the quagmire we're in there are a failure to plan properly the disbanding of the iraqi army the lack of a plan for the aftermath and a number of other issues which have been the subject of great debate there's a consensus on a number of issues intersect consensus which really drives this eleven read amendment is a consensus that we have an important stake in a stable and independent iraq everybody agrees on that the opponents of this amendment like to suggest that somehow or other the proponents are not interested in a stable and independent iraq it's exactly the opposite we're just as interested in that as are the opponents the question is are we moving in that direction is the current policy working or do we need to change course and we need to find a way to put pressure on the iraqi leaders to reach a political settlement as the only hope of achieving an independent and stable iraq that's not the proponents of this amendment who are saying that a political settlement is the only hope of ending the violence and achieving stability that's not just the proponents that's a consensus point general petraeus acknowledge s that very openly iraq study group says that that general jones and his group said there is no solution that ends the violence that is not based on a political coming together the iraqi leaders they have got to accept responsibility for their own country they've got to meet the benchmarks that they themselves have set for themselves they have missed those benchmarks and the time line that was set out by themselves for those benchmarks we've got to change course because we've been there now longer than we fought world war two we've been there longer than we thought the korean war we spent a half a trillion dollars or more we've lost almost four thousand of our brightest  bravest men and women seven times that many wounded ten billion dollars a month we have got to change the dynamic in iraq and that dynamic can only be changed when those iraqi leaders realize the open ended commitment is over and if we just simply say as the president says well we're going to take another look at march and want to see what direction we're going to go in marjah whether or not we're going to reduce our presence below the pre surgery level but we'll do that in marjah that is a continuation of the message which this administration has been delivering to the iraqi leaders year after year we're going to be patient we're going to be patient the president has a dozen times said the american people need to be patient it's the opposite message which has a chance of working to the iraqi leaders that we are mighty impatient here in america we're impatient with the dawdling of the political leaders in iraq who are the only ones that can achieve a political settlement we cannot impose that on them only they can reach it and if they keep thinking that we're not going to put the pressure on them we're going to be their security blanket we're going to protect them in the green zone we're going to continue to lose our allies and squander our resources while they dawdle they are making a major fundamental mistake which is going to keep the violence going we've got to correct that we've got to change that we've got to force those leaders to accept the responsibility for their own country now the iraq study group pointed out the relationship between putting pressure on the iraqi leaders and having them reach an agreement this is what the iraq study you pointed out now almost a year ago that are open ended commitment of american forces would not provide the iraqi government the incentive that it needs the incentive that it needs to take the political actions that give iraq the best chance of crawling sectarian violence and i would feel myself one additional in the absence of such an incentive the iraq study group said iraqi government might continue to delay taking those actions that's the connection that this amendment makes levon reed says is we're not going to withdraw p we're not going to totally withdraw we've got our we've got interests there that require us to keep some troops there but we have the need to change that mission the president talks about the possibility but he doesn't do it now he doesn't say that now we are announcing we are going to change our mission to a support mission out of the middle of a civil war we are going to change our mission to supporting our own people we're going to change our mission to go after terrorists a targeted counterterrorism mission we're going to change our mission so that we're going to yes continue to support the iraqi army and supply the iraqi army that we are getting out of the middle of a sectarian battle for our sake and for the sake of the iraqi people to force those leaders to take responsibility for their own nation so it's not precipitous we provide a reasonable timeline we say that the troops that need to be withdrawn as part of that transition those new missions will be withdrawn within nine months the president i don't know if i have the time you left but i yield the balance of i do from oklahoma for the time mr president i i think we need to be real clear what we're talking about here what we're talking about is telling the enemy what we're going to do commit if there's one thing that the they have said our military has said we cannot do and that is to leave  and let him know when we're going to leave we can't do it that's what we're talking about here you know when when general petraeus came a couple weeks ago i knew exactly what he was going to say because i was over there i've been over there actually fifteen times in a are of iraq not always in iraq sometimes afghanistan did you beauty and all that but i've watched very carefully from time to time when i've been there just what progress has been made and i've been in i was in shock the last two trips we took the last two trips it was so evident that that one area starting with and our where the most the problems were and i was in anbar province in saluja during all three all of the elections that took place and it was chaos up there and we remember our marines going door to door world war two style and all the things that were going on there it's now totally secure is not secure under us it's secure under the iraqi security forces and we remember only a year ago they said the terrorists said that ramadi was going to be the terrorists capital of the world it's now secure and all the way through down there east south of baghdad the same thing is happening as happened with this surge are three different things number one the surge itself that's more people number two general petraeus going in a number three they did get the message from some of these surrender and cut and run resolutions that they that there was the threat that we would pull out and consequently the iraqi security forces have done things they've never done before or and i learned something when i was over there and that was that if you it's not really the political leaders it's the religious leaders that are calling the shots and our intelligence goes to all the weekly mosque meetings prior to the surge eighty five percent of the mosque meetings were a merican messages since the surge since april there hasn't been one so this is the kind of progress that's being made we now have volunteers going out there with spray cans in circles around the  doing this on their own risking their own lives to help americans we have this imbedded program where they actually go in and in a joint security stations and live with the iraqis it's something that has been very successful in developing close relationships so this is the kind of success we're having i was up in to create the other day remember that the home saddam hussein's hometown and even up there in the whole territory up there with the exception of the it all looks real good so that's the bottom line we have success and if we pass something now that tells them that in a period of time you can expect us to leave and this is what we're going to do we're giving him our playbook and if you look and see what some of our top leaders have said about that general petraeus said we cannot leave without jeopardizing the gains that we started to achieve those are the gains i just talked about secretary gates that if we if we were to withdraw leaving iraq in chaos al qaeda most certainly would use anbar province as another base to which the plan operations this is the type of thing that we would be doing i just cannot imagine that anyone would vote for any type of amendment that would tell the enemy specifically what we were going to do and when we were going to do it and best your crocker says i cannot guarantee success in iraq i do believe as i have described it is attainable i am certain that abandoning or drastically curtailing our f which will bring failure and the consequences of such failure must be clearly understood by a so what are those consequences it would be a vacuum and we have heard loud and clear from such people as as president obama did a judge who said i can tell you this is quote i can tell you there will be a power vacuum in the region this is if we leave precipitous the we are ready with other regional countries such as saudi arabia and the people of iraq to fill that vacuum another words we leave iran comes in al comes in all the advances all the sacrifices all the lives have been lost will have been lost in vain i just can't imagine anyone would vote for this this amendment and i courage my fellow senators to oppose it  respect greatly i don't question their motives about loving our country any more than i do and they are trying to find out what's best for iraq in a very difficult situation we just have an honest disagreement i think it's been a very healthy debate where we talk about two different ways of reaching the same goal and they're so successful outcome in iraq but make no make no mistake about it from my point of view the reason i oppose this resolution it is a change in military strategy senator reid talked about similarities between what general petraeus said implied this resolution would do there are some similarities but it is a fundamental change in military strategy after general petraeus testified is that wise for us to do that is it wise for the congress to basically take operational control of this war from general petraeus because that's what this resolution would do it restructure our forces in a way that he did not recommend it would be a very overt rejection of general traces his leadership his strategy his vision and his recommendations and i think we need to understand that would be the tons of points of passing this resolution it would be saying respectfully no to general petraeus and yes t congress in terms of how to run a war and i think that's not wise it is a defacto return to the old strategy for three and a half years we had a strategy on the ground in iraq that did not produce results that were beneficial  a military lawyer and i have no expertise about how to invade a country or manage your population once the invasion is over but i can tell you this based on common sense and there enact years of experience the old strategy was not working the first trip to baghdad after the fall of the capital you're able to move around it was a bit chaotic but you were able to go downtown and do some things you have a hard time even doing today but by the third trip to baghdad after the fall we were in a security environment almost in a tank so it was clear to me training the iraqi troops having a small military footprint was not achieving the security we needed for reconciliation and a few dead enders were the most resilient people in the world and if the  insurgency was in its last throes it was a deep throat every time i ask people coming back who are running the whole strategy in testifying to congress was the general number of insurgents about five thousand hard insurgents well is the most resilient five thousand in the world they they were able certainly to do a lot of havoc thank goodness that we change strategy senator levin and raid and others had been arguing for a very long time to change course and change strategy where the president heard that call he said and with military leaders he put a new commander in the field and we have in fact change strategy would be we do we want a different way instead of withdrawing troops and doing more of the same we added true and those senator in office said the best thing we have done this additional thirty thousand combat troops being interjected into the battlefield has paid off and security gains we've never seen before  hats off to the surge to those who are part of the surge those who've been around for a very long time knowledge and respect in your success because the success has been undeniable the challenges are also undeniable but without the surge there were been no turn around in anbar the people in anbar had had enough about qaeda we can't take credit for that al qaeda overplayed its hand and we had additional combat power in place to take advantage of a population it was ready to make a choice a choice for the good now their rejection of al qaeda is not national political reconciliation it is not embracing democracy but it is good news because you have sunni arabs rejecting the al qaeda agenda and that's great news  now this resolution not only is a rejection of general petraeus his strategy and his vision for how to be successful it has in practical effect the rules of engagement that you would have to draft around implementing this strategy  almost impossible from my point of view just a training to fight al qaeda how do you do that when you've got all kind of enemies running around the iraqi including iran leading sectarian violence so the idea that we're going to change missions and adopt this resolution is a new mission and have such a limited military ability i think is unwise and really is impractical it's a dangerous precedent for the congress to set to withdraw from a military commander who's been successful the power to implement a strategy that is proven to be successful the basic premise of the resolution is that we change strategy reject general petraeus and go to the old strategy which isn't in essence what we would be doing it would bring about better reconciliation my fundamental belief is that you will never have political reconciliation do you have better security and the new strategy this surge has brought about better security than we've all the evidence we have before us is that a smaller military footprint where you're training fighting behind walls empowers the enemy if we adopted this resolution the security gains we've achieved i believe would be lost you would be a the people who come forward to help you you would have the military power to seize the momentum that's been gained from the surge you would actually roll back the momentum that's been gained you would put people at risk to come forward to help us twelve thousand people have joined the police force in anbar no seven in two thousand and six only a thousand people joined the police and then bar there is a local reconciliation going on there's a realisation by the iraqi people now the time to step forward and their politicians are lagging behind the local population but it will not be long in my opinion before baghdad understands that they have to reconcile their country to the political process and they will only do that with better security when you reach across the aisle here in america you can pay a heavy price in terms of political future when you reach across the aisle in baghdad your family can be killed better security will breed i think more political reconciliation not less and to abandon this strategy ability to carry on their mission they have in my opinion based on success on the battlefield the right to move forward as they deem to be militarily sound the congress is at eleven percent now part of the reason that we're eleven percent is that we don't seem to be able to come together and solve hard problems why do you we believe that we have a better insight on how to win this war than a battlefield commander who has produced results never known before i just don't think we do with that mr president we will end this debate in a respectful manner we have the same goal and asked to bring about political reconciliation and success in iraq unfortunately this goes backwards at a time we need to go forward under the previous order the time between nine fifty a m and ten o'clock a m will be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees with the majority leader or his designee controlling the final five minutes yet again here at home another day draws to a close for troops in iraq tonight they'll sleep on foreign sand tomorrow they will draw yet again from an endless war well of courage to face another day of war some will likely die many will surely be wounded they'll face hatred they did not create violence but they cannot resolve one soldier american soldier described the average day as quote being ordered into houses without knowing what was behind strangers doors walking along roadsides during the next step would trigger lethal explosives and of cook a soldier who told that story tragically took his own life while on his second deployment his name was private first class virgil goode damo glasvegas virgil was one thousand years old when he took his life as our troops rise in the morning so will millions of innocent iraqi citizens today thousands of iraqis will abandon their homes in neighborhoods to flee as refugees to iran jordan and other countries those iraqis who remain will face what has become the daily norm of life in iraq water shortages no electricity the constant threat of violence and today we learned color of color of an ancient disease that has now hit the ancient land of iraq remember mr president one point two million iraqis have been killed since our military invasion our one hundred sixty or seventy thousand courageous troops and those millions of innocent iraqi men women and children were awake on the one thousand six hundred forty six day of this war one thousand six hundred forty six days and nights of war i repeat mr president one point two million iraqis have been killed since our military invasion here in washington d c we have a choice to and our armed forces will continue to be strained to the breaking point but mr president there is a choice there can be light at the end of this long dark tunnel if we stand together and adopt this amendment today we can be known as the first day of the end of this war as president could we have order for it we have order in the senate please for the majority leader take conversations outside of the chamber while the majority leader has the floor as president we stand together and i got this amendment today can be known as the first day of the end of this war the first day congress of fills its constitutional duty to have a plan to bring our soldiers or marines home we can begin to return our troops to safety and give them the hero's welcome that has been earned and so long and coming we can refocus our efforts on reaching the political solution that all experts even the president's own generals agree must be achieved and we can return our focus to the grave and growing threats we face while some of bin laden and his al qaeda network and others who have the will and capability to do us harm i stand today with my colleagues senators levin and reid and support of this amendment this is a terrific piece of legislation legislation that recognizes the duties