Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003

Mr. President, the Senator from West Virginia has touched on a subject that many of us believe should be explored. I think in order to look at it, we have to look at a little bit of history. That history, as far as the Department of Defense is concerned, is not too pleasant.

In the Clinton administration, I remember distinctly being down at the White House when the President showed us his plan for defense expenditures. He showed us a chart that showed a constant decline in defense expenditures. At the end of 6 or 7 years, it started to go back up. He was going to use that money to reorder priorities of the country. That was his plan, and that is what he executed.

As a consequence, the military people of this country had to figure out how to defend the country. Many of us who worked in matters relating to defense here in the Congress worked with them. The concept that was developed by the Defense Department and approved by Congress was the total force concept. The total force is those who are regularly in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. And it was augmented by the National Guard and by the Reserve.

When we deploy forces now overseas, almost every unit of the regular military has, along with it, portions of its personnel who come from the Guard or Reserve. They are already identified before deployments take place. This is the total force going out into these operations. This happened during the Clinton administration in Bosnia, and it happened in Kosovo. There were National Guard as well as Reserves deployed with the regular units. The concept of deployment is one that people in the services understand.

The problem the Senator from West Virginia has correctly identified is the repeated deployments that have taken place. When we think about it, starting in Haiti, starting in Bosnia and in Kosovo, we had a series of deployments, and then in this administration in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Those have all taken place in a continuum of a lifetime of the current force. It is an evolving force. People enter and others leave. But we are still dealing with a total force. You are not dealing with the kind of forces that were in place when I first came to the Senate or when we served in in World War II. There were massive divisions called up. They had a cadre of permanent people in the U.S. Army. Back then, we were in the Army of the United States. That was the draftee portion that was added to the Army. Each section of the military had that in days gone by. But they were temporary people. They were drafted. They were not involved in a citizen-soldier-citizen military concept.

When we evolved into this picture that we are in right now, we developed recruiting techniques to recruit people.

The Senator from West Virginia mentions the police of West Virginia. I am sure the same thing happens in almost every State in the Union. The police are encouraged to join the National Guard and the Reserve so they can be part of the military police forces as they are deployed. They may even have expertise that they got in the military services before they became policemen. And they agreed to come back and fulfill that same expertise as a member of the service when their unit was deployed. The Reserve and Guard units are called up because they have expertise in particular areas. They are part of a function that is included in the total force.

The problem isn't the duration of the deployment; it is the frequency of the deployments, as far as I am concerned.

The Senator from Hawaii will recall that he and I went to Prince Sultan several years ago and talked to the pilots who were not reenlisting. This was occurring during the Clinton administration. They were not reenlisting because they had been deployed to Italy; they had been deployed to Bosnia; they had been deployed to fly what we call the ``continuous air patrol''--the cap over Iraq. Once they finished the cap over Iraq, they were back in Bosnia again or they were deployed to do some special activities in the Korean area.

Several times when forces were built up as tensions increased, we deployed some forces. They were brought back later. But it wasn't the duration of any one of the deployments, in my judgment; it was the frequency of several deployments.

I remember talking to one pilot who was not going to reenlist because he had been away from his family I think 10 months out of the year.

This was something that was just not contemplated by the total force, whether they were Regular or Guard or Reserve. It is not just the Guard and Reserve. It is the total force in terms of the number of deployments and the length and duration of the rotations that are taking place. Those I think have to be studied, and they have to be studied very carefully to determine where we are going.

Unfortunately, I must disagree with my friend from West Virginia. If we followed his suggestion, we would put down just a blanket rule concerning the time of the deployment period or the number of deployments in any 360-day period. And this would be not more than one.

President Clinton could not have fought in Bosnia and Kosovo and maintained the blockade of Iraq, as he did as Commander in Chief, under this kind of a law. In fact, I do not think any Commander in Chief could command our total force with that kind of a law. But what we have to look at is the number of times that you are deployed in any one period of your service. There are people who still enlist for a period of time. If they enlist in the Guard or the Reserve or the regular forces, I think we ought to assure them, if they are in each category, there ought to be a different standard. In the regular services, those are 365-day-a-year deployments, period.

This concept of applying this policy only to the Reserve component, I think--and I assume by that the Senator includes the National Guard--is not proper, in my judgment. We have to look at the total force and say, if you are a part of that force, this is what will apply to you.

I think there should be some distinctions between the regular services and the Guard and the Reserve so that a person could make a choice based on his or her circumstance as to how often and for what duration deployments might take place.

We developed, in World War II, a concept of points. Again, my friend from Hawaii and I probably are of the few people in the Senate who can remember that. But you got points for the number of months you were deployed overseas. You might have been deployed to France or Italy or England but you built up points. As you reached the zenith on points, you were eligible then to be rotated back home, back to the continental

It reads:

. . . there are three principal objectives that I want to

achieve. They are:

Structure active and reserve forces to reduce the need for

involuntary mobilization of the Guard and Reserves. Eliminate

the need for involuntary mobilization during the first 15

days of a rapid response operation (or for any alerts to

mobilize prior to the operation). Structure forces in order

to limit involuntary mobilization to not more than one every

6 years.

Establish a more rigorous process for reviewing joint

requirements.

I am just picking portions of this statement. It will be in the Record.

Make the mobilization and demobilization process more

efficient.

We agree with that. We ought to agree that there should be a review of that. I hope, however, the Secretary also would undertake some review of the impact of what he is talking about in terms of looking at what it will do to our enlistment rates, our retention rates and, in particular, into the viewpoints of the individual Governors who, after all, have a basic responsibility for the National Guard itself.

I would like to introduce the amendment. I don't have it ready.

Does Senator Inouye have any comment on this? I need to get the draft of the amendment. Would the Senator wish me to yield the floor?

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is a very complex issue.

I wish to remind the Senate that in this bill, we have added $2 million for employer support for Guard and Reserve to help address problems with recent deployments. I was just informed there was a Rand study of deployments. The authors looked at the issue in the wake of the high rate of military deployments through the nineties, and the prospect that deployment will rise even more.

The authors found, paraphrasing part of this report, that reenlistment was higher among members who deployed compared with those who did not, and sizable increases in deployment all appeared unlikely to reduce reenlistment rates. Research suggested past deployment influences current reenlistment behavior because it enables members to learn about their preferences of deployment and about its frequency and duration, which may revise members' previously held, more naive expectations.

I have had some letters similar to what Senator Byrd has just read. I do think there are individual problems, and that is our job as Members of the Congress, this body in particular, to look into those and try to remedy them and see they do not happen again. I again commend the Senator for addressing the problem.

There are existing provisions of the United States Code, specifically sections 12301, 12302, and 12304, that detail the varying levels of mobilization, the number of forces the President can call up and the amount of time those forces can be activated and actions required with respect to Congress.

There is no question there is already a law concerning this situation, and by law the President of the United States has the authority to deploy members of the Guard and Reserve overseas as appropriate and within the context of the laws I just mentioned.

This amendment would obviously change those laws, and if nothing else, before we change those laws, we should give the legislative committees, the Armed Services Committee, the opportunity to look at the subject. I think their review should be based upon a review of people with competence who have had experience in the problem of assisting the Commander in Chief to deal with the Reserve components of our military.

I am told the standard rotation is a deployment of 180 days. Those deployment days do not include preparation or recovery time, and typically the units may be mobilized for 230 days in order to complete the 180-day deployment. This would put a restriction on that past policy as it has been carried out.

We should have some in-depth review of the relationships of these policies of rotation, deployment, and mobilization days, as well as the impact on families and upon their employers, as the Senator has mentioned.

Without question, employers are affected and without question small cities and towns, such as exist in my State and I know exist in West Virginia, are impaired if these durations are for too long.

Clearly, we have come through a period which now I think we ought to review a little bit, and I will speak later today about the reliance of the Department of Defense on supplemental appropriations for contingency and peacekeeping operations in the past two decades. That is something that has to be addressed, and the Senator from Nevada addressed it earlier today, and I will discuss those.

For now, though, again coming back to this basic problem of this amendment, do you think we can say the Secretary of Defense has already issued a statement of intent to devise a plan to deal with a portion of these problems? There is no question we have a difficult future to deal with because we still have forces in Kosovo; we still have forces in Haiti; we still have forces in Bosnia; we still have forces in Korea; we still have forces in Okinawa; we still have forces in Diego Garcia; we have forces at King Sultan Airfield in Saudi Arabia.

The Senator from Hawaii and I represent two areas that have what they call forward-deployed forces. I say to the Senator from West Virginia, often when we have forces deployed from Alaska and Hawaii to go overseas, we then get replacements who are really people who have been called up, Guard and Reserve units, to come to our forward-deployed areas to fill in those spots. They are not considered deployed overseas. If they were from West Virginia, they would be away from West Virginia for a substantial period of time. The Senator's amendment would not cover those people.

In terms of review, I hope, if we are successful in establishing a commission to bring this about, that there will be a basic review of the overall concept of deployment, whether it is overseas or otherwise, when it takes members of the armed services away from their home duty station and their families and particularly those who have multiple family members of the military who could be affected by deployment at the same time.

One of the difficulties I have is now looking at Africa and what is going to happen in Africa. We have had repeated demands for the President to deploy forces there, increased demand to look at more than one nation that is going through a period of rebellion and riotous conduct. I think that may be one of the worst deployment problems we will have in the future, is to find forces to undertake those objectives, fulfill the objectives of the Commander in Chief's orders if we are at the same time still in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Korea, Kosovo, and Iraq.

It is mind-boggling, to say the least, to deal with the concept of deployment at the present time, the requirements overseas to maintain the policies of the United States.

Yes.

Under the total force concept, there could be National Guardsmen and Reserve in any of the units deployed overseas.

I do not know the current component, Mr. President, but we did see some reservists and Guard people in Kosovo when we were there. We visited Fort Bonnsteel. We saw them in Bosnia, and we saw them in Afghanistan. I am specifically told the National Guard currently has a mission in Bosnia.

Currently, I believe there is a 6-month deployment limit, but they do not charge against that deployment period the time necessary to get them ready to go over, or the time they use in demobilization when they get back.

That is my understanding.

They are. I just read that law. They are subject to the same law. I am told the standard rotation period is 180 days. Those days do not include any preparation or recovery time. The units are typically mobilized for 230 days or more to complete the 180-day requirement, but it applies to all forces. It does apply to our forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo--they are all subject to coming back after 180 days.

The Senator used the word ``redeployment,'' which is another matter. Deployment is limited to 180 days. There is currently no limit on the number of deployments, as I understand it. The problem that I and the Senator from Hawaii discussed with various members of the armed services Regular Guard and Reserve has been the problem of successive deployments. Active duty tours are limited to 180 days under most circumstances when they are not considered to be a home station, such as Korea and Okinawa.

