their journey toward 
democracy. The fight in Iraq is not about today or tomorrow but about 
many tomorrows to come and about the future. It is about our 
grandchildren's grandchildren and the world they will live in.
  It is not just Iraq. Right now, a lot of concern is taking place as 
to Iran and Ahmadinejad and some of the political leaders and the 
things they are promoting. One of the greatest obstacles they have in 
Iran is they are right next door to Iraq, and there are so many people 
who share family members, and they are looking over wistfully and 
seeing that people are getting married without the disruptions, that 
girls are actually getting an education. This is not the Iraq they knew 
before. So these things are happening.
  Secretary Gates said:

       If we were to withdraw, leaving Iraq in chaos, al Qaeda 
     almost certainly would use Anbar province . . . as another 
     base from which to plan operations not only inside Iraq, but 
     first of all in the neighborhood and then potentially against 
     the United States.

  Al-Qaida is not the only threat to America and our ideals. I 
mentioned a minute ago Ahmadinejad. He said, on August 28, 2007--just a 
short while ago--

       Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region.

  Now, what he was talking about is the type of resolution we are 
considering right now. He is saying a cut-and-run resolution would 
create a huge power vacuum. What else did he say? He said that 
expecting this defeatism, expecting that we would vote for this--which 
we are not. We are not going to vote for this resolution. We know that. 
We have had the same resolution voted down 71 to 24 the last time we 
had a vote on it. But, nonetheless, he said: ``Of course, we are 
prepared to fill the gap. . . .''
  So you have Iran filling the gap that would be there if we were to 
get up and leave in the victorious moments we are having now.
  Iran's nuclear work continues, including recent doubling of their 
enrichment of uranium, which could easily be used as part of a nuclear 
weapons program, a decision in the hands of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  In the last 2 years Iran has continued to develop 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, the EFPs, the most deadly of the IEDs, which are being 
used against American troops. This is what Iran is doing today.
  Coalition forces have also detained Iranian agents in Iraq. A lack of 
a secure and stable Iraq means instability in the Middle East and a 
clear avenue for terror and oppression to spread. Instability in the 
Middle East will continue to spread, as it already has, into Africa, 
Asia, and Europe, and ultimately find its way to our shores.
  We know what is happening right now in Africa. I know probably more 
than some of the others do, because I have seen firsthand. I have sat 
down and talked with such Presidents as President Museveni in Uganda. I 
have talked to Prime Minister Meles in Somalia--in Ethiopia, and many 
of the others, including John Kufuor in Ghana, all about the threat 
they face of terrorism all throughout Africa. In our infinite wisdom 
here, it was our decision a few years ago to go in and help the 
Africans build five African brigades, so that as this moves into their 
area, they are able to fight off terrorism without using our troops. We 
have such programs as the 1206, 1207, and 1208, where we are arming and 
equipping, training and equipping programs for these countries. These 
are things we are helping them do so we can avoid having to be on the 
front lines of the battle against the terrorists. They can do that too.
  Patrick Henry said:

       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 with us.

  That is what is happening over there at this time.
  So the coalition forces have been doing a great job, and right now we 
are

[[Page 2701]]

observing the successes of the surge. They watch with great interest as 
defeatist legislation is repeatedly brought up on the floor, hoping 
that Congress will do what they cannot: give them victory in Iraq and 
the Middle East. So we must not try to micromanage our military. One of 
the two bills that is on the floor right now would actually micromanage 
it. It is as if we in our infinite wisdom in the Senate are smarter 
than General Petraeus, General Odierno, and all of the professionals. 
Yes, I was in the U.S. Army many years ago, so I have some hands-on 
experience in this type of thing, certainly not that of the 
professionals. The worst thing we can do is try to micromanage our 
military and place restrictions on them, telling them how many troops 
they should withdraw and what our troop strength should be over there, 
and at the same time anything we do over here, the enemy knows we are 
doing it also. Our professional warriors want to and can succeed with 
our support.
  That is what this is all about. I have no doubt in my mind we will 
defeat these things. In a way, I am glad Senator Feingold brought these 
bills to the floor, because this gives us a forum to talk to the 
American people about things they may not be getting in the media. It 
is interesting that it used to be when I went over to Iraq, the first 
thing the kids over there would ask me is why doesn't the media like 
me. They don't talk that way anymore. Even people who were anti this 
administration, people such as Katie Couric, went over and observed 
what is going on. Once you go and observe, you can see we are winning, 
this is working, and this liberation is taking place.
  I know my 30 minutes has expired, but we are here to continue what we 
have started. The worst thing we could do right now is to take success 
out of the hands of the military who are successfully winning the 
liberation of Iraq and start to micromanage this politically from the 
Senate floor. This isn't going to happen. We are winning over there 
now. It is so refreshing, after all these years. Yes, it has been a 
long time. People keep reminding us this is longer than World War II. I 
know that, because each year I have had an opportunity to spend time 
over there, quality time, and see the changes that are taking place via 
the plan of this genius named David Petraeus, it is working. So we 
don't want to get in their way, and we won't get in their way, and we 
will go ahead and defeat these bills and let the military run the 
liberation as they see fit, and we are going to join them in our 
victory.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I know we are on a 30-hour postcloture 
period dealing with a piece of legislation related to Iraq. I want to 
speak about something else today, but let me at least begin by 
describing a somewhat different view.
  The fact is, Saddam Hussein was hung until he was dead, hung by his 
neck, and this brutal tyrant is dead. I suppose most of us wish that 
Osama bin Laden had been brought to justice, but it is Saddam Hussein 
who has been brought to justice in the country of Iraq. He is dead. The 
Iraqis have their own Constitution because they voted for it. The 
Iraqis have their own Government because they voted for it. The 
American taxpayer has spent $16 billion training 350,000 police and 
soldiers in Iraq for security purposes. Now the question is: Do the 
Iraqis who have been trained for police protection and security--both 
in the police force and as soldiers--do they have the will to provide 
for their own security? If they do not, this country cannot do it for 
any great length of time.
  We have been in Iraq for almost 5 years. Some day we are going to 
leave Iraq. The question is not whether; the question is when and how. 
The American people are not going to have us in Iraq for 10 and 15 and 
20 years. That is not the case. We are spending massive amounts of 
money, about $16 billion a month. Last year the President asked for 
more than $190 billion in emergency funding for the war. That is $16 
billion a month, $4 billion a week.
  It is time we begin to understand we have needs here at home, to 
begin taking care of things here at home. We are spending money on 
hundreds of water projects in Iraq. We are spending money on road-
building in Iraq. We are spending money on health clinics in Iraq. Yet 
we get a President's budget sent to us saying we don't have enough 
money for those things in our country. We will dramatically cut water 
projects in the United States. We will cut back on all of these 
investments in the United States, even as we are making those 
substantial investments in the country of Iraq.
  My point is that at some point we are going to have to bring American 
troops home. We can't keep doing as the President suggests, and that is 
spending emergency money by sending soldiers to Iraq and putting this 
on top of the debt so that when those soldiers come back from Iraq, 
they can help pay the debt. That is not the right way to approach what 
is happening in the country of Iraq.
  All of us want the same thing for our country. We want our country to 
succeed. We want our country to confront and defeat terrorists. Yes, we 
want Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is the person who heads al-Qaida. 
We are told by the Director of National Intelligence that he is safe 
and secure in northern Pakistan. There ought not be one square inch on 
the face of this Earth that is safe or secure for those who murdered 
Americans on 9/11. Yet more than 6 years later, this administration has 
not brought the leader and the leadership of the terrorist organization 
that attacked our country to justice. That is a failure, in my 
judgment, and it is a failure that results from taking our eye off the 
ball and having too few troops in Afghanistan and allowing Osama bin 
Laden to escape through Tora Bora, and then invading Iraq and 
committing ourselves to that over a lengthy period of time. The result 
is the greatest terrorist threat--according to the National 
Intelligence Estimate, the greatest terrorist threat against our 
country at this point is the leadership of al-Qaida. They are in a safe 
and secure haven in northern Pakistan. It seems to me that 7 years 
after 9/11, that has to be considered a failure. My hope would be all 
of us would engage in ways that begin to devote our attention to the 
greatest terrorist threat facing our country, and that is, as the 
National Intelligence Estimate says, the leadership of al-Qaida. They 
are recruiting and building new training camps and strengthening 
themselves even as we are tied down in the country of Iraq spending $16 
billion a month.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business 
for 15 minutes on another subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Medal of Honor for Woodrow Wilson Keeble

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, this is a picture of a man named Woodrow 
Wilson Keeble, a Sioux Indian. Woodrow Wilson Keeble died 26 years ago. 
If you take a look at this soldier's medals, you will see 2 Bronze 
Stars, a Silver Star, the Distinguished Service Cross, the second 
highest medal given in our country, and Purple Hearts.
  I want to tell my colleagues about Woody Keeble, a big man, well over 
6 foot, and well over 200 pounds. On Monday of next week at 2:30 in the 
afternoon, at the White House, President Bush will present the Medal of 
Honor to Woody Keeble. As I said, he has been dead for 26 years. His 
wife Blossom Keeble died last summer. We had hoped this would be done 
before his wife died, but that was not to be the case.
  I want to tell my colleagues about him because it is so unusual that 
a Medal of Honor will be presented posthumously to a soldier who 
demonstrated great acts of courage and heroism in both the Second World 
War and the Korean war.
  He was a Lakota Sioux born in Waubay, SD, and grew up in Wahpeton, 
ND, and lived most of his life there. He was wounded at least twice in 
World War II and 3 times in the Korean War. Let me describe what he did 
so that my colleagues will know why he is being given the Medal of 
Honor all of these years later.

