[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18585-18589]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  ISIS

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the recent 
terrorist attacks around the world--including, of course, the horror of 
Paris--but also to talk about what undergirds that, and that is the 
threat posed by ISIS. Some use the acronym ISIL; Daesh is another 
phrase that has been used to describe this vicious terrorist group. But 
I think we need to--at the same time as we are trying to prevent 
terrorist attacks--focus on the broader policy to destroy ISIS.
  We know it has been 4\1/2\ years since the people of Syria began 
protesting against the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad. As we also 
know, that conflict escalated rapidly and was coupled with a 
dysfunctional and sectarian government in Iraq, especially starting 
from the capital of Baghdad. The fighting and unrest created space for 
extremism to grow and to take root.
  About 1\1/2\ years ago, we saw the emergence of the group we now know 
as ISIS. This group poses a very serious threat to our national 
security as well as to the security of many parts of the world. There 
is no question that ISIS is a clear threat to the security of our 
partners in the region and--as we know most horrifically, in the last 
few days--in Europe.
  They also have a desire to attack the U.S. homeland. We know that. We 
have to remember that this is a group that originated as an Al Qaeda 
offshoot. They share the same motivations or at least similar 
motivations, and they, of course, share the same brutality, if not 
worse.
  In recent weeks, ISIS has claimed responsibility for horrific attacks 
outside of Syria and Iraq. They claim responsibility for the bombing of 
a Russian airliner that went down over Egypt in the Sinai, killing all 
of its passengers--Russian passengers. ISIS suicide bombers attacked a 
market in Beirut, Lebanon, last week, just before Paris. Then, of 
course, came Friday night, the 13th. This was, as has been reported, a 
coordinated, ruthless, and despicable attack in Paris that killed 129 
innocent civilians.
  So what this horror--and we could list other examples, but these most 
recent events remind us--what this horror reminds us, is what our job 
is in Congress and across our country, but especially when it comes to 
the role of the U.S. Federal Government. We have at least two 
responsibilities in this area. No. 1 is to prevent terrorists from 
coming into the United States of America; and second, but related, is 
to destroy ISIS, without a doubt. To do both of these will continue to 
be difficult and challenging. Anyone who comes up with a simple 
proposal or a commentary that makes it seem simple really doesn't know 
what they are talking about, really doesn't understand the complexity 
of this. I even doubt their commitment to it when they give one-line 
answers to difficult challenging problems.
  Last year, I was blessed, in June of 2014, to have the chance to go 
to Normandy. Senator Leahy, the senior Senator from Vermont, organized 
a visit to Normandy on the 70th anniversary of D-day. For someone 
representing any State--in my case representing the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania, from where so many Pennsylvanians and, of course, so many 
Americans died on the beaches of Normandy or died within days of that 
battle--it was deeply moving to be in Normandy, to listen to 
presentations from those who had lived through the horror of Normandy 
and those who were coming back to celebrate the fact that they had 
served and were alive after these 70 years.
  We were able to see the beaches. We saw the cemetery. I walked down 
to the cemetery, and the first grave I happened to look at was one of a 
Pennsylvania soldier, just fortuitously when I was looking at the first 
marker, the first grave.
  One of the themes of that visit, of course, was France, the people of 
France thanking the United States, thanking allies and expressing 
gratitude in so many different ways, in heartfelt ways, at the 
leadership level, from President Hollande, all the way down. And one of 
the best images of that gratitude was displayed in this picture. I will 
put it up on the easel. This is an enlarged version of what was on a 
brochure. You can see it, and it is written in two languages, of 
course. The translation is ``70th Anniversary of the Liberation of 
France,'' in English and French, and the date--June 6, 2014, 
commemorating the 70th anniversary.
  What you may not be able to make out from a distance is the image. It 
is, of course, a beach, and it is the image of a little girl. She has 
an orange plastic pail and a green plastic shovel--an image we all 
understand--a child going on to the beach to play in the sand. She is 
in a yellow dress, with her back towards us, and she is moving towards 
the beach.