For the deployment into these areas, as I understand it, like the Balkans, Afghanistan, or Iraq, the limitation on the deployment is 180 days, but there is no limitation on the number of rotations that one could take to another place overseas when they are brought back.

There may be some misunderstanding in the minds of those who have been called up, or the dependents of those who have been called up, concerning existing law. The existing law does limit the deployment for overseas to 180 days. They must be rotated in that period of time. As I have said, it takes 230 days to complete that because of the time to call them up. They have to give them notice. They report. They then are put into units and then they are sent overseas.

When they come back, they come into the units where they are going to be really demobilized and it takes some time then, too. I do not think we have a disagreement with the Senator from West Virginia about the need to ease the pressure on these continuing forces caused by the concept of total force, but there seems to be one misunderstanding. It is the unit that is deployed for the 180 days--in some instances members are deployed individually to fill in units. They would be subject to the same limitation, but the basic concept of the law deals with being able to deploy members of the Guard and Reserve as appropriate within the context of the law I have mentioned.

Amendment No. 1255 to Amendment No. 1244

Mr. President, I have my amendment, which I send to the desk, and I will give a copy to my friend from West Virginia. I submit this amendment on behalf of myself and the Senator from Hawaii as a bipartisan approach to deal with the issues and try to bring them together.

The Secretary of Defense has a group going ahead on this. We obviously believe the Congress should be involved in some way. I ask that that amendment be in order to be called up at this time.

I apologize. I am offering this amendment in the second degree to the Byrd amendment.

That is correct, as an amendment to the Byrd amendment.

That is my intention.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

If I could explain this proposal, it would create a commission on overseas deployments to have 11 members: 3 appointed by the President, 2 appointed by the Speaker, 2 appointed by the minority leader of the House, 2 appointed by the majority leader of the Senate, and 2 by the minority leader of the Senate. They would be appointed the term of the commission. We ask for the commission to hold its first meeting not later than 30 days after they have been appointed. They have the duty to give us a report within 120 days after enactment of the act--obviously, that would be a period of 90 days for their basic work--and they would recommend ways to reduce the burden of overseas deployments while maintaining readiness, overseas presence, and support of the national military strategy.

The report and recommendations shall address the overall side, structure, and sufficiency of the Armed Forces in relation to current requirements for overseas deployment and presence, and the adequacy of the current balance and mix of Active and Reserve component forces, and the adequacy of the current balance and mix of critical, high-demand low-density units the rotation and assignment of members of the Armed Forces married to each other, limitations on the periods for overseas tours and unaccompanied tours and hardship locations.

I believe this commission would have a duty to give us some basic information to address the problem raised by the Senator from West Virginia.

Incidentally, I now have the numbers the Senator from West Virginia asked. There were Reserve and Guard organizations deployed. They were in Operation Noble Eagle, which was Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraqi crisis, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Kuwait, and Iraq. We have had a sizable deployment of Guard and Reserve personnel--the Reserve component is what they refer to--in all of those instances. I do have the numbers and the duration.

As I indicated, the rotation schedule was that which I mentioned, which is 180 days for deployment overseas. I urge the Senator from West Virginia to consider supporting the amendment we have offered to his amendment to assure we have the right mix of Active-Duty and Reserve components and that

we devise means to reduce our forces with the least disruption on the lives of the service members involved.

That is the current law.

Not quite. We do not interpret it that way. It goes further than existing law.

Existing law says the units can be deployed for no more than 180 days but under the current law, the time and preparing for that deployment and the time after that deployment to be redeployed, say, another place such as england or somewhere, to be put together so they can be brought home, those times don't count against the 180 days.

The Senator's amendment adds a dimension not included in existing law, not more than one deployment in any 360-day period.

One hundred and twenty days from enactment of the basic appropriations bills, yes, sir.

The Senator is correct in many ways. The difficulty is the current practice is 180 days but none of these people, to my knowledge, have been over there 180 days yet. This operation has not been ongoing for 180 days. There may, however, be people deployed previously in this current timeframe who were deployed to one place, brought home, and then deployed again in the same year. That is true. That is what the Secretary of Defense has said he is trying to address. That is what this commission is trying to address, some way to provide some guidelines so members of the Active-Duty and Reserve components can determine how long they will be deployed away from their homes in any period.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

I would like to tell the Senate about the way the last administration treated this Senate.

Mr. President, I think the Senator from West Virginia is well aware of what the last administration did. They just spent money. They didn't even tell us where they were taking it from. Twice in 1999, we had to have supplementals. They didn't even tell us in the supplementals what funds they used. They deployed forces, and they took money from the accounts we had already appropriated for other purposes. Every time President Clinton deployed forces, that is what he did.

This time, this President came and asked for a supplemental. He has money he is spending, but he cannot tell us precisely day by day what they are spending. They asked for money in advance. They got money in advance.

He did not disturb the individual accounts of the various services. He did not cause the chaos in terms of defense that the last administration did.

I will defend my friend, this Secretary of Defense. If the Senator wants to defend the last Secretary of Defense, I will let him do it. But I know what happened. In 1998, 1999, and 2000--we had 2 supplementals in 1999. That represented money that was used under the food and farm act concept of ancient law of the United States. The President took money from other accounts and just spent it. He didn't ask us for it. He didn't tell us what he was using it for. He never would account for it. Even when he asked for a supplemental, he didn't tell us what unit he took it from. We had to look for the unit and put the money back where it belonged.

This administration is doing it right. When they ask for money in advance, they are spending money and accounting for it as they account for their bills normally in their normal reports. But they did not take money from the individual units.

They took money from the Air Force and Army and spent it somewhere else without telling anybody.

You want to get me excited about something, I will get excited about the way the last administration handled the Department of Defense. They decreased funding and used the money in a manner totally unheard of in the history of the United States. It would have ruined the military had it not been for the concept of the consolidated force structure. The military saved itself by using Reserve and Guard units in the proper way.

But their funding came from moneys that were for entirely different purposes. I believe they took money from the procurement account from time to time. Normally, they took the operation and maintenance money. That is the steaming money. That is money for flying hours. That is money for drilling. That is money for equipment. That is money for munitions. They just depleted money, and deployed forces to Bosnia and Kosovo without asking at all. There was no advance request. There was no notice given.

If the Senator wants to get excited about the way funding is being used now, they are using the funds which they asked Congress for. I was the one who presented the bill. Congress approved it. The President signed the law. And the Secretary of Defense has the right to use that money according to laws that we pass. And he is following those laws, to the best of my knowledge.

Mr. President, I do agree to a great extent with the Senator from West Virginia, except that I reiterate I am proud to defend this administration. This administration asked for the money, told us what it was for. As a matter of fact, in one instance, the President asked for $10 billion for the global war on terrorism as a contingency fund and, together with the Senator from West Virginia, I helped deny that request. The Congress asked that the administration define the costs and contingencies, and they did. And that money was included in the big supplemental we passed for defense. We asked for it and received the statement of what the money was to be spent for.

We asked them to tell us what they were going to spend the money on in Iraq. It was detailed. It was in the fund that was given to them.

Again, I defend this administration because, to their credit, they agreed we have rescinded in this bill $3.1 billion of that supplemental we gave to the Department and took the money back and put it for other functions in the Department. Now, the last administration would have taken that money and put it there, anyway. They agreed we should take it back, and now we are going through the process of reappropriating the same money in this bill for 2004 because it is not going to be used according to what they told us they were going to use it for in terms of the Iraq supplemental.

But, Mr. President, a friend in the House, watching this event, has sent to me a statement that was made in the House Armed Services Committee on April 3 of this year by Sergeant First Class Steven Davis of the U.S. Army Reserve. I think it is significant to have this comment at this time, and I am pleased that my friends are listening. I am going to read the statement word for word.

Sergeant First Class Steven Davis said:

Mr. Chairman, members of this distinguished subcommittee,

thank you for the opportunity to be here today and for

allowing me to be a participant in this panel.

My name is Sergeant First Class Steven Davis and I am a

Military Policeman in the Army Reserve. I have been serving

in the United States Army for 15 years, seven of which have

been in the Army Reserve. I am assigned to the Military

Police Port Security Detachment in Pocahontas, Iowa. I have

been mobilized once since I have been in the Army Reserve. I

was mobilized on September 23, 2001, for Operation Noble

Eagle, and I served one year state side in North Carolina.

In my experience, with both the regular Army and the Army

Reserve, I believe that the two are very much integrated. I

had positive contacts with reserve soldiers when I was on

active duty, and I have also had positive contact with the

active Army since I have been a reserve soldier. Most

recently during our deployment to Sunny Point, North

Carolina, we were directly assigned to the 597th

Transportation Group. From the moment we arrived, I felt as

though we belonged there. I remember during a welcome

meeting, COL Heiter, the Commander of the 597th, made it very

clear to everyone in the room that the members of my unit

would be treated as any other soldier at Sunny Point. The

Command emphasis set the tone for our one-year star. Our

forces integrated flawlessly with the existing Department of

Defense forces, which is what we were trained to do. We were

able to work together as a cohesive team, and everyone's

moral was high.

As for the question, did the recent deployment change or

affect the reservist's intention to continue to serve. I

believe the deployment made our unit stronger and more

willing. From month to month we go ask ourselves, are we

really needed?? Why are we doing this? Then September 11th

came and all our questions were answered. Yes, we were

needed, and yes, we were important. On September 12, 2001, we

had 24 soldiers, myself included, volunteer to go on a

security mission to an unknown place. The 24 volunteers left

for Beaumont, Texas, on September 13th, 2001. Ten days later,

on September 23rd, the remainder of our unit was mobilized

and sent to North Carolina, where we spent our tour of duty.

When our year was up, and we all got the word that we were

going home, we were told the New York unit was going to take

our place, but that they did not have

enough people. Twenty-two soldiers from my unit volunteered

to stay with them, not for 3 or 6 months, but for another

year. Some of the soldiers were married and some were college

students. Why did they stay when they did not have to? I

would say it was because they knew they had a job to do, and

they weren't going to leave until it was finished.

The one problem that we encountered during our deployment

was medical benefits. The Army did a great job of providing

the coverage, and teaching the soldiers how to use the

coverage. However, our family members did not have the

advantage of having a representative available to inform

them. This created many headaches for the soldiers, who would

try to trouble shoot the problems long distance. I believe a

local representative, available for family members would have

been very helpful and would have saved the soldiers a lot of

time on the telephone.

I read that because it is indicative of the feeling of our young people. We talked at one of our hearings to the Guard and Reserve members, and we found that as the deployments increased, enlistments increased; and as deployments increased, reenlistments increased.

We are having complaints from some people who believe they should have come home sooner, but none have been over there a year yet. None of them have been over there 6 months yet. Even under the current, existing law, the Senator's amendment will not affect them. Well, I am told some in Kuwait have been there 6 months by now, and they should be rotating home. But, as a practical matter, the existing law provides for the deployment limitation, the existing regulations and practice for rotation in deployment every 180 days.