[[Page 2702]]

  In World War II Woody Keeble served with the famed 164th Infantry 
Regiment of the North Dakota National Guard. Shortly after joining in 
1942, he found himself on Guadalcanal, in some of the most aggressive 
and dangerous hand-to-hand combat in the Second World War. He was in 
combat in the South Pacific until the war ended. He saw a great deal of 
combat. One of his fellow soldiers said the safest place to be was next 
to Woody. Woody earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in the Second 
World War. Woody was an unbelievable soldier.
  Then the Korean War came along and at age 34 this Lakota Sioux Indian 
signed up again. He said: Somebody has to teach the kids how to fight. 
So he went to Korea. He was attached to George Company, 2nd Battalion, 
19th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Division. They were near the Kumsong 
River in North Korea in October of 1951. He was the acting platoon 
leader of the 1st platoon of ``G'' Company. Casualties were very heavy. 
Because the company's officers were killed, he ended up in charge of 
the 1st Platoon, the 2nd Platoon, and the 3rd Platoon. It was brutally 
cold in North Korea at the time, and the enemy, the Chinese, were 
entrenched on a hill with a rugged cliff, and the side of that mountain 
was a very difficult thing that the U.S. troops had to take.
  So Woody Keeble, in charge of these 3 platoons, made 3 attempts to 
take that hill from the Chinese. The Chinese had 3 machine gun nests on 
top of the hill and soldiers in trenches defending that hill. Three 
times these platoons, with Woody leading them, went up the hill, and 3 
times they were repulsed and rejected, with heavy casualties.
  After 3 attempts to take that hill, Woody Keeble decided he would try 
it by himself. With grenades and a Browning Automatic Rifle he crawled 
back up the hill to the Chinese positions. Witnesses said he crawled 
through very heavy machine gun fire and through a blizzard of grenades. 
Woody Keeble scaled the hill, went around the pillboxes and knocked out 
all 3 machine guns by himself and then cleared out the trenches between 
them. When he returned they extracted 83 pieces of shrapnel from his 
body--83 pieces of shrapnel. But he wouldn't leave the battlefield 
until all of his men were on top of the hill and in a defensive 
position and only then would he allow himself to be evacuated.
  Right after the engagement all of the surviving members of G Company 
signed a letter putting him in for the Medal of Honor. It got lost and 
never got from the battlefield to the Pentagon. They did it a second 
time a month later and it too never got from the battlefield to the 
Pentagon.
  But in this photo, my colleagues can see the medals he did get: 
Multiple Purple Hearts, wounded 5 times; 2 Bronze Stars, a Silver Star; 
the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest medal. He was a 
well-decorated soldier. He went to Korea to help teach those kids how 
to fight and it turns out he is the one who climbed the hill and saved 
his soldiers, knocked out 3 machine gun nests by himself.
  Many years later the question was asked: Why was he not given the 
Medal of Honor? Those with whom he served began piecing together the 
action that day, all of those who were eyewitnesses and a part of the 
action on that hill in North Korea.
  A woman named Merry Helm especially took it upon herself over the 
years to try to reconstruct Woody's story. It took a lot of time to do 
so. Then it was sent to the U.S. Secretary of the Army with a request 
that he review the original request that had never been received at the 
Pentagon that Woody Keeble be awarded the Medal of Honor.
  The Secretary of the Army looked into the case and decided that Woody 
Keeble had indeed earned the Medal of Honor. The Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs agreed.
  But then all the people involved were informed that there is a 3-year 
statute of limitations on the request for a Medal of Honor. The 
Secretary of defense could only consider Woody's case if that statute 
of limitations was waived.
  At the request of those who had worked on it, I and my colleague from 
North Dakota, Senator Conrad, and our colleagues from South Dakota, 
Senator Johnson and Senator Thune, introduced legislation on an 
appropriations bill that waived the 3-year statute so the Secretary of 
the Defense could look at this case and decide.
  The Secretary of the Defense began evaluating what happened on that 
hill in North Korea on a cold day when Woody Keeble was a real hero. He 
eventually decided, having looked at all the information, that, indeed, 
this Lakota Sioux Indian who served this country in 2 wars, was wounded 
5 times, deserved the Medal of Honor. He sent it to the White House 
with the recommendation that the President approve the Medal of Honor.
  This coming Monday, at 2:30 in the afternoon, I will be at the White 
House witnessing a ceremony at the invitation of the President in which 
the President Bush will present a Medal of Honor posthumously to a 
really remarkable, courageous American soldier named Woodrow Wilson 
Keeble, the only Sioux Indian ever to have received the Medal of Honor, 
someone who served this country with unbelievable courage and 
distinction and valor.
  After the Korean war, he came back to Wahpeton, ND, and worked at the 
Wahpeton Indian School much of his life. He suffered multiple strokes, 
suffered significant health problems, and died 26 years later.
  The moment won't pass without some notice because the President is 
making a presentation on Monday. However, I wanted to say something 
here on the floor of the Senate so those who read the Record of the 
Senate will understand this was an extraordinary American.
  We are hearing a lot of discussion these days about the bill on the 
floor of the Senate dealing with Iraq and about who stands up for 
soldiers, who cares about American soldiers. The fact is, every single 
person in this Chamber cares about American soldiers and wants to 
support them, understands that they get up in the morning in some parts 
of this world--in Iraq especially--and they strap on body armor before 
they go out because they know there is a chance they can be killed or 
harmed. All of us understand what soldiers are doing for this country. 
I believe the one thing that unites this Chamber is we want to do right 
by American soldiers. The story of Woody Keeble is a story that ought 
to inspire all of us about what soldiers do for our country.
  I have told my colleagues previously about another soldier, another 
American Indian. His name was Edmund Young Eagle. He was from the 
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota. He went to war. He was in 
northern Africa, he was in Normandy, he was in Europe. He came back and 
lived with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He never had very much. He 
had kind of a tough life.
  At the end of his life, he was lying in a hospital bed at the VA 
hospital in Fargo, ND. His sister asked if I would get the medals he 
earned in the Second World War and never received. I did, and I took 
them to the VA hospital on a Sunday morning in Fargo, ND. The doctors 
and nurses crowded into his room, and Edmund Young Eagle--who at the 
time I didn't know was going to die 7 days later of lung cancer. Edmund 
Young Eagle was a sick man but very proud that morning. We cranked his 
bed up to a seated position, and then I pinned on his pajama top a row 
of medals this American Indian had earned serving his country in the 
Second World War. As sick as he was, he said quietly to me: This is one 
of the proudest days of my life--seated on his hospital bed wearing his 
pajama tops with his military medals.
  There are so many whose names we will not talk about on the floor of 
the Senate today, but I do say Woody Keeble and Edmund Young Eagle are 
just two of thousands--millions of American soldiers over the years who 
have refreshed this democracy by being willing to risk their lives.
  I wanted to call to the attention of the Senate Woodrow Wilson 
Keeble. I am enormously proud of him and his

[[Page 2703]]

family and his memory, and I am anxious to be at the White House on 
Monday when he receives posthumously the Medal of Honor.


