[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15743-15747]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today we come to the floor to talk about 
the importance of the Defense authorization bill. For 50 years the 
Congress of the United States has enacted a Defense authorization bill, 
enacted it into law and had it signed by the President of the United 
States. There have been times when this legislation has been very 
contentious--days during the Vietnam war, days during Operation Desert 
Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Bosnia, Kosovo. All of those times the 
Defense authorization bill has been a vehicle for debate and votes on 
the floor of the Senate concerning transcendent issues of national 
security.
  For 50 years we have cared for the men and women who have served and 
provided them with the equipment, the pay, the benefits those men and 
women of this country deserve after hundreds of hours of deliberation, 
thousands of hours of written testimony and testimony before the 
committee--the full committee and subcommittees such as that under the 
chairmanship of the Senator from the State of Georgia.
  Because of a part of the legislation, the majority leader has decided 
that we will not take this bill to the floor of the Senate. That is a 
betrayal of the men and women who are serving this Nation.
  I understand there are differences on the issue of detainee 
treatment. I understand it is an emotional issue. But should it be a 
reason for the Senate not to carry out its 50-year tradition to debate 
and discuss and amend and vote and then come out with a package that 
provides for the needs, the training, the equipment, the benefits of 
the men and women who are serving?
  I quote from a letter from the distinguished majority leader to 
Senator Levin and to me, ``However, as you know, I do not intend to 
bring this bill to the floor until concerns regarding the bill's 
detainee provisions are resolved.''
  Is that the way the Senate works, that we do not bring bills to the 
floor unless objectionable matters that are disagreed with by one side 
or the other are not resolved? I always believed the way these issues 
are resolved is through debates, through amendment, through votes, 
through allowing the American people also to see and hear our 
deliberations, our discussions, and our debate.
  Obviously the fiscal year has expired so this bill is obviously long 
overdue. Now we are in a position where apparently the majority leader 
wants to take up the President's jobs bill in parts, one by one, in 
complete disregard of the needs and requirements of the men and women 
who are serving our national security.
  Part of that bill also is the portion from the Intelligence 
Committee. By the way, I note the presence of the Senator from South 
Carolina, who knows more about detainees than any Member of this body 
without question. He continuously travels to Iraq and Afghanistan, he 
has visited the prisons. He understands the issues better than anyone. 
I would be willing to ask him how he feels about the detainee 
provisions, after the Senator from Georgia makes a comment about the 
importance of the intelligence portion of the Defense authorization 
bill.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. This is the ninth

[[Page 15744]]

