[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13187-13201]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   MOTION TO DISCHARGE--S.J. RES. 39

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Paul and pursuant to 
the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, I move to discharge the Foreign 
Relations Committee from further consideration of S.J. Res. 39, 
relating to the disapproval of the proposed foreign military sale to 
the Government of Saudi Arabia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is now pending.
  Under the previous order, there will be 3 hours of debate on the 
motion, divided between the proponents and opponents, with the Senator 
from Kentucky controlling 30 minutes of proponent time and the Senator 
from Connecticut controlling 15 minutes of proponent time.
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time 
during quorum calls on the motion be equally divided between the 
proponents and the opponents.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am going to speak briefly in support of 
the resolution. Senator Lee, a cosponsor of this resolution, is on the 
floor, and he will speak after I do.
  Let me say at the outset that I believe in a strong U.S. global 
presence. I believe the United States is at its best when it is a 
global leader. We can and we should be a force for good and for peace 
in the world.
  I also believe, quite frankly, that peace comes through strength. I 
don't apologize for the size of our military budget, nor do I think it 
would be wise for this Congress to give up this country's massive 
military edge over every global adversary and friend. Having the 
world's biggest, baddest military keeps us safe, and, frankly, it keeps 
a lot of our friends safe as well.
  My last stipulation before I talk about the resolution would be this: 
I also believe there are times when we should use that military power. 
There are times when war or military action is just. If you want to 
provide safe harbor for terrorists who plan a massive attack against 
this country, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, then they can expect 
a visit from the U.S. Army.
  But increasingly we all have to reconcile with the fact that there 
are more and more limitations on the effectiveness of U.S. military 
power. Today, our adversaries and our enemies practice something we 
call asymmetric warfare, which means they concede our conventional 
military advantage and use other means and methods to exert power and 
project strength. China does it through economic aid, Russia does it 
through bribery and the extension of its natural resources to its 
neighbors, and ISIL does it through terror and through the perversion 
of religion. Yet this country and this Congress continue to believe 
that most conflicts around the globe can be solved with just a little 
bit more American military hardware.
  That is what brings us here today to talk about this arms sale to 
Saudi Arabia, particularly in the context of the ongoing conflict 
inside Yemen--a civil war inside Yemen in which the United States has 
become a participant.
  This is a picture from war-ravaged Yemen--an ongoing humanitarian 
disaster. We don't have the full extent of the numbers, but there have 
already been thousands of civilians killed. If we talk to Yemenis, they 
will tell us that this is perceived inside Yemen as not a Saudi-led 
bombing campaign, which it is broadly advertised as in the newspapers, 
but as a U.S. bombing campaign or, at best, a U.S.-Saudi bombing 
campaign.
  There is a U.S. imprint on every civilian death inside Yemen which is 
radicalizing the people of this country against the United States. Why 
is this? Well, it is because, while the conflict inside Yemen started 
as a civil war--the Houthis overrunning the government inside Sana'a--
the Saudis and a coalition of other Gulf States have entered the 
conflict, largely through air operations, to try to push the Houthis 
back, and they have asked for our assistance, which we have given, and 
we have given it in substantial means and methods. We provide the 
bombs, we provide the refueling planes, and we provide the 
intelligence. There really is no way this bombing campaign could happen 
without U.S. participation.
  The United States is at war in Yemen today. The United States is at 
war in Yemen today, and this Congress has not debated that engagement. 
This Congress has not debated that war. It is yet another unauthorized 
U.S. military engagement overseas.
  But the scope of this disaster for the purposes of U.S. security 
interests is not just the radicalization of the Yemen people against 
the United States or the thousands of people who have been killed but 
also the fact that this war has given ground--an opportunity for Al 
Qaeda and ISIS to grow--grow by leaps and bounds.
  Let's be honest. Our first responsibility here is to protect this 
country from attack, and the most likely arm of Al Qaeda that would 
have the means or the inclination to attack the United States is the 
branch that exists inside Yemen. Their recruitment has grown by 
multiples over the course of this conflict. For a period of time, AQAP 
was able to use this conflict to grab control of a major port city 
inside Yemen, which radically changed the ability of AQAP to recruit 
and to grow their capacity to do harm outside of Yemen, because they 
had control of resources and taxation inside this city.
  One would think that if the United States was providing all of these 
resources to the Saudi-led coalition, that some of them would be used 
to try to push back on ISIS's growth or AQAP's growth inside Yemen, but 
the exact opposite has happened. None of the Saudi bombs are dropping 
on AQAP; they are all dropping on Houthi targets and civilian targets. 
So we are arming the Saudis to fight an enemy--the Houthis--whom we 
have not declared war against, and the Saudis are not using those 
weapons to fight our sworn enemy whom we have declared war against: Al 
Qaeda. So the civilian casualties mount, ISIS and Al Qaeda grow, yet 
this is the first time we have had the opportunity to discuss the 
wisdom of this engagement.

[[Page 13188]]

  We begged the Saudis to change their conduct. We have asked them to 
target Al Qaeda. To the extent that Al Qaeda is shrinking a bit, it is 
not because the Saudis have targeted them, it is because other players 
in the region--the Emirates--have targeted them. We begged the Saudis 
to stop bombing civilians. Yet in a 72-hour period earlier this summer, 
the Saudi-led coalition bombed another Doctors Without Borders 
facility, a school, and the principal's house next door. We give them 
targets that they should stay away from because they are key parts of 
routes to bring humanitarian relief in a country that is ravaged by 
famine, and they still hit those targets even after we told them to 
stay away. We begged the Saudis to change their behavior inside this 
war, and they haven't listened.
  But it is not the only time they haven't listened. The fact is, if 
you are serious about stopping the flow of extremist recruiting across 
this globe, then you have to be serious about the very real fact that 
the Wahhabi-Salafist branch of Islam that is spread around the world by 
Saudi Arabia and their Wahhabi allies is part of the problem.
  In 1956, there were 244 madrassas in Pakistan; today there are over 
24,000. These schools are multiplying all over the globe. Conservative 
Salafist imams and mosques are spreading all across the world. Don't 
get me wrong, these schools and Mosques by and large don't teach 
violence directly. They aren't the minor leagues for Al Qaeda and ISIS, 
but they do teach a version of Islam that leads very nicely into an 
anti-Shia, anti-western militancy. We begged the Saudis to stop setting 
up these conservative Wahhabi operations in parts of the Middle East, 
in the Balkans, in Indonesia. Again, they haven't listened.
  Just take the example of Kosovo. Kosovo 10 years ago would never have 
been a place that ISIS would have gone to recruit people into the fight 
inside Syria, but today it is one of the hotbeds of recruitment. It is 
not a coincidence that during the same period of time the Saudis and 
Wahhabis spent millions of dollars there, trying to convert Muslims to 
their brand of religion--a brand of religion that essentially says that 
everybody who doesn't believe what we believe is an infidel, that the 
crusades never ended, and that the obligation of a true Muslim is to 
find a way to fight back against any brand of the religion that doesn't 
match ours.
  So for those who are going to vote for this arms sale, who are 
essentially going to endorse our current state of the relationship with 
Saudi Arabia and our Gulf State allies, just ask yourselves if we can 
really defeat terrorism if we remain silent on the primary progenitor 
of this brand of Islam that feeds into extremism. How can you say you 
are serious about strangling ISIL when the textbooks that are produced 
inside Saudi Arabia are the very same textbooks that are handed out to 
recruit suicide bombers?
  If we really want to cut off extremism at its source, then we can't 
keep closing our eyes to the money that flows out of Saudi Arabia and 
the Gulf States into this conservative Salafist missionary movement 
around the world.
  This arms sale is relevant to both of these questions--changing the 
war inside Yemen and sending a message that this export of the building 
blocks of extremism cannot continue. Why? Because the main part of this 
arms sale is a replacement of battle-damaged tanks--tanks that were 
likely in part damaged in the conduct of this war. It represents a 
piece of a very long ramp-up of arms sales into Saudi Arabia.
  The numbers are pretty staggering. This administration has sold about 
six to eight times the number of arms to Saudi Arabia than the last 
administration did, and the Saudis do listen. They do pay attention to 
what we say here. They don't like the fact that there are Republicans 
and Democrats critiquing this relationship. They will not like the fact 
that there will be votes against this arms sale. So even if it 
ultimately doesn't become law--which is unlikely, given the fact that 
even if it passes, the President could veto it--this could impact both 
of these questions, the conduct of the war in Yemen and the conduct of 
the export of Wahhabism around the globe.
  Lastly, let me make the case that rejecting or voting against this 
arms sale is not going to end or even permanently damage our 
relationship with Saudi Arabia. We are allies. We will continue to be 
allies. Our common bond was forged during the Cold War when American 
and Saudi leaders found common ground in the fight against communism. 
The Saudis helped ensure that the Russians never got a meaningful 
foothold in the Middle East. Today, this unofficial detente that exists 
between Sunni nations and Israel in the region is part of the product 
of Saudi-led diplomacy. There have been many high-profile examples of 
deep U.S.-Saudi cooperation in the fight against ISIL and Al Qaeda, 
notwithstanding these critiques. More generally, our partnership with 
Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and richest country in the Arab world 
is an important bridge to the Islamic community--a testament to the 
fact that we can seek cooperation and engagement with governments in 
the Middle East and people worldwide, which is a direct rebuttal to 
this idea the terrorists spread that asserts we are at war with Islam
  This is not an either-or question, but we are strategic allies, which 
is different from being a values-based alliance. That means that when 
our strategic goals occasionally depart from one another, then we 
shouldn't be obligated to continue our cooperation on that particular 
front. The Saudis' guiding foreign policy goal is to gain regional 
supremacy over Iran. We certainly prefer a Middle East with more Saudi 
friends than Iranian friends; there should be no doubt about that. But 
our guiding foreign policy goal in that region is not for the Saudis to 
win the broadening proxy war with Iran; it is to protect our country 
from attack by terrorist groups that are metastasizing in Syria, Iraq, 
and now at worrying rates inside Yemen.
  Today, our participation in the war inside Yemen is making us more 
vulnerable by attacks from AQAP and ISIS, not less vulnerable. Our 
bombs, our intelligence, our spotters, and our refueling planes are 
certainly helping the Saudis project power in the region, but it is 
fueling an arms race between Shia and Sunni nations that has no logical 
end other than mutual destruction, increasing chaos, and more 
ungovernable space for groups that want to attack the United States.
  Said another way, is this really the right moment for the United 
States to be sending record numbers of arms into the Middle East?
  Do we have any evidence from past conflicts in Afghanistan or the 
Iran and Iraq wars that more U.S. weapons end up in less, rather than 
more, bloodshed--an abbreviated rather than an elongated war?
  It is time for the United States to press pause on our arms sales to 
Saudi Arabia. Let's make sure that the war in Yemen doesn't continue to 
spiral downward, jeopardizing U.S. national security interests. Let's 
press the Saudis to get serious about spending more time as 
firefighters and less time as arsonists, as they say, in the global 
fight against terrorism.
  Let's ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with the United States 
getting slowly, predictably, and all too quietly dragged into yet 
another war in the Middle East. What will it take for this country to 
learn its lesson?
  I thank the Presiding Officer and the body for the time, and I yield 
back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Murphy, Senator Paul, and 
Senator Lee for their leadership on this very important issue.
  Since the Saudi-led coalition started a bombing campaign in Yemen in 
2015, there has been an average of 13 civilian casualties each day, 
according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Human Rights. This means that thousands of civilians have been killed 
or wounded in the U.S.-backed war in Yemen. This is unacceptable. 
People all across this country