                      Strategic Petroleum Reserve

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I wish to make a couple of additional 
comments on another subject.
  The price of oil is bouncing around at $100 a barrel, the price of 
gas is up to $3.00, $3.50, or more per gallon. There are people who kid 
about having to take out a loan at the bank to fill their gas tank. The 
question is, What is happening with oil?
  Let me tell you something. In the Energy & Natural Resources 
Committee this year, we have had witnesses testify that there is not a 
bit of justification for the price of a barrel of oil to be over $50 or 
$65 a barrel right now. So why is it $100 a barrel? Two reasons. One is 
that we have unbelievable speculation, a carnival of greed, with hedge 
funds and speculators neck deep in the futures markets speculating on 
oil. We have investment banks for the first time that are actually 
buying oil storage tanks so they can buy the oil and keep it off the 
market in order to sell it later when the price is higher. There is 
unbelievable speculation in the futures market pushing up oil which has 
nothing to do with the fundamentals of supply and demand, and there 
ought to be a full and complete investigation. I am asking the GAO to 
do that.
  The other issue is one that I find preposterous, and I am going to do 
everything I can in the coming days and weeks to stop it. Do you know 
that even as the price of oil is bouncing up at $100 a barrel of oil, 
this Government, this Department of Energy is putting oil underground 
for storage? We are awarding royalty-in-kind contracts to companies to 
take oil out of the Gulf of Mexico and instead of them selling the oil 
and putting it into the supply to put downward pressure on price, we 
are putting 60,000 barrels every single day underground in the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Having the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is 
fine. Save it for a rainy day, save for our security, put some away--I 
understand that. But why would you do that when oil prices are $100 per 
barrel? The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is 97 percent full, and we are 
taking 60,000 barrels per day and sticking it underground? That is 
preposterous. Toward the second half of this year, the Department of 
Energy will be putting approximately 125,000 barrels per day 
underground. There ought not be one additional barrel go underground at 
that point. It ought to go into the supply.
  I used to teach a little economics. I understand supply and demand. 
If you decrease supply, you increase price. It is just a fact. So this 
administration, by taking this royalty-in-kind oil from the Gulf of 
Mexico and sticking it underground into the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve, is pushing up the price of oil and gas.
  In fact, we had a witness in the Energy & Natural Resources Committee 
who testified that the Department of Energy is taking light, sweet 
crude off the market to put into the SPR. That is a subset of oil, a 
much more valuable kind of oil. One witness said just that amount--
sticking it underground by this administration could have increased the 
price of oil by as much as $10 per barrel. What is our Government doing 
increasing the price of oil by 10 per barrel? What do they think? Does 
somebody have their wires crossed someplace, and could they please see 
if they can figure out maybe with some common sense what they ought to 
do when oil is $100 a barrel, and that is stop putting oil underground 
and put it into the marketplace so we put some downward pressure on gas 
prices?
  I introduced legislation that puts an end to this practice. I am 
chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Energy 
Department's programs, including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I say 
to the Secretary and to those who made this decision: One way or 
another, I am going to win on this issue. We are not going to allow you 
to continue to stick oil underground when the price of oil is $100 a 
barrel and the price of gas is ranging up between $3.50 and $4 a 
gallon. We are just not going to allow you to continue to do that. This 
Congress is going to use some common sense and say stop it.
  Mr. President, that was therapeutic to say. My hope would be that at 
some point soon I will have a chance to offer that amendment, and we 
are all going to have a chance to vote on it. I will insist we vote on 
it. I believe this Congress is going to tell this administration to 
stop it, use a reservoir of common sense; don't stick oil underground 
when it's $100 per barrel. Put it into the supply, and put downward 
pressure on the price of oil. How about standing up for the American 
people and American drivers? Let's do that.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, is there any prearranged agreement on 
the speaking order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is an order that the Senator from 
Wisconsin will be recognized at 5 minutes to 6. There is no other 
sequence.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I see my colleague from California. I would like to 
speak for a few minutes. We are shortly coming to the hour. I don't 
know if we have been alternating back and forth.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I only need to speak for less than 10 
minutes, if I may, because I have been sitting here for a very long 
time.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, the time of the agreement says at 5 
o'clock the Senator from Wisconsin gets the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. No, at 5:55.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. At 5:55. I thought the Presiding Officer said 5 
o'clock. I will be happy to yield. I ask unanimous consent that after 
the Senator from California speaks, I be allowed to speak and then my 
colleague from South Carolina be allowed to follow me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I thank my friend and colleague. I will 
be brief because the message I have is a pretty straightforward 
message; that is, it is time for a change in Iraq. It has been a long 
time coming. We have been there 5 years, longer than we were in World 
War II, and it is time for a change in Iraq. It is time for a good 
change. What does that mean? It means that it is time for the Iraqis to 
stand up and fight for themselves.
  We know the violence there continues. We know that 15 percent of that 
violence is being perpetrated by foreign fighters, al-Qaida, and the 
rest--85 percent--is Iraqi-on-Iraqi ethnic violence. If the Iraqis are 
not ready to stop hurting each other and blowing each other up, if they 
are not ready to give that up, then we need to be ready to start 
pulling our troops out. It is pretty clear to me after 5 years that all 
our presence is doing at this point is acting as a recruiting tool for 
al-Qaida. Because we have this open-ended commitment--some on the other 
side are talking about 50 to 100 years--there really is not anything on 
our side to exert that leverage on the Iraqis. They are not fulfilling 
the benchmarks in the Government that this administration said they had 
to do.
  Here we have a situation where we have now lost 3,972 fighters on our 
side. Twenty-one percent of those were either born in California or 
were based in California. 29,275 Americans have been wounded, some of 
them grievously wounded, many more have traumatic brain injury and 
post-traumatic stress. The suicide rate is off the charts.
  There is no way out. There is no plan. There never has been a plan. 
It seems to me this open-ended commitment has to stop, and the Feingold 
bill essentially says we are going to have a very responsible 
withdrawal. There is no end date, but we are going to start it within 
120 days of enactment of the bill, and we are going to shift the 
mission so that it continues training Iraqis.
  By the way, I don't know if I mentioned this, the taxpayers of our 
country have paid to train 440,000 Iraqis.
  We are spending $10 billion a month. That leads me to my final point 
of why I wanted this time this afternoon.
  We have to start looking at what this is costing us. I say it is time 
for America. We are shortchanging our children. We need to provide 
health insurance to

[[Page 2704]]

many of our children. To provide health insurance to 10 million 
uninsured children for 5 years would cost us what it costs for 5\1/2\ 
months in Iraq. To enroll all eligible 3- to 4-year-olds in Head Start 
for 1 year would cost us 3 months in Iraq. To enroll 2.5 million kids 
in afterschool programs--and, boy, do I have a feeling for that one 
because I worked with Senator Ensign to set up the first afterschool 
program, and it has been shorted. For 7 days in Iraq, we can enroll 2.5 
million kids in afterschool programs for 1 year.
  What else can I tell you about the funding? We are shortchanging 
America's workers. We can immediately replace structurally deficient 
bridges in the United States and create more than 3 million good-paying 
jobs for 6\1/2\ months of the cost in Iraq. Don't you think our workers 
deserve it? I do.
  We could extend 13 additional weeks of unemployment insurance to the 
chronically unemployed workers in high-unemployment States. One month 
in Iraq.
  We could help an additional 1 million families keep their heat on 
this winter through the LIHEAP program. One day in Iraq, Madam 
President.
  My colleagues come here and they have no end in sight for Iraq. Open 
checkbook for Iraq. Iraq in the morning, Iraq in the afternoon, Iraq at 
night, Iraq for 20 years, 50 years, maybe 100 years, as one Senator 
said. We can't afford it anymore.
  OK, let's look at what else we could do. For those people like myself 
who care about homeland defense, for 6 weeks in Iraq we could ensure 
full interoperability of all our communication systems. Our firemen 
could talk to our policemen, who could talk to our sheriffs, who could 
talk to our hospitals, who could talk to our Red Cross. Six weeks in 
Iraq. We could provide first responders with 3 million communications 
devices for 1 month in Iraq. We could provide firefighters with 12 
million breathing devices for 1 month in Iraq.
  Finally, if you care about America's environment, as I do, and many 
of the people I represent do, we could extend renewable energy 
production tax credits for 4 years. We could do those tax cuts for 
investments in renewables for 3 weeks in Iraq. For less than 3 days we 
could erase the Superfund backlog. And for less than 1 day we could 
triple the Energy bill authorization to train green-collar workers.
  The American people have got to connect the dots here. We can't take 
care of our own. We can't take care of our kids. We can't do what we 
have to do for our workers. We can't do what we have to do for our 
businesses. We can't do what we have to do for our environment. And the 
reason is, our priority right now in this government, because of this 
administration and their friends in Congress, is Iraq in the morning, 
Iraq at 10 o'clock in the morning, Iraq at noon, Iraq at 5, Iraq at 
night, and we ignore the needs of our people.
  There is a time and a place to say to a country that is independent, 
after all we have done for it: Enough is enough. We trained 440,000. We 
put our American lives on the line. Our brave soldiers have done 
everything asked of them and more. They allowed three elections to be 
held. They got Saddam Hussein, they got Saddam's family, and they found 
there were no weapons of mass destruction. They did everything we asked 
them to do. And the Iraqi Government takes tiny little steps, baby 
steps forward, while we continue having our soldiers die and get 
wounded and our taxpayers have an open checkbook.
  My people come and say to me: Why can't we do more for our kids? Why 
can't we do more to protect our environment? Why can't we do more for 
our workers and our businesses? Why can't we do more to protect our 
people by investing in homeland security? I am now telling them the 
truth: Because the money is floating out of here straight to Iraq.
  And by the way, a lot of it is not accounted for--$9 billion missing 
in cash that was sent. The administration shrugs its shoulders: Oh, 
well, we don't know much about it. Scandals in contracting, embassies 
that are larger than the U.N. complex. Some of the Iraqi people call it 
GW's palace. I was in Saddam's palace, and I will tell you something. 
That was not a happy feeling because that is not something that we want 
to replicate, huge buildings like that, fancy. How much does it cost? 
Almost $800 million. It was supposed to cost $592 million. It doesn't 
matter, it is in Iraq. Open the checkbook and write the checks, says 
the President, the Vice President, and their friends in Congress, who 
are coming here and saying: No, no, no, every time we want to finally 
begin to bring this war to a close.
  Well, I have to tell you, I am ready for change, my constituents are 
ready for a change, and right now the Feingold legislation is 
responsible because it says we will keep troops there to protect our 
forces. We will slowly start bringing them home. We will redeploy them 
and have all the money we need to responsibly do that. And we will go 
after al-Qaida.
  I voted to go to war against Osama bin Laden. What happened to Osama 
bin Laden dead or alive? Oh, no, this administration turned around, 
went into Iraq, and as a result, we are not safe. Al-Qaida has 
reconstituted itself, and we are shortchanging the American people.
  I thank Senator Brownback for allowing me to go first, and I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Pryor). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from California 
for her comments. I respect her thoughts and her opinions and her 
consistency of position. I disagree, and I will articulate why on that.
  Mr. President, we have been arguing and debating on Iraq for some 
period of time, since we have gone to war, which we did on a bipartisan 
basis, and aggressively decided that this was an important strategy to 
pursue together. We did that 5 years ago. We have invested a lot of 
time and energy and life and blood and limb from this country.
  I was with a young man from Wichita, KS, yesterday who has a 
prosthesis on the bottom right of his foot. He was pleased to serve in 
Iraq. He doesn't like it that he has lost his foot, but he wants us to 
win and he wants us to see it on through.
  So here we are, 5 years later, a lot of investment, particularly of 
people and lives, and it would seem as if a fair number of people now 
in this body would say: OK, we have done it long enough, let's quit. 
Let's pull on out and let's hope it all works out.
  I don't think that is a responsible strategy. If I am hearing the 
people who have served there right, they want to see it through. They 
want to see us win, and they want to see us get it done right. They 
want to see us be able to bring a democracy that can stand on its own--
certainly not perfect, but one that can stand on its own in that region 
of the world. And they don't want to see us lose the investment we have 
made to date. And we have made a heavy investment. They don't want to 
see us walk away from it and say: OK, we didn't get it quite the way we 
wanted to. They do not want to see us walk away at such a point that 
the soldiers or the foreign fighters follow us back here and we see 
another 9/11.
  The bottom line is the safety and security of the young people we 
have talked about so much. We want to keep this place safe and secure. 
And one of the best ways to do that is to keep on the offensive.
  Mr. President, over the last few years, and particularly this last 
year, we have debated a lot of Iraqi resolutions, and they have all 
failed except one. One resolution has passed. It is the one I want to 
talk about. It is the one I did with Joe Biden, the Biden-Brownback 
resolution on devolving power and authority in Iraq. We voted and voted 
and voted last year. Nothing passed but this one. And because of it, 
what we were talking about is the model of devolving power and 
authority, a federal system, in Iraq.
  I have met with Iraqis since that period of time, and a number of 
them have challenged and questioned: OK, is this really the right way 
to go? We don't want to see the country broken up in three parts.
  I say: We are not talking about breaking the country up in three 
parts.