  What is so moving about this expression of gratitude by the people of 
France is that the shadow that emanates from that little girl is not 
her shadow. Rather, it is the shadow of an American GI, or what I 
believe to be an American GI, and I am not sure anyone could contest 
that. It is a profound and very moving and very powerful expression of 
gratitude that all of us can understand: that this little girl would 
not be able to be on that beach to play in freedom--or any of the other 
places that were under attack during World War II--were it not for the 
bravery of American soldiers, the commitment of the American people, 
and the work that was done to undergird that effort by the allies 
against the axis powers.
  It is a very powerful reminder of the contribution of that soldier 
depicted by the shadow and the freedom that little girl can enjoy 
because of that sacrifice--a profound sacrifice, a sacrifice

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you cannot even describe if you had volumes of books to write about it. 
I was moved because it was a wonderful expression of gratitude to the 
people of the United States by the French people.
  I was thinking about that in the aftermath of this horror. Folks all 
over the United States and around the world were expressing solidarity 
with the people of Paris and the people of France, and it gave us the 
chance to try to give back to them in the aftermath of their tragedy, a 
year or so after they had expressed gratitude to us. This relationship 
between our two countries is very strong and goes back to the 
beginnings of our Republic, even back to the days of the Revolution.
  That image of that little girl probably couldn't be expressed or 
presented were it not for what happened in World War II and what 
happened on the beaches of Normandy. Again, we were able to achieve 
that result by working with allies the world over. It would not have 
been possible were it not for the work of people around the country 
sacrificing--the soldiers and their families, the factories, the 
spouses who worked in the factories while soldiers were overseas. There 
was a lot of good work done then by the Congress to support the war 
effort. We have to figure out a way here to get back to that kind of 
sacrifice, that kind of commitment.
  There was a reminder recently of what a Member of this body said 
around that time, about 1945. Senator Arthur Vandenberg from the State 
of Michigan delivered a seminal speech in January 1945 on this floor. 
Senator Vandenberg was a Republican, an avowed isolationist and a 
strong opponent of President Roosevelt. But on that day he said:

       We cannot drift to victory. We must have maximum united 
     effort on all fronts. . . . and we must deserve the continued 
     united effort of our own people.

  It is Vandenberg's example of setting aside partisan politics for the 
good of our Nation that gives us this expression: Politics stops at the 
water's edge. We have all heard that expression. If we haven't, we 
should educate ourselves, and if we have heard it, we should remind 
ourselves of it. But I am afraid when we debate foreign policy and 
security policy, there is often a dismissal of that basic lesson he 
taught us. I am afraid we have lost sight of his legacy that politics 
must stop at the water's edge when it comes to our security, whether 
that is the fight against terrorism itself or whether that is a 
military campaign against ISIS.
  This fight against ISIS demands our attention, but it also demands 
our unity. Unity is not just a nice expression, something we should 
hope for. The challenge demands it. If we are not unified, it is going 
to be very difficult to defeat ISIS or any other threat, frankly. We 
must not do oversight by sound bite when it comes to this policy. We 
can engage, as some have done--not everyone but enough to be concerned 
in both Houses of Congress--in categorical condemnation of the 
President's policy on virtually everything in the international arena. 
That doesn't move the ball down the field. It also doesn't absolve the 
President of accepting and incorporating critiques of the policy--
specific critiques of what we should be doing or are not doing or might 
want to consider. But categorical condemnation doesn't help anyone. It 
doesn't solve the problem. It just divides people and prevents us from 
having that essential unity to make sure the strategy works.
  I have been critical of a number of the President's policies on the 
international stage. I haven't always agreed with him. But if one is 
going to disagree with the President or disagree with a colleague about 
something as important as a strategy to defeat what most people believe 
is the biggest threat to the civilized world, you should be very 
specific. Unity demands that you be specific. We don't have time for 
just words and finger pointing. We need a bipartisan approach to this 
challenge.
  So we do need bipartisanship. We need sober and serious deliberation, 
and we also need spirited debate. I am not advocating that someone 
doesn't criticize the policy or engage in a very heated exchange with 
someone who has a different point of view. But it has to be a debate, 
and it has to be an engagement that yields a result. And the result is 
a policy and a strategy that is going to be effective and that has some 
degree of substantial unity.