of this separate and equal branch of government the legislative branch of government i'm grateful for the few republicans who have shown the courage to join us in a quest and suffering sorrow and care countless words reams of papers and oh so much ink have been spent on the iraq debate here in the senate and in this country so let me add here this morning that this amendment is a reasonable and responsible way forward this amendment sets a binding path well within our constitutional authority and without compromising our national security interests this vote will come down to a question of really mr president courage and wisdom present john kennedy said a man does what he must in spite of personal consequences in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures that is the basis of all human reality and just a few hours at least sundown the beginning of the holiest day of the year for those of the jewish face yom kippur or reflecting on that mr president one needs only look at the old testament the book of job where job asks but where shall wisdom be found but where shall wisdom be found mr president i say the wisdom lies with the american people a strong majority of democrats republicans and independents who so oppose this war i hope that wisdom is found here in the senate floor today as well that we follow the wishes of the demands the hopes and the prayers of the american people when our grandchildren generation to come study this war and their government this government i pray that they will be able to say that this was a turning point in a war that has cost to so much so i asked my republican colleagues for the courage and wisdom to join the american people and bring our troops home courage and wisdom demands that we do such as president i would ask the votes start well we will make sure that one has ample time to vote  mr cochran mr coleman ms collins sessions specter stevens and warner mr webb i mr berger no no i i mr smith i mr robert no does any senator in the chamber still wish to vote on this matter if not on this vote the yeas are forty seven the name is r forty seven under the previous order requiring sixty votes for the adoption of this amendment the amendment is withdrawn the center for michigan mr president i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the corn call be dispensed with without objection mr president senator mccain and i have had discussions with our leader and i don't know  e on their side if this course of action is clear here's what we're proposing to do the bag amendment is going to be laid down today and there will be i think perhaps an hour or so and that amendment the perhaps more there's no time limit on that of debate today then when we don't more votes today the leaders announce but on monday  we will make an effort let me let me go back on tuesday at ten o'clock we're going to have unanimous consent agreement that the biden amendment will be voted on at ten o'clock on tuesday that is going to be part of the unanimous consent agreement that is being prepared in addition in terms of is that the kyle lieberman lieberman amendment there will be some debate on that today in on monday we will make an effort to see if we can't agree on a time certain on tuesday after the biden member news disposed of on tuesday for a vote on the lieberman cow amendment but we can't commit to that now we will make a good faith effort on friend we don't on tuesdays we don't come into session some ten o'clock because there's leader there's meetings going on in the capitol the people can't be here can but we can set the vote for shortly there after ten after something like that but just takes a little while  senator lieberman and kyl will be discussing their amendment which is a very important management concerning iran so that everybody will have a good idea and they'll be discussing it in again on monday or debating it and i would hope that as this thing was chairman has said that we could probably vote on the kyl lieberman amendment very shortly after the vote on the biden amendment and we have we are unable to put that in concrete or maybe a side by side there may not be and i just like to remind my colleagues again if i could this is the thirteenth day of debate now and we've had seventy nine hours of debate on this bill they wanted warriors legislation is still waiting the pay raise so many other things that are vital to i believe the men and women who are serving and also the security of this nation and what i would really help and i know that senator levin rouged wish managing this bill would agree that once we finish up on the iraq issue we should be able to move through the other amendments rather quickly and we're obviously running out of time first of october is upon us so i hope we can finish up the iraqi amendments as quickly as possible and move on to the hundred or so amendments that we have on the on the bill itself and i thank i thank the chairman for all the cooperation and hard work he's made on the spill the president president i agree with my good friend from arizona the need to move forward we got literally hundreds of amendments that we're working on here and at some point next week we're going to have to find a way to end this there's just no way we can continue to do this we've made efforts with unanimous consent proposals that we have a cutoff on amendments they've been objected to and more flood in we've to we've got to get to an end point on this i would say however that the reference to the wounded warriors legislation there is a separate bill on that which i think is been it's been passed the moving the conference in the point of conferees has been cleared on this side so i'm wondering if the center mirrors owner might just check with his side and see whether or not it could get cleared get with the appointment of conferees could be cleared i think it's going to be part of this bill at the end so it's important that we move this bill for a lot of reasons including that one but we have a fallback the safety valve and then we've also got a separate bill on that which we would like to move to conference and if the  member could check with his colleagues on the republican side to see if we could get the clearance for the appoint conferees i think it may give some momentum i think mike i like the chairman and i agree with him and i would make every effort  and i am confident no one on the side would object to that has to be done every place i go i hear the concern and the continued outrage about situation that existed and want to read and they are not confident in american people are not confident we have taken the necessary measures that are necessary to provide for the care of our veterans i think i give the floor mr president senator from delaware just present before i this amendments and senator brownback i'm going to yield to him in a moment because he has a difficult scheduling dilemma and i'm going to let him go first here but i also want to make clear that senators boxer kerry spect probably senator hutchison and others are going to want to speak to the summit so i'm assuming that on monday they will this will still be the pending business and that we will be able to continue to discuss and debate this issue so that senators have time this is a this is an important weekend in the jury's face so a lot of people are here and but monday i sumit notwithstanding the fact we're amendment the defense authorization bill concern to u s policy in iraq and as i said i'm joined by a bipartisan group of my colleagues including senators brownback boxes specter kerry and i believe senator  says it should be the policy united states to support a political settlement in iraq based on the principles of federalism but i have much more to say about this but again i want to thank my friend from kansas has been a roommate chair proponent of this approach for some time and he and i joined forces together months ago and he has a very tight schedule so i see senator hutchison standing  am a co sponsor of this amendment and i have said for a long time that it is my belief that if we could allow the sectors of iraq to have their own semi autonomous governments like is now in the northern part with the kurds and the southern part is mostly shia i think we could really began to see economic stability as well as political stability of course we all know that we should have oil revenue that would go to all of the people of iraq fairly allocated but mr president i think we have seen in bosnia a lessening of tensions when there is a capability for the security forces the education the religious sects to have their own  ability to govern within themselves and if we could get economic stability which is largely an talked about in the united states i think that would bring the political stability along so i the great success that we are having that general petraeus reported on we are stabilizing the country on the security side we are keeping our commitments we are going to be able to do it with fewer americans and bring the iraqi troops forward but it will not stabilize iraq we must have economic and political security so thank you mr chairman thank you senator brownback i will come back on monday and speak again on this because i think it is the most important sense of the senate that we could have on this bill thank you very much and i'd like to call up from denver twenty nine ninety seven circle report think my colleague from delaware for that and for this bill and for his insight and prophetic view i guess of really what's taking place biden has been mentioned as for over a year that the likely outcome in iraq is going to be a federalism model where you have most of your power in the states kurdish north sunni west of shia south of baghdad as the federal city i think in this debate we've had hopefully now enough debate about the military situation in iraq is an important one but we have not had a sufficient we haven't had much of any discussion about the political situation in iraq and only last week all the focus was on general petraeus there was another individual that testified as well and his name was ambassador crocker and general petraeus talked about the military situation and baster crocker talked about the political situation and the military situation i think we've seen some incredible progress done by dedicated men and women in seen little to no political progress and so what this discussion is going to be about is about a political surge we've had the military surge it's moving forward it's getting things done it's stabilizing but all it can do is provide space  political solution it can't put in in a one a solution that will last you have to have that politically and so what we're going to talk about what we're talking about with this resolution is a political surge and those are not my words thomas friedman's that he put forward but i think it's apt and its timing is right and i would urge my colleagues to look at this resolution to support what this is and what we need of a political surge and to recognize the demographics on the around ground this resolution simply calls for the following things calls for a conference where iraqis reach a political settlement based on federalism in effect an agreement on new already constitutionally recognized federal regions this does not require a change in the iraqi constitution it's already there bailout a kurdish north as a state this would be allowing other states within iraq number two calls on the international community to respect the results of that conference and support federalism in iraq concept we're very familiar with here in the united states that i think really is the key for it to work in iraq and number three calls on the iraqi government to resolve the issue of distributing oil revenues which is crucial to any federal solution in iraq it's the oil that will keep the whole place together i want to show my colleagues a map that i think is kind of interesting it's a map of iraq under the ottoman empire it is prior to world war one divisions in iraq i think we ought to study our history to keep from repeating it but right now i think we're repeating history because we perhaps haven't studied it sufficiently here's an iraqi map of one hundred fourteen this is to me fascinating you've got the north ottomans call them bill yet you've got the north in a the shia state during that period of time baghdad was the federal city of sorts it was a very eclectic city at that point in time having in some reports as much as a third of the population was jewish at that point in time but it was a governing body within this region and the ottoman empire interestingly enough was concerned about whether or not the boss or region of the shia there would stay with them or go with the persians at that time similar sort of discussion that we're saying today my reason for pointing this out is that this is something that if you could put it of a certain term is natural in iraq and so instead of us trying to force together a country under shia domination which under the current set up all you're ever going to get is a shia government but it's going to be a weak shia government because the kurds are very going to agree with a strong shia government the sunni's are certainly not going to agree with it so all you can ever get is a weak shia government that has a lot of question marks and it from the sunni's and they don't trust the shia and the shit don't trust the sunni's the sunni think they ought to run the whole country they did for the past century the shia think that they're scared the sunni's are going to come back that they've got to keep the sunni's under control i was there in january i went to the north i was in baghdad the kurds are prospering stable growing investments taking place now show you a map a little bit later on  people moving from baghdad to the northern portion because it is stable i was in meeting with the sunni and shia leaders in baghdad and both of them were saying you know we could get this solved if it were the sunni leaders and say we c get this solved if it wasn't for the shia and the shia saying you know we could get this solved if it wasn't for the sunni's and i would submit to this body that we have a flawed political design that we're pushing currently in baghdad that is why we've not seen the political progress that we need to see taking place and what we need to do now we have done the military surge it has been successful we need a political surge we need to send a jim baker arise over to get these guys and ladies in a room to cut the deal to get different states where you have the power mostly reside in the states like right now in the kurdish north the kurds run their own military they run their own police they are stable and you allow that and you even encourage that to take place it is in the iraqi constitution to allow that that's how the kurds got their region in the first place and if that is a political design that can lead to political stability on the grounds of the we can pull our troops back now this resolution says nothing about the troops we've debated that a long time the military side this is all about the political side where we have failed to see the progress but it does say that if we can get that political solution we should push it forward and i would submit on the military side if we can get some political stability in iraq we can start to pull our troops back from patrolling i think you're ultimately probably going to see long term u s military bases in the north probably in the west in probably around baghdad but they can be bases where we can operate without our people being killed every day and  everybody in this body knows we're still in south korea sixty years after the korean conflict we're still in bosnia fifteen years after that conflict we can stay and usually do stay in a place a long period of time to provide as long as our people aren't getting killed and here's a design where you can stay for a long period of time because i believe we will need to stay in the region for a long period of time without our men and women being killed and it reflects a demographic reality on the ground it reflects a historic reality on the ground and it also recognizes that iraq needs to have a strong state weak federal form of government to reflect the different groups arac in many respects is less a country than it is three groups held together by exteriors forces the turks don't want the kurds to be a separate country in the north the kurds of already voted ninety percent that they want to have a separate country but they aren't pushing it today because they know they can't do that at this point in time and so they're willing to stay within this the sunni's believe they should run iraq with their less than twenty percent of the population and that's not going to happen in the lack of comfort that they can't control  the country but they are certainly dominant in a particular region i want to show an ancient map of this very same situation here to give you even another flavor in a context of this question of the ottomans that was called mesopotamia during that period of time but again here is this three state solution that the ottoman empire put in place as a way of managing different groups that don't agree don't get along  trying to go back rather than go forward but i want to show you a map of the former yugoslavia right after tito left and voted to succeed from the rest of yugoslavia i was in a conference with groups from all over the country and i couldn't tell the difference between the various ethnic groups when i would look at is this a cross or a ser or macedonia this that i couldn't tell the difference it made no sense to me you guys have been in a country together for decades why you wouldn't want to stay together but they knew difference between each other and they knew what happened and they knew the history and they had inter married to where you had different ethnic groups that were married into the same families and kind of spread splotched all over the country at certain concentrations in different places but over a period of i think seventy years under a hard dictatorial rule under tito a tough military a tough intelligence apparatus that if you got out of control you're dead or you're in jail similar to saddam hussein in iraq ran a very rough and people did kind of intermingle and then you started say political leadership come forward and say we serves i've been mistreated by this group and you know what they did to us a century ago and you know what they did to us in this war and you know what they did to us five hundred years ago and we shouldn't be treated that way and you had a leader come up that had this visceral and side note and you started a bunch of wars where they sorted themselves out and put the second map this is what happens after you get a group of leaders standing up and saying they shouldn't treat the croats this why they shouldn't treat the serbs this way and you can see a purity of the croats what takes place by nine hundred ninety five the front lines and this is the dayton peace accord you just see what takes place after that leader touches that this are all know accords and us making the leaders come together we drew a line bosnia herzegovina the dayton peace agreement we've still got troops in this area in force in this but they're not fighting and killing each other there are still problems that take place but this was a two state solution in one country with the united states pushing a political surge forward to take place and united