However, again, I come back and ask my friend from West Virginia to support us in this effort to have this reviewed. I hope the Senator has read the composition of the commission we would like to create: people appointed by the President, people appointed by the leaders of the two bodies. I do believe an 11-member commission is sufficient. I envision that they would call on former Secretaries of Defense and their assistants, former commanding officers, generals, and members of the Guard and Reserve from the enlisted area. So we would have a representative group to give us their advice.

Respectfully, I think we need their advice on how to deal with the complex problems of dealing with rotation and deployment limitations in this day of a very complex total force that our military defense units face today.

I urge my friend to reflect and let us adopt our amendment and create this commission, and we will be back here in 5 months. That, I think, would be sufficient to deal with this problem. And it will give us a forward-looking concept as far as deployment strategy, rotation strategy, and benefit strategy for members of our Armed Forces.

Will the Senator yield right there?

The money to pay the salaries for everyone in Iraq is in

this bill. The money to pay for operations is in this bill. The problem

is the special money for the deployment costs were in the supplemental

which we already passed. There was more than was necessary. We have

already taken $3 billion out of that. They are operating on what is

left. We appropriated $60-plus billion before.

Let me assure the Senator that there is money in this bill for Iraq.

There is money to pay the salaries and support for the military

personnel. Some 60 percent of the money in this bill is support for

them. It is there. No matter where they are in the world, they are paid

from money in this bill.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair for his consideration and courtesy.

Our National Guard and the Reserves of each of our military services have

become more than a source of manpower during times of national crisis. Members of the Reserve components have become an indispensable tool to carry out military operations and homeland security missions.

As of last week, there were 204,100 Guard and Reserve personnel on active duty. Some are stationed within the United States, performing homeland security missions. Many are deployed overseas, in foreign lands, thousands of miles from home, to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since September 11, 2001, we have activated more Guard and Reserve personnel than at any time since the Korean war but countless reservists, especially those who are now serving in Iraq, have not even been told when their deployment will end. Nobody knows when they will return home to their families, their friends, and their home communities.

Adding to the uncertainty, some Reserve units that are now being activated are simply being told to prepare to deploy for 1 to 2 years. This is no way to treat our National Guard and Reserve forces. How would Senators like to be treated like that? Are we keeping our citizen soldiers away from their jobs and their homes for too long? Are we? There are a growing number of West Virginians who say yes.

My office has received an increasing number of letters, phone calls, and e-mails from West Virginians asking when their loved ones who serve in the Reserve components will be coming home. How long? How long will that vacant chair be at the dinner table? How long will that husband, that father, be away from home, unable to carry that child to bed and tuck it under the cover at night? How long, Mr. Rumsfeld, I ask?

Some of the reports in these communications are very alarming. Senators read their mail as I read mine. Other Senators, I am sure, are getting the same question from those who are living there in the face of danger every second of every minute of every hour of every day, in the hot sands, 130 degrees, 120 degrees, 110 degrees. There they are. All of these letters express a deep frustration with the length of deployment of National Guard men and women and other Reserve units.

A number of troops and their families have expressed desperation at trying to get any sort of information about when their units will be returning to the United States, and it is about the same frustration that we as their elected representatives are getting when we ask questions of this administration to appear before our committee.

After reviewing what some of these units have gone through, I can see why people are frustrated. Let us take the case of one engineering unit from West Virginia. After shipping out in January 2003, this unit advanced deep into Iraq, along with front-line fighting forces. During the war, they bridged a river under heavy Iraqi fire. I have several reports that members of this unit are able to call home only once every several weeks, and that now they are only helping to haul Iraqi ammunition. This unit has not been given a date to return to the United States, and rumors are now circling that they will remain in Iraq until January 2004, until the snow falls in West Virginia.

Another National Guard unit has struggled through back-to-back-to- back deployments. This unit was mobilized for State duty in response to flooding in West Virginia in the summer of 2001. After September 11, this unit spent 1 year in Federal duty performing homeland security missions. After 3 months' rest, the unit was again called to duty and this time sent to the Persian Gulf region in February 2003, where they remain to this day. There has been no word, none, on when this unit will return home. Hear me, Senators.

One of my constituents wrote about her husband who was deployed to the Persian Gulf in December 2002, told he would return as soon as the war was over. After the President made his visit to the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and gave his speech under the giant banner which read ``Mission Accomplished,'' this reservist still has not been sent home. In fact, he was given five different dates to return to West Virginia and then sent to another country in the region with the possibility of extending his deployment to September. To add insult to injury, this reservist had to pay for his own food and lodging while he was awaiting new orders after the war.

Hear me. Hear me, Mr. President. These stories should not come as a complete surprise to my colleagues. I am confident every Senator has been receiving mail with similar reports of deployments with no end, unclear missions, shortages in supplies, and countless other problems.

I have read similar problems in the newspaper about members of the Active-Duty Forces. This morning, there is an article in the Los Angeles Times about another delay in the homecoming of the war-weary 3rd Infantry Division. Less than a week after Secretary Rumsfeld announced to the Armed Services Committee that this division would be home by September, 10,000 of these soldiers have now been told to prepare to stay in Iraq indefinitely, an equal number of that army of Greeks which was led by Xenophon back home after the war, after the Battle of Cunaxa. Ten thousand have now been told to prepare to stay in Iraq indefinitely. These troops ought to have the chance to come home, too.

There are two reasons why I am particularly concerned about the long deployments of the Guard and Reserve. First, the National Guard has important responsibilities to their own States. Right now, this very minute, West Virginia has all of its Guard and Reserve engineer units deployed overseas, along with all of their earthmovers, their dump trucks, their equipment. If the summer storms cause more flooding and mudslides in the West Virginia hills, who is Governor Wise going to go to for help?

We have watched those storms sweep over the mountains of West Virginia and come down those rugged, ragged, steep slopes into the valleys and cause terrible floods to come rushing down, wiping out lives and property. Who is Governor Wise going to go to for help? The engineers of the West Virginia National Guard cannot answer the call from the hot sands of Iraq. My State would either have to rely on expensive contractors to recover from the storms or wait 2 or 3 days for National Guard units from neighboring States to respond. West Virginians need our National Guard in West Virginia.

Second, members of the Guard and Reserve are part-time soldiers. They are proud to serve their country but they did not sign up to serve full-time duty. We must exercise greater discretion when mobilizing the reserves just as we did decades ago.

According to the Congressional Research Service, from 1945 to 1989, there were only four involuntary callups of Reserve Forces. In 1945, I was in Florida, welding in the shipyard to the end of World War II. According to the Congressional Research Service, from that date 1945 to 1989, there were only four involuntary callups of reservists. Since then, there have been six involuntary deployments. It is unreasonable to dip into the Guard and Reserve so frequently, to pull those men and women away from their civilian careers and away from their families and expect them to serve overseas with no indication of when their mission will end.

There are serious defects from protracted deployments of the National Guard and the Reserve. There is growing frustration, I am telling you. It is growing. The frustration is there and it is growing.

Hear me, Mr. President, down at the other end of the avenue. Hear me, Mr. Rumsfeld. Hear me, Senators. That frustration is growing. Growing frustration among members of the Guard and Reserves mean that many troops may finally elect to take their hard-earned retirement. Many junior personnel are likely to decide they do not want to put their families through months or even years of hardship again and they will choose not to reenlist once their duty has been completed.

As we speak, unit commanders are bracing for a heavy loss of personnel once the deployed units are rotated home. The time has come for Congress to say: Enough is enough. Let us put an end to open-ended and back-to-back deployments of the National Guard and Reserve. Our part-time troops need to get back to their homes. They need to get back to their families.

They need to get back to their full-time jobs.

That is why I offer an amendment to limit the involuntary deployment of

National Guard and Reserve personnel to 6 months for any single overseas deployment and not more than 1 deployment in any 12-month period.

When we send the National Guard to peacekeeping missions in the Balkans, they are overseas for 6 months. Why should we ask our reservists to serve longer in Iraq or Afghanistan? Why should we ask our reservists to put up with back-to-back deployment?

Secretary Rumsfeld announced this week that he is seeking long-term changes to reduce dependence on the involuntary mobilization of National Guard and Reserves for not more than 1 year out of every 6 years. This is a commendable action, and we need to take a look at the long-term structure of our Armed Forces. But Secretary Rumsfeld's proposed changes do nothing to address the problems our reservists and their families are facing today.

My amendment will make an immediate impact on the problem of open- ended deployments for the National Guard and the Reserves. My amendment will make the Defense Department tell our reservists when they will be coming home because no funds in this bill may be spent to keep a Guard or Reserve unit overseas for more than 6 months.

We need to start rotating our Reserve Forces back home. Right now, there are 204,100 Reserve personnel who are not at their civilian jobs. These absences are leaving huge gaps in private businesses and essential government services.

In West Virginia, 10 percent of the State police have been called to active duty. Countless employers across the country are working shorthanded, waiting for the day that one of their employees will return home from their service to our country. Families are struggling to make up the income lost by having a provider receive modest paychecks from the Pentagon as opposed to the good pay of civilian careers, such as doctors, lawyers, coal miners, teachers, or even plumbers.

One can only wonder how much the endless cycle of deployments has affected our economy over the last 2 years. But it is clear that we need these part-time members of the military back in our communities.

My amendment would allow us to tell the members of the National Guard and the Reserve that they will return home within 6 months of being sent overseas. Congress should act in order to provide a measure of stability to the deployment our reservists are facing. We should give the same measure of stability to their families and their employers.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. I send it to the desk.

Mr. President, while the Senate is awaiting Mr. Stevens' amendment, let me read some excerpts from some of my constituents. I referred to letters from my constituents during my comments on the amendment which I offered. Here is a constituent who writes as follows:

I am writing to express some of my concerns with so many of

our West Virginia guardsmen and women deployed.

I am under the impression that the duty of the National

Guard and Air National Guard is to fill in and help the

active duty in times of need. Many of our West Virginia Guard

have been deployed for quite a while now, but it seems as

though very few have come home yet. The combat portion of the

war seems to be nearing an end, and a couple of months have

passed for supplies and human aid to reach the people of

Iraq. It seems to me that our Guards men and women have

fulfilled their duty and should be sent home soon. A recent

severe flooding in our State could use the help of service

men and women here at home. I feel that our West Virginia

Guards men and women have contributed their portion of duty

to this war for the time being and deserve to come home now

and begin rotations with other units to cover the needs of

our active duty overseas. I do not want to see our State

suffer during this time of need for their services here.

I am very proud of our service members within our State

because I believe they do an excellent job for us as a State

and for the Nation. They are always prepared to perform any

tasks they are called to do. I personally

believe that we can use their services here at home for the

time being and that they have accomplished their duties

overseas. I wanted to explain my concerns to you about the

need for our Guard men and women to return home soon.