  A lot of our allies look at the squabbles here in Washington and 
wonder how serious we are about this fight. If all we do is just 
comment and answer reporters' questions, maybe go to a hearing once in 
a while, that is OK, but this policy is going to take a lot more than 
that. Some of our allies look at our failure to unite behind a common 
strategy and wonder whether the United States will be an enduring 
partner for as long as it takes to eliminate ISIS from the planet--not 
just to defeat them on the battlefield but to destroy them. A lot of 
these allies, I am afraid, are wishing for more Senator Vandenbergs or 
at least more Vandenberg-Roosevelt days, when someone could disagree 
almost violently about domestic policy or even an aspect of our 
security, but at some point you came together and said: We are going to 
move forward with this strategy and work together.
  In November of last year, the President outlined a multipart strategy 
to address the threat posed by ISIS. He spoke about the airstrike 
campaign in Iraq and Syria, which now involves 11 countries and has 
yielded more than 8,000 airstrikes as of last week. Those strikes have 
taken out ISIS leaders. They have taken out financiers, bomb makers, 
foreign fighters and foreign fighter recruiters.
  Of course, most recently--just last week, just before the horrific 
news about Paris--we were told the man responsible for the beheadings 
of ISIS hostages had, in fact, been killed. That was a good result for 
the civilized world. We also heard from the President at that time--and 
since that time--of a 60-plus nation coalition.
  Most recently, there have been hits on the tanker trucks bringing oil 
out of ISIS-held areas for sale on the black market, hits on 
communications equipment or weapons caches, and they have helped 
protect opposition fighters who cleared the way for significant 
territorial gains, especially by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces--great 
fighters in this battle. Reports now indicate that ISIS territorial 
holdings in Iraq and Syria have been diminished by as much as 25 
percent in roughly the last year. CENTCOM's assessment--this isn't an 
assessment by a politician; this is CENTCOM--indicates that the 
refinery in the city of Tikrit has been largely retaken, as has been 
the city of Sinjar and a main road connecting ISIS strongholds in Raqqa 
and Mosul. These airstrikes are denying ISIS safe haven and 
significantly hindering their ability to move freely around areas where 
they operate.
  So what have we heard over and over? Airstrikes alone will not win 
this. I agree with that. I get that. But airstrikes are moving the ball 
down the field in the sense that they are giving the opportunity to 
fighters on the ground and helping in other aspects of the strategy. So 
we have to continue the airstrikes. I hope people around here don't 
start saying: Well, airstrikes alone don't do the job; so let's stop 
the airstrikes. No, we have to continue them and, if necessary, for 
years--many years.
  But this strategy is not just a military strategy. The President also 
outlined an effort to counter the financial networks that support ISIS, 
which gets funding from multiple sources. We know them: illicit oil 
sales, trafficking in antiquities and other goods, extortion of the 
local communities, and outside donations. The Department of Defense is 
targeting financiers for kinetic strikes, a fancy way of saying you are 
going to be taken out if you are a financier. Treasury has sanctioned a 
number of senior ISIS leaders and facilitators, cutting off access to 
the U.S. financial system. The strategy also includes measures to 
address foreign fighter recruitment and travel. We are also working to 
expose ISIS's hypocritical propaganda which many Muslim leaders around 
the world have said is inconsistent with their religious values. It is 
clear there can be no enduring defeat of ISIS without remedies for the

[[Page 18587]]

governance issues which created this space for extremism to fester.
  In Iraq we are working to create an inclusive government that has a 
capability to counter ISIS. In Syria we need a negotiated political 
solution that ensures Bashar al-Assad--whose continued presence in 
Damascus has been a recruiting windfall for ISIS--has no role in the 
future of Syria and has to go. I have said that many times. I 
appreciate the fact that Secretary Kerry and his team have recognized 
these underlying problems and have worked to address them.
  So while the administration has taken important steps, we know it is 
not enough. We know that. Recent events require an intensification of 
our efforts. I have critiqued this Syria policy for years and will 
continue to press the administration to do more on ISIS financing. We 
have to make sure ISIS can't pay their people's salaries. We have to 
cut off their financing so they can't operate, so they can't pay for 
propaganda, so they can't buy weapons, so they can't buy ammunition, 
and so they can't make the horrific IEDs that kill innocent civilians 
and soldiers. So we must continue this debate as Members of the Senate 
with the administration. Part of making sure we get the financing 
challenge in the right place is to confirm Mr. Adam Szubin, who would 
play a substantial determinative role in the Treasury Department.