states still having troops there to make sure that people don't get out of  line i went to sarah and when it started to stabilize the place was still shell shocked about what had taken place until people still going were used eleven piece what happened here well what happened was somebody pushed the ethnic button and it works and it works in too many places in the world and it works in irak unfortunately now i want to show you a chart of what's happened in baghdad on ethnic splits and movements taking place in baghdad now this is a military chart it's too busy of a chart and there are some that dispute some of the movement of this and i'm willing to grant them that they may be others with a slightly different factual variation you basically got the to grease river here and what you're seeing of the sunni's moving and purifying west of the to grease river and the ship moving and purifying groups small christian population they're basically going north they're going into either tied or smaller communities and they're going north into the kurdish region of the country this is happening now this is what's happening now you've heard about of the death squads of threats of families being forced to move taking place in baghdad somebody pushes the ethnic sectarian button a number of leaders do it hits this inside visceral no it's a strange concept as americans that come from everywhere and so we can go this can't you guys just get along but believe me this is a reality in the world well there are some shia moving into sunni areas and there are some sunni moving into shia area and i'm willing to give that that may be taking place these are the mega trends that are happening and i really don't think there's any question about it there's been a lot of death and killing with this taking place and it's the same thing with bosnia herzegovina what i'm saying is rather than less having a whole bunch of people get killed further from this point on forward why don't we recognize the demographic realities on the ground and put this in the series of states where the ethnic group is running it and stop the killing or certainly reduce it substantially and that's what this resolution calls for to show you some of the maps of current iraq would be a good one just to give you an idea i've shown you the ottoman empire maps you'll see that these actually track this is modern iraq as far as the populations are your sunni kurds in the north again this is the most stable growing when i was there there were cranes was building it was investment that was taking place really moving on forward this is your sunni area in the blocks pretty much split up and this is this is modern iraq this is not a perfect solution by any means as an american i look at it as a sub par solution altogether because i think you guys would be much better off if you could just get along and form one country and have it operate as one country without having to give so much of the power decentralised a problem is it doesn't reflect the realities on the ground the problem is to think about ambassador crocker's testimony think about the g a o report on political progress and benchmarks that the congress says and think about that because militarily i think the military has done a great job but that's been where all the focus is politically we're not getting it done because it's we're trying to put a square peg in a round hole doesn't work and you can push a long time on it and you can get some artificial setting to take place and you can enforce it with our military power but as soon as we pull back then you're going to have the same problems that are going to take place in the region this is recognizing we should put a round peg in a round hole and it's something we can get done was a gentleman that said to me one time a couple years ago something that has stuck with me says if you see a straight line border in the middle east or africa you ought to raise a question about whether it reflects demographic reality or not and a lot of times in the past different groups when they went into regions whether it was the ottomans the british or french or others they were trying to balance interests they were trying to balance the hutus versus the tutsis so they were trying to balance  with previously the arabs and the armenians in the eyes of visionaries or they were trying to and so they were always trying to kind of get a balance of power because they didn't have enough troops to maintain it but i think it kind of keep these guys off center and after each other a little bit they could maintain the country well you when you poll a colonial power offer when you pull the dictator off that's willing to use ruthlessness in the military uses intelligence operation and kill people when you pull that off what he left with you're left with the same groups and i still don't like each other and i think that's why you've got to look at it this way look at sudan today give another example to the  and finally the bush administration to their credit was able to negotiate a sudan peace agreement in a southern sudanese will vote in four years whether to succeed from the rest of the country and i believe they will in large numbers will pass big that they will be a southern sudan you now have a second genocide in sudan and darfur then to both of these places i've worked with many people the west is black muslim capital is arab muslim they don't get along one is kind of a group of herders and then another is a group of farmers farmers and ranchers not getting along i think you're going to see ultimately that that dar for will probably breakaway sudan's the biggest country in africa land mass wise but when the brits put it together they put several groups together that don't agree with each other and don't get along and then the government favors one a favor the herders in dar for the arab muslims are trying to drive the farmers off of the land and you're in your second genocide four hundred thousand people being killed because somebody get hit the ethnic button sectarian button and it is very effective you can motivate a lot of people hitting that button why do we have to kill all the people to get to a political solution here why does so many people have to die and i think it's past time that the military discussion then a good discussion but it's really time for us to look at the political situation in iraq and get us on a model that can actually produce a long term stability so they can pull our military back into bases i think we're going to need to be there for a long period of time with this resolution does nothing on the political and the military side of it i think we're going to need to be there for some period of time and it will need to be in the north assure the turks that the kurds are going to try to separate a separate country i think will need to be there for their courage to protect them from iran and somewhat from turkey as well i think the sunni's are going to ask us to have a long term military presence in the west to protect the sunni's from the shia coming on although i think the saudis are going to really push that would take place again that reflects that iraq is a lot more three groups held together by exteriors forces than it is really a country but that's the reality and the shia areas sheria still has to sort out on who's going to be the leaders within that country and they're fighting amongst themselves it may be more than three states it may be a couple of shia states that will end up evolving and we shouldn't stop that from taking place if that's the natural reality i just think you can fight against these things in nature or you can just recognize them and then try to build your political systems around them this resolution urges and build the political solutions around them and again the political surge led by gen baker of stature or  to rise cut the deal get us enjoy a political solution that can produce the benchmarks that we want so we can pull our troops back and stop getting killed i would urge my colleagues to look at this i would urge my colleagues to look at the history of what we're dealing with there are many papers that are then ratnam ass o'hanlon is one of the lead authors on it just got back recently and this is something that can work in progress and move us forward  president friend from kansas leaves let me just thank him for his leadership here and his insight guy i think he and i would agree that this is forming critical mass every once in awhile in american politics and a major issue there is an idea that transcends both sides of the sile and transcends from the experts average people because there's a common sense ingredient to it as well as a deeper insightful notion of how that part of the world works and this is one of those issues and and i just want to say i am i'm honored to be joined by senator brownback in in this effort because he and i both have other agendas in terms of our political careers but i think we both agree getting this right is more important than who is president and states of america this is about life and death and about about whether or not we going to have a generation of difficulty for america in that part of the world or whether or not we're going to be able to ultimately leave and not leave chaos behind and so i want to thank my friend for doing what i'm sure was not an easy thing to do as a presidential candidate on the republican side to join with a democrat to move left and to time removed it was still a very controversial idea so listen my colleague would yield for a minute  the way we're headed and i don't think it probably helps him running for president to be associated with me and it doesn't help me particularly joe scuse me senator biden to be associated with you but that's exactly why the country gets mad because they they don't see us doing things like this on something really makes sense i campaign a lot about this on the campaign trail running for president republican side and people look at it i have had i don't know if i've had one or two people yet come up to me and say i just disagree with that most people are going goes ok that makes sense and then when you talk with sunni and shia in particular with the kurds they are go yes because the kurds do and the sunni are coming more around to and i think the share recognize me as well and plus my my best success is on this floor of calm when i've associated with somebody on the other side that disagrees with me on a lot of political issues but we look at this one together and we say this is something that can were dead that was senator wellstone on trafficking human traffic are differences could be on a lot of issues but that when we got done and today there are fewer paper being trafficked this is something that can work and i i appreciate my colleagues for for leading on it and i really hope that the rest of the body can look at this and say this is where we're not seeing progress is politically and let's let's get this moving forward i'm delighted for your leadership on it and i ask unanimous consent that following the  remarks my remarks senator lugar be recognized for up to thirty minutes and that senator kennedy then be recognized to speak as if in morning business without objection if there's president to alert my colleagues i will take somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes to speak on this issue this morning and and i'll speak on it again prior to us finally voting on it on tuesday but look as i said  every once in a while i've been a united states senator now since i've been twenty nine years old i've been here for seven presidents and i've observed that sometimes in issues relating to national crisis with a b domestic or foreign support a political settlement iraq based on the principles of federalism now look for all the divisions in washington across the country over the policy in iraq one thing just about every one except literally left right center president congress the american people the so called experts and that is that there is no military solution in iraq may say that again there is no military solution in iraq i along with senator mccain back shortly after the war began said i thought it was foolish to start this war but once we artit i thought my lord we should have more american forces there i argued for up to one hundred thousand more american forces in the first year so things would not get out of hand i argued that we needed five thousand nine hundred john dollars paramilitary police from the international community the europeans were prepared to participate to literally restore order and make sure people didn't run the traffic lights or break into museums or you know petraeus paraphrase him and although he doesn't seem to be is it here into his original comments he was paraphrasing someone else i believe it was three four years ago when we were interact with him i'm looking over my shoulder my staff  generally the time i think it was three years ago he said and i'm paraphrasing there comes a point in every liberation war becomes an occupation becomes a point every liberation effort where becomes an occupation and we reach that point we reach that point three years ago i argue we reached that point when we needed we had one brief brief brief moment where i had we having mistakingly move when we did view had we acted more responsibly instead of out of the arrogance and hubris that existed we might we might have been able to change th dynamic drastically but that's long past as long past and i guess the point i'm want to make again is the end result of all i'm saying here is you will not find a single person who thinks that  military solution will work alone and so we're all about here today is everybody says ok there has to be a political solution but literally i say to you mr president up to this moment no one on the floor of the united states senate has offered a political solution i mean it's really it's really fundamental there's nobody said ok we all acknowledge is no military solution and by the i'm not claiming this is i'm not i have many co sponsors you have a lot of people now saying ok with knowledge there's a need for a polish trickle solution embedded in the notion i've been pushing for a couple of years now and in detail for the last year and a half or so with less geld and i have to give him i'd like to recognize less skill a former administration official in a democratic administration on the genuine scholar you know less than i started off not in full agreement of what the political solution was but we were on the same page and the end result of all this is that the underlying premise of les kelvin joe biden in generating this was that the political solution that we're proposing which is what they reckon constitutional essentially calls for and is not partition is federalism well guess what it's not going to happen spontaneously the iraqis aren't going to spontaneously decide in the midst of what is now a civil war and  they know how to do it on their own so getting back to the political question every one says there's a need for a political solution but what begs the question is that begs the question so what's your political solution the critics of and there's legitimate criticism of the biden gal plan but the critics have come along and said i don't like your plan biden for the last year and a half or so and my response has been from the outset ok you don't like mine what's yours and think about it think about as you consider whether the biden brownback which is essentially taking biden galban putting it into a concurrent resolution that we binding on the president think about what it says we say this is our political solution this is what we think is the way out and so my as i beg this debate my not challenge but my invitation to my colleagues is i get it you may not like all parts of it you may not like it you may think it's mostly correct you may be able to legitimately point there's weaknesses in it things may or may not happen i can't guarantee an outcome with this but my reply like you to think about you don't like what biden's proposal what is your idea up to now a lot of us have had what we voted on just a moment ago started off as the biden eleven of them but back in january in february i agree with that totally it's now levin really i think it's a good amendment is essentially the same one we voted on twice before i was the author of it with with my friend from michigan the leader of the committee the armed services committee but the truth of the matter is not a political solution it's as important tactic to reach the point we all want to reach and what is that when you cut through all of this what is it that the american people what is with all of my colleagues all one hundred of us one no one wants to keep american forces there three thousand eight hundred more dead close to twenty eight thousand wounded roughly fourteen thousand severely wounded are going to require medical attention and care the rest of their lives no one in here wants that that we can wave a war and there's not a single the most conservative the most liberal member in this body they take every troop out as they could tomorrow we don't want our kids going out on my son go and my daughter going to let my grandkids go neither but what is recognized underneath of all of this is there is a clear understanding that even though most of us on this side of the aisle opposed to what the president day and how we did it there's a recognition that it matters what we leave behind it matters a whole bunch it matters for our grandchildren it matters for our children look folks i mean you know there are there's a whole lot there's an overwhelming desire i live with a woman i door remarried for thirty years she is an altar plea opposed to this war she like every mother lives in fear her son is a captain in the army is going to be sent over which is probable and so the vast majority the american people know getting out of this is almost as difficult as the problems the president caused by getting this into it and i know i'm speaking colloquially here embassador crocker asked whether i'd fly to germany with him on the way home he's coming to testify give us a chance to talk and i did actually i flew out of iraq into kuwait with him to get a commercial flight and the very plane i was supposed to get on a c one thirty cargo plane we got word that there were six fallen angels on that plane six fallen angels that through these tough courageous brave hard marines army navy some of which is the call a dead american soldier whose bodies coming home cold and falling into you see these guys who you know been shot at and shot back every one of which comes through my state and dover delaware and they hear these people is fighting men and women treat every single solitary death with the reverence of desert the american people would be stunned they would be proud they would be sad and they would be concerned ago couple a day a week ago went on television and told the american people what great military progress were made but what he really said was i have no plan to end this war i have no plan to win this war i have a plan as one of the press people said it's not my line he said the president using american forces as a cork in a bottle keep the venom from spreading out beyond the borders in a regional war is president not the par to use my son and his generation as a corking to bomb the american people aren't prepared to do that either so what do we do what do we do  we cut off funding talk about a hollow reed how do you do that