Defense authorization bill I have been involved in since I have been a 
Member of the Senate. I must say the refusal by the majority leader to 
bring this Defense authorization bill to the floor is truly 
disheartening. It is critically important that we address the issues 
not only of what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan but the day-to-day 
operations of our military from the standpoint of pay raises, quality 
of life, purchase of weapons systems for future use--any number of 
issues that are included. The refusal of the majority leader to bring 
this to the floor because of his objection to a very critical aspect of 
this bill truly is disheartening.
  During committee consideration of the bill, the committee considered 
and adopted, by a vote of 25 to 1, a comprehensive bipartisan provision 
relating to detainees. We have no detainee policy in this country 
today. If we had captured bin Laden, what would we have done with him? 
If we had captured Anwar al-Awlaki, what would we have done with him? 
Certainly we could have gained actionable intelligence from either one 
of those individuals, but we have no detainee policy in this country 
today. We have nowhere to take them, where we can hold these 
individuals and ensure that they do not get lawyered up quickly and 
that we are unable to get the type of information we need to get from 
individuals such as that.
  Over the past several years there has been an ongoing debate about 
the importance of being able to fully and lawfully interrogate 
suspected terrorists. One thing is clear after all these years: that 
our Nation still lacks this clear and effective policy. This bipartisan 
detainee compromise goes a long way toward ensuring we can get timely 
and actionable intelligence from newly captured detainees connected to 
al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. The compromise also 
provides for a permanent process for transferring Guantanamo detainees 
to other countries. We are in the midst right now of a review within 
the Intelligence Committee of the thought process that went into the 
transferring of detainees by both the Bush administration and the 
current administration. I will tell you that there are real flaws in 
that policy. Those flaws have resulted, according to the DNI--General 
Clapper--of a recidivism rate of Guantanamo detainees of 27 percent. 
That means 27 percent of the individuals we have released from 
Guantanamo and sent to other countries that have been willing to take 
them under various agreements--27 percent of them have returned to the 
battlefield and are killing or are seeking to kill Americans. The 
policy not only about detainees but policies with regard to what we do 
with Guantanamo detainees is extremely important.
  There were a number of us who were involved in the amendments that 
went into the authorization bill in committee. Senator Graham from 
South Carolina was. Senator Ayotte from New Hampshire was integrally 
involved. Let me turn to Senator Ayotte and, from the perspective of 
the people of New Hampshire, ask: Where does the Senator think we are 
with respect to a detainee policy in this country today?
  Ms. AYOTTE. I thank Senator Chambliss. I would say this. The Senator 
highlighted the importance, No. 1, as did Senator McCain, of passing 
Defense authorization. I have been to the floor twice on this issue 
because I think it is so important for our country, the notion that it 
has been half a century since the last time we failed to pass this 
authorization. What is at stake for our troops and the message it sends 
to them? We are in two wars. There are threats that face our country 
and our military men and women every day. We owe it to them that they 
know we are going to pass this authorization to address issues such as 
pay increases and weapons that they need and all of the fundamental 
day-to-day issues to make sure they know we are behind them.
  I would summarize the issue of the detainee policy of this country 
over the past few months in the Armed Services Committee as military 
leader after military leader has come before our committee and we have 
asked them about this issue, about how we treat detainees. I questioned 
GEN Carter Ham, commander of the Africa command, about what we would do 
if we captured a member of al-Qaida in Africa. Do you know what he 
said? He said he would need lawyerly help to answer that one. Is that 
what we have come to, our commanders need lawyerly help in order to 
know how to deal with captured terrorists and how to treat them within 
our system to make sure we have a secure place to gather intelligence 
from them and to ensure that the American people and our allies are 
protected?
  The majority leader is holding up the entire authorization bill with 
this detainee compromise, which was an overwhelmingly bipartisan 
compromise. This provision in the committee was voted 25 to 1 in 
support of this because there is such a need to address how we treat 
detainees. As Senator Chambliss already highlighted, we have a 27-
percent recidivism rate from those who have been released from 
Guantanamo. Here are a couple of examples of what those individuals are 
doing right now against us, our troops, and our allies. For example, 
the No. 2 in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was someone we released 
from Guantanamo.
  Another top commander of the Taliban in the Quetta Shura who is out 
planning attacks against us is someone we released from Guantanamo. 
That is why this issue cries out for a detention policy for our 
country. This is a very important issue to be brought to the floor 
along with the entire authorization.
  I see my colleague from South Carolina here, Senator Graham, who I 
know has worked very closely on these detention issues as a JAG 
attorney and is someone who visited Afghanistan in August.
  First, I would ask, during his time in the Senate, has he seen the 
Senate act like this with the Defense authorization? Second, how 
important does the Senator think it is we address this detainee issue?
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for the enormous 
contribution she has made in putting together this legislation. I wish 
both her and my friend from South Carolina to address this.
  In the letter sent to Senator Levin and me to address this issue, 
Senator Reid, the majority leader, as the rationale for not bringing 
the bill to the floor, says: I do not intend to bring this bill to the 
floor until concerns regarding the bill's detainee provisions are 
resolved.
  It goes on and on and then he says: As Deputy National Security 
Adviser John Brennan stated in a recent speech--he said in summary, 
this approach, talking about the approach that we have taken in the 
bill--I believe the vote was 25 to 1. He said: This approach would 
impose unprecedented restrictions on the ability of experienced 
professionals to combat terrorism, injecting legal and operational 
uncertainty into what is already enormously complicated work.
  I wonder, does Mr. Brennan understand what is in the legislation?
  Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Senator from Arizona and all of my colleagues 
working on what is a very difficult subject matter. When 25 to 1 is the 
outcome, that is pretty good. I like Senator Reid. This goes back to 
the White House. This is President Obama's team. This is not Harry 
Reid. This is not the Senate holding up this bill, it is the White 
House holding up this bill. They have an irrational view of what we 
need to be doing with detainees. They have lost the argument--and I 
tried to help--to close Guantanamo Bay. It is not going to close. We 
are not going to move those prisoners inside the United States. The 
Congress has said no. The American people have said no.
  The reason they lost that argument is after working with the White 
House for about a year and a half to try to find a national security 
centric detainee policy that would assure the American people we are 
not going to let these people roam around the world and treat them as 
common criminals, they could never pull the trigger on the hard stuff. 
We are here because the White House cannot tell the ACLU no. There are 
48 people at Guantanamo Bay being held under the law of war, who will 
never see a courtroom, military or civilian courtroom, and that is

