creator of humanity bless our lawmakers today as they see to do your will guide them through this day by your as our senators labor help them to move with alacrity to be patient when they must wait and to make decisions only when your a r has become clear guard their hearts and minds with a peace that passes understanding  come we have some business to transact around the center and i want to make sure there's somebody here to do that so i ask consent that there be a full hour of morning business without objection is present today when we finish morning business the senate will resume consideration department dense defense authorization bill as we announce or we know roll call votes tonight this is the only monday or friday during this work priya that will be no vote unless i were able to get work done that we don't expect to get done that soon  amount of work that we have to do this would create a significant as i've indicated mr president we want to do what we can to finish this defense authorization bill we want to do the homeland security appropriation bill we want to be able to complete the reconciliation which is with hot for higher and hatch and they have read on a bipartisan arrangement and fact it may have been i don't know if the report out last week or not but i did do know mr president they had a good idea there's really a good bipartisan support on that legislation some people feel it's not enough money of the thirty five billion dollars some saying think it's too much but it's bipartisan senate and senator hatch's contacted the president to present would reconsider his threat to veto that and we also miss resin have to do the nine eleven commission recommendation conference report and it's my understanding the house going to appoint conferees on that today that and they there's been a lot of work done preconference on that with the democrats republicans working together i think that will work out very well we have the still the hold up with the ethics and lobbying reform i do hope that we can get that done and we will get it done it may take a number of cloture votes we're going to finish that before the august recess and it would be to the advantage of everyone here mr rosen to get that done and the staff who center mcconnell and my staff has worked very hard to see what they can do to help the various committees who are involved in this and it's now being held up i would hope that this can be worked out i have reached out to senator de mint who is the person at this stage holding up on behalf of the republicans he had just a just not been willing to change his position which is very unfortunate because the earmarking provisions in this bill are important we work it out in conference we just can't jam  something into the process here where you have the house with one rule senate with another rule you go to conference you wind up in no man's land we have to work out something everyone acknowledges we need  rmark reform and they've made progress in committee has been following that this year senators from burton conklin have made that direction even though the the legislation is not been completed but in the meantime mr president have don't have a lobbying and ethics reform which is long past due so i would hope mr president that we can work together to leak this stuff in a timely fashion otherwise they'll be finished and then i'm timely fashion because we're going to finish all this stuff before we have our as president after fifty two months about two hundred ten weeks and about fifteen hundred days america finds itself mired in one of the most tragic foreign policy blunders our nation's history and the sad part about this president there's no end in sight in my view and that of academics and others say will take years and even decades to finally close the book on the damage this war has caused our troops our economy and our moral standing in the world on may twenty fourth two thousand and seven president bush said and i quote we're there at the invitation of the iraqi government this is a sovereign nation twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution it's their government's choice if they were to say leave we would leave that's the quote of president bush this weekend iraqi prime minister  maliki or home president bush has expressed consistent support and confidence said that iraqi forces could take control of their security at any time american troops want to leave or work to leave a recent poll the iraqi people showed that twenty one percent think the american presence makes their country safer sixty nine percent say that puts them the iraqi people at greater risk that so the iraqis say iraqi people and their leaders say they're ready for us and our combat operation i think it's time we listen to the mr president and the war soon to be five years our troops of complex everything they've been asked to do they took down the iraqi dictator they secure the country for not one not two but three elections they provided the security needed for iraqi factions to come together to negotiate peaceful settlement of the difference mr president the iraqi leaders have not done their part after these fifty two months more than thirty six hundred americans killed and tens of thousands wounded after nearly six hundred billion dollars american taxpayer dollars spent and after this sacrifice fifty two months of sacrifice it's long past time for the iraqi leaders and the iraqi people to put their words into action by taking responsibility for their own future after fifty two months more than thirty six hundred americans killed tens of thousands wounded and nearly six hundred billion dollars in taxpayer dollars spent present bush continues to tell our troops and all americans that we should wait it out just stay the course after fifty two months our troops and our security cannot afford the presence run out the clock strategy we have an opportunity an obligation to change course in iraq right now we can remove our brave troops from the front lines of another country civil war a conflict we have no business policing and little chance to diffuse we can conduct the kind of tough and strong diplomacy required to stabilize iraq and the region which even the presence on military experts plead with him to revive remember mr president general petraeus said the war cannot be won militarily we can refocus our resources and fight a real war on terror that drives the terrorists back to the darkest caves and corners of the earth we can choose that path now we don't have to mark time waiting for the present to wake up one morning with a change of heart or his term to run out we don't have to wait two more months for an arbitrary september deadline and it's so clear of course change is required and required now with our courage and our votes we can rise above the tragic failure to deliver the new course that our brave troops all americans demand and deserve we can do that today by voting for the levin reid amendment to the defense authorization bill what does levin read do sets a firm date and to an end date to transition the mission begin the reduction of u s forces beginning a hundred twenty days after next month and completed by april thirtieth two thousand and eleven reid limits the u s military mission after april thirtieth counterterrorism training of iraqi security forces and protection of u s personnel and assets and requires that the reduction in force would be part of a comprehensive diplomatic regional political and economic effort and appoints international mediator to bring together the warring factions mr president that provision dealing with appointing an international mediator to bring together warring factions was newly place and that bill the idea in the language came from  great addition to this amendment to those who say this language is binding on the president i say it is and that's what it's meant to be binding because the president has resisted every effort we've made to work with him to change the direction of his failed iraq policy record will show that binding language was not our first choice we passed legislation requiring that two thousand and six be a year of transition stead the president nor does language douglas an even deeper than intractable civil war we gave the president a chance to develop his own new corps as commander in chief he refused to do that and steady chose to extend deployments as even more of our brave men and women in uniform earlier this year we pass though mr president we have a constitutional obligation to do so so the record here is clear the president's decision to stubbornly cling to the current course leaves his body no choice but to enact binding language has failed to lead us out of iraq we're ready to show him the way is present i'm going to propound a unanimous consent request and i have the greatest respect for my friend the distinguished junior senator from arizona but i say that i'm going to force the rule here that when i prepared this to the distinguished senator from arizona should either agree to it or object this is not the time for speeches because if he objects to it i have more to say so much for as i ask same conferees which the senate has already appointed h r one the second degree amendment eleven read amendment be withdrawn and that there be six hours of debate on the levin reid amendment at a conclusion and getting back to that time the senate vote on the levin reid amendment with no second degree amendments in order there to is their vote on it i've suggested six hours we would take any reasonable time that was all the only right mr president if i could respond just reserving the right to object i assume that if the cornyn amendment which was designed to be of side by side amendment and eleven read amendment could both be voted on in both had a sixty vote threshold that a time agreement could be worked out and i asked the majority leader is could there could be unanimous consent request to be modified to incorporate that principle so that there wouldn't have to be cloture but there could be a vote on both of those amendments mr president i have said earlier we had we had to file cloture on  webb which was an amendment that simply called for the proper rotation our troops fifteen months in country fifteen mousa months out of country we wanted that one of the senate to speak its will on that simple majority and we were unable to get that we feel the same way about levon read there's a very important policy decision this senate needs to make not to change i don't know what corners but i'm sure it's not something that the as much different than lebanon versus reid and therefore if there's a suggestion that i would have been my you know i was concerned reese quest to have some side by side sixty vote margin i would object to that mr president i believe that we should have in that instance an up or down that i think that i have no problem given getting center court in a majority vote i think that would be very appropriate i think that's where we need to be on this issue that is this issue of the defense authorization bill  spent it's very unusual to have on a defense authorization bill even issues dealing with iraq in times past we haven't had the sixty vote margin so i would not accept my friends suggestion that there be side by that but they do have the full hour mispresent my worst fears on this bill the defense authorization bill has been realized we've just seen the republican leadership again resort to this technical maneuver to block progress on this crucial amendment the one thing for the minority to vote against this bill they honestly believe that stay the course is the right strategy they have the right to vote no but now republicans are using a filibuster to block us from even voting on the amendment that we could bring this war to responsible and a blocking this like we did the webb amendment there protecting the president rather than protecting our troops there in one us an up or down yes or no vote on the most important issue in our country faces so mr president i say through you to my democratic and republican colleagues that we're going to work on this amendment until we get an up or down vote on it if this means staying in session we have no votes of course tonight but if it means staying in session all day tomorrow and all day tomorrow night that's what we're going to have to do alf i'll file cloture tonight sometime so that we can have a wednesday vote if this continues i hope that during the next few hours and certainly tomorrow that there will be a change of mind in that we can have a vote on death and then move on to the other amendments that certainly seems there would be appropriate the american people deserve an all been honest debate on this war they deserve an up or down vote on this amendment which we believe will lead to a responsible named conferees on the part of the senate as i understand it the house now wants to add a new bill to the conference of bills which includes provisions that were not included in either chambers nine eleven bill i'm not familiar with all of the provisions of h r fourteen zero one but i do know that the senate has not acted on that bill and i don't believe it was part of the nine eleven commission recommendations so having said that we'll need to object to this request at this time the president the senator from arizona under the previous order there will now be a period of morning business for sixty minutes with senators permitted to speak their in for up to ten minutes each with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees the senator from arizona thank you mr president i understand that there has been an informal agreement that i would have up to fifteen minutes senator feinstein would then have thirty minutes and  senator who may wish to speak without objection sword thank you mr president and i don't think i'll take fifteen minutes i just wanted to address today a subject that i hope we will be able to address soon and that is an amendment that senator graham of south carolina will be has been filed and hopefully we will debating and be debating soon that relates to conditions that have been placed in the underlying bill relating to the treatment of detainees captured in afghanistan and iraq i want to urge my colleagues to think very carefully very carefully about the damage that will be wrought on the global war against terrorists and future wars that we may have to fight if we go forward with the language that's in the bill specifically in section ten twenty three of the bill which essentially would return us to a law enforcement approach to terror wrists that frankly failed us before nine eleven and once some of bin laden and others declared war on us would obviously not work in the post nine eleven context senator graham's amendment strikes these harmful provisions from the bill and would replace them with common sense measures to provide more fair process in dealing with detainees at guantanamo i just want to remind my folks that my colleagues for a moment about the nature of these terrorists that we're talking about and then go through specific provisions of the bill that need to be removed specifically three the requirement that al qaeda terrorists held in iraq and afghanistan be given lawyers the authorization to demand discovery in compel testimony from our service members and third the requirement that al qaeda and taliban detainees be provided access to classified evidence first just to review the nature of these detainee the detainees that we are holding not just in guantanamo bay but also in iraq and afghanistan mr president these are not nice people at least thirty of the detainees who've been released from guantanamo bay detention facility have since returned to waging war against the united states and our allies twelve of these released detainees have been killed in battle by u s forces others have been recaptured to release detainees became regional commanders for taliban forces one released detainee attacked u s and allied soldiers in afghanistan killing three afghan soldiers one released detainee killed an afghan judge one released detainee let a terrorist attack on a hotel in pakistan and a kidnapping raid that resulted in the death of a chinese civilian this former designee detainee by the way recently told pakistani journalists that he plans to quote fight america and its allies until the very end end quote the provisions of section ten twenty three would make it very called it's not impossible for the united states to detain these committed terrorists who've been captured of all waging war against us no nation has ever in the history of armed conflict imposed the kinds of limits that the bill would impose on its ability to detain enemy war prisoners of war prisoners who are released in the middle of an ongoing conflict particularly fanatics like members of al qaeda will return to waging war we've already seen this happen thirty times with detainees released from guantanamo bay guantanamo bay and of section ten twenty three of the bill is enacted into law we could expect that number to increase sharply if section ten twenty three is an act and we should expect that more civilians and more afghans more iraqi soldiers will be killed and it may be inevitable that our own soldiers will be injured or killed by such released terrorists this is a price our nation should not be forced to prison let me talk first about the requirement in the bill that al qaeda terrorists held in iraq and afghanistan must be provided with lawyers this can't be executed it would require the release of detainees and here's why the defense bill requires that counsel be provided in trials be conducted for all unlawful enemy combat and felled by the united states including for example al qaeda members captured and detained in iraq and afghanistan if they held for two years we hold approximately eight hundred first ners in afghanistan and tend of thousands in iraq none of them are lawful combatants and all would arguably be entitled to try or trial and a lawyer under the bill such proceedings would at least require a military judge a prosecutor and a defense attorney as well as other legal professionals the scheme is not realistic the entire army jag corps only consists of approximately fifteen hundred officers and each are busy with their current duties moreover under the bill each detainee day detainee would be permitted to retain private or volunteer counsel us agreements with the iraqi government bar of the united states for transferring iraqi detainees out of iraq as a result the bill would require the united states to train and transport and house and protect potentially thousands or even tens of thousands of private lawyers in the middle of a war zone during ongoing hostilities this is impossible the proposal is half baked at best mr president it would likely force the united states to release thousands of any enemy combatants interact and then resumes for them to then resume waging war against the united states obviously this would tie up our military by requiring a trial for each detainee this provision would also require us soldiers to operate like criminal investigators needing later to prove their case after they captured someone they would need to carry some kind of evidence kits or combat cameras or some other method of preserving the evidence and establish its chain of custody they would need to spend hours after each patrol writing after action reports which would then need to be reviewed by commanders valuable time would be taken away from combat operations and from soldiers rest and finally it's a very bad precedent for the future aside from the current war in iraq this provision also would make fighting a major war in the future simply impossible consider this during world war two the united states detained over two million anomie war prisoners it would have been impossible for the united states to have conducted a trial and provided counsel to to know the end of captured enemy combatants so the bottom line is that the bill as written would likely be impossible to implement in iraq and in the context of past wars is peta nly absurd the second point authorizing al qaeda detainees to demand discovery and compel testimony from american soldiers this bill the underlying bill would actually authorize unlawful enemy combatants and pleading al qaeda detained in iraq and afghanistan to demand discovery and to compel testimony from witnesses just as we do in our criminal courts here in the united states in a proceeding challenging a combat and capture in detention the most likely witnesses who would be compelled to testify would be u s soldiers who captured the prisoner under this bill an american soldier could literally be recalled from his unit at the qaeda terrorist in order to be cross examined before a judge by that terrorist newspaper columnist stuart taylor described recently the questions that the grant of such a procedural right would raise quote should a marine sergeant be pulled out of combat in afghanistan and flown around the world to testify at a detention hearing about when where how and why he had captured the detainee what if the northern alliance or some other ally made the capture and should the military be ordered to deliver high level  prisoners to be cross examined by other detainees and their lawyers in the physical taishan the questions abound as the supreme court observed in johnson versus aizen trigger which is the law on this subject and i quote it would be difficult to devise a more effective festering of the field commander than to allow the very enemies he is ordered to reduce to submission to call him to account in his own civil courts and divert his efforts and attention from the military offensive abroad to the legal defense of at home that's what the u s supreme court said in world war two when a similar issue was raised it would be difficult to conceive of a process that would be more insulting to our own soldiers and in addition mr president many al qaeda members who were captured in afghanistan were captured by special operators whose identities are kept secret for obvious reasons this would force these operators either to come forward and reveal themselves to al members therefore exposing themselves or to simply forego the prosecution of the individual which is more likely what would happen clearly american should not be subject to subpoena by al qaeda and that brings me to the last point the requirement that al qaeda and taliban detainees be provided with access to classified evidence mr president the bill requires that detainees be provided with and i'm quoting a sufficiently specific substitute of classified