Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2003

Madam President, I strongly oppose Senator Dorgan's amendment. The Secretary of Defense has testified that the cost for this last month was $3.9 billion in Iraq and $900 million in Afghanistan. As was stated, we provided, in a supplemental, $62.6 billion in late April. By the time it was available, it was May. And $30-plus billion, as the Senator said, went to pay costs that had already been incurred in moving our forces to Iraq.

But the Senator's proposal would instruct the President to submit a fiscal year 2004 budget amendment for the cost of the war in Iraq. Congress has not and should not instruct the President to submit such an amendment. As a matter of fact, Congress should not instruct the President to request funds now for future contingency military operations. We have opposed that concept in the past. We have not done it, and we should not start now.

We only need to review the recent history of financing military contingencies to know this would be a dangerous precedent. Just take into account that the number of times the Congress has directed a President, any President, to submit a budget to pay for future operations is zero. We did not do it in Desert Storm. We did not do it in Somalia. We did not do it in Haiti. We did not do it in Bosnia. We did not do it in Kosovo. We did not do it in Afghanistan. And we should not do it now. The reason is clear: because to try to estimate contingency costs in the future would lead us to creating contingency funds, which could be spent in any way the Department wants them.

Any submission would be inaccurate because the operational situation could change repeatedly during any time in the future. The Department does not know how much it might need for Iraq. They do not know what accounts they might need it in. That depends on the strategy that evolves as we deal with the situation in Iraq.

I personally believe the costs in Iraq are coming down. Slowly but surely, they are coming down. The amendment would force the administration to request a large, unspecified fund from which they would transfer money to pay for whatever contingency developed. We denied that. We denied that this year. The administration made such a request and we said no, we will not do that. That would only reduce congressional oversight and would give the Department of Defense a blank check.

I asked the Congressional Research Service to look at this matter and tell us how we budgeted for wars in the past. I quote from the CRS report:

Presidents have not requested and Congress has not provided

funding for wars in advance [never]. Rather, administrations

have requested . . . and Congress has subsequently

appropriated money to meet specific, documented budget

requirements.

That is what the O&M account is for. Presidents use the O&M account. We subsequently get their requests to add money and replace it in the accounts from which they have taken it. They show us what they have spent it for, and we go ahead and budget after the amounts have been determined.

In keeping with longstanding practice, the Department did supply us, in the President's submission, a peacetime budget for fiscal year 2004. That is for the ongoing baseline programs of the Department of Defense. It is not a wartime budget. As operational requirements change, we will see such a budget. Funding war costs separately, and in a supplemental, if necessary, makes the costs visible to Congress and ensures we do not distort the baseline funding.

We believe the Department will be able to define what the costs are when they determine what they are going to do. As they spend their money, they will come to us with fully explained, well justified, reasons for their expenditures of the moneys they have, and we will replace those moneys.

I do oppose Senator Dorgan's amendment. If he is going to present it as it is currently before us, I will move to table it.

Again, let me say, as I did yesterday, Congressman Young and I did meet with the President about the problem of the total amount of money in this bill for defense and other matters, and we took $3 billion out of the President's 2004 request. His budget request has been reduced by Congress, and this amendment would require him to submit us a supplemental now to pay for costs for Iraq.

We have already agreed, in effect, that the money the President has now, the Department of Defense has now, should fund the requirements of Iraq until we determine what permanent relationships there will be there. Hopefully, that will be done by early next year, and we will know. As these account amounts decline--and I believe they will--they should not average more than $2 billion a month, in my opinion, for this calendar year. If that is the case, there will be money left in the supplemental that has already been passed and adopted by the Congress and accepted by the President.

I believe we should follow the tradition of appropriations and handle money for defense based upon a firm understanding of what the costs are, not upon predictions of what the costing will be when we are at war. We deal with a prediction budget in the overall concept of 2004. Every year we get the President's prediction of how much money needs to be spent and will be spent in the coming fiscal year, and based on that prediction we provide money.

Wartime expenses have always been treated differently. No President has asked for money in advance, no President has ever received money in advance for a wartime budget. They have had concepts, like the supplemental we passed for 2003 to carry through in terms of the 2003 actions which will carry into 2004. And we will get a supplemental for 2004 when the time comes, if that is necessary.

I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Hawaii.

Madam President, it is beautiful, the way my colleague from Hawaii remembers things that happened in his own life and puts in perspective what we are dealing with. I hope the Senate listens because the problem that the Senator from Hawaii had as a platoon leader is exactly the problem the Commander in Chief has right now: How much are they going to spend and where are they going to spend the money.

The Senator from North Dakota wants us to tell the President, submit a budget to tell us how money will be spent, and we don't know what the plan is because the contingencies are so great.

Let me mention to you what we have just come through. We originally intended to send part of our forces into Iraq through Turkey. When we found out we had a difficulty there because of the change in administration in Turkey, we had to take those troops out, send them back through the canal and then come back up through the Persian Gulf into Kuwait.

Could we have anticipated those costs? Could the President have submitted us a budget for that operation? Absolutely not.

One of my tasks is to handle the appropriations bills and try to assist in handling the funding for our executive branch and all branches of the Government. But one thing continues to bother me about the emphasis on the current deficit. It is big. It is going to get bigger. Do you know why? Our whole economy is getting bigger.

When I first came to Washington, I had a mortgage of about $45,000. I sort of choked about that. My God, how could I do that? Our income at the time was $30,000 a year. I thought, this is a pretty tough thing but we had to have a house for our family of seven. Now our mortgage is 10 times that. Do you know why? My income has expanded.

The same thing has happened to our Nation. Our overall gross domestic product is so large that $450 billion, $500 billion is not as great as the deficit was at least 3 years of the Clinton administration. Percentage-wise we have to start thinking about what the debt is and how it relates to overall economic activity. I hope one of the joint economic committees will come forth and explain this deficit to us. It is bad. I don't like high deficits. I don't like to owe a mortgage either.

I hope the Senate will concentrate on what we are spending and not what the size of the deficit is right now. We want to hold down expenses. I think the best way to hold down expenses is to follow the precedent we have followed in every war to date.

I am reading a book right now about the revolutionary period and how Washington tried to get the Continental Congress to give him money. He was forced to spend money and then have them help him pay for it. We borrowed money around the world, particularly from France in those days.

You talk about a deficit; my God what the Continental States must have had in terms of a deficit. Somehow or other, the country survived based upon faith and trust in the system.

The system we have followed so far is that we do not fund wars in advance. I hope the Senate will defeat this amendment.

Does the Senator have any further time?

What is the time situation?

How much time on the other side?

Madam President, I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Under the previous order, that vote will occur later, and the order of the stacked votes will be determined by the leaders; is that correct?

I thank the Chair.

Amendment No. 1268

Madam President, soon after the war in Afghanistan started, I joined with others to go with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to Guantanamo Bay to assure ourselves that the Department of Defense is complying and will comply with provisions of the Geneva Convention with regard to the treatment of prisoners who are held at Guantanamo Bay and other places arising from that war.

It is my understanding the individuals who are detained are those who have participated in the battles in Afghanistan against our soldiers, and those who are, at the request of the Department of Justice, held for suspected terrorist activities in the United States in the war against terrorism.

The Department of Defense does not have control over these personnel. I believe they are really under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. I do not intend to make any kind of point of order based on legislation. I think we should just face this directly.

I think the concept of Senator Bingaman's amendment is directly contrary to what we should be doing with regard to activities of people who have conducted themselves as enemies of the United States in war and those who are involved in the terrorist activities as part of the terrorist war against the United States.

Placing a requirement that we disclose and give a schedule as required by this Bingaman amendment is totally contrary to the best interests of the United States. It would place an unwarranted pressure on the administration to decide on charging and prosecuting enemy combatants prior to completion of intelligence and law enforcement analysis.

These people in Guantanamo Bay were held incommunicado from one another. One of the reasons was the concept of the knowledge of who else was detained might deter one of these people from giving us the information we needed to find the leaders in the war on terrorism against the United States.