From another letter I present these excerpts:

I am writing asking for your intervention and help in the

swift return to the United States for my son's unit serving

in Iraq. His unit has had no real mission since it was sent

to Iraq.

He mentions his unit, which I will not mention here. He says:

They have been pumping fuel which is not fit for use in

trucks or planes. Most of the time, they end up pumping it on

the ground just to settle the dust. They have been in the

very dangerous sections of Iraq, north and east of Baghdad.

At a family support meeting, we were told that the soldiers

are now being rationed water--one 20-ounce bottle a day. They

have no way of communicating with us back home. Their food is

limited and they are living in extremely miserable

conditions. We were urged to contact you for help. Mail is

not getting to them and we rarely receive mail from them.

They are not part of the rebuilding of the country. They are

not involved in any constructive activity--only the danger of

being in convoys and the sniper fire which has been

reportedly happening regularly.

This war is not over, as our President continuously tells

the Nation. Our soldiers are not home. Please help. My son

chose to serve his country and for this I am very proud. But

this mission has gone into some bizarre and impossible

conditions for our sons and daughters. Please help bring them

home soon.

Another letter is as follows, and I will excerpt certain paragraphs:

As you are aware from my last letter that these men have

been deployed for quite a long time, they were gone for a

year with the last deployment, as well as State duty for

floods and now this deployment. For this deployment, these

men have been deployed since February of this year, and here

we are already in the middle of May. They were sent overseas

without any real kind of indication as to when they will

return home. I have gotten some form of answer [from a

certain office in the service] that the current policy is

for the men to be deployed for 6 months overseas. However,

that is not any guarantee either. We are still looking at

2 years of deployment for these men. I just find it so

hard to believe that there is no one out there that can

help get these men home before that timeframe. I don't

understand why it can't be a total of 6 months.

There are many family members, including mothers and

fathers, of these soldiers who would be very grateful to you

if you can make this happen for us.

Another letter:

On December 1, 2002, my husband [she writes his name, which

I shall not divulge] was deployed for the war in Iraq, and he

was told that he would return to continue in his normal

career when the war was over. Since then, he has been

scheduled to return to the United States on five occasions.

She gives the dates.

He is still in Germany. He is having to pay for his meals

and a hotel room, while awaiting a flight somewhere in

Africa, as directed by his commander, although there are no

legal or valid orders to do so. As of today, my husband has

been deployed, mobilized, 200 days. His orders state his

deployment is not to exceed 179 days. . . . My husband is a

West Virginia National Guard soldier who has been deployed

over 6 months, who by regulation should have been redeployed

to his home station before being assigned to a new theater,

as stated in his orders. . . . Morale is at an all-time low

for my husband, myself, and our family, and all the soldiers

and families I have spoken to.

Anything you could do to make this situation right would be

so greatly appreciated than I could possibly let you know.

Please help me get my soldier home.

It was signed by his wife.

Mr. President, I will not go further in reading letters, but I have many of them.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The distinguished Senator speaks of our forces being deployed in various and sundry continents, countries, and climes. Are these guardsmen and reservists whom the Senator is talking about?

He speaks of Kosovo. Are those National Guardsmen and Reserve deployed there?

Are they limited to 6 months?

But the time there, are they limited to 6 months?

Then why shouldn't the people in the hot sands of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq be likewise?

Is the Senator aware of any complaints from his National Guard in Alaska or other Reserve units there that they are being held longer than the 180 days and being redeployed for a longer period?

I am trying to get some predictability worked into the equation. That is the reason I have offered this amendment. I am getting these letters from the men and women from West Virginia who are in Iraq. They want to come home. They think they have served the time that was indicated to them they would serve and yet they are serving longer.

Do I have the floor, Mr. President?

I thank the Chair.

Yes, I am glad to yield to the Senator.

Right.

In essence, the Senator is precisely correct.

Yes.

They are entitled to know. They are employed and they are entitled to have their expectations met. Here we are with our men and women in Iraq. They are there like sitting ducks. It is like a shooting gallery. They are in an area I am sure we would find very difficult to live in. We will be talking more about reasons why they were told they were going and about the problems with certain intelligence that had an impression, I am sure, a persuasive impression on some of the Members of Congress who voted to give this President the power to send our men and women into harm's way, but we will save that for another day.

What I am trying to do is make it possible for these men and women who are in the Guard and Reserve units to return home to their children, their families, their wives, their mothers, their fathers, their jobs, their communities. Communities have been hit hard in this country. Communities have been hit hard in West Virginia. These men and women answered the call. They have served well. They have demonstrated great courage, bravery, and patriotism. Why should we not keep our word to these people? Why should we not be up front with them?

I agree with that statement, and I think the administration ought to tell these people how long they are going to stay over there. They are not told they are going to be over there just 6 months. They are not told they will be there 9 months or a year. This administration has failed to tell our people, who are put in harm's way by this administration's policy of preemptive strikes, what this administration intends. Congress has not been told how long these people are going to be there, what are the costs.

We hear every day--the President spoke on the Abraham Lincoln with a sign, a banner, fluttering overhead, ``mission accomplished.'' The mission has not been accomplished. What was the mission? I am not sure we know what the mission was.

I appreciate the statements and the questions by the Senator from Nevada. I appreciate also the words of the distinguished Senator from Alaska. He is a very reasonable man and a reasonable legislator.

We talk about a study, but we study things to death around here. We need to act, and that is what I am trying to do. I am trying to bring some succor, comfort, relief, and satisfaction to the families of our Guard and reservists who are waiting the return of those men and women.

Will the Senator yield?

The distinguished Senator said the reservists should be deployed for 180 days.

That is what my amendment says.

Is there a final deadline for this commission to report?

I am afraid our guards men and women will have to serve a long time. Many of them have already been serving a long time, in their estimation. They will have to serve a much longer time if they wait the appointment of the commission and then the rendering by that commission. I see its first meeting will not be later than 30 days after the date on which all members of the commission have been appointed.

The Senator gave me this amendment, a 4-page amendment but page 3 is missing.

I thank the Senator. The third page which was missing is the page that had on it the provision:

Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this

Act, the Commission shall submit to the congressional defense

committees a report on the results of the examination and

analysis under subsection (c).

So that is 120 days, so that is 4 months, not later than 4 months, by the time this commission is created, is established and has its first meeting and then reports back to the appropriate committees. I hope surely our young men and women will be home by then without any such report. This is going to be a long time.

That is what I see with this. We need to act. We can study this to death. This is kind of like questioning Secretary Rumsfeld. When I asked him a question in the Armed Services Committee the other day, my question was, How much has our country been spending on the average per month in Iraq?

And he says to me: Well, I'm sorry, Senator, we don't have that information at hand. We will get it for you. We don't have that information at hand.

I asked, How much have we been spending per month in Afghanistan? I got the same answer. Senator, we don't have that information. We will be glad to get it for you.

In a moment, if I may.

I am referring to the cavalier treatment that we peons on the Armed Services Committee get from this great Secretary of Defense that we have downtown. He says, Well, Senator, we don't have that information.

Here we are with the top man--the man at the Pentagon, the greatest defense department in the world, the most expensive one, the one that handles more money than any other defense department in the world. As a matter of fact, we are spending more money each year than all of the other 18 NATO nations combined, plus the six remaining rogue nations, plus China, plus Russia. That is almost half of the total moneys that the world spends for defense. We are treated like children by this Secretary of Defense: Well, Senator we don't have that information.

It would seem to me that would be elemental. It would seem to me that a Secretary of Defense would know how much money we spend on national defense; that he would know how much money we are spending on average in Iraq per month. He would know that. He should know that would be one of the first questions he would be asked by the Armed Services Committee when he comes before it. I would think so. You are the Secretary of Defense. How much are we spending in Iraq monthly? Then to have to turn and say, Well, Senator, I don't have that information. It would take us a while to assemble it. That is the way it is here. It is going to take quite a while.

It is going to take quite a while to get this commission started, if we follow the recommendations of the distinguished Senator from Alaska. I ascribe to him a far greater degree of appreciation for what we are doing and a far greater degree of understanding of the need for us to act than I do some of the people downtown. But here we are being asked for a study.

What I am saying is that way of dealing with Members of Congress and committees, saying, Well, we don't have that information; we will get it for you--by the time we get that information, the time is long past for the committee to ask the next question, if we need the answer to the first question in order to ask the second question. We are going to have to wait to be able to ask the second question. That is a cavalier way of handling people. I have been around here 50 years. I am on to that kind of game.

Not yet. I am not talking about the Senator. I am talking about our distinguished Secretary of Defense and the way he handles us children on the Armed Services Committee.

The Senator can wait a minute.

Mr. President, I have the floor. I have the floor.

Now I yield to the Senator for whatever he wishes to say.

Mr. President, may I say to my distinguished friend, I don't worry. He can get excited as many times as he wishes. I have excited many people in my time around here, before the Senator from Alaska came here. He can get excited all he wishes. I will be glad to wait while he gets excited again, if he would like.

He reminds me of the pharisee and the publican who went up into the tower. The publican said, ``Oh, Lord, I don't do what this man does. I don't do as he does. I give my tithes. I give one-tenth of all I earn.'' And he went on to talk about his attributes. The other poor man in the tower said, ``Oh, Lord. Forgive me. I am a sinner.''

So don't point to Clinton, when the Senator talks to me--or to any other President. I am talking about this administration. We can't excuse this administration because of something some other administration may have done. The people on that side are good at that. Many of them are always pointing out what we did, what Clinton did, or what this one did, or what that one did. That time is past. We can't excuse our own sins on the basis of the sins of others.

I am talking about this President, this administration, your administration, your Secretary of Defense. You can stand up and defend him all you wish, my friend. And I shouldn't say ``you.'' I shouldn't speak in the second person under the Senate rules. Maybe I got a little excited also.

But the Senator isn't going to run that old fish along the side of me. He can get excited all he wants. He is noted for his temper. Temper is a good thing. We all have some of it.

But I am saying here that when we ask questions of his friend, the Senator from Alaska's friend, Mr. Rumsfeld, we get treated cavalierly, and many times get a lecture. It is about time we get rid of that kind of treatment. Secretary Rumsfeld, with all due respect to him, wasn't elected by the American people to that job he has today. He was appointed to it. He was confirmed in it by this Senate. I was not appointed to anything.

So let's don't attempt to respond to what I hope were sincere questions here by pointing to what a previous administration may have done. I did not agree with everything that happened in the previous administration. The supplemental requested by the Clinton administration is in no way appropriate to the cost of Iraq. Bosnia and Kosovo were minuscule in comparison to the cost of Iraq.

