[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3574-3576]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about three issues that 
I think are vitally important for our national security. First, there 
is this matter of terrorist surveillance and our national security.
  This body passed the bipartisan FISA Act bill overwhelmingly--more 
than 2 to 1--several days before the Protect America Act was to expire. 
The Director of National Intelligence has told us how important this 
bill is because without it, intelligence gaps likely will reopen, 
putting the safety of America--those of us in the United States--and 
our troops on the battlefield at risk. Yet the House Speaker refuses to 
allow a vote on the Senate's bill, even though a majority of House 
Members support its passage. If you vote, that means something. If you 
win, you win; if you lose, you lose. But the leadership in the House 
apparently thinks those rules don't apply to the FISA debate.
  Even though the Speaker failed to pass a 21-day extension of the 
existing law in her own body, the leadership has acted as though the 
PAA deadline was extended. There has been no action.
  So what is the House going to do this week? Well, the Speaker has 
signaled that the House will vote on overriding the President's veto of 
the 2008 intelligence authorization bill, even though she knows there 
are not enough votes to override the vote. Why? Because apparently, the 
House leadership has decided it is more important to make a political 
statement about interrogation techniques than to give the intelligence 
community the tools it needs to conduct surveillance of foreign 
intelligence.
  The IC--the intelligence community--needs these tools and authorities 
that are provided in the bill we passed. They are working tirelessly to 
protect us from real and constant terrorist threats, and they should 
not have to wait any longer for the House to pass that measure.
  Secondly, let me talk about Korea briefly. I just came from an 
Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing with General Bell, our 
commanding general in Korea. He told us that not just a brave new wind 
but a typhoon has blown through South Korea, and the previous 
government that was in many ways anti-American was totally willing to 
accommodate North Korea in all of its efforts, which included building 
missiles and nuclear weapons, and rebuff the United States.
  Well, the people of Korea had enough, and they overwhelmingly elected 
a new President, President Lee Myung-bak, who ran on a platform of 
revitalizing the economy, making any actions with North Korea 
reciprocal, and improving their alliance with the U.S. position. The 
candidate who came in second agreed with him on these issues. The 
previous leadership candidate got single digits.
  The most important things we can do are to increase our trade and our 
military assistance to South Korea. South Korea is already our largest 
importer for military equipment, and they live in a very dangerous part 
of the world. They are right next door to China and close to bordering 
on Russia, just across the straits from Japan, and they are 
potentially--they have been and they will be our most important ally. 
But we have given higher foreign military sales status to three former 
Soviet Union States and five countries from the Warsaw Pact, none of 
which are as good friends as South Korea.
  I have filed a bill, S. 1846, the United States-Republic of Korea 
Defense Cooperation and Improvement Act of 2007, that would give them 
the status of

[[Page 3575]]