The process of investigation is a very long and tedious one. These people use different languages. We found they are using names and declaring they are from countries that are totally untrue. The real problem is how to deal with these people in a way to end the war in Afghanistan and to end the war on terrorism.

It is the executive branch's authority and responsibility to conduct the global war on terrorism. It is the executive branch's responsibility to conduct the war in Afghanistan. For Congress to impose a restriction on the activities that are consistent with precedent and consistent with the manner in which similar people have been detained over the years when we have been involved in war, such as World War II, and the Germans came to our shores and the spies who were intercepted throughout the world--they were held in the combatant status. These people are in combatant status and, as such, their treatment is subject to the Geneva Convention.

Only this basic law would impose conditions upon the right of the administration and the Departments of the executive branch to fully exploit the intelligence and investigative capabilities of the detention in a combatant status in order to deal with these two terrible scourges we face right now.

Unfortunately, the war in Afghanistan seems to be taking unfortunate turns lately, and I hope we can meet that situation. We meet it through information that we gather from some of these people. I am reliably informed that some of these people, in the way they have been treated, have divulged information to us that has led to the capture and detention of others in a similar capacity as having been enemies of the United States.

In short, I think it would be highly inadvisable to adopt the Bingaman amendment, and it would have a negative impact on both the war on terrorism and the conduct of wartime operations in Afghanistan.

There are cases pending in the courts now that this amendment, I understand, would terminate because there are people who, through civil rights cases, filed to determine the court's opinion as to the ``combat status'' designation, and I do not think we should take action now as a Congress to interrupt that process.

Madam President, does Senator Inouye wish to comment?

Madam President, for the information of the Senate, the Intelligence Committee has access to information about enemy combatants who are being detained, including names the Red Cross is fully engaged with in the continuing meaningful access to detainees.

This Congress was briefed about the creation of the military tribunals and the handling of detainees. The tribunals were created by Executive order. That was published in the Federal Register. It has been a matter of public record for some time.

Any detainees brought before military tribunals have full access to military and, at their request, civilian counsel. We are talking now about the requirement to publish, to release these names. By the way, they have been released, in effect, in classified form, but with the intervention of our Intelligence Committee, which is the oversight committee for this body in regard to information such as this.

I cannot believe we would be faced on an appropriations bill with a matter of this kind. It does not get into money, but it does deal with something the Department of Defense has connection with. It is relevant and therefore we must deal with it.

However, the broad release of the names of these individuals, even in classified form, could compromise our ability to access information which could prevent more terrorist attacks, could prevent more attacks on our military in Afghanistan. This is a military problem in that sense. That is why the Department of Defense is involved. It is the Department of Justice's sense in terms of deciding how they are prosecuted. If they are prosecuted in civilian courts is another matter. Then they would be fully accounted for in the public sector. If the prosecutor in the tribunals--the tribunals themselves can be closed, if that is the decision. The person would still have the right to counsel and a right to be tried before the tribunal, but we would not necessarily have public access to that trial because of the information involved.

If people want to go to Guantanamo and know who is there, go there. We went there. I don't understand why we should take this action now.

By the way, the Senator is not quite correct; it not only says the names and the nationality but also whether they are to be charged, repatriated, a statement of what procedure is going to be followed to determine whether they are charged or repatriated. That is intelligence information. And with respect to such individuals in the United States, intention to charge, a schedule for the filing of the charge and the date for the trial. If it is a military tribunal, it could well be classified. To require the determination now of what would be done--it is true there is an exclusion here; the Secretary can omit. But if he omitted one or more individuals, then he would include in the report an explanation of the mission of the individual or individuals. It could include a classified index. If it could include a classified index, why should it be published? We do not publish a classified index.

The term ``enemy combatant'' means an individual held under the authority of military order of November 13, 2001, as published in the Federal Register, or an individual designated as an enemy combatant and held under other legal authorities. In both instances, they have quality access to courts that protect their rights. Other people are pursuing those cases.

The interrogation process of people like this is ongoing and very timely. It does not lend itself to detailed plans, firm dates, and firm schedules. We saw some of that when we were in Guantanamo, but the interrogation efforts in many ways require somehow to get through to an individual who has lied to us about who the person is, where they are from, and refused to give any data at all concerning their own background. They were captured under wartime conditions.

This amendment is an attempt to poke Congress' nose under a tent, that we belong only if we are in an unclassified area. That is what the Intelligence Committee has already done. I am reliably informed the Intelligence Committee has access to information about these enemy combatants in detention, including their names. If they started releasing the names of these individuals, even in classified form, it could compromise sources and methods of their acquisition and compromise the possibility of gaining information on them that might prevent further terrorist activities.

If the Senator wishes further time, I will be glad to not yield back my time but I intend to yield back the time and move to table.

Madam President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Before that, I ask unanimous consent that the second and third votes in this stack of three votes be limited to 10 minutes each.

I yield back the remainder of my time, I move to table the Senator's amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

The first vote will be on tabling the Dorgan amendment; the second vote will be on the Bingaman amendment; and the third vote will be on Burma.

There are 2 minutes equally divided before a vote on each amendment?

Madam President, we fund peacetime budgets in advance. Congress has never agreed to fund wartime expenses in advance. Instead, we have always, in every instance, as stated by the Congressional Research Service, funded them after those costs have been incurred and with the President's request for the payment. Presidents take the money from existing funds and we replace those funds, rather than having budgets determined in advance.

As the Senator from Hawaii so vividly pointed out, it is impossible to know what the costs will be in fighting a war in advance. That is what this amendment urges, and that is why I moved to table that, and I urge the support of the motion.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, these people are being held consistent with the Geneva Convention. The Intelligence Committee of the Senate has access to names and information concerning those who are detained.

The Red Cross is fully engaged and has meaningful access to the detainees. We need to have the interrogation process continue so that we can see if we can get information from these people that might lead to us having the ability to prevent further terrorist attacks against the United States.

They are enemy combatants. There is fully published, in the Federal Register, the procedure under which they will be handled. This amendment, as a matter of law, forces the disclosure and a plan of when they are to be released. It is contrary to the best interests of national security, in my opinion. I made a motion to table and I urge its support.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, pursuant to the previous order, I ask that the Senate proceed to a vote on the passage of H.R. 2330, the Burma sanctions bill.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the agreement to have 1 minute on each side be waived, that we start the vote immediately.

Mr. President, I have to take credit on this one, I say to my friend. I asked that it not be completed until I completed a conference that I had conducted.

That is fine.

Did the Senator modify his amendment?

Mr. President, is that the subparagraph 5?

I consider the Senator from Massachusetts a great personal friend and I hope he takes no umbrage at what I am going to say. I have been here now 35 years. I certainly was not here during Senator Kennedy's brother's administration, but I was alert and part of the national constituency at the time and admired very much what President Kennedy did in terms of handling foreign policy, and particularly the Cuban crisis.

I read this and I see an amendment that tells the President to report to Congress on what he intends to do in the future in terms of negotiations, to give us a schedule of the strategy he and Ambassador Bremer will follow almost on a daily basis. I wonder what would have happened to President Kennedy in the Cuban crisis had that been the demand of Congress, to tell us in advance what they were going to do about the possibility that those missiles from Russia might come to Cuba. I really cannot believe the Senate has gone so far that they want to handle the President's daily schedule and have it in advance.

The President of the United States is the President of the United States. I really cannot believe anyone would vote for this amendment, and I hope the Senator will reconsider his language.

This last section says the President should give a statement and justification for his actions in seeking or in failing to seek an agreement for NATO to participate, or a U.N. Security Council resolution. That is required by the Senator's amendment. First, it tells him to seek it and then it tells him to follow up on almost a daily basis through this continuum now of handling the Iraq crisis. This is worse than the amendment we considered before, which would ask the President to predict how many mortars, how many missiles, how many whatever are going to be needed in the future, what is the plan for the future contingencies that might occur in Iraq. This is saying the President should give us a schedule that the President is going to use to seek to obtain approval of a resolution for the United Nations Security Council, including participation by armed forces of NATO and member countries.