  So what do we do? It has been very difficult to get people focused on 
a bipartisan strategy. There is a lot more we can do. I believe the 
establishment of a bipartisan study group, comprised of experts and 
former government officials from both sides of the aisle, will be 
useful at this juncture. This group should be authorized by Congress, 
appropriated a modest amount of money for supporting its work, similar 
to the Iraq Study Group formed in 2006. The group should evaluate the 
nature of the ISIS threat as well as the conditions in Iraq and Syria 
that have allowed it to grow and evolve, and it should evaluate the 
military and nonmilitary options available to the United States to 
address this threat and the underlying conflicts and governance issues. 
There is a lot this group could do and contribute to what would be a 
stronger, bipartisan, unified policy. There are many outside experts 
whose careers of service in the Middle East, and civilian, military, 
and intelligence roles, offer a wealth of expertise. This group could 
conduct its work over a 6- to 9-month period and report back to 
Congress with its findings. If they could do it faster, we would 
certainly authorize and encourage them.
  Initiating a bipartisan study doesn't mean we should press pause on 
our current efforts. Members of Congress need to continue supporting 
our soldiers, bringing the fight to ISIS with intensity and focus. We 
need to continue our efforts to reach a negotiated political transition 
in Syria and to encourage inclusivity and good governance in Iraq. If a 
Sunni soldier doesn't feel a part of his own government, they have to 
support a unifying government. We need to continue to press the growing 
humanitarian crisis emanating from Iraq and Syria, but I believe our 
efforts to defeat ISIS and our long-term goal of countering violent 
extremism would benefit from a serious bipartisan expert study group.
  In closing, I will once again invoke the words of Senator Vandenberg. 
In the speech he gave in the 1940s, he said: ``Here in the Senate we do 
not have perpetual agreement between the two sides of the aisle, but we 
have never failed to have basic unity when crisis calls.''
  ``We have never failed to have basic unity when crisis calls.'' 
Crisis has called, right now. We know that. The crisis is ISIS and 
terrorism. We have to destroy ISIS and prevent terrorism from coming to 
our shores. We don't have time for politics. We don't have time for 
people talking in sound bites and pretending they are doing oversight. 
We need bipartisan work that will bring people together on a unified 
strategy. I urge my colleagues to reflect on the spirit of Vandenberg's 
seminal speech and to find a unified path forward that supports our 
long-standing partners and protects the security of this great Nation.
  I will conclude with a picture. This is a picture of a little girl 
who can walk on a beach in freedom because of the bravery and sacrifice 
of our soldiers in World War II. If we are worthy--worthy of that 
sacrifice--we had better get our act together, come together--both 
parties--and make sure we have a bipartisan policy. We don't have time 
for finger-pointing. We have to come together and make sure we do all 
we can to have a sound, serious, bipartisan effort against ISIS and 
against terrorists. I believe that is a mission worthy of a great 
nation and certainly worthy of the sacrifice of the people who are on 
the battlefield right now--our soldiers, our fighters, as well as 
soldiers from around the world--and certainly worthy of the sacrifice 
that led to the beautiful expression of gratitude that the French 
people gave us just last year.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I look forward to working with my 
colleague from Pennsylvania on that sound bipartisan policy he is 
talking about, and I want to talk a little bit about that today. He 
mentioned Senator Vandenberg, who famously said that partisanship ends 
at the water's edge. I think he would have been surprised by President 
Obama's comments beyond the water's edge in Turkey yesterday, where he 
attacked Republicans who dared to talk about the need for us to ensure 
that we know who is coming to our shores and specifically with regard 
to refugees and having a proper vetting process in place. In fact, the 
House of Representatives--with over 40 votes from Democrats--I 
understand just voted on legislation today, which is a veto-proof 
majority, to say we ought to tighten requirements for people who want 
to come to our shores.
  So we do need to work together. We do need to ensure that 
partisanship does not get in the way of working together as Americans 
to solve these problems. The partisan speech from across the ocean, 
well beyond our shores, was an example of where we are not meeting the 
standards Mr. Vandenberg set out.
  As we all know now, last weekend ISIS terrorists killed over 130 
innocent people in a series of very well-coordinated attacks in Paris. 