[[Page 15745]]

part of military law. You don't have to let an enemy prisoner go. Most 
enemy prisoners are never prosecuted. They are held at Guantanamo Bay 
under the law of war. An Executive order issued by the Obama 
administration gives them an annual review. We have been trying to work 
with the Obama administration to deal with every class of detainee we 
may run into in this war that will go well beyond my lifetime. The 
reason Mr. Brennan objects is because there was a decision made by the 
Congress to say if a detainee is captured and interrogated by the high-
value interrogation team--which I like, which is an interagency 
combination of the CIA, FBI, military, and other law enforcement 
agencies to make sure we get the best intelligence possible, that we 
create a presumption for military custody.
  The reason we are doing that is because the Obama administration has 
been hell bent on criminalizing this war. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 
mastermind of 9/11, had charges against him in military commissions 
during the Bush administration, and he was ready to go to trial, 
literally ready to plead guilty. The Obama administration withdrew 
those charges and was going to put him in New York City, giving Khalid 
Shaikh Mohammed the same constitutional rights as an American citizen, 
then take that show on the road from Guantanamo Bay and have a trial in 
the heart of New York City that would cost $300 million alone in 
security. That blew up in their face. They don't get it. Most Americans 
don't see these people as some guy who stole a car or robbed a liquor 
store. Most Americans see detainees who were captured on the 
battlefield as a genuine threat to this country.
  I applaud the Obama administration for taking the fight to the 
terrorists and going after bin Laden, for using Predator drones on the 
battlefield throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. What I have fought 
with them over is we have no way of capturing someone and acquiring 
good intelligence because you have locked down the system. This 
detainee legislation we have before the Senate will allow a way to go 
forward.
  What happens if you capture someone tomorrow? Where do we put them? 
What jail do we have, as a nation, to put a captured terrorist in? We 
don't have a jail because they will not use Guantanamo Bay. They 
captured a terrorist and put him on a ship for 60 days. The Navy is not 
in the detention business. We don't build ships to make them jails. We 
build ships to fight wars. This aversion to using Guantanamo Bay is 
going to bite us as a nation.
  This legislation allows us to move forward. If you capture someone, 
you can gather good intelligence. There is a presumption that they will 
be held as an enemy combatant, but there is a waiver provision. What I 
don't want to do is read rights to everybody we capture in the United 
States as part of a terrorist organization's plot. We are not fighting 
a crime, we are fighting a war. Under the rules of war, you can hold an 
enemy combatant and interrogate them as long as necessary to find out 
what the enemy is up to. That is what this legislation does.
  To my colleagues, you have written a very balanced approach. This 
idea of never using Guantanamo Bay again is dangerous. The idea that 
the CIA cannot interrogate enemy prisoners as a policy is dangerous. By 
Executive order the President of the United States, President Obama, 
within a week of taking office, took off the table an enhanced 
interrogation technique under the Detainee Treatment Act that was 
classified, that was not waterboarding within our values, but 
techniques available to our intelligence community, which Senator 
Chambliss oversees, that would allow them over time to acquire good 
intelligence.
  One of the reasons we killed bin Laden is because of the intelligence 
picture we acquired over 10 years. This President, within a week, said 
by Executive order the only interrogation tool available to the United 
States of America is the Army Field Manual, which is online. You can 
read it yourself.
  Mr. McCAIN. Can I ask my colleague--it is a fact, as the Senator from 