As a matter of fact, we have already delegated that authority to SACEUR and to the ambassador to NATO. They have a daily proposition. I do not imagine they themselves even give the President a daily schedule of what they are going to do in the future with regard to NATO. Certainly to ask Mr. Bremer and the President's representatives to tell us what is their schedule now and in the future in dealing with other countries, when are they going to ask for U.N. participation, NATO participation, how are they going to do it, and will they please tell us, if they do not do it, why they did not do it, and if they failed, why they failed--my God, Senator, I really believe we should seriously consider what we are doing. This expects the President to seek and obtain. No, it does not expect. It directs him: The President shall seek and shall obtain.

The Presidency is a separate, independent portion of this great democracy. We have some checks and balances on it, that is true, and they are pretty strong, but we do not have the power to tell the Commander in Chief what to do. We do not have the power over foreign affairs. He does. If he wants to make an agreement, he has to submit a treaty, and he has to submit it to us for our advice and consent, but he still has the power to make them. We cannot tell him what to do. This tells him what to do. It not only tells him what to do, it tells him to succeed and, if he fails, to tell us why he failed.

Now, I do not know, maybe I am too much of an old trial lawyer. I get excited about some things, and I hope the jury is listening. I was pretty successful as a trial lawyer, as a matter of fact, because jurors listen if you get their attention. I hope I am getting the attention of the Senate, no matter where it is, because this amendment goes far too far:

Shall submit to the Congress an unclassified report (with a

classified annex, if necessary) on the United States strategy

regarding activities to the post-conflict security,

humanitarian assistance, governance, and reconstruction in

Iraq that are undertaken as a result of Operation Iraqi

Freedom.

Then it gives five separate categories of things that are done in the future. It is not a report of what has happened in the past. To demand it of the President and say the President shall submit a report to us on anything I think overlooks the concept of checks and balances.

We can ask the President to do something by a bill, and he can veto it. He is surely not going to veto this bill, although if I were President, if that came to me I would veto it because it does not represent the distinction I understand to exist under the Constitution in terms of the three great branches of this democracy.

Now, to have the President give us an estimate of the number of Armed Forces personnel that are needed in Iraq to guarantee the stability and reconstruction of Iraq, separately stated for each of the Armed Forces and, within each of the Armed Forces, for each of the components, predict again--predict the future, predict the contingencies, predict whether Turkey is going to participate, predict who else is going to participate, predict who will not participate, my God, do we want the President to publish that, that so far this nation has not agreed, so far that nation has not agreed?

We were privileged to listen to the Secretary of State today in a classified session upstairs give his opinion of what might be possible, but to ask even the Secretary of State to give us a plan and publish it for what he intended to do to try to achieve a goal that is a goal of all branches of our Government,

and that is terminate our affair in Iraq as soon as possible and successfully, I think it would be highly improper. I do not think he would submit it.

I take umbrage at the fact that this amendment tells the President what to do, and tells him to tell us how he is going to do it, in advance of even knowing what the circumstances are that he has to plan for.

We do not know how long we are going to be in a security situation in Iraq. I have told the Senate, and certainly I think most people know, I got a little upset when they would not let part of our committee into Baghdad. Other parts of the United States forces and executive branch are in Baghdad, and I pointed out to them that with other Senators I went in and out of Vietnam several times on helicopters that were shot at, but we went throughout Vietnam to see and report back to the Senate what was occurring. I thought we had that right to go into Iraq and report back what was occurring, but I was convinced later that--and we now know that there is a serious security threat there because of the snipers who are there, because of those people who are still so allied with the Baath party and Saddam Hussein that they are willing to literally commit suicide to cause us problems. That is not a new phenomenon if we look at what has been happening between Palestine and Israel for so many years, but we did not expect it there. I confess that was really a shock to me to hear about that, when our people were there to protect those who have been given their freedom, that some of their countrymen are willing to continue to kill us because we are protecting their own countrymen. This concept now is getting to the point of really being a difficult problem.

I think the Senate has a right to participate in these plans and to have hearings when the time comes and ask these people to come up and testify before us about what the plans are. Those plans undoubtedly would require expenditures of some Federal funds. I expect them to come before our committee and tell us they have requirements and then set forth the nature and extent of those requirements.

I certainly do not expect this committee to send a demand to the executive branch, particularly the President himself, to tell us now what they are going to do in the future and to predict now what the contingencies are in the future that have to be met or to have a statement and justification for the President for his actions in seeking or failing to seek NATO participation or a U.N. Security Council resolution. That is something the Constitution gives the power of the President to do. We are going to demand he give us a statement of justification for not taking action? I don't think that is within our province. Not at all.

I hope the Senate is listening. I hope the jury will agree with me and we will not approve this amendment.

How much time remains?

I postulate, if this power exists to do what the Senator from Massachusetts wants to do, we might not have been in Vietnam. I had a conversation with a former Senator who disagreed with President Johnson and wished he had some way of deterring him from his course.

I remind the Senator of the power of the President:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and

Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several

States, when called into the actual Service of the United

States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the

principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon

any subject relating to the Duties of their respective

Offices. . . .

Nothing in this Constitution gives the Congress the right to ask for that. In fact, to the contrary, there is a specific power for the President. In section 3 of article II it says:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information

of the State of the Union, and recommend to their

Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and

expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both

Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement

between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may

adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; . . .

There is nothing in this Constitution that gives us the power to tell the President of the United States what to do--not at all. The separation of powers is one of the most distinct advantages of this democracy. It is the longest living government on the face of the Earth today because it is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but it has a Constitution. That Constitution we all swear to uphold and defend. Part of that Constitution is the separation of powers concept. We do not have the power to dictate to the President of the United States. We can send him a bill and ask him to do something, and he can veto it if he wishes, but we cannot, in my judgment, tell him to do anything.

We cannot command him to plan in advance; to tell us what he is going to do; to tell us what is the plan of action for an area that is still so unstable that people are being killed. I regret that as much as the Senator from Massachusetts. We all do. There is no question about that.

There seems to be building up a feeling here that somehow or another we are wrong to be in Iraq; we are wrong to stay in Iraq. Yesterday, I had in my office a young man from the 101st Airborne who had served in Iraq. I asked him, What do you think about being there?

He said: Senator, I am proud I went there, and I want to tell you I am proud of what we are doing there.

He said: I never thought I would live to see the day we would see the results of a person like Hitler. I saw those graves. I saw the way they had been treated by that dictator. We were right to be there and we are right to be there.

I believe he would go back there today if we asked him.

The problem is not the presence of our people over there in danger. The problem is people questioning our right to keep them in danger without some plan in advance that would absolutely protect them from danger. I think we have the best system of defense in the world. I know we have the best military in the world. We have the best systems available to them in the world. We have the best sensors. But it is still possible to fool all of this technology and have a person come in and kill one of them.

As a matter of fact, it is possible to come and kill one of us. We can't tell them to give us a plan how to protect us, as a matter of fact. We don't have a plan to protect ourselves, as a matter of fact.

We live in a democracy. The democracy is that we elect people to carry out the duties under this book, the Constitution of the United States. I say this amendment violates the spirit and the meaning and intent of the Constitution of the United States. It is not our right to tell the President to give us a statement of justification for his actions in seeking or failing to seek an agreement in terms of foreign policy.

I do believe that we have a right, again, to schedule hearings, to ask them to come up and give us their opinions, as we did today with the Secretary of State--off the record, however, on a classified basis because of the nature of it. I believe we have an absolute right to ask him to give us details of the money he asks us for. And he will ask us for money, I am certain. But to go this far, to say that not later than 30 days from the enactment of this bill the President shall submit to the Congress this report, a schedule, to seek approval of the United Nations authorizing multinational force; an estimate of the number of forces we are going to have there to guarantee reconstruction for each component; an estimate of the number of personnel, armed forces of foreign countries that are needed to guarantee the stability and reconstruction--all of this--a schedule for the President to seek participation as an organization of many nations in NATO, ongoing operations in Iraq--I couldn't prepare that schedule. I couldn't prepare a schedule of my actions for the next week if I tried. And I don't see how the President can prepare a schedule of his actions on a matter so deep and so intricate as trying to determine how we should complete our actions in Iraq.