Let's talk about Iraq, and let's talk about this administration. We have to deal with the problems that confront the Senate today. I am not going to ask my constituents to settle for a study. We need to act. And we Senators have a duty to vote on my amendment. When we talk about a supplemental, that is a way to--and I speak always with great reverence to my friend, Senator Stevens; and he is my friend, he is going to be my friend, and I am his, but this is a way to hide costs from the American people, huge costs that can be anticipated, and that are driven by policy decisions made in this White House.

There is no reason for a supplemental request in this instance. Congress is not an ATM machine. This White House wants to be accountable to no one. We have a responsibility to the taxpayer to exercise oversight over these monies.

I have nothing else I wish to say at this point. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his statement in support of the amendment and also for his overly gracious and charitable statement at the beginning of his remarks concerning my previous efforts in regard to the whole question of Iraq.

I am hoping other Senators will speak on the amendment, but in the meantime I say that soldiers whom we are using in our National Guard and Reserve are entitled to fairness. They are entitled to know how long their tour of duty will extend. After all, we were told that our men and women would be welcomed not as occupiers but as liberators. We were told that our men and women would be welcomed with flowers and smiles.

Our men and women in the Reserve components are beginning to wonder if they were misled. We are using our National Guard and Reserve in a way which is unfair to them and to their families. We cannot ask them to wait for some study now while they bide their time. It is not their fault that the White House decided to wage a war without considering the aftermath in Iraq. It is not their fault that a policy of preemption may demand many more troops than we can muster. We need to give our Guard and Reserve some relief from the turmoil of being constantly deployed. We owe them more than a study. We owe them action.

If this amendment were accepted, it would push the administration to internationalize the peacekeeping in Iraq. I hope other nations will join in keeping the peace in Iraq so that our own guardsmen and reservists will be relieved and will be able to come home.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

That is right. What the Senator has been quoting isn't

included either. They don't include the cost of the war.

The men and women are being paid their salaries, even if

they are from West Virginia. If they were all from West Virginia, they

would be paid their salaries. We are talking about the additional

costs, the incremental costs, and how much it costs this country to

wage war in Iraq per month. We are not talking about the salaries. They

get paid no matter where they are. We are talking about the additional

costs of Iraq. Let us be clear about that. Additional costs are almost

$1 billion a day for Iraq.

One billion dollars a week. That was a misstatement. I know

better than that--$1 billion a week.

Absolutely. The American people are entitled to know that.

They are going to pay the bill.

Mr. President, first of all, I want to congratulate my friend and colleague, the Senator from West Virginia, for his constancy in terms of ensuring to the best of his ability and the best of this institution's ability that we were going to meet our constitutional responsibilities some months ago, and understanding the Constitution, and that the issue of making war is something that was reserved to the Congress of the United States, and the extraordinary service he provided for our country in reminding us of our responsibilities in the United States to make a judgment and decision about sending and committing our men and women overseas in this conflict.

I welcomed the opportunity to join with him at that time. His eloquence, passion, and knowledge of this institution and the history of the Constitution still ring in my ears from that experience. I think history will show that even though he did not at that time persuade the majority of the Members of the Senate, when history evaluates that effort it will be one of the important contributions he has made, and he has made many to this institution.

As we all understand, he is a person who has placed the interests of this institution at the forefront of his agenda on many occasions, and it is a better institution and it is living up to its historic role as our Founding Fathers wanted it to be because of his contribution.

So I thank him for what he has done and particularly in terms of the whole issue of policy toward Iraq. I welcomed again his comments earlier today. I was unable to catch all of them, but I will study them closely during the evening time, and I know as we are considering the Defense appropriations, we will hear more from him about the issue of American troops overseas, the National Guard and Reserve here at home-- the importance of them, and also about what we as a country are going to do in terms of funding this commitment that has been made in terms of Iraq as well as Afghanistan.

The issue of the Guard and Reserve comes to us in a very clear way because of the number of troops we have over in Iraq at the present time. As the Senator knows full well, we have effectively half of all of the Army divisions tied up either in Iraq or Afghanistan. Eighteen out of the 35 or 36 combat divisions are in Iraq. So even when we talk to 148,000 troops, and 22 percent or 23 percent of our Army over there, when you are talking about the combat arms of the United States and the location of those service men and women, we are talking about in Iraq. And when we are talking about the Reserve and the Guard, in my State of Massachusetts, it is the fastest tempo that we have had, I believe, since the end of World War II--13 times higher today than the average over the previous years.

I know he has spelled this out in great detail about what this has meant. What we do know is that it has meant really a stronger military because of the Guard and the Reserve in my own State, having known those individuals and visited those facilities and met those leaders. They are as committed as any military men and women who have served in our country. They provide indispensable services. But as has been pointed out, we are straining these individuals.

Mr. President, last fall, many of us emphasized in the Senate that 9/ 11 had not nullified the long-standing basic principle that war should be the last resort. We felt that America should not go to war against Iraq unless and until all other reasonable alternatives for a peaceful solution had been exhausted.

Then--as now--I believed that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was not serious enough or imminent enough to justify a rush to war, and that we were going to war under false pretenses. Then--as now--I believed that war would distract from our broader war against terrorism and that we should not go to war with Iraq without the clear support of the international community. Then--as now--I believed that without a systematic re-examination, with dubious and even false rationalization, and without the informed consent of the American people, the Bush administration was drastically altering our long-standing foreign policy against preventive war, in order to justify its preconceived determination to invade Iraq.

Supporters and opponents of the war alike were enormously proud of the way our troops performed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The speed and success of their mission demonstrated the outstanding strength of the Nation's armed forces. As a citizen of Massachusetts and a member of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate, it never ceases to amaze me how far we have come in the two centuries since the embattled farmers at Concord Bridge fired the shot heard around the world.

In the past decade alone, technology has put vast changes in warfare on fast-forward. We redefined the nature of modern warfare in the Persian Gulf war, we redefined it again in Afghanistan, and yet again in Iraq. We have by far the world's best military on the ground, on the sea, and in the air. It is no accident that so few paid the ultimate sacrifice during those 3 tumultuous weeks in March and April in Iraq.

It was a foregone conclusion that we would win the war. But pride goes before a fall, and the all-important question now is whether we can win the peace. In fact, we are at serious risk of losing it.

Our policy toward Iraq is adrift. Each day, our troops and their families are paying the price. Our clear national interest in the emergence of a peaceful, stable, democratic Iraq is being undermined.

Since May 1, when President Bush announced aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier that ``major combat operations'' in Iraq had ended, 81 more American troops have died. For the men and women of our Armed Forces who are dodging bullets in the streets and alleys of Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, the battle is far from over. President Bush says of the attackers, ``Bring `em on.'' But how do you console a family by telling them that their son or daughter is a casualty of the post-war period?

The debate may go on for many months or even years about our intelligence failures before the war began. As we now know, despite the claim made in the State of the Union Address, Saddam was not purchasing uranium from Africa to build nuclear weapons.

Despite all the intelligence we were shown in the months leading up to war, despite the additional intelligence they said was there but could not be shared, we have yet to uncover any evidence that Iraq was stockpiling chemical or biological weapons. There was and is no evidence that Saddam was conspiring with al-Qaida. What was the imminent threat to the United States that required us to launch a preventive war in Iraq with very little international support? It is a disgrace that the case for war seems to have been based on shoddy intelligence, hyped intelligence, and even false intelligence. We have undermined America's prestige and credibility in the world and undermined the trust that Americans should and must have in what their nation tells them. How many will doubt a future claim of danger even if it is real?

The failures of intelligence were bad enough. But the real failure of intelligence was our failure to understand Iraq.

There is no question that long before the war began, a serious issue was raised about the danger of winning the war and losing the peace. In fact, it was one of the principal arguments against going to war.

Before the war began, 11 separate agencies of the United States Government worked with 280 Iraqi citizens in the State Department's so- called ``Future of Iraq'' working groups.

In numerous briefings, Pentagon officials assured us on the Senate Armed Services Committee that firm plans were in place to secure and rebuild Iraq. But the reality is that the administration had no realistic plan. We knew the post-war rebuilding of Iraq would be difficult. Based on our experience in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Afghanistan, we knew that security could be a profound problem, and that there would be challenges from a restless population. We knew that building a national police force and a credible new government would be complicated tasks. These are not new issues. But rather than learning from past experience in these previous conflicts, the administration was blinded by its own ideological bravado. It rushed ahead without planning for contingencies or raising even basic questions about likely events.

The foundation of our post-war policy was built on a quicksand of false assumptions, and the result has been chaos for the Iraqi people, and continuing mortal danger for our troops. The truth, as our colleague Senator John Kerry starkly stated last week, is clearer with each passing day and each new casualty: ``The administration went to war without a thorough plan to win the peace.''

The Pentagon assumed that we would be able to draw on thousands of Saddam's police force to protect security--but in the critical early weeks that followed the war, they were nowhere to be found, and too many of their officers turned out to be thugs and torturers.

The Pentagon assumed that the bulk of the Iraqi Armed Forces could be used to supplement our forces--but those soldiers did not join us.

The Pentagon assumed that some Iraqi exile leaders could return to Iraq to rally the population and lead the new government--but they were resented by the Iraqi people and the exiles were put on hold.

The Pentagon assumed that after a few hundred of Saddam's top advisers were removed from power, large numbers of local officials would remain to run the government--but the government crumbled.

The Pentagon assumed that Americans would be welcomed as liberators-- but for large numbers of Iraqis, we went from liberators to occupiers in a few short weeks. The dancing in the streets after the fall of the statue of Saddam was accompanied by an orgy of massive looting and chaos and was followed by growing frustration even from those who first saw us as liberators.

There was egg on the face of the administration and its peace plan from Day 1. Plan A was so obviously the wrong plan that GEN Garner, the man sent to oversee it, was abruptly replaced on Day 21, and Paul Bremer was rushed in to make up Plan B as he went along.

Today, Paul Bremer rules the country from Saddam's palace, while the Iraqi people too often sit in the dark without adequate water or electricity.

Hospital equipment and medical supplies have been stolen. Power grids in major cities are being sabotaged.

Cynicism and anger toward America are growing. Many Iraqis believe that we are unwilling--rather than unable--to restore basic services. They are losing faith and trust in our promise of a reconstructed, stable, peaceful future. They fear that Saddam may still be alive.

Under fire from guerrillas determined to see America fail, our soldiers are now performing police functions for which they have little training. They are building schools and hospitals--a task for which they are ill prepared. We are straining their endurance, and they want to know how long they will have to stay in Iraq.

That America would be seen as occupier should have come as no surprise. Former Secretary of State James Baker wrote in the New York Times last August, ``If we are to change the regime in Iraq, we will have to occupy the country militarily.''

Retired four-star Marine Corps General and former Central Command Commander Anthony Zinni said last

August that we would ``inherit the country of Iraq'' and ``put soldiers that are already stretched so thin all around the world into a security force there forever.''