New Hampshire pointed out, that 27 percent of the detainees who have 
been released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the fight. Not only 
have they returned to the fight, the fact that they were in Guantanamo 
gives them an automatic kind of charisma and aura and leadership in al-
Qaida and other terrorist organizations. Does the Senator think the 
American people find that acceptable, that one out of every four we 
have released from Guantanamo Bay has reentered the fight and clearly 
is responsible for the deaths of at least some of the brave young 
Americans and may be responsible for the deaths of Americans in the 
future?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Not only are most Americans upset about that but they 
worry about what comes down the road. That is what I am worried about. 
The Senate legislation is trying to create a pathway forward for the 
future. What do you do with these people we have in Guantanamo Bay who 
may never go on trial? What do you do with these people at Guantanamo 
Bay who come from countries where, if you return them to that country, 
they would be back in the fight by the end of the day?
  Mr. McCAIN. As has happened in Yemen.
  Mr. GRAHAM. We have a bipartisan proposal that will allow us as a 
nation to make rational decisions about detention, and the White House 
is holding it up. There are provisions in this bill that affect the 
day-to-day lives of the men and women in our military. The White House 
is saying detainee policy driven by the ACLU is more important to them 
than a bill that would allow the CIA the authorization they need to 
fight this war that would provide wounded warriors assistance at a time 
when wounded warriors need it the most. You talk about a perverse view 
of things, you talk about having it wrong in terms of what is most 
important, allowing the detainee issue to deny the CIA the 
authorization they need to protect us all is dangerous. To put the 
needs of the men and women in uniform in terms of their health care, 
their pay, their ability to take care of their families secondary to 
detainee policies that make no sense and is driven by the far left of 
this country is what this debate is about.
  To the White House, we are not going to change this bill.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Yes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Am I correct, I would say to my friends from South 
Carolina and New Hampshire and Arizona, that because of the 
administration's opposition to a detainee treatment provision that was, 
I gather, approved overwhelmingly in the Armed Services Committee, we 
will for the first time deny everybody in the Senate an opportunity to 
offer any amendments on any subject with the DOD authorization bill 
and, in fact, will not consider it on the floor of the Senate for the 
first time in four decades?
  Mr. GRAHAM. The minority leader is absolutely right. I would add to 
my good friend from Kentucky, it is even more. It is not just about us. 
What we are denying General Petraeus, the new CIA Director, is new 
authorization language that he needs to fight the war. What we are 
denying men and women in uniform is pay raises, health care benefits 
they desperately need because of the detention policy driven by, I 
think, the most liberal people in this country, and 25 out of 26 
Senators blessed this package.
  Senator McConnell is absolutely right. Not only does the Senate not 
have a say on what would be the way forward for our detainees, the men 
and women in uniform, the CIA operatives taking the fight to the enemy 
do not have the tools they need because of one area of this 
legislation. It would be a national tragedy if we could not pass this 
bill, which is sound to its core in all areas, because the ACLU doesn't 
like what we have done on detention.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. If the minority leader would yield for a question, as 
the Senator well knows, the intelligence community depends upon the 
Defense authorization bill for the authorization to operate in the 
intelligence community. Whether it is the