If I remember right, in October we passed a resolution the President signed giving him authority to do what he is doing. That resolution didn't say, and as you do, give us your plan of action in advance; define for us your strategy in advance; give us the number of people you are going to deploy; tell us how you are going to get foreign troops to come at us; go to the U.N.; go to the NATO.

We knew better than that. We responded to his request to get our approval of his intent to use his power as Commander in Chief to try to restore freedom to Iraq. I am proud of this President and what he did. I intend to defend him as much as I can and assist him as much as I can in achieving what the Congress asked him to achieve, and I do not believe he should be put in a straitjacket to do so.

Mr. President, I sense the Senator from Massachusetts wants to place the responsibility for those who are in harm's way, who do lose their lives, who do, as we say, make the ultimate sacrifice for democracy; and he wants to have a plan in advance.

It is true I voted for that resolution. It was precatory. It was a sense of the Senate saying to the President of the United States we think he ought to get as many people in there to help as possible. We think we ought to get the U.N. involved. We think we ought to use NATO forces to the extent we think we can. We think we ought to get a burden-sharing arrangement in Iraq because it is in the best interests of the whole world that we have eliminated Saddam Hussein. It is in the best interests of the world that peace be restored in Iraq. I firmly believe that.

We passed a resolution that told the President to use all necessary means to achieve the objectives we outlined. He asked for our approval of his intention to deploy our forces to take down the Saddam Hussein regime.

I absolutely agree. I voted for the resolution. It had nothing to do with asking the President to make the statements and to give us within 30 days a statement of justification for his actions in seeking or failing to seek NATO participation or a United Nations Security Council resolution: Thirty days; tell us now; and, if you haven't done it in 30 days, you failed. How is that consistent with the Constitution?

If we want to sort of assess blame for the deaths that are occurring in Iraq or Afghanistan, as far as that is concerned, we all share the blame. We are Americans who asked young people to volunteer. We didn't conscript them. Every single one over there--God bless them--is a volunteer. I think we are the only nation in the world today that has a totally volunteer military. We asked them to join. We asked them and told them what their duties would be. Their duty is to obey the commands of the Commander in Chief and to support the Constitution of the United States. Again, God bless them; that is what they are doing very well. I almost puddle up thinking about the young people who die because of the request of this Congress and the President's compliance with that request.

How we get out of this in terms of satisfying the demands of people who want a daily plan for what we are going to do tomorrow: We were privileged to see part of the plan that dealt with the embarkation of our forces going to Iraq. As I said here before, part of that plan was to go through Turkey. If that plan had been published about going through Turkey, and had it been discussed here, and had Turkey changed its mind, then the question would be, What was your contingency plan? Would we have published a contingency plan? We have contingency plans right now in case there are people who come back into Iraq who want to really restore war there.

The Senator says the President said the war was over. We all thought it was. Today, the military forces who are there in uniform are there because we don't have a civilian component capable of maintaining security in an atmosphere such as Iraq.

I just visited with some of the people who came back from there. They say it is sort of a scary place. There are places where you can drive down the road just like you would drive from here to Chicago. There are other places where you wouldn't cross the street. Our job is to maintain forces there to protect people who have to cross the street. Until our job is done, the President will keep our people there. Until that happens, and until he makes the decision to bring them back, I will vote for the money to support them. I will give them the authority and whatever he needs to protect them. And I will ask the Congress to make certain that we understand we will get further requests for money for Iraq. That is for sure. How much, I couldn't tell you.

Again, back to my great friend from Hawaii who made the statement about his time as platoon leader and how he would not have known how many grenades would be used in the next week. How does the President know how many forces he is going to have to use next week to protect those who are there? I understand that some of them are coming home. I saw a young man in my office who told me about his experience there.

But I don't think we are in a position yet where we can demand an estimate of the personnel of the Armed Forces in foreign countries and who are needed in Iraq and for reconstruction. That even implies that the forces would be used to reconstruct Iraq. I don't think they are going to use military people to reconstruct Iraq. I think we will have the council that has just been nominated put forth an Iraqi government that will seek support to use their own income from their oil and start bringing about an economic system that is based upon supply and demand and have reward for every individual for their contribution to their society. I expect to see a really vibrant economy and a vibrant democracy in Iraq before I leave this world because of what we are doing now.

Again, I urge Members of the Senate to support the Constitution. Don't get in the position where we try to dominate the executive branch by requiring a schedule in a bill which he cannot veto because of the circumstances which exist today. He cannot do that.

We must protect this bill against any threat of veto. Certainly there would be a threat of a veto. If I were President of the United States, I would certainly veto a bill that had that direction to me.

I urge Members to vote to table the amendment. I will do so when the Senator is finished with his time.

I yield such time to the Senator from Hawaii as he might use.

Madam President, the law we passed authorizing the President to proceed requires reports to the Congress:

The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to

the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint

resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise

of authority granted in section 3 and the status of planning

for efforts that are expected to be required after--

``after''--

such actions are completed. . . .

That is in the resolution we voted for. That is the authorization for use of force.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement by Paul Bremer, the President's representative, our representative, in Iraq, which was an op-ed piece he provided to the New York Times, dated July 13, 2003, be printed in the Record following my remarks.

In it, Ambassador Bremer states:

In all this, the coalition is working closely with Iraqis

who will eventually be responsible for their country's well-

being. For our three priorities--security, politics and the

economy--the strategy provides for the successful transition

to a stable and reformed Iraq. This does not mean that the

road ahead is without danger. The combination of a broken

infrastructure and acts of sabotage could mean a rough

summer. We will suffer casualties, as the bitter-enders

resort to violence. We are also braced for an increase in

terrorism by non-Iraqis, but no one should doubt our

determination to use our power in the face of violent acts.

Once our work is over, the reward will be great: a free,

democratic and independent Iraq that stands not as a threat

to its neighbors or the world, but as a beacon of freedom and

justice.

Exhibit 1

[From the New York Times, July 13, 2003]

The Road Ahead in Iraq--and How To Navigate It

(By L. Paul Bremer III)

Baghdad, Iraq.--Americans can be proud of the role their

fighting men and women played in freeing Iraq of Saddam

Hussein and his cronies. The people of Iraq are now on the

road to political and economic independence.

The first official step in this political transition at the

national level occurs today, with the convening of the Iraqi

Governing Council. This is the latest sign of progress. For

the first time in decades, Iraqis are truly free. More than

150 newspapers have been started since liberation. All major

cities and 85 percent of towns now have a municipal council

where Iraqis are increasingly taking responsibility for

management of local matters like health care, water and

electricity.

Iraqis are speaking out and demonstrating with a vigor

borne of 35 years of imposed silence. This is not yet a full

democracy, but freedom is on the march, from north to south.

Sadly, this progress is despised by a narrow band of

opponents. A small minority of bitter-enders--members of the

former regime's instruments of repression--oppose such

freedom. They are joined by foreign terrorists, extreme

Islamists influenced by Iran and bands of criminals. These

people do not pose a strategic threat to America or to a

democratic Iraq. They enjoy no support since their only

vision is to reimpose the dictatorship hated by Iraqis. Our

military will hunt them down and, as President Bush said,

``They will face ruin, just as surely as the regime they once

served.''

These shadowy figures are killing brave Iraqis working with

us, attacking soldiers and civilians, and trying to sabotage

the fragile infrastructure. The attacks have drawn concern

worldwide. My coalition colleagues and Iraqi friends have

noticed that the attacks are often aimed at successes in the

renewal of this nation. A week ago, an American soldier was

mixing with students at Baghdad University, which reopened on

May 17. Their presence was testimony to the educational

progress that is blossoming here (public schools have also

reopened). But our enemies fear enlightenment, so one of them

killed the soldier.