James Webb, an Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, warned last September that we could occupy Iraq ``for the next 30 to 50 years.''

We knew--or should have known--that if we went into Iraq without the genuine support of the international community, there would be no easy way out. As James Webb also warned, ``Those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade and stay.''

The White House is only just beginning to face the truth. On July 3, President Bush finally agreed that rebuilding Iraq would be a ``massive and long-term undertaking.''

But that undertaking cannot be sustained--and no foreign policy in this free society can succeed--unless it is supported by our people. With the administration's credibility frayed, and distrust rising here at home, it is time for President Bush to level with America. It is time for him to hear and heed the words of the great World War II general and great post-war Secretary of State George Marshall in his historic commencement address at Harvard in 1947:

An essential part of any successful action on the part of

the United States is an understanding on the part of the

people of America of the character of the problem and the

remedies to be applied.

The Marshall Plan proposed in that address became one of the great achievements of the 20th century. It succeeded because it involved a coordinated effort by the United States and many nations of Europe to advance the recovery of the continent after the war, and Marshall won the Nobel Peace Prize. Is it too much to ask that we now be guided by that example?

President Bush should face the truth and level with the American people about the cost of stabilization and reconstruction in Iraq--both financial and human. We need a plan--a real plan, to which we are truly committed--to share the burden with the international community, including old allies who can be enlisted if we make a genuine effort to heal the divisive past.

Our troops are now sent overseas for longer stretches than ever-- because we rely on their skill and talents to meet commitments on a global scale. More than 150,000 of our troops are in Iraq, and many have been deployed in the region for close to a year. Half of our Army divisions are in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of 33 Army combat brigades, 18 are in Iraq.

The strain is also great for citizens serving in the Guard and Reserves because we must depend upon them with greater frequency, ever since we reduced our forces after the cold war.

More than 150,000 Guard and Reserve soldiers have been mobilized; 13,000 have been on active duty for at least a year. Others return home from deployments, only to be turned around and sent overseas for another tour. In fact, today our Reservists are spending 13 times longer in active duty than they did a decade ago, forced to put their lives on hold, missing births of their children, dealing with family crises by phone and e-mail.

Open-ended missions are a serious strain on our forces and their families. It is difficult to continue to put these patriotic men and women through the deployment grinder year after year and expect them to hold up indefinitely.

It is also difficult to sustain the cost of such missions. We are now spending $3.9 billion a month in Iraq. With the ongoing cost of the war on terrorism, our operations in Afghanistan, and our potential new responsibilities around the globe, in places such as West Africa, let alone Iran and North Korea, we are creating an unsustainable financial burden at a time of exploding budget deficits, soaring demands for homeland security, and mounting needs for health care, education, and other domestic priorities.

Despite the escalating cost of the military operation in Iraq, not one cent of its cost is included in the defense-spending legislation being considered this very week in the Senate. Not one penny. How will we pay the bill? To this question, there is only resounding silence at the White House, another refusal to level with the American people.

As a Nation with honor, responsibility, and the vision of a better world, America cannot invade and then cut and run from Iraq. But we also can't afford the continuing cost--in dollars or in blood--of stubbornly continuing to go-it-alone. If our national security is at stake, we will spare no cost. But we have options here that reach beyond the checkbook of the American people.

Working with the international community, we can develop and implement an effective strategy to change a failed course, reduce the burden and risk to our soldiers, stabilize Iraq, and deliver on the promise of a better future for the Iraqi people.

As we all know, a number of countries supported our military action against Saddam Hussein. Many others did not. But if the administration is willing to put the national interest ahead of its own ideological pride, I believe that we can secure broad international support and participation in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq. After all, so much is clearly at stake for the rest of the world.

At issue are the stability and the future of the entire highly volatile region. None would be immune from the dangers that a disunited and disorganized Iraq could present for its neighbors and for nations everywhere.

These are not just American or British concerns. They are true international concerns. America cannot be effective in its mission in Iraq if old wounds don't heal and bitterness continues to fester. We need to take the chip off our shoulder, mend fences with France and with Germany, and stop the divisiveness.

As we seek to stabilize and democratize Iraq, we do not need to go it alone and should not try to. If we diversify the faces of the security force, it is far less likely that Iraqis will see us as the enemy, oppressor, and occupier. We want the 25 million citizens of Iraq to see the forces that are there as friends and partners in their pursuit of freedom.

We need to bring regional forces into Iraq--especially Muslim ones. Countries like Jordan, Pakistan, and Egypt could transform this mission with both their diversity and their expertise. The United Arab Emirates have contributed to the effort in Kosovo. Morocco and Albania and Turkey have worked with us in Bosnia. Countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, and Spain could provide well-trained police.

Reaching out to other countries and bringing them into the post-war process is the surest path to a stable Iraq. But most other nations are unlikely to send troops to serve in what is perceived as an American occupation. They will be more likely to do their part if an international mission is approved by the United Nations and organized by NATO.

Secretary Rumsfeld insists that we are reaching out to the international community and that we are working with NATO. But the Secretary General of NATO, Lord Robertson, says that the alliance as an institution has never been asked to play the formal role in Iraq that it plays in Bosnia and Kosovo, and soon will play in Afghanistan. Nor has the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, been asked to seek international consent for a truly multilateral force. The United States insists on a coalition of the few, dominated and controlled by our Nation.

Instead of asking our Armed Forces to carry out a mission for which they are not trained and to do so alone, we need to rely on the expertise and resources of the international community. The United Nations has assumed that responsibility in other countries in the past. It is one of the major reasons why the U.N. was created--to bring international vision and strength to the difficult issues of peace keeping and nationbuilding after the Second World War. Necessity is the mother of invention. In the case of Iraq, President Bush has at last been persuaded to abandon his strong opposition to nationbuilding. The challenge now is to persuade him to move beyond unilateral nationbuilding.

The new Iraqi council announced on Sunday was a step in the right direction. But it would have been much

more effective if the U.N. Special Representative--and not the U.S. Government--was seen as sponsoring its creation.

If America alone sets up a new government in Baghdad, it may fail--if not now, later; if not while our forces are there, as soon as they are gone. Those who join such a government run the risk of being dismissed by the Iraqi people as American puppets. And for as long as America alone is calling the tune, Iraqi moderates may remain in the background, and possibly even oppose us.

Our interests in the emergence of a true democracy in Iraq are best fulfilled by involving the world community and especially other Arab nations as partners in helping the Iraqis themselves shape a new Iraq. Only then will a new Iraqi government be viewed as legitimate by the Iraqi people.

So it is time for the administration to stop giving lip service to international participation and start genuinely seeking and accepting it--on reasonable terms, and with a real commitment to it. President Bush's meeting with U.N Secretary General Kofi Annan at the White House yesterday should be the beginning of a renewed relationship and a shift in attitude at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue about the rightness and the practical imperative of working with others.

The U.N. has a mandate for humanitarian issues. But it has only an advisory role in the civil administration of Iraq. That has to change. The U.N. should have a formal role in overseeing the establishment of a political process. The U.N.--rather than the United States and Britain--should preside over the evolution of the new Iraqi government. Doing so will win international legitimacy and marshal international support for this challenge, minimizing the danger that Iraqis will regard their government as a puppet of ours.

With Arab-speaking spokesmen, the U.N. could also convey a different image and a different message to the people of that country, a sense of reassurance that an overwhelmingly American occupation never can.

NATO, as an institution, should clearly be in Iraq as well. Military experts believe it will take at least 200,000 troops to stabilize Iraq. Our goal should be to include NATO and some of its 2-million-member pool of armed forces in military operations as soon as possible. America would provide a majority of the troops, but over time the overall number of forces would decrease.

As in Kosovo and Bosnia, we should ask the United Nations Security Council to authorize NATO to organize an international security force to demilitarize and stabilize Iraq. Doing so does not mean that the United States should or must relinquish all military control. On the contrary, we would have a significant role in the NATO force, and could continue to have the defining role in Iraq. An American commander was in charge of American troops in Bosnia, and the head of NATO forces in Europe is--and always has been--an American.

Secretary Rumsfeld told the Armed Services Committee last week that except for the area around Baghdad, most of Iraq is already secure. If that is so--and we have to hope this estimate is more accurate than others we have heard--then why not reduce the burden on our military and decide that this large area of Iraq, which needs police forces as well as combat troops, should be turned over as soon as possible to a United Nations-approved and NATO-led force? Why not allow American and coalition forces to secure the area around Baghdad, and allow other nations to provide security for the rest of Iraq?

Finally, as long as Iraq continues to dominate our attention, we cannot give other aspects of the war against terrorism the focus they deserve.

Has the American occupation of Iraq defeated Osama bin Laden and al- Qaida? No.

Has it increased our security against the continuing al-Qaida threats in Afghanistan and other terrorist sanctuaries? No.

Has our action in Iraq led Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida to lay aside their sworn purpose of killing Americans and destroying our way of life? No.

It is not just what happens in Iraq itself, as important as that issue is, but the continuing urgency of the ongoing fight against terrorism that should compel this administration to enlist allies in an international plan for a peaceful Iraq. Otherwise, we run the grave risk of exposing our Nation to more terrorist attacks.

America won the war in Iraq, as we knew we would, but if our present policy continues, we may lose the peace. We must rise to the challenge of international co-operation. Saddam Hussein may no longer be in power, but the people of Iraq will not truly be liberated until they live in a secure country. And the war will not be over until the fighting stops on the ground, democracy takes hold, and the people of Iraq are able to govern themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule and want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart), for his stellar management of it, as well as my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

The Committee on Rules, as was said by both gentlemen, worked into the night to fashion this rule, and it will allow for the consideration of a wide range of very important issues. As was further pointed out by both of my colleagues, 42 of the 75 amendments that were submitted to us were made in order. We have 23 Republican amendments, 13 Democratic amendments, and six bipartisan amendments in that package, which will, I believe, allow us to consider many, many different issues of this important piece of legislation.

The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), Mr. Speaker, raised a number of important issues on amendments that, quite frankly, have not been made in order; and, obviously, everyone understands that we have to have some kind of constraint on the amendment process as we proceed with 75 amendments, many of which are duplicative. And so we have to put some kind of structure in order. That is the raison d'etre for the Committee on Rules, in fact.

So as he addressed those issues, I was thinking that many of those are important and need to be looked at, obviously focusing on environmental issues, focusing on the issue of the transfer of uranium. These are all questions that should be addressed. I agree with him that they should be addressed, but I would argue that this institution is effectively and very responsibly taking them on. Today, for example, on the issue of the Schiff amendment, we have the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence here in the House, very ably chaired by the vice chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), and in the Senate our colleague Pat Roberts is working on this issue; and obviously that is going to be an issue of discussion there and I believe will be responsibly addressing that question.