[[Page 13189]]

have been outraged at how the Saudis have conducted this war and 
believe that the United States should not acquiesce or support such 
conduct.
  Over the last decade, the United States has sold the Saudis over $100 
billion in arms. The United States has also supported the Saudi-led 
coalition with air-to-air refueling sorties, intelligence sharing, and 
military advisory assistance. That kind of support should not go along 
with acceptance of the Saudi disregard for innocent human lives and 
innocent civilian lives.
  The legislation we will be voting on later today is a disapproval 
resolution regarding a $1.15 billion arms sale. The very fact that we 
are voting on it today sends a very important message to the Kingdom of 
Saudi Arabia that we are watching their actions closely and that the 
United States is not going to turn a blind eye to the indiscriminate 
killing of men, women, and children.
  Again, I would like to thank Senators Murphy, Paul, and Lee for their 
leadership, and I urge my colleagues to support this important piece of 
legislation.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise today to lend my support and urge my 
colleagues to lend theirs to S.J. Res. 39, offered by my friend Senator 
Rand Paul of Kentucky. The purpose of this particular resolution is to 
reconsider the billion-dollar arms sale between the United States and 
Saudi Arabia that was negotiated by the two governments earlier this 
year.
  Under U.S. law, any arms sale approved by the State Department will 
go into effect within 30 days after that deal has been finalized, 
absent passage of a resolution of disapproval to prevent it from taking 
effect. That is exactly what Senator Paul's resolution aims to do. If 
passed by the Senate and the House, the resolution would raise formal 
objections to the sale of $1.15 billion worth of weapons and military 
equipment to the Government of Saudi Arabia.
  Notice that there are Senators from both sides of the aisle working 
to pass this resolution of disapproval, supporting it in speeches and 
voting on it hopefully later today. It was introduced by a fellow 
Republican, and I am proud to join three of my Democratic colleagues as 
original cosponsors: Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, from whom 
we heard just moments ago; Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, from whom 
we heard after we heard from Senator Murphy; and Senator Martin 
Heinrich of New Mexico.
  Some might call us strange bedfellows--two conservative Republicans 
and three liberal Democrats working together to achieve the same goal. 
But this observation misses the point entirely. Each one of us may have 
their own unique justification for supporting this resolution, but 
there is nothing strange about that; it simply proves that there are 
many reasons to consider and to reconsider this deal with Saudi Arabia.
  One of those reasons and the basis for my support of Senator Paul's 
resolution is that there is no conclusive evidence that the Saudi arms 
deal will in fact advance the strategic and security interests of the 
United States. In fact, there is evidence that points in the opposite 
direction. We know that Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in the civil 
war that is raging at this moment in Yemen--a conflict that has left a 
humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions in its wake and continues 
to do so. We know that the Saudi military will use the equipment 
included in this deal--everything from machine guns to grenade 
launchers to armored vehicles and tanks--to increase its own engagement 
in that seemingly intractable conflict. What we don't know is exactly 
how America's involvement in the civil war in Yemen serves our national 
security interests and protects the American people.
  I have no problem in principle with the United States approving the 
sale of weapons and military equipment to foreign governments when it 
is in our interest to do so. I certainly am not categorically opposed 
to selling arms to the Saudi Government. Saudi Arabia has long been an 
American ally in a very volatile region of the world, and I believe 
strengthening that alliance should be a priority for our foreign and 
military policy in the Middle East, but the fact that Saudi Arabia is 
an ally with whom we have a track record of selling arms is not in and 
of itself a sufficient reason to endorse this particular deal. It is 
not a reason that this deal should move through, should take effect 
without so much as a whimper from Members of Congress who might feel 
the need to raise possible concerns--concerns that relate to our own 
national security.
  Yes, we want our allies to be strong. Yes, we want our allies to be 
capable of defending themselves. Yes, sometimes this means that we 
should offer them assistance in times of need. But the first and most 
fundamental responsibility of the U.S. Government is not to satisfy the 
requests of our allies reflexively, unflinchingly, and without asking 
acute questions; rather, the fundamental responsibility--the first job 
of the U.S. Government--is to protect the lives and liberties of the 
American people. That is where we need to be focused.
  Now, the Government of Saudi Arabia clearly believes that intervening 
in this civil war in Yemen and participating in the decades-long 
sectarian conflict underlying that civil war in Yemen is in the best 
interest of the Saudi people. I don't doubt that, and it is not my 
place to question it, even if I did doubt it.
  That is why the Saudi military has been fighting in Yemen since it 
first launched its intervention in March 2015. But can the same be said 
of the U.S. Government? Is intervening in this civil war a national 
priority for the American people? Is intervening in that civil war in 
our national security interest? Is it something that is going to make 
the American people safer?
  Astoundingly, these are questions that have never been fully 
discussed and certainly have never been fully debated in this 
institution--an institution that likes to call itself and loves to be 
referred to as the world's greatest deliberative body.
  This is more of an abdication of responsibility by Congress. It is 
more than just that. It is a national security hazard. It is not just 
that we are abdicating. It is not just that we are not doing something 
we are supposed to do. We are making things more dangerous than we need 
to.
  The Framers of our Constitution gave important and exclusive foreign 
policy powers to the legislative branch because our Framers believed 
that the process of defining America's national interests and 
developing a foreign policy to pursue those interests must involve the 
participation of the people's representatives in Congress.
  But alas, in recent years, Congress, in general, and the Senate, in 
particular, have happily taken a back seat to the executive branch in 
debating, developing, and defending to the public our Nation's foreign 
policy and grand strategy in the Middle East. That explains how it is 
possible that our military has actively supported the Saudi military's 
intervention in Yemen, including hundreds of air-to-air refueling 
sorties at a time when our military leaders unanimously contend that 
they are suffering from readiness and personnel shortfalls. It explains 
how it is possible that the U.S. military would be actively involved in 
the civil war in Yemen, even though many security experts point out 
that by supporting Saudi Arabia in Saudi Arabia's fight against the 
Houthis, we could be unintentionally assisting Al Qaeda in the Arabian 
Peninsula and ISIS affiliates in Yemen.
  I urge my colleagues today to support this resolution of disapproval. 
Let us pause our intervention in this foreign conflict and show the 
country--show our country--that the legislative branch can fulfill its 
obligations to the American people faithfully, that we can openly and 
thoughtfully evaluate our interventions abroad, and that we are focused 
on protecting the security, safety, and interests of the American 
people above all others.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The majority leader.

[[Page 13190]]


  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, today the Senate will consider a 
motion to discharge a resolution of disproval from the Foreign 
Relations Committee. I oppose that motion because I believe it would 
harm our Nation's long-term strategic interests in the Persian Gulf and 
in the broader Middle East.
  It would further damage our alliance and our partnership with the 
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at a time when our moderate Sunni Arab allies 
are questioning whether our Nation is able to meet our traditional 
commitment to the region. The resolution would also ignore the shared 
interests we have with Saudi Arabia in combating Al Qaeda and ISIS.
  Were this resolution of disapproval ever to be adopted, it would 
further convince the world that the United States is retreating, not 
only from its commitments but also as the guarantor of the 
international order we worked to create after the Second World War.
  I will move to table this motion and encourage all of my colleagues 
to support the motion. We are nearing the end of the Obama 
administration. The next President will have a stark choice upon 
assuming office--whether to continue the drawdown of America's 
conventional military power across the globe or to restore our 
warfighting capabilities to both renew our alliances and restore 
America to its position as the guarantor of the international security 
order.
  After nearly 8 years, the President's approach to foreign policy has 
become all too clear--to end the war on terror, to draw down our 
conventional forces and capabilities, and to deploy special operations 
forces in economy-of-force train-and-assist missions across the globe.
  The essence of this foreign policy was captured in his speech at West 
Point in May of 2014. In that speech, the President described a network 
of partnerships from South Asia to the Sahel, to be funded by a $5 
billion counterterror partnership fund for which Congress has yet to 
receive a viable plan. In those cases where indigenous forces prove 
insufficient and a need for direct action arises, the President 
announced his intention to resort to the use of armed unmanned aerial 
vehicles for strikes, as has been done in Yemen and Somalia.
  So by deploying special operations forces for train-and-equip 
missions, the President hoped to manage the diffuse threat posed by Al 
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Boko Haram, terrorist networks inside 
of Libya that now threaten Egypt, the al-Nusra Front, the Taliban, 
ISIL, and other terrorist groups.
  The concept of operations allowed the President to continue the force 
structure cuts to the conventional forces and sought to manage the 
threat from global terrorism. He envisioned no need to reverse the 
harmful damage of defense sequestration, to rebuild our conventional 
and nuclear forces, or to accept that leaving behind residual forces in 
Iraq and Afghanistan was a means by which this Nation preserves the 
strategic gains that we have made through sacrifice.
  The threat of some of these Al Qaeda affiliates, associated groups, 
or independent terrorist organizations has outpaced the President's 
economy-of-force concept. In some cases, the host nation's military 
which we had trained and equipped had proven inadequate to defeat the 
insurgency in question, as was the case with AQAP, the Taliban, or 
ISIL.
  The Obama administration never answered the question: What was to be 
done when the host nation's force we trained for counterterrorism was 
incapable of counterinsurgency--Iraq, Libya, Yemen? The efforts of the 
Department of Defense to train a moderate Syrian opposition never 
provided sufficient reasons for the President to rethink the basic 
strategy.
  The President's concept of operations countenanced a persistent, 
enduring terrorist threat from AQAP, the Taliban, and other groups in 
those countries where insufficient ground combat power could be 
generated by the force that we trained.
  In Riyadh, our traditional longstanding ally Saudi Arabia warned of 
Iran's efforts to arm and support Shia proxies in Syria, in Yemen, and 
in Lebanon and to foment unrest across the region, all of which was 
lost on the White House.
  Instead, they were called ``free riders,'' and Saudi Arabia's 
concerns with what a Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo, 
instability in Libya, and the slaughter of Sunnis within Syria would 
mean for the region were completely ignored. The Obama administration 
has sounded an uncertain trumpet, but the words that resounded in Saudi 
Arabia and across the region were the commitment to our allies--that in 
negotiating with Iran to end its nuclear weapons program, no deal is 
better than a bad deal.
  Well, this proved not to be true. The administration accepted the bad 
deal, and in its negotiation with Iran, the administration made 
concession after concession after concession: allowing Iran to retain a 
nuclear enrichment program, allowing for the retention of working 
centrifuges and a research and development program, providing financial 
relief and support, and lending legitimacy to the world's chief state 
sponsor of terror.
  Under any net assessment, Iran has emerged from the nuclear deal with 
the Obama administration stronger--stronger than before the deal. The 
funds derived from the lifting of sanctions enable Iran to invest in 
proxy forces and conventional capabilities, such as advanced air 
defense systems, and to threaten Israel and Saudi Arabia.
  Even more consequential is the fact that the Obama administration's 
single-minded pursuit of achieving and preserving the deal has held the 
other elements of our foreign policy toward Iran hostage. Iran is free 
to harass American vessels within the Persian Gulf, to test ballistic 
missiles, and to fund proxy forces.
  After agreeing to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 
President gathered the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council at Camp 
David. At that meeting, our President made commitments to those allies 
that we would help them in building their respective defense 
capabilities.
  A vote in support of this resolution today undermines that commitment 
made by the President to help the Saudis. Our allies in the region, 
especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, came to 
understand that after the fall of the Mubarak government, the 
decapitation of the government in Libya, and civil war in Syria, they 
must act in pursuit of their own sovereign interests, whether the 
United States would lead or not.
  The specific foreign military sale in question here is for Abrams 
tank structures to Saudi Arabia. We have been selling ground combat 
equipment to Saudi Arabia for decades--for decades. There is no 
evidence--none--that the Saudis have used the Abrams tanks in ground 
combat within Yemen. These systems have been used along the Saudi 
Arabia border to defend against Houthi incursions.
  The United States is actively working to improve Saudi targeting 
capability and to deliver humanitarian relief to the people of Yemen. 
So let us also remember that denying the sale of Abrams tank structures 
will simply lead some of our allies to pursue weapons systems from 
other countries.
  Let me say that again. The Saudis don't have to buy this equipment 
from us. They can buy it from somebody else. So this motion comes at a 
singularly unfortunate time and would serve to convince Saudi Arabia 
and all other observers that the United States does not live up to its 
commitments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, let's be clear about what the arms sale 
is all about. It is about giving a nation that is under attack by an 
Iranian-sponsored militia the arms that it needs to defend its people 
and its territory.
  The Houthi militia, which is Iran's proxy in Yemen, is attacking 
Saudi Arabia's southern border. It has carried out hundreds of cross-
border raids into Saudi Arabia and has fired numerous missiles deep 
into Saudi territory.