how do you do that how do you cut off funding for the hundred sixty six thousand troops and we ordered everyone home tomorrow have to get out of that country do you not provide them with the mine resistant vehicles that can increase the life their life expectancy when hit with marketed so what do you do do you draw down troops are normally bases while you're protecting them yeah but where does that get you at the end of the day the good news is  there out fewer fallen angels but the bad news is how many angels will fall in the next ten years or fifteen years if this war metastasizes into the region because ironically the president policy which is dead wrong has one truism about chaos in iraq will have regional consequences the irony is it's his policy that's causing the chaos so getting back to the point of the a member so everybody understands the context in which this is being offered is being offered to say look there is a way there's a way to do all of this there's a way to reduce the number of fallen that there's a way to reduce the injuries and casualties there's a way to reduce the number of deaths among the iraqi yes there's a way to keep this war from metastasizing there's a way that we a last chance we have to leave and not run the risk of having to send my grandson back my grandson's a toddler and so we've been faced in this body with i think two false arguments one is you know more of the same will get better and the other is leave and hope for the best again i get back to the central premise of what i've been proposing there's a need for a political ration what is the political rationale supposed to accomplish it's a way nothing is going to get better we must leave by the way we're going to leave come hell or highwater we must le but are we going to leave giving the iraqis a chance that they can end up with a political agreement among themselves for what purposes the political agreement to stop the civil war that's in a nutshell anybody who denies that this is a sectarian war i president as my mother would say god love him keeps talking about al qaeda a card is a problem i would argue it's a bush fulfilling prophecy al qaeda in iraq but there is even in the military as my good friend and i admire the devil out of it my friend from virginia as he points out he knows when you go to iraq the military first to al if every single solitary jihadi in the world were killed tomorrow i say that the lord almighty came down and sat in the middle of this table we were in the roosevelt room and looked at you and said mr president i guarantee you there's not one single al qaeda person living in the world mr president you still have a massive war on your hands you have a massive war and you're h deputy i've always looked back on my years here in one of the chapters i enjoy the most is the debates many debates we've had together and this is not in the nature of the debate mr pres but i do ask the senator who now in your current capacity in your long experience in foreign relations you probably have a better grip than most of us as to the likelihood and you just mentioned of the political reconciliation and taking place in iraq and i'm talking about that top down not the smaller but the things that are happening in ellen barr which are very positive but you i don't think you can grow political reconciliation all the way from the bottom up it's got to come from the top down our good friend here sent to lebanon and i were there in iraq few weeks ago and we could not find any projecting when that might come to pass and that's a very thing that underpins the entire policy that we're pursuing because we all acknowledge a military solution is not there it has to be a political reconciliation from the top down albeit to get some form of unity government maybe an adaptation of what the started to is now advocating but what is your projection and the likelihood of that occurring i'd be happy to respond because my friend as usual gets to the crux of the issue look the way here's the way i look at it senator i think i try to break these things out of my face senator lugar is i think the most informed man in the united states congress on foreign policy is used to my colloquial ways of expressing these things so he'll probably understand me whether agrees or not better than most will because you have to deal with me for thirty years plus i try to i try to devolve this to use the washington words in do sort of big chunks you basically have two options here one do you continue with a policy that was well intended by the our government the president is ministration of attempting this a stably say strong central democratic government in baghdad that in fact has the capacity to gain the faith and trust of the sunni shia and kurds so they won't trust to that central government their well being in terms of security in terms of economic growth and in terms of political reconciliation or do you have to reach a point that i've read this and i read some time ago of recognizing that that is a bridge too far and that the only way in which you will be able to stop the warring factions from killing each other is essentially give them some breathing room when i look back to i say to my friend for joining us from virginia is this can't be build up from the village up knowledge of the requirement that the leaders of the sunni's and the shia and the kurds in there are multiple claimants to that leadership we shouldn't i know my friend knows that that those claimants have to conclude their self interest is better real in a federal system the kurds have clearly recognized that the kurds made it clear when senator hagel and i got smuggled into erbil back before the war began that they weren't in on any deal that the federal system giving them pretty significant autonomy the shania have now reached that conclusion themselves with notable exceptions solder being one of them but for example the vice president the sunni shia vice president of the for lack of better phrase i'll call the central government the existing government is totally supportive of what i'm proposing and he said so publicly and he said so at this conference on thursday as of now the sunni's up to now have been the odd folks out because they look at it as my friend clearly knows and they hey look we live in this place called province the majority of us we don't have a much out here but rock and shale there's not much else out here and so all the oil's in the north and all the oil is in the south and if you have regional governments and the all as controlled by the north in the south we don't get anything but here's what's happened there's a bit of as we catholics say in a pit fanie a curry i met with and at this point i'm i will tell my friend in confidence who it is but i don't to he is trying to a the iraqi leader who is one of the leading sunni leaders in the country who used the following quote with me in a four hour as we were together in ramadi he said senator i'm paraphrasing the first part i initially disagreed with your plan now i'm quoting there's been a struggle i've had between my heart and my head my heart has told me up to sunni's could play a major role in governing this country again from the center my head tells me that will not happen anytime soon and our fate lies in a regional system but we need access to resources he said the don't quote me yet senator because i have to work on my trello to might the tribal leaders out here and other us look what's happening with the turks the turks initially were absolutely opposed to this but as they've begun to figure it out they realize that if we continue in the path we are american patience of keeping the cork in the bottle is not going to be sustained for the next two years and that when we leave absent a political settlement there will  a split in iraq into three parts there'll be a a fracture of iraq in the multiple parts but guess what they've figured out kurdistan will become a defact independent country they will be able to say in kurdistan hey we didn't do this there's nobody to deal with and they've all of a sudden begin to understand that w it's bad enough from the turkish standpoint to have a chua's i independent and it's not even that a a region called kurdistan within defined borders of a country called iraq it's a very different thing to have a quasi independent kurdistan when you've got four million kurds sitting in their eastern mountains so all of a sudden they're figuring this out figuring out a sound derogatory don't mean it iranians the iranians have a dilemma the iranians have at least five major militia forces among the shia some they like some they don't like you have as my friend from from indiana knows you have a group down around boston or is the british are pulling out who are organized pretty well as the british  said to me they're like mafia dons waiting for us to lead who claims the territory who actually argued that glossary should be an independent country because there access to the gulf they have oil and they have four provinces they can they they they that they can put together well guess what that's not very well regarded by the badr brigade folks and  minute so this creates a dilemma the splintering of a rag creates a dilemma for even the rain ians who don't want to do us any favors at all the generic point i'm making here is as time has passed and i'll use bosnia as an example when we first started off talking about what in essence became the dayton peace accords you didn't have any takers and only got to the point where you had the croats and the service concluding they could not dominate they couldn't control and that's when they all began to think the you know the blood and treasure that that was was was exceeded even what's happened here once they got to the point where they realized the god one minute get their get their solution for them they became very reluctant lee but they became much more acclimated to the notion of what the dayton peace accords and so the bottom line of all that i say that my friend is asking me that question a year ago i would have not said to you that internally the leaders among the shia the kurds and the sunni's will be more inclined  but they are because reality has set in the kurds have figured out they cannot and do not want to be totally independent because the turks will take  out the sunni's have figured out generic leadership that they may have sixty two percent of the population or thereabouts and control the political apparatus but they can't stop their mosques from being blown up they can't physically control the country and the sunni's have figured out that they're not going to run the country again in the near term so it's a little bit like coming face to face with the reality of one circumstance and when i said at the outset to my friend a lot of this relates to people arriving to this he includes an even interact by default the sudanese would much rather dominate the country again the shia would much rather keep the sunni's out as maliki i think it is art would like to do but he can't because he can't control them and the kurds would love to be independent totally but for the fact that they understand it may be their very demise so reality is sinking in the larger poor and i say to my friend from virginia is that the dilemma i hear and i hear it from my democratic colleagues and i imagine i'll hear  from some of my republican colleagues in this bill gentlemen i said biden we kids force a political solution any more than we can force a military solution well i would argue that it is true that we have lost our credibility to be able to do what i believe we could have done five years ago or four years ago but that's why part of this amendment calls for internationalize the political solution i know my friend from indiana believes whether it's the same objective that there is overwhelming the sesa doing gauge the major powers in the world to engage the regional powers that he says there is a for that every single day they are sitting down rubbing shoulders trying to figure out an accommodation it can't be done in the abstract it can't be done by president lugar sitting in the white house dealing with sitting in baghdad it can't be done by bringing in the regional players in charlotte share with us convening it and think that will get it done it requires something heavier deeper and more substantial because one of the things that will get people's attention it will get the attention of the sunni leaders and shia leaders and kurdish leaders if the international community led by the major five powers of the security council says hey look we're gathered up the team here sunni i mean scares me array and turkey saudi arabia etc etc and here's what we think your constitution says and what we're prepared to support because what that does mr president knowledge not only has implied sticks it has significant carrots if it can carry that organizational structure can say that we from the outside will be the guarantors that none of the regional powers were concluded they must be involved militarily or disruptive fashion because the truth of the matter is what i try to do is think of myself as ok i'm a real bad guy iranian leader who hates the united states what benefits me the most benefits me the most is occupied ten of our twelve divisions in iraq poses no threat to them seeing american blood and treasure spill but what i don't want to see i with their ability to fill that vacuum is marginal at best their influence is the greatest when there is this continuing sectarian violen it diminishes in the context of an internal settlement so the truth is it requires the national leadership to agree on a regional solution a national leadership will be on able to in the lifetime of any one of us on this floor agree to a central solution unity government from the capital city of baghdad having military and police of fart over the entire country can anyone  the possibility even the possibility that you will see a sunni dominated shia dominated national police force patrolling the streets of fall iraqi flag without their permission you can't send the iraqi army there without their permission you cannot stand a national police force there without their p so what makes us think there is anything let me make an analogy for you when washington to accept that the surrender document signed by cornwallis at the end of our revolutionary war i say to my friend from virginia and massachusetts what said if i think there would have been if we had to vote within six months on the philadelphia that the constitution was ratified in philadelphia articles of confederation you said we're going to let massachusetts and delaware the first state massachusetts and delaware and new jersey and virginia there was no president there was a continental congress a d d centralized federal system it took us thirteen years to get to our philadelphia moment where does the arrogance emanate from that we think by putting one hundred sixty thousand troops in ira we can't over a four year period in a country that was made by the stroke of a diplomat friend of ted we're friends in britain divided up the spoils of the ottoman empire what makes us think that we can expect them to do something that we were unable to do so folks this is pretty basic stuff i know everybody knows that i don't want i'm beginning to sound like i'm lecturing i don't mean wounded how much longer are you talking about a periods of indefinite time what do we do now by which to give a greater measure protection to them while this process which you indicate is very slow  ask let me give an example of the concrete here is like pushing an open door here i ask for a meeting i say to my friends in the tradition of senator lugar when he was chairman of the of the foreign relations committee i asked for a meeting a private meeting with the person with the permanent five of the security council as my good friend knows china russia england france the united states all five of those  collishaw agreed to meet with me and one other was at one or two other members of the foreign relations committee privately five weeks ago on monday i think was five weeks ago we sat in a conference room overlooking the east river for about an hour and a half and i asked the question to all five including our bastard i said what would you do gentlemen one lady the british  is a woman i said what would you do down the moon lady if the president on his dates asked each of your countries to participate in convene an international remember ladies and gentlemen last august we were reading about automobiles being torched from our say to normandy why overhead sc between ten and fourteen percent of the french population is muslim the last thing the french need is a radicalized cannibaliz and it went on from there so my point is the president i promise you he has not that he has not as i think my friend from indiana would knows at least reluctance that we donate the body till we can do it well let me tell you that is a vanity that is a burden a significant burden and so the three things we should be doing immediately one getting and i know we have a disagreement is in my view really defining the mission of americans who are there being killed and wounded we are not going to settle this civil war by remaining on the fault lines is not going to happen even to totally quality you know as a military expert i defer to you we don't have enough troops with the surge if you have five hundred thousand troops you could set the faultline would solve the problem but you could send it underground without and i wouldn't advise it if we did because there's no underlying political rationale but my point is redefine the mission why president i'd be focusing on framing iraqi forces or i would not be focused on going door to door in sunni or shia neighborhoods in a city of six point two million people i would not have an american c and the roadside bombs being blown up the second thing i think we need to do but it's not required to support this there's this amendment the second thing is there is an incentive an incentive to the world to the region and to the recalcitrant leadership in baghdad to say hey guys we're drawing down for the mission i just stated you don't need and i defer to my friends you don't need one hundred sixty thousand troops for the jones mission for lack of a better way of phrasing you need closer to fifty dollars guess what that's going to get the attention as my friend carl levin has been saying for some time of the iraqis they may have their all or call i'm not counting on it but they may the third thing we should be doing is we should be doing what if you look at david ignatius his piece today in the post that senator lugar and i and others and maybe my friend from virginia been talking about for four years we talked about it before space that all of a sudden it's like my goodness maybe we should be talking to these guys and women mostly guys ninety nine point nine percent so here's the deal when you get to this you say look here's what you're kirsten tertian said and here's what you voted on in your parliament to employment articles one fifteen sixteen seventeen and eighteen which allows you to become a region essential a state like the united states write your own constitution that kids supersede the federal one allow you to own your local security why is it working to their bar to the extent it's working the diplomatic jargon that's what we did that's it and guess what once we got back to the tribal seas where whistle and said boys you can join that ten