[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11215-11216]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE ISSUES

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I came here to talk about a couple of 
issues on the Armed Services Committee that we are going to be facing.
  I only say to my good friend from Ohio that, yes, it is true that 9/
11 occurred, and that we have al-Qaida out there, and there are the 
Taliban and other terrorists who want to kill everyone in this room and 
all throughout America, and that we were not in a position, 
financially, to go and defend our country after 9/11.
  I suggest that, after Pearl Harbor, the same situation took place. We 
didn't have time or the luxury of saying do we have the resources to go 
into this. But it was necessary and it did happen.
  Unfortunately, back in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, 
the amount of money funding our military reduced by about 40 percent--
not just the money but resources too. It went down in terms of force 
structure, modernization, and operations and personnel, about 40 
percent. There was kind of a euphoric attitude at that time, and people 
were saying that the Cold War was over and we no longer needed the 
military. I remember it so well. Then, of course, with the downgrading 
of the military and the peace dividend--we all remember the peace 
dividend--we would take the money that was going to go to the military 
and declare a peace dividend.
  Unfortunately, peace is not there, and 9/11 happened. This President 
and this Congress inherited a war, an attack on America, the most 
vicious attack we have had on our homeland in the continental United 
States. We had to fight with a reduced army. We had to rebuild the army 
at the same time.
  If I had known the statement was going to be made by my good friend 
from Ohio, I would have brought my charts to show clearly what happened 
to the military during the 1990s.
  Yes, we do have that problem. It is an expensive war. It is an 
enduring war. We have all been over there. We know we are going to win. 
Things look very good right now in Iraq. It is going to be a little 
more difficult. It is necessary to do because if we had not done it, we 
would have had the Taliban and al-Qaida--all of these groups--running 
rampant over there.
  The big difference now in terms of how it affects the United States 
of America is that back in the days before they had the nuclear weapons 
and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a terrorist could 
have a case bomb, something such as that. Now we are talking about 
weapons of mass destruction. We are talking about Iran which, according 
to our intelligence estimates, as early as 2015 could have an ICBM 
capable of hitting the United States of America on the east coast. That 
is why it is so much more difficult.
  Also, my good friend from Ohio talks about the Republicans. It was 
not the Republicans who did the $787 billion stimulus program that did 
not stimulate. Those were the Democrats. That is not why I am here.


                            New START Treaty

  Mr. President, I noticed on this week's agenda--and I am reading now; 
I think this is right--we are going to have three more hearings in the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the New START treaty. That means 
we will have had, when that is over, 16 Senate Foreign Relations 
witnesses, over 7 hearings, all of them supporting the New START 
treaty.
  I am reminded of what happened back when we were considering another 
treaty, the Law of the Sea Treaty. That passed the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee 16 to 0, as I recall. When it came to the floor, I 
recognized--and, frankly, not many others did--that this was a very 
serious issue. This is the treaty against which Ronald Reagan fought so 
hard. It was coming up. That was a Republican administration. That was 
the first President Bush. They were going to run this thing through.
  We held hearings. At that time, the Republicans were in the majority. 
I made sure we had hearings in both of my committees--the Environment 
and Public Works Committee, as well as the Senate Armed Services 
Committee.
  I see the same thing happening. I gave a lengthy talk last week--I am 
not going to repeat it now--about why we should oppose the New START 
treaty. We all remember START I. We all remember START II. Keep in 
mind, the treaty we are talking about is a treaty not with the 
countries where we are anticipating problems. It is between Russia and 
the United States and it has to do with weapons of mass destruction, 
with nuclear warheads, reducing them in conjunction with reductions 
that would be imposed upon Russia and, at the same time, delivery 
systems. We have three ways of delivering them. One is, of course, 
ICBMs, one is SLCMs, submarine-launched missiles, and the other is 
through aircraft, such as the B-52 and B-2.
  The problem with that is we have been talking about our nuclear 
warheads and how we have not been able to modernize them or even to 
test them for a matter of decades. So we do not know what we have.
  In the way of force structure, we do know we have a declining force 
structure. This administration put down the new system that would have 
been the next generation bomber. We are stuck with the B-52. The first 
variety of that came out in 1964 before a lot of people around here 
were born, and, of course, the B-2. We are not going to modernize that.
  The missile defense system--we saw what happened over in Poland. This 
President made a determination to stop the construction of a ground 
system in Poland that would have had the capability by 2012 of knocking 
down an ICBM from Iran to the eastern United States. That is gone.
  There is no verification, very much the same as the verification we 
talked about with the Law of the Sea Treaty and others.
  I hope when this treaty comes up, we can keep talking about it and 
not let it run through. I am going to make this very clear. I happen to 
serve on the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Armed Services 
Committee. We will be having hearings. We have three more this week. 
Not one of these hearings has a witness who is opposed to the New START 
treaty. They are all witnesses who are right there with the President 
and part of that program.