NATO plus 3, so we could continue to expand on our vital defense trade 
with them. He says this is his top priority. We are already cooperating 
with them. There is new cooperation. There is an opportunity to build 
an even stronger ally in the region to help keep that region safe, 
peaceful, and secure.
  Secondarily, for Korea, we also need to approve the United States-
Korea Free Trade Agreement. Free trade is one of the best ways we have 
of assuring that other countries get the development they need, we can 
develop the friendship we have and improve our economy and theirs. A 
Korea-United States trade agreement would give lower tariff barriers, 
and get rid of many of them, to keep our agriculture, machine goods, 
and high-tech goods from going into South Korea. We need to do that.
  But there are political objections. That brings me to the third 
important point: Colombia. Colombia has pending with the United States 
a United States-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. As I have just said, 
trade and commercial ties are one of the most effective arrows in our 
quiver of smart power. In Colombia, it is an affirmation of support to 
our friends. They are our strongest ally on an increasingly left-
leaning continent--another area where they are our best friends in a 
dangerous area.
  The administration of the President of Colombia, President Uribe, 
finds itself surrounded by states determined to undermine Colombia's 
burgeoning democracy. The states around them provide safe haven to 
insurgent terrorist groups, allowing them freedom to maneuver in border 
areas, and they even provide monetary support for drug and terror 
activities against President Uribe's government in Colombia. If we are 
serious, as we must be, about maintaining peace, security, and 
stability in Latin America, the northern part of Latin America, we must 
work with them.
  Free trade will not only expand our economic and commercial ties, but 
it will strengthen the critical cultural ties and strategic alliances, 
and that will lead to a more peaceful and stable world.
  At a time when America's image is suffering in the world and our 
economy at home is slumping, we should be helping our friends and 
allies and expanding our export opportunities to create jobs here.
  If the Democratic leadership in Congress is so concerned about 
improving America's image abroad and helping our slumping economy, why 
don't we start by helping our friends? We can do that by opening up 
markets for exports. Friends like Colombia and Korea are fighting 
terrorism, embracing America's values. It is a solid security rock for 
us to build upon.
  In Colombia, the interdiction of two high-value targets--senior 
terror planners and former operators--is a testimony to the Uribe 
administration's commitment to ending terror in his country. It is 
important to remember that the terrorist group FARC currently holds 
more than 700 political and military prisoners. Three of them are 
Americans. Yet our Democratic colleagues, through all their rhetoric, 
seem to care more about improving our image with rogue regimes such as 
Syria and Iran than helping our friends in places such as Colombia and 
Korea. Their rejection of the free-trade agreements damages our 
strategic alliances and says to the world that the United States is 
closed for business. And it does so at a time when we need to be open 
for business, open for better ties.
  So why, in light of the economic and strategic benefits of the 
Colombia FTA, are the Democrats determined to delay and deny these 
benefits? Why, through their actions, are they emboldening Venezuelan 
leftist Hugo Chavez and undercutting the President of Colombia, who is 
a friend? President Uribe has done more to reduce violence in Colombia 
than any modern leader in Bogota, including crimes against labor 
unionists. He has pushed back Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary 
Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and the National Liberation Army, the 
ELN. He has reduced crime and substantially improved Colombia's 
security and economic situations, with official statistics showing 
murders plummeting by as much as 50 percent and kidnappings by as much 
as 75 percent.
  Today's Wall Street Journal, which I will submit later, is entitled 
``Delaying and Denying.'' They sum it up like this:

       What is it about Democrats and Hugo Chavez? Even as the 
     Venezuelan strongman was threatening war last week against 
     Colombia, Congress was threatening to hand him a huge 
     strategic victory by spurning Colombia's free trade overtures 
     to the U.S.
       This isn't the first time Democrats have come to Mr. 
     Chavez's aid, but it would be the most destructive. The 
     Venezuelan is engaged in a high-stakes competition over the 
     political and economic direction of Latin America. He wants 
     the region to follow his path of ever greater state control 
     of the economy, while assisting U.S. enemies wherever he can. 
     He's already won converts in Bolivia and Ecuador, and he came 
     far too close for American comfort in Mexico's election last 
     year.
       Meanwhile, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is embracing 
     greater economic and political freedom. He has bravely 
     assisted the U.S. fight against narco-traffickers, and he now 
     wants to link his country more closely to America with a free 
     trade accord. As a strategic matter, to reject Colombia's 
     offer now would tell everyone in Latin America that it is far 
     more dangerous to trust America than it is to trash it.

  Mr. President, continuing to deny and delay Colombia TPA will be a 
great disadvantage to America's economy, damage our reputation in 
Colombia and throughout Latin America, undercut a key ally in President 
Uribe, and further embolden anti-American dictators like Hugo Chavez, 
ultimately resulting in a less secure and stable Latin America.
  Mr. President, I call upon and urge my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle to let us bring up for a vote and pass the Korean free-
trade agreement and the Colombia free-trade agreement. Not only will 
that benefit us economically, it will strengthen the U.S. image 
throughout the world and help build a stable, strategic ally in 
Colombia that can stop the threat of more regimes committed to the 
Marxism that Cuba so famously demonstrated, which brought destruction 
and hardship to the people of Cuba.
  These are important foreign policy matters. One leader in the 
majority on the other side of the body said: Well, politically, we 
cannot do it. Politically, we cannot help those who help us? 
Politically, we cannot pass a bill that will keep our country safer by 
passing the FISA bill? Politically, we cannot help an ally such as 
South Korea, which is in a very strategic position? And politically, we 
cannot help Colombia, which is fighting narcotraffickers as well as the 
efforts by Hugo Chavez for spreading a Marxist regime and the 
totalitarian government which impoverishes and denies rights to his 
citizens?
  Mr. President, the time to act is now. I urge my colleagues on both 
sides to make these matters a serious concern and see if we can do the 
job for which we were elected--to help keep our country safe and 
secure.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial from the 
Wall Street Journal of today, March 10, 2008, called ``The Chavez 
Democrats'' be printed in the Record, along with a similar and very 
compelling article on the op-ed page of the Washington Post, by Jackson 
Diehl, called ``The FARC's Guardian Angel,'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Mar. 10, 2008]