[[Page 13191]]

Make no mistake, this aggression is fueled by the Iranians.
  Earlier this year, the United States seized a shipment of arms bound 
for the Houthi militia. Have no doubt that the Houthi militia are the 
clients and the stooges and the agents of Iran, which is attempting to 
take over control of Yemen, which is an important nation, particularly 
because of its geographic location on the Straits of Hormuz.
  Have no doubt about what the situation would be strategically if the 
Iranian-sponsored Houthis controlled Yemen. Have no doubt about the 
threat that it is to the United States of America and to freedom of 
navigation.
  Houthi aggression against Saudi Arabia has displaced over 75,000 
Saudis and killed hundreds of civilians. If militias were attacking our 
borders and launching missiles into our territory and our friends 
refused to help us defend ourselves, we would certainly question the 
value of that friendship. This is why this sale is more important than 
just a sale. It is a message.
  The sale will give Saudi Arabia tanks it has used to defend its own 
country from Houthi attacks. The United States has no evidence that 
Saudi Arabia has used the tanks outside of Saudi territory. In fact, 20 
of the tanks in the case would be intended to replace those damaged by 
Houthi artillery while the tanks were on Saudi territory, deployed in 
defensive positions to counter offensive Houthi cross-border raids. 
These tanks will be reviewed and monitored like all U.S.-origin defense 
articles to ensure they are used in the manner intended or consistent 
with legal obligations and foreign policy goals and values.
  I say to my colleagues that blocking this sale of tanks will be 
interpreted by our gulf partners--not just Saudi Arabia--as another 
sign that the United States of America is abandoning our commitment to 
the region and is an unreliable security partner. That is what this 
vote is all about. The nations in the region already have that 
impression because President Obama has reneged on his promise made at 
the U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council meeting at Camp David in May of 2015 
to fast-track arms transfers.
  As we support the Saudis in the defense of their territorial 
integrity, we do not refrain from expressing our concern about the war 
in Yemen and how it is being conducted. We remain concerned by the high 
number of casualties resulting from the fighting. We have repeatedly 
expressed our deepest concern about the ongoing strikes that have 
killed and injured civilians, the heavy toll paid by the Yemeni people, 
and the urgent and compelling need for humanitarian assistance. There 
has been some progress, including the establishment of the Joint 
Incident Assessment Team, a commission to investigate civilian 
casualties.
  But we cannot forget that an Iranian-backed, Houthi-controlled Yemen 
will be a chaotic, unstable place ripe for exploitation not only by 
Iran but also by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIL. That is 
why it must be our goal and the goal of the international community to 
arrive at a political solution to bring stability and security back to 
Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been seeking such a solution.
  The Saudis were cooperative and participated in good faith in the 
peace negotiations in Kuwait before those talks, unfortunately, broke 
down over Houthi intransigence. They have shown considerable restraint 
in not responding with airstrikes to Houthi cross-border attacks, which 
continue.
  In the meantime, we must continue to support an important regional 
partner against Iran's destabilizing behavior in Yemen and beyond.
  I say to my colleagues, this vote is more important than the sale of 
tanks. This vote is a message to our friends and our enemies alike. 
This message is that we will continue the commitment President Obama 
made at a meeting in 2015 with the nations in the region that we would 
expedite arms sales to them, not prohibit them. This is a message that 
one of the strongest forces against Al Qaeda in the region and other 
terrorist organizations is going to be allowed to acquire weapons with 
which to defend their sovereign nation.
  This vote will resonate throughout the entire Middle East. That is 
why I hope my colleagues will understand that the importance of this 
vote transcends anything to do with military equipment. I urge my 
colleagues to vote against this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to 
vote overwhelmingly.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I wish to speak for 10 minutes, and I 
request that the Presiding Officer let me know when that time expires.
  This body, the Senate, is going to have a vote in a couple of hours 
about whether we should approve an arms sale to our friends in Saudi 
Arabia. I use the term ``friends'' because that is what I think they 
are when it comes to the efforts to win the war against terror.
  Internal problems in Saudi Arabia are real. They need to modernize 
the way they do business. They have had double-dealing in the past of 
helping terrorist organizations. At the end of the day, the Mideast is 
a very complicated place, but here is what is not complicated: Saudi 
Arabia has shared intelligence with us that has made Americans safe. 
They have allowed us to use their air bases in times of conflict. They 
are all in against ISIL, and they are great allies against the 
ambitions of the Iranians. When you add up the pluses and the minuses 
of the relationship with Saudi Arabia, in my view, it is not close--the 
pluses outweigh the minuses.
  To those who wish to sever this relationship, be careful what you 
wish for. Saudi Arabia is the center of gravity of the Islamic world. 
Most holy sites in Islam are in Saudi Arabia. I have met with the King, 
the Crown Prince, and the Deputy Crown Prince. They have shown a 
willingness to work with us at a time when we need partners. If you 
drive this good partner, Saudi Arabia, away, you will one day regret 
it.
  This is what is going on in the Mideast. Iran is marching through the 
Mideast with terror. They are destabilizing the entire region. The 
Saudi Kingdom is not perfect, but they are aligned with us on the big 
issues when it comes to terrorism and pushing back against Iran.
  The Iranian regime is controlled by a radical Ayatollah who openly 
chants and tweets that the State of Israel must be destroyed. This 
regime is in the hands of a religious Nazi. The Ayatollah in Iran 
controls everything. There are no moderate voices left there.
  Since the deal with Iran has been signed regarding their nuclear 
program, they have test-fired four missiles in violation of U.N. 
resolutions. One of the missiles basically had in Hebrew ``Israel must 
be destroyed.'' They constantly threaten our ally Israel. They have 
taken over four Arab capitals.
  The Houthis, who threw out a pro-American government in Yemen by 
force of arms, is being supplied arms by the Iranians.
  The $150 billion the Iranian regime will receive in sanctions relief 
is finding its way into the hands of terrorist organizations. 
Hezbollah, a mortal enemy of Israel, has been provided up to 300 new 
missiles with precision-guided technology by the Iranians to threaten 
the Jewish State. Assad wouldn't last 5 minutes without Iranian 
support. They have disrupted all of our gains inside of Iraq. They are 
influencing Baghdad in a very bad way.
  When it comes to Yemen, when it comes to Iraq, and when it comes to 
Syria, Iran is creating havoc.
  This body has a choice. We are talking about a $1 billion package of 
armaments that will upgrade the Saudis' capability to fight common 
enemies such as Al Qaeda and ISIL more aggressively, and it will give 
them the military capability to challenge the increased threats to the 
region from of Iran.
  If we say no to the Saudis, not only will that be seen as a sleight 
by the

[[Page 13192]]

Saudis, they will buy their arms somewhere else.
  And if you want to talk about a body that would have things ass 
backwards, this would be the moment in history where you will be seen 
in history as not understanding the world. There are some of my 
colleagues on the other side who are worried about how the Saudis are 
using military force inside of Yemen to protect their borders from an 
Iranian intrusion that is being basically carried forward by the 
Houthis. There is an effort to bring about peace in Yemen, but Iran has 
empowered the Houthis to displace a pro-American, pro-Western 
government, creating havoc for the Saudis. They have dropped bombs on 
civilians. There is no way to conduct war without mistakes being made. 
We are trying to sell them new equipment, precision-guided weapons that 
will lessen civilian casualties when Saudi Arabia has to defend 
themselves.
  I think it would be pretty odd for Members on the other side of the 
aisle, who almost unanimously supported the Iranian nuclear agreement, 
to give sanctions relief to an Ayatollah who on the day of the vote 
said he hopes to destroy Israel in 25 years and deny a weapons sale to 
somebody who is in the fight with you. Talk about ass-backwards: flush 
the Iranian regime with capabilities they have dreamed of to pursue a 
nuclear deal that I think is a nightmare for the region, and in the 
same context, within a matter of months, start denying Arab allies who 
are willing to fight the capability to fight.
  If you want to send a signal to the Ayatollah that America is out of 
the fight and we no longer are a reliable ally, stop helping Saudi 
Arabia and the Gulf Arab States, who have been helping us, as imperfect 
as they may be. What a world we live in, where this body wants to be 
tough on Saudi Arabia because they are in a shooting war in Yemen, 
sponsored by the Iranians, right on their border, that we want to cut 
off military aid to them because of human rights violations, when the 
people on the other side are watching Iran destroy the Mideast, 
threaten us, and create the possibility of a second holocaust for the 
Jewish people. Not one person on the other side has risen their hand to 
say: You know, maybe we should revisit sanctions on Iran based on what 
they have done since we signed the deal.
  So here is the answer. The Iranians have test-fired four ballistic 
missiles, after signing the Iranian nuclear agreement with us, in 
violation of U.N. resolutions, and our response is to cut off weapons 
to Saudi Arabia. We haven't done a damn thing to send a signal to the 
Ayatollah: Hey, man, you are going to pay a price if you keep doing 
this.
  The Iranians are shipping weapons to the Houthis, who have destroyed 
a pro-American government, creating havoc in the region inside of 
Yemen, and our response is to cut off weapons to the Saudi Arabians.
  If you want to change the Mideast forever, do this. If you really 
want to tell everybody who has fought with America you are no longer a 
reliable ally, do this. If you want to tell the Russians we are going 
to cede authority and power to them, do this. The Russians are pulling 
for us. The Russians would like nothing better than for America to cut 
off arms sales and alliances with the Gulf Arab States, particularly 
Saudi Arabia, because that would give them the opportunity of a 
lifetime. If you care about the American homeland, you better put Iran 
in a box as soon as you can.
  Here is my belief about the Iranians. Not only are they trying to 
take over four Arab capitals--and they have--they are developing 
ballistic missiles to deliver something. They are not going to put the 
Ayatollah in space, though I would like to do that myself. They are 
going to put something on top of that missile and I know exactly what 
it is and all the Arabs know what it is and the Israelis know what it 
is.
  So at a time of great and clear conflict--and it is clear to me the 
Iranians are the bad guys and our allies in the Arab world, though 
imperfect, are still our allies--that we are going to send a signal to 
the radical regime in Tehran that we are going to roll back supporting 
our allies and do nothing about their provocative behavior would be a 
mistake for the ages.
  I wish the body would have a different debate than we are having 
today. I wish somebody would come and talk about reimposing sanctions 
on the Iranians. They have captured American sailors and humiliated 
them. They are allies of Bashar Assad, who has butchered 450,000 of his 
own people. They are empowering Hezbollah, the mortal enemy of Israel. 
They are humiliating every force of good, and our response is to stand 
up and undercut an ally.
  What a world we live in, where the United States Senate is 
considering stopping selling arms to somebody who would fight with us 
at a time when we are doing nothing to a country that has called us the 
Great Satan--and if they could, they would destroy us--and have killed 
American soldiers by providing radical groups inside of Iraq with IEDs 
that have killed hundreds of American soldiers. Talk about a body and 
an idea that is ass-backwards, this is one for the ages.
  To my friends inside of Saudi Arabia, I will push you to do better, 
and you need to look in the mirror about who you are, but I understand 
there are more pluses than there are minuses. To our enemies in Iran--
who are not the Iranian people, it is the Ayatollah--as long as I am 
here with my colleagues, we are going to push back against you more, 
not less, we are going to help our Arab allies more, not less, as long 
as you are doing what you are doing.
  To those who want to vote today to suspend this aid to Saudi Arabia, 
people in Iran will cheer you on.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, while he is still on the floor, I just 
want to tell the Senator from South Carolina how much I appreciate his 
remarks. I agree with virtually everything he said. He is one of the 
most knowledgeable and articulate Members of the Congress on national 
security matters. He knows whereof he speaks and he speaks the truth.


               Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act

  Madam President, I have come to the floor a few times this last week 
to talk about another piece of legislation called the Justice Against 
Sponsors of Terrorism Act, known as JASTA. This might as well be known 
as the justice for the 9/11 families bill.
  I support the position articulated by the Senator from South Carolina 
and will vote against the resolution of disapproval to block the Saudi 
arms sale. I believe that is the same position articulated by the 
distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, Senator 
McCain, and the majority leader, Senator McConnell, and I find myself 
in agreement with each of them. Some might say: Well, how can you agree 
to maintain the relationship with Saudi Arabia when it comes to 
providing them with the necessary arms they need in order to fight this 
proxy war by Iran against the Gulf State allies and at the same time 
support this Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which some say 
may be focused on the Saudis. I would like to explain that.
  First of all, let me just say that when I think about the Senate, I 
am reminded of the comments made by Robert Byrd, the distinguished 
Senator from West Virginia who is no longer with us. He wrote books on 
Senate procedure. He wrote a history of the United States Senate. He 
was truly a remarkable man. He was also former majority leader of the 
Senate and a force to be reckoned with. When I came to the Senate, 
Senator Byrd said, among other things: In the Senate, you have no 
permanent allies. In the Senate, he said, you have no permanent 
enemies.
  I believe what he meant by that was that on a case-by-case basis, 
people who come from different regions of the country, different States 
with different interests, will work together where their interests are 
aligned, and when they are not, they are going to differ--respectfully, 
I would hope--but they are not going to always do the same thing or see 
the world in exactly the

[[Page 13193]]

same way. That doesn't mean we are enemies. That doesn't mean we are 
adversaries. That is just the way it works.
  As I think about our relationship with countries such as Saudi 
Arabia--but it is not just Saudi Arabia, it is all of our international 
relationships--we are going to agree with them on matters of principle 
when our interests are aligned. We are. And certainly in the case of 
this arms sale, our interests are perfectly aligned.
  Saudi Arabia finds itself in a very rough neighborhood, subjected to 
violence and war perpetrated by Iran, frequently through proxy groups 
such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other forces, but it is very much 
in the U.S. interest that Iran not continue to dominate the whole 
region in the Middle East. Obviously, they have made great strides in 
dominating and influencing Iraq.
  Unfortunately, as a result of the misguided nuclear deal negotiated 
by the White House, Iran is now on a pathway toward a nuclear weapon. 
One can imagine what our other allies, such as Saudi Arabia and the 
other Gulf States, are thinking. If our No. 1 adversary in the region 
is going to get a nuclear weapon, we may need to defend ourselves. By 
what? Well, by getting nuclear weapons. That makes the world a much 
more dangerous place.
  My point is, when it comes to relationships between Senators from 
different States, representing different regions and different 
interests, even though we sometimes agree with each other, sometimes 
disagree with each other, that is just the way the Senate works, and 
that is the way I believe the world works. When our interests are 
aligned with countries such as Saudi Arabia, we will stand with them, 
and we hope they will stand with us. When they diverge, we are going to 
take a little different approach.
  I believe it is absolutely imperative we override the forthcoming 
veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act so the families 
who suffered so much and lost so much on 9/11 can go to court and make 
the case, if they can, to hold whoever was responsible accountable. 
That is just as basic as anything in our system of justice. That is not 
for us to decide. We are not a court of law. The rules of procedure and 
the rules of evidence don't apply here. Sometimes I wish they did. In 
court, you can't just introduce hearsay or conspiracy theories and not 
back them up. They have to be based upon reliable testimony as 
determined by a judge.
  That is what the 9/11 families are going to get, is the opportunity 
to make their case, if they can. I don't know if they are going to be 
successful, but I do believe one of the most fundamental things about 
our system of government is the opportunity to try. If you think you 
have a case to make, present it to the judge and try to make your case. 
You may win. You may lose.
  I spent 13 years of my adult life as a trial judge and on an 
appellate court, the Texas Supreme Court. Maybe I just became too 
familiar with how courts operate. Maybe I have more confidence in the 
ability of the courts to sift through these matters and get to the 
bottom of them than some of my other colleagues do, but I have 
confidence, by and large, in the Federal judiciary, and I believe under 
the oversight of a good Federal judge, they are going to enter the 
appropriate sort of protective orders necessary to protect people sued 
against overreaching and fishing expeditions when it comes to 
discovery, for example. The judge is going to make sure everybody plays 
by the rules and does not take unfair advantage.
  So enough about that. But I believe, unlike a few of my colleagues 
whose comments I have read about, the Justice Against Sponsors of 
Terrorism Act does not target a specific country. As I have mentioned 
time and time again, we don't even mention a specific country in the 
legislation. All it does is extend a law dating back to 1978--the 
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act--and it says that in a narrow set of 
facts, you may be able to sue a foreign government. In this case, if 
you sponsor or facilitate a terrorist attack on American soil, you will 
have been deemed by law to have waived your sovereign immunity and you 
will be held accountable in court.
  Again, I have read the 28 pages that remain classified from the 9/11 
report. I have read other responses from our law enforcement and 
intelligence authorities. I can't talk about that here. I will not talk 
about that here.
  I believe the families do deserve an opportunity to make their case, 
and I trust that we will override the President's veto once it arrives 
here after Friday. But it is absolutely imperative that we keep our 
promises to our allies like Saudi Arabia, particularly where it serves 
our own national security interests. They live in the region. They are 
working as a counterbalance and a check on Iranian hegemony. As the 
Senator from South Carolina noted, Iran is the biggest troublemaker, 
not only in the Middle East but maybe on the planet. They have been 
trying to wipe Israel off the map using proxy forces like Hezbollah and 
Hamas. Obviously, they have been working their mischief in Iraq. After 
Saddam Hussein was deposed, President al-Maliki was put in place, but 
unfortunately because of his favoritism toward the Shia Muslims and his 
opposition to Sunni Muslims, he essentially joined common cause with 
Iran. Now we find ourselves in the unenviable position, as U.S. 
military forces that are training and assisting Iranian security 
forces--as they march forward to Mosul to take that back from the 
Islamic State, we are literally going to be fighting side by side with 
Iranian militias directed by the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It 
is outrageous that we find ourselves in this situation.
  I encourage our colleagues to vote against the resolution of 
disapproval. This bill would keep the United States from supporting 
Saudi Arabia in ways that benefit our country strategically. As we have 
heard, that includes tanks and other equipment to help the Saudis 
maintain control of their border in a very dangerous and tumultuous 
part of the world and most importantly to help them protect themselves 
from an emboldened Iran that is awash in cash as a result of the 
President's misguided, bad nuclear deal in lifting sanctions on the 
Iranians.
  In the long run, I think voting for this bill would actually help 
Iran and strengthen its hand, and I certainly cannot and will not 
support that.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DONNELLY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Suicide Prevention

  Mr. DONNELLY. Madam President, I rise today in recognition of suicide 
prevention, to continue to shine a light on the impact of suicide and 
to discuss the importance of efforts to strengthen mental health care. 
Sadly, too many Hoosiers and Americans are taken from us by suicide, 
shattering families and communities. Today, I want to talk about 
suicide prevention as it relates to our servicemembers, our veterans, 
and their families.
  Last year, sadly, for the fourth straight year, more U.S. troops were 
lost to suicide than in combat. In 2015, 475 servicemembers took their 
own lives. Prior to that, we lost 443 servicemembers in 2014, and 474 
servicemembers in 2013. We are painfully aware of the statistic that an 
estimated 20 veterans a day take their own lives.
  These numbers allude to hundreds upon thousands of individual 
tragedies that have rocked our families, our communities, and our 
Nation. These numbers represent sons and daughters, brothers and 
sisters, and husbands and wives who have dedicated their lives to the 
service of this Nation and have succumbed to invisible wounds. These 
numbers illustrate the simple, terrible fact that we are losing too 
many of our servicemembers and veterans to suicide. These numbers 
demand that we keep efforts to improve military and veterans mental 
health services and suicide prevention efforts at the top of our to-do 
list in the Senate.

[[Page 13194]]

  Despite gridlock in Congress, this is an issue where we have solid 
bipartisan consensus. I have seen it firsthand, working year after year 
with my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to work to improve 
military mental health care.
  In 2014, my bipartisan Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act 
was signed into law. The Sexton act, named for a young Hoosier whom we 
lost far too soon, established for the first time a requirement that 
every servicemember--Active, Guard, and Reserve--receive an annual 
mental health assessment.
  Building on the success of the Sexton act, last year we had 
provisions of my bipartisan Servicemember and Veterans Mental Health 
Care Package signed into law, which helped expand access to quality 
mental health care for servicemembers and delivered mental health care 
in a way that meets the unique needs of servicemembers and veterans, 
whether through the Department of Defense or civilian providers right 
in our home communities.
  While passing these laws is a step in the right direction, it will 
take a consistent, concerted effort to bring the number of 
servicemember suicides down to zero. We need to ensure that the laws we 
have passed, including the Sexton act and the care package, are 
implemented correctly so the services reach the troops and the veterans 
who need them the most. We need to keep working on smart legislation 
that streamlines access and strengthens the quality of mental health 
care.
  This has been a top priority for me since I first introduced the 
Sexton act in 2013--my first bill as a U.S. Senator. It remains a top 
priority for me today.
  This year, the final provision of my bipartisan care package passed 
the Senate as part of the national defense bill. It expands the ability 
of physician assistants to provide mental health care evaluations and 
services for servicemembers and their families. The bill establishes a 
pilot program to expand the use of physician assistants specializing in 
psychiatric care to help address the mental health care provider 
shortage.
  This legislation can help make a difference for our servicemembers in 
Indiana and across the entire country. I urge Congress to come together 
on a final defense bill that can be sent to the President and signed 
into law.
  There is no single solution that ends suicide. We may never fully 
understand the internal battles that lead to an individual taking his 
or her own life. However, this much is clear: We must do more to help 
prevent military and veteran suicides. Throughout September, we will 
recognize Suicide Prevention Month, but this issue demands our 
attention and our efforts every single day of the year.
  To our servicemembers and veterans struggling with mental health 
challenges and to your loved ones, we are here for you, and we will not 
stop working until you receive the care you deserve and the support you 
need. We will be there with you every step of the way.
  Mr. President, I yield back.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Export-Import Bank

  Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, you wouldn't think that I would have to 
keep coming here to talk about how it is our responsibility to do 
everything in our power to grow American manufacturing jobs, keep 
manufacturing jobs, and make sure American manufacturers are 
competitive in the global economy.
  When young people come to my office to talk about the future, the one 
thing I tell them--and it is critical that you never forget this--is 
that 95 percent of all potential consumers in the world today do not 
live in this country. If you want to be successful in the future, you 
are going to have to be competitive and you are going to have to be 
innovative and do everything you can to grab that market share. That is 
how our economy is going to grow. It is what brings new wealth to our 
country, and that gives us the opportunity to advance an economic and 
political agenda that will move our country and the values we have in 
this democracy forward.
  What do we do? We stall out by saying that even though 90 or 80 other 
countries have export credit agencies that can assist in financing 
those manufacturing jobs and those purchases, we, the United States of 
America, are going to tie the hands of a 70-year-old institution that 
has functioned incredibly well to bring jobs and wealth to our country. 
We are going to do it not because the will of this body and this 
Congress hasn't been expressed--in fact, it is the opposite.
  When we reauthorized the Export-Import Bank, we were able to secure 
almost 70 percent of the Senate and over 70 percent of the House. It 
sounds like a mandate to me. It sounds like an understanding that most 
of the people in this institution understand the importance of a credit 
export agency. Guess what. We have now told our export agency: We are 
not going to give you the structure or the power to function. If you 
want to do a deal that is more than $10 million, we won't be there. We 
will not be there to provide assistance or guarantees, and we will not 
be able to help American businesses be competitive internationally.
  A lot of people will say: Well, those are just the big guys. Those 
are the Boeings, GEs, and Caterpillars of the world.
  That totally ignores how American manufacturing is done. American 
manufacturing is done in small shops all across this country, small 
businesses that have been a part of that supply chain for decades and 
have relied on the corporate innovation and selling of large aircraft, 
large construction equipment, and large gas turbines and generators.
  Do you know what is going to happen when those manufacturers or 
assemblers do not have export financing? Guess what they do. They say: 
I have to move someplace else where I can get it. If I am going to sell 
my products in the global market, I have to be able to qualify for 
export financing, and that means I have to move those manufacturing 
jobs--manufacturing gas turbines or manufacturing small parts--to 
France, where there is an environment and government that understands 
the importance of providing this important trade resource.
  As we sit here today collectively worried about the middle class and 
America's competitiveness in manufacturing and trying to grow our 
global presence and our global exports, we take one critical piece of 
trade infrastructure and say: Can't use it. It is not because people 
here don't think so or because the American people don't think that is 
a good idea.
  When you talk about this with the American people, they say: That is 
crazy. Something that returns dollars to the Treasury and provides this 
resource to grow American jobs and we are not going to do it?
  And I say: We are not going to do it because the conservative think 
tanks in Washington, DC, whose influence is outsized from their ideas 
and political support, decided it is not a good idea--whether it is 
Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation, CATO, or whichever one comes 
forward and says it is not a good idea.
  We are talking about American jobs and American manufacturing, and we 
can do something about it with a simple act, which in this CR we have 
to do because we can't move on the nominee who would give us a quorum 
on the Ex-Im Bank, and that is what is holding us up. The Ex-Im Bank 
operates like a lot of banks. It has a board of directors. When that 
board of directors doesn't have a quorum, they can't make decisions on 
credits over $10 million. We have $20 billion worth of business we 
could be doing internationally that is held up by the lack of a quorum.
  I get it. We are about regular order, right? I don't know what 
regular order says about not sending a nominee out of a committee so we 
can vote him up or down. This is the argument I get: We have never had 
a debate. Really? I

[[Page 13195]]

can't tell you how many times I have stood in this spot debating the 
Ex-Im Bank and the values and importance of the Export-Import Bank, but 
they say we haven't had a debate.
  I said: If you want to have a debate, move the nominee to the floor 
and let's have a debate. You don't want to have a debate because you 
could lose.
  They don't want to have a debate because they will, in fact, lose in 
this body if that nominee comes up.
  I recognize there is support for regular order, if we can call it 
that. To me, regular order means getting your job done. It doesn't mean 
stalling out and stopping American innovation and American exports.
  Let's say we go to regular order. Now we are working on trying to 
change the quorum rule so that people can actually make a decision and 
move these credits forward and get Americans back to work and get us 
back to exporting.
  Where are we right now? Well, we read in the press that once again 
the outsized--for their political support--interest groups in this town 
are saying: Don't do it.
  American manufacturing is hurt, and American manufacturing is calling 
and saying: We must do it, and we can't wait until the end of the year. 
We can't wait to do this credit.
  The last time I came here, I brought what I call a payloader, a 
front-end loader. I brought a loader here, and I talked about the 
manufacturing of that piece of equipment in my State. I talked about a 
huge credit and a huge deal we could do that involved international 
credit with a dealership, which would include manufacturers in Iowa, 
Kansas, and North Dakota--all American jobs. It obviously didn't 
influence anyone or we would have gotten it done.
  So now I am asking that everybody who says they are for American 
workers, American progress, and American exports to call leadership. 
This is something we have to do. It is bipartisan and it is 
nonpartisan. I know the Democrats have put it on their list of asks, 
but it shouldn't be a Democratic-Republican issue. I have good allies 
on the other side of the aisle who want to move this forward as well. 
When we can't move a piece of legislation and an idea that has 
supermajority support, that is when the American public says: Guess 
what. This is a broken institution. This is an institution that doesn't 
function for the American people.
  When American jobs and when American workers get pink slips because 
we aren't doing our job here, that is a sad day for the Congress, and 
it is a sad day for what we do here.
  Standing on principle is one thing. You fought the fight and the Bank 
was reauthorized. Let's get the Bank fully functioning. Let's get a 
resolution and a provision in the continuing resolution that actually 
provides for reviving and moving the Ex-Im Bank forward.
  As I have said before in this very spot, I don't go to bed worried 
about the CEOs of major companies. They have options. They can move 
those jobs overseas. They will function just fine. They are a part of 
multinational businesses. I go to bed worried about that worker who has 
to come home with a pink slip because there is no longer the 
opportunity to sell what is being manufactured. Don't think that is not 
happening right now in the United States of America because it is. 
Those pink slips are on us. Those pink slips are happening because we 
have an institution that does not function in a majority fashion and 
for the people of this country and certainly for the middle class.
  Everybody who says they are for the middle class, why don't we just 
quit engaging in lipservice and start taking action that tells American 
manufacturers, American workers, and American business that we are 
going to stand with them as they innovate, export, and grow the economy 
of this country?
  When everybody says our economic growth is sluggish, I look at them 
and say: Do you know how we can amp it up? By exporting. Do you know 
why we are not exporting $20 billion worth of goods in this country? 
Because we do not have a fully functioning Ex-Im Bank.
  There is no way anyone could look at this logically and say this is 
good public policy.
  I couldn't be more distraught or more sympathetic about what is 
happening to American workers. It is time we all work together.
  I know the Presiding Officer is very interested in moving the Bank 
forward as well, and we all need to make sure we get this problem taken 
care of before we leave in October.
  With that, I yield my time.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the vote that is 
going to take place at 2:15 p.m., and I urge my colleagues to vote to 
table this motion. The motion itself would keep us from being able to 
follow through on a sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.
  It is my belief that the appropriate policy here is to table this 
motion, and let me take a few moments to share why I feel that way.
  First of all, this is not a subsidized sale; this is a sale where a 
country is trying to buy U.S. weaponry with its own money. This is not 
the United States giving foreign aid to another country. This is a 
situation where an ally that is certainly an imperfect ally--they are 
very aware they have public relations issues within our own country for 
lots of reasons, but they are an ally nonetheless--has looked around 
and decided and feels it is the best thing for them to do relative to 
the purchase of the tanks and other weaponry listed here. By the way, 
they already own tanks like this already, and they can go someplace 
else to purchase them.
  Let me start out by saying that we had a huge debate in the Senate 
about the Iran nuclear deal. We ended up in different places. Fifty-
eight people decided they didn't like it, but I think everyone probably 
has concerns about Iran and what they are doing in the Middle East.
  During that timeframe, the administration met at Camp David with 
Saudi Arabia and some of our other Arab friends in the region and 
mentioned that in order to counter the nefarious activities Iran is 
involved in--and I think everyone in this body would agree they are 
involved in nefarious activities; they are a country we stated is a 
state sponsor of terrorism--in order to counter that, we would expedite 
sales to friends like Saudi Arabia and the UAE and other countries in 
the region, and this is a part of that. In essence, for us to back away 
from this would be saying we do not want to counter the nefarious 
activities of terrorism Iran is conducting in the region.
  I understand my friend from Kentucky has heartfelt concerns about 
some of the aid we have provided other countries, and we have had very 
responsible discussions. Again, this is not aid. This is an ally we are 
utilizing in our alliance as a balance of power against what Iran is 
doing in the region. In essence, by not following through on sales to 
friends like Saudi Arabia and other countries, what we are really 
saying is, we want to undermine the balance of power that is created 
there in the region.
  Let me say something else. I have noticed in this body that people 
are far less willing to want to commit U.S. troops in foreign places. 
There is a range of feelings about that, but I would say, generally 
speaking, I don't think there is any question that Americans are far 
less willing to commit massive ground troops to efforts in the Middle 
East. If we know that to be the mood of the public today, the last 
thing we would want to do is to not provide the armaments necessary for 
countries that might be willing to counter terrorism in the region.
  Again, to me, this is one of those cases where I think the sponsors 
of the legislation and those who are advocating for it are well-meaning 
people,

[[Page 13196]]

