[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 864-866]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           TRIBUTE TO FORMER SENATOR CHARLES ``MAC'' MATHIAS

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I take this time to talk about former 
Senator Charles ``Mac'' Mathias who represented Maryland in the Senate 
for three terms and whose passing on Monday was a real loss for 
Maryland and our Nation.
  Mac Mathias was a true statesman in the best sense of the word. He 
became a voice for those who had no voice. He fought for better 
conditions for working people, and he took bold, principled stands that 
were not always popular with the prevailing political sentiment.
  Mac Mathias was one of my heroes, and I considered him a friend and 
adviser. He was first elected to Congress in 1960, and he lived through 
some of the most turbulent times of the 20th century, including the 
struggle for civil rights, the Vietnam war, and the Watergate scandal. 
Mac's strong, principled stand garnered respect from both sides of the 
aisle, prompting then-majority leader Mike Mansfield to characterize 
Mac as ``the conscience of the Senate.''
  Mac Mathias was often at odds with his own party. In 1970, for 
instance, he denounced the U.S. military incursion into Laos, condemned 
the Watergate scandal, and worked tirelessly for campaign finance 
reform. His outspokenness earned him a place on President Nixon's 
enemies list.
  Mac was an important supporter of the civil rights movement, helping 
to craft an open housing law. In 1965 he traveled to Selma, AL, to 
visit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was then in jail. In 1986 at a 
farewell party for Senator Mathias at the Baltimore Convention Center, 
Benjamin L. Hooks, the president of the NAACP said: ``I say thank God 
for Mac Mathias.''
  Mac was an outstanding advocate for Maryland in Congress. Proud of 
his Frederick roots and committed to the environment, he proposed 
legislation to protect the Chesapeake Bay, Antietam National 
Battlefield, and Assateague Island. He also was the primary sponsor of 
the bill that created the C&O Canal National Historical Park.
  Mac was a tireless advocate for fair elections. In the 110th 
Congress, he traveled to Washington to help lobby fellow Republicans 
for a bill to combat election fraud. He was a leader for campaign 
finance reform--a subject Congress will have to revisit in the wake of 
the majority's decision last week in Citizens United v. Federal 
Election Commission.
  He once remarked:

       No problem confronting our nation today is greater than 
     that of our steadily eroding confidence in our political 
     system.

  He was so right. He understood that democracy is dependent on 
inclusion and on citizens who participate in the process and who have 
confidence that their views will be heard and fairly considered.
  Today, I urge my colleagues to pause for a moment to remember a 
gentleman from Maryland who cared deeply for our Nation and understood 
that our democracy depends on strong leaders who have courage, 
intelligence, and integrity. Mac Mathias was such a leader.
  (The further remarks of Mr. Cardin pertaining to the introduction of 
S. 2967 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.


                       AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN TRIP

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I recently returned from a trip to 
Pakistan and Afghanistan with Senator Al Franken. We heard a great deal 
of troubling news out of Afghanistan over the past few months. 
Casualties have increased and the political situation has been 
unsettled. Based on what we saw and heard during our trip, I am

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somewhat more optimistic that we will succeed in Afghanistan. I am a 
lot more optimistic now than after my last visit to Afghanistan in 
September. Success, to me, is defined as preventing the Taliban from 
returning to power at the same time we strengthen the Afghan security 
forces to take responsibility for Afghan security in order to ensure 
stability in Afghanistan.
  Over the course of 3 days, we met with key civilian and military 
leaders in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
  In Pakistan, we met with Pakistan Prime Minister Gilani; Army Chief 
of Staff Kayani; and a leader from the opposition party, Ahsan Iqbal. 
Pakistan has taken some steps to take on elements of the Pakistan 
Taliban and al-Qaida but has been for the most part unwilling to take 
on the Afghan Taliban which uses Quetta in the south of Pakistan and 
North Waziristan in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas as 
safe havens and to attack Afghanistan.
  In Afghanistan, we met with U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry; GEN 
Stanley McChrystal, Commander of the NATO-led International Security 
Assistance Force, or ISAF; LTG David Rodriguez, Commander of the ISAF 
Joint Command; LTG William Caldwell, who leads the NATO Training 
Mission in Afghanistan; and British MG Nick Carter, Commander of ISAF 
forces in Regional Command South. We also met with key Afghan 
officials, in particular President Karzai, Minister of Defense Wardak; 
and Minister of the Interior Atmar. Outside Kabul, we traveled to bases 
in Kandahar province, where we met with Canadian and American ISAF 
troops who are fully embedded in a partnership, i.e., living side-by-
side with Afghan security forces.
  Our men and women in uniform are performing magnificently. We visited 
with our troops in the field in Kandahar, and they are living and 
operating in a difficult environment with only basic accommodations. 
Yet their morale is high and they are eager to carry out their mission. 
And they have some of the best leadership our military has to offer in 
ISAF Commander GEN Stanley McChrystal, Lieutenant General Rodriguez, 
and Lieutenant General Caldwell. On the civilian side, Ambassador Karl 
Eikenberry and his team are putting in place the diplomatic and 
technical expertise in Kabul and the field to match our military 
effort.
  One reason I am more optimistic now than when I visited Afghanistan 
in September is our counterinsurgency strategy is taking hold. Our 
troops are comfortable with the new focus on securing the Afghan 
people. This requires that our troops remain with the Afghan people and 
not just clearing towns and villages of Taliban and then leaving the 
Afghans to fend for themselves when the Taliban return. Our troops 
understand and embrace this people-centered approach. As British MG 
Nick Carter, Commander of the coalition forces in the south, said:

       If we show confidence and mutual trust, the population will 
     look after us.

  The Afghan people are more optimistic than they have been in the 
recent past. A recent ABC News survey found that 70 percent of the 
Afghans polled said Afghanistan is headed in the right direction, a 
significant jump from a year ago. Over 60 percent of Afghans expect 
their children will have a better life. The Taliban remain extremely 
unpopular, and 68 percent of Afghans continue to support the presence 
of our troops in their country.
  I have long been convinced that our principal mission in Afghanistan 
should be training the Afghan security forces. That drove my belief 
that we should not focus on adding more U.S. combat forces, except 
where we needed to train, equip, and support Afghan security forces.
  As I put it when the President was considering additional combat 
forces, I supported a show of commitment but said commitment could be 
shown by additional trainers and support personnel, along with a flow 
of equipment to Afghan forces. I expressed then and believe now our 
major mission should be a surge of Afghan forces to take on the 
Taliban. Afghan security forces will ultimately win or lose the long 
battle with the Taliban. Our support will help, but our growing 
presence has a downside: a growing footprint, which is the physical and 
rhetorical propaganda target for the Taliban.
  We heard in our conversations that President Obama's West Point 
speech in December has had a tangible, positive impact in ways that I 
believe are the most significant in Afghanistan. According to LTG Bill 
Caldwell, the head of our NATO training command, the number of new 
recruits signing up for the Afghan Army has skyrocketed from 3,000 in 
November to over 11,000 recruits in training today. The training 
command has had to turn recruits back because they didn't have enough 
trainers on hand. Lieutenant General Caldwell told us, forcefully and 
clearly, that what energized the Afghan leadership to call for and to 
reach out to new recruits was the July 2011 date President Obama set 
for the beginning of reductions in U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Even 
more than the pay increase, which was announced for Afghan troops, 
Lieutenant General Caldwell said setting that date by President Obama 
made clear to the Afghan Government and to the Afghan people that 
President Obama means business when he says our presence in Afghanistan 
is not an open-ended commitment. Afghan leaders became focused on 
planning for the shift in principal responsibility from coalition 
forces to their forces that is highlighted by that July 2011 date, and 
they took urgent steps to increase recruitment to the Afghan Army. 
While it is too early to determine if the surge in U.S. combat forces 
will have the effect President Obama and General McChrystal intend, it 
is not too early, in other words, to see a positive effect toward 
accomplishing the mission of strengthening and training the Afghan 
Army.
  A key to the success of that mission will be partnering with the 
Afghan security forces. In Regional Command South's Kandahar area, 
which we visited, coalition and Afghan units are partnering on a one-
to-one basis at all levels, from planning at the headquarters down to 
operations at the platoon level, and Afghans are taking the lead in 
operations. When I visited Helmand Province in the south in September, 
there were about five U.S. marines for every one Afghan soldier. In the 
coming months, additional Afghan forces will be arriving in Helmand so, 
by April, coalition and Afghan units will be partnered on a one-to-one 
basis as they conduct the key mission of providing security in the 
Helmand River Valley. We were informed Afghan forces will be leading 
that vital and dangerous mission.
  Senator Franken and I saw up close how partnering of coalition and 
Afghan forces is being put into operation. This is not just about joint 
operations, though that is part of it. It is about Afghan and coalition 
troops living together and integrating their daily lives. This 
partnering is at the heart of our troops' mission, which is to prepare 
Afghan security forces to take responsibility for their nation's 
security. Some fully integrating partnering in the field is already 
occurring. General Rodriguez promised us he will get data on how many 
of the units in the field that are planning and operating with 
coalition units are fully integrated and how often and how many Afghan 
units are leading significant operations. While we didn't need more 
combat troops for the partnering mission--the shortfall being in the 
number of Afghan troops--the increase in Afghan units partnering with 
us is a significant advance.
  Our military leaders often describe our counterinsurgency doctrine as 
shape, clear, hold, and build. But this falls short by one key goal. To 
shape, clear, hold, and build must be added ``transition,'' meaning our 
goal must be to transition responsibility for Afghanistan's security to 
their security forces. The commanders in the field we talked to get 
this, and their fully integrated partnering with Afghan security forces 
is the key to this transition.
  While I am pleased with the speed with which partnering is occurring 
in the field, I am disappointed with the shortfall in trainers needed 
for the Afghan Army and police. Currently, only