The day before, 250 Iraqi police recruits graduated, the

latest success in re-staffing law enforcement. Tens of

thousands of Iraqi policemen are now on duty. But the enemies

of freedom correctly felt threatened by the cooperation and

professionalism the day represented, so they set off a bomb

that killed seven new officers. Before the war, women had to

travel miles for propane. Now, local councils are

establishing distribution centers that make the gas readily

available to households. On June 18, one American soldier was

killed while guarding a center. The June 24th explosion at an

oil refinery in Barwanah is another example of political

sabotage on Iraq's energy supply.

With these attacks on Iraq's new successes, citizens of

coalition nations ask how long we will remain in Iraq--and

some Iraqis may doubt our ability to improve their lives. As

President Bush has made clear, we are committed to

establishing the conditions for security, prosperity and

democracy. America has no designs on Iraq and its wealth. We

will finish our job here and stay not one day longer than

necessary.

We have a plan to support the establishment of this

government of, by and for Iraqis. After months of

consultations with Iraqis, we have take the first step in

establishing an interim administration. Today, the Governing

Council of Iraq will meet. It represents all the strands from

Iraq's complicated social structure--Shiites, Sunnis, Arabs,

Kurds, men and women, Christians and Turkmens. The council

will immediately exercise real political power, appointing

interim ministers and working with the coalition on policy

and budgets.

At the same time, the council will establish procedures to

write Iraq's new constitution. Once it is ratified by the

people, elections can be held and a sovereign Iraqi

government will come into being. So the question of how long

the coalition will stay in Iraq depends in part on how

quickly the Iraqi people can write and approve a

constitution.

The coalition recognizes the urgency of marrying economic

well-being to political freedom. For 35 years, the country's

assets were misappropriated or stolen. We are pouring

resources into re-establishing basic services and creating

jobs. Our economic reform plan will entail a major shift of

capital from the value-destroying state sector to private

firms. We are also creating a social safety net for any

resulting disruptions. And we believe that a method should be

found to assure that every citizen benefits from Iraq's oil

wealth. One possibility would be to pay social benefits from

a trust financed by oil revenues. Another could be to pay an

annual cash dividend directly to each citizen from that

trust.

In all this, the coalition is working closely with Iraqis

who will eventually be responsible for their country's well-

being. For our three priorities--security, politics and the

economy--the strategy provides for the successful transition

to a stable and reformed Iraq. This does not mean that the

road ahead is without danger. The combination of a broken

infrastructure and acts of sabotage could mean a rough

summer. We will suffer casualties, as the bitter-enders

resort to violence. We are also braced for an increase in

terrorism by non-Iraqis, but no one should doubt our

determination to use our power in the face of violent acts.

Once our work is over, the reward will be great: a free,

democratic and independent Iraq that stands not as a threat

to its neighbors or the world, but as a beacon of freedom and

justice.

Madam President, I move to table the Senator's amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, were the yeas and nays ordered on the Kennedy amendment?

I call for the regular order.

Madam President, Senator McCain will be recognized to offer an amendment and after that Senator Corzine.

That is agreeable. I state to the Senate that Senator Corzine will offer an amendment and then Senator McCain will offer an amendment. We will vote on those two amendments. Hopefully, we will start at 7 o'clock on those two amendments.

I want to tell the Senate, I have been negotiating with my great friend, our great leader--can I call you the great leader?--about the process. Senator Frist has agreed that I can state, if we can finish this bill tomorrow night, there will not be any votes on Friday. The Senate will be in session. And on Monday we will be in session but there will be no votes. It will be our intention to call up and start statements and even consider amendments, if Senators wish to raise them, on homeland security on Monday, but no votes. That is conditioned upon us finishing this bill before we go home tomorrow night. I know a lot of people want to make plans to travel west. You can leave in the morning or late at night where I live.

As a practical matter, I urge Senators to cooperate with us and find ways to raise their amendments. We will be pleased to stay in session tonight and have amendments offered and have them voted on at a time to be determined tomorrow. We are going to try to do our best to continue through tomorrow. We do have a Joint Meeting of Congress for the leader of Britain tomorrow. That will interrupt this process a little bit. But we will continue after that tomorrow and finish if Members will cooperate.

We can turn this into a little prayer meeting. So others might follow the example, I yield to the Senator who wishes to state he will not raise an amendment.

I shall take care of myself, Madam President.

Senator McCain assured me he would cooperate with our schedule, knowing the event Senator Inouye and I will attend tonight at 7:30 honoring World War II veterans. We will come back to continue the bill after that ceremony.

Will the Senator yield?

The so-called bug-to-drug program has an official name. The official name is the Engineered Pathogen Identification Program. Its goal is to identify and protect soldiers from both unknown and genetically engineered pathogens, such as anthrax, plague, and Ebola. Currently, there are no pathogen vaccines. It would take 7 to 15 years to develop one.

This program is an attempt to shorten the time from drug development to its release for use as some type of an antigen to these pathogens which are very dangerous to our service men and women worldwide.

Mr. President, we had a time agreement and the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Arizona have spoken. I will make a few brief remarks and yield to my colleague. Then it is my intention to move to table these two amendments. Let me state why.

First in regard to Senator McCain's amendment, I state this sincerely, I think Senator McCain provides a very useful function for this Congress and this Senate with regard to the process we are involved in, the appropriation of money from the Treasury, spending the people's money. I am very sincere. We have checked every one of the amendments we have agreed to by unanimous consent with the Senator's staff before getting that agreement. That is a process we didn't use before. At times they make comments that lead us to change the amendments. And the Senator has, through this process, picked out some he would like to take out of the bill or put in the bill before we pull it out of committee. Let me comment on a couple of those.

The Senator mentioned the brown tree snakes. We have provided $1 million for control of these snakes. That primarily is to continue a very successful program so far that has been carried out on military planes to Hawaii from Guam. These snakes are carried inadvertently on military planes to Hawaii from Guam. The snakes are endemic to Guam and come on the military planes at Anderson Air Force base in Guam and then go into Hawaii. We hope we can prevent it. It will have an enormously adverse impact on the agriculture sector of the economy. But it is a military function. It is trying to eradicate or control these brown snakes where they come from, as they have been a menace to Hawaii because of their ability to crawl on to military planes as they come to Hawaii from Guam.

I commend the Senator for raising the question, but clearly we have examined it. It is an ongoing program.

The canola oil fuel cell initiative is an existing program between the Department of Defense and the Department of Interior. It is funded in this bill for $2.5 million. Both Departments put money into it. This project will extract and convert technologies, transforming agriculture materials into bio-based fuel. Specifically, it is the rapeseed-based biodiesel fuel, and the underlying goal is to convert bio-based fuel into a hydrogen-rich gas stream to use with fuel cells and micro turbines and other power generation systems. It does have a legitimate defense interest, and it is a program for the Department of the Army, primarily in research and development.

Shakespeare in American Military Communities is a very interesting program. This is being done in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts. It is a partnership with the Department of Defense. The goal is to bring the arts to military personnel and their families as they are brought to other communities and high schools throughout the country. The proposal for this year is to perform ``Macbeth'' on 16 military bases in conjunction with educational programs. This is one of the programs the military is very pleased that we are trying to make available to them to improve the cultural activities on military bases, particularly for young children. We are looking into the prospect of taking some of these cultural programs overseas to meet the needs of the people stationed there. We have under consideration Fort Huachuca and Davis Monthan Air Force Bases. I know them both very well.

Further, the Senator raised the question of the Griffiss hangar renovation. This is part of a hangar that is used for the ongoing work and research of the Air Force research laboratory in Rome, NY. Damage to the hangar increases the heating, utility, and other fixed costs of the laboratory facility to its detriment. It is a renovation of a former Air Force base, but it is used by the Air Force research laboratory.