thousand people show up to want to be cops or police why because sudanese were going to be guarding sudanese so this stuff about political moment it's a joke not a joke wrong way to say it is a fiction there's nothing unity about that i sat next to solder for two hours the guy got blowed up last thursday the tribal sheik who led the insurrection if you will against a walk down the street that's true we have a sandstorm i say the helicopters coming can you drive to baghdad no no no no no it ain't that's a then seven days later i got a call from reporter the washington post senator didn't you spread a lot of time with the same drive of chief that the president spent with at the airbase said yeah in this safe city that he an american tank sitting in front of his out with bodyguards he got blown to smithereens so the generic point i'm making here is the idea that somehow we are going to be able to negotiate these fault lines is beyond our ability but it is possible working with sunni shia kurd we may be able to augment their physical secured as they make this transition and the last piece of this is here's the deal what did we do in dayton it's not directly it's not that's a fact that's a historical fact what do we do as my friend from indiana knows i was deeply involved in pressuring president clinton from one thousand nine hundred three on to take action in the balkans what we finally do in date in a bipartisan way we called in russia the european powers we then brought in the was said figure it out folks what they figure out separate department even i was a little concerned about the republic of serbska within bosnia is going to be a capital city but i think that the government whole country in the way in which the capital of washington d c governs all of america quote government has influence over the rest of america well guess what to truncate this the west has had an average roughly twenty thousand troops there for ten years what has been the result knock on wood not one has been killed no that has been shot dead the ethnic cleansing to stop and what are they doing now attempting to amend their constitution to become part of refugees in bosnia internal or external one million one hundred thousand have returned to their homes and almost a half a million i said to my friend from  returned as minority return serves moving back into predominantly croat neighborhood croats moving back into predominantly bosniak or serve neighborhoods we've got to get him in a room because let me tell you something somebody administrational privately said to me joe you're right isn't it that there's an inevitability to a federal system well let me tell you the tens of thousands counting iraqis in america we don't have that time and look i don't want to criticize the president i don't god love him i don't care whether he gets credit or blame at this point but let me tell you one thing for certain what presidential leadership is a buyout is the change in the dynamic of situations out of control it requires taking risks thus far the only risk we've taken for the lives of our troops we've taken virtually no diplomatic risks and so my say to my friends that i think there's a reason why although what i'm proposing here is not ideal i think there's a reason why so many people left right and center have come to this conclusion it gets back to a practice look what thing about us americans is are ultimately lead the world as a consequence of two traits we possess in my opinion that exceed that of any other country and it's not just our military power it is their idealism coupled with our pragmatism our idealism couple with our pragmatist and it gets down to a very pragmatic question ok you know like biden's or biden at all political solution what's yours what's yours i say to my friends the world's waiting they are literally waiting no one has the capacity no group of nations has the capacity absent our active cooperation and engagement to do anything to better the situation we do the potential power is in our hands but i'd respectfully suggest we can't do it by or selves we've lost the credibility to be able to do that rightly or wrongly and so it takes me to the essence of this amendment the amendment simply says and i'm not going to take the time to read it i know other people want to speak and i might add this is the first and only time in the last three months i've spoken on the floor i apologize for the time but i think it's the single most critical issue we face i know my friends think that too look regardless of your political persuasion approaching counting all one hundred twenty billion dollars a year how do you deal with the republican approach to dealing with generating economic growth of a democratic how do you deal with tax structure in tax dollars how do you do this and look it is the ultimate preoccupation with good reason to the american people again i know no one more loyal or knowledgeable about the united states armed forces that i've served with in the senate that my friend from virginia he knows there's only one group of americans making the sacrifice now is the thousands of families those hundred sixty six thousand families it's those families who are the only ones but guess what it is against the senate rules to refer to the gallery by pouring a bribe first heard of the previous everyone who sits in this gallery they get it they get it whether they have a child son daughter husband or wife their so folks i must tell you i am getting frustrated with all of the tactical not strategic suggestions that are made how to deal with this for because you accept you put together a basic syll m the basic premise is what there is no military solution only a political solution so wh that political solution can i guarantee the senator from minnesota presiding that my solution will work no but i can guarantee you i will of the tactical solutions offered will in fact solve this problem nine and i know you're all afraid i know everybody who is running is afraid to sign onto a specific proposal afraid the wrong word reluctant because then you become the target you become the target you offer a specific alternative and it's easy to focus on whether you solution can work and it was tried and failed and you made a mistake it was all saying goes what are they pays the big bucks for why we're here we here let's stop pussyfooting around it or vote for this political solution or offer another or say you think there's a military solution or say you think it's totally hopeless there is no resolution let's leave and hope for the best but don't tell me you have a plan if it doesn't follow one of those four categories don't tell me it's disingenuous so again can i guarantee this will work no and every single day that goes by absent an attempt to implement what i'm proposing or something like it without it being to attempt it makes it harder look it's not often that thomas friedman david brooks karl krauthammer henry kissinger madeleine albright les gelb i get down the list agree on the same principle about the most began the central fundamental animating principle of this concurrent resolution is iraq will not be governed from the cent any time soon and i'm not prepare for my son and his generation to continue to shed their blood in an effort to do that i will not do that and as we leave and we will leave as my friends the region you know this as we leave the only honest question that any president or senator must ask himself or herself is do we have any ability to effect what we leave behind and if we do we have a moral overriding overarching obligation to the next generation to try to do it because let me tell you something i'm not there is the old saying goes on the trail easiest thing to say is i washed my ha invite that's not why he's on the floor i know i would invite any advice or suggestions not this moment from my friend from indiana or my friend from virginia how to deal with this but ladies and gentlemen it took us it took us thirteen years to get to our philadelphia moment it's going to take the iraqis a lot longer i don't want to see a regional war in the meantime because every one of us know whether we're here and not three years from now there will not be one hundred thirty three thousand troops in iraq that will not be the case no matter who is president the american people will not stand for it and we will respond and i you know i for one will accept the challenge to carefully go back and look at your amendment and the foundation documents which you have described here and i look forward to monday and tuesday and perhaps reengaging you i think it to a very heartfelt expression of your own views that you've shared with us this morning and i think it's a constructive contribution to i believe our colleague from indiana you see has been now some thirty minutes am i correct that's correct senator then i see your colleague from massachusetts does he wish to put a formal request for the chair with regard to your desire to address the senate and senate at the order is to recognize the senator from massachusetts following the senator from indiana mr president i want to what thank the senator from virginia i see the senator from has been raised this morning i was wondering if we might just have a very brief period of time send n c and myself just to describe extremely important piece of legislation the postle last evening voice vote very very important terms the health of the country and we wanted to just be able to speak just briefly on that and i'm wondering if the senator from indiana would yield five minutes to the senator from wyoming  present i think the chairs inviting comment let us make it clear that i believe the u c has structured would be the senator from massachusetts to have five minutes sent wyoming have five minutes and then the thirty minutes allocated to talking about the food and drug administration reform legislation that was passed last evening and i want to show what the new england journal of medicine the most distinguished medical journal probably in the world said about this legislation in the wake of the landmark report drug safety issued by the institute of medicine year ago congress is now paused to pass the most important drug safety legislation in a century we passed that last evening we passed that last evening and i want to at this time thank my friend and colleague mike enzi from wyoming for his effort our work on this drug safety began when he chaired our committee and i was the rank remember in our work didn't miss a beat when our roles were reversed so i'm enormously grateful i'm going to do what bank and outline madam president in detail the activity and the evolvement of the members of our committee on a wide variety of these different aspects of this legislation this legislation really represents the best judgments of a of a committee who was very very much involved we spent hours of discussion we spent hours a debate we had a series of different votes in our committee we had extensive conversations with our colleagues on the other side and the other body and we're grateful to wall of those who understand the importance of achieving this legislation just very briefly mr president i want to point out what the current situation is in this country we have seen the f d a responsibilities for of adverse events that have taken place have gone up dramatically budget has had basically sort of held its level the american families are entitled to a response to this particular challenge we had a series of recommendations that was done by the institute of medicine they have studied drug safety food safety for over two and a half years the most distinguished scientists in researches in this country they appeared on the panel before our committee and they have made a series of recommendations mr president and our committee reviewed in careful detail each and every one of those but for the american people or to understand that this legislation basically follows the institute of medicines a recommendation not word for word but we took their best judgment the best scientists the best researches that were tasked to to make a series of recommendations to the united states congress on what they thought were necessary to make sure the prescription drugs and food were going to be protected for the american people and if you look over the recommendations it's difficult for those that are watching those programs to see them but let me just ventured if they look over the institute of medicines recommendations they will find that by and large those were excepted i use just finally madam chairman one example i think most of us are aware of or read about this of the by ox challenge that came to this a country about the dangers increase safety provisions that were in the old law and now in the new law it just uses one principle examined to demonstrate that this legislation is about drug safety but to the great efforts of the sit senator from illinois it's about food safety about pet safety this legislation as the new england journal of medicine represents the best progress that could have been made in this country in the last hundred years the american families should understand this was a strong bipartisan effort i'm very very grateful to the senator from wyoming for all of his good efforts and i thank the chair and thank the senator from indiana for his courtesies better present the senator from wyoming to recognize that and present i thank you and i especially think the senator from indiana who's been waiting an hour and a half to speak and was kind enough to let us fit into the into the schedule here and we we needed to do this because so often around here when something is done in such a bipartisan manner that it passes unanimously nobody ever hears about it this isn't something that we're trying to force through this isn't something that there are a lot of arguments about but it's something to the american people their food food and drug safety we're the best country in the world doing it we can do it better and this bill lets us do it better is a perfect bill never happens around here is that a big victory for patients and children absolutely this actually incorporates for reauthorization zz and one massive reform we take care of a lot of things in this package that normally would take a lot of hours on the floor but because of the participation from both sides of the aisle and from everybody intensively on the committee we were able to put together a bill that solves a lot of problems the f d a is choice before was to pull a drug off the market or to leave it on if it had some kind of a problem that could be solved some simple way wasn't an option pull it off or leave it on we gave them a tool box a whole bunch of different things that they can now do so that drugs can be approved faster and then when that clinical trial that we call the whole population of the united states kicks in there's a mechanism for following all of those and finding small samples of problems solutions to the small samples of problems and the drug that's working for people across this nation doesn't just have to be pulled off the market it can still work for the people that won't be affected by an adverse reaction that's a major change that we've been able to make i do want to thank all of the people involved in this and i would ask for the inclusion of my full statement in the record so that these people again on both sides of the aisle and particularly the people on the committee that took separate parts of this and dug into it and came up with solutions not solutions that would polarize us but solutions would bring us together the american people don't get to hear much about the solutions that bring us together they get to hear hour after hour after hour the things that have been polarized that drive this apart and i want to know that there are things that get solved around here food and drug safety big thing for this country and it was done and it was then unanimously that means that the houses version that was negotiated with the senate's version was put together in such a way that we agreed with it america needs to know that and i thank the senator for indiana for letting us take the few minutes to voice that so that there would be some knowledge out there of something happening that's good and in a bipartisan way and accomplished and i wish that i had time to name all of the people and the contribution that they made to this i hope people will take a look at the record and see all of these people not just senators not just house members but the staff that worked on this overtime hours  night hours on the weekend to be able to resolve it by today and why is today important because if we didn't get this finished today and assure that the company monies that help fund the the efforts of the f d a would come in there had to be risk notices to about two thousand federal employees today who would be laid off so we were up against a tight time deadline and we met the time deadline and in a very bipartisan way again i thank the senator from indiana and i yield the floor thank you senate without objection your statement will be made part of the record senator from indiana is recognized madam president i asked to speak of in morning business without objection so ordered madam president i rise today to discuss senate bill hundred sixty six a bill that i introduced last month to reauthorize the united states leadership against h i v aids tuberculosis and malaria act of two thousand and three known as the leadership backed under the leadership back to the american people have catalyzed the world's response says the h i v aids is not often that we have an opportunity to save lives on such a massive scale i believe the congress should reauthorize the leadership back this year rather than wait until it expires in september of two thousand and eight partner governments and implementing organizations in the field and to cater that without early reauthorization of the leadership act they may not expand their programs in two thousand and eight to meet the goals that we set for the president's emergency plan for aids relief known as pepfar these goals include providing treatment for two million people preventing seven million new infections and caring for ten million age victims including orphans and vulnerable children undetermined funding level may happen eventually but partners need to make plans now if they are to maximize their efforts today they have only a presidential proposal not an active reauthorization bill this is an important matter of perception some are to consumer confidence it may be intangible but will be profoundly affecting the behavior of individuals roots and early and clearer signal of a continuity of pepfar support we're concerned that partners might not move as quickly as possible to fill the resource gap that will be created there for services will not reach all those who need but maintaining the momentum of pepfar during two thousand and eight is a matter of life or death for many part of the original motivation behind that bar was to use american leadership to leverage other resources in the global community and the private sector a continuity of our efforts to combat this disease and the impact of our resources on the commitments of the rest of the world the maximized if we act now although the leadership fact is an extensive piece of legislation i believe the congress can reach an agreement expeditiously on its reauthorization most of the provisions are sound and do not require the program is succeeding diverse nations each