                          The Chavez Democrats

       What is it about Democrats and Hugo Chavez? Even as the 
     Venezuelan strongman was threatening war last week against 
     Colombia, Congress was threatening to hand him a huge 
     strategic victory by spurning Colombia's free trade overtures 
     to the U.S.
       This isn't the first time Democrats have come to Mr. 
     Chavez's aid, but it would be the most destructive. The 
     Venezuelan is engaged in a high-stakes competition over the 
     political and economic direction of Latin America. He wants 
     the region to follow his path of ever greater state control 
     of the economy, while assisting U.S. enemies wherever he can. 
     He's already won converts in Bolivia and Ecuador, and he came 
     far too close for American comfort in Mexico's election last 
     year.
       Meanwhile, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is embracing 
     greater economic and political freedom. He has bravely 
     assisted the

[[Page 3576]]

     U.S. fight against narco-traffickers, and he now wants to 
     link his country more closely to America with a free-trade 
     accord. As a strategic matter, to reject Colombia's offer now 
     would tell everyone in Latin America that it is far more 
     dangerous to trust America than it is to trash it.
       Yet Democrats on Capitol Hill are doing their best to help 
     Mr. Chavez prevail against Mr. Uribe. Even as Mr. Chavez was 
     doing his war dance, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus was 
     warning the White House not to send the Colombia deal to the 
     Hill for a vote without the permission of Democratic leaders. 
     He was seconded by Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel, 
     who told Congress Daily that ``they don't have the votes for 
     it, it's not going to come on the floor,'' adding that ``what 
     they [the White House] don't understand it's not the facts on 
     the ground, it's the politics that's in the air.''
       Mr. Rangel is right about the politics. No matter what U.S. 
     strategic interests may be in Colombia, this is an election 
     year in America. And Democrats don't want to upset their 
     union and anti-trade allies. The problem is that the time 
     available to pass anything this year is growing short. The 
     closer the election gets, the more leverage protectionists 
     have to run out the clock on the Bush Presidency. The deal 
     has the support of a bipartisan majority in the Senate, and 
     probably also in the House. Sooner or later the White House 
     will have to force the issue.
       Our guess is that Messrs. Baucus and Rangel understand the 
     stakes and privately favor the accord. The bottleneck is 
     Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is refusing to allow a vote under 
     pressure from her left-wing Members. These Democrats deride 
     any link between Hugo Chavez and trade as a ``scare tactic,'' 
     as if greater economic prosperity had no political 
     consequences. ``President Bush's recent fear-mongering on 
     trade shows just how desperate he is to deliver one final 
     victory for multinational corporations,'' declared Illinois 
     Democrat Phil Hare, who is one of Ms. Pelosi's main trade 
     policy deputies.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 10, 2008]

                       The FARC's Guardian Angel

                           (By Jackson Diehl)