I regret to say I disagree with my good friend. I do note that what he is doing is trying to make certain we know what we are doing. On this amendment, I am sad to say I disagree with him, and I will move to table it in just a moment.

With regard to the amendment offered by Senator Corzine, I have a problem, a decided problem with this. There is an ongoing investigation or series of hearings--I don't know whether you want to call it an investigation yet--of the items covered by this proposed amendment, creating a national commission on the development and use of intelligence related to Iraq.

Iraq is still ongoing. To create a commission now to look into Iraq primarily based upon the problem related to the President's statement in his State of the Union Message--which, by the way, was true, but not really totally accurate in terms of the interpretation people gave to it--in order to start the campaign of 2004, at a time when we have men and women in uniform over there now, their commanders, Ambassador Bremer, all of the people who participated in the process of this intelligence activity, including the CIA and the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, all of them will be involved in hearings before the commission. They are already in hearings before the House and the Senate, and they have unknown involvement in the internal investigation also going on in the Department.

As I said previously, almost all of us heard the Secretary of State, my great friend Colin Powell, tell us about his involvement and how this train of circumstances developed with regard to how that statement was in the President's State of the Union Message. We all know Presidents don't write their own State of the Union Message. They review drafts, and they rely on their

subordinates to see that they are absolutely accurate. In the process, a statement was inserted that could be interpreted in a way that could mislead people.

Already the Director of the CIA has admitted his system made a mistake. He has taken responsibility, as he should, for something that should have been taken out by the CIA reviewer. It was not. It was taken out of a previous statement at another time. No question was raised about its being taken out. In this instance, it was not taken out and Director Tenet said it should have been taken out. He takes the responsibility himself because of the failure of his Agency, just as I make a policy when any member of my staff makes a mistake, I treat it as my mistake. George Tenet didn't make the mistake. The process in the CIA made the mistake. The President didn't make a mistake. In the process of preparing that statement, there was a mistake made.

I am tired of making a mountain out of a molehill on this one. I am particularly disturbed with the fact that people want to create another commission. This is not a time for a commission like the commissions we have known in the past. This is not Watergate. That is the impression. This is not a Watergate. It is not even a ``truth gate.''

The President read a speech that was prepared for him. We all clapped at it, and we all approved of it. It was one part of it, one tiny part of it that should have been taken out in the process of review.

Now to create a commission primarily for that and all the rest of the garbage in this thing--pardon my French--all the statements in here as to what is going to be investigated with regard to the possession of mobile laboratories, with regard to an attempt to procure aluminum tubes--it wasn't an attempt; they were procured. But the concept of whether or not Iraq possessed delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction--we had 17 resolutions of the United Nations that were not complied with. Why were they passing 17 resolutions if there was nothing to investigate?

But the main thing, why should we create a commission now to look into something that is ongoing? Once this is all tied down and we have our people home and Mr. Bremer is residing in the U.S., and the people involved in all of the intelligence activities that led to the statement are in the United States again, we can have some form of commission to review it. This Senator would not oppose that.

But this is an ongoing operation, and this is an attempt to smear the President of the United States. I shall not permit that if I can possibly avoid it.

As I understand it, there is no further time agreement. I have the floor. I intend to keep the floor until I make a motion to table this amendment.

I am happy to yield to my friend from Arizona for a question.

The Senator is absolutely correct. What is more, Senator Inouye and I went to the CIA and we talked to the Director, and he informed us that he sent a stack of material this high to the committee already for its review. It is going to take some time to review all that. It is ongoing. This would have us appoint a commission to review the same thing that we are already investigating in the Senate Intelligence Committee and that the House is investigating. I presume the Armed Services Committee has some jurisdiction on this matter, also. The Foreign Relations Committee has jurisdiction.

Why should we appoint a commission to do what we should do--to do our work, particularly when it is not on a timely basis? As the Senator from Arizona stated in his question to me, the time may come when the public will question the results of our activities as Members of Congress. If they do, then the right thing for us to do--or the time may come when they develop such a conflict within Congress that it cannot be resolved, and that would be an appropriate time to perhaps look at a commission outside of the Congress. But right now is not the time.

Yes, I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, the question is relevant because the purpose of this commission is to support ongoing congressional reviews regarding the collection and analysis of intelligence data. We have not done it yet. We don't need any support that I know of. The support base is the executive branch and in the media to examine the report and the role of policymakers relating to Iraq and Iraqi freedom. That is not over yet.

Again, there is a timeliness to commissions. But more than that, there is the ongoing impact coming into this Senator's soul that we are starting a campaign of 2004. It is too early to do that, when we have men and women overseas in uniform trying to defend themselves and carry out the orders of the Commander in Chief. It is not timely to do this, and I do object to it.

Mr. President, I don't often do this. I am really going to be a little bit brash--you could not imagine I would do that, I am sure. Does the Senator from Nevada wish to ask a question?

I was going to make that order. I am pleased that the Senator said that.

Mr. President, in order that the Senator from Hawaii and I can go to an appointment we have involving World War II veterans, I will take it upon myself to move to table the Corzine amendment and to ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent at this time that it be in order to move to table the McCain amendment, and for that purpose I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, for the information of the Senate, following these two amendments, there will be a period for routine morning business.

I ask unanimous consent that following the votes there be a period for routine morning business, and that the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, make a statement.

Mr. President, Senator Reed will be making a statement on the bill. Following his statement, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for routine morning business until the Senator from Hawaii and I have returned from our event, which will be, I believe, about 8:15.

We have not done that. We need to have the time to do that.

Mr. President, in explanation, it is my intent to come back. The Senator from Hawaii will not have to come back. We want to enter into a unanimous consent agreement for the order of amendments. There will be two amendments. At 10 o'clock Senator Byrd will offer an amendment. I believe we will have an order for the Senate to come in sometime just prior to 9 o'clock.

I am not going to make that order yet. That is the understanding I have, that we will come in around 9 o'clock and consider two amendments, and Senator Byrd is to offer his amendment at 10 o'clock.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Yes.

Mr. President, I have had the opportunity to share this amendment with the manager of the bill. I believe the floor manager is familiar with it.

The amendment is now at the desk. I welcome the opportunity to address the Senate on the substance of the amendment. I supported the Boxer amendment that we just voted on, which failed to carry. She was seeking important information on the Iraqi operation. I believe the American people deserve this information. But they also deserve a plan.

My amendment requires the administration to report information on that plan. This amendment asks the President to submit a report to the Congress within 30 days of enactment on the efforts to internationalize our operations in Iraq. The report would provide a timetable for the President to seek NATO participation as an institution in the ongoing operations in Iraq. It would provide a timetable for the President to seek and obtain the approval of a resolution of the United Nations Security Council authorizing a multinational security force, including substantial participation by the Armed Forces of NATO member countries, to guarantee the stability and reconstruction of a democratic Iraq.

The report would include an estimate of the number of American Armed Forces personnel needed in Iraq to guarantee the stability and reconstruction of Iraq, and an estimate of the number of personnel from foreign countries that the administration believes are necessary to accomplish that goal.

Finally, if the administration chooses not to go to NATO or the U.N., the report would require an explanation of the rationale.

Last week, by a vote of 97 to 0, the Senate approved a resolution encouraging the President to consider requesting the involvement of NATO and the U.N. in Iraq. This amendment builds on that action by seeking a plan and timetable for doing just that.

The administration has had plenty of time to consider this. For the sake of the soldiers in Baghdad, it is time to act. Supporters and opponents of the war alike are enormously proud of the way our troops performed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The speed and success of their mission in toppling Saddam Hussein demonstrated the extraordinary ability of our Nation's Armed Forces. It is no accident that so few of our forces paid the ultimate price during the 3 tumultuous weeks this took.