evidence that and that detainees private lawyers be given access to all relevant classified evidence foreign and domestic intelligence agencies are already very hesitant to divulge classified evidence to the c s r to hearings that we currently conduct these are part of the internal and non adversarial military process today intelligence agencies will inevitably refuse to provide sensitive evidence to detainees and their lawyers they not risk compromising such evidence and their sources and methods of gathering it for the sake of detaining an individual terrorist in addition the united states already has tenuous relations with some of the foreign governments particularly in the middle east that have been our best sources of intelligence about al qaida if we give detainees a legal right to access to such information these foreign governments may simply shut off all further supply of information to the united states these governments will not want to  compromised their evidence or expose the fact that they comp that they cooperate with the united states by exposing our cooperation with these governments the bill perversely applies a sort of stop snitching policy toward our middle eastern allies a policy that's likely to be just as remorsefully effective as one applied to criminal street gangs in the united states and a final point on this we already know from hard experience that providing classified and other sensitive information of al qaeda members is a bad idea during the one nine hundred ninety five federal prosecution in new york of the so called blind shape omar abdel rahman prosecutors turned over the names of two hundred unindicted coconspirators to the defense the prosecutors were required to do so under the civilian criminal justice a system of discovery rules which require that large amounts of evidence be turned over to the defense the judge warned the defense that the information could only be used for pair for trial and not for other purposes nevertheless within ten days of being turned over to the defense the information found its way to sudan and into the hands of usama bin ladin u s district judge michael mackenzie who presided over the case explained and i quote that the list was in downtown khartoum within ten days and bin laden was aware within ten days that the government was on his trail end of quote that's what happens when you provide classified information in this context in another case trade in the civilian criminal justice system testimony about the use of cellphones tipped off terrorists to how the government was monitoring their networks again according to judge mckay see quote there was a piece of innocuous testimony about the delivery of a battery for a cell phone this testimony alerted terrorists to government surveillance and as a result their communication network shut down within days and intelligence was lost to the government forever intelligence that might have prevented who knows what and to quote mr president this bill this particular section of the bill repeats these mistakes of the past of treating the war with al qaeda like a criminal justice investigation that would force the united states to choose between compromising information that can be used to prevent future terrorist attacks and letting captured terrorists go free this is not a choice that our nation should be required to make mr president i will talk more about some provisions that senator graham would like to substitute for these provisions that provide a more fair process for detainees held at guantanamo bay a process that would enable them to take greater to have greater benefit of the use of counsel and evidence in their c s r team hearings now i'll wait until he actually offers that amendment to get into detail but the point is we have bent over backwards to provide the detainees at guantanamo the ability to contest their detention and to have that detention reviewed and eventually have it reviewed in united states courts that is a very fair system more fair than has ever been provided by any other nation under similar circumstances and more than the constitution requires so we are treating the people we've captured in our holding it on tunnel in a very fair way but we cannot do is to take those same kind of protections and apply them to anybody we capture in a foreign theater were held in the foreign theater and therefore who are not under current circumstances and never have been in the history of warfare subject to the criminal justice system of our country who take that system and try to transport it to the fields of afghanistan or iraq would obviously be not only a breaking of historical president but a very bad idea for all of the reasons that i've just indicated so i ask my colleagues to give very careful consideration to the dangerous return to the pre nine eleven notion of terrorism as a law enforcement problem that's inherent in section ten twenty three of the bill the terrorists have made no secret that they're actually at war with us and we ignore this point at our peril i conclude by reminding my colleagues that the statement of administration policy on this bill indicates that the president would be advised to be vetoed if these provisions remain and therefore would urge my colleagues when the opportunity is presented to join me in striking the provisions of the bill not only as representing good policy but as ensuring to help us ensure that at the end of the day there will be a bill signed by the president called the defense authorization bill president as senator from california and mr president i believe i have a half hour to speak as if on morning business and prior to doing so i'd just like to give a brief rejoinder to my colleague from arizona on some of the comments that he has just made it is my understanding that the underlying defense authorization act has several provisions that are necessary to address shortcomings in the legal process for individuals to tain on the battlefield one of these provisions limits the use of coerced testimony obtained through cruel inhuman or degrading treatment such testimony is not only immoral but it is necessary if we are to use accurate information another provision provides for reasonable counsel and the ability to present relevant information to detainees who have been held for two or more years this is necessary in a war of undetermined duration finally the bill does not provide classified information to a detainees it provides for a summary which is intended to be classified to the counsel for detainees and once that one of the things that might but if on line sixteen page three o five subsection roman numeral t o the word on classified were just added before the word summary on that line but i believe that is the intent now mr president many in this body and people all over the world have watched as america five and a half years ago began to arrest apprehend and incarcerate detainees some were real terrorists some were conspirators and some were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time we watched as camp x ray was built at the site of the formal naval base at guantanamo and we have seen the development of a different and lesser standard of american justice developed for proceedings at that base since that time one time a mo has been derided as a blight on human rights values and as a stain on american justice worldwide i believe the time has come to close guantanamo an amendment i have filed with senators harkin senator harkin is my main co sponsor and senator hagel would do exactly that it is co my understanding that the republican side has refused us a time agreement which means we will not be allowed a vote the amendment is not germane post cloture so we if the republican side will not allow us a time agreement we have unfortunately no way of getting a vote on this amendment you know the fact that this morning the new york times times editorial lies that guantanamo should be closed that's the reality out there that was what many people believe and yet we cannot fully debate that and vote on it here i think that is truly a shame i very much regret this but senator harkin and i and senator hagel wish to take some time to address this issue i want to assure this body that we will not stop here but we will find another venue with which to debate and vote on this the amendment that we are proposed would require the president to close the guantanamo defense and facility within one year and it provides the administration flexibility to choose the venue in which to try detainees in military proceedings federal district courts or both and the administration would choose which maximum security facilities to house the now why should we close the guantanamo detention facility first and foremost this administration's decision to create guantanamo appears to have been part of a plan to create a sphere of limited law outside the scrutiny of american courts which would result in a lesser standard of justice now guantanamo is unique it is not sovereign territory of the united states however under a one thousand nine hundred three lease the united states exercises complete jurisdiction and control over this former naval base i believe that the administration hoped to use this distinction to operate without accountability at guantanamo this is revealed in a december two thousand and one office of legal counsel memo by john yo of the justice department who later authored the infamous torture memo you know knew that there was a risk that courts would reject the legal theory of unaccountability at guantanamo but just as he did with this torture memo he laid out the various arguments why his extreme views might prevail and let me point this out in his memo and i'm quoting now he says finally the executive branch has repeatedly taken the position under various statutes that guantanamo is neither part of the united states nor a possession or territory of the united states for example this office justice has opined that guantanamo is not part of the united states for purposes of the immigration and naturalization act similarly in one nine hundred twenty nine the attorney general that guantanamo was not a possession of the united states within the meaning of certain tariff acts the memo concludes with this statement for the foregoing reasons we conclude that a district court cannot properly entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus by an enemy alien detained at guantanamo bay naval base cuba because the issue has not yet been definitively resolved by the courts however we caution that there is some possibility that a district court would entertain such an application and of quote so here the administration apparently hoped to turn guantanamo into a legal hybrid wholly under u s control but beyond the reach each of us courts now what's happened since then the supreme court rejected the administration's position in ross school v bush in two thousand and four ruling that american courts do have jurisdiction to hear hey videos and other claims from detainees held at guantanamo and following another defeat in the supreme court in honde on the run spells in two thousand and six which declared invalid the pentagon's process for adjudicating detainees the administration responded by pushing the passage of a new military commissions act which expressively eliminates pay vs corpus rights and limits other appeals to proceed or and constitutionality leaving questions of fact or violation of law unresolvable by all federal court this happens nowhere else in america lost but this military commissions act went through there are serious questions about whether this provision will withstand a court test and on june twenty ninth just two weeks ago the united states supreme court agreed to hear two additional cases which go right to this point blue to me in the bush and al o the united states the high court had declined to hear these cases in april but has reversed itself and granted her siraj the first time in sixty years that it agreed to take a case after previously refusing it so from this case we will find out whether the military commissions law which prevent full of heels in fact can stand the court test what is the administration arguing in that case once again they're trying to argue that the constitution's protection of haiti is corpus does not extend to detainees at guantanamo because it's outside of u s jurisdiction i think it's time to put an end to these efforts to use a legal maneuver to create a law free zone at guantanamo justice kennedy emphasized in his concurring opinion in rossouw and i quote guantanamo is in every practical respect a united states territory so united states law would apply at guantanamo whether this administration likes that or not and the administration's efforts to create a land without law at guantanamo has been a moral and a strategic catastrophe for the united states the bad decision to create a separate system of justice is kuantan a mo led to another mistake and i mention this briefly and that was the military commission that in retrospect let's look at what that act has done it expands presidential authority by giving the white house broad latitude to interpret the meaning and authority of the geneva convention it presents vague and ambiguous definitions of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment that failed to establish clear dot guidelines for what is permissible interrogation technique and it abandons the independent judicial review process by establishing a new court of military commission review was members appointed by the pentagon this court has after the established it limits appeals to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit which is given limited review authority this is what will most likely be before the court very shortly for the first time in u s history it allows coerced evidence obtained prior to december thirtieth two thousand and five to be entered into a court record and it revokes havey is corpus rights that allow detainees to appeal their status before the federal court direct review is limited and hey b s is a limb unaided by this military commissions bill clearly the military commission bill passed by a vote of sixty five to thirty four in this house seeks to once again set up a separate and lesser standard of justice senator specter and leahy have a bill to restore habeas rights to guantanamo detainees i hope that bill is allowed to be presented as an amendment to this bill it is timely it is important the world is watching it should happen and finally it is the right thing to do so what have been all the consequences of this that tenser detention center at guantanamo bay has become a lightning rod for international condemnation it draws sharp criticism from our allies and hands our enemies a potent recruiting tool it weakens our standards in excuse me it weakens our standing in the world and makes the world a more dangerous place for our troops who may be captured on foreign battlefields in the future and yet the administration fails to act despite public amen from president bush and top advisors but the facility should be closed recent news reports say there's renewed debate inside the white house over closing guantanamo but still nothing happens and so i believe it is up to congress to act so what would this amendment do in addition to requiring the president to close guantanamo within a year it would prohibit the united states the administration from transferring detainees under u s custody the facilities outside the united states it also requires the president to keep congress informed of efforts to close the facility and transfer the detainees and includes a specific requirement that the president reports to congress in writing within three months of the bill's a nachman i believe it's critical that we act to do nothing to leave guantanamo open some in the administration would like is to invite further condemnation and further risk it will weaken our efforts to fight terrorism and it will continue to erode our standing in the world i heard a terrorism expert on c n n his name is peter bergen and i've read his books and listened to him throughout the years he said that his colleagues had taken a good look at the increase in terror and that he believed it would be fair to assert that our presence in iraq has served to increase terrors by seven fold by seven hundred percent over what the world of terrorists were before iraq and today but the simple fact remains guantanamo violates our values and our traditions including respect for the rule of law and for human rights in avoiding the full weight of american justice it is shock the conscience of the world it is lead the men and women who have worn the uniform including many retired flag officers to speak out a dozen former generals and admirals warned in january of last of zero five that the interrogation techniques allowed at guantanamo and elsewhere had fostered quote greater animosity toward the united states undermined our intelligence gathering efforts and added to the risks facing our troops around the world and quote they included general john cash vainly former chairman of the joint chiefs general merrill mcpeak former air force chief of staff marine general joseph hoar a former commander of the u s central command and rear admiral dan good or a former navy judge advocate general earlier this year a very respected retired marine corps general by the name of james jones the former supreme allied commander in europe said quote i would close the prison the morrow i would do it immediately just the images alone have hurt our national reputation i don't know how you fix that without closing quote i agree with him i don't know how you begin to fix the damage wrought by gone tunnel without closing it military commissions bill couldn't do it we can't do it that's the fact former secretary of state colin powell said it's a singly i'd close it not tomorrow but this afternoon but importantly the sense of conscience as well as a measure of the international reaction to guantanamo came in a statement by archbishop desmond tutu and here's what he said quote i never imagined i would live to see the day when the united states and  satellites would use precisely the same arguments that the apartheid government used for detention without trial it is disgraceful and  in may of two thousand and six president bush told german television i would very much like to end guantanamo i would very much like to get people to a court and quote and earlier this year defense secretary bob gates knew his job made it clear that he also wanted guantanamo closed he said there is no question in my mind that guantanamo and some of the abuses that have taken place in iraq have negatively impacted the reputation of the united states he said that at the munich conference on security policy earlier this year and on february twenty seventh following an appropriations committee meeting i personally asked him what he thought and he said equally as the sink plea as general powell i think it should be closed the following month gen gates told the house defense appropriations committee that trials at guantanamo would lack credibility in the eyes of the world and in march  said the president has been very clear and he is clear to us all the time he would like to see it closed we all would well then why is  republican side preventing us from having a vote today or tomorrow or the next day which would say that guantanamo should be closed within a year how can the secretary of defense the president of the united states the secretary of state make these comments that they want guantanamo closed and the republican side of the aisle prevents us from taking a vote in the congress i don't understand this mr president additional fallout from the military commissions act has stymied further trials under its auspices by finding that the detainees had been incorrectly classified as enemy combatants rather than as an unlawful enemy combatant so that's another hitch this they've classified people wrongly so that they can't be tried and recently a lieutenant colonel who was part of this process from an intelligence point of view in affidavit has stated that even this classification was quote based on vague and incomplete intelligence and quote lieutenant colonel abraham also said tribunals members were pressured by their superiors to rule against detainee's often without specific evidence and that military prosecutors were given generic material the does not hold up in the face of the most basic legal challenges now let me could be clear i have no sympathy for taliban fighters al qaeda terrorists or anyone else out to hurt the united states or commit cowardly and despicable acts of terror there is nothing in this amendment that puts terrorists back on the street that is not the goal and any argument that this amendment would harm national security is flat out false i believe that what harms national security is sacrificing our nation's values which have made us rightly the greatest democracy in the world by setting up a hybrid system of justice by not following the military code of justice but by creating this hybrid system which has failed core task now and will most likely possibly fail another one shortly now how do you stop all this as long as you have this extra territorial facility out there without the light of day showing on it today two of our colleagues mr president are visiting guantanamo unfortunately i couldn't go with them the last time i visited guantanamo was with secretary rumsfeld rather early on and i suspect what they will find is a rather well run strong staunch military prison but that doesn't mean that the justices dispensed there is correct if it's secondary justice if it's sub level justice if there is no right of appeal if you don't have access to an attorney easily if you can't see evidence against you and you know it's all part of the same thing one can say well guantanamo is no aboud greb and i would most likely agree with that today there have been allegations of unseemly behavior in terms of interrogation techniques no question about that i soon that's corrected now but it still looms out there as a way the united states has not allowing these prisoners to face justice it's one thing if you're a terrorist it's another thing if you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time if you're swept up if you're put in either case a juror a cell at guantanamo and if you stay there year after year after years with no recourse that is a stain on american justice we criticize the chinese for their form of administrative detention and yet here we practice a similar thing we face a serious long term terrorist