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budget or policy, all of that is compromised in the majority leader's 
refusal to bring this bill to the floor. Without the authorities in the 
respective intelligence bills that are passed by the House and the 
Senate, then our Intelligence Committee is handicapped and hamstrung in 
policies that are needed as we move forward in this ever-changing war 
on terrorism.
  I would ask the Senator from Kentucky if he has ever, in his long 
experience in the Senate, seen any bill of this nature held up and not 
allowed to come to the floor because of any single Senator's refusal to 
accept the provisions that are in the bill by an overwhelming vote such 
as this?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am not sure who has the floor, but I 
would say, in response to my friend from Georgia----
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, we have unanimous 
consent for a colloquy.
  Mr. McCONNELL. There may have been examples, but I am hard pressed to 
think of one recently. The tradition of passing the Defense 
authorization bill is there for a good reason. The national defense of 
the United States is the most important thing the Federal Government 
does. The committee upon which the Senator from Georgia and the Senator 
from Arizona and the Senator from New Hampshire serve is expert on this 
matter, and I find this truly astonishing.
  It is consistent, however, I must say with the pattern around here in 
recent times: no amendments, fill up the tree, deny the majority and 
the minority--in this case, both the majority and the minority--the 
opportunity to have any input on a piece of legislation that determines 
what we do on the Federal Government's most important responsibility.
  I think this is another example of the way the Senate has 
deteriorated into operating like the House, and it is an extremely bad 
direction for this institution and for the American people.
  Ms. AYOTTE. I wish to add as well, this detainee compromise, as 
Senator McCain and I have talked about before, is actually for--the 
group of individuals we are talking about here--having military custody 
for members of al-Qaida or affiliated groups who are planning an attack 
against the United States or its coalition partners. You think about 
that category of individuals. The most dangerous category of 
individuals we have to address is why we came to the compromise in 
committee, that the default would be military custody for those 
individuals, and it is inconsistent with the administration's position.
  If you think about it, they are, rightly so--and I agree with them--
undertaking taking out members of al-Qaida around the world who fall 
under that category, who are out there killing Americans and plotting 
against Americans and our allies. Yet they are objecting to a 
provision, a detainee provision, that would give guidance to our 
military and intelligence leaders that those individuals should be 
treated, in the first instance, with military custody. It seems to me 
to be very inconsistent with what they have been doing in other 
contexts, and, obviously, this is a category of individuals who, on a 
bipartisan basis, we agreed in committee was the most dangerous 
category of individuals, who should be held in the first instance in 
military custody.
  I want to add that Mr. Brennan, whom the majority leader has cited on 
behalf of the administration as objecting to this provision, does not 
seem to--in his speech at Harvard that he gave recently--appreciate who 
this provision applies to and that there is actually a national 
security waiver in the provision. So I would ask the administration and 
Mr. Brennan, again, to read the provisions that were passed on a 
bipartisan basis by the committee because this is such a key issue to 
move forward to give guidance to our military. But I am concerned that 
the administration's objections to this are misguided and they have not 
read the actual legislation on which we are working.
  It is my hope, as our leader, the minority leader, has said, that we 
will move forward with passing the critical pieces for our troops 
because our troops deserve nothing less than for us to bring this 
forward to the floor because of the pay raises, the weapons systems 
they deserve to have, everything that is in that bill. But, also, I 
would ask the administration to revisit its position because it seems 
inconsistent with its own policies, and they do not seem to have 
actually read the compromise that was overwhelmingly passed out of the 
Armed Services Committee.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire.
  I know we have addressed this issue in some depth, but I would remind 
my colleagues, this is the Defense authorization bill. This is the 
product of thousands of hours of work, of staff work, hundreds of hours 
of testimony and hearings, a week-long markup of the full committee 
putting this package together. The thoughts, the ideas, the 
recommendations of the administration, and people in and out of the 
administration, the knowledge and expertise of thousands of individuals 
go into this most important piece of legislation.
  For 50 years it has been taken up, debated, amended, passed, and 
signed into law by the President of the United States. Now, because of 
one small provision of this bill, the majority leader of the Senate, at 
the behest of the White House, has decided we will not take up the 
Defense authorization bill for the first time in 50 years.
  I think the distinguished Republican leader and I, who have been 
around here for quite a while, have seen this process now deteriorate 
to the point where we now cannot debate, amend, and pass legislation 
that is so vital to our Nation's security and the men and women who 
take part in preserving it. This is kind of a sad day for this Member.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Finally, I would ask both the Senator from Arizona, 
who has been our leader on national defense issues, and the Senator 
from New Hampshire: Is the basis of this that the administration wants 
to establish the precedent that they can capture enemy noncombatants 
anywhere in the world and send them straight into the United States 
into an article 3 court? Is that the crux of this, I would ask my 
friends?
  Ms. AYOTTE. I would say to our distinguished Republican leader, I 
think that is what is at the heart of this, that they want to treat 
these individuals in the context of our civilian court system; 
otherwise, why would you object to a provision on military custody for 
those who are members of al-Qaida who are planning an attack against 
the United States or have attacked the United States? Also, I would 
point out, there is a national security waiver in this provision. So 
the only thing I can take from it is that they do want to treat this 
war as people who are at war with us as civilians as opposed to who 
they are--enemies of our country.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Could I ask the Senator from New Hampshire, a former 
attorney general, a further question?
  Does this not lead, inevitably, in the further direction of a mindset 
that would say, on the battlefield, if you capture an enemy combatant--
and that enemy combatant is, inevitably, on the way to an article 3 
court--could it lead to the feeling that that enemy combatant should be 
read his Miranda rights on the battlefield, if he is viewed as an 
individual who is on the way to a U.S. court under U.S. law? Where does 
it end, I ask my friend from New Hampshire?
  Ms. AYOTTE. I would say that is an absolute concern here because this 
would be the first war in the history of our country where we would be 
giving those we capture on the battlefield the rights to our civilian 
court system. Where do we draw the line? It would be outrageous to 
require members of our military and intelligence officials to 
immediately ask: Do I have to give Miranda rights? Do I have to worry 
about some of the speedy trial and presentment issues that come from a 
civilian court system?
  That is why, in the guidance of the committee, on a bipartisan basis, 
for this category of individuals, the presumption should be military 
custody