but it is a case where I think we are cutting our nose off to spite our 
face. I don't understand any policy objective we can be achieving by 
saying we have a country that wants to buy our equipment with their 
money--no foreign aid involved whatsoever--and we are unwilling to sell 
it to them.
  Let me make one last point. We have an infrastructure in our country 
that is utilized to protect us in tough times. These are lines of 
building equipment that we utilize if we ever have to gear up, and I 
hope that is not the case again in the near future. If we ever have to 
gear up again for operations in other countries, we rely upon these 
alliances. So what other countries do in purchasing equipment from us 
is they keep those lines and keep those employees and keep that 
technology building in such a way that it is useful for us in the 
future.
  Again, I cannot identify a single policy objective we can achieve by 
blocking a sale to someone who has been an ally. Although not perfect, 
they are an ally. They are helping us with the balance of power. They 
are helping us in the fight against some of the efforts that are 
underway with Iran now in Yemen--we are not involved in that directly; 
they are helping us with that--and they are a country that again is 
willing to buy U.S.-made equipment that helps us keep in place the 
infrastructure that is necessary for us over time to protect our 
country.
  I am glad we are having this debate. I hope we table this motion 
overwhelmingly to send a message that again we see no good policy 
objective in carrying out the blocking of this sale.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to address the issues at the heart 
of S. J. Res. 39, the resolution introduced by Senators Paul, Murphy, 
Lee, and Franken regarding the sale of $1.15 billion in military 
equipment to the Government of Saudi Arabia.
  Despite obvious differences in our systems of government and 
concerning the rights of women and other issues, the United States and 
Saudi Arabia have a longstanding partnership that has benefitted both 
countries. For roughly six decades, security cooperation has been an 
important part of the relationship, fueled by military sales to Saudi 
Arabia under both Republican and Democratic administrations. For its 
part, the Government of Saudi Arabia has pledged to work with the 
United States in countering terrorism in the region.
  But what has been unfolding in Yemen since the spring of 2015 should 
concern all Senators. There have been frequent, credible reports of 
Saudi Arabian armed forces indiscriminately attacking civilian-
populated areas, targeting civilians, and otherwise misusing U.S.-
origin weapons; of humanitarian access being impeded; and of a lack of 
serious investigations of, and accountability for, those who have 
alleged to have caused civilian casualties.
  I am not opposed to training and equipping our allies or selling them 
the weapons they require to combat terrorism. But the conditions under 
which we provide such support must include a commitment to avoid 
civilian casualties and to ensure that if egregious harm is done to the 
civilian population there are thorough investigations, punishment if 
warranted, and assistance is provided to the victims. We should also be 
confident that the strategy and tactics of our allies are achieving 
goals that we share.
  Since the earliest reports of harm inflicted by Saudi forces on the 
civilian population in Yemen, I have repeatedly raised this issue with 
the Department of State. Although the Department and Saudi officials 
have offered assurances that effective steps are being taken to avoid 
civilian casualties and to investigate when they occur, the attacks and 
casualties have continued. Efforts by the UN High Commissioner for 
Human Rights to conduct an independent investigation into war crimes in 
Yemen have to date been rebuffed by the Saudi Government. There is 
scant evidence that the assurances reflect a meaningful change in 
strategy or tactics or that the Saudi military operations in Yemen are 
achieving their goals.
  That is why I cannot support the provision of military equipment, 
particularly on this scale, to any country as long as legitimate 
concerns regarding the manner in which such equipment is being used 
remain unaddressed. It is inconsistent with the laws of war, and it 
implicates, at least indirectly, the United States. I need to be 
convinced that the Saudi Government is taking effective steps to reduce 
civilian casualties, to address the harm caused by its operations, and 
to support the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to those in need.
  Therefore, I will support the resolution and oppose the motion to 
table.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, today the Senate will discuss questions of 
war and peace. Today the Senate will do its constitutional duty for a 
change. Let's be very clear, though. The Senate does this under duress.
  The Senate has abdicated its role in foreign policy for too long. We 
have been at war nearly continuously for 15 years and the initiation, 
conclusion, and resumption of war has not had debate in this body. The 
last time we voted on whether we should be at war was the Iraq war, 
which was a very emotional vote. It is a war that has long been over.
  There is now a new war in Iraq and Syria, but there has been no 
congressional authorization. Therefore, it is illegal and 
unconstitutional.
  Today's debate will attempt to debate whether or not we should 
initiate war in Yemen. It is an indirect vote because they won't allow 
a direct vote. In fact, they would not have allowed this debate had I 
and several others not forced it. But this is a bipartisan coalition 
that has brought this issue to the floor and said: We should debate 
issues of war.
  I know young men who have lost limbs in the war. I know young men and 
their families who have sacrificed their lives. They deserve to have 
the country debate when and where we should be at war. It should never 
be something that we slide into.
  Now, some will say: No, we are debating over whether to sell arms to 
Saudi Arabia. Yes, but I would also argue that we are at war in Yemen. 
Whether or not we sell arms to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen is 
something that should be debated because it is not just about selling 
arms. It is about whether we will be complicit in a war in Yemen.
  If there is no debate in Congress, if there is no debate in the 
public, are we ready to spend lives, money, and treasure on another war 
in Yemen? People will say: Oh, no big deal, we are not really at war in 
Yemen. Well, yes, we are. We are refueling Saudi bombers that are 
dropping bombs in Yemen. There is said to be over 3,000 innocent people 
who have died in Yemen from Saudi bombs. What do you think happens to 
those families when 100 people die in a wedding in Yemen? What do you 
think happens to those families? Do you think they have a warm, fuzzy 
feeling for Saudi Arabia and the United States, which is helping to 
pick the targets and fuel the planes? Don't you think we as a country 
ought to have a debate before we go to war? Don't you think we ought to 
read the Constitution?
  Our Founding Fathers had a significant, detailed, and explicit debate 
over war. They explicitly took the power to declare war, and they gave 
it to the legislature. Madison wrote that the executive is the branch 
most prone to war. Therefore, with studied care, the Constitution took 
the power to declare war and vested it in the legislature. This is 
repeated throughout the Federalist papers. It is repeated by all of our 
Founding Fathers that the power to initiate war was too important to 
place in the hands of one individual.
  But over the last decade and a half, we have been at war in Libya 
without the permission of the American people

[[Page 13197]]

or Congress. We have been at war in Syria and Iraq without the 
permission of the American people. Now we are at war in Yemen without 
the approval of Congress or the American people.
  So this is a twofold debate today. It is a debate over whether the 
United States should be at war without a vote of Congress. I think our 
Founding Fathers were clear on this. It is absolutely certain that it 
was supposed to be a prerogative of Congress, but there are also 
practical concerns.
  Some have come to the floor and said: Well, Saudi Arabia is an 
imperfect ally. Well, I would go a little bit further. Saudi Arabia has 
often done things that have not been good for America, have not been in 
our national interest, and have not been consistent with our 
understanding of human rights.
  Let's give a few examples. The girl of Qatif was raped by seven men. 
Saudi Arabia put her in prison for the crime of being alone with a man. 
You see, it is the woman's fault because women don't get to testify. 
The testimony comes from her attackers, and the woman of Qatif was 
given 7 years in prison and 200 lashes.
  There is a poet who was writing in Indonesia who is Saudi Arabian and 
who was picked up by Interpol and taken home to be given the death 
penalty for possible criticism of the state religion.
  There was a young 17-year-old man who is a Shia, a minority, who was 
a protester at a rally. I think he is 21 now. He has been in prison for 
4 years. His uncle was beheaded by the government 1 month or 2 ago and 
was, by all appearances, a religious leader, not a collaborator, not an 
espionage perpetrator. The man is now 21, has been in prison for 4 
years, and faces beheading in Saudi Arabia.
  You might say: Well, human rights just aren't important. We need to 
do what is right for us in the region. We have given Saudi Arabia $100 
billion worth of weapons--$100 billion. OK, we didn't give it to them; 
we sold it to them. But you know what. I think the taxpayer owns our 
weaponry. We have an ownership interest in our weaponry. This is not 
the free market. The weaponry was developed with taxpayer money and 
with explicit reservations that we in Congress can control who it is 
sold to. So we do need to ask, and it is an important debate, and we 
should be having it here in this body instead of leaving it up to the 
President. Let's have the debate.
  Is Saudi Arabia a good ally?
  Well, we have had this war in Syria for some time now. It is a messy 
war, a sectarian war. Most of the rebel groups are Sunni Muslims and 
the government is more allied with the Shiites. In this war, there have 
been hundreds and hundreds of tons of weapons--some by us, but maybe 
10-fold more by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. There has been public report 
after public report after public report saying that these weapons that 
are being poured into the country by Saudi Arabia have been given 
indiscriminately. They have been weapons about which some would say: 
Oh, they are being given to the pro-Americans. One group said that when 
they were done with Assad, they would go after Israel. It doesn't sound 
like people who are necessarily our friends.
  According to public reports, many of these weapons that Saudi Arabia 
has bought from us and channeled into Syria have gone to al-Nusra, an 
off-branch of Al Qaeda. They used the justification to go to war in 
Syria--the 9/11 justification that said we would go after those who 
attacked us. I thought that was Al Qaeda. Are we now giving arms to 
Saudi Arabia, which is giving arms to Al Qaeda and al-Nusra? There have 
been some reports that the arms have gone directly to ISIS.
  I think it has been indiscriminate, inexcusable, and not in our 
national interest.
  How do we know what is in our national interest? We have to have a 
debate. Instead, Congress wants to be a lap dog for an imperial 
Presidency--Republican or Democrat, rubberstamped. Here you go--not 
even a rubberstamp. There is no vote, no discussion, nothing. We are 
forcing this debate against the wishes of both parties, because both 
parties are complicit in this. This is not a Republican versus Democrat 
issue. This is a bipartisan foreign policy consensus that says that we 
should always give weapons without conditions, indiscriminately. It is 
$100 billion of weapons to Saudi Arabia--more than any other President. 
President Obama has given more.
  You say: Why does he do this? Well, because we released about $100 
billion worth of Iranian assets, and the Saudis bug him and say: Well, 
Iran is getting all this money. We need weapons, too. So it fuels an 
arms race over there.
  But here is the great irony of this. It is something that is so 
ironic that this body cannot overcome it. Unanimously, this body voted 
to let 9/11 victims sue Saudi Arabia. Now, why would we let them do 
that unless the people who voted unanimously actually believe that 
there is a possibility Saudi Arabia had something to do with 9/11? So 
the body that voted unanimously that there is a possibility that Saudi 
Arabia had something to do with 9/11 is now going to vote 
overwhelmingly to send weapons to the country they think might have had 
something to do with 9/11?
  Is Saudi Arabia an ally or an enemy? I sometimes call them 
``frenemy.'' I am not arguing that they never do anything that is good 
for us. They do on occasion. They also do many things that aren't good 
for us. As we look through the list of things and we look to the arms 
that have been channeled into this region, we wonder: Will we be better 
off? Will our national security be better off or worse off?
  For example, as to the weapons that Saudi Arabia poured into Syria, 
they pushed back Assad, and there occurred a vacuum in the Syrian civil 
war. Guess who came to occupy that vacuum? Guess who grew stronger and 
stronger in the absence of Assad and in the chaos of the civil war? 
ISIS.
  In Yemen, you have several factions fighting. It is maybe not quite 
as complicated as Syria, but you have Salafis, people who believe in 
the primitive, intolerant form of Islam that Saudi Arabia practices. 
These people are allied with Saudi Arabia. They are fighting against 
rebels they call the Houthi rebels. The Houthi rebels are allied with 
Iran and in all likelihood are supplied by Iran. They fight each other. 
It is somewhat of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
  You say: Don't we hate Iran so much that we have to be involved 
everywhere to stop Iran? I don't know. Saudi Arabia funds hatred around 
the world. Does Iran fund madrassas in our country? That is a really 
good question. I don't think I heard anybody ask it.
  I am not apologizing for Iran, by any means, but Iran, to my 
knowledge, does not fund madrassas in our country. Saudi Arabia does. 
Saudi Arabia funds madrassas around the world that teach hatred of 
America, hatred of the West, and hatred of Christianity. By the way, if 
you are a Christian, don't bother trying to go to Saudi Arabia. You are 
not allowed in Mecca, you are not allowed in Medina, and God forbid you 
bring a Bible into their country. This is whom we want to send more 
weapons to?
  What of the Yemen war? What happens as the weapons pour into Yemen? 
Is it possible that ISIS and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula sit by 
laughing and rubbing their hands, watching the war between the Houthis 
and the Salafis, and then step into the breach? It is what happened in 
Syria.
  Are we not to learn the lessons of the Middle East? Are we to 
completely stick our heads in the sand and say: We must always give 
weapons, and if we don't give weapons, that is isolationism. That is, 
literally, what people are saying. It is isolationism not to send $1 
billion worth of weapons. To send $1 billion less would somehow be 
isolationism. Well, perhaps it would send a message.
  There have been people who have described Saudi Arabia as both 
arsonists and firefighters--throwing fuel and adding fuel to the flames 
and at times being our friend and being helpful, maybe giving us some 
information or some intelligence.
  As to the Syrian civil war, nothing good has come from that civil 
war.