with its own unique set of cultural economic and public health circumstances and developing senate bill nine hundred sixty six i have consulted extensively w american officials who are implementing pepfar most believe that preserving the existing visions of leadership back would give them the best chance that continuous success adding new restrictions to the law can limit the flexibility of those now charged with implementation and two thousand and nine and beyond we don't know who that will be and more importantly we don't know what the challenges of two thousand and thirteen will be  can probably say with confidence that the landscape will be very different than it is today this is not to say the senators may not have good ideas for improvement that should be adopted but new provisions must not unduly limit the flexibility of the i believe they will find the vast majority of the authorities needed for the next phase of our efforts are already in existing legislation i would like to outline how the existing legislation is dealing successfully  specific areas of concern some of expressed the view that additional authorities are needed to improve health systems in target countries i agree that this area is a vital one hard hit nations are to have truly sustainable programs yet the current leadership act already contains ample authorities to help build health systems and the united states is making extensive use of those authorities to date the emergency plan is supported nearly one point seven million training and retraining encounters for health care workers and more than twenty five thousand service sites in fiscal year two thousand seven pepfar estimates they will have invested nearly six hundred forty million dollars and network development human resources local organizational capacity in training a recent study of pepfar treatment sites in four countries nigeria uganda and vietnam found that pepfar supported ninety two percent of the investments in health infrastructure designed to provide comprehensive h i v treatment and associated  care including facility construction lab equipment and training in those countries pepfar also supported fifty seven percent of the personnel costs and ninety two percent of the training costs and a separate study focused on that examined twenty two non hiv aids health indicators seventeen shows significant improvements as pepfar scaled up improvements in family planning and infant care along with other achievements were deemed to have stemmed from the ongoing h i v aids programs according to the chairman of the institute of medicine committee which recently completed a congressionally mandated study of the emergency plan pepfar is contributing he said to the to make health system stronger doing good to the health system overall end of quote in the senate foreign relations committee we pay particular attention to the devastating toll hiv aids on females women and young girls in particular are especially vulnerable to h i v and aids due to a combination of biological cultural economic social and legal factors leadership back that dorothy's in this area are robust emergency plan is already leading the world in incorporating gender considerations across its prevention treatment and care programs and addressing gender issues that contribute to the spread of hiv aids for example in two thousand and six a total of four hundred forty two million dollars supported more than eight hundred thirty interventions that include one or more of the five priority gender strategies identified in the leadership pact these strategies include increasing gender equity and hiv aids services reducing violence and coercion addressing male norms and behaviors increasing women's legal protections and increasing women's access to income and productive resources and the middy of pepfar supports the village health fund project a microcredit program that provides vulnerable populations such as widows and grandmothers who care for the orphan grandchildren with startup capital for income generating projects and south africa pepfar supports a project that seeks to have men take more responsibility for preventing h i v aids infection and gender based violence another issue of special concern is food and nutrition in two thousand charity hearing of the senate foreign relations committee on this subject that underscored l h i v aids and hunger exacerbate each other in many african nations the aids crisis has led to a food crisis for both its victims and their communities it is no coincidence the prevalence of hiv aids is highest in countries where food is most scares pepfar has adopted a guidance providing for the inclusion of nutritional assessment and counseling in care and treatment programs so also facilities food support for targeted populations and assistance to long term food security for orphans and vulnerable children  far stakes to build on the comparative advantage of its partners in addressing food needs these include usa id department of agriculture and the united nations world food program these partners provide more direct support in food commodities and food security with a focus on overall communities pepfar approach of targeting individuals complementary these efforts in kenya for example pepfar  supporting a food buy prescription approach and is working with the kenyan government the world food program and others to ensure that broader communities as well as individuals and they fall outside of pepfar guidelines for support are reached in haiti the fireworks that part of organizations support orphans and vulnerable children using a community based approach children participate in a school nutrition program using id title two resources this program is also committed developing sustainable sources of food that's the program aggressively supports community gardens for children's consumption and for generating revenue to the marketing of vegetables on education to the leaderships act existing authorities are being put to productive use in two thousand and six approximately one hundred million dollars and pepfar funding programs that address barriers to school attendance for orphans and for vulnerable children in particular that figure is expected to increase to one hundred twenty seven million dollars in two thousand and seven as it does nutrition programs pepfar seeks to leverage its resources by wrapping around other programs that for most access to education such as the president's african education initiative or a high for example in  pepfar and a fund a scholarship program that helps nearly four thousand orphans of lost one or both parents to aids or who are h i v positive stay and raise ten to twelve similar partnerships exist in uganda where pepfar and working together to strengthen life skills and prevention curricula in schools this program targets four million children and five thousand teachers also in uganda through the aids support organization pepfar helps almost one thousand children by providing the school fees and supplies for both primary and secondary school emergency plan has dedicated nearly one hundred ninety one point five million dollars to pediatric treatment prevention and care or during the last two years program has made steady progress increasing the share of those receiving pepfar supported treatment for children from three percent in two thousand and four to nine percent in two thousand and six and the intent is to increase this figure that fifteen percent pepfar is focused much effort on early identification of a positive children in many countries and hiv test is used that kind of identify children as positive until they are eighteen months old recognizing that fifty percent of h i v positive children will die by age two untreated pepfar is working hard to introduce new diagnostic technology that can discern the h i v status of children at a much younger age along with supporting treatment for children who are already infected pepfar is devoting resources to ensuring that fewer children are infected in the first place to date  dedicated more than four hundred fifty three million dollars the prevention of mother to child transmission programs in botswana guyana namibia rwanda and south africa the percentage of again women receiving mother  child transmission prevention services now exceeds fifty percent a goal of the president's international initiative to prevent mother and child h i v and the past few years nearly all of the focus countries have adopted opt out testing for pregnant women are given an h i v test during routine and ante natal care unless they refuse the test under the highly successful national program  where approximately fourteen thousand h i v infected women give birth annually the country has increased the proportion of pregnant women being tested for aids hiv from forty nine percent in two thousand and two to ninety six percent in two thousand and six the number of infant infections is a kind by approximately eighty percent to a national transmission of rate less than four percent of mr president although the authorities in leadership nine to two thousand and thirteen a doubling of the initial united states commitment centers and i wish to revisit this proposal and then the funding level i look forward to that discussion i believe we need to keep the bill as free of funding directives as possible to ensure maximum flexibility for man's lamentation this is recommended by the institute of medicine i'm proposing that only two funding directors being fluid one modified from its current form the other maintained as it is the first modification would seek to address the abstinence directive in current law just ration as interpreted and implemented this provision so as to include both abstinence and faithfulness programs the a b of a b c which stands for abstinence be faithful and the correct and consistent use of condoms the a b c paradigm for prevention was developed in africa by africans who addressed a wide range of responses by people within their nations recent evidence from a growing number of african countries shows a correlation between declining h i v prevalence and the adoption of all three of the a b c behaviors pepfar implemented a program that teaches young children to respect themselves and others part of that respect is to refrain from sexual activity and to be faithful to a single partner as children grow older they learn about other ways to protect themselves that they have the information and tools they need to live healthy lives these are not revolutionary concepts rather they are common sense approaches to public health based on broad experiences garnered from many cases and studies the problem with this directive however is that it is applied to all prevention funding not just to funding for prevention of sexual transmission this is had the effect of squeezing funding for prevention activities that are nothing to do with sexual prevention such as prevention of mother to child transmission and blood transfusion safety language i propose we address this by applying the directive only to funding for prevention of sexual transmission rather than to prevention funding as a whole this will enable much greater flexibility at the same time language would ensure a continuation funding for abstinence and faithfulness programs as part of comprehensive evidence based a b c activities rather than maintaining the existing directive a thirty three percent of all prevention funding proposal would require that fifty percent of the sexual prevention subset prevention activities be spent to support abstinence and faithfulness it also acknowledges that different strategies are needed depending on the focus of the epidemic in each country something pepfar is already doing i think this compromise approach is one that can win support from across the political spectrum and provide increased flexibility w ensuring continued support for comprehensive evidence based prevention alec forward of working on this with my colleagues one direct even leadership back that i believe must be maintained holds that ten percent of funding be devoted to programs for orphans and vulnerable children there were a few programs focused on the needs of these children before the leadership act and we remain in the early stages of the effort to serve them before the advent of pepfar neither the united states nor anyone else had much experience in programs to support children infected with or affected by hiv aids after several years of effort we have made some progress but our programs are not yet as firmly established as they can be this year pepfar invited proposals for orphan programs from the field but the number of proposals that came back was far less than the available funding this indicates that we still have much work to do in this area and maintaining this directive will help ensure that we do it the aids orphans crisis in sub saharan africa as amplifications far political stability development and human welfare that extend far beyond the region the american people strongly backed this effort and the maintenance of this directive will help to ensure that we remain attentive to those who need our support the most the directive also help ensure the success of the vote assistance for orphans and other vulnerable children in developing countries act of two thousand and five a bill that i drafted in which co sponsored by eleven senators the bill was signed into law in november eighth two thousand and five by bill also includes some new language regarding the global fund an organization that enjoys wide supporting congress a global fund is a critically important partner in our fight against hiv aids in addition to our contributions we are active on its board and u s personnel provide the global fund the extensive technical assistance a global fund is an avenue for the rest of the world to make contributions to anti disease an issue does the united states is the largest supporter of the global fund having provided more than two billion dollars thus far the american people have contributed approximately one third of all monies received by the fund the fund is subject to pressures from many donors and is why the knowledge that it would benefit from greater transparency and accountability chairman of the senate foreign relations committee from two thousand traders out and six i oversaw the passage of legislation that strengthen the transparency and accountability of international organizations that receive u s funding including the world bank and the international monetary fund my proposed language what establishes similar benchmarks for u s standing for the global fund i address such benchmarks as some length and i proposed legislation not because concerns over specific global fund activities rather to ensure sound practices and to give members confidence that u s contributions are being monitored carefully most of these benchmarks are based on provisions contained in past appropriation bills and i don't not believe they will be controversial senate bill nine hundred sixty six would maintain the limitation on the existing leadership back that the u contributions of the global fund may not exceed thirty three percent of its funding from all sources that's on the table and has proved to be a valuable tool for increasing contributions to the fun from other funding sources including other governments and socio economic fabric of communities nations and an entire continent creating a potential breeding ground for instability and for terrorist communities are being hobbled by the disability and loss of consumers and workers at the peak of their productive reproductive and caregiving years and in the most heavily affected areas communities are losing a whole generation of parents teachers laborers health care workers peacekeepers and police united nations projections indicate that by twenty twenty h i v aids well have depressed g d p by more than twenty percent in the hardest hit countries the world bank recently it warned that while the global community is expected to more than double over the next twenty five years africa is at risk of being left behind many children who  parents to hiv aids are left entirely on their own leading to an epidemic of orphan headed households when they drop out of school to fend for themselves and their siblings they lose the potential for economic empowerment education can provide alone and desperate they sometimes resort to transactional sex or prostitution the survive and risk becoming infected with hiv themselves i believe in addition to our own national security concerns we have a humanitarian duty to take action five years ago h i v was a death sentence for most individuals in the developing world who contracted this disease now there is hope we should never forget that behind each number is a person a life united states can touch or even save at the time the leadership act was announced only fifty thousand people  pepfar focused countries during the first three and a half years of the act u s bilateral programs have supported services for more than six million pregnancies and more than five hundred thirty three thousand of these pregnancies and women were found to be h i v positive and receive and try retroviral drugs preventing an estimated one hundred and one thousand infant infections to march of two thousand seven before the advent of pepfar there was little concern effort to meet the needs of those orphaned by aids or other children made vulnerable by it we have now supported care for more than two million orphans and vulnerable children as well as two point five million people living with hiv aids is september two thousand and six effective prevention treatment and care depend to a large extent on people knowing their status so they can take the necessary steps to stay healthy united states has supported eighteen point seven million h i v counseling and testing sessions for men women and children our financial investment in this fight has been critical to our success and things to a large part of the flexibility of leadership backed we've been able to obligate more than ninety four percent of its available twelve point three billion dollars the flexibility to respond to the changing dynamics of the epidemic rather than locking in particular approaches that might be appropriate for two thousand and seven at the might prove problematic for future years as the answer to of medicine said the global leadership act is a learning organization we should pass a bill now that allows pepfar to expand and evolve this program implementation utilizing the spirits of these past three and a half years i believe that we will save more lives and prevent more infections of lead we authorize this remarkable program this year i asked my colleagues to work with me to achieve a truly bipartisan tr the the senate now in a quorum call waiting for a member to come to the floor and speak a few minutes ago the majority leader harry reid on the floor asking that the senate go into a period of mourning business and then the quorum call the senate has been debating this week the defense programs bill and earlier today defeated another and meme and according to  john donnelly of congressional quarterly the senate today shot down the latest democratic attempt to accelerate the withdrawal of u s forces from iraq leaving the administration strategy unscathed by forty seven to forty seven vote the senate defeated a proposal by armed services chairman carl levin and jack reed a member of the committee and a west point graduate that would have started a redeployment of