threat it may well go on for the next ten or even twenty years we must track down punish and prosecute those who seek to hurt this country and hurt our people but at the same time we need national policies that are both tough and smart and this isn't smart we will fight terror with vigor and drive and purpose but we must not forget who we are we are a nation of laws we are a nation of value and tradition these values have been admired throughout the decades all over the world the world has looked at guantanamo and made the judgment that it's wrong i think it's time for the senate to do something about it the senate has borne the burden of guantanamo for too long the time has come to close it down i appeal to the other side to allow the they'd on the floor and to give us a unanimous consent time agreement that there might be a vote in this body i thank the chair for the senator from colorado mr president i rise today reflecting on the most pressing issues on the minds of the american public that of the current situation in iraq we've been in iraq for nearly four and a half years and frustration is certainly understandable i'd like nothing more than to see the united states reach a point where our soldiers and sailor and airman and marines are able to leave and the iraqi people can stand on their own our military has done an exceptional job that point cannot be debated but so as many have said victory and ultimate success in iraq cannot be completed solely through military strength i would also like to pacifically point out that the leadership of the ranking member of the senate armed services committee senator john mccain on this issue having just returned from iraq is pointed remarks on our united efforts iraq and the importance of our mission are much needed senator mccain understands as i do that the terrorist threat in iraq will not stop nor will our safety improve at home if our forces leave in their own words these dangerous ideologues continue to make bold and alarming threats worldwide but even more importantly they are backing up their words with action they will continue to strike our allies and gulf and they will continue to strike our friends and europe and i believe they will not hesitate to strike america again as they did on september eleventh that said i'm extremely disappointed that more progress has not been made on the political and domestic security front within iraq that the fact remains that iraq is simply not ready to take over their own country today and if the u s were to leave the consequences would be nothing short of catastrophic kind is training operating and carrying out their missions in iraq right now as evidenced in britain two weeks ago they are clearly still a threat and are still determined to accomplish their goals of destroying western culture that much has not changed july twelfth the president issued a report as required by the fiscal year two thousand and seven supplemental appropriations bill assessing the progress of the sovereign government of iraq's performance in achieving the benchmarks detailed in the bill as we know there's report told us that eight of the eighteen benchmarks detailed in that bill received satisfactory marks but we are certainly disappointed that more benchmarks were not achieved is important to highlight successes that is being made and how the iraqi government is performing as their success will ultimately allow us to responsibly reduce our troop levels specifically the government of iraq has made progress  forming a constitutional review committee to review the constitution this is important just like in our nation's history we needed to create a constitution that provided a standard for which we base our laws though many contentious issues continue to exist i am pleased that significant progress is being made if iraq cannot form their constitution then it will be very difficult or impossible to move forward on to other matters also the iraqis have satisfied the requirements set forth to and implement legislation forming semi autonomous regions this law set to come into effect in eighteen months but thus far this potentially very contentious issue has not received much attention this is important as it further organizes and equips to wrack to take on the responsibilities of a democratic government and this benchmark furthers the necessary groundwork needed to build a responsible and legitimate government of iraq as made progress to ensure the rights of minor political parties within the legislature and maintain that their rights are protected clearly this is important obtaining legitimacy particularly given the historical and present conflicts between the sunni's shia and kurds on the security front the iraqis with coalition support have successfully reached benchmarks established in joint security stations across baghdad that provide a continuous security presence these stations are necessary as they can effectively combine american technology and capabilities with the iraqi presence on the ground in order to counter insurgency threat where they begin by mid june thirty two joint security stations have reached initial operational capability and thirty six combat outposts are rich an initial or to pull capacity also the goal of providing three trained and ready iraqi brigade support of baghdad operations has been achieved and this compliments the recommendations of the iraq study group certainly this is a major priority as the development of a functional and effective iraqi fighting and security force is absolutely essential for the iraqis to further take the reins of their government and i'm pleased that these goals are being accomplished thus far at the beginning of this year the president changed the focus of this effort decisions were made for a new direction admiral william fallon was placed in charge a centcom commander and the senate unanimously confirmed general david petraeus as a new commander of our forces in iraq the much talked about a much criticized surge of twenty eight thousand additional troops has only been underway for just about three weeks now phantom operation phantom thunder began on june fifteenth and already iraq and particularly baghdad is a much different place than it was only six months ago u s forces have begun working closely with iraqis to bring down sectarian violence of the qaida in country so far the new  counterinsurgency has decreased shiite death squad activity and many militia leaders have been disposed of execution levels are at the lowest point in a year and the al qaeda hotspots in the city are shrinking and becoming isolated from one another and supply lines are being cut around the being cut around the city for the first time in years the us is operating freely in eastern baghdad as we are surrounding the villages and small towns around baghdad ratting out insurgent bases already total car bombings and suicide attacks are down in may and june and by the end of june american troops controlled about forty two percent of the city's neighborhoods up from nineteen percent in april a national military success certainly does not mean that operations are complete not is nor is political victory guaranteed the fact remains that this body unanimously confirmed general petraeus with the knowledge that he planned to initiate this surge that would in usually rot at al qaeda and ultimately clear the path for internal change within iraq again the surge began on june fifteenth and we owe it to our troops who are placing their lives on the line not to pull the plug on them while they remain in harm's way our best and brightest military minds have worked to construct this new strategy and we need to see it through i would like to see our troops come home today but the harsh reality remains that this is not a valid option will not make us safer and is not in our national interest if we leave it is naive to think of kaiden and our enemies will just go away and we will no longer be threatened additionally mr president i've heard many of my colleagues discuss on the floor some of their new strategies in iraq strategies that i believe would weaken us at home and abroad what i find curious is that they keep referring to finding a bipartisan solution in iraq when only months ago this body overwhelmingly approved to do military commanders in the region and a new diplomatic leader and ambassador crocker we also approved in a bipartisan manner the new way forward in iraq the president bush eloquently defended this morning and that both this body committed that we would allow the surge to go forward and i would give general petraeus the time to an active strategy i cannot in good conscience cut short a plan barely three months old as we all know in september a complete review of iraq there will be a complete review on iraq policy including a detailed assessment of the surge will be presented to this and i look forward to that assessment i look forward to making the appropriate decisions based on that report it would be disingenuous to simply discontinue the plans that our military leaders have planned that are putting into place simply for political gain remarkably the senate is in a similar situation that we were only months ago when many in this body wanted to reject their strategy general petraeus proposed in iraq even before he was given full opportunity to perform his mission well we're at it again for what reason did my colleagues agree to the new strategy in iraq but are not willing to support our own self imposed guideline i don't know the answer to that mr president but i knew know that i will not i will continue to vote against any legislation that sets arbitrary deadlines and thresholds in iraq and plead with my colleagues to do the same let's not stand here this week and prejudge which will come out of the september fifteenth report but more importantly let's not prejudge the talents of our men and women in iraq let's give our military and diplomatic teams the time they deserve and which we and which we had promised mr president i thing second week on the iraq war is part of the fence programs fail senator levin and raid on the floor their amendment pending this week would require us troops to begin with drawl one hundred twenty days after the president's signature we understand from reports from c q that majority leader reid has filed cloture a meeting about what happened likely on wednesday on that particular amendment to limit debate on that amendment also this week possible possible debate and votes on an amendment by senators warner and lugar this would be a non binding measure suggesting a reduction of troops at the president's discretion and another pending amendment possible by tennessee republican which would adopt the iraq study group's recommendations several issues several amendments dealing with the issue of the iraq war pending here on the senate floor as the senate enters into a second week of debate on the two thousand and eight defen authorization bill meanwhile over in the house today they're working through a number of suspension bills including one dealing with the backlog of passport applications they'll have votes at six thirty can follow coverage of the house on our companion network c span one more thing about the the action on the on the senate floor the debate this week as always you can keep track of the debate the legislation the various amendments that are being offered and watch related video as well at c span dot org we update those links just check featured links at cspan dot org from michigan ask unanimous consent to further proceedings out of the corn call be dispensed with without objection the morning businesses closed under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of h r fifteen eighty five which the clerk will report calendar number one eighty nine h r fifteen eighty five an act authorize appropriations for the fiscal year two thousand and eight for military activities of the department of defense and so forth and for other purposes this present just a  then i then i would ask unanimous consent that the republican leader be recognized and then following his statement which we expect to be about ten minutes that senator durbin be recognized without objection and then and then the senator the presiding officer i ask unanimous consent that if there's a republican that wishes to speak in between senators durbin and salazar that that republican be recognized very adequate notice because i would not want to speak without you being here we've been here for many years together yes but we manage even though we oppose each other but i do oppose you on this from my dear friend well i feel very similar about you remember we president there are two truly critical issues for our country you hear it every time you have a town meeting every time a senator is home and one of those issues is changing course in iraq and the second issue is fixing health care here in america the senate is going to spend long hours on the floor of the senate this week hopefully changing course in iraq making a fundamental shift in the policy where the senate would come together only bipartisan basis and i want to spend a bit of time this afternoon talking about the long hours that are ahead of members of the senate finance committee in a critical part of the effort to fix american health care over the last several months for members bipartisan group in the senate finance comm baucus and grassley and rockefeller and hatch have toiled hard to better meet the health care needs of this country's youngsters it is a moral blot on our nation that millions and millions of our kids go to bed at night without decent health care and this legislation is part of an effort to erase that moral blot an unconscionable fact of american life that so many kids are scarred by the inability to get decent good quality affordable health care the recent days the bush administration has indicated that they are considering vetoing this legislation as one who has worked very extensively with the bush administration on health care issues it's my hope that they will join the effort the bipartisan effort here in the senate to try to ssion out and to do it in a bipartisan way and in fact i think it is absolutely critical that it be done if there is to be a nother bipartisan effort in this congress that would attack health care needs in this country on a broader basis i and senator bennett of the distinguished senator from colorado where i have brought to the senate the first bipartisan health care overhaul bill in more than thirteen year it has brought together business organizations and labor organizations it has put us in a position for the first time in more than a decade at looking on a bipartisan basis to overhauling american health care but to do it we're first going to have to address the immediate needs of this country's kids and in fact as part of the budget process i was able to add legislation that would indicate that those critical needs of this country's children would be added first i would be the first to acknowledge that there is a connection between the children's health program and the broader health needs of our citizens the fact of the matter is most kids in america get health care through private coverage through their parents and those that are on the chip program the children's health insurance program many of them get coverage through the private sector as well through private policy but we're going to have to find common ground if we're going to fix american health care democrats and republicans on the finance committee have tried to do that on the chip legislation is a distinguished senator from colorado knows a great many democrats who would like to spend more than this compromise effort would allow we would like to look at allocating fifty million dollars for the needs of america's youngsters the bipartisan compromise as part of the cooperative effort with number on this side of the aisle have been concerned about other groups of citizens who haven't been able to get a good quality affordable coverage and they've been able to get benefits under existing services offered by the children's health program because the bush administration allowed for special waiver so what the compromise is seeking to do is to say all right if it has been allowed under a waiver program let's not point the finger at anybody let's say that those waivers in effect would be grandfathered they'd be protected but then we'll move on and we would move on and a bipartisan kind of way i will tell my colleagues because he and i have spoken about health care often that we know what needs to be done in american health care we're spending enough money certainly this year we'll spend two point three trillion dollars or three hundred million of it you divide three hundred million and two point three trillion you can go out and hire a doctor for every seven families in the united states we're spending enough money on health care we're just not spending it in the right and we also know because senator bennett and i have talked a great many on both sides of the aisle that there's a real prospect for an ideological truce here on the health care issue in the united states senate a great many republicans to their credit are acknowledging now for the first time that to fix american healthcare you've gotta cover everybody because if you don't cover everybody those who are uninsured shift their bills to the ensure a great many democrats also to their credit have been willing to acknowledge that just turning all this over to government having a government run health care program isn't going to work either that it's going to be essential to have a private sector in american health care that works it would be a reform one private insurance companies couldn't cherry pick any longer they could take just healthy people and send sick people over to government programs more fragile than they are but that there would be a real private sector so in addition to spending enough money and addition to something of an ideological truth now on health care between democrats and republicans for the first time i particularly want to credit my colleague from utah senator bennett for working closely with me on this part of the effort i think we can show people who have coverage why it is in their interests to be for reform and certainly here in the senate we know that past effort particularly in one thousand nine hundred three during the debate about the clinton plan the single biggest barrier was convincing people who had coverage why it would be in their interest to support reform what we have been able to do on a bipartisan basis senator bennett and i working together is to come up with an approach that will show people who have coverage workers and employers why it will work for them with the very first paychecks that are issued under our legislation the healthy americans act not in five years not in eight years not sometimes down the road but it'll work for those who have coverage workers and employers with the very first pay checks that are issued when this legislation becomes law the reason it would benefit those workers and employers is that they have more cash in their pockets the workers they would have more choices for the health care that was available to them and they certainly have more security health care that could never ever be taken away my hope is mr president and colleagues that we can have a cooperative bipartisan effort on the chip legislation starting tomorrow night my friend from colorado late mark up democrats and republicans on the committee want to work together we want to work with the administration and i hope the administration will join us in that effort and i would also suggest that if that happens we can go on to the broader health care issue where there are a number of areas where the administration seeks reform and i want to assure them that i'm interested in working with them for example the president has made the point it is one that i share the federal tax code as it relates to health care disproportionately favors the most wealthy and rewards inefficiency today in america if you're a high flying c e o and you want to go out and get a designer smile plastered on your face you can do it and write off the cost of that operation on your taxes every dime but if you're a hard working woman in a furniture store in colorado or illinois or oregon your company has no plan you get nothing out of the tax code you get nothing so what i and senator bennett seek to do is redirect those several hundred billion dollars in tax expenditures for health care to people in the middle income brackets the lower middle income brackets the bush administration has a different approach with respect to the tax code and health but as i have said to the president personally i think he's still on to the basic concept this is an area where democrats and republicans can find common ground but if we're going to get in this session to the broader issue of health care reform and of course a lot of people think it can't be done and you think it will be two thousand and nine with another presidential election before there's real reform if we're going to deal with it in the session i and senator bennett are pulling out all the stops to try to get broader health care reform out there deception in order to get to that broader debate democrats and republicans have to come together on this crucial issue of meeting the health care needs of this country of wiping out this moral blot in our nation that millions of kids don't have decent health care that effort will start tomorrow night this is a key time for those of us who want to reform american health care if we can come together in the senate starting tomorrow night under senators baucus and grassley and hatch and rockefeller my hope is that we can keep that coalition together and then segue over to the broader reform where senator bennett and i have brought for the first time in more than thirteen years colleagues a bipartisan proposal to overhaul american health care it has the support of business and labor consumer groups have been involved in the development of it i'm very hopeful that under the leadership of senator reid and i see the distinguished a leader from illinois here we can change course with respect to the war in iraq but we can also change course with respect to the most pressing domestic issue of our time that is fixing american health care the effort starts tomorrow night mr president i yield the floor senator from virginia might be correct in saying that this time is reserved for the distinguish republican leader the leader is correct i do not see him present at the moment  therefore if