On other issues which the administration can very effectively address, I know that they are committed to improved environmental quality and other issues that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) brought forward as well.

I want to, Mr. Speaker, talk about a number of very important measures in this legislation which I am particularly supportive of, and I want to talk about a couple of amendments that I am going to be dealing with. First, I had the privilege of cochairing, along with our former colleague Lee Hamilton, who was in fact the predecessor of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), having served as chairman of what was called then the Committee on Foreign Affairs and now the Committee on International Relations.

Mr. Hamilton and I cochaired a task force that was put together by the Council on Foreign Relations and Freedom House, and the particular charge was to look at the U.S. leadership role in the United Nations. We obviously know, leading up to U.N. resolution 1441, before the war with Iraq, and the challenge of trying to put together a multinational coalition in dealing with the liberation of Iraq and the war on terrorism and a wide range of other international challenges that we face, that there has been a question out there about the U.S. leadership role. So this task force, I believe, came forward with some very, very first-rate recommendations, and I am happy that we have been able to include those recommendations as part of this bill.

I introduced, along with the ranking minority member of the Committee on International Relations, our very able colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), the package that is basically described as the International Leadership Act; and it will, I believe, take us down the road towards improving the role of the United States in the United Nations.

Now, many of the recommendations that are there are designed to deal with challenges like the fact, and this is unbelievable, the United States of America's being removed from the Human Rights Commission within the United Nations and one of the most repressive anti-human rights entities on the face of the Earth, Libya, being given the opportunity to preside over that structure looking at human rights. Well, obviously, there is something wrong with this picture, Mr. Speaker; and I think virtually everyone can acknowledge that.

We need to do what we can to encourage self-determination, political pluralism, and the rule of law worldwide; and I believe that those are goals that the United States and most nations that are members of the United Nations share. But, unfortunately, we have not had the kind of success in doing that that we would like, so it is for that reason that we have in this legislation the U.S. International Leadership Act, which will do things like encourage the establishment of a democracy caucus. It will encourage the United States to engage even more actively than we already do under the very able leadership of our first-rate ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte. We will be involved in a lot of things that, frankly, are modeled after the work here in the United States Congress, which I hope can be utilized to enhance the U.S. leadership role in the United Nations.

So I want to congratulate both my friends Lee Hamilton and the other great members who served on our task force, along with my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos); and I want to say that this has enjoyed strong bipartisan support from our friends, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and others. And so I look forward to discussing this further. I know that the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) will, but I wanted to raise that now at this juncture.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, let me say that there are a couple of other issues that are very, very important that need to be addressed here. One of them has to do with the challenge we have been dealing with in California, and it has to do with the issue of extradition.

Very tragically, last year a constituent of my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), happened to be near the area that I represent, Irwindale, California. He was with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and he was, unfortunately, killed. His murder was reportedly by a Mexican national, who, after murdering Deputy Sheriff David March, shooting him point-blank, fled to Mexico. We have been dealing with the challenge of trying to extradite this man who we believe is responsible for this murder back to the United States so that he can face justice here.

We know that there is a challenge within the Mexican constitution. They prevent extradition to countries that have a death penalty. And while I happen to personally be a proponent of the death penalty, we know that is a hotly debated issue here in the United States. But for that reason, because of the prospect of this individual facing the death penalty, he has not been extradited; and, in fact, the request has not formally been made for his extradition.

But there is another decision the Mexican Government made, and it had to do with the Supreme Court in December of 2001. They came down with a ruling that said that life imprisonment is, in fact, cruel and unusual punishment, and that has played a role in hindering the opportunity for this individual to be extradited back to the United States to face justice.

The gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) has an amendment, which I will be strongly supporting, that basically calls on both countries to try and bring about a resolution to work this issue out. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that I have been working closely with the very able Mexican ambassador to the United States on this issue; and I am convinced that within the leadership of Mexico, President Fox and other leaders obviously want justice. And so the McKeon amendment simply encourages a resolution to that which I hope will take place in the near future.

Having spent time talking with family members of Sheriff March and others in Los Angeles who have spent a lot of time focusing on this issue, it is very clear that justice is a priority. And I want to say that I hope that with passage of the McKeon amendment it will help us in our attempt to deal with this question.

I also want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I am going to be offering an amendment here which will deal with the overall issue of migration. I know there was a lot of discussion in the Committee on International Relations on this. I know the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) worked on this, the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger), and others; and I am joining, along with my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), with whom I am privileged to serve as cochairman of the U.S.-Mexico Caucus, which was established at the encouragement of Ambassador Bremer, and our goal has been to focus on the overall issue of trade between Mexico and the United States and the fact that we have seen tremendous benefits that have come about because of the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In fact, we have seen trade between our two countries move from 1993, prepassage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, at about $83 billion, to around $230 billion. So virtually a tripling of the trade between our two countries. So the U.S.-Mexico Caucus has been charged with looking at the real benefits and ways that we can actually enhance the relationship between our two countries.

So the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and I have joined as coauthors of an amendment which will deal with the overall issue of migration and encourage action on that, and I am hoping that we will be able to enhance the level of bipartisan support we have for this measure. It does, in fact, rectify something that I believe should not have been in the measure that was reported out of the Committee on International Relations with the United States basically calling on the Mexican Government to privatize Pemex, which is the oil company in Mexico.

We all recognize that there are problems within the operations of Pemex. In fact, I have yet to talk to a Mexican who has said to me anything other than that there are problems with Pemex. But I do not believe it is correct for the United States Congress to basically provide as a contingency for dealing with our very important migration policy, which Secretary Powell and this administration obviously want to address in a very responsible way, I do not believe that that should in any way be contingent upon our seeing Mexico deal with their challenge with Pemex. We want them to do that, but we obviously are not going to tie our goal of dealing with migration to a resolution to that.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is a very fair rule. It is a balanced rule that, as I said, allows 42 of the 75 amendments that were submitted to us to be considered. This legislation has some problems with it. I will admit it is not perfect. And I know there are some in the administration who have raised understandable concerns about a number of issues. But I believe that we can work very positively towards dealing with a number of those with the amendment process that has been put into place.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has offered a very strong statement, much of which I agree with. I believe that it is very important for us to vigorously pursue our goal of putting into place a comprehensive migration accord, and I think it is the right thing to do.

I will admit that I do not believe it was the correct thing for that Ballenger amendment to have been included in the legislation, and that is one of the reasons that in the role that I play on the Committee on Rules we chose to take and make the following amendment in order which I believe very responsibly deals with our shared goal and the goal that, as the gentleman pointed out, the President of the United States has on this.

The amendment reads as follows, ``(1) that the United States and Mexico should as soon as is practicable commence negotiations in an attempt to reach a migration accord that is as comprehensive as possible and which addresses the key issues of concern for both nations; and (2) that as part of any migration agreement between the United States and Mexico, the issues of extradition of violent criminals and law enforcement cooperation between the two nations be addressed.''

Mr. Speaker, I have raised these issues of concern on the issue of extradition, and I have been working with my California colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), on this issue dealing with a particular case in California. I do believe, as the gentleman said, the President does want to responsibly move ahead with this.

On the second issue of global warming, I have no doubt that this administration is very committed to dealing with that. We made a determination when 75 amendments had been submitted to us that we would include 42 of them, so there has been nothing secretive about this process. It is very open. We, in fact, are discussing it right now on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I hope we bring about an expeditious conclusion to this. Obviously, that is our goal. Secretary Powell has indicated his support of our amendment, and we know full well that he wants to deal with this.

I want to say this issue of immigration is something that we can address in a bipartisan way. I would urge my colleagues to realize that as we proceed to work to pass this rule and move ahead with this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I congratulate my friend on his statement and I believe that we clearly do have the shared goal of trying to address that concern that was raised from the State of the Union message. The reason that we did not make the amendment in order was very simply that we do believe that the work that is being done by both the Intelligence Committee in the House and the Intelligence Committee in the Senate will effectively address this. I know that the ranking minority member of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, Senator Rockefeller, has already had a lengthy discussion as I heard on the radio this morning with the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet; and I know that this is an issue that will be addressed in their committee tomorrow. I believe that we will be seeing attention focused on it within our Intelligence Committee. I know that, in a bipartisan way, concern has been addressed from members of the Intelligence Committee that the establishment of this could in fact play a role in undermining them. That was the reason that we did not make the amendment in order.

But I want to say to my friend that I do believe that since the ratio was 2 to 1, I hope that my friend will come down in support of the rule based on that. Two amendments he liked, one he did not; so I hope that he will join with us in supporting the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who chairs our Committee on Veterans Affairs' and has long worked on so many of these very important issues.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would say it is my intention to close the debate here single-handedly.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very fair and balanced rule. As was said, 75 amendments were submitted to us; 42 of those 75 were made in order. We are going to be debating a wide range of issues.

The question that was just raised by my friend from Massachusetts is one that will be very effectively addressed by the majority and the minority on our House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. To try to portray a concern about that other amendment is partisan. I will tell the Members that there are minority members on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who believe that we did the right thing here.

There are concerns that exist with this legislation, but I do believe with we should allow for a full debate, and we are going to be doing that. The establishment of the International Leadership Act, very important; dealing responsibly with the issue of migration, very important; dealing with the millennium challenge issue which the President has put forward and enjoys bipartisan support; these are all important issues that we will be able to move forward with once we pass this rule and pass this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, my understanding is that there is a first-degree amendment by my distinguished ranking member, the former chairman of our Budget Committee, that I very vigorously favor with respect to the National Guard and the Reserve. I know that the Reserve officers at the C-17 unit under General Black at the field in Charleston, SC, were alerted on September 12, the day after 9/11, and they are still flying. Now, that is quite a burden. Many are straining to make their rent payments and their house payments.

When we had a hearing about 2 months ago and the distinguished Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, came, after listening, I said: Mr. Secretary, what you need is not a money supplement but a manpower supplement.

In that vein, I want to say as much as I can in support of my chairman, but I deter for the simple reason that the money is not in this particular Defense appropriations bill for Iraq, and there is a good reason for it.

Now, there should be gratitude for little things that happen. I first express my gratitude to the distinguished editor and publisher of the Washington Post, Mr. Donald Graham. I complained in an op-ed piece some weeks ago that they were not covering the budget amounts and that we ought to have truth in budgeting, and because we have come to the highest budget deficit in the history of the U.S. Government, that ought to be covered as front-page news. Today it is. We have moved from page A4 to page 1. I have my copy of today's Post, and front and center on page one are the articles:

``The Budget Deficit May Surpass $450 Billion'' and ``Budget Woes Trickle Down.''

I happened to be a State Governor, and I received a AAA rating from Standard&Poors and Moody's, and we have maintained that in South Carolina. We have to have a balanced budget.

I coauthored Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, which happened under President Reagan. I have been in the vineyard. But the headline here states: ``The Budget Deficit May Surpass $450 Billion,'' and I want to thank Jonathan Weisman, the author of this particular story, and Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor, for including this.

