[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9486-9487]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  ISIS

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago I came to the Senate floor to 
discuss the numerous foreign policy failures of the Obama 
administration. While there has been no shortage of examples over the 
past 7 years, I wish to revisit one particular subject from the litany 
of this administration's errors--the very serious national security 
threat that President Obama once called a JV team.
  Last November, President Obama participated in an interview with the 
host of ``Good Morning America,'' George Stephanopoulos, who asked him 
the following question: ``But ISIS is gaining strength, aren't they?''
  The President's reply:

       Well, no. I don't think they're gaining strength. What is 
     true is that from the start, our goal has been first to 
     contain, and we have contained them.

  Just 1 day later--1 day later--ISIS gunmen and suicide bombers 
attacked Paris and killed 130 people. Less than a month after that, 2 
ISIS-inspired terrorists killed 14 people in the first homegrown ISIS 
attack on American soil. Now there is Orlando, the worst terrorist 
attack on America's homeland security since 9/11--so much for ``we have 
contained them.''

[[Page 9487]]

  Unfortunately, despite these attacks, President Obama continues to 
paint an unrealistically rosy picture of our success against ISIS. 
Emerging from a meeting last week, the President declared that ``we are 
making significant progress'' in the fight against ISIS. He went on to 
say, ``ISIL's ranks are shrinking. . . . Their morale is sinking.''
  Two days later, however, the President's CIA Director painted a very 
different picture. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director John 
Brennan stated: ``Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL 
on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not 
reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach.''
  Let me repeat that: ``Our efforts have not reduced the group's 
terrorism capability and global reach.'' That is something the 
President neglected to mention 2 days earlier.
  That is not the only thing he forgot to bring up. The President 
discussed the anti-ISIS coalition's efforts to target ISIS's funding. 
But he neglected to mention that those efforts still left ISIS with a 
robust revenue stream.
  The CIA Director noted that ``ISIL . . . continues to generate at 
least tens of millions of dollars in revenue per month, primarily from 
taxation and from crude oil sales.''
  The President hailed accomplishments on the ground in Iraq and Syria, 
but he didn't mention that those successes are doing essentially 
nothing to reduce ISIS's ability to attack abroad.
  This is again a quote from Director Brennan:

       The group's foreign branches and global networks can help 
     preserve its capacity for terrorism regardless of events in 
     Iraq and Syria. In fact, as the pressure mounts on ISIL, we 
     judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to 
     maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.

  That, again, is from Director Brennan.
  The President noted that ISIS is losing ground in Libya, but he 
forgot to mention ISIS's Libyan branch is perhaps its most dangerous 
and poses a real threat to Africa and to Europe. Director Brennan 
testified again:

       ISIL is gradually cultivating its global network of 
     branches into a more interconnected organization. The branch 
     in Libya is probably the most developed and the most 
     dangerous. We assess that it is trying to increase its 
     influence in Africa and to plot attacks in the region and in 
     Europe.

  If there is one thing that Director Brennan's testimony made clear, 
it is that we are not doing enough to confront the threat posed by 
ISIS. Unfortunately, that is not something President Obama seems to 
understand. As his remarks last week made clear, the President is more 
interested in explaining why he doesn't like the term ``radical Islam'' 
than he is in offering a concrete plan to actually defeat ISIS.
  It is difficult to understand why the President so resolutely avoids 
this term. The fact is, ISIS and its adherents are driven by their 
radical interpretation of Islam. How can we hope to confront this 
terrorist ideology if we can't actually call it by its name?
  On the same note, what was the administration hoping to accomplish 
when it redacted references to ISIS in its initial release of the 9-1-1 
transcripts from the Orlando attack? Was it hoping to somehow distract 
from the fact that this was a terrorist attack? Do they want to play 
down the fact that ISIS is now inspiring attacks in the United States?
  Unfortunately, our Commander in Chief's disturbing reluctance to 
identify our enemy by its name is emblematic of the fundamental lack of 
seriousness that has characterized the President's foreign policy. The 
attack in Orlando was a terrorist attack, yet the President's response 
was a formulaic call for gun control. All the gun control laws in the 
world are not going to stop a terrorist bent on wreaking havoc in our 
country. France's strict gun control laws didn't prevent terrorists 
from slaughtering 130 people last November.
  To stop ISIS-inspired attacks, we need to stop ISIS. And to do that, 
we need a serious, comprehensive plan from the President. What I wish 
we had heard last week from the President are concrete proposals to 
counter the threat of homegrown terrorism. He could have talked about 
ways to make sure our intelligence agencies have the resources they 
need to track and counter ISIS efforts to communicate with its recruits 
in the West. He could have discussed ways to address the threat of lone 
wolf terrorists. He could have talked about ways we can improve our 
ability to monitor terrorists' communications to disrupt their plans. 
He could have called on Senate Democrats to support Senator Cornyn's 
amendment to give the Attorney General the authority to act on probable 
cause against would-be terrorists while protecting due process to 
protect Second Amendment rights, but he didn't. Instead, he issued a 
brief call for gun control and spent a large chunk of his speech 
defending his refusal to use the term ``radical Islam.''
  When President Obama was elected, we were told he would restore 
America's standing in the world. In fact, he received a Nobel Peace 
prize in the first year of his first term based solely on people's 
belief that he would promote peace and bring stability to world 
affairs. I thought of that when I saw this statement from CIA Director 
Brennan toward the end of his testimony last week. The Director said: 
``I have never seen a time when our country faced such a wide variety 
of threats to our national security.'' Again, that statement was stated 
by CIA Director Brennan during his testimony just last week.
  President Obama is certainly not responsible for all the unrest in 
the world today, but the unfortunate truth is, his foreign policy 
failures have contributed to a lot of it. His politically motivated 
decision to withdraw our troops from Iraq and announce the timetable to 
our enemies created the vacuum that ISIS quickly moved in to fill. His 
decision not to act when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crossed the 
redline the President himself had drawn sent a message to tyrants and 
dictators the world over that America could be ignored at will. The 
President's nuclear deal with Iran has left that country better 
equipped to acquire advanced nuclear weapons down the road.
  President Obama is nearing the end of his term, but there is still 
time for him to commit to working with Republicans to take the steps 
that are necessary to not just contain but to actually defeat ISIS. 
There is still time for him to focus on controlling our borders so 
terrorists don't slip across without our knowledge. There is still time 
for him to take measures to strengthen our counterterrorism 
capabilities, and there is still time for him to focus on supporting 
Federal and local law enforcement in their efforts to stop terrorism.
  I hope in the coming days, the President will see his way to offering 
some serious solutions to the danger ISIS poses to our Nation. It is 
high time that happen.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. 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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