       Latin American nations and the Bush administration spent 
     the past week loudly arguing over what censure, if any, 
     Colombia should face for a bombing raid that killed one of 
     the top leaders of the FARC terrorist group at a jungle camp 
     in Ecuador. More quietly, they are just beginning to consider 
     a far more serious and potentially explosive question: What 
     to do about the revelation that Venezuelan President Hugo 
     Chavez forged a strategic alliance with the FARC aimed at 
     Colombia's democratic government.
       First reports of the documents recovered from laptops at 
     the FARC camp spoke of promises by Chavez to deliver up to 
     $300 million to a group renowned for kidnapping, drug 
     trafficking and massacres of civilians; they also showed that 
     Ecuadoran President Rafel Correa was prepared to remove from 
     his own army officers who objected to the FARC's Ecuadoran 
     bases.
       But in their totality, the hundreds of pages of documents 
     so far made public by Colombia paint an even more chilling 
     picture. The raid appears to have preempted a breathtakingly 
     ambitious ``strategic plan'' agreed on by Chavez and the FARC 
     with the initial goal of gaining international recognition 
     for a movement designated a terrorist organization by both 
     the United States and Europe. Chavez then intended to force 
     Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to negotiate a political 
     settlement with the FARC, and to promote a candidate allied 
     with Chavez and the FARC to take power from Uribe.
       All this is laid out in a series of three e-mails sent in 
     February to the FARC's top leaders by Ivan Marquez and 
     Rodrigo Granda, envoys who held a series of secret meetings 
     with Chavez. Judging from the memos, Chavez did most of the 
     talking: He outlines a five-stage plan for undermining 
     Uribe's government, beginning with the release of several of 
     the scores of hostages the FARC is holding.
       The first e-mail, dated Feb. 8, discusses the money: It 
     says that Chavez, whom they call ``angel,'' ``has the first 
     50 [million] available and has a plan to get us the remaining 
     200 in the course of the year.'' Chavez proposed sending the 
     first ``packet'' of money ``through the black market in order 
     to avoid problems.'' He said more could be arranged by giving 
     the FARC a quota of petroleum to sell abroad or gasoline to 
     retail in Colombia or Venezuela.
       Chavez then got to the plans that most interested him. He 
     wanted the FARC to propose collecting all of its hostages in 
     the open, possibly in Venezuela, for a proposed exchange for 
     500 FARC prisoners in Colombian jails. Chavez said he would 
     travel to the area for a meeting with the FARC's top leader, 
     Manuel Marulanda, and said the presidents of Ecuador, 
     Nicaragua and Bolivia would accompany him. Meanwhile, Chavez 
     said he would set up a new diplomatic group, composed of 
     those countries and the FARC, plus Mexico, Brazil and 
     Argentina, for the purpose of recognizing the FARC as a 
     legitimate ``belligerent'' in Colombia and forcing Uribe into 
     releasing its prisoners.
       In ``the early morning hours,'' the FARC envoys recounted 
     in a Feb. 9 e-mail, Chavez reached the subject of whether the 
     release of Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential 
     candidate who is the FARC's best-known hostage, would 
     complicate his plan to back a pro-FARC alternative to Uribe. 
     ``He invites the FARC to parcipate in a few sessions of 
     analysis he has laid out for following the Colombian 
     political situation,'' the e-mail concluded.
       Assuming these documents are authentic--and it's hard to 
     believe that the cerebral and calculating Uribe would 
     knowingly hand over forgeries to the world media and the 
     Organization of American States--both the Bush administration 
     and Latin Amerian governments will have fateful decisions to 
     make about Chavez. His reported actions are, first of all, a 
     violation of UN. Security Council Resolution 1373, passed in 
     September 2001, which prohibits all states from providing 
     financing or havens to terrorist organizations. More 
     directly, the Colombian evidence would be more than enough to 
     justify a State Department decision to cite Venezuela as a 
     state sponsor of terrorism. Once cited, Venezuela would be 
     subject to a number of automatic sanctions, some of which 
     could complicate its continuing export of oil to the United 
     States. A cutoff would temporarily inconvenience Americans--
     and cripple Venezuela, which could have trouble selling its 
     heavy oil in other markets.
       For now, the Bush administration appears anxious to avoid 
     this kind of confrontation. U.S. intelligence agencies are 
     analyzing the Colombian evidence; officials say they will 
     share any conclusions with key Latin American governments. 
     Yet those governments have mostly shrunk from confronting 
     Chavez in the past, and some have quietly urged Bush to take 
     him on. If the president decides to ignore clear evidence 
     that Venezuela has funded and conspired with an officially 
     designated terrorist organization, he will flout what has 
     been his first principle since Sept. 11, 2001.

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of 
a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________