some of the speaker for a period of time we should to go forward had on virtually every rock amendment this week and also sixty vote threshold on the cornyn amendment which is a logical counter to the levin amendment as i indicated it's my understanding the majority leader announced earlier that it would be his intention to file cloture on the levin reid amendment this evening that would as i just suggested allow for a cloture vote to occur on wednesday of this week the way we've dealt with i think essential to every a controversial iraq amendment this year no matter what bill it's been offered upon given a majority leader's intention to file cloture this evening on the l objection to the terminations of the reading of the amendment that objection is heard at the end of the sub circle continue to read add the following section fifteen thirty five cents of the senate on the consequences of a failed state in iraq a finding the senate makes the following finds one a failed state in iraq would become a safe haven for islamic radicals including al qaeda and hezbollah who are determined to attack united states and united states allies to the iraq study group report found that a chaotic iraq could provide a still stronger base of operations for terrorists who seek to act regionally or even globally the iraq study group noted that al qaeda will for trey any failure by the united states and iraq as a significant victory that will be featured prominently as they recruit for their costs in the region and around the world for a national intelligence estimate  consequences of a premature withdrawal from iraq would be that elkader would attempt to use and far province to plan further attacks outside of iraq the neighboring countries would consider actively intervening in iraq and see sectarian violence would significantly increase in iraq accompanied by massive civilian casualties and displacement by the iraq study group found that a premature american departure from iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of condition the near term results would be a significant power vacuum greater human suffering regional destabilization and a threat to the global economy our withdrawal as historic victory six a failed state in iraq could lead to broader regional conflict possibly involving syria iran saudi arabia and turkey seven the iraq study group noted that the turkey could send troops in northern iraq to prevent kurdistan from declaring independence the iraq study group noted that iran could send troops to restore stability in southern iraq and perhaps gain control of oil fields the regional influence of iran could rise at a time when that country is on a path to produce a nuclear weapons nine a failed state in iraq would lead to massive humanitarian suffering including widespread ethnic cleansing and countless refugees and internally displaced persons many of whom will be tortured and killed for have an assist the coalition forces ten a recent editorial in the york times stated americans must be clear that iraq and the region around it could be even bloodier and more chaotic after americans leave there could be referred to again those who work with american forces further acne cleansing even genocide potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit jordan syria iran and turkey could be tempted to make power grabs eleven the iraq study group found that if we leave iraq descends into chaos the long range consequences could eventually require the united states to return the sense of the senate is a sense of the senate that once the senate should commit itself to a strategy that will leave a failed state in iraq and the senate should not pass legislation that will undermine our military's ability to prevent a failed state in iraq and i signed a cloture petition to the  minority leader  the undersigned centers in accordance with provisions of rule twenty two of the standing rules of the senate here by move to bring to a close a date on the pending mcconnell amendment number twenty two forty one to calendar number one eighty nine h r fifteen eighty five the national defen amendments on the q and a get them offered and voted on is not a very might say a very effective way relate to to legislate because it produces a level of animosity and unity on the minority occupant of the chair of the salazar alexander amendment i would hope we could do this in an orderly way we've been on this bill now for we're going to and we're clearly going to be on it through the end of this week and it will be important as we move toward disposition of this measure to have all senators who have important amendments have an opportunity to be heard with that mr president this president senator from rhode island his friend i had the opportunity this morning to listen to the majority leader senator harry reid as i presided and he made it clear that he would be perfectly willing to allow all fifty felt majority vote on both the letter and read and then that and the coining amended or this bill and defense authorization with all due respect to the republican minority leader the statement that he made earlier on the floor is not accurate the republican minority leader said that on issues relating to iraq we have required sixty votes i'd like to remind the republican minority leader that the vote on the timetable on the supplemental appropriation bill was a simple majority vote it was not a sixty vote threshold the most important iraq vote of the year did not require sixty votes on the floor of the senate it passed the senate with a bipartisan roll call fifty one or fifty two members supporting it and was sent to president bush for one of his only three veto elected president i'm sure that the minority leader from kentucky remembers it was not a sixty vote requirement now let's take a look at the defense authorization bill here let's take a look at the history of the defense authorization bill once again i would ask the minority leader from kentucky please look at the record what you said earlier on the floor is not accurate in the last debate on the defense authorization bill there were two iraq amendments offered one by senators levin and reid another by senator kerry both related to the war in iraq and both required only a majority vote the senator from kentucky has not accurately portrayed what occurred on the floor of the senate either with our supplemental appropriations bill or the previous defense authorization bill now for those who are following this debate wondering why are you worried about how many votes are required this is what the senate is all about the question is will this senate speak on the issue of the policy in the war in iraq the senator from kentucky understands because he's been a veteran of this body that he does not have a majority of the senators supporting his position or the position of president bush and so he started this debate by saying we won't allow a majority vote it'll take sixty votes sixty percent of the senate to change the policy on the war in iraq the senator from kentucky is betting that he can hold enough republican senators back from voting for a change in policy on the war in iraq to defeat our efforts to start bringing our soldiers home that is his procedural approach to this is stood by it but he should confess it for what it is it is a departure from where we have been on the debate on iraq both on the supplemental appropriations bill and on the defense authorization bill and mr president it's unfortunate and it's wrong it is wrong to require sixty percent of this body to vote this way if traditionally on this war in iraq we've required only a simple majority i suppose it's encouraging to us that more than sixty percent of the american people get it they understand how failed this policy has been of the bush administration the policy that's being supported by the minority leader of the united states senate they understand that they want to do something about it but the senator from kentucky has thrown this obstacle in our path he has created this procedural roadblock he has  starting a filibuster to stop the debate on the war in iraq now i've been here for a few years and i haven't seen a full throated fully implemented filibuster that you might have recalled from mr smith goes to washington when jimmy stewart stood at his desk until he crumbled in exhaustion filibustering a bill to stop it over the years arjan till it has led us to a different kind of filibuster it's a filibuster in name only where one side says well we're just going to keep this debate going on indefinitely and the other side says we'll bring the debate to a close motion for cloture bring it to a close and we'll see in thirty hours have a good time maybe you want to go back and have a nice dinner with your friends we'll see tomorrow morning well we're going to change that procedure this week since the republican side has decided that they want to filibuster our effort to debate the war policy on iraq we have decided on the democratic side we're going to have a real filibuster one of the critics of this recently called it a stunt a stunt that we had stay in session a stunt that we would have a sleepless night for senators a stunt that we would inconvenience senators and staff and press and those who followed the proceedings i don't think it's a stunt i think it reflects the reality of this war how many sleepless nights of our soldiers and their families spent waiting to find out whether they'll come home alive how many sleepless nights have they spent praying that after the second and third redeployment  their soldier will still have the courage and strength to beat back the enemy and come home to his family it's about time for the senate to set spend at least one sleepless night maybe it's only a symbol but it's an important  soldiers and families it really goes to the nature of sacrifice i guess i was raised as a little boy reading about world war two do remembering the korean war when my two brothers served there was a sense of national commitment in those wars people back home as well as those on the front felt they were in it together sacrifices had to be made in your daily living habits and the kinds of things you could buy ration cards and buying u s savings bonds america was really one united nation in those wars we accepted that shared sacrifice we were better for that shared sacrifice but this war sad to say this president has not summon that same spirit of sacrifice he's basically told us that this war can be waged without inconveniencing the lives of most americans our soldiers go through more than inconvenience they go through hardship and depravation many of them face injury and death in serving our country but for most of us life goes on as normal this president has not asked great sacrifice from the american people to even support these troops when i visited iraq it's not uncommon to have a marine or soldier over lunch say to me senator does anybody know what's going on over here does anybody know what we're up against it's a legitimate question we focus on these superficial stories in the press that don't mean a thing and forget the obvious and they have this is this mr president every month every month we are losing american lives about one hundred american soldiers die each month in this war in iraq one thousand are seriously injured we spend twelve billion dollars each month that's the reality i know that there's frustration by these soldiers and their families that we are paying close enough attention but the american people understand that this failed policy in the bush administration has to come to an end wasn't it interesting over the weekend when the prime minister of iraq invited us to leave and said you can take off any time you'd like erica will take care of our own problems prime minister maliki the man we hope helped to bring to office the one we're hoping will show the leadership in iraq for its future has asked america to pick up and go whenever they'd like to what the american what are your iraqi people think about our presence sixty nine percent of the iraqi people say our presence in iraq today with our troops makes it more dangerous to live there more than two million of those soldiers of those iraqis have left that country as refugees millions have been displaced from their homes thousands we don't even know the number have been injured and killed and they want to leave this occupation army of americans what the american people think about this occupation in iraq they want to end as well they don't see any end in sight they don't hear from this president the kind of strategy or direction that leads them to believe that this will end well or in soon and they want our troops to start coming home and i agree with them i don't believe the iraqis will stand up accept responsibility for their own country until we start leaving if the iraqis know that every time there's a problem in their country they can dial nine one one and bring on twenty thousand of our best and bravest soldiers to quell the violence in their streets what kind of incentive is that for them to protect their own country what kind of incentive is that for them to make the critical political decisions which may lead one day to stability i look at this corner an amendment which has just filed and i respect my colleague from texas but i want to tell you something he's asking for too much he's asking the united states to stay in iraq to make certain that it succeeds now how long is that going to be how long will that go on there are three battles going on in iraq today first battle who's in charge sunni's she is solder militia al qaeda some other force that battled is kurds i assume have to be part of this equation that battle goes on every day on the floor of the parliament in iraq as they try to decide who's going to govern their country there's a second battle that's going on as well it's a battle as to whether or not iraq is going to be a nation the corn amendment assumes  many people assume that iraq has been a nation forever it is not certainly in the depths of history you can find mesopotamia we all read about it in the earliest civilizations tigris but iraq as we know it today was the creation of british diplomats after world war one who sat down with a map of the middle east and said to the french you can take this place we'll call it lebanon we'll draw these lines here bring in some kurds and sunni and shia is we'll call this iraq and on and on creating countries out of whole cloth at the end of the war dividing up the spoils of the middle east that was the creation of iraq as we know it iraq as we know it has not been in existence that long not one century and the iraqis have to decide whether there's more that binds them than divides them they have to decide whether the kurds and sunni and she is of this geographic location want to come together as a nation to share in governance to share in revenues revenues to share in their future that is an ongoing debate in iraq today and there's a third debate in iraq today that is even deeper in history it's a debate between warring islamic factions that have been going on for fourteen centuries ever since the death of the great prophet muhammad islamic people have argued over his rightful heirs one branch in the sunni religion  of muslims and one in the shia and they came to different conclusions and they haven't resolved it and often that difference of opinion has erupted into violence of violence which we see today in the streets of iraq and so senator cornin files an amendment and says united states should stay there with its forces until they resolve these three problems who's going to govern whether they'll be a nation and of course this islamic division is that what we bargained for when this president asked us to invade iraq it certainly is not not one of those things was included in the president's request for the authorization of force in iraq do you remember why president bush told us we had to invade iraq saddam hussein a tyrant killing his own people was a threat to the region and to his own country saddam hussein is gone dug out of a hole in the ground put on trial by his own people and executed the second reason the president said we had to invade iraq was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction well we've been looking for four and a half years mr president for weapons of mass destruction and can't find a one so that reason for the invasion of american forces is long gone and the final of course was to protect america is any threat of iraq to america's security well i can tell you after saddam hussein was deposed and dispatched quickly by our fine military and when weapons of mass destruction were not found iraq was no threat to the united states now comes the new republican rationale the cornyn mcconnell rationale we need to stay in iraq until they resolve century old battles over the islamic religion we need to stay in iraq until they decide whether they want to come together as a nation we need to stay in iraq until their parliament decides to its sleeves and make important political decisions about their future just how long will that be how many american soldiers will be called into action for those goals how many times will congress be called on to vote for authorization of force to reach these objectives i would say they've really told us what it's all about from the point of view of the bush administration and their supporters on the republican side of the aisle there is no end in sight in our occupation of iraq they would have us stay there for a long long time the american people know better they understand the sacrifices we've made the president likes to define this in terms of victory and defeat saying if we start bringing american troops home somehow in his mind that's a defeat i would say to the president there are several things he should consider we weren't defeated when we deposed saddam hussein we were successful we weren't defeated when we scoured that country and found no weapons of mass destruction we were successful we were defeated when we gave the iraqi people a chance for the first free election in their history we were successful we weren't defeated when they were allowed to form their own government the plan for their own future we were successful and we certainly haven't been defeated day to day with the courage of our men and women in uniform i hear an argument from time to time as well that if our troops start coming home now and things go badly in iraq those who have served and sacrificed and even those who have died will have done so in vain i couldn't disagree more history has taught us a very basic less the test of courage of a soldier is not to be major by the wisdom of presidents and generals who send them into battle presidents and generals make serious mistakes they send troops into battle where they have no chance to win but those soldiers do their duty they show here was some courage and valor and no one no one can take that away from them this political debate now about the wisdom of the president's foreign policy has reached a point where we have a number of amendments on the floor the republican leadership has established hurdles and blockades everything they can find to stop us from a  that reflects the feelings of the american people you know why they're afraid of what the american people want they're afraid that the american people may prevail and so they have dreamed up this procedural requirement of sixty  a requirement that did not take place on the iraq amendments in the previous defense authorization bill a requirement that didn't take place when it came to our supplemental we've offered them let's have a majority vote let's speak as a senate to this this how will these senators go back to their states after they've told their people that they are giving up on the president's policy in iraq and explain why they didn't support the only men that that will seriously change our policy in iraq i don't think they can they can talk about supporting other amendments there's only one amendment by the senator from rhode island jack reed the senator from michigan carl levin that puts a timetable to bring this war to a close but doesn't ask the president to consider our point of view but says we will use our congressional powers to require of the president a change in policy only one vote every other vote that these amendments that these senators may cast they're going to say oh that's that's i told you i disagreed the president that's why i voted this way let me tell you they don't stand the test of scrutiny look carefully at those amendments see if they require of the president a change in policy see if they bring one american soldier safely home if they don't and they don't achieve the goals that the american people expect of us mr president i would very much be privilege if i could think friends and i thank my friends we can have our debates here and we frequently do on procedure and it is very confusing of course to the american public but these are all rules that go back i might say with some sense of pride to thomas jefferson he had a hand in writing him and somehow this magnificent institution the united states senate has been able to serve our great republic with these two hundred some odd years but apart from procedure and seems to me i recall it out earlier juncture here in this brain when we were debating certain amendments on a rack of different virginia had an amendment it got over fifty appropriation bill and it required among other things that the president report on july fifteenth and i report i think was a bag people can differ with that but i know it attracted a lot  tensioning widespread press coverage it was a bag that report also to set up an independent group i consulted with my good friend the chairman sent to levon told him i felt all the years we've been working together we get a lot of facts about from the pentagon about the status of the rocks security forces and should we have an independent group not affiliated with the department defense  he thought about a long time but he decided to do it and he's got about eighteen different individuals with military experience two former police chiefs they just got back this weekend from a very intensive one week schedule studying these situations so there's a great conferred convergence of information that will be brought to bear and made public in the first week in september but back to this question before us the distinguished the republican findings in here this is a sense of the senate on the consequences of a failed state interact much of this material was put before the senate a few days ago filed by our distinguished