I would say these attacks did not occur in isolation. They were one but 
a series of attacks that occurred within a 24-hour period. Sometimes we 
forget the context of these attacks. The series of attacks left 43 
people dead in Beirut, 18 people dead in Baghdad, countless wounded--
all ISIS attacks. In the preceding month, ISIS took credit for a downed 
Russian airplane, claiming the lives of 224 innocent civilians. In 
September, Islamic extremists murdered nearly 50 in Yemen.
  In fact, if we look back over the period of last year, several 
hundred civilians have been killed in nearly 30 attacks--incidents 
spanning the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Asia, and North 
America. It is impossible to deny the growing threat that this 
extremism poses to our Nation, our allies, and our shared values and 
global stability.
  Despite all of its great qualities, technology has bridged the oceans 
that once separated us from foreign turmoil and brought this threat to 
our communities and to our homes, the places we feel most safe. These 
attacks must serve as a wake-up call, not only about the nature of the 
enemy we face in ISIS but about the chaotic and dangerous state of the 
world and the dire need for American leadership to address it.
  The attacks in Paris were not a ``setback,'' as the President said. 
They were a continuation of terrorist acts. They were a tragedy and a 
warning--a warning that if we fail to take a leadership role in 
combatting extremist behavior everywhere it resides, we will confront 
another tragedy here, on our shores.
  We cannot develop a successful strategy to defeat ISIS unless we 
understand its true nature. There has been a lot of talk this week 
about Syrian refugees and whether they should be properly vetted. Of 
course they should, but we need to take a broader look at this

[[Page 18588]]

issue and have a broader discussion about the roots of the problem: Why 
are these refugees streaming into Europe and coming here? We need to 
look at not just the roots of the problem but what is the comprehensive 
strategy to address that problem.
  We can't develop a successful strategy to defeat ISIS unless we 
understand its true nature. The President's insistence on downplaying 
the extremist threat and viewing each act in isolation is a fundamental 
flaw in his national security policy, in my belief. Referring to ISIS 
as the ``JV team,'' as it seized nearly one-third of Iraq, publicly 
stating that ISIS has been ``contained'' just hours before the attack 
in Paris, and then referring to those attacks as a mere ``setback'' are 
all symptomatic of this failed policy, in my view.
  I think this is a time for moral and strategic clarity. I think of 
Roosevelt and Churchill in World War II. I think of Kennedy and Reagan 
in the Cold War. Times of crisis require seeing threats as they are and 
not as we might wish them to be. Nothing would make me happier than if 
the President of the United States would provide this clarity.
  We now know that the Paris attacks were planned in Syria, organized 
in Belgium, and carried out in France. This revelation is yet another 
confirmation of a key fact many of us have been saying for years: ISIS 
is a global threat with global reach and ambitions. It is motivated by 
a radical Islamist ideology that while rejected by the majority of 
Muslims, nevertheless holds great appeal to too many Muslims around the 
world. This ideology rejects any form of government that is not based 
on a radical interpretation of Sunni Islamism and holds that it is the 
duty of all Muslims to wage jihad against those who do not share their 
views--including of course the United States, including of course 
Israel, including of course the apostate regimes, as they call them, 
like America's Arab allies all through the Middle East.
  The President continues to insist that the limited scale and scope of 
the administration's strategy to counter ISIS is working, but ISIS is 
not just a nuisance to be managed. It is a global threat to be 
defeated. Rather than containing ISIS to a geographic region, the 
conflict in Syria and Iraq has served as an incubator for terrorism. 
The territory ISIS holds provides a safe haven for these terrorists to 
train, organize, gather resources, and project power. Tens of thousands 
of foreign fighters from Europe, the United States, and around the 
world have flocked to the frontlines of the global jihad, and many 
return home with the training and resources necessary to carry out 
monstrous attacks. Meanwhile, a flood of refugees fleeing atrocities 
and persecution in Syria have provided ISIS operatives a community in 
which they can easily hide. Indeed, it appears at least one of the 
Paris attackers was someone who disguised himself as a refugee to get 
into Europe.
  This enemy is cunning and knows it cannot defeat us on a conventional 
fight on the battlefield, so it is employing asymmetric warfare to 
attack our values and degrade the collective security of our nations. 