[[Page 13198]]

Arms have been plowed into that country from both sides, and there is 
nothing good. But one concrete thing has come from the Syrian civil 
war--millions of refugees, millions of displaced people. They have 
flooded Europe, and they are wanting to come to America also.
  What do you think will happen in Yemen if we put more weapons in 
there? What do you think happens in Yemen if we put more arms into 
Yemen? More or less refugees? There will be millions of refugees 
coming. They will be flooding out of Yemen, if they can get out of 
there, as the war accelerates.
  Does Saudi Arabia help with the refugees? Does Qatar help? Do any of 
the Gulf States take any refugees? Zero. Saudi Arabia has taken zero 
refugees. So while they fan the flames, while they send arms into Syria 
and arms into Yemen and bombs into Yemen, they take zero refugees from 
Yemen or from Syria. Somehow it always seems to be America's 
responsibility to pay for everything and to absorb the brunt of the 
civil wars throughout the Middle East.
  I think there is another answer. I am not saying that we can't be 
allied with Saudi Arabia, but I am saying that they need a significant 
message sent to them. I am saying they need to change their behavior, 
and I am saying there needs to be evidence that Saudi Arabia has 
changed their behavior. This evidence needs to be that they quit 
funding madrassas that preach hate; that they come into the modern 
world and quit beheading people when they don't like what they say; 
that they quit beating and imprisoning the victims of rape.
  I think we should think long and hard about war. I think war should 
always be the last resort, not the first resort. I don't think it 
should be easy to go to war. I think our Founding Fathers understood 
that. They did not want to give one man or one woman the power to 
declare war, the power to initiate war. That power was specifically and 
explicitly given to Congress.
  There is something to be said about the corrupting influence of 
power. Lincoln said: If you want to test a man, give him power. The 
true test is whether a man can resist the allure of power. I think this 
President has, on many occasions, failed that allure, whether it is 
privacy or whether it is issues of war.
  President Obama once was a defender of privacy and once was a 
defender of the Constitution, but for some reason, the power of the 
office has caused him to forget the constitutional restraints that 
disallow even him from creating, causing, engaging in war without our 
permission.
  But there is blame to go around. For partisan reasons, we want to 
blame the other party sometimes, but if you look at the blame and who 
is to blame, there is a great deal of blame to go around--the President 
for taking us to war without our permission, but even more so, Congress 
for its abdication of our role, our responsibility.
  The last vote on going to war was for the Iraq war in 2002. We have 
not voted to go back to war. We have abdicated our responsibility.
  There is a young man in the military currently who is actually suing 
over an order he was given to go to war because he said it is not 
constitutional for him to go to war without the permission of Congress. 
The President once understood this.
  This is a proxy debate over whether Congress has a role, whether we 
are relevant in foreign policy, and whether we will stand up and do our 
duty. We should be debating on this floor with every Member present 
whether the President will be authorized to fight a war in Syria and 
Iraq.
  We should also have that same debate on Yemen because we are involved 
in the war in Yemen, and everyone who loses their life there believes 
that it is not only Saudi Arabia that is bombing them, they believe it 
is us. We are refueling the bombers in midair, we are helping to choose 
the targets, and we have people embedded within this war zone. So make 
no mistake, we are at war in Yemen. We are at war illegally and 
unconstitutionally and without the permission of Congress.
  We should immediately stop everything we are doing and debate a use 
of authorization of force for the Middle East. Everybody says they are 
for it on both sides, yet it never happens because it is messy. It is 
messy also because I think the American people might wake up to the 
facts. They might wake up to the fact that ISIS grew in the midst of a 
Syrian civil war. They might wake up to the fact that our involvement 
in the Yemen war may well make Al Qaeda stronger, may well make ISIS 
stronger.
  This is a twofold debate. It is a debate over whether you can go to 
war without the authority of Congress, but it is also a debate over 
selling arms and whether that will be in our national interest. I think 
we still do own these arms. Those arms are not privately owned by a 
company. We paid for the research for them. They are owned by the 
taxpayer, and by law there are restrictions as to where they can be 
sold.
  I don't believe Saudi Arabia is an ally we can trust. The fact is, 
they continue to support schools in our country--schools that preach 
hatred of our country, preach hatred of Israel, and preach hatred of 
civilization, as far as I am concerned. I just don't see how we send 
them the correct message by saying: You can have unlimited arms from 
us.
  Some say this is too far. I say this is too little. But I think there 
will be something that occurs today. It will occur despite what the 
majority wants. This is a debate, but this is not the end of the 
debate. If we lose the battle on the vote, we will have begun the 
debate over whether Congress is relevant. Whether or not we go to war 
without the permission of Congress, this is the beginning of the 
debate. Part of the victory is that we are having this debate, but mark 
my words--we are having this debate only because it has been forced 
upon Congress. No one on either side of the aisle wants this debate. If 
they could, this would be shuffled under the rug. It has occurred only 
because the law mandates that they allow it to occur. But this should 
be occurring on moments of war, on issues of war, and I regret that we 
don't do it.
  I hope in the future this will be a lesson to the American people and 
to the Senate that it is our duty, and there is no duty above our duty 
to decide when and where we go to war.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I have respect for my friend from 
Kentucky. We have had numbers of conversations about this. I think he 
is aware that I am holding up, as chairman of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, subsidies going to Pakistan in their purchase of F-16s. I do 
so because I don't believe we should be subsidizing a country that has 
been so duplicitous with us in so many ways.
  So there are some issues we agree with, including the fact that I am 
glad to be having this debate. I do think Congress is playing a role 
today. Regardless of how you vote, Congress is exercising itself. I am 
glad that is occurring. I just think it is cutting our nose off to 
spite our face to block a sale--a sale. This is not being subsidized.
  Saudi Arabia is not a perfect ally, but they have chosen to pursue 
and purchase U.S. equipment versus Russian equipment or Chinese 
equipment or some other equipment. This is a sale that benefits us. It 
benefits our country in a number of ways. If I may, I will lay those 
out one more time.
  No. 1, one of the things that have occurred with the Iran deal is 
that we have upset, to a degree, perceptually the balance of power in 
the Middle East. Even the President, who brought forth the Iran deal 
that I opposed and the majority of people on the floor opposed, 
realized that was going to be a problem. He convened Saudi Arabia and 
the UAE and some of our other Arab allies at Camp David and suggested 
that we would expedite sales to these countries in order to push back 
against the nefarious activities that we know Iran is conducting. All 
of us agree with that. They are a state sponsor of terror.
  So, in essence, if we block a sale to a country that we have agreed, 
in order to strengthen our alliance with them

[[Page 13199]]

and to counter what Iran is doing--all we are doing is cutting our nose 
off to spite our face.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CORKER. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. Is it correct that in Yemen, the Houthis are a proxy for 
Iran?
  Mr. CORKER. No question.
  Mr. McCAIN. It is true that weapons supplies from Iran have been 
intercepted?
  Mr. CORKER. We have interdicted them several times.
  Mr. McCAIN. Is it true--would you estimate, given your knowledge of 
the issue, that if Saudi Arabia had not intervened in Yemen, it would 
now have become a client state and would have been taken over basically 
by the Iranians?
  Mr. CORKER. I don't think that is even debatable.
  Mr. McCAIN. So you agree----
  Mr. CORKER. That is correct.
  Mr. McCAIN. Isn't it true that in all conflicts--one of the great 
tragedies of conflicts is that innocent civilians are slaughtered?
  Mr. CORKER. No question. As a matter of fact, we have actually 
demarched, in some ways, Saudi Arabia because we felt in some ways, 
using what we might call ``dumb bombs,'' that civilians were being 
killed in inappropriate ways. They have moved to using other weaponry, 
smart bombs, and other kind of things to move away from that.
  So we don't think Saudi Arabia has been perfect in Yemen. No doubt 
civilians have been killed. But the facts that you are stating about 
pushing back against an Iranian proxy are true. Had they not done that, 
the country would have fallen into their hands, no question.
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask again the chairman of the Foreign Relations 
Committee: Suppose that, unimpeded, the Houthis, the clients of the 
Iranians, had taken over the country of Yemen. What would that do? 
Would that, indeed, pose a threat to the Straits of Hormuz, where they 
are already harassing American naval vessels?
  Mr. CORKER. It creates greater instability in a region that already 
has had tremendous amounts of it. But no question--I mean, it borders 
the Straits. Again, it puts more of that in Iranian hands, no question.
  Mr. McCAIN. Would it be accurate to state that your committee has 
held hearings on human rights, your committee has advocated 
improvements of human rights in Saudi Arabia, and it is the thinking of 
almost all of us that we want to see more progress in that direction? 
But at the same time, isn't it true that when we look at what Bashar 
al-Assad is doing, when we look at the slaughter of 400,000 people in 
Syria, 6 million refugees, would one assume that maybe this priority of 
the sponsors of this amendment might be a little bit misplaced?
  Mr. CORKER. Look, I was speaking earlier about this issue, which no 
one knows more about than the Senator from Arizona, but one of the 
basic national interests that we have in the Middle East is the balance 
of power.
  As you know well, people in our country have been far more reticent 
to have our own men and women on the ground in the Middle East. I mean, 
that is just a fact. We know that. If that is the case, then if you 
have a country like Saudi Arabia that is willing to push back against 
these efforts which, again, further Iran, it seems to me that we would 
want to allow them to buy equipment to be able to do that. So it helps 
us with the balance of power. It helps us with an ally. It helps us 
push back against Iran, and the thing I know you care so much about is 
our own readiness in the United States. It also keeps the lines of 
building equipment open. That could be very useful to us down the road. 
So I don't understand what policy objective could possibly be achieved 
by blocking this sale.
  Mr. McCAIN. May I ask one more question concerning the so-called 28 
pages that recently have been declassified? Isn't it true that 
information implicates individual Saudis as having been responsible for 
9/11? Isn't it true that no one disagrees with that?
  Mr. CORKER. That is correct.
  Mr. McCAIN. But isn't it also true that the Government of Saudi 
Arabia has not been implicated by these so-called 28 pages that were 
going to reveal the vast conspiracy that the Government of Saudi Arabia 
allegedly for years had--the adversaries, shall I say, had alleged that 
somehow the Saudi Government was involved in? Isn't it true that the 28 
pages show they were not?
  Mr. CORKER. That is right. One thing that is sad about this in some 
ways is that everything you have said is true. But in addition to that, 
there are some intelligence community affidavits that go on top of 
these and explain even more fully that that is the case. Yet those 
documents, because they are classified, likely will not be made 
available to the U.S. public. But I have seen them, you have seen them, 
and others here have seen them. There is a huge misunderstanding, if 
you will, about what these 28 pages contain. Then, what has come after 
that by other intelligence agencies within our own country further 
state with even greater strength some of the things that you just said. 
There is just no evidence.
  Mr. McCAIN. So, if this proposal or this piece of legislation were 
passed, I would ask my friend: What message is sent? What message would 
be sent, supposing that we voted in favor of this misguided resolution 
that we are now debating?
  Mr. CORKER. I think it sends----
  Mr. McCAIN. Not only to Saudi Arabia----
  Mr. CORKER. Yes.
  No, I think it sends a signal.
  Look, I don't think anybody can debate--we have had these discussions 
in our Foreign Relations Committee. I know you have had them in Armed 
Services, where you are the distinguished chairman.
  I think everyone on both sides of the aisle understands what a blow 
to our credibility--this is not a pejorative statement--has occurred to 
us since August-September of 2013. People understand in the region and 
in the world our credibility has diminished over the redline. This is 
just sending a signal to people even more fully that we cannot be 
counted upon; that the objectives we lay out to achieve a balance of 
power, to help our friends, to counter the nefarious activities that 
everyone acknowledges Iran is conducting cannot be conducted. It is 
another stake in the heart about what we value most about our Nation; 
that is, our credibility to others.
  I hope this is defeated.
  I appreciate my friend from Kentucky and his feelings about this 
particular issue. I don't look at this as a proxy for some other issue 
relative to the declaration of war. That, to me, is a stretch. This is 
about a direct relationship and other relationships that you are 
referring to and--basically--demonstrating that we as a nation cannot 
be counted upon.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator, the chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee, for his stewardship of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, for his indepth knowledge and advocacy for a strong America 
and strong alliances.
  I think the voice you have added to this debate should have an 
effect, I hope, on both sides of the aisle. I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, there is probably no greater issue before 
Congress at any time in our lives or any time in our service than 
whether we should go to war. I think it is a mistake to slide into war. 
I think it is a mistake to allow the power to declare war to default to 
one person. Our Founding Fathers were very clear throughout the 
Federalist Papers, explicitly in the Constitution, that the power to 
declare war shouldn't go to one person; that the power to declare war 
should be determined by a vote of Congress. We have abdicated that 
role, and the vote today is a vote over whether we should try to 
reclaim that power.
  Some will say: Well, it is just arms, and if we don't sell them, 
somebody else will.