[[Page 15747]]

because these are individuals who are enemy combatants with whom we are 
at war. That is fundamentally what is at issue. It does seem 
inconsistent--with what the administration is doing in terms of rightly 
going after these individuals around the world, and killing them in 
certain instances--that we would not provide them with military custody 
in the first instance.
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I also point out to my friends and my colleagues 
that, as is the case quite often, even though the vote was 25 to 1 on 
this provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee, we did provide, 
at the request of the administration, a waiver for national security. 
So we included a waiver that says:

       The Secretary of Defense may, in consultation with the 
     Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, 
     waive the requirement of paragraph (1)--

  That is the detainee issue--

     if the Secretary submits to Congress a certification in 
     writing that such a waiver is in the national security 
     interests of the United States.

  So there is a national security waiver. We have given the President 
of the United States a way that he could waive every provision of this 
legislation--something I was not particularly happy about, but in the 
spirit of compromise, we gave a waiver.
  Could I say, also, I am sure--I see the majority leader on the 
floor--yes, there have been contentious times. There was contention 
last year about the don't ask, don't tell act. The year before, there 
was contention about the fact that they added the hate crimes bill, 
which had nothing to do with national security, onto the bill. But at 
least we ought to go ahead and take up and debate and amend and have 
the Senate act, as the American people expect us to; that is, 
consideration, voting, and the President, if it is that objectionable, 
obviously, could veto the bill.
  But to say, because of these few pages--these pages right here of the 
bill--that, therefore, we will not even take up the bill, for the first 
time in 50 years, in my view, is a great disservice to the men and 
women who are serving.
  I thank my friends, the Senator from New Hampshire and the minority 
leader.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester). The majority leader is 
recognized.

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