It was a foregone conclusion that we would win the war, but the all- important challenge now is to win the peace. In fact, we are at serious risk of losing it. Each day now, as the guerrilla war goes on, our troops and their families are paying the price. Our clear national interests in the emergence of a peaceful, stable, and democratic Iraq is being undermined.

Since May 1, when President Bush announced on the aircraft carrier that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 82 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 to the attackers, ``bring 'em on,'' but how do you console a family by telling them their son or daughter is a casualty of the postwar period?

The debate may go on many months, or even years, about our intelligence failures before the war began. 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, the 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.

Based on our past experience in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Afghanistan, we knew the postwar rebuilding of Iraq would be difficult. These are not new issues. Rather than learning from the past experience in these previous conflicts, the administration rushed ahead, and the result has been chaos for the Iraqi people and continuing mortal danger to our troops--all because we insisted on doing it unilaterally, without the support of the two international organizations that could have made all the difference in winning the peace.

Sadly, we quickly went from liberators to occupiers in a few short weeks. Cynicism and anger against America are rife. Many Iraqis believe we are unwilling, not just unable, to restore basic services. They are losing faith and trust in our promise of a reconstructed, stable, peaceful future, and they fear that Saddam may still be alive. Under fire from guerillas who are determined to see America fail, our soldiers are now performing police

functions for which they have had little training. We are straining their endurance, and they want to know how long they will have to stay in Iraq. Even President Bush is now saying rebuilding Iraq will be a massive and long-term undertaking.

What we need most now is to share at least some of the burden with the international community. Our troops are now sent overseas for longer tours of duty than ever. Because we rely on their skill and the skill to meet commitments on a global scale, more than 150,000 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 the 33 Army combat brigades, 18 are in Iraq. The strain is also great for citizens serving in the Guard and Reserves because we depend upon them with greater frequency, ever since we reduced our forces after the cold war.

It is difficult to continue to put patriotic reservists 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, and with the ongoing costs of the war on terrorism, our operations in Afghanistan, and our potential new responsibility 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.

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 cannot afford the continuing costs in dollars or in blood of continuing to go it alone. If our national security is at stake, we will spare no cost.

The alternative is so obvious. Working with the international community, we can develop and implement an effective strategy to reduce the burden and risk to our soldiers, stabilize Iraq, and deliver on the promise of a better future for its people.

Whatever our divisions before the war, the challenge is very different now. There is every chance we can secure broad international support and participation in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq. All we may have to do is ask because so much is clearly at stake for the rest of the world.

At issue is the stability and the future of the entire highly volatile Middle East. No one would be immune from the dangers that a resentful and disorganized Iraq presents for its nation and neighbors everywhere. 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 armed strangers in their country as friends and partners in their pursuit of freedom. We want the new governing council appointed last Sunday to succeed.

We need to bring regional forces into Iraq, especially Muslims. Countries such as 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, Albania, and Turkey have worked with us in Bosnia. Many nations have well- trained police. Reaching out to other countries and bringing them into the postwar process is the surest path to a stable Iraq.

But most other nations are unlikely to send troops to serve what is perceived as an American occupation. India turned us down earlier this week. Other nations will be far more likely to do their part if the international mission is approved by the United Nations or organized by NATO. Instead of asking our Armed Forces to carry out a mission they are not trained for, and to do it alone, we need to rely on the expertise and the resources of the international community. The United Nations has assumed that responsibility in other countries in the past, and it is one of the major reasons the U.N. was created. Necessity is the mother of invention.

In the case of Iraq, President Bush obviously had to modify his strong opposition to nation building. The challenge now is to move beyond unilateral nation building. The new Iraqi council announced on Sunday is a step in the right direction, but it will be much more effective if the United Nations has a major presence in overseeing it.

Those who join a United States-dominated, government-run council run the high risk of being dismissed by the Iraqis as American puppets. As long as America alone is calling the tune, Iraqi moderates may remain in the background or 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 part of helping the Iraqis themselves shape a new Iraq. Only then would a new Iraq government be viewed as legitimate by the Iraqi people. The U.N. has a modest role now through its 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, should preside over the evolution of a new Iraqi government. Doing so will win international legitimacy and indispensable international support for this challenge, minimizing the danger that Iraqis will keep regarding their new 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 overwhelming 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 will provide a majority of 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. To do so does not mean 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 a 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.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

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, then why not reduce the burden on our military and allow this large area of Iraq, which needs police officers as well as combat troops, to be turned over as soon as possible to the 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?

We all know that as long as Iraq continues to dominate our attention, we cannot give other aspects of the war against terrorism the clear focus they deserve. 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 persuade us to seek allies in an international plan for a peaceful Iraq. Otherwise, we run the grave risk of exposing our Nation to more terrorist attacks.

We 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 cooperation. Saddam may no longer be in power, but the people of Iraq will not truly be liberated until they live in a secure country. 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.

My amendment asks the administration to make a major, genuine effort to enlist the official support of NATO and the United Nations for our forces in Iraq. I urge the Senate to affirm it.

Mr. President, I will take a few moments to review the amendment. It is two pages. It says:

Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this

Act, the President shall submit to Congress an unclassified

report (with

a classified annex, if necessary) on the United States

strategy regarding activities related to post-conflict

security, humanitarian assistance, governance, and

reconstruction in Iraq that are undertaken as a result of

Operation Iraqi Freedom. The report shall include the

following:

(1) A schedule for the President to seek NATO

participation, as an organization of many nations, in ongoing

operations in Iraq.

(2) A schedule for the President to seek and obtain

approval of a resolution of the United Nations Security

Council authorizing a multinational civil and security force

(including substantial participation by armed forces of NATO

member countries under unified command and control) to

guarantee the stability, democratization, and reconstruction

of Iraq.

(3) An estimate of the number of Armed Forces personnel

that are needed in Iraq to guarantee the stability and

reconstruction of Iraq, separately stated for each of the

Armed Forces and, within each of the Armed Forces, for each

of the components.

(4) An Estimate of the number of personnel of armed forces

of foreign countries that are needed in Iraq to guarantee the

stability and reconstruction of Iraq.

(5) A statement and justification from the President for

his actions in seeking or failing to seek NATO participation

or a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Basically, what this amendment is saying is, let us hear from the President on what the plan is for postwar Iraq.

Let the Senate hear from the President his response to what was the 97 to 0 vote in the Senate Chamber last week that asked him to consider going to the United Nations, going to NATO, and reporting back to the Congress so the American people will have knowledge and understanding of exactly what the plans for the future of Iraq would be.

I hope as we were able to gather a virtually unanimous vote in the Senate last week on the previous resolution, we could gather support in the Senate on this resolution.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

The amendment I sent to the desk did not need a modification. I provided for the Senator paragraph 5.

Yes. That was the modification. Rather than sending the modification to the desk, I sent a completely new amendment and I believe my staff shared it with the Senator. The only difference was these four lines:

A statement and justification from the President for his

actions in seeking or failing to seek NATO participation or a

U.N. Security Council resolution.

So the purpose of the last paragraph is that if the President decides he is not going to follow this, that he will send back to the Congress and to the Senate a report stating to the American people the reasons and the justification for not doing so.

Mr. President, 82 American soldiers have been shot since the President of the United States landed on the Abraham Lincoln and effectively said this war is over. There is no postwar policy. It is a bankrupt policy.

We attended the hearings with General Garner regarding postwar Iraq policy. He lasted 21 days and was fired. Now we have new personnel in Iraq, operating out of the palace in Iraq. We have American servicemen who are in a shooting gallery over there; and the Senator from Alaska is rejecting our request for the President of the United States to tell us what our policy is?

We do not have a postwar policy for development in Iraq. We have failed intelligence. One day they are saying the army is going to defect and join us; the next day they fire the army, the next day they are trying to rehire them. One day they say they will recruit the police and the next day they say they are thugs and will have nothing to do with them. They don't have a policy.

For the Senator from Alaska to stand here and say he is indignant because the American people want to hear what the policy is surprises me just as much as I surprised him. The American people want to know how long their sons and daughters are going to be shot at in Iraq. What is the policy?