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37 percent of the required U.S. and NATO trainers for building the 
Afghan Army and police are on hand in Afghanistan or, numerically, 
1,574 out of a requirement for more than 4,235 trainers. Lieutenant 
General Caldwell's training command has been promised the first 1,000 
of the 30,000 U.S. soldiers flowing into the theater with that surge, 
and 150 of that 1,000 have already arrived. At the same time, NATO 
countries remain 90 percent short of meeting the ISAF mission 
requirements for trainers with less than 200 non-U.S. trainers deployed 
against a non-U.S. NATO commitment of about 2,000. Only 200 have 
arrived on the scene. Another 200 NATO trainers were pledged by NATO 
members in December but without a timeline for when those trainers 
would arrive in theater. That is simply unacceptable. Those NATO 
countries that are either unwilling or unable to send additional combat 
troops into the fight in Afghanistan should be able to help provide 
trainers for basic training who operate away from the frontlines. 
Lieutenant General Caldwell told us, any well-trained U.S. or coalition 
soldier could instruct Afghan soldiers in the 8-week course of basic 
training. A top priority for our NATO allies at the London conference, 
which I believe is this week, needs to be closing the gap in trainers 
for the Afghan Army and police.
  Another area where there has been progress is on equipping the Afghan 
security forces, and that is critical to accelerating the growth of the 
Afghan Army and police.
  The training command reports that the equipment requirements for the 
Army and police have been identified and listed, and actions are 
underway to meet those needs, including with equipment coming out of 
Iraq as U.S. forces draw down there. This month, equipment began to 
flow from the Iraq theater to Afghanistan, and Lieutenant General 
Caldwell's staff expects that over 250 of over 1,300 humvees from Iraq 
will begin to arrive this month to meet the needs of the Afghan police. 
This was made possible by the language in the Fiscal Year 2010 National 
Defense Authorization Act which authorizes the transfer of nonexcess as 
well as excess defense equipment from Iraq to Afghanistan as U.S. 
forces draw down in Iraq.
  Finally, relative to plans for the reintegration of lower level 
Taliban fighters, the Karzai government has been working closely with 
General McChrystal's staff, under the leadership of a British major 
general, to construct a plan offering incentives to low- and mid-level 
Taliban fighters who are willing to lay down their weapons and 
recognize the Afghan Government's authority. Incentives would include 
amnesty and jobs programs for reintegrating former fighters. President 
Karzai has said he will be ready to issue this plan within a month or 
so, and U.S. officials expect to be fully supportive. It will take a 
few months after that to make the plan operational. While there is 
apparently no progress to negotiate with higher level Taliban to end 
the violence and become politically active, it does not reduce the need 
to chip away at that lower level Taliban group.
  We read in the press today that progress is being made, as a matter 
of fact, with local leaders in Afghanistan in that endeavor.
  In conclusion, we saw some signs of progress on our visit in a number 
of critical ways--in training and equipping Afghan security forces; in 
partnering closely in the field with the Afghan security forces; in a 
perception and reality of optimism among the military, civilian 
officials, and the Afghan people; and in devising a plan for 
reintegrating Taliban fighters who lay down their arms. We have the 
right strategy and mission for stabilizing the security situation and 
transitioning responsibility for Afghanistan's future to the Afghan 
Army and people. While we are on the right track now, we have a long 
way to go before we can feel confident that the tide has turned.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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