troops from iraq in one hundred days and brought most troops home in nine months that measure needed sixty  to prevail under a unanimous consent agreement at all according to john donnelly of c q today the vote was forty seven to forty seven so that amendment fails mr donnelly's article goes on only three republicans backed the leaven re dodd was one of the twenty seven democrats and one independent who voted thursday in favor of a russ feingold amendment that carried a funding cut off after june thirtieth of next year unless most u s most u s troops were out of iraq by then over on c span coverage today of the national rifle association conference going on here in washington d c a number of presidential candidates of already speak in the from the republican side to senator john mccain former senator thompson former new york mayor rudy giuliani all speaking this morning a video presentation from governor mitt and former governor mitt romney also new mexico governor bill richardson just before their lunch break and still to come this afternoon at that are a conference speeches by governor mike huckabee also former house speaker newt gingrich will be speaking and congressman duncan hunter speaking by video taped message we have live coverage of that  t for you over on c span and our live coverage of the senate continues on c span to the u s senate still in a quorum call waiting for a member to come to the floor and speak the senate has been debating this week the defense programs bill and they began debate today on an amended offer by senator joe biden that would provide for a political settlement  iraq no vote expected on that until next week earlier today another amendment failed by a vote of forty seven to forty seven the senate defeating a proposal by armed services chairman carl levin  the associated press puts it this way another anti war measure has failed in the senate a bill that would have ordered most u s troops home from iraq in nine months fell thirteen votes short of the sixty needed to cut off debate senate republicans blocked the measure saying it would have dire consequences for the region and wrest control of the war from generals on the frontlines but the bill's sponsor carl levin of michigan says the u s is losing lives and squandering resources while the iraqis continue to dawdle this morning's vote caps a losing week for democrats who failed to push through any anti war proposal that according to the associated press today talking about the debate on the defense programs bill in the senate our live coverage continues senator from north dakota the former vacated without objection mr president i am going to make your comments this morning about a hearing that we had just completed in the democratic policy committee but i'm waiting for some charts and i want to while i'm waiting for some charts talk just for a moment about what is happening with respect to the debate here in this chamber dealing with the war in iraq it relates to some things i said on the floor of the senate yesterday but i think really bear repeating we are talking about the war in iraq the need to attempt to change course in iraq and yesterday i described again what the latest national intelligence estimate tells us now all of us have access to this there's a classified version a top secret version and a non classified version but all of us have access to this information and here's what it says in the context of protecting this country and providing security and safety for this country here's what the national intelligence estimate says al qaeda is and what is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to our homeland we assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability including a safe haven in the pakistani and pakistan pakistan federal administrated tribal areas operational lieutenants and its top leadership here's what it says it says the greatest terrorist threat to our homeland is al qaida and its leadership who even now are plotting attacks against our country and who have a safe haven in the pakistan region now if that's the case it's quite clear that the central fight on terrorism is not going door to door in baghdad in the middle of a civil war and yet that's what we're doing i asked this question and i've repeatedly asked it why should there be one square inch on the planet earth that is secure or safe for osama bin laden and the leadership of al qaeda yet our national intelligence estimate says that they are in a safe and quote unquote a safe haven these are the people that boasted of killing americans on nine eleven they boasted about engineering nineteen terrorists to board airplanes full of fuel and passengers and run them into buildings and kill innocent americans six years later our national intelligence estimate tells us that those who engineered that attack have regrouped are developing new training camps for terrorists and are in a safe haven and developing new plans to attack america that is unbelievable to me we are debating the war in iraq which our national intelligence estimate also says is largely sectarian violence or a civil war yes there are some al qaeda in iraq but that is not the central front and that is not the central war on terrorism if in fact our role as a responsible country is to protect our citizens then it seems to me we would change course and change strategy so that we are taking the fight to the terrorists and fighting the terrorists first we are bogged down longer now than in the second world others the leadership of al qaida in a safe haven now what are the consequences of that safe haven well let me show a newspaper report from last week all of us understand this because we heard about it they picked up terrorists in denmark they picked up terrorists in germany the terrorists in germany were plotting attacks against the largest u s military base in europe where did those terrorists trained in pakistan training camps in pakistan we are now seeing the fruit of what has happened what has been allowed to happen the leadership of al qaeda in a safe or secure place operating and developing new training camps training new terrorists to launch attacks against our country meanwhile we are going door to door in baghdad in the middle of sectarian violence if ever there is a description of a need for a change of course that is it i do not understand why some fail to recognize what has happened you can go back to february you can go to june you can you can go to the disclosures and just read them this one is june regroups a new sanctuary in pakistan border while the u s presses its war against insurgents linked to al qaeda in iraq osama bin laden's group is recruiting regrouping and rebuilding in a new sanctuary along the border between afghanistan and pakistan senior u s military and intelligence and law enforcement officials said the threat from radical islamic enclave and where zero stand is more dangerous than that from iraq which president bush in this and his aides call the central front in the war on terror since some current and former u s officials bin laden himself is believed to be hiding in the region guiding a new generation of lieutenants and inspired inspiring allied extremist groups in iraq and other parts of the world i mean i don't for the life of me understand the failure to recognize a set of facts this reminds me of the period prior to the invasion of iraq a set of information that on its face later turns out to have been wrong we don't need to be told what's right or wrong here in terms of the set of facts just read the facts understand the facts if the central threat to our country the greatest threat to our country according to national intelligence estimates is al qaeda and its leadership and its reconstruction of its system of terror and the development of  terrorists if that's the case and that's where america has to be to wage the fight against that kind of terrorist group instead we are in the middle of a civil war that's why we need a change in course a change  strategy it's not as my son my colleagues talk about a plan for surrender it's it is simply deciding we are going to a tactic and launch an effort to destroy that which represents the greatest threat to our country it's surprising to me that six years later there's any place on the planet earth that should by our national intelligence officials be declared safe or secure for the leadership of al qaeda and yet that is exactly what we read and what we hear and what we see in official reports that is that is not something we should accept as friends and i wanted to briefly today talk about the results of the hearing that  the democratic policy committee held this morning and the hearing more about the subject of contractors in iraq and also the subject of what are called whistleblowers those are people that are many cases very courageous people that blow the whistle on waste and fraud and abuse and behalf of the taxpayers of america to say this is wrong and it must stop we had some very disturbing testimony this morning we had eight witnesses for them whistleblowers they have paid dearly for having the courage to come forward let me read the testimony of a donald vance united states navy veteran thirty year old u s navy veteran when leaving the navy he chose to go to iraq as a civilian to help american efforts to rebuild the country he worked for a couple of private military contractors in iraq here's what happened to him what he saw with respect to the last contractor he worked with was the sale of weapons the sale of stolen weapons to interested should not have weapons insurgents and others and so he began to report it it was something he believed very serious he reported it to he reported to the f b i he reported it to u s military officials and as a result this united states navy veteran clown himself in big trouble here's what he said because of the information i possessed and because of my own willingness to condone the can corruption in the company that i had so i became a target within the company they took measures to ensure that i could not leave their compound in the red zone in which they were located when i called the u s government for help the u s government that came to the compound to rescue me but what started as a rescue ended up as a nightmare he said that night i was taken to the united states embassy and debriefed i told the agent to question me everything i had witnessed about the sale of illegal guns and illegal activity that had gone on i also told him that i had informed the f b i instead of contacting the f b i to verify the information i provided these government officials u s government officials blindfolded me  took me into detention according to the department of defense spokesperson they did not bother to contact the f b i until three weeks into his detention to this day he said even though the freedom of information act requests have been made no government official has explained what was asked of the f b i regarding myself and what the f b i said in response i spent ninety seven days in isolation denied food and water denied sleep denied requested and much needed medication that was intolerably loud heavy metal and country music blaring into the cells the lights in the cells were always on the guards would threaten me and physically assault me for example the guards would walk me into walls while i was blindfolded and handcuffed shake down my cell for contraband threaten to use excessive force if i did not obey all of their orders finally for the first few weeks i was in this prison i was denied a phone call no one in my family knew where i was if i was alive or if i was dead during that time i was interrogated constantly before each session i would ask for an attorney the request was denied instead i was interrogated by a host of us government personnel including f b i agents navy criminal investigative service officers as well as possibly cia and dia agents according to the government i was being held as a security in tourney because of my affiliation with the private security firm and certain members of the government which they believed were selling weapons to insurgents three months after i was detained and after alleged subsequent reexamination of my case the government released me before i was released however i had one final interrogation the focus of that was what was i going to do when i got home i was going to tell the press was going to get an attorney when they released me they gave me he said that they gave me a twenty dollar bill and dumped me at the baghdad airport to fend for myself without the documentation i needed to return to the united states so a whistleblower who saw illegal activities saw the selling of improper once in iraq some two insurgency found he went to authorities and his country the united states of america held him prisoner for ninety seven days no hey vs corpus which is in the constitution by the way note no right of habeas corpus for an american citizen here no right to contact an attorney if this doesn't disturb the american people i don't know what will disturb the american people we heard today from other witnesses talking about two things one was the abuse of the taxpayer by contracting years the evidence is unbelievable forty forty five dollars for a case of coca cola doesn't matter taxpayers going to pay for that you order fifty thousand pounds twenty five tons of nails and they deliver the wrong size doesn't matter thrown on the scent of a rock bottom rust order new nails taxpayer pays for that's cost plus contracts seven thousand dollars a month lease payment for an s bunting over in kuwait working for halliburton k b r this is a subsidiary of halliburton he had a job as a purchaser he said he was just as a small example of supposed order handles for the troops american troops supervises doesn't matter the american taxpayer is paying for this cost plus contracts don't worry about it that's a small item but there are larger items it is unbelievable the amount of waste and fraud and abuse that we've uncovered and the fact is there seems to be an attitude in some parts of this government to sleepwalk through it all doesn't matter it doesn't matter can you imagine a circumstance where a contractor in this case halliburton k b r is charging us for forty two thousand meals a day it's selling it's it's providing american troops american soldiers forty two thousand meals a day turns out they're only giving fourteen thousand meals a day they just overcharged by twenty eight thousand meals a day according to government estimates now do you miss twenty eight thousand meals a day i mean the evidence is unbelievable when you go through this so this morning we had a meeting it scares me it is hearing about contracting abuse and we had  testimony today i just read some from donald vance who worked for a contractor in iraq was imprisoned by his government for ninety seven days not given the right to an attorney not given the right to contact anybody on the outside at any time during the early stages of that confinement that's unbelievable but a teen greenhouse testified once again this morning the highest ranking civilian official in the united states army corps of engineers and she said that the abuse related to the awarding of contracts she says exactly this is the highest ranking civilian official in the united states army corps of engineers i can unequivocally state that the abuse related to the contracts awarded to kellogg brown and root that's a subsidiary of halliburton represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse i have witnessed during the course of my professional career you know what happened to this woman for that she lost her job it's unbelievable when you think about it i've t secretary rumsfeld about this case i've talked to secretary gates about this case i've talked to the undersecretary deputy secretary england about this case nothing oh we're all looking at all investigating but doing that for two years i called the commanding officer of the army corps of engineers and got a team greenhouse was given this job the woman with three masters degrees judged by everyone from outside of the government who deals with the contractors as outstanding given outstanding references on a performance reviews all along until somehow she got she got into a situation where she said i saw things going on with sole source contracting awarding big contracts billions of dollars of contracts and doing it improperly abusive and i blew the whistle she said and all of a sudden she got into trouble and they demoted or i called her former commanding officer general ballard now retired call him at night at home one night and i said tell me about  team green house because she's paid for her courage to speak out with her career here's what her boss general ballard said she did an outstanding job as an outstanding employ because she had the courage as a whistleblower to stand up and report things that were wrong abusive behavior behavior that abuses the american taxpayer she paid for it with her job we can't let that continue to happen that's have this hearing the best disinfectant for bad behavior is sunlight and i hope as we continue to expose more and more of this i hope we can put an end to it those who have the courage to come forward to report wrongdoing report waste and fraud and graft and corruption in my judgment we ought to thank them there's a story i don't have a copy of it here a story in the usa today newspaper today written by an investigative reporter that deals with these issues the issues of oversight of contractors and the oversight of contracts that are let with respect to the war in iraq what we've found and senator wyden and i have worked on this here in the senate the pentagon wants to hire companies to oversee other companies you can't do that you can't delegate responsibility who's looking out for the taxpayer here we had testimony today from robert isaacson is a patriotic american he was someone who saw criminal activity with a company called custer battles he reported it or that he and others who were with him were surrounded by people with guns threatened he came today and expressed profound disappointment at the way the federal government has responded or failed to respond and as a person who had the courage to be a whistleblower who saw something wrong and decided to try to write it as as a person who stood up for the best interests of this country and its taxpayers we and yet we see today that what has happened systematically the associated press wrote a big article about this exposing in what has happened systematically under this administration to whistleblowers as they are abused not protected not spanked but abused and i would hope whoever in this administration is responsible and listening and understanding might decide that that has to stop  president i will speak more at some point soon about the results of this hearing but i think this country owes if my colleague senator grassley from iowa as i know spent a lot of time on whistleblower issues and other colleagues as well it is very important for us that when people come forward to report acts of wrongdoing fraud waste abuse that this country says thank you and follow us up and will not allow those sixteen years of private legal practice four years as a federal prosecutor and nineteen years as a federal district court judge he headed the official corruption unit during his service as assistant u s attorney in the southern district of new york and he served as chief judge during his last six years on the u s district court