[[Page 13200]]

  Well, you know, I don't think of national security as a jobs program. 
I don't think of whether we create jobs here at home. I think about the 
young man who lives down the road from me who lost both legs and an 
arm, OK? I think about the human toll of war. I think about whether 
there is a national security interest, but I think nothing at all about 
whether any jobs are created.
  If we make weapons and we have a weapons industry, that is good for 
our country when we make them for ourselves, but when we are selling 
weapons around the world, by golly, we shouldn't sell weapons to people 
who are not putting them to good purpose. What we have found is that 
Saudi Arabia is an irresponsible ally.
  One of the great ironies that nobody here can quite explain is that 
this body has voted unanimously to let the people of 9/11 sue Saudi 
Arabia. So we are going to let the person who we think might have had 
something to do with Saudi Arabia have more weapons? What kind of 
signal is that to Saudi Arabia?
  Would Saudi Arabia be bereft of weapons if we held $1 billion out? 
No. We have already sold them $99 billion worth. They have enough to 
blow up the Middle East 10 times over. I think it might send them a 
message.
  Do you know what. Stop the sale, send them a message. Do you know 
what the message might be? Quit funding madrasas that teach hate in our 
country. Don't tell us you are going to stop doing it.
  Saudi Arabia, tomorrow, stop funding madrasas in America that teach 
hatred, that teach intolerance. Stop putting Christians to death. Stop 
putting people who convert to Christianity to death. Stop beheading 
protesters.
  The one young man who is a protestor in Saudi Arabia is scheduled to 
be beheaded and crucified. Does that sound like somebody who is a great 
ally with a great human rights record?
  The young woman who was raped by seven men--she was put in prison. 
She was told it was her fault for being alone with the man. She was 
publicly whipped.
  Poets have been picked up around the world and brought back to Saudi 
Arabia to be whipped for what they write.
  Do you trust Saudi Arabia to do the right things with your weapons? 
These weapons are owned by the American taxpayer. We built them. We did 
the research into them. Private companies make money off of them, but 
it isn't about them making money. It isn't about them getting to sell 
the weapons instead of Russia selling the weapons. It is about our 
national security.
  Saudi Arabia's indiscriminate placement of weapons into the Syrian 
civil war has led to the rise of ISIS. ISIS grew stronger as Saudi 
Arabia was flying weapons to al-Nusra, Al Qaeda, and likely some of 
them to ISIS.
  We now have a war in Yemen. Yes, we are directly involved in the war. 
Yes, this is a vote not just about weapons, this is a vote about 
whether we should be at war in Yemen. We are refueling the Saudi 
bombers in midair. Our military planes are, in a sophisticated fashion, 
refueling their planes. Do you think the Yemenis think: Oh, no big 
deal. You know, 3,000 citizens have died. When you go to a wedding in 
Yemen and you get a bomb dropped on you from Saudi Arabia, do you think 
you have warm, fuzzy feelings for our great ally, Saudi Arabia?
  Absolutely, we should be telling Saudi Arabia what to do. These are 
our weapons. Do you know when they are willing to listen? It is when we 
argue from a position of strength.
  Do you know what is the ultimate weakness? Give them what they want. 
Giving the arms industry what they want is the ultimate weakness. We 
look weak, and we look bowed before and cowed before the Saudi 
Arabians.
  As they sit back in their long robes sipping tea, refugees bob about 
the Mediterranean. People are starving and displaced in Yemen. Not one 
of them will come to Saudi Arabia, not one of them will be allowed in 
the country.
  Yes, this is a debate about war, and this is a debate about whether 
you want to be at war in Yemen. It is not just a debate about sending 
and selling another $1 billion of weapons, it is about should we be at 
war in Yemen. It is about should we be at war anywhere without the 
permission of Congress.
  This is not a small occurrence. This is not a small happening. This 
is a big deal. This is the most important vote that any legislator will 
ever have. Should we be at war or shouldn't we be at war?
  Those who want to make this about a jobs program, about we are going 
to get some sales of tanks--no, it is not a jobs program. It is about 
young men and women dying in a war. It is about whether it is in our 
national interests. It is about whether we are going to be safer. 
Shouldn't we have a debate over whether the war in Yemen is making us 
safer?
  We certainly should have had a debate about the war in Libya. Did 
that make us safer? Once Qadhafi was gone, chaos ensued. ISIS controls 
one-third of Libya after the war as a result of the war.
  We are now bombing in Libya. We are bombing the replacement to the 
government we bombed. So we bombed Qadhafi into oblivion. We don't like 
the people who replaced him either so we are bombing them. Does anybody 
think that maybe it is a mistake?
  This is what this debate is about. What should American foreign 
policy be? Should Congress lie down and be a lapdog for the President--
let him do whatever he wants? That is what a vote on this will mean if 
you let the President have what he wants, if you let the arms industry 
have what they want because they can make a buck selling tanks into a 
war that is a catastrophe.
  In the Wall Street Journal, Simon Henderson wrote that the chaos and 
violence in Yemen is such that it would be an improvement to call it a 
civil war.
  It is hard to know who is friend and foe. Even our former Ambassador 
to Syria has said, in Syria, it is almost impossible to know friend 
from foe.
  People have repeatedly written that Saudi weapons in Syria have gone 
to the wrong people. It is not like: Whoops, Saudi Arabia is sometimes 
wrong, and they are not that bad. They have a horrific human rights 
record. There are people who believe them to be complicit in 9/11. This 
body voted unanimously to let the 9/11 victims sue them, and now this 
body wants to give them weapons? Does no one sense the irony?
  As we move forward on this vote, everyone should understand that this 
is a proxy vote for whether we should be at war in the Middle East 
because neither side--the leadership on neither side--will allow a vote 
on whether we should authorize force. Neither side will let the 
constitutional debate occur on whether we should be at war.
  I see my colleague from Connecticut. Would he like to have the last 
word?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator.
  Madam President, I do think this is an important moment. As I said in 
my opening remarks, I don't think a vote in favor of this resolution 
fundamentally breaks the alliance with Saudi Arabia.
  They remain an incredibly important partner. We will still cooperate 
with them with respect to other counterterrorism measures. We 
understand the importance of the role they play in the Middle East with 
respect to providing some sort of detente between Sunni nations and 
Israel, but friends also have the ability to part ways. Friends have 
the ability to call each other out when their friend isn't acting in 
their interests.
  As we have talked about over the course of the last few hours, there 
is no way to read the war in Yemen as in our national security 
interests. There is no way to understand how the growth of Al Qaeda and 
ISIS inside Yemen, as a result of a bombing campaign that is funded by 
the United States, is in our national interests.
  I hope we have a good vote because I think it will send a strong 
message to the Saudis that their behavior has to change, but I hope we 
are able to find other ways where Republicans and Democrats can come 
together to talk about these issues because Senator Paul is right. We 
are not doing our constitutional duty. We are not performing our 
constitutional responsibility when we acknowledge multiple

[[Page 13201]]

conflicts in the Middle East that are unauthorized today--when we don't 
come to the floor of the Senate and do what we used to do, which is 
debate matters of war and peace.
  Maybe war looks different today than it did 20 years ago or 50 years 
ago or 100 years ago, when conventional armies marched against each 
other, but this smells, this looks, and this sounds like war. We are 
providing the ammunition. We are providing the targeting assistance. 
The planes couldn't fly without U.S. refueling capacity.
  We may not be--American pilots may not actually be pulling the 
trigger to drop the bombs, but we are pretty much doing everything else 
that is necessary for this war to continue. It sounds like we should 
have a say, as a coequal branch, as the article I institution, as to 
whether this is in U.S. national security interests.
  At the very least, by saying it is time to put a pause on these arms 
sales--which, by the way, are happening at a pace that is 
unprecedented. There are unprecedented levels of arms sales, not just 
to Saudi Arabia but to the region at large. By saying it is time to put 
a pause on arms sales, we send a strong message to our ally, Saudi 
Arabia, that if the conduct of this war doesn't change inside Yemen, if 
their continued export of Wahhabism to the world doesn't change, then 
we all have to rethink this partnership.
  Friends occasionally disagree. I think this is a moment of important 
disagreement. This doesn't fracture the partnership with Saudi Arabia. 
Ultimately, it may make our partnership stronger.
  I thank Senator Paul for leading us, and I encourage my colleagues to 
support this resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I think it would be wonderful to debate 
many of the things, at any time, that any Senator wishes to debate, but 
to use this as a proxy for something totally unrelated, to me, is a 
most unusual way of approaching the other issues that have been 
discussed.
  This has nothing to do with a declaration of war. This has nothing to 
do with any of those things. This is about whether we want to 
consummate a sale, a purchase--an arm's length purchase--between two 
countries that we have said, as a national policy, would help 
strengthen our own U.S. national interests.
  If we will remember, the President actually convened--by the way, in 
a bipartisan way, we supported this--convened these countries to share 
with them that we were going to be willing to expedite the sale of arms 
to counter Iranian influence in the region and to continue to have the 
balance of power that is on the ground.
  Again, I think, today, based on just the conversations I have had, 
Republicans and Democrats are going to come together overwhelmingly to 
table this motion that is definitely, from my standpoint, not in U.S. 
national interests. I do think what they are speaking to is going to 
occur. My sense is, there is going to be an overwhelming vote to table 
this because people realize that while the optics of it--you know, 
Saudi Arabia, people are wondering about them, which is true--at the 
end of the day, a vote for this resolution, again, cuts our nose off to 
spite our face.
  We are here to do those things that are in our own country's national 
interest, and I hope today we will bind together and continue to do 
that by tabling this motion.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I move to table the motion to 
discharge and ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion to table.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Kaine) is 
necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Virginia (Mr. Kaine) would vote ``yea.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 71, nays 27, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 145 Leg.]

                                YEAS--71

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     King
     Lankford
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Nelson
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker

                                NAYS--27

     Baldwin
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Cantwell
     Durbin
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Heinrich
     Heller
     Hirono
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lee
     Markey
     Murphy
     Murray
     Paul
     Reid
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Warren
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kaine
     Thune
       
  The motion was agreed to.

                          ____________________