[[Page 2705]]

We have 50 States, and we are one country. We are talking about three 
or five states or regions there but one country. You devolve power and 
authority from the center so it is not just one group, a Shiite-
dominated central government that is dictating to a Kurdish, Sunni, 
Shiite country. Let's devolve that power and authority out. That 
passed. That passed.
  Now, what has happened since that has passed on the ground? Well, we 
are seeing nice progress actually taking place, political progress at 
the local and provincial levels is happening. We saw recently the Iraqi 
Parliament pass a legislative package--three bills together. They did 
something we do here often. You can't get one bill through, you can't 
get two, but three you can somehow get a coalition enough to pass it 
through. That is what they did, establishing the 2008 budget, 
clarifying provincial powers, and then offering amnesty for Sunni 
political prisoners, all three very important.
  That middle one, clarifying provincial powers, is a key one. I talked 
with one of the respected scholars on this, Michael O'Hanlin, on the 
phone today. He is one of the authors of the federalism approach in 
Iraq. We have a military strategy that we are taking advantage of today 
that is providing political space, and he believes we need to devolve 
authority and power to the regions. You are seeing that now taking 
place legislatively by the central body in Iraq, clarifying provincial 
powers.
  As I was talking with Mr. O'Hanlin, and also in my own thinking, we 
recently mostly talked about regions, and he is saying: Well, whether 
it is a region or a province, it is devolving of power and authority, 
and it is happening. And it is a good thing to get that out of the 
centralized area. What is allowing that to take place is more local 
governance. It is allowing people, whether they be Sunni or Kurd, or 
Shiite, or in a mixed area, to be able to solve more of their own 
problems rather than being dependent upon the central government that 
may have a bit of ideology or edge that you don't agree with, as 
happens around this country at times where people don't agree with what 
happens at the Federal Government, but they are wanting that decision 
to be made at the State level. That is starting to happen in Iraq. And 
it is diffusing some of the powder keg.
  Now, we are far from solving this, but the political space that has 
been granted by the military surge in the area is allowing this 
devolution of power and authority to happen. So we now have clarifying 
provincial powers taking place. The laws, as I mentioned, are not 
perfect, but they are giving this power and authority out to the 
regions. We are now seeing political progress at the local and 
provincial levels, and that is driving some of the politics at the 
national level. None of that could happen without security at the 
national level in Iraq, without U.S. troops there on the ground. Iraqis 
can gain stability by continuing to decentralize and move more power 
closer to individual Iraqis.
  I believe provincial elections later this year will accelerate the 
importance of local politics in Iraq, and that is what we want to take 
place because what we were seeing coming together was Shiite against 
Sunni, and the Kurds sitting in the north refereeing from time to time 
but other times staying off to their own and saying: Look, we are just 
going to sit up here and hope someday we will be able to have a nation 
and let those two guys fight. But now, instead, you are seeing this 
going down to Sunni councils and Shiite councils, and in some cases 
mixed neighborhoods.
  You do continue to see an ethnic move in neighborhoods, particularly 
in Baghdad, and some going more Sunni and others going more Shiite in 
some regions or some mixed ethnic or other religious communities that 
exist there and some Christian populations that are there. But you are 
seeing it start to work because we continue to provide the security 
umbrella.
  Now, let's take the security umbrella off. Let's have the Feingold 
amendment pass and send the signal to the Iraqis that we are moving 
out; that we are going to take care of our own areas, you take care of 
your own areas. What do we think at this most critical moment would 
happen if you pull that security piece out, the U.S. security piece 
out? Well, I think you would stop this move toward local and 
provincial. You invite more Iranian-financed problems into the region, 
in the hopes that the Shiite can take over and then dominate and 
possess all of Iraq--Sunni areas and possibly Kurdish areas as well, 
although they are pretty well fortified amongst themselves. You invite 
Sadr back in with his militia, where he just recently, for another 6 
months, asked his militias to stand down.
  I think you invite back into the picture at this key political moment 
for Iraq a bunch of forces that are going to hurt the long-term future. 
And so it seems to me this is a bad idea at a particularly bad time for 
us to pull troops out of Iraq.
  Now, I had trouble with the surge at the outset. I really questioned 
whether it was going to work. But the surge has worked, and this is 
coming from somebody who was a cynic as to whether this was going to 
work in that region.
  But that, along with the Sunnis deciding, okay, we are going to build 
up our region here, and these awakening councils that have taken place, 
along with evolving this political power and authority, and our better 
counterterrorism strategy. It is working. So why on Earth would we 
change something we have invested so much in now that is starting to 
produce the results we want? Why on Earth would we change that at this 
point in time? That does not seem to make much sense, of why you would 
do that at this point in time.
  I am a strong proponent of continuing to devolve this power and 
authority in Iraq. I think it is the way forward for them, as it was 
the way forward for our country when we had 13 original colonies that 
did not necessarily agree with each other but said, okay, let us have 
one Federal Government, but each one of us is going to maintain our own 
power and authority in a number of regions. Then over a period of 
years, we kind of worked things out. Over 50 years we have divided 
power and authority to State and local, Federal Governments, and this 
is going to take time for the Iraqis, but they need the political space 
our military provides. To pull out now, or to send a signal even of 
pulling out now, I think would be very harmful to the long-term 
investment we have made. I think it would send a signal to the region 
that we are going to allow the Iranian influence to spread. It would 
also invite much more aggressive actions, even toward us, and the 
pursuit of us here and other places around the world.
  That piece is speculation. We do not know what is going to happen in 
the future. But it does seem as though we are on a sort of track now 
that we can look to the future with some bit of optimism, whereas the 
other route of pulling out would certainly lead to a great deal of 
pessimism by the Iraqis and toward me about what we are going to be 
doing in providing the long-term security for the United States when we 
know that the terrorist objective is to attack and come after us, that 
you are likely to see a devolution to a terrorist state, or an Iranian-
type of satellite state in Iraq if we pull out precipitously, either of 
which are options that I think would be completely wrong for us to do 
as a nation and something I cannot support.
  For those reasons, I certainly would be voting against the Feingold 
amendment. I urge my colleagues to do that. I say, let us stick with 
something that is starting to work. It is not perfect. Let us stick 
with something on a political strategy that is starting to work. It is 
not perfect, but we have a model for it ourselves in the United States 
in our own history. It seems this would be a particularly unwise time 
to move off of that one bit of resolution that we have agreed upon, on 
political authority being devolved and to change a strategy on the 
military at this point in time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. I want to thank you and all my Democratic colleagues for

[[Page 2706]]