A week ago we had 97 Members of the Senate, including the Senator from Alaska, urging the President of the United States to consider going to the United Nations and to consider, as well, using NATO. The Senator from Alaska supported that.

What this amendment is saying is, tell us if you are going to go to the United Nations, tell us if you are going to include NATO. And if you are not going to, come back and tell the American people why not.

We had a President who said we were going to use NATO in Bosnia. It worked, and we reduced the number of Americans who were killed. We had a President say we were going to use NATO in Kosovo. It worked, and we reduced the number of Americans killed. We had a President who said we would bring in U.N. forces in East Timor. We did and reduced the dangers to America. There are many who believe that is a viable option. Maybe the Senator from Alaska does not, but there are a lot of people and a lot of parents who do.

I say to the Senator from Alaska, the American people are entitled to know the policy of this administration. To hear such rejection to find out the policy is amazing.

This is supposedly an open government. We would think the President would want to share his thinking in order to galvanize support. No President can lead a country in time of war unless he galvanizes the support of the American people.

We ought to know what the policy is. If this is not the policy, tell us what it is--not behind closed doors but in open session. Tell us what it is. We did not hear it at the Armed Services Committee last week from the Secretary of Defense and we did not hear it today, evidently--unless a few selected Senators heard it in a closed session.

What is wrong with requesting the President of the United States to tell the American people where we are going to be in 30 days in Iraq when our American servicemen are being shot and killed every day. I am sorry that irks or bothers the Senator from Alaska but parents of American service men and women would like to know. The American people want to know. We are entitled to that kind of information. If he does not want to go that particular route, come back and tell us what he does want to do.

This is a makeup policy over in Iraq. One person heading it up today and he is gone tomorrow. We have people deciding they will do one thing today and they change it tomorrow. In the meantime, one thing is consistent: the killing of American servicemen who are doing tasks they were not trained for and they should not be doing in that country.

Many believe it would be worthwhile to bring other troops in and share the responsibility and burden of securing Iraq. Maybe the Senator rejects that. There are people within the administration who want to go it alone. If that is the position, the posture of this President, let's hear it out and have a debate on it.

One day it is, no, we do not want to go it alone; we want to use the United Nations and NATO but we really do not want to request them. Secretary General Robertson of NATO has indicated that the United States has not made a direct appeal to him in order to galvanize NATO as an institution to provide security. Sure, some of the countries have been asked, but the Secretary General of the United Nations says the United States has not asked the United Nations in a formal way to try to take over some of the responsibilities. Maybe there is good reason for it. But the American people are entitled to know what the reasons are.

This amendment is to try to find out that information. We do have a responsibility in foreign policy in terms of making war, the war powers, as well as in approving treaties.

This Senate, the people's Senate, has a responsibility in foreign policy. The American people are entitled to know the thinking of this administration as their sons and daughters are getting shot every day. I am sorry if 30 days is too long a time. But we know what is going to happen. There will be 30 more Americans killed during that period of time. We are entitled to know.

With all respect--and I have great affection for the Senator from Alaska--I

am as troubled by his reaction as he is troubled by this amendment.

I withhold the remainder of my time.

How much time do I have?

I will not take the time.

Mr. President, American service men and women are dying every day. This amendment does not require the President to go to the United Nations. It does not require him to go to NATO. All we are trying to find out is what his policy is. If he does not want to go to the United Nations, if he does not want to ask NATO to come in there and get additional help and assistance and troops that might provide some relief for ours--just tell us. Just tell us. He ought to be able to tell us, give us the answers very quickly.

All we are asking for is to know the policy. I think parents are entitled to know whether this President will go to ask for additional kinds of military force in terms of NATO--in Muslim countries, other countries that will be interested in helping and assisting the Americans secure Iraq. I think the American people are entitled to know whether we will follow the other measures that have been taken that have been successful in Kosovo and in Bosnia and also in East Timor.

If the President doesn't want to do it, fine, but just tell us. American servicemen are dying over there. We are entitled to know what the President is going to do.

But we do not have an answer now. We do not have an answer except more of the same. And this postwar policy is adrift. It is bankrupt. It is nonexistent. It is being made up on the back of an envelope every single day, and American service men and women are dying. That is what this amendment addresses.

Finally, the Senator from Alaska, as I understand it, voted on this resolution last week, where the Senate included in the sense-of-the- Senate resolution that the President should consider requesting formally and expeditiously that NATO raise a force for deployment. The Senator supported that sense of the Senate that the President should consider calling on the United Nations.

This was passed last week. All we are saying is, if you are not going to do it, tell us you are not going to do it, and tell us within the 30-day period. If you are going to do it, let us know that as well.

I think the American people are entitled to know what our policy is because I don't believe they do know, today.

I reserve my time.

Madam President, I understand there are 2 minutes remaining.

Madam President, it is important to know what this is and what this is not. We are not asking for war plans. We are talking about how we are going to win the peace.

We have a policy which is adrift in Iraq today. Americans are getting shot every single day. We are not asking for secret conversations between heads of state. All we are trying to do is ask the President of the United States, as we did a week ago, to consider going to the United Nations. We asked him to consider going to NATO. Now we are asking him: If you are going to NATO, tell us; and if you are not going to NATO to try to get relief for our military, tell us.

This is about the postwar period, not a secret plan about whether we are going through Turkey or how many bombers we are going to have or how many ships. We are talking about the plan for the postwar period and where Americans are getting shot every single day.

The policy is adrift. We are asking the President to clarify for the American people what his policy is. I think the American people are entitled to it.

I am prepared to yield back my time.

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

Madam President, I have been working on an amendment that I trust would get support from both sides of the aisle, and I would like, at this time, to send this amendment to the desk and ask unanimous consent that the previous amendment be laid aside.

Thank you very much, Madam President. And I am glad the clerk was able to read this amendment because I think it is a very straightforward amendment, not one of those that is convoluted.

Essentially, my amendment is an assurance that the American people will receive the full and accurate costs relating to the operations in Iraq; will know more about the monthly costs therein; will know more about the contribution of our coalition of the willing and other nations that may come in, both in terms of their support of military personnel and their monetary support, and other support; and also will have detailed reports on the casualties.

This is a very important amendment because, quite frankly, as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee myself, we do not have the information we need. I am going to attempt to prove that as I go through my points.

Basically, the amendment would require that each month--every 30 days--the Secretary of Defense send a report to the congressional committees with specific information. You have heard that information read by the clerk, so I will not go into that until my summary.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Landrieu and Murray be added as cosponsors to the amendment.

Madam President, last August, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which I serve, began a series of hearings on U.S. policy toward Iraq, hearings that began under the leadership of Senator Biden, and have continued with our current chairman, Senator Lugar.

From the very first hearing, my position on this issue was very clear. I felt if our policy toward Iraq was going to be successful, it should be done in conjunction with our allies and in coordination with international institutions, such as NATO and the United Nations.

Why did I feel that way? Because I felt that the burden of this situation should be shared by the world. Surely, the world has something at stake if there is stability in Iraq, and that burden ought to be shared.

The fact is, for many different reasons--and I am not going to rehash them--the burden has not been shared. And this situation is very different than the first Persian Gulf war, where George Herbert Walker Bush built a very broad international coalition to share the burdens of war.

All we have to do is look at the cost. That is one example. The estimated cost of the first gulf war was $61 billion total. The operation was financed by more than $53 billion pledged by countries around the world, and some of that came in the form of in-kind services that also counted toward the estimate. So our allies picked up roughly 85 percent of the cost of the first gulf war. Our allies also provided a quarter of the military force on the ground.

How different is this current situation? We have 146,000 troops in Iraq, and they are dying every day. I have come to the floor to eulogize those who have died who had any connection to California. Let me say, since President Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1, 15 of those who were either from California or based in California have been killed. In the total of all those killed, 56 have been from California or based in California. This war is touching the people of my State very deeply.

So here are 146,000 troops from our country in