for the southern district of new york by any reasonable or objective measure judge me k z is clearly qualified to lead the justice department and i want also to draw chanche into an aspect he's experience and record that makes him particularly qualified to lead the justice department at this challenging time in our history the u s district court is divided into ninety four geographical districts these district districts case loads very widely reflecting the characteristics demographics and realities in those districts the southern district of new york where judge me case he served for nineteen years and which he led for six years as no differen serving in that key judicial district led judge me k z to confront the terrorist threat to america long before the nine eleven attacks he presided over that bill rockman and sentenced him to life in plot to blow up the world trade center he's decision it took the unusual step of commit commenting specifically on how he had handled the trial the appeals court said let me refer to this chart judge me a case he presided with extraordinary skill and patience assuring fairness to the prosecution and to each defendant and helpfulness to the jury it was an outstanding achievement in the face of challenges of his was an outstanding achievement in the face of challenges abdul rockman on august sixteenth nineteen ninety nine and this is a remarkable statement appeals courts review the lower court decisions are very rarely do they come in in this matter and lower court judges that case occurred before the nine eleven terrorist attacks ten years later after those attacks judge me casey ruled that the president had authority to designate jose padilla as an enemy combatant against the united states and that even as an enemy combatant he must have had access to his lawyers course but it was a citizen but it was eventually convicted of providing material assistance to terrorists legal analysts benyam and widows wrote about this case in the journal policy review and said the judge me of cases decision was quote the single most compelling judicial opinion yet written on the due process rights of citizens elde as enemy combatants unquote that is high praise ind ed this background and experience with national security and terrorism cases make judge me k z especially qualified to lead the department of justice at this time in america's history the justice department is being and redirected in light of the war on terror including creation of its new national security division many of the issues in this area may begin with legislation but and in the courts having someone at the helm with the experience not only as a prosecutor but as a judge evaluating these very issues will be very invaluable to all of us in addition to these qualifications are important personal and character qualities which i believe we need in our leaders the federal judges law clerks probably no better than any when else how the judge thinks how he approaches the law how he handles tough issues and how he treats other people i ask unanimous consent to put in the record a letter signed by forty three of judge these former law clerks the objection this letter describes his decisiveness and mastery of the law as well as its fairness humility and commitment to public service we must evaluate judge new cases qualifications and characters through a process that respects the separation of powers the constitution gives the president authority to appoint members of this cabinet including the attorney general and one of the senate has a role in checking that authority ours is not a co equal role with the president and we may not use the confirmation role to undermine the president's appointment authority some of my colleagues may want to use these nominations to fight policy or political battles these fights are for the legislat process or the oversight process but not the confirmation process some of my colleagues have even been have even hinted that they may manipulate the confirmation process for judge me case in an attempt to force compliance by the bush administration with certain demands and other issues that kind of political extortion would be wrong the justice department needs leadership now and judge from you casey is exceptionally well qualified and ready for duty no during my thirty one years in this body we have taken an average of three weeks to move the attorney general nominee from nomination to confirmation there is no reason we cannot meet that standard with the excellent and well qualified nominee now before us the same two obligations apply to nominations to the federal bench let me repeat we must focus on a nominee's qualifications to a process that respects the separation of powers it is a curious fact of race in american history that like the situation today the last three presidents each faced a senate controlled by the other political party during his last two years in office two of those presidents were republicans one was a democrat during those last two years of  president's tenure the senate confirmed an average of ninety one judges seventy four to the district court and nineteen she has been seventeen to the u s court of appeals this is only one way of measuring confirmation progress and i realize that some not care a bit about what has happened in the past but for those who do i simply offer this this as a yardstick a gauge of the progress compared to what we're making today the last two years of those previous presidents ten years or ten years are not be asleep parallel measure for us today since we are in the last two years of president bush's tenure we are nearing the end of september and have confirmed just three judges this year to the u s court of appeals the last one was nearly five months ago at the same point in the same year during the last three administrations the senate confirmed an average of six appeals court nominees twice as many and they while the vacancy rate on the u s court of appeals continues to rise and is nearly ten percent higher than when president bush was re elected and these are emergency situations as well and these chords by raising this issue i run the risk of some talking about what they like to call pocket filibusters of clinton's nominees this cute but profoundly misleading phrase is intended to suggest that the republican senate blocked clinton's judicial nominees the number they use varies all the time well could have been confirmed i will say just two things about this well worn and fallacious mantra first a certain number of nominees of every president remain unconfirmed for a variety of reasons anyone who pretends otherwise is trying to mislead the american people about how the confirmation process actually works some clinton the minis were withdrawn others were opposed by home state senators others were nominated too late to be evaluated and honestly taking these and other factors into account shows that the margin of error by these critics tops the next on issuing four hundred percent the second response the simpler president clinton appointed three hundred seventy seven federal judges with the senate controlled by the other party for six of his eight years  simply need to make more profit progress in confirming judicial nominees the needs of the judiciary and the yardstick of history indicate that we are not doing our duty president bush has the lowest judicial confirmation rate overall and for appeals court judges in particular of any president during my three decades in this body instead of making the confirmation process that we should we see a series of steadily changing standards whatever it takes to defeat the nominations of good men and women i've spoken here on the floor several times about the attack on judge leslie southwick nominated to the u s court of appeals for the fifth circuit opponent surges to feed on the basis of just two of seven thousand cases in which he participated on the basis of two concurring opinions which he did not write not because he applied the line correctly but because the opponents do not like the result of him applying the law correctly that standard is wrong and i hope it does not succeed i have here the washington post editorial from last month and i agree with its title it says qualified to serve the opponents of the southwick haven't made their case the editorial says that while the post does not like the results in the two cases that opponents highlight they cannot find fault with said south which legitimate interpretation of the law judges are not supposed to deliver results that plays this or that political constituency judges are supposed to correctly interpret and apply the law judge southwick is committed to that judicial role and he should be confirmed without  qualifications for the position of judge l rod who currently serves on the state court trial bench in texas graduated cum lottie from the harvard law school and joined the state trial court bench after eight years of private practice for a dozen years she served on the board and eventually chaired the gulf coast legal foundation one of the largest legal aid or good organizations helping the poor in southeastern texas judge a rod has as much judicial experience as did sandra day o'connor when she was unanimously confirmed that the supreme court of the united states of america in fact when you include judge our roads two years clerking for us district judge sim lake judge out rod has more judicial experience and more federal court experience than did justice o'connor and i voted for justice o'connor i certainly believe that she was qualified for the supreme court and her tenure there has proven that she was qualified and i know that judge a right is qualified for the confirmation process now that implication as of this you are troubling to say the least this means that no matter what our nominee's qualifications no matter what her experience or background no matter what she was what talent she would bring to the bench nominees race can and some apparently believe even should trump her merit appointing judges based on race is an inappropriate standard that i don't think we should accept and i certainly cannot accept like judge southwick judge a rod has been nominated to a vacancy open so long that the administrative office of the u s courts has designated it a judicial emergency like judge southwick judge a rod should be confirmed  without further delay she deserves it she's competent she's qualified and she has served well in the position she's been in and it's really wrong for us to mistreat or evaluating nominees in deciding whether fulfill our responsibility through a process that respects the separation of powers i urge my colleagues to reject an appropriate standard such as the political litmus tests or race our judiciary is the best the most independent in the world senator from alaska thank you mr prince and we have had i think very good healthy debate here on the floor of the united states senate this week on the subject of not go to good constructive debate but took the debate a little bit downhill and i think we here in the senate recognize that it's our job to bring forward the issues to discuss the that good debate should should bring i had an opportunity couple days ago to speak with a general from my home state and i was asking him about his different perspectives that are coming out on the floor but through it all no one has forsworn the soldier and he says that makes me feel good as an american certainly good as a as a military leader and i  think that is important for us to remember that in all the heat of this debate that we not forswear our military that we always honor and respect that which they do and in such an honorable way  i want to personally thank senator webb the junior senator from virginia for bringing forth an issue this week this was the amendment that he introduced that related to the amount of dwell time the amount of time deployed versus the time the amount of time that the service and stays at home i think it was important for us to focus the the the support side of of our military and we know that those that are serving us over in iraq and afghanistan and truly in all parts of the world where they are separated from their families that our our third with men are at their best and serving us to their fullest when they are able to focus on their job and those families that stay at home and of course are are very they miss not having dad at home or miss not having their husband with them and they wish that the circumstance were otherwise  but we know that the families that have stood behind our servicemen allowing them to serve it's these families too that are serving our country and we need to recognize the sacrifices that those families also make they may not be on the front lines but there is no shortage of worry and concern and true anxiety over the the day health and safety of their loved ones we put our military families through a great deal of of stress at a time of war particularly and as we can never adequately tell our servicemen and women thank you we can't say thank you enough similarly we can't say thank you anough to those families that provide that support so i want to thank senator webb for for reminding us of the obligation that we owe to the military families themselves and we all have our own stories of  of the exchanges that we have had with the military families in our respective states a situation that is very clear in my mind even well over a year later  an incident that happened in july of two thousand and six and this was the specifically it was july the twenty seventh up in fort wainwright alaska near fairbanks where it was publicly announced that the man and the women of one hundred seventy second stryker brigade combat team were going to be extended in iraq for one hundred twenty days anyway there was some uncertainty as to whether it was just one hundred twenty days or whether it would go even beyond that this stryker brigade had been serving very admirably very honorably in a difficult  part of iraq and had been there for a year this decision literally pulled the rug out from under the families and the community there in fairbanks it was a surprise it was a shock to the service members and to their families at the time that that extension was announced some element of the hundred seventy second had already returned home they were back in alaska there were airplanes that were transporting other elements back home that literally turned around in mid air when they got the notice the extension soldiers that had remained behind in iraq  were packing up the unit they'd heard the rumors that that they might be extended unfortunately they heard it from their family members back in fairbanks who had heard it on the news and then contacted their husband or their son over and iraq they made some very very difficult phone called confirming that in fact the rumors were true this was an absolutely unacceptable situation it's one thing to be prepared for an extension it's one thing to know that this is your commitment but when your family is anxiously awaiting you when you are anxiously awaiting your return after eight years service in combat it was it was horrible for these families i was in fort wainwright just a couple days after the announcement of the extension and i was driving through the front gate there at the post and they have a socket chain link fence that goes for a mile or so anticipation of the return of their loved ones families had had pulled together the homemade banners saying welcome home daddy we miss you we love you we can't wait to see you and those those signs some of them in children's clearly in children's writing i absolutely broke your heart because you know those signs that were made with great anticipation and then put up on the chicken wire fence they weren't going to be seen and dad that next day or that next week we weren't going to be seeing their husband as a consequence of  ansion as a consequence of that extension there were a few we never came home at all this was a difficult situation of course for for the families for the soldiers it certainly brought me much closer to many of those military families and it caused me to certainly set in mind a singular goal if we were going to bring the hundred and seventy second stryker brigade brigade combat team home without any further extension this was this was tough enough this hundred twenty day extension that we're going to make sure that there was no further extension to the army's credit they they really stepped up to the plate they brought a very extensive menu of a family support services that we've not ever seen before the sear banks community which has always been exe dreamily  welcoming loving towards our military and there was an outpouring of support from the community they truly went above and beyond and the other thing that we saw at that time was the strength of the family readiness group the women the wives that had for a year been holding everybody together encouraging the younger wives who'd never gone through a deployment there was there was a great deal of camaraderie a great deal of support and to support their with those family readiness groups really helped them get through those additional hundred twenty days and then in december of last year one hundred seventy second stryker brigade combat team came home there was no further extension they were able to be there for christmas and they were actually able to be there because there was another unit that was ready to go they broke to wail and went over early to relieve the when seventy seconds and that speaks volumes about the sacrifices that the man and the women of our military and their military families make every day supporting their nations supporting our nation and really supporting each other  i was in at fort wainwright in december when the wave of returning soldiers came home and i spent one afternoon greeting planeload after planeload of soldiers and we were in the big hangar there where they were checking in their weapons and awaiting the transport so that they could go greet their families the soldiers from the from the junior enlisted up to the rank of colonel extremely positive about their work in iraq they told me absolutely they were making a difference they were tired after sixteen months of combat they were absolutely elated to be home and they were very proud of themselves of their of their of their of their colleagues as we were proud of them and as i was standing in line there was one young man  north pole alaska not too far from from fort wayne right there and i said so you're home what are you going to be doing he's well i i have a house and he says my house is going to be kind of that the welcome home party house if you will for all this thing go guys and all the guys whose girlfriends have left him in the past year so those guys whose wives are not going to be here he got very serious in that conversation and i said do you have a lot of those men who have come home to find that their relationships are no longer in intact and he said yeah this is this it's an uninformed parts but we've been gone for a long time he was a young man he's single but that that to all that your heart to know that come home after serving your country and the relationship that you had worked so hard to build prior to your departure is now no longer there the extension of one hundred seventy second it made me angry at that time very angry very frustrated and not necessarily because our soldiers were extended we know that it's the soldiers creed that