[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2825-2826]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             IRAQ AND FISA

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, for the benefit of our colleagues, I will 
summarize where we are this morning as well. The majority leader and 
the Senator from Wisconsin offered a resolution, a piece of 
legislation, and sought to proceed to consider it. Republicans agreed 
to that. We voted last night to invoke cloture, which means we agreed 
to proceed to the consideration of that resolution.
  It has to do with developing a strategy to deal with al-Qaida. It is, 
as the majority leader said, a debate worth having. As a result, 
Republicans were happy to engage in that debate and we will throughout 
the day.
  After the period of morning business, we are back on the resolution. 
I would urge my Republican colleagues to let us know, let the 
leadership staff know, when they wish to be here to speak on the matter 
so the schedules can be coordinated, that everyone can debate the issue 
as they see fit, and that the minority and majority leader a little 
later in the day can get together and decide when we might be able to 
schedule the next vote based upon everyone's desire to speak. So if our 
colleagues would let us know when they desire to come and make their 
presentations, that would be very helpful.
  I would like to correct one thing the majority leader said, in saying 
Republicans think everything in Iraq is ``just fine.'' I know he did 
not mean to suggest Republicans believe the situation in Iraq is ``just 
fine.'' Because clearly it is not. If it were, we could bring our 
troops home today.
  Unfortunately, it is not ``just fine,'' although it is steadily 
improving. And when it gets to the point when it is ``just fine,'' we 
will be able then to bring the remainder of our troops home. The 
primary difference between the majority and minority is the majority 
would like to bring the troops home right now. ``Enough is enough,'' 
says the majority leader.
  The Republicans, on the other hand, believe we have to finish the 
job. And while great progress has been made as a result of the surge 
implemented by General Petraeus several months ago, the job is not 
finished. And until the job is finished, there is a great danger that 
were we to pull out prematurely, al-Qaida, not totally defeated, would 
infiltrate right back in, reestablish its presence, begin the terrorism 
which has taken us so many months now to repress, and that we would 
have to then come right back in again, all at a greater cost than if we 
simply see the job through right now.
  It is possible every day to have a headline from a newspaper 
revealing a suicide bomber attack or some other incident similar to 
that in Iraq. That is the unfortunate reality. Everything is not yet 
``just fine'' in Iraq. But it is also true that because the surge has 
worked to essentially defeat al-Qaida, it has now resorted to the most 
reprehensible tactics of all: using women, children, the disabled as 
suicide bombers to go into places where those people are not suspects 
and they can blow up innocent people in Iraq.
  That is the situation we need to help stop, not turn our back and 
walk away from. It is also true many Iraqis have

[[Page 2826]]

now been trained by our forces. That is the good news that will enable 
us eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, to withdraw our 
troops from Iraq. We are withdrawing them now.
  We will, by June as I recall, be down to a level that is very close 
to the level that existed prior to the surge. We will be able to do 
that because the surge has worked. What happens after that, we will 
await a report from General Petraeus when he comes back to the Capitol 
and briefs us on the situation in Iraq.
  In the meantime, Ambassador Crocker and others have noted significant 
progress on the political and diplomatic front as well as the economic 
front in Iraq. The Parliament there is now engaging in vigorous debate, 
passing resolutions. I note that one was vetoed yesterday. It kind of 
reminds me of the process in Washington, where we do not always agree 
on everything and we have a robust debate about it.
  We should not be critical of the Iraqis because they cannot agree 
always on everything, but we should continue to push them to move 
forward with alacrity, so the things that need to be done politically 
to enable us to eventually remove our troops can be done. I know we 
all, Republicans and Democrats, share that goal.
  So the bottom line is, we will continue this debate today. I would 
conclude with this point: One of the important reasons for having this 
debate today about a strategy for dealing with al-Qaida is because 
there is a difference of opinion between the House of Representatives' 
leadership and the Senate on this issue.
  The Senate voted with 68 Senators, Democrats and Republicans, to 
reinstitute FISA, the law that enables us to gather intelligence on 
these terrorists abroad. That law had to be reauthorized because it 
expired 6 months after we first passed it.
  So we had to reauthorize it and make one additional change; that is, 
to make sure the telecommunications companies that are cooperating with 
us are protected from lawsuits that have been filed against them simply 
for their participation with the U.S. Government in collecting this 
foreign intelligence.
  Without that liability protection, they are not likely to continue to 
help us. So we made that change. It was recommended by the Intelligence 
Committee on a vote of 13 to 2, a very bipartisan recommendation. The 
Senate then passed it with 68 affirmative votes. It went to the House 
of Representatives and there it sits. It sits without a law in force 
today that enables us to begin new intelligence surveillance activities 
against terrorists abroad.
  This represents a deficiency in our intelligence gathering at a time 
when as both Admiral McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, 
and Attorney General Mukasey have noted that we are losing intelligence 
every day that would help us in the war against these terrorists.
  Every day that goes past that we cannot intercept a communication 
because the law has not been reauthorized is a day of lost 
intelligence, intelligence we will never get back. The terrorists are 
not going to make the phone call a second or third time to accommodate 
us so we can finally collect the intelligence we need, so we can find 
out who he is calling and what they are planning. We cannot do that.
  So phone calls that occurred yesterday or the day before or the day 
before that, they are gone, they are lost forever. It is critical we 
reestablish this capability for collecting foreign intelligence on 
terrorists.
  The legislation passed by the Senate will do that. The President says 
he will sign it into law, and it is critical that the House of 
Representatives' leadership allow the House of Representatives to vote 
on it. If they do, it will pass and it can be sent to the President and 
it will be signed.
  The reason, I gather, it has not been brought forth is because the 
leadership of the House knows it will pass and, for whatever reason, 
they do not want this Senate-passed bill to become law.
  It is critical the Congress fulfill its responsibility to ensure that 
our intelligence-gathering capabilities continue on. I would urge again 
that the best strategy for dealing with al-Qaida starts with 
authorizing the kind of intelligence collection that we understand is 
critical to understanding al-Qaida's intentions and thus being able to 
defeat them.
  So in developing a strategy for al-Qaida, No. 1, the House of 
Representatives' leadership should bring this legislation up for a 
vote, allow those who support it to send it to the President for his 
signature, and we can get on with this important collection.
  I urge my colleagues to come to the floor and let us know when they 
wish to speak so we can organize the debate today with an eye toward 
the minority and majority leader being able to get together and work 
out a time schedule that would be acceptable to all of us.

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