colleague from texas mr cornyn but let would did not please proceed but for instance the first finding here a failed state in iraq would become a safe haven for islamic radicals including al qaida and hezbollah who are determined to attack the united states and the united states allies we know from experience in afghanistan bin laden occupied a piece of territory there set up these training camps much of the training that led to the or this sense of the summer i'd like to express my my thinking and feelings about senator from virginia my respect very much in who served our country so well in so many capacities and longest serving senator from virginia in the history of the united states of america one mr president was a bit longer for number two kind of like you number two second longest in the history of the state of virginia and who has been a constructive partner in our efforts to deal with this issue of iraq even before other senators on your side of the aisle questioned and spoke out you were there and i respect you very much for that i would say to the senator from virginia that the levin reid amendment is conscious of the very first point that you made saying that even redeploying troops we would reserve the right to use our soldiers use our troops to stop the expansion of al qaida so we are not walking away from that threat al qaeda as the center for genuine those those were the real culprits on nine eleven those are the ones who are sworn enemies of the united states and what we believe it and i don't believe any senator on my side in the the eleven read amendment or otherwise has suggested that we would not continue the second one i think we've covered the first and i find this very helpful the second the iraq study group report found that chaotic a chaotic iraq could provide a still stronger base of operation for terrorists who seek to act regionally or even globally to me that seems to have some places in fact you say to senator from virginia in response that at some point the iraqis have to take control of their country their territory and their future it's certainly not in their best interest if they want to develop for example an oil industry that's going to fuel their economy and improve the lives of their people to allow terrorist groups to run without restraint so yes i think that is a concern they should have as a nation and that is why the second part of the levin reid amendment so important we reserve the right for american forces to help train and equip the iraqi soldiers army and police fighting terrorism we now see most often is a military function but i think historically it's been a police function regardless of which we reserve in the levin reid amendment the right for america to continue to invest in iraqis army and police force for that very reason so that there is internal stability in iraq even as our combat forces are removed hasn't reshaped that answer i think there is a  fact the amendment that senator lugar and i filed has very much the same language in there so let's proceed to three the iraq study group noted al qaida will portray any failure by the united states in iraq as is technically can victory that will be featured prominently as they recruit for their cause was in the region and around the world that concerns me i think there's some truth to that the senator from virginia served on the intelligence committee as i did for four years i think you serve longer and you'll recall that we were told by our intelligence agencies that our invasion of iraq has led to in emergence of al qaeda terrorism in that country and sadly these terrorists are taking their training trying to kill american soldiers and those who support us and so my feeling is that the current strategy we're using unfortunately is fueling this growth in terrorism growth  the presence of all these combat troops and eyes i certainly sincerely believe that we have to understand fighting al qaeda fighting terrorism is still a high priority i think this administration was diverted from our first priority the senator from virginia may remember after nine eleven within days the president came to the senate and asked us to declare war on al qaeda and those responsible for nine eleven the vote was unanimous every senator voted in favor of that both political parties those were sworn enemies the united states who had just killed three thousand innocent people but we lost sight of that goal instead of focusing on afghanistan the taliban and al qaida we were diverted into iraq i would say to the senator from virginia as we start bringing combat soldiers out of iraq i don't believe we should walk away from our responsibility in afghanistan fighting the taliban working on the border with pakistan to try to make sure that the growth of al qaeda stopped argue the numerical present about qaida at the time we went in i do recall that period very vividly conducted many hearings in the armed services committee  not high on the scope there was mention of it but we have to deal with the facts that exist now and it is clear for whatever reason they are now in that area in significant numbers larger than when we went in i personally feel it is not as a consequence of our military action does bar they simply see the deep terrific divisions between this sunni culture and the the culture of the hill and they're trying to forment among those two venerable religious cultures as much fighting as they possibly can and i think we both have to agree to that extent they've been successful but clearly al qaida has as its main goal at such time as possible to bring about further harm to the united states of america there's no doubt in my mind i'm sure there's no doubt in  if i think any anything that's portrayed as a failure of our commitment in iraq could be due to lies is this that for the recruitment whether it's in iraq or afghanistan or elsewhere in the world of their troops as the senator of virginia in response i believe and i think that the levin reid amendment addresses this in section b that we also should be thinking beyond the parameters of our current discussion about military presence about other nations in the region and i'm i'm sure the center for jr is going to bring that up too as part of it it strikes me that at this point in time other nations in the region interested in stability in their own countries and stability overall i have not accepted her shoulder the responsibility the should whether it's the arab league or some other group needs to step forward and say that the territorial integrity of  iraq the stability of iraq is in the best interest of the region i don't think they're going to do that as long as the united states presence is so overwhelming as long as we are the issue if the issue is iraq and its future i think it is more president is dispatching the secretaries of state and defense into that region to bring that point very clearly that this problem that it being experienced in iraq and i say experience i mean devastating loss of life of iraqi citizens considerable loss of life of our own forces and and loss of limb that's something that every senator on both sides of the aisles concerned with daily here but dust bordering nations certainly have not stepped up in my asked him to take a constructive role in anything you've got syria and iran pretty convincing evidence that they are taking steps methodical to bring about a resolution of some sort of peace and stability in iraq i might say to my senator in response the senator from virginia i don't recall the exact vote but when senator lieberman offered an amendment to this bill last week relating to iran the vote was overwhelmingly bipartisan we agree with it how do you contain iran how do you stop iraq from becoming an iranian client state there's so much we can do but the region has to respond the senator from virginia knows well as i do there's division within the islamic religion and that the sunni faction or element is the most dominant in that region and around the world by far it's in the ninety percent of this overwhelming them are associated with the sunni perspective versus about ten or less percent the shia so it does not seem to be in the best interest of other islamic states to see the development of a shia force that combines arrives in iraq so my feeling is again either through the united nations through nato through other groups but trying to make this a much more inclusive elo effort that we have a much better chance the problem is clear as long as it is the united states dominating the agenda in iraq it's an obstacle for other countries to get involved i salute secretary state for their efforts but i think we have complicated the situation dramatically with the length of this war and the visibility the united states as the lead force in the some vision but none present we have to decide on the facts as they exist now and i think our government has but i even in the recent words of the president he wants to intensify the participation of other nations in this situation my colleague senator lugar in preparing our men  quite expert in this there and a considerable portion of our amendment against sense of this tenet is directed at steps our country could be taking to augment those steps already taken and he recently met with the secretary of state i think they had a discussion here feature a few days ago prior to our entering amendment on this very point so we are moving forward i think you and i have no difference on the need to end the border states and other muslim countries of resolution does not have the power of law it is to suggest to the administration policy changes the difference with eleven read if i'm not mistaken is we're dealing with legislative language we're actually changing the law of the land when it comes to our forces in iraq and that is significantly different this is so from forcing the levin readable sense of the senate resolutions either by senator lugar or senator cornin not standing they will not change the policy they don't have any binding impact of law as the levin reid amendment does not in presently not always remind ourselves about the constitution united states and express gives to the president the power as commander in chief to direct our forces and to employ such strategy as he deems necessary to defend the security interests of our country and that is my concern with my distinguished colleagues sent to lebanon i work here in this chamber now in our twenty ninth year for those following this debate but my concern is that congress become involved in military strategy and writing into law precisely what he's done that is i think crossing a constitutional issue i'd like to continue with my comment just say i'm glad my senator my colleague from west virginia is not on the floor because i provide for militia to provide for organizing arming and disciplining the military leshin for governing such part of them this may be empowered there may be another section here that i'm overlooking i think the guy got it there but it really does native and bred in the powers of congress we're not silent when it comes to the conduct of our military in this country now we're on a co equal basis not on president as as a senator well knows i make rules for the government and regulation of land and naval forces article one section eight of the constitution i remember on as a floor in my distinguished county michigan remembers when sent to byrd argued with very persuasively about certain aspects of the famous war powers  we bring in all of that history into this debate it may well be that we should do that but the reason that that was a subject that was carefully considered by the senate passed came law many years ago but each president has acknowledged that in spirit they're complying with the directions of the congress but they do not want to put into law and i asked the senator from virginia and i know this is not following the exact process of our senate rules but i would i would ask him if he would address a point i made earlier that the authorization for the use of force which president george w bush brought before us in october of two thousand and two was explicit in the reasons for our invasion of iraq the threat of saddam hussein the threat of weapons of mass destruction and any threat of that nation to the security of the united states does the senator from virginia believe that those that that authorization  and myself but essentially we bring to the attention of the senate and provide the following language for the president if i may say i read it it's on page asked ninety two to four of today's congressional record are section the findings that supported h j read as one fourteen public law one o seven two four three which was enacted in one two thousand and two and which authorized the president to use the armed forces of the united states against iraq require review and revision of sen i i've gone on record  together with my colleague senator lugar that that is necessary and we further call on the president and i read the bill i'm reading and section three of my men minutes on page  desk on page fourteen said it would just so we can file them i'm just wondering if there's a number in front of the paragraph your leg let me hand you my copy senator to follow here you go but i wanted to read the important fourteen all right the important second sentence i actually wrote this provision myself since lou concurred in it the second sentence after addressing the fact that we felt that it required review by the congress the united states therefore as part of his september fifteenth two thousand and seven report that the one required under the appropriation bill language which we passed here not passed but fifty some odd senators voted for it when i put it up there for as part of his september fifteenth two thousand report congress expects that the president will submit to the congress a proposal to revise public law seven two four three so sen come foursquare and address that issue straight on there is concern i was one of the four senators that wrote the language that and i had it right here for me a minute ago that we wrote which is existing law now somehow a lot of my papers have come and gone here recently we got it right here where we are and if i may engage madam president my colleagues the law one o seven to floor three provided support for united states diplomatic efforts that section two the congress the united states supports efforts by the president to strictly enforce through the united nations security council all relevant security council resolutions regarding iraq and encourage him in those efforts and obtain prompt and decisive action by the sec security council to ensure that iraq abandons its strategy of delay evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant security council resolutions three authorization for the authorization for use of united states armed forces the president is authorized to use the armed forces of the united states as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to one defend the national security of the united states against the continuing threat posed by a rack and to enforce all relevant united nations security council resolutions regarding iraq so  is the is the benchmark the underlying statement by the congress which gives rise to the actions today to support the president but i feel that in view of that all that is transpired  nearly five years this will be five years since we passed this this october it is the duty of the congress to reveal it and we have asked in our men and for the president to set come forth with proposals with the senator don't like to ask the senator a very pointed question i think i know the answer but i would like to get his pension as a senator from virginia believe that today that this administration is using military force in iraq beyond the scope of our authorization for the use of force in october of two thousand to ban president i feel that the president can still act with in that language right there defended national security united states against the continuing threat posed by iraq the government iraq that existed at the time this is written a song that was saddam hussein there's a new government again but they unfortunately have not exercised the full control of the full range of sovereignty that the people of iraq voting freely have given we set up the structure the infrastructure that enabled those votes to take place and gave them a measure of security is that they can go to the polls and vote but in my judgment this language still underpins the president's actions and i've reminded senator in a way each  authorization bill and probably ten different appropriations bills have been passed after rising the president to use these funds and again it's sort of de facto recognition that this language still stands but my thought is that the american people the world are in tighter to congress addressing it and hopefully we can resolve it and put down in greater detail the authority that the congress wishes to give the president from michigan if he wants to continue this colloquy but i want to say what the senator from virginia has just said is troubling to me as an individual senator in this regard i was one of twenty three senators who voted against the authorization of the use of force in iraq i felt it was wrong and my position did not prevail that is this bill that we're discussing that there are a lot majority position in the senate at that time even the majority position on my side of the aisle voted for the authorization of force i have felt and this goes back to earlier service in the house that once congress has spoken for the nation we move forward together and that's why i have supported the appropriations necessary for the forces in the field even though i disagree with the policy voted against the authorization of force i've always felt that they deserve to have the training the equipment whatever is necessary to come home safely and and i would just say the senator from virginia his observation a moment ago is troubling because i i think if i don't put words in his mouth but when i asked whether or not we were acting beyond the scope of the original authorization the senator from virginia said with each subsequent defense authorization bill and appropriation bill we were reauthorizing i'd put that i use that word but i don't i don't want to presume that the senator said that word i don't present interpreted i said those words i stand by those words i said de facto because it was every of salable means in the course of the debate on ars authorizations bill for colleagues to come and challenge is no one did that matter fact the first reference to this occurred when i was chairman of the committee and i remember it was last fall i think it was general abizaid i asked him about this various provision it's in the record and i said i was concerned as to whether or it was an obligation to congress to go back and review this language and determine whether or not it comports with the various missions that he was performing at the direction of the president i can't recall exactly what his responses were but i did raise this and that's for the very reason that i asked senator lugar to join me and raising it again i think it's incumbent upon the congress to debate but we certainly have passed by and legislated many times with full knowledge that this is the basis on which the funds leave appropriated are being utilized for the forces that say to the senator from virginia i've been asked to file a motion the senator from illinois mr durbin proposes an amendment number twenty two fifty two to amendment number twenty two forty one at the end of the m m and at the following the section shall take effect one day after this bill's enact attempt to use and bar problems to plan further attacks on iraq neighboring countries would consider actively intervening in iraq and sectarian violence would significantly increase in iraq accompanied by massive civil casualties and displacement that's my concerns with the lebanon amendment if we go in and announce with concrete law as to what our tactics should be and we have this fixed timetable for all due respect to my friend i cannot point t life and safety of our soldiers that we've called into service in iraq and it's a matter that the american people care about and we owe them most their full study to my distinguished colleague assistant democratic majority leader senator durbin i would just say one thing about a change in strategy we voted to change a strategy we voted eighty fourteen just fifty three days ago to change our strategy to send general petraeus and fund the surge that's going on in iraq that's out strategy we just voted on that in fact just a few weeks ago two or three weeks ago i think what the last part of that surge arrived in iraq so how are we going to change again this during a time of war particularly making changes that are opposed by the military and our commander in chief is not a small matter our decisions deal with war and how to achieve peace and will affect the safety and the mission of those magnificent men and women who now serve us in iraq well given the american the casual observer and even the world citizen it may seem that this is an appropriate time to that's have a vote on this subject again certainly the frustration level in our country and inside all of us is high and we are deeply concerned and president i would note that i think most of us agree all of us agree that quite a number of errors have taken place in military actions in iraq i would suggest perhaps the most serious error was our belief that we could too readily alter this government in iraq and create a new government that would be affective virtually overnight and that's contrary to good conservative principles these people in iraq have never had a heritage of a functioning government of and brutality and it's very difficult to do and i think we're finding out that it is very difficult to do just can't be done as quickly as many of us would like to have thought when this activity begun some years ago but with regard to this change in policy as suggest that the members here in the senate know better we know that it's not appropriate to be changing our policy again we know that any nation especially one that aspires to be a great nation must deal with these life and death matters with maturity and sound judgment we know if not lift our as a away from politics and emotion and that our country striving to do good is facing a most difficult challenge in iraq things have not gone well terrorist enemies are watching our politics with great interest sometimes i play us like a stradivarius