They know they have access into every home and are using modern media 
technologies to exploit a disenfranchised minority. Their audience 
spans the globe. Think about this: If they only reach 0.0001 percent of 
the global population, then they have an army of over half a million 
potential terrorist recruits.
  More intelligence cooperation between the United States and our 
allies is absolutely necessary to track suspected ISIS terrorists and 
prevent them from hiding their presence and launching attacks. The 
United States should also increase the scale and intensity of military 
operations against ISIS targets. If we can give the French the 
intelligence to be able to attack key ISIS targets in Syria, then why 
haven't we used that intelligence ourselves to degrade the enemy? We 
must intensify the use of our military. We must intensify U.S. Special 
Operations forces and local allies. We must defeat ISIS forces on the 
ground and retake territory.
  As I have argued for a couple of years now, we cannot ignore the 
broader conflict in Syria and must lead our allies in pursuing a 
comprehensive strategy to not just defeat ISIS but to also achieve a 
negotiated resolution of the Syrian conflict.
  Over 4 million people have fled Syria. The Government of Syria has 
murdered over 200,000 of its own citizens. I saw an interview today 
where someone was asking one of the refugees from Syria what their 
preference was--to go to Europe or to go to the United States. The 
refugees said what most refugees said: I want to go home, but I need a 
safe haven there.
  We should have a no-fly zone in Syria and provide for people the 
ability to stay in their own country. Military force alone will not 
solve this problem. Obviously, we need to do more and engage the Muslim 
world in this effort, but it can shape the parameters of an acceptable 
solution.
  These measures are all important, but they all stem from the 
recognition of something far more fundamental. In the absence of U.S. 
leadership, chaos and instability ensues. It takes active American 
leadership to reassure our allies, to deter our enemies, and to uphold 
the international order upon which global stability and prosperity 
depend. We should not be the world's policemen; I agree with that. It 
is more like being the world's sheriff, where you bring together a 
posse of like-minded nations. Whether it is the NATO countries with 
regard to Ukraine or whether it is our Sunni allies with regard to what 
is happening in the Middle East, we must be the sheriff who pulls the 
posse together. In the absence of that, in the absence of that 
leadership, we will not meet this challenge.
  In the Middle East, the chaos we see is not just contained in Syria, 
and it is not just confined to ISIS. As the United States prepares to 
provide billions in sanctions relief agreed to in the Iran nuclear 
deal, Iran has been very busy. Iran has sent ground troops into Syria 
as part of a new joint offensive with Assad, Russia, and the terrorist 
group Hezbollah. Iran has tested a ballistic missile, they have 
arrested several American citizens living in Iran, and they have 
threatened to wipe Israel off the map of the Middle East. Ayatollah 
Khamenei has now banned any further negotiations with the United States 
of America.
  Meanwhile, Russian forces are conducting combat operations in the 
Middle East for the first time since 1941. Russia has launched a 
sustained air campaign--not really against ISIS, as Putin claims, but 
almost entirely against U.S.-backed rebel groups and other moderate 
groups opposed to both ISIS and Assad. There is discussion of them 
targeting ISIS more. I hope that is true. In Europe, Russian forces 
continue to occupy portions of eastern Ukraine and continue to occupy 
Crimea. After a brief lull, violence is once again rising, as Russian 
efforts to undermine the democratic pro-Western government of Ukraine 
persist. Russia also continues to wage an unprecedented information war 
that leverages all elements of national power to confuse, demoralize, 
and mislead.
  In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict 
in the Middle East stream into Europe, threatening to overwhelm 
Europe's ability to vet and process them and create opportunities for 
terrorists to evade detection and conduct attacks like those we saw in 
Paris.
  In the Pacific, China is building artificial islands in international 
waters to reinforce its claims in the South China Sea.
  This is the world that unenforced redlines and leading from behind 
have created. It is a world where the very structure of international 
order is under siege and where the direction of our collective future 
is brought into question. Of course, this trend is not irreversible, 
but the United States must first step out of the shadows.
  Ronald Reagan spoke memorably about peace through strength. We must 
be unambiguous in our support of our allies, and we must be clear-eyed 
and resolute in standing up to our foes. This is the path to peace and 
security for us and for the world.

[[Page 18589]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

                          ____________________