allowing me some time on the floor to discuss the progress in the war. 
This allows us as Republicans to contrast our position versus the 
position of retreating and announcing that we are giving up on Iraq.
  We have heard a lot of talk here today, and apparently there is too 
high a pricetag for freedom. Certainly you can make an argument that it 
is expensive to be in Iraq, just as other wars have been expensive and 
deadly to our country.
  World War II, the importance of that war can never be underestimated, 
and the price on it could not be estimated. The fact that we need to 
fight wars to show our strength as a nation has been proven time and 
time again. I am worried that the Senate is not united in the need to 
show strength against the war on terror.
  Last year at this time, my Democratic colleagues had said that the 
war in Iraq was lost, and implicitly the war against terror, since the 
front line today on the battle against terror is in Iraq. It was 
announced here on the Senate floor that the war was lost, that we were 
in a hopeless civil war in Iraq. Since then we have had about 40 votes, 
or different variations of votes to cut funding, to withdraw, to 
retreat, sending a terrible signal to our troops and our enemies that 
we lack the resolve that is necessary to win this war. Whether we call 
it running and retreating or giving up or saying America cannot win, 
all of those words and ideas emanated from the Senate floor from the 
majority side in the past year.
  Many even voted against the funds to surge the troops that has proven 
to be such a success over the last several months. Some of the funding 
as late as the end of last year was held hostage to gross earmarks that 
were unnecessary in a time of war. How can we talk about the war on 
terror being so expensive when we held those funds hostage to other 
things that were certainly not a high priority?
  I am afraid my Democratic colleagues, at least many of them--I know 
this is not true for all of them, but too many clearly do not 
understand the threat of terrorism in our world today and what that 
means to our country and our freedom. Too many have forgotten the 
importance of a strong military and how that results in peace around 
the world when nations respect the power of the United States of 
America. But who can respect America any longer, after stating our 
resolve to stand Iraq up as a free and stable democracy, if in the 
middle of that challenge we decide to retreat and withdraw?
  The very fact that we have talked about it so many times has sent a 
signal of weakness that has empowered our enemies and likely put more 
of our forces at risk. I hope this is the last time we do it this year.
  Everyone has a right to dislike the war, to say it is too expensive. 
But our responsibility here in the Senate is much different than the 
average citizen. When we send a signal that we are not supporting the 
key mission of our military, we do much to demoralize our troops, and 
to strengthen the resolve of our enemies.
  Again, I hope this is the last time we will do it. My Democratic 
colleagues cannot have it both ways. They continue to try to say they 
support the troops, but everything they actually do undermines them, 
pulls the rug right out from under what they are trying to do. It's a 
lot of empty rhetoric. But in the last week we have seen from the 
Democrats on the House side, a key essential part of our intelligence 
system is being threatened because we will not give the administration 
the tools to use our technology to intercept messages from terrorists 
who might be planning to attack us or our interests around the world.
  I returned from Iraq a couple of weeks ago. This is my third trip. I 
saw a marked difference from anything I had ever seen before. The 
statistics have been talked about here on the floor of the Senate: The 
monthly attacks have decreased 60 percent since June of last year; 
civilian deaths are down over 75 percent in the last year; al-Qaida in 
Iraq remains a threat but their power and ability to do damage has been 
greatly diminished.
  I wish to talk a little bit about the trip. I joined Senator Ensign 
and Senator Tom Coburn on this trip. Once we landed in Baghdad, we took 
a helicopter to a small community about 30 miles south of Baghdad. This 
was a community that was controlled and terrorized by al-Qaida up until 
about 3 months ago. You would not even go down Main Street in an 
armored vehicle, we were told by our troops there.
  Yet we landed at an American outpost there, American soldiers were 
living in that community a couple of blocks from the Iraqi Army outpost 
where they were living in the community, and we walked out of our 
outpost on the main street and talked to the citizens who had opened 
their markets, talked to the Iraqi soldiers, and talked to the citizens 
who were helping to patrol the area. In this picture here I am talking 
with one of the local sheiks, Sheik Ali, who told us that al-Qaida only 
a few months before had dragged his father in front of him and shot him 
and killed him.
  Next to him is an Iraqi soldier whom we helped to train. They are as 
sharp as any soldier you would expect to see. This community is well 
protected. Colonel Ferrell, who is in charge of the outpost, who took 
us down the main street, was giving us briefings and we were talking to 
the sheik as well as the Iraqi soldiers. They were proud to tell us 
what was happening there.
  The sheiks and the local tribes are the key to working with the 
American surge and have freed much of Iraq in the last 6 months. These 
local leaders have turned against al-Qaida, because al-Qaida has done 
such damage and such brutality to their families and their communities 
that they are now talking with us and helping us to defeat al-Qaida in 
that area there.
  I have another photo here. I know it is difficult to see. But we were 
walking down a street that was empty except for bodies a few months 
ago. These little markets have opened. As we walked down the street, in 
this case it was mostly American soldiers walking with us, except for 
this group--these young men in the green jackets which they called in 
this community the ``Sons of Iraq.'' Our military pays them to help 
patrol every day. When I asked the colonel, when all of these citizens 
came running out to us, why were they not worried about them blowing 
themselves up and killing all of the soldiers and us who were walking 
down the street, the colonel responded: Because we know everyone who is 
here.
  A lot of these folks from the markets came out and hugged our 
soldiers. I tell you, I couldn't have felt better to see our soldiers 
so appreciated in that area, to see these young men with walkie-
talkies. Their job is to patrol, to make sure if any stranger comes to 
the community, that they notify the Iraqi Army and the American Army so 
that these people can be checked out.
  We saw a number of trucks with mattresses and furniture piled high, 
of people moving back to this little community--who had moved out 
months and years before because al-Qaida had run them out. We walked 
down several blocks. Probably 80 to 100 markets have reopened, and the 
people were glad to see us. They were cheerful. They feel as if they 
have their community back.
  We have not won this war yet, but we can see everywhere we go that 
Iraqis are standing up and taking back their country for themselves. 
And our troops, along with the Iraqi troops whom we helped to train, 
and the Sons of Iraq are guarding and protecting their community.
  I want to talk about one Marine here. This is Major Alston Middleton, 
who actually went to Porter-Gaud High School in Charleston. He is a 
Marine working in the base where we are training Iraqi soldiers. Every 
3 weeks we are producing 2,500 new Iraqi soldiers who go straight from 
that camp to the battlefield. They are being trained with the same 
equipment and arms they will be using when they get there.
  He is proud of what he is doing. Everywhere we went, our troops 
wanted to prove to us that what we were doing was necessary, it was 
right, it was working, and we could win it. It was important to them 
that we know it.

[[Page 2707]]

  When I asked them what do they need that they do not have, the answer 
I got--more than any other answer--was: Do not forget us. Some of the 
rhetoric on this floor has sent the signal to our troops that we are 
forgetting them and do not appreciate what they are doing.
  This Marine, away from his family, like all of the other Marines, 
sailors, soldiers, and airmen we see there, many of them away from 
their children and spouses for over a year, we know what sacrifices 
they are making. But I am afraid these Marines are not respected in 
some parts of this country. I am afraid the Democrats on the Berkeley 
City Council in California--and some here may say that is an isolated 
situation, but it is not, because they are taking their signals from 
what they hear right here on the Senate floor. They called our Marine 
recruiters unwelcome intruders. They called them thugs. They called 
them Bush's murderers. When you see the video and what they called our 
Marines, while our Marines are sweating and bleeding and dying for us 
and our freedoms.
  What the Berkeley city council did was not freedom of speech. The 
protesters had their freedom of speech for months, but that wasn't good 
enough for them. They wanted the power of government behind them to 
support their point of view at the expense of the Marines and all 
Americans who appreciate our Marines and love what they do. We need to 
recognize that some of the things that have been said right here are 
sending a signal to people like the Berkeley city council to show 
disrespect for people like Major Alston Middleton, who is willing to 
put his life on the line for us.
  I have introduced a bill we call the Semper Fi Act, named after the 
Marine motto, which means ``always faithful.'' It is just to rattle the 
cages a little bit of the city council in Berkeley, to tell them: OK, 
if you want to take exception to our Federal mission there in Berkeley, 
certainly you don't deserve these secret earmarks we have sent to 
Berkeley in the last several months. But the Marines are always 
faithful and always have been. They are faithful to our country, to 
each other. We need to be faithful to them and all those who are 
fighting for us.
  This discussion on the floor is again trying to have it both ways, 
that we support our troops, but then we don't. We don't support them 
when we don't support the very mission we have asked them to give their 
lives for. We can't have it both ways. We can't keep having this 
discussion which questions, before the whole world, the very mission we 
have asked of our soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coast 
Guardsmen and all the civilian support staff we have in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and throughout the world who are fighting the war on 
terror. We are going to win the war on terror because of the resolve we 
have to be free and peaceful as a nation.
  I hope we will get the message here that our troops have in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and around the world, that sometimes you have to fight for 
the freedom we have here in this country. Now is the time we have to 
fight. The fact that we have shown resolve in the last year has 
resulted in clear successes in Iraq that are undeniable. We know we can 
win this battle, but this battle will not be the last one. The 
terrorists are going to be here for a generation or more. If they are 
not in Iraq, they are going to be in Afghanistan or they will be in 
Africa. They are going to be somewhere, if they are not here, doing 
their terrorist deeds against the peaceful people of the world. We have 
to show resolve. Our enemies must know that we will never stop until we 
root them out and do away with them.
  I also want to make one last comment because the folks from South 
Carolina are in so many ways very involved with the effort in Iraq. In 
fact, over the last several years the airmen at Charleston Air Force 
Base flying C-17s carry more of the cargo, supplies, and arms into Iraq 
than any other base in our country. This picture is one of the crews 
that flew us out of Afghanistan back to Kuwait on our way home. But we 
actually had three teams out of Charleston that moved us from Kuwait to 
Baghdad, out of Baghdad and to Afghanistan and back. They are proud of 
what they do. They wanted us to know, and me to tell you, that they 
believe this mission is important and that we can win it. Every day 
they save lives and deliver freedom.
  All they need is our support, not our empty rhetoric, our real 
support and our belief in them and what they are doing. I came back 
with that belief and that resolve, that what we are doing is right. If 
we continue what we are doing, we will win, and we will continue to set 
the terrorists back on their heels and keep our country safe.
  I thank the men and women at Charleston Air Force Base who are making 
all Americans proud as they serve all over the world on their missions.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, what time remains for our side of the 
aisle?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fifteen and one-half minutes on the Democratic 
side.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to talk about Iraq and Senator 
Feingold's legislation to start bringing our troops home from Iraq. But 
as I stand here on this floor, I listen to one of our colleagues speak 
of a group out West who may have said something disrespectful and 
offensive about our troops and that this group may have learned it here 
on this floor and I feel I must respond. That is an insult to all of us 
who are part of this body. It is outrageous to say this group learned 
that here. No one here disrespects our troops. No one here wants 
anything but the best for them. We ought not to start off that way, as 
we discuss the Feingold legislation.
  I wish to begin my remarks with President Bush's now infamous 
declaration almost 5 years ago when he announced ``mission 
accomplished.'' We sadly remember that day, when the President landed 
on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln like a conquering hero, standing 
before a huge banner, which we see here portrayed. We remember watching 
as President Bush declared that day to be the end. It turned out to be 
a stunningly casual statement, not unlike another remark the President 
made when he said, talking about the enemy, ``bring them on.'' I served 
in Europe during World War II, and I never heard a commander invite 
more of the enemy to come to fight.
  When the President stood there that day, the insinuation was that it 
was the end of major combat operations, the end of America's 
casualties, the end of America's role as the major player in Iraq's 
future. But many of us remember fearing that it was not the end.
  Today, as we look at the terrible costs to our troops, to their 
families, to our priorities here at home, to the war against the 
terrorists who attacked us, and to America's standing, we realize that 
day in 2003 was only a beginning. When the President stood on the deck 
of that carrier, America had lost 139 of our troops in Iraq. As we 
stand here today, we have lost almost 4,000. To be exact, 3,968 
Americans have died in Iraq; 102 of those troops had ties to my home 
State of New Jersey; 95 percent of the mothers, fathers, sons, and 
daughters we have lost were killed in action after President Bush said 
``mission accomplished.''
  That mission was not accomplished. President Bush's war has left 
children growing up without parents and parents to grow old with no 
children. His war has caused nearly 29,000 troops to leave the combat 
theater with their wounds. Nearly 700 of them lost limbs, and many more 
have left with wounds to their minds. Our troops are returning home 
from the Iraqi desert with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic 
stress disorder, making it so difficult for them to return to their 
families, their jobs, and their lives.
  Instead of spending $3 billion each week to wage war on education or 
childhood disease in America, the President is spending $3 billion a 
week to wage war in Iraq. Amazingly, I found someone who doesn't know 
that sad fact--the President's own Director of the Office of Management 
and Budget, Mr. Nussle. I recently asked him