I said we just move up in inches. Let's look at the Mid-Session Review of the Budget of the United States Government by the Office of Management and Budget, the Executive Office of the President, signed by Joshua Bolton, Director, as of yesterday, July 15.

We find out why Mitch left town. Mitch Daniels is gone. Now we know why Ari Fleischer is gone. Both Mitch and Ari skipped town. Why? Just look at this document. They have no tricky answers for this one. This is the Administration's writing, and I am reading on page 1 their statement:

The deficit for 2003 is now estimated at $455 billion.

That is on page 1. One learns, after years up here, how to read these things. So on page 57, you get to the actual deficit, how much we get in revenues and how much we spend, and if spending exceeds revenues, then there is a deficit. If we look at table 20 on page 57, we will find the total gross Federal debt for 2002 was $6,198,000,000,000 and it will go up to $6,896,000,000,000 this year. That is why Mitch left town. Compute that and the deficit will not be an estimated $455 billion; it will be $698 billion. They estimate a $698 billion deficit for the year 2003.

But, wait, we have actual numbers as of this minute. As of July 14th, yesterday, the Treasury says the debt to the penny is $478 billion. So it is already more than the $455 billion they say it will be at the end of the year. I guess that is why Paul O'Neill left town, too. They are all leaving if they have anything to do with fiscal matters, and so now we have John Snow as Treasury Secretary.

What did President Bush say when he came to town? I have the exact quote, taken from his first address to a Joint Session of Congress in 2001:

To make sure the retirement savings of America's seniors

are not diverted in any other program, my budget protects all

$2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social

Security and for Social Security alone.

Well, he is spending the trust funds when he says on page 1, $455 billion. He is spending $163 billion of Social Security, plus another $30 billion of other trust funds.

What we have is a Social Security trust fund, the Medicare trust fund, the military retirees trust fund, the civil service retirees trust fund, the highway, the airport, the railway trust fund, the unemployment compensation trust fund--which will be drained, incidentally; we will have to fill that back up. We are spending it on any and everything but unemployment. This is Enron bookkeeping. We are spending Social Security moneys on any and everything but Social Security.

But the President, when he was speaking when he was speaking right after he took office in February 2001, said that wasn't all he was going to do.

He goes on and says:

We should approach our Nation's budget as any prudent

family would, with a contingency fund for emergencies. We are

going to have a contingency fund for emergencies or

additional spending needs. My budget sets aside $1 trillion

over 10 years for additional needs. That is 1 trillion

additional reasons you can feel comfortable supporting this

budget.

Now, Iraq and Afghanistan and the whole kit and kaboodle, put in Liberia and whatever country he wants to run to, we have 14 peacekeeping missions, then we have Kuwait, then we have Afghanistan, then we have Iraq, and now he is looking for another country to send the military to. We don't have enough National Guard or anybody in uniform to get to that country, I can tell you that right now.

But that has not cost $1 trillion. It has not cost $1 trillion. But he had $1 trillion set aside before September 11, so why can't he pay for this out of that?

Now, let's find out what he said last year in the State of the Union:

Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-

term so long as Congress restrains spending and acts in a

fiscally responsible manner.

Well, all the spending bills were signed by President George W. Bush. So I take it since that was his admonition to us, he must have had that in mind for himself. And he signed only fiscally responsible budgets.

He also said:

The way out of this recession, the way to create jobs, is

to grow the economy by encouraging investment in factories

and equipment and by speeding up tax relief so people will

have more money to spend.

There were plenty of tax cuts, but he hasn't created any jobs.

One more--let's go to January of 2003, to what he said in his State of the Union then:

We will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to

other presidents and other generations. Tax relief will help

our economy immediately.

Immediately? He got yet more tax cuts, and we still have 3.8 million Americans, the highest in 20 years, receiving unemployment compensation. There have been over 3 million Americans who have lost their jobs since President Bush took office.

I think of President Clinton. He created 20 million jobs, and President Bush already has lost 3 million. Where is the immediacy that his budget is going to take care of?

We will not pass along our problems to other Congresses,

other presidents and other generations.

That is exactly what we are doing--$698 billion in bills. Mark it down. Poor Mitch, he got free. Mitch Daniels escaped to Indiana. He did not want to come before the Budget Committee and answer any questions, I tell you, and Ari Fleischer says: This is enough for me, I'm gone. Everybody is going to run--out of Washington.

I have worked with the Senator from West Virginia and my chairman, Senator Inouye, who is most responsible on budget matters and we balanced the budget. They want to forget that. Eight years under William Jefferson Clinton and we came from a $403 billion deficit in 1992 to finally getting in the black. We gradually got it down. I voted to increase taxes on Social Security. I voted to increase gas taxes. I voted for all of those tax increases and we acted responsibly.

George W. Bush comes to town and what does he do? He says: Tomorrow, don't worry about it. He has some fellow hidden out in the Pacific, he is far enough from Washington, out in California and Boston who says, don't worry about deficits and all. The youngsters are keeping IRA savings accounts and when their IRA savings accounts trigger you will not have to worry about deficits. There is no conscience with this charade. This is the best off-Broadway show you will find going on in the National Government, the National Congress.

I hope we can sober up and pull in our horns. We have so much manpower. We do not have the manpower of the Chinese. We have to maintain our security on the superiority of technology, and Iraq proved that. We had the superior technology. But we have been cutting back on that.

I have a hearing tomorrow morning where we are going to be cutting back the advanced technology. We are cutting back on education programs. We are cutting back on all the important investments.

I ask unanimous consent to print page 1 and page 57 of the Midsession Review for the fiscal year 2004 of the budget of the U.S. Government in the Record.

There you go. Instead of $455 billion in deficits, we are running right this minute, according to the Secretary of the Treasury, in excess of $455 billion. We do not have to wait until the end of September. We are already up to $470 billion.

The ``Public Debt to the Penny,'' I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.

Otherwise, you have heard the comments. It is going up

to $698 billion, and it will probably be even more than that. They are

trying to be as conservative as they can, I take it.

I appreciate the distinguished author of the amendment yielding me

time to talk on a peripheral matter. But it goes right to the heart of

why they do not include money for Iraq in the Defense appropriations

bills.

No, they don't put in the cost of the war.

I would be delighted to yield to the Senator.

I have the floor. I would be glad to yield to the

distinguished Senator from Alaska for a comment.

Let me yield the floor so the Senator from West

Virginia can straighten the point out.

Will the distinguished Senator yield so I can bring

this into focus?

Madam President, if you took the cumulative deficits

from President Truman, President Eisenhower, President Kennedy,

President Johnson, President Nixon, and President Ford--if you took the

deficits for all of the 30 some years which these six President's ran

up--it would add up to $358 billion. The deficit this year, according

to this President, is going to be almost at $700 billion.

Look at page 57 from the Mid-Session Review released today. See where

the gross debt from 2002 to September 30, 2003, is in black and white;

that is almost $700 billion. We are doubling the 30 plus-year deficit

of Republican and Democratic Presidents--paying for the cost of World

War II, all the costs of Korea, all the costs of 10 years in Vietnam.

We always paid our way.

Abraham Lincoln, the father of the party over there on the other side

of the aisle, put a tax on dividends and on estates in order to pay for

the Civil War.

Now you folks come and want to take the tax off dividends, saying

there is no tomorrow.

I would be delighted to yield.

According to the Concord Coalition--let me refer first

to them--you have diminished revenues $3.12 trillion in 3 years and

three tax cuts.

I know the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma doesn't want to refer

to the loss of all those revenues. But when the market sees that, they

say: Well, wait a minute. Yes, you can cut the interest rate a quarter

of a point under Alan Greenspan. But that means the Government will be

crowding the financial market with its sharp elbows crowding out

corporate finance, and they freeze in place. And we run huge deficits

in the balance of trade. We are running trade deficits of $500 billion,

that is $1.5 billion a day. The foreign investors who helped cause that

bubble are frozen in place. Then the poor worker finds as he opens his

mouth that his job has gone overseas, so he gets lockjaw and freezes in

place.

This is not like Jack Kennedy who inherited almost a balanced budget.

We started this fiscal year with $428 billion in budget deficits from

last year. This year, it is $698 billion, according to the President of

the United States.

Yes.

It only lasted for 3 years.

That is right. It is bipartisan. Kennedy wasn't

bipartisan. He was a Democrat. This is bipartisan.

Madam President, I am sure these other nine Republican

Governors quoted in this ``Budget Woes Trickle Down''--I am sure they

would love to be able to reduce rates. I know my Republican Governor of

South Carolina would love to reduce rates. They are not given that

option. This ``Budget Woes Trickle Down'' and those nine Republican

Governors are having to raise taxes. Kentucky let the prisoners out.

They are cutting back all the programs. Higher education is decimated.

Every college president is increasing tuition.

``Budget Woes Trickle Down.'' They are not cutting taxes.

Let's get right to where we are.

Bill Richardson is the only exception I have been able

to find.

That is right, $698 billion--spending Social Security

tax moneys. That is the revenues. That is how they get to the $455

billion on page 1.

But let me point this out because we were here in 1983, and the

distinguished Chair remembers this, we had the Greenspan commission.

That really started over on the House side with our good friend Wilbur

Mills, who had been chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He upped

the ante along with President Nixon, decimating the trust fund.

So by the end of the 1970s we appointed the Greenspan commission.

After a 3-year study, they came with section 21. It says we are going

to have an inordinate increase in payroll taxes, graduated up so as to

take care of the baby boomers in the next generation. Section 21 says:

And put this money in trust and don't spend it on anything but Social

Security.

Now my friend from Florida, what happens is, it took us from 1983 to

1990, I think it was. It was on November 5, 1990, George Walker Herbert

Bush, President Bush's father, he signed into law section 13301.

Section 13301 of the Budget Act, says: You shall not report a budget,

either the President or the Congress, spending Social Security trust

funds on anything other than Social Security. We put that into law and

they continued to violate it. They continued to spend it. That is

13301.

The vote in the Senate was 98 to 2 for that particular provision. It

is in the law today, in the Budget Act. But that is what they are

doing. That is when the distinguished President started off and he took

office in 2001 and he said: I am setting aside $2.3 trillion to take

care of the needs of Social Security.

He was following through on a pledge that he made in the campaign.

But we spend Social Security moneys on any and everything but Social

Security, and run around like a dog chasing his tail saying we have to

fix Social Security, we have to fix Social Security, we have to fix it,

and they have all kinds of plans: invest in the stock market, get an

IRA, take this percent, that percent, retire early, don't retire--you

know, on and on.

All they need do is obey section 13301 of the law, the Budget Act,

and not spend Social Security revenues on anything and everything but

Social Security. That is all they have to do.

I yield the floor.