and so are our allies watching so indeed the whole world the terrorists are quite sophisticated and strive to produce a continuous series of bloody headlines to affect american public opinion our judgment our character our principles our very souls are being tested but this nation has faced tough times before don't we remember the history of washington in valley forge the burning of our own capital by the british an eighteen twelve or the brutal bloody civil war or the massive deaths in world war one or the attack on pearl harbor or the talian and strategy and tactics and timing occurred in almost every one of them many many errors occurred failures that cost lives unnecessarily placed our nation at greater risk than was necessary but that's the nature of war in any case lose great deal of sleep for you figure out what the weaknesses are of your adversary and try to exploit that infrequently as they are successful to a point but certainly it is appropriate even in times of war that the congress question and challenge the commander in chief and our military generals that challenge must be no matter how vigorous responsible and honest  politics is quite partisan true and frankly i've been a little bit disappointed at the nature of the debate i've heard to say after name republican s and republican that and president bush says and president bush that sounds more like politics than a sincere effort to reach a proper decision about what our future course should be but still no one should deny that a congressional response to a war a war that over three fourths of us voted to authorize should rise above political gain and some exceptions if congress i think has done so clearly there is great concern our in our land about the war in iraq that concern is and justified i readily admit my concern and i will admit that i am not able to state was certainty today what our long course should alternately be or how or how this will all play out in the end therefore i do not contest the sincerity of those who will disagree with mark inclusions i can only state my views honestly and forthrightly because that is what i have been elected to do and that is what our soldiers that depend on us for support expect in the first hours strongly believe this nation cannot flop around changing its policy from month to month that would be a mature it would result in bad execution this military effort this war and it would seem our allies outsold years who are walking the streets of iraq this very moment because we sent them there additionally this congress funded their military operation we funded them and i duly elected president our commander in chief has directed the policy with the advice of his commanders in the field that's just what it is that's what's going on that's what's happening now we had a great debate in april in may although whether or not to change our strategy and to the surge that president bush and the defense occurred after for debate congress could have said no to the president on his ques for the surge and not provided those funds sound good no fourteen i believe but we said yes by an overwhelming vote of eighty to fourteen on may twenty fourth less than two months ago we authorized this change in strategy this s serious alternatives that existed because of the concerns we all had at that time we required an interim report on the laugh if they dealing with benchmarks and that was received last week received on time early in fact we also called for a complete report from general petraeus in september on the status of his efforts and our soldiers work of course we had voted to confirm trial by a vote of eighty one the not being taken to command this operation there was no mistake then concerning the seriousness of the situation we were in as general petraeus described the challenge it's difficult but not impossible we were in no way misled about the difficulties wi fi no we are aware of the most serious ramifications of a failure in iraq may twenty fourth this congress with an overwhelming majority said let's go with the surge but we said general petraeus we will expect you to give us a full complete an honest report in september as to how it's going with the good in the bad and set out with specific benchmarks we want you to address and that he promised to do and off he went yet even before the personnel that were to be deployed to effect this surge hadn't even arrived in iraq a democratic majority leader senator reid who  other such comments were made at the time to me as an thinkable that this congress would pull the plug on this operation before it's had a fair chance to work and we've had a fair chance to evaluate its effect in this we just voted for it fifty three days ago what must the world community think brenden adversarial why doesn't such immaturity of action reflect poorly on us as a nation nothing has occurred since that time of decision in may to justify concluding that the situation in iraq has significantly changed for the worse in fact they are in the case in that some improvements have occurred we know that general petraeus just last year after two tours in iraq two years over there came home and just last year he wrote the department of defense doctrine on how to defeat an insurgency he was back here spent a year working on it his expertise was much noted when we confirmed him to go take charge of the  affect your weight this effort nowhere in his manual that he ever suggest that an insurgency could be defeated in fifty days or ninety days or hundred twenty days victory we must admit if you read his manual takes time diligence determination and smart application politics weaponry and forces his manual sets out mastery for how to achieve between hit squads shia and sunni as a result of the violence picked off by the attack by al qaeda on the samarra mosque and they're determined affective policy to create violence between the shi sunni that's what al qaeda set out to do and they succeeded last year and so we've seen that drop by two thirds of all the bombings still occur and the bombings  out of baghdad into the toughest areas outside dance such as the dialogue problems and making it appears some progress there and as our soldiers confront confront an enemy stronghold some of which have never before been cleared they demonstrate professionalism and courage that reflect the finest qualities that have ever been demonstrated by the american soldier no let me add has anything occurred that i can see that fun manoli suggests that this new strategy is flawed and will not succeed and should be abandoned fifty three days since we agreed to see it forward so with respect  that it would be irresponsible in the extreme to have this bunch of politicians sitting in air conditioned offices in washington they reverse a strategy we just approved fifty three days ago that's exactly what the levin reid amendment would do that's exactly what it would do and i have tremendous respect for senator levin he is a supporter now chairman of the armed services committee but i don't agree with him on this point i don't believe this is right if you were soldiers or marines and you had just moved into a tough terrorist neighborhood in iraq following the directions given to you by your president and your congress we passed one twenty fourth and you saw your comrades take casualties maybe killed in the course of executing that policy all in the belief that somebody up there back in washington had finally settled on a workable plan for victory and then before your work is half done in less than two months you learned that the folks up there had now changed their mind again how would you feel would you not think we don't take our missions are of soldiers and what they're doing seriously we or our military better than that we owe them the same courage the same character that they are displaying right now on the birthday of our army i was at or celebration the matter young soldier out thanked him for his service and began to explain my concern about the long deployments we were asking them to undertake and he cut in just like that he said senator we just want to win before all that is just this congress must not such men eleven amendment is pernicious in more ways than i am able to discuss at this time it must not pass we know a full review of our policies will occur in september we agreed on that in may that is critically important and valuable and i support such a review and i am open minded about what we will decide to do in september i hope and pray we will be able to reduce the number of our soldiers and again i tour affective was to reduce that deployment in iraq but we will decide our next step then withdrawal from iraq now regardless of the contingent condition on the battlefield and regardless of the advice of our commanders in the field is unthinkable it would be a stain on this in it for years to come as anybody bothered to express an interest in what general petraeus has to say about it things don't always go well my favorite statue in washington one that conveys the most historical import i think is the one of general grant right down here in front of the capitol he sits astride his horse his campaign hat down his coat wrapped around his head tilted slightly forward a perfect picture of the terminations in the face of great difficulty it is said six hundred thousand died in that war on both sides over four hundred thousand americans died in world war two this nation has seen dark days before just agreed on and i asked him to effect their other important issues that i would suggest to my colleagues as we discussed the eleven amendment and i would just note a few briefly improvement did not declare that all or any of the benchmarks must be met by september or even bodger last fifteen the time of the interim report there were to be a ject of markers by which we could judge progress and lack of it and they would they were surely not exhaustive of every issue and challenge we face in iraq the fact that progress has been made in only half of those benchmark areas does not mean of course that we should now up in the clear the new operational failure and that we shouldn't now just cut and run back and anyone conclude that this your last fifteenth report that shows limited early progress in only some areas manes that general petraeus has failed all the extra soldiers just arrived they are three weeks ago so it's important to note that the benchmarks aim to focus on the performance we would like to see by the central government and they have not been meeting their responsibilities in my view and i had my six visit there this spring and i was able to share that view and that frustration of the american people with the top leaders in iraq including prime minister maliki and i we believe they need to do more in the central government but for example the benchmarks provide no credit at all for the stunning progress that has occurred in the al anbar region progress that has resulted at the ground the level where tribal sunni sunni tribal leaders have partner with the marines to rout whole groups of al qaeda operatives and similar progress though smaller it appears seems to be occurring in other areas at the local level so the benchmarks don't consider those events and whether or not progress is being made but they are important as we evaluate what our situation truly is so we must remember that while sectarian violence continues and it has incurred it has occurred in large part as a is strategy to form it it safety and security in the capital city is important in furthering political reconciliation surely that so i wish i could agree with the idea of my able colleague senator levin when he declares that peace and security in iraq can only come as a result of a political settlement that he would suggest that if a parliament cannot settle all the difficult political issues on the timetable we say that we must just leave because this is the only thing that will make them agree on p are threatening to leave and are actually leaving it appears because his amendment would require an actual departure from much of iraq well i wish it were so easy but in tru our commanders believe as state department believes and i believe it's far more complicated than that of course a political settlement and reconciliation is critical to any long term stability but that will not a reduction of violence and a more secure baghdad be an event that will make political progress more possible that's what the general generals are telling us that when the capital city is in a constant state of violence and this order how can we expect the parliament to be able to function and to provide a  peaceful settlement of the disputes that need to be settled on long term for a healthy iraq a man pr i think we have a new strategy voted on it fifty three days ago and we agreed to fund it that's what this congress does we the put up the money we don't put up the money by a vote of eighty to fourteen we put up the money to fund this strategy and we asked for a report in september and now we have an amendment as garnered quite a lot of political headlines and provided a lot of forums a lot of ability to come forward on the floor of the senate to attack president bush and republicans but it's not a very responsible thing i think the responsible thing for us to do what we said fifty three days ago there demand a full and complete and honest report general petraeus in september and at that point the evaluate the situation in iraq and i rise to discuss an amendment that i can offer right now because of the parliamentary situation but i'd like to discuss is a man when my colleague i'd like to discuss this amendment with my colleagues so that they know that it's coming up and what it does my amendment is to the defense department of defense authorization bill the bill that's before this congress and the amendment is meant to strengthen our efforts to verify if people in the eyes states are here legally to do their work and it deals with the department of defense because i think we ought to when it comes to the department itself and when it comes to contract there's that do defense department work we ought to make sure that everybody who is working here has been here legally and that's for two reasons one because that's what the law says you should be in the country if you are legally have the permission of our government to be here and number two a lot of the things we're concerned about enforcing of the immigration laws is to make sure that terrorists don't get into the country and when we should be a particularly concerned that we don't have people with terrorist connections or working for our contractors or working for the government itself without a doubt we have an illegal immigration problem that was evident from the all the who ryan legitimate that people raised against the bail and against the amnesty provisions of it and the two weeks of debate that we've had this spring on this issue people are crossing our borders each day to live and work in the united states some of these individuals may have innocent motives but some may not there may be some illegal or undocumented individuals living in the channels willing to bypass law enforcement and do our country harm we don't live in a pre nine eleven world anymore so we must do all we can to protect our country and our assets my amendment would do two things first it would require all federal government agencies and  departments to use what we call the basic pilot program also known as the electronic employment verification system there should be all departments of government and i'll soon demonstrate that a lot of departments of government are already doing it but we ought to particularly in a bill like this make sure that the department of defense is using it in every respect the second part of the amendment would require all department of defen contractors to use a basic pilot to check the elder ability of their workers the reason this is needed and why it's appropriated in the in the bill before us is that the immigration reform and control act of one thousand nine hundred eighty six made it on lawful for employers to knowingly and i want to emphasize knowingly hire an employee aliens not eligible to work in this country are required employers to check the identity and work elgin baylor the documents for all new employees today if the documents provided by an employer reasonably appear on their face to be genuine then the employer has met it's document review obligation and it has it has reason to believe it hired somebody who was illegally in the country so they're off the if they can't be fine and have any other action taken against the employer but beyond those documents the employer cannot solicit any additional documents from the worker or they would face allegations of employment discrimination the easy availability as we all know all of counterfeit documents has made a mockery of that law that we passed in one nine hundred eighty six that quite frankly i was here and i voted for it we thought it solve all of our problems well we went from one million people being here illegally to twelve million people being here illegally so obviously it didn't solve anything and that's because fake documents are produced by the millions and can be a pain and can be obtained cheaply thus our immigration policies benefit unscrupulous employers who do not mind hiring illegal aliens but want to show that they have met the legal requirements and then the word knowingly being in the law if they have reason to believe that they're here illegally even if they're here illegally unless the employer knows absolutely they're not area legally then they're they're off the hook the problem is you have a lot of these employers that know that even though the documents  fraudulent that the person's area legally they hire him and never get caught so we have tried to put this basic pilot program in place to be one step beyond where we were in one nine hundred eighty six now at the same time our policies harm employers who don't want to hire illegal aliens but have no choice but to accept those fraudulent documents that they know have a good likelihood of being that way in response to the illegal hiring of immigrants congress created this basic pilot program in one thousand nine hundred six this program allows employers to check the status of their workers by checking one's social security number and alien identification number against the social security administration and homeland security database since one nine hundred ninety six the system has been updated the system has been improved it's a web based program and employers can go online quickly and very easily when hiring an individual it's been voluntary since its inception the basic pilot program was originally authorized in one nine hundred ninety six reauthorized two thousand and one and expanded and extended again in two thousand and three originally the authorization allowed six  participate in two thousand and three the extension allowed employers in all fifty states that voluntarily use the program the immigration bill before the senate that i've already referred to last year and this year have required all employers to use the basic pilot program over a period of time meaning phasing it in both the administration and congress were poised to pass legislation mandated participation and argue that this employment vera pin verification system using social security was crucial to enforcing the laws on the books and getting around this problem of fraud documents moreover during this debate on immigration this year it was argued that this system was a needed tool for employers to check the eligibility of their workers now i had a opportunity to have a meeting way back in january of this year with secretary chertoff about requiring all agencies to use a system and extending the requirement that contractors who do business with the federal government the department of homeland security responded by saying that four hundred three federal agencies are participating in the basic pilot program moreover the department claimed it was exploring ways to verify all executive branch new hires and its goal is to ensure that all new hires in the executive branch are verified through the basic pilot program by the end of fiscal year two thousand and seven in other words just for march three months from now currently all congressional offices are required to use a basic pilot program my office uses this process of checking everybody that applies to work for me program hire check with the basic pilot program in other words social security to make sure that that everything matches up since more than four hundred agencies are already using it including congressional offices requiring all agencies beyond the four hundred to participate would seem to me that not be overly burdensome and something we ought to do if we want to make sure that we don't hire people who are here illegally and number two that the federal government would set an example for other employers and lastly as as the effort to control the border has something to do was stopping terrorists from coming to this country to make sure that we don't have people like that working for the federal government so all with this goal in mind of homeland security to do this for all executive branch hires by the end of this fiscal year it seems to me to be reasonable to make sure we move to make sure that it's done my amendment than clarifies as i see it what is the existing law that all agencies and all departments much use the basic pilot program and verify the status of their work my amendment is needed to push their participation in this program congress and the administration i think then sets an example for the rest of the country my amendment would also require those that do business with the department of defen to use a basically a pilot program so this gets to my part the second part of the bill that deals with contractors working for the federal government again for the defense department there have been many examples of people here illegally working at military bases and installations in the past few years there have been and senses where government contractors are employing people who are here illegally and allowing them to work in sensitive areas so i just share with you some examples in april two thousand and five eighty six of one hundred sixty seven employees of a company called naval coding incorporated were found to be hiring people here illegally eighty six out of one hundred sixty seven this company was a military contractor that painted chips at the naval stations in san diego more than half of this company's workers were