                         Don't Ask, Don't Tell

  The other issue that is coming up--no one is talking about it now, 
but it is something that did come up in the Senate Armed Services 
Committee reauthorization hearing and we will be considering that 
before too long. They made strong statements to do away with don't ask, 
don't tell. I remind my colleagues, back in 1993, we had this problem 
of how to deal with gays in the military. The Clinton administration 
came up with the program don't ask, don't tell. Quite frankly, it has 
worked very well since 1994, since it went into effect.
  For us to unilaterally say we are going to change that and have gays

[[Page 11216]]

open in the service so that people are really not there to serve but to 
use the military to advance a personal agenda is wrong.
  Here is the interesting thing about it because all the military 
agrees with what I am saying right now. At least they did until the 
White House got involved. I am not sure where they are now.
  On April 28, both Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen said in a joint 
statement:

       We believe in the strongest possible terms the department 
     must prior to any legislative action be allowed an 
     opportunity to conduct a thorough, objective and systematic 
     assessment of the impact of such a policy change.

  So they did. They decided they would conduct this study and report 
back this December 1.
  To let you know where the military is on this issue--all the chiefs 
of the military--General Casey of the Army said:

       I remain convinced that it is critically important to get a 
     better understanding of where our soldiers and families are 
     on the issue and what the impacts on readiness and unit 
     cohesion might be so that I can provide informed military 
     advice to the President and to the Congress.

  He said also:

       I also believe that repealing the law----

  We are talking about the don't ask, don't tell law----

     before the completion of the review will be seen by the men 
     and women of the Army as a reversal of our commitment to hear 
     their views before moving forward.

  What he is talking about is he made a commitment--we made a 
commitment--to all the military that before we repeal this law that has 
been working well since 1994, we want to get all the inputs. So we set 
up a mechanism where they--they, I am talking about all the troops that 
are out there--can evaluate this and make a determination as to how 
change in that law could impair our readiness situation.
  Admiral Roughhead of the U.S. Navy said:

       We need this review to fully assess our force and carefully 
     examine potential impacts of a change in the law.
       My concern is that legislative changes at this point, 
     regardless of the precise language used, may cause confusion 
     on the status of the law in the Fleet and disrupt the review 
     process itself by leading sailors to question whether their 
     input matters.

  We asked for their input, then we declare what the results are, which 
they have done in the House and actually in the Senate committee with 
language.
  General Conway of the Marines said:

       I encourage the Congress to let the process the Secretary 
     of Defense created to run its course.

  That is the study that goes to December 1.

       Collectively, we must make logical and pragmatic decisions 
     about the long-term policies of our Armed Forces--which so 
     effectively defend this great nation.

  General Schwartz of the Air Force said:

       I believe it is important, a matter of keeping faith with 
     those currently serving in the Armed Forces, that the 
     Secretary of Defense commissioned review be completed before 
     there is any legislation to repeal the [don't ask, don't 
     tell] law. Such action allows me to provide the best military 
     advice to the President, and sends an important signal to our 
     Airmen--

  Of course, he is the Air Force Chief, so he is concerned about 
airmen--

     and their families that their opinion matters. To do 
     otherwise, in my view, would be presumptive and would reflect 
     an intent to act before all relevant factors are assessed, 
     digested and understood.

  That is the military. That is what they all agree. I think it is very 
important that we keep in mind that we made the request, a preliminary 
review of some 13,000 service members and families being interviewed. 
That is 13,000 interviews; 400,000 would undergo a survey. We would get 
their input through a survey. Our military is not asking for this 
change.
  So that is what it is all about. That is what we are faced with. And 
I think the only way to stop this if we really believe the military is 
right and that we are right--and I would say this: I have a letter that 
is signed by myself and Senator McCain--from all of the Senate Armed 
Services Committee: Senators Brown, Inhofe, Thune, Burr, Sessions, 
Wicker, Vitter, Chambliss, and LeMieux, all of us--saying that we need 
to wait until such time as the results are in before doing something.
  I am very concerned about this. The 1993 law states--and I am reading 
from the 1993 law now--``There is no constitutional right to serve.'' 
The military is a ``specialized society'' that is ``fundamentally 
different from civilian life.'' In living conditions offering little or 
no privacy, homosexuality presents an ``unacceptable risk'' to good 
order, discipline, morale, and unit cohesion--qualities essential for 
combat readiness. Making this retroactive is another serious problem 
with this change they are talking about.
  So I think those of us who are on the relevant committees are going 
to be trying to appeal to this body to consider that those issues, 
those amendments that were passed right down party lines be 
reconsidered on the floor and that individuals are going to have to 
have an up-or-down vote on this very critical issue. It is very 
interesting that when we had a report that was due December 1, now all 
of a sudden it has to be done before the election. Obviously, it is all 
for political reasons.
  So I guess I would just say to my colleagues, get ready because we 
are going to have an open debate on this floor. And I would think that 
myself and some others might want to make this a major issue for 
discussion and even require a cloture vote before it is over.
  With that, I yield the floor.

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