[[Page 2708]]

how much we were spending each week in Iraq, in a budget hearing. 
Director Nussle said he didn't know. Almost everybody in America 
besides him knows very well--$3 billion each and every week. It is 
unacceptable. It is an insult to the American people who are funding 
this war and an insult to our troops who are still fighting it.
  The President will claim we are making military progress in Iraq and 
that the surge is working. But let's tell the American people the 
truth. America lost 901 mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers in 
the year 2007 alone; 2007 was the deadliest year for America since the 
start of the Iraq war.
  More than 3,300 members of New Jersey's Army Reserves and National 
Guard are scheduled to deploy to Iraq this year. Just a couple of weeks 
ago, I went to Fort Dix, a major military base in New Jersey. I talked 
to people who already served there on extended tours, and they were 
weary. They were willing to do their duty. They respected their 
obligation. But their families were not happy. The people I saw, the 
spouses, the children were not happy about their wife or husband, or 
mother or father going away again. Some of them are going to get hurt, 
and some of them may never come home. As they do their duty with honor 
and bravery, they count on us to do ours.
  Their deployment is a reminder that the President's surge is 
fundamentally flawed. His solution is built on military strength, when 
a political and diplomatic solution is what is needed in Iraq. Iraq, 
not America, needs to accomplish these goals, and we want them to do 
it. We want them to make it possible for us to start bringing our 
troops home as soon as possible. They have to do it. It is their 
responsibility. It is their country, and we want to end our presence 
there.
  The surge is also a distraction from the war President Bush started 
in response to 9/11 but never finished. That was the war on terror.
  When the President spoke to our country after September 11, he said:

       I will never forget this wound to our country or those who 
     inflicted it.

  But it appears that he has forgotten. He has forgotten about Osama 
bin Laden, the man who inflicted those terrible wounds on the victims, 
their families, and this country. He has forgotten that the war against 
al-Qaida and the hunt for Osama bin Laden began and continues outside 
Iraq. And because we have lost our focus, Afghanistan is now spinning 
back toward violence and chaos.
  After the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, the Taliban was down and 
wounded. Now it seems the Taliban is growing stronger. Over the past 2 
years, southern Afghanistan has seen the worst violence since the 
Taliban was dismantled. Last year was the deadliest year for troops in 
Afghanistan since 2001. Today, al-Qaida has also found sanctuary in 
remote areas of Pakistan, and the Afghani-Pakistani border is so porous 
that terrorists flow through it like wind.
  If all of this were not bad enough, just look at what the President's 
war has done to America's standing and prestige in the world. There 
used to be a time when people saw America as the moral leader, and 
Americans were proud of this country's standing in the world. In World 
War II, for example, we had strength because most of the free world was 
with us. Now is not one of those times. Now much of the world is 
against us. More than 70 percent of Iraqis disapprove of American 
presence in their country, and 67 percent of citizens across the globe 
believe American forces should leave Iraq within a year. Countries that 
were our allies when we first invaded Iraq, such as Italy, Poland, 
Spain, and Denmark, have left us in the desert. And Great Britain, one 
of America's greatest historical allies, sent its troops from Iraq into 
Afghanistan.
  President Bush, why are we not so wise?
  To date, the President has spent more than $526 billion on the war in 
Iraq. That is more than half a trillion dollars on a war that continues 
to take American youth, empower our rivals, turn our friends against 
us, and let our enemies remain on the loose.
  If that cost were not unbelievable enough, the President had the 
audacity to ask the American people to spend even more. He has a 
pending request of $105 billion for the rest of 2008, and Defense 
Secretary Robert Gates has estimated that Iraq will cost another $170 
billion for 2009. Every dime we spend on Iraq is a dime we cannot spend 
on our home--on homeland security for our cities, police for our 
streets, education for our children, and health care for our families. 
In fact, the President has requested just now a cut of $800 million 
from a critical homeland security grant program, leaving Americans more 
exposed to dangers at home.
  It is time for us to realize it is never going to be enough money. 
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used to say we would stand 
down when the Iraqis stood up. No one says that anymore.
  So let me stand up and make it clear: It is time for the troops to 
start coming home. They have earned the right to get back to their 
loved ones, their kids, their spouses, and their country. I hope we 
will see that day in the not too distant future.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senate once again is debating a bill by 
Senator Feingold, Senator Reid, myself, and others to change course in 
Iraq. And once again, I urge the Senate to act.
  This is a war started under false pretenses, waged with incompetent 
political policymaking that disserved the bravery and sacrifice of our 
fighting men and women. This is a war that now slogs on--week after 
week, year after year--with nothing but a ``pause'' on the horizon, and 
still no end in sight. The toll of American casualties rolls on, and so 
does the drain on the Nation's resources, heading inexorably past the 
hundreds of billions of dollars toward an unfathomable trillion 
dollars.
  The war has sapped our credibility, strained our alliances, and 
complicated our security challenges.
  Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains at large and al-Qaida has been 
given the opportunity to regenerate. The northwestern frontier between 
Pakistan and Afghanistan is a lawless extremist haven.
  A redeployment of American forces along the lines of the Feingold-
Reid measure would force the Iraqis to realize that our presence is 
finite. If they want to step away from the abyss, it will take real 
reconciliation and the will to get it done.
  The Bush administration's failed policy in Iraq has stretched our 
military to the breaking point, diluted and diverted our efforts to 
counter al-Qaida and its affiliates in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and 
roiled the Middle East with instability. The sooner we change course 
the sooner we can implement a sound, sensible, and sustainable policy 
that truly advances our security interests.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased we have had a chance to 
debate S. 2633, the Feingold-Reid bill requiring the safe redeployment 
of our troops from Iraq. I am very grateful to the majority leader for 
allowing this debate and for cosponsoring this legislation. He is a 
strong opponent of the war, and he understands how it is distracting us 
from our top national security priority: defeating the global threat 
presented by al-Qaida and its affiliates.
  While the debate on Iraq is refreshing, the Republicans still will 
not allow us to actually vote on the bill. In fact, if you listened to 
the other side during this debate, it was apparent they believe leaving 
large numbers of U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely for an open-ended 
military mission is somehow in our country's interest.
  The American people must be scratching their heads and thinking: What 
is it going to take to get those folks in Washington to listen to us? I 
can assure them--and I can assure my colleagues--we will have more 
debate and votes on Iraq. Members will have still more opportunities to 
listen to their constituents, and to listen to the warnings about the 
global threat from al-Qaida and the intolerable strain on our military. 
And they will again have

[[Page 2709]]