people here illegally yet our defense department of defense was doing business with with this company that had more than half of its people illegally employed because they were here illegally last year hundreds of illegal workers were found working for a texas company which makes millions of ready to eat meals for our troops in iraq last july the u s immigration and customs enforcement arrested more than sixty illegal immigrants at fort bragg in north carolina in january of this year the immigration and customs enforcement agency arrested nearly forty illegal immigrants hired by contractors working at three military bases fort benning  air force base and quantico marine base one of the illegal workers was reportedly a member of the day injures m s thirteen game while the immigration and customs enforcement agency has done its job to find an authorized workers at sea here cites illegal aliens should not be hired in the first place one way to get at the problem is to require them to use this basic pilot program up front like every congressional office does or at least as follows to do under the law that's why my amendment is needed requiring those who do business with the federal government should be held to the same standard as our executive department agencies which i said four hundred according to secretary chertoff are already doing it and so you might say that half of my amendment may not be needed because he wants them all to do it but i think we're better off if the law says that they do it and so i had to do that in my  and and so we need to do this like other people in government are doing it make sure it's done why because we need to have the federal government setting an example requiring those who do business with the federal government should be held then as i said before the same standards or as our executive department agencies this amendment will provide the tools to all employers who work with the department of defense and require government agencies to lead the nation in verifying its workers so i know now the parliamentary situation is such that i can't offer this amendment at this point and i want to explain to everybody as i have done then why i come to the floor now my reason for being here now so that before this bail is voted on final passage i think before the end of this week there will have a chance to deal with something that i see very import from the standpoint of of making sure that laws are abided by making sure the federal government as an employer is setting a good example and making sure that we use all the tools necessary in this country to make sure that people that work for anybody and using social security system is that dual are here legally and can then be employed it overcomes then the problems we had was fraudulent documents and lastly securing our borders and who wants to work here should be a tool to make sure that terrorists are working for anybody that works for the government meaning a government contractor or for a government agency and particularly that ought to be of most concern to us that we don't have that type of people working for the defense department because of national security or contractors or doing work have come to the floor today to reiterate my intention along with the senior senator from california senator feinstein and the senior senator from nebraska senator hagel to offer legislation to close the u s military prison guantanamo bay cuba now again we have decided not to offer the measure on the bill before us the national defense authorization act certainly we'll be offering it as an amendment to the defense appropriations bill when that bill comes to the floor one way or another we intend to get this legislation passed this year i think  president there is a remarkable agreement on the need to find a way to close this prison all of our close allies have urged that guantanamo be closed as have many leaders from across the political spectrum here in the united states last june after three detainees committed suicide on a single day president bush acknowledged that the prison has damaged america's reputation abroad  said quote no question guantanamo sends a signal to some of our friends provides an excuse for example to say the united states is not upholding the values that they're trying to encourage other countries to adhere to the washington post citing senior administration officials reported this secretary gates had repeatedly argued that the detention of a realty at guantanamo bay cuba has become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings that guantanamo would be viewed as illegitimate according to the post survey gates told president bush and others should be shut down as quickly as possible well let's make no mistake about it the current detainees at guantanamo do include a number of extremely dangerous terrorists with the determination and ability if given the opportunity to inflict harm upon the united states and its citizens among the detainees are fourteen senior leaders of al qaeda including khalid sheikh mohammed who has confessed to being a mastermind of the september eleventh attacks as well as others  and we must and we can hold these enemy combatants and maximum security conditions elsewhere but the critics of guantanamo are right the five year old prison guantanamo is a stain on the honor of our country by holding people at guantanamo without charge that you didn't review without appropriate legal counsel and in the past subjecting many of them to what really amounts to torture regardless of how you want to dress it up by doing all those things we have forfeited the moral high ground and stand as hypocrites in the eyes of the world as secretary gates has argued any legal proceedings or convictions now taking place on guantanamo will be viewed as illegitimate in the eyes of the world perhaps most seriously from a pragmatic standpoint maintain the present guantanamo is simply counterproductive it's become a propaganda bonanza and recruitment tool for islamic fundamentalists that in the end its our friends and allies detracts from our ability to regain the moral high ground and rally the world against the terrorists who threaten us the administration has repeatedly described detainees at guantanamo as the worst of the worst or as former secretary of defense robert rumsfeld once described them the most dangerous best trained vicious killers on the face of the ear unquestionably some of the detainees fit these descriptions however an exhaustive study of guantanamo detainees conducted by the nonpartisan highly regarded national journal last year came to the following conclusions a large percentage perhaps the majority of the detainees were not captured on any battlefield let alone on the ballot battlefield in afghanistan as president bush  secondly fewer than fewer fewer than twenty percent of the detainees have ever been al qaeda members third many scores and perhaps hundreds of the detainees were not even taleban foot soldiers let alone al qaeda members forth the majority of people to guantanamo were not captured by u s forces but rather handed over by rewards seeking pakistanis and afghan warlords of highly dubious reliability for example one of the detainees in guantanamo is a man who was conscripted by the taliban to work as an assistant cook the u s government's evidence against this detainees consist in its entirety of the following even mine the evidence against this detainee consist entirety of the following a detainee is associated with the taliban one of the detainees indicates he was scripted into the taliban b detainee engaged in hostilities against the us or its coalition partners one of the detainees admits he was a cook's assistant for taliban forces and the remap gana stand under the command lucky to get this detainee fled from the room to a couple during the northern alliance attack and surrendered to the northern alliance that's it that's the evidence they have against this detainees he was forced by the taliban to be a cook when he saw his opportunity to get out of there he escaped went to the northern forces and surrendered to him and now he sits in guantanamo what kind of justice is  well mr president the situation guantanamo was rather personal with me not only was i station there for some time back when i was a navy pilot and i have since been back of course to visit but more personal it was in july of one thousand nine hundred seventy when i was a at that time or rather young staff person for the select committee on u s involvement in southeast asia of the house of representatives i was working with  congressional delegation on a fact finding mission to vietnam in the summer of one nine hundred seventy and through a series of circumstances and because of the bravery a young vietnamese man who had been in the tiger cages unconscious on and on and who was let out now why was he let out it was let out because usually when you got the tiger cages you were never seen again well vietnamese the south vietnamese had had these prisons put up on columns on island actually that were built by the french this difference when the french ruled into china so the french built these prisons on an island off the coast that means took them over and then built these so called tiger cages which were hidden within the prison so no one could find you in cali was sentenced to the tire case because he had led a student protest at the side saigon university he was the student leader saigon university and nineteen the sixty nine early seventy and because he had led a protest against the war the place picked him up the south vietnamese army picked him up and sent him out to consol and no one knew where he was but the students refused to go back to class until their student leader was released and it was time to take the exams and this was a big deal for families they were putting pressure on the university and finally the government let him in cali go and  they told him at the time though that if he ever said anything they would kill his brother because his brother was also in the tiger cases well this young man very bravely sought me out along with dawn loose on loose was a young man working i think at that time had been working for the world council of churches in in vietnam if i'm not mistaken i think he was a native of vermont i think yes don luis was a native of the state of vermont and he'd been over there teaching vietnamese how to grow sweet potatoes agricultural things well don lou said no and this young man i had sought out dollars because luke had written a book a book about vietnam called  vietnam unheard voices so in preparation for this trip to vietnam i read the book because i felt that congressman should hear both sides i read this book i never met the news before but i was intrigued by this book that there really was a large sector i questioned at the time of south vietnamese who were opposed to the war we were led to lead to believe quite differently of course so d brought this young man to see me to tell me about the existence of the tiger cages and mr president these tire cages had been rumored for a long time in fact the year before gauges they were told this is communist propaganda no such thing exists our military denied the nixon administration denied the south vietnamese government and i had it there was no such thing this was just communist propaganda well this young man who came to see me said that there are there out there is i was in him but they told me if i talk to kill my brothers and he said i really have to place my trust in  because someone has to expose them and i said well i don't know if i could or not make as i'd have to get a couple of congressmen to go out there it was on an island he had to get a plane fly out to this remote island  take a whole day and and then he told me you won't find them unless you have a map and i'll draw you a map so he sat down and who me a map of how to find a tiger cage he said because you see there's a lot of prison camps on collins on and there's about five different prison camps and they all look the same and unless you know what you're looking for you'll never find a tire gauges because they're in one prison camp and you have to know how to find them so he drew me a map he couldn't quite remember exactly but he he knew that to look for the certain symbols the certain signs the certain things that he remembered so i took the map i then went to see congressman gus hawkins of california and laid this out for him and said that there might be a possibility that we could find out for once and for all whether or not these tiger cages really existed well he said he would go but we needed another congressman and william anderson congressman william r anderson from tennessee when he heard the story said i'll go keep in mind doris and william r anderson had until that time been a supporter of that non war he wrote a book once which is one of my favorite books it was called novelists ninety north this same congressman anderson was the first skipper of the first nuclear submarine called the novelist he was a very famous guy at the time because he was the first one that took a nuclear sub underneath the north pole and he wrote a book about the novel submarine called mom of ninety north he retired from the navy was elected to the house in tennessee so congress anderson congressman hawkins and i take off with don luis we go out to the islands i'm not going to give you the whole story but armed with a map we were able to find the tiger cages and when we found them we were told by one read well who was the usa id director public safety director we had no business being oh i might say before we got out there mr president the same red wall had told us that these prison camps were more like a boy scout camp so they took us to some prison cancer they weren't all that bad you know for prisons i guess but again armed with a map we found the tiger cages and the suffering that we saw there the humanity that we saw there was something that you just never shake well i was armed with a camera i had my camera so i took pictures and we had two congressman william anderson and gus hawkins there prisoners were released because of the pressure that was put upon the south vietnamese government they then began to tell their stories but there was one picture i took that was in life magazine it was of a young buddhist monk who looked up through the bars of these tire cages as we looked down on him and he said in vietnamese and we had gone loose as an interpreter he said i here for only one reason because i speak out for peace and no matter how long i stay here i will continue to speak out for peace i took a picture of that young buddhist monk yet before the prisoners were all released while i have since gone back to khan's on island and visit his grave the tiger cages are now a memorial kind of like up a museum for people to see all the horrors inflicted on so many hundreds of people sorry von bagley i visited with her she was doing a paper on the tiger cages of concent and she wrote a paper about it and did some very very good research vaughn is just a high school student which he did a lot of great research and she went back and looked at all of the congressional hearings were held on it and she quoted representative hawkins this way said representative hawkins stated at the congressional hearings in july of one thousand nine hundred eighty quote con sun is a symbol of how some american officials will cooperate in corruption and torture because they too want to see the war continue and the government they put in power protected as she went on to point out that she said unfortunate however in their democratic crusade america lost the very principles of freedom and equality that they purported to defend and a former prisoner testified to the clear violation of these principles quote no matter what medical problem the prisoner has tb diptheria is still thrown in with all the others who are not sick all still eat out of the same bowl sleep together shackled to the same rope i know of no other place on earth where human lives are so cheap as in cons hawkins argued carson hawkins argued quote consarn is the type of not looking at our own faults and atrocities that endangers our american prisoners of war held by the communists for von bagley did a great job  research and what she pointed out in her paper was that in our pursuit of democratic ideals and democracy around the world we can't condone harbor for guantanamo bay cuba mr praed i tell the story because i think you get some idea of why i feel so strongly about guantanamo it has for me the same smell  awful vision of consul in ireland you see in both cases these prisoners were off on remote island why keep away the press a people from asking questions what was going on once you were taken out the chances are you're never seen again and that's what's happening guantanamo guantanamo has become the united states consulate island it has become like the tiger cages on console mind and and the more the world knows about it the harder it is for us to argue from the kind of a moral high standpoint a moral morally high standpoint of supporting the geneva conventions or the rule of law well recovery the tiger cages the u s government had been insisting that the north vietnamese abide by the geneva conventions yet here we were condoning finding and supervising the torture not only of vietnamese prisoners of war but of civilians people like this young guy that was caught up and held by the taliban as a cook who escaped by didn't want to fight anybody prisons were deliberately set up on remote islands clearly with the intention of limiting scrutiny and restricting access in both cases detainees were not classified as prisoners of war expressly to deny them the protections of the geneva conventions in both cases detainees were deprived of any right to due process you dish will review or a fair trial they were simply held indefinitely and isolation in legal limbo in both cases when the mistreatment of detainees was exposed the united states stood accused of hypocrisy and the betraying its most sacred values and violating international law mr president we need to reverse the damage that guantanamo has done to our reputation and to our ability to wage an effective fight against the terrorists who attacked us on september the eleventh two thousand and one essential first provisions of our legislation one of president close the detention facility at guantanamo bay all detainees shall be removed from the facility no detainee shall be transferred to a detention facility under u s custody located outside the united states and we heard all about these other little prisons around the world well maybe they're held by other countries but they're supervised by us our legislation says it can't be transferred there right no later than three months after the enactment the president shall submit a report to congress describing plans for closing guantanamo and removing the detainees and the president shall keep congress currently informed of steps taken to implement the legislation that's basically our legislation very clear very straightforward as i said we were going to operate on the defen authorization bill we have all agreed not to do so but that we definitely will be saying this coming up on the defense appropriations bill in closing mr president this issue the united states has lost its way both in iraq and at guantanamo we need to wage a smarter more focused and more effective fight against the islamic terrorists who threaten us and we must do so in ways that do not give credence to their anti american propaganda and do not rally more recruits to their cause that and we must close the prison at guantanamo as soon as possible are remembered has won the through seek indorsement of human rights watch human rights first amnesty international the american civil liberties union we currently have fourteen by code bipartisan co sponsors here in the senate i urge our colleagues to join us in co sponsoring this legislation mr president before you know the floor i also want to talk for just a minute on the bill levin read amendment because i think it offers the best prospect for accomplishing the goals of a more focused and effective campaign against terrorists for four long years bush has said as the iraqis step up to their responsibilities united states we have a step down today it's painfully clear that the opposite is the case the iraqi military and government will only step up to their responsibilities once it is clear that the united states is stepping down the levin reid amendment says that the u s will be and troop redeployment within one hundred twenty days and remove most american combat forces from iraq by april of next year this acknowledges what has long been obvious to our commanders there can be no military solution to the mess in iraq at the same time by signaling our intention to  redeploy by next spring we will create powerful incentives to force compromise within the deadlocked iraqi government and to compel iraqi its neighbors to play a more active and constructive role in pacifying that country again i say this only of myself but there is no guarantee that this approach will work will succeed there's no guarantee that the iraqis will be willing or able to compromise and come and a genuine government of national reconciliation however the only certainty is that our current course is a formula for more failure more deadlock within the iraqi government more death and destruction both american mr president new developments this past week have driven home the urgency of the change of course proposed by the levin reid amendment last week we learned we are now spending an astronomical ten billion dollars a month in iraq last week the administration issued the required progress report on the benchmarks for iraq and what did it show it show that the government in baghdad has failed to meet any of the benchmarks for political and economic reforms the iraqis have failed to make progress in passing a law governing the sharing of oil revenues they have failed to make progress in allowing former bass party members to return to their jobs they have failed to make progress in disarming the militias they have failed to make progress organizing new prevention elections that the sunni's shiites and kurds have agreed upon in parliament is that they will go on vacation during the month of august now there was one glimmer of good news news in the report now was that the u s military has had some success since january in improving the security situation although the overall levels of violence and mayhem are unchanged well limited success should come as no