to decide whether to keep ignoring those warnings and give the 
President the green light to continue a war without end in Iraq.
  In a few minutes, the Senate will vote in relation to another 
Feingold-Reid bill, S. 2634, addressing al-Qaida. Before I discuss that 
bill, I wish to respond to some of the criticisms that have been 
leveled against the Feingold-Reid Iraq redeployment bill.
  I am glad some of my colleagues have apparently taken the time to 
read the Iraq bill, but I wish some of them had read it a little more 
carefully, or thought a little harder, before voicing some of their 
concerns.
  Of course, some of the criticisms come from Members who have no 
interest in stopping or slowing down the war. But I have even heard a 
few complaints from Members on our side who oppose the war. In fact, 
some Democrats seem to be trying a lot harder to come up with arguments 
against this bill, and against Congress acting, than they are trying to 
end the war. One or two senior Democrats are actually lobbying hard 
behind the scenes against the Feingold-Reid bill. That is 
disappointing, to say the least, and it shows us all what we continue 
to be up against as we try to bring this war to a close.
  Let me start by pointing out that the Feingold-Reid bill does not--
does not--restrict the Government's ability to go after al-Qaida and 
its affiliates around the globe. In fact, one of the main purposes of 
the bill is to ensure we have the full capability to do just that. When 
it comes to our troops in Iraq, however, we cannot allow this President 
to use the narrow exceptions in this bill to continue his misguided 
policies. The language in the bill has been crafted to try to ensure 
the administration does not--and cannot--continue to maintain a heavy 
military footprint in Iraq.
  Specifically, the first exception in the Feingold-Reid bill allows 
funding to continue for ``targeted operations, limited in duration and 
scope, against members of AQ and affiliated international terrorist 
organizations.''
  This provision allows operations against AQ in Iraq because fighting 
al-Qaida is central to our national security. But it does not allow the 
President to continue the current opened-ended mission because it is 
not in our national security interest to leave our troops on the front 
lines in the middle of an Iraqi civil war.
  The ``limited in duration and scope'' language prohibits operations 
without a clearly defined counterterrorism objective, such as the 
current open-ended mission. And, of course, this provision, like the 
rest of the bill, only applies to Iraq. It does not affect any other 
U.S. operations around the world. But if my colleagues are particularly 
troubled by this ``duration and scope'' language, I am open to 
discussing with them any reasonable modifications that do not open new 
loopholes. And this is no reason to completely block the Senate from 
even considering the bill. My colleagues are free to try to amend it, 
if they will only let us take it up.
  If my colleagues think we should have U.S. troops conducting 
operations in Iraq against other organizations that are not affiliated 
with AQ, then we do, in fact, have a difference of opinion. We need to 
be clear about our priorities. Our top national security priority is 
the threat posed by al-Qaida and its affiliates. Pitting our brave men 
and women in uniform against groups or entities in Iraq that do not 
pose a direct threat to the United States is a misuse of our resources, 
and it is exactly that mistake I am trying to fix with this 
legislation.
  Obviously, at all times, U.S. troops in Iraq will be able to defend 
themselves against any perceived threat, regardless of who it comes 
from. But when we are talking about planning and conducting operations, 
those operations would need to be targeted against members of al-Qaida 
or affiliates. If we cannot figure out who we are launching operations 
against, and if we cannot figure out how to distinguish between al-
Qaida in Iraq and the many other unsavory actors in Iraq who do not 
directly threaten our interests, then we have a serious intelligence 
problem which underscores the degree to which this war is distracting 
us from our top priority.
  The Feingold-Reid bill also allows U.S. troops to remain in Iraq to 
provide ``security for personnel and infrastructure of the United 
States Government.'' A question has been raised about whether U.S. 
troops could also provide security for non-U.S. coalition forces under 
this provision. Of course, the vast majority of foreign troops in Iraq 
are U.S. troops. We are the ones holding the bag there, and that is a 
direct result of this administration's decision to rush to war without 
building a strong, sustainable coalition. So raising concerns about 
non-Iraqi coalition forces is largely a red herring. However, I respect 
the contributions of those coalition troops, and I would be open, 
again, to discussing ways in which we can ensure they are protected 
without opening up a big loophole to keep a lot more U.S. troops there. 
Again, technical concerns such as this are no reason to block us from 
even considering the bill. Frankly, it sounds like an excuse not to 
deal with the real issue, which is our need to get out of this 
situation.
  The Feingold-Reid bill also permits U.S. troops to be stationed in 
Iraq to provide ``training to members of the Iraqi Security Forces who 
have not been involved in sectarian violence or in attacks upon the 
U.S. Armed Forces. . . .''
  This does not require any kind of guarantee that ISF troops receiving 
training have not been involved in sectarian violence or attacks upon 
the U.S., as some have suggested. It just requires some good-faith 
effort to make sure we are not assisting some of the very people 
responsible for destabilizing Iraq and killing Americans. That seems 
pretty reasonable, doesn't it? Just kind of a good-faith effort to make 
sure we are not helping people who have already killed Americans. One 
would think that was reasonable.
  This should not be controversial. We have a policy as a government of 
not supporting militaries around the world that commit undisciplined 
acts of violence, and this administration ostensibly vets foreign 
militaries thoroughly under what is known as the ``Leahy Law.'' I do 
not see why we should make an exception for Iraq, particularly when the 
GAO and General Jones have issued reports showing that the ISF is 
compromised by militias. If we continue to arm and train the ISF, we 
may simply be contributing to ongoing instability in Iraq. At a 
minimum, then, we need to be careful to ensure we are not giving some 
of the worst actors in Iraq the tools to perpetuate further violence 
and bloodshed.
  Oh, and by the way, we have already trained over 439,000 ISF 
personnel. This certainly raises questions about how much more training 
they need. We need to make sure the President cannot keep tens of 
thousands of troops in Iraq policing the civil war under the guise of 
``training.''
  Indeed, the ``training'' U.S. military personnel in Iraq are 
providing is not what is traditionally thought of as training, such as 
boot camp. Our training is all field training, and there is no bright 
line between training and joint operations.
  Now, some folks here think that is fine. They want U.S. troops to 
continue being embedded with Iraqi troops, conducting joint operations. 
The Feingold-Reid bill would not foreclose all joint operations or the 
equipping of ISF. U.S. troops could continue to conduct joint 
counterterrorism operations with ISF so long as the operations target 
al-Qaida or affiliated international terrorist organizations. But U.S. 
troops could not be embedded with Iraqi Security Forces for 
``training'' purposes. And the U.S. may continue to equip ISF but may 
not deploy U.S. troops to Iraq solely for this purpose.
  Some on our side want U.S. troops to continue providing ``logistical 
support'' to Iraqi forces indefinitely. This, again, is a backdoor way 
to keep substantial numbers of U.S. troops on the front lines, 
performing basic combat support functions, such as providing air 
support. Even seemingly run-of-the-mill logistical operations can be 
extremely dangerous in the chaotic environment in Iraq. That is not in 
our national security interest, and it is not something

[[Page 2710]]

we should permit. We need a full redeployment, not a halfhearted half 
measure.
  I hope my colleagues will rethink their opposition to the Feingold-
Reid bill. If they do have these kinds of concerns about it, 
particularly some of the more technical concerns I have addressed, 
well, let's actually allow the bill to come to the floor and let's have 
amendments and votes. That is our responsibility as legislators, and we 
owe it to our constituents and our men and women in uniform to have 
this debate in the open and on the record.


                                S. 2634

  Mr. President, while we may be done debating Iraq for now, the Senate 
has another opportunity to support a bill that would help get our 
national security strategy straight. That bill is S. 2634, which I also 
introduced with Leader Reid, along with Senators Boxer, Brown, Byrd, 
Casey, Clinton, Dodd, Harkin, Lautenberg, Leahy, Menendez, Obama, 
Schumer, and Whitehouse.
  Frankly, it is a pretty modest bill. It simply requires the 
administration to provide Congress with a report outlining a 
comprehensive, global strategy to defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates, 
one that ensures we are bringing all of our assets to the table: 
military, diplomatic, intelligence, and other. The strategy must ensure 
that U.S. resources and assets are targeted appropriately to meet the 
regional and country-specific threats that we face and that troop 
deployments do not overstretch our military. This seems pretty 
straightforward. Don't we want to make sure we are correctly 
prioritizing the geographic threats posed by al-Qaida and its 
affiliates around the world? And don't we need to make sure all of our 
assets, including military intelligence and diplomatic ones, are 
properly focused on addressing those threats? Shouldn't we make sure we 
aren't imposing an impossible burden on our military in the process? It 
appears, however, that the administration is afraid of what such a 
strategy would say; namely, that while it is focusing its attention and 
resources on Iraq, the threat posed by al-Qaida and its affiliates in 
Pakistan and many places around the world is growing.
  The DNI--the Director of National Intelligence--warned this month 
that al-Qaida:

     has retained or regenerated key elements of its capability, 
     including its top leadership, operational lieutenants, and a 
     de facto safe haven in the Pakistani border area with 
     Afghanistan.

  Yes, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, 
testified recently that:

       The most likely near-term attack on the United States will 
     come from al-Qaida via its safe havens in Pakistan.

  In a recent report led by former NATO Commander GEN James Jones, he 
called Afghanistan a ``strategic stalemate'' and warned that 
``Afghanistan remains a failing State. It could become a failed 
State.''
  So while our military and intelligence experts are saying this, the 
President's Iraq policies have stretched our military to the breaking 
point. Yesterday, the Senate heard testimony from top Army officials 
that the Army is under serious strain and must reduce the length of 
combat tours as soon as possible. Listen to what GEN George Casey, 
Chief of Staff of the Army, had to say:

       The cumulative effects of the last 6 plus years at war have 
     left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight, 
     and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly 
     sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility 
     for an uncertain future.

  These are the words of GEN George Casey: out of balance, unable to do 
the things we need to do.
  We need to heed these dire warnings and recognize that the 
President's Iraq policies are unsustainable. The Feingold-Reid bill, S. 
2634, would force the administration to confront that reality and to 
confront the dangerous threat posed by al-Qaida while our troops are 
bogged down in Iraq.
  Unfortunately, the administration has its head stuck in the sands of 
Iraq. It actually threatened yesterday to veto this commonsense bill. I 
guess the President doesn't want the American people to know how off 
track we are. Well, believe me, they actually know. They have been 
watching over the past few years as this administration has confused 
the war in Iraq with the fight against al-Qaida. They want a change, 
and they don't want to wait another year for another President and 
another Congress to finally act on their concerns.
  I hope my colleagues listen to them and listen to our intelligence 
experts when they warn us about the serious threat posed by al-Qaida in 
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. If they do, this bill will pass 
100 to nothing, and the American people will breathe a sigh of relief 
that finally their voices are being heard.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, in a few minutes we will have a 
procedural vote on another proposal by the junior Senator from 
Wisconsin, a bill that would direct the administration to produce in 60 
days a new global strategy for defeating al-Qaida. But first, a word 
about the first Feingold bill which dictates withdrawal.
  Last year's bold decision to launch a counterinsurgency plan under 
General Petraeus has renewed our hopes for a unified Iraq to govern, 
defend, and sustain itself as an ally in the war on terror. Our men and 
women in uniform have protected the Iraqi people, scattered al-Qaida, 
deterred militias, and helped to create an environment that has led to 
progress not only at the tactical level but in government and in 
reconciliation as well. We owe them all a great debt.
  In September, General Petraeus outlined his plan for bringing these 
men and women back after a job well done and for transitioning our 
mission to one of partnership and overwatch. I might say 
parenthetically, I was just with General Petraeus's wife a few moments 
ago, who is at a reception here in the Capitol complex for people from 
the Fort Campbell area. Earlier in General Petraeus's career, he was 
the commander of the 101st Division of the storied Screaming Eagles who 
have been at the tip of the spear in both Afghanistan and Iraq over the 
last 4 years. General Petraeus has had three different assignments in 
Iraq. We are all thoroughly familiar with his current assignment, but 
his wife is a good soldier indeed as well, and I had an opportunity a 
few moments ago to thank her again not only for his contribution but 
for her sacrifice as well.
  This reduction in forces that General Petraeus's mission has made 
possible has already begun, and the Iraqi people are prepared for 
provincial elections in October. Due to the success of the Petraeus 
plan, Sunnis now serving as Sons of Iraq and defending their own Nation 
will now have a real stake in those elections. When General Petraeus 
and Ambassador Crocker return this April, we should listen to their 
recommendations to ensure that the hard-earned gains of the surge are 
maintained.
  But one thing is already clear from the successes we have recently 
seen. Congress needs to stop considering this war in fits and starts 
and through piecemeal debates. We need to understand that our interests 
in the Persian Gulf and Iraq are long-standing and will not vanish 
because we have a Presidential election in November. We can't wish the 
dangers away.
  This leads me to the second Feingold measure calling for a new 
strategy in defeating al-Qaida. We deal with global strategies and 
long-range plans through the national security strategy, the national 
military strategy, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and through the 
annual defense legislation. If the Senator from Wisconsin wanted to 
know how our global strategy to combat al-Qaida fits into the context 
of these reports and reviews, he might have asked the administration to

[[Page 2711]]

produce such a document in the annual Defense Authorization Act. Also, 
I might suggest that one sure way of strengthening our fight against 
al-Qaida and other terrorists would be for the Democratic leadership 
over in the House of Representatives to stop blocking a vote on the 
bipartisan, Senate-passed FISA bill. We know there is a bipartisan 
majority in the House of Representatives to pass the same bill that 
passed the Senate by a large bipartisan majority. A good way to 
strengthen our efforts against al-Qaida would be to take up and pass 
that bill.
  It would be irresponsible to cut off funds for troops in the field. 
We will not pass a bill that does so. But we welcome debate on the al-
Qaida report because we are ready to provide all of the resources 
required to defeat al-Qaida, to include quick passage of the Defense 
appropriations supplemental, full funding of the 2009 Defense 
Appropriations Act, and passage of a FISA bill that will allow our 
intelligence community to continue to hunt terrorists.
  We must also consider the full cost of our Nation's global 
commitments and our need to modernize our ground, air, and naval 
forces. We should also give the administration ample time to complete 
this study which should serve as a sound guidance for the incoming 
administration.
  So we welcome a debate on how to best hunt al-Qaida and defend the 
Nation, and if we are to get on this bill, we will be debating 
amendments that make this report more meaningful.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, some parts of the Iraq war are open for 
debate, but there is a lot we know for sure. These are the facts: 
Nearly 4,000 American soldiers have been killed, 30,000 wounded, and 
the wounds of a third of them are very serious. We have thousands and 
thousands of amputees, more than 3,000 double amputees, blind, hearing 
loss, head trauma that will affect them the rest of their lives. I 
talked this morning about a returning Iraqi soldier who has post-
traumatic stress disorder. He cannot work. He is losing his home. These 
are the facts. We still have 150,000 more troops in Iraq. News from the 
Pentagon is that there will be 8,000 more troops in Iraq in July than 
before the surge started.
  GEN Colin Powell told us last year the Army is ``about broken.'' 
General Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army, confirmed what General 
Powell said. Yesterday, he said:

       The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply.

  General Casey basically confirms what General Powell said: The Army 
is broken.
  The day before yesterday, on public broadcasting, there was a good 
report that dealt with ADM Tim Keating, commander of the Pacific 
Command, a huge command, and basically the whole report is how 
hamstrung he is in trying to do his job. He cannot do it anymore 
because, as indicated in the report, there are not enough resources 
anymore because they are all being shipped to Iraq and now some to 
Afghanistan. Those are the facts.
  I had visiting me today some people who were so excited--Don 
Schneider, who used to be president of a bank in Las Vegas and is now 
chairman of a board of trustees of an organization that is building a 
performing arts center in Las Vegas. One foundation gave as a start 
$150 million to the organization. They have raised $420 million. They 
need $50 million more for this organization. I said to him: $420 
million is how much we spend in Iraq in 1 day--1 day. That is what this 
beautiful performing arts center in Las Vegas costs.
  Madam President, $400 million a day, 7 days a week. There are not 
weekends off. These are taxpayers' dollars we are borrowing. There are 
no holidays. New Year's, Christmas, Easter--it doesn't matter, we work 
right through, and another $400 million of taxpayers' money is 
borrowed. And the number is going up, not down. The world should 
understand that America has done its share.
  I personally dispute the wisdom of going into Iraq. I said, and I 
have said many times, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history 
of this country is the invasion of Iraq. But we are there. When is 
enough going to be enough? How many more days spending $400 million are 
we going to need in Iraq? When is enough enough? Is 4,000 soldiers 
enough killed? Is 30,000 wounded? How many blind soldiers do we need?
  No one disputes the heroic efforts of our troops, but as I indicated 
yesterday, my friend--I named my son after him, and he named his son 
after me. He used to be a model. He joined the military. He is a 
helicopter pilot. He served a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and he sent 
me e-mails about what he was doing over there. He came home, and I had 
dinner with him in Las Vegas. He was being shipped to Iraq. I don't get 
e-mails from him anymore. I asked his dad why. He said he wants to come 
home. All of them should come home is what he said. So he is not 
sending me e-mails anymore. He thinks I might be disappointed in him. I 
am not disappointed in him. He is a valiant soldier.
  How much more do we need to do? When is enough enough? Five years of 
war, I guess, according to the Republicans, is not enough. We are going 
to start in a few days the sixth year of this war. When is enough 
enough?
  Back here a number of years ago--it has been 5 years ago now--I met 
the Iraqi Governing Council. I can remember that meeting as well as if 
it was yesterday. We were in Senator Frist's office. The head of the 
delegation from Iraq said: I know people think we have the second 
largest supply of oil in the world, but that is wrong. We have the 
largest supply of oil. We have more oil than Saudi Arabia.
  Iraq is a wealthy Nation. When is there enough American blood and 
treasure for Iraq? Can't this wealthy nation take care of itself?
  The matter on which we are going to be voting in just a few minutes 
is not very complicated. This bill is to require a report setting forth 
the global strategy of the United States to combat and defeat al-Qaida 
and its affiliates.

       Section 1. Report on United States Global Strategy to 
     Combat al-Qaeda and Its Affiliates.
       (a) Report Required--Not later than 60 days after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, the 
     Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, 
     in coordination with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff and the Director of National Intelligence, shall join 
     and submit to Congress a report setting forth the global 
     strategy of the United States to combat and defeat al Qaeda 
     its affiliates.

  That is pretty simple and direct. That is what we are voting on. That 
is what the legislation is all about. Why would anybody be opposed to 
this legislation? It is straightforward legislation.
  It is clear that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not 
serious about any of this Iraq legislation. They had an opportunity to 
talk on it. As I said earlier today, it has been a good debate. They 
believe there still is not enough of American blood and treasure in 
Iraq. I do. The American people do. Twenty-five percent of Republicans 
believe we should be coming home from Iraq. This is not some Democratic 
idea; it is an idea of the American people.
  How can they object to this matter on which we are going to vote in a 
few minutes? How can they not vote overwhelmingly for this legislation? 
If they had an honest reason to disagree with a report on the fight 
against terrorism, that would be one thing. That is not what is going 
on here. This is a stall that has been going on so that we will not 
have the opportunity to start the debate on a stimulus package dealing 
with housing.
  Of course, we brought up these matters, and if they were allowing us 
to go forward with these pieces of legislation dealing with Iraq and 
have amendments like, of course, what has happened--but, no, motions to 
proceed, 30 hours. We broke the record last year in 1 year of a 2-year 
filibuster plan. They broke all records, and they are at it again.
  Keith Olbermann, an MSNBC anchor, says at the end of every one of his 
telecasts:

       This is the 1,764th day since President Bush declared 
     ``mission accomplished'' aboard an aircraft carrier. We all 
     know the

[[Page 2712]]

     mission has not been accomplished. We all know we're not 
     safer today than we were when we began this misguided war now 
     five years ago. It's time to turn the page and begin to 
     rebuild a moral authority to address the growing challenges 
     we face throughout the world.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I thank my majority leader, Senator 
Reid, not only for his statement but also for bringing this matter to 
the floor. I especially thank Senator Feingold. I have been happy to 
cosponsor this measure.
  I believe, as do many of us today, that the decision to invade Iraq 
was, in fact, the worst foreign policy decision of our time, maybe 
beyond that. We will pay a heavy price for it, but we will not pay a 
price as a nation as great as the price paid by the families who have 
lost in combat a son or daughter or husband or wife they dearly loved. 
Those men and women are true heroes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority's time has expired.
  Mr. REID. I thought the vote was at 6:30 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The remaining time is under the control of the 
minority.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I yield back the remaining time on 
this side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back. Under the previous 
order, the motion to proceed to S. 2633 is withdrawn.

                          ____________________