surprise to anyone we all appreciate the professionalism the courage capability of our armed forces it would be astonishing if an additional thirty thousand troops didn't seize at least some small improvement and security was one unfortunate thing about this mr president these modest gains are all being accomplished by u s troops not iraqis and because the surge is not sustainable even these modest gains are ephemeral meanwhile a new report by the national counterterrorism center concludes that al qaeda has grown stronger than at any time this nine one one in other words while the united states military and intelligence asked is have been massively sidetracked in iraq over the last four years al qaeda has been able to regroup elsewhere most in afghanistan and pakistan as the cia's deputy director for intelligence told a house committee on wednesday we see more training al qaeda training we see more al qaeda money we see more al qaeda communication and they'd the us invasion of iraq has been the gift that keeps on giving al qaeda there was no al qaeda presence in iraq before the invasion now a homegrown organization loosely affiliated with al qaeda calling themselves alec  idea and mesopotamia has emerged once more as previous intelligence reports have concluded america's ongoing occupation of iraq has been a powerful recruitment tool not only for al qaeda but for many new extremist organizations some of them sprouting up spontaneously in western countries including britain and spain have reached an extraordinary juncture with regard to the current failed policy in iraq we reach the point frankly where i do you side with the president and his demand that we stay the course in pursuit of what he calls victory although the president has never really defined what that victory is or you side with the american people and our military commanders who have concluded there is no military solution in iraq you either support this endless pointless war or you support a smarter more focused campaign against the terrorists who truly threaten us those are the choices in the current senate debate on our side of the aisle we democrats and the american people have made their choice to chart a new direction i am confident that as more and more of our friends on the other side of the aisle make that choice in the days and weeks ahead we will ultimately prevail the conflict in iraq can only be solved through political compromise and reconciliation in baghdad and through aggressive diplomatic engagement with iraq's neighbors and across the middle east so it's time to chart a new course the approach embodied in the eleven read amendment offers us our best hope extricating ourselves on this clock mire in iraq and retaking the offensive against al qaeda and other terrorist groups i'm proud to be a co sponsor i urge all my colleagues to support eleven read tommo but since that is a subject of interest everyone is certainly has the interest of the senator from iowa i would only mention this and i've done this before on the floor very much concerned about this obsession we seem to have been this this country politically to to take care of these terrorists who are responsible for committing acts killing americans i was down in guantanamo i've been there several times one time was right after we right after the everything started escalating and they started arriving there and there was all concerned about the methods of questioning these individual interrogating these these prisoners and i remember it was it was really kind of pitiful i sit there and you look at these people these are prisoners who probably have never eaten better in their lives have never had better medical attention in their lives have never really lived better than they live in  guantanamo and and yet these are individuals who are terrorists these are the worst these are some of the move killed americans and we all seem i have this propensity to be more concerned about them that we do the lives of  responsibility more than any other member has and i've watched this on a monthly basis as we've gotten into this thing and and as i look at it very carefully chosen words of invasion on iraq as opposed to liberation of iraq you know i remember so well in right after the first iraqi war i was honored to go over to iraq the day that it was actually declared to be over this is in kuwait city and we had a thing called the first freedom flight alexander haig was on that flight with me tony coelho my good democrat friends in the house of representatives and certainly the chair of the session here remembers him well and we also had one of the kuwaiti nobility and his young daughter with us at the time and we were up there actually there burning the oil fields off in it was just obscure even during the daylight hours you couldn't see anything actually the iraqis didn't know that the world was over those who were down there at that time but i remember so well of seeing the devastation and then this little girl this and think she was seven years old at the time they wanted to go back to  kuwait to go to their mansion on the persian gulf beautiful place to so that she could go up to her bedroom and see her little dolls and her little animals and i remember going up there with her and we found out that their residence had been residents had been used as one of saddam hussein's torture chambers and i remember going up to her bedroom with her in it in fact that bedroom had been used as a torture chamber is one of saddam hussein's  of his life terrorizing his fellow citizens and we saw things that were happy a little boy with his ear cut off he was no use nine years old and the reason they did that is because he had a little american flag in his pocket and i guess they  we're being dropped into a vast of acid begging to be dropped in the first this is the kind of the people that we're talking about the kind of terrorists that are over there and this is what iraq was like this is what saddam hussein was like in well i don't want to get into the debate about weapons of mass destruction i never had that as that is the argument i had the fact that we know that training was taking place over there where there is al qaeda or not we don't know we do know that in one one town is called helmand pak in iraq they're actually training terrorists to hijack airplanes now whether they're trained in that area the particular at nine eleven perpetrators i have no way of knowing but nonetheless this is something that had to be so all you had to do  at in the in the mass graves and hear the stories about about weddings that had taken place and how they would raid the weddings and rape all of the women's and women and bury him alive that was the scene and that's what we're doing over there but i  really came to the floor to voice my objection to the levin reid and then number two zero eight seven which i'm sure cho once said i'm going to read this he's never never never believe any war will be smooth and easy always remember however sure you are that you could easily win and always remember however sure you are that you can easily win that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance now that was just as true in world war two and winston churchill made the same then as it as it is today and today we face an enemy who is determined adapted willing to go to any means of terror and violence to w he can't be negotiated with we can't negotiate with the terrorists we keep hearing this we need to negotiate with these but we can't do that the they will not be satisfied until the entire world is brought under are dreadful idiology we've seen this kind before in stalin and hitler never before has our enemy metastasized this way you know in a way you could say it's more dangerous than it was back then in the day hitler and stalin because this is a mentality that is a different mentalities of people who who want to die and who are willing to die and this is their way of going to have it's a totally different environment than it was and to the other the other cultures  the different wars there's no centralized headquarters or one leader that we can eliminate there's no country involved i don't think we've ever been involved in a war that didn't have a country to defeat a country and you win the war there's no country there and we we just there's nothing centralized that we can we can point to victory come the way it always has and will destroy the enemy undermine support network and expose the truth to the world that he cannot win and that's what we're doing over there and any plan to leave iraq before we've had a chance to understand the outcome of the troop surge tells the enemy first of all that they have been successful and that their methods work and those individuals who are perpetrating the crimes of terrorism will come back and be doing it again to give by force of arms they can only win by attacking our resolve our country represents the light of freedom and democracy yet i fear that we have begun a terrible introspective and downward cycle our resolve last for a few months or maybe a year but all it takes is enough time and we break our enemy knows this look at our mission in somalia remember so well and so does the man for is the senator pres now the the dragging the naked bodies through the streets of mogadishu and our resolve is broken look at our reaction to the bombings of lebanon khobar towers look at the nom i'm saying  that we've got to realize that this introspection guarantees our freedom it also is our greatest weakness i recognize that there have been mistakes made in iraq in this january tenth speech the president has also recognizes and taking full responsibility there are mistakes made in every war at this stage yet we still find ourselves in a difficult situation with hard decisions to be made about the best way ahead needs a sage affect many lives both our soldiers and  harm's way and the american people that they pledge to protect we should debate that's exactly what the senate body is intended to do and that's what we've been doing but how we fight in when we leave will determine the fight our grandchildren  i think we all agree that it be disastrous to leave iraq precipitously if we do we know what we can expect increased levels of violence spread of extremist ideology wrack itself would collapse in an general hayden have agreed with this statement in this analysis now it's not too late to avoid this night i think it's time to start cutting our losses just hope all of this was somehow disappear or somehow they just go away if we can assist iraq to reach the point of sustainable self governance then we can bring defeat to our enemies in the stability to the region we all want this not to those who say we can't win i would look  bosnia and you know i have to say mr president i was wrong in this case that was a situation that many said and i said was intractable that we would be bogged down for years several thousand casualties i really believe this but today i went back there bosnia and it's it is peaceful and so it's this is directly because of our military involvement so i learned a lesson in bosnia when i heard that president bush asked for our support for a troop at home this with the troops are telling me on these some fourteen trips that i've had it was there they said that they are in a fight to win in that they will accomplish the mission their morale is very high and they're back they back this up by reinvesting in record numbers i watched one of the sunday shows last sunday and they're trying to say that look at the dissatisfaction level you know you can ask your question mr president to all the troops over there that will pull out some kind of an answer that can be misinterpreted but the true t est is those individuals that are fighting the hardest and facing the most risk are the very ones that had the highest realistic rate that we've seen in modern history so we're seeing these re enlistment in record numbers right now in the sacrifice our servicemen and women paid demands that we pursue every possibility to leave stability in our wake a premature iraqi government a permanent iraqi government has only been in power since  may many of the leaders have never had any kind of opportunity to run any kind of government before let alone under the terrible circumstances they face and how saddam was in power they were in jail or they're in exile they're on the outside now they have to build coalitions and a democracy that took us many many years to achieve here in this country i think sometimes we forget that last week to need he's a shia legislator an adviser to prime minister maliki was quoted in the washington post this what he said this is that visor to moloch it he said quote if the americans withdraw all of the militias and the armed groups who attack each other in that means assure a civil war what concerns me really is that u s troops might submit to the democrats decision and withdrawal without thinking about iraq situation what will happen to the iraqi people we owe to the to the sacrifice of our brave service member we owe it to the iraqi people and we owe it to our children and grandchildren give our soldiers everything they need to win and if iraq doesn't step up then it will be time to go but not till then you know we haven't given enough time to see the surge is working july fifteenth was supposed to be an interim white house update we know the benchmarks that were there some sixteen benchmarks it's my understanding that eight of them are proceeding as planned a tomorrow not two are kind of mixed signals that we know the surge has enabled a number of things to happen a new engagement strategy which i talk about in minutes called the joint security stations it's a huge increase in tips that we've gotten tips mr president are those pieces of information that come from the iraqi people that we that tell us where edis are tell us where where individuals are where terrorists are and these are the qualified tips and  they're just they're accelerating on a daily basis it's enabled us to stage an offensive throughout iraq without significantly diluting our troops in baghdad is unable to the commanders to chase down al qaeda keep them from regrouping attacking areas that have been historical sanctuaries of the qaeda september fifteenth is when general petraeus will give us a report now don't forget that's what the law says we passed a law passed i believe it i a change is necessary we owe it to them at this time total surge force that just been in place for two weeks we have some good indicators at the time to make that kind of charge changes september and we can't change the terms of the deal now that was the deal and it's written into the law i colleague senator de mint stated it well he said quote if we're going to govern effectively we can't change our minds every week let's not give a knee jerk reaction to the headlines of  him again now he said fundamental struggle is being fought on iraqi soil between those who believe that iraqis after a long nightmare can retrieve their dignity and freedom and others who think that oppression is the order of things in that iraqis are doomed to a political culture of terror prisons in mass graves now i want to share one last thing in just a minute before i do i want to put a chart up here one of the problems if you remember we had the webb amendment which would be dictating the terms of how we do our our troops deployments and at that time i use this chart i think we have to keep in mind that one of the problems we have in even a quarter orchestrating a search and  trying to address this now is that we went through a pretty tough time back in the one nine hundred ninety s this this chart shows if you look at the black line this was in one thousand nine hundred three based on an increase by inflation in other words if we did between just the status quo in what his his recommendation was and his budget is four hundred twelve billion dollars total now we in our wisdom saw were able to raise that up to this green line in the middle but still it's three hundred thirteen billion dollars less now i suggest to you that a lot of that represents our troop levels because the most expensive thing we have in defense is the is the troop levels we're in  situation now where we have to see if this is going to work at the changes the surge general petraeus and all of his efforts are are taking place i mention the president's speech of january tenth and i did it for a reason because i look back and really really regret that speech if you read it it talks about the victory being in a bottom's situation in other words instead of the top down from the top political leaders down it's going to be from the roots from the people in these various various communities and that's exactly my way what i have witnessed i will share with you what i witnessed the last time i was there in the scheme in mind just a few weeks ago long before the full surge effect was was was taking place run or surrender resolutions in the iraqi people are very much concerned that that's what we're going to do it all is said that they got their attention and then what i'll share with you mr president is i know we spend a lot of time it is important we talk about the political leaders and  i we talk about him is a prime minister to talk about prime minister just seemly talking about dr will buy but what i noticed this last time i think is a bottoms up improved dramatic improvement is not coming from the political leaders but the religious leaders and this is what i witnessed you know and you might remember we stood on the senate floor a year ago and said that the terrorists are saying their own mahdi will become the terrorists capital of the world now ramadi is is secure if you go next door to fallujah and we remember the world war two type of door to door activities that were taking place there are marines in america this job the flu just at the time i got over there this is the last trip for the first i was  secure but the important thing is it was secured by the iraqi security forces they're the ones for inviting the security at that time i mentioned minute ago the joint security stations this is a bottoms up type of thing this is noticed in baghdad where instead of our troops going out into the field and then coming back in to the green zone at night they stay out there they said down whip in the homes with iraqi security forces they develop intimate relations and i talk to people who had both ours and theirs during that time and i didn't see that in any of the previous trips over there when you when you think about one thing that is causing the improvements that we're having in terms of the bottom up improvements that we've seen so far as a result of this this surge announcement that was made made just a few months ago it would be the attitude of the clerics in the moms in the mosques what we're seeing right now is that and we  monitor these by the way we send our intelligences in all these mass meetings where they meet once a week like most of us do on sunday in our churches the mosques meet a different time but nonetheless they have weekly services it in these weekly services what we witnessed was prior to january of this year eighty five percent of the messages that were given in the mosques by the clerics were messages that were anti american messages by the they started reducing in by a pro through the entire month without one mosque giving an anti american message and that's why we're getting the support of the people of the bottoms up that we're talking about the president was talking about back in january tenth we're seeing these individuals doing the same thing i don't think there's a person watching us or or a present this chamber today that isn't from a state that has such things as the neighborhood watch programs well that's what they have over there right now and they are watching and they're going around with spray cans and in spraying circles around an s so that they don't our troops don't get into them and so this is the type of cooperation we have not seen before this is the president asked for in january tenth and i think anything prior to our legal  senator from colorado mr president i want to thank the senior senator from rhode island for allowing me to go ahead of him to deliver some remarks in general in the department defen authorization bill senator reid has not only been a strong supporter of our military but he has an understanding which is unique from somebody who the west point graduate and as we move forward on this debate on iraq his understanding of the situation and interact is second to none here on the senate floor given the fact that he has been with this issue from the beginning he has made ten trips himself into iraq to understand the situation on the ground and  we very much look forward to his continuing little leadership and contribution to the debate mr president today i rise because i want to praise the work of chairman levin and senator warner senator mccain senator reid sen and the members of the armed services committee for developing a very good excellent product for us to consider in the department of defense authorization bill as the senate debates this week on the keystone issue our time with respect to united states involvement in iraq we must not lose sight of the importance of maintaining a strong national defense and that strong national defense is what is at the heart of the two thousand and eight department of defense authorization act the bill is a strong statement of support for our men and women in uniform it gives our military the tools it needs to confront an increasingly complex and dynamic set of threats threats that we face around the world it is a bill that will help ensure that our military remains the best equipped best trained and best led fighting force in the world today our men and women in uniform are serving honorably around the world in the mountains of afghanistan their tracking and killing al qaeda and resurgent taliban operatives that are resisting the move toward democracy in iraq they're confronting the monumental task of stabilizing and rebuilding a country that  torn areas of the world i am immensely proud of the work of our troops both abroad and here at home our national guard reservists and active duty troops protect our homeland and help us respond to the threats of hurricanes and floods i know that all of my colleagues share the appreciation that i have for the work of our military and i know that this shared appreciation gives us much common ground from which to work we all agree that our military must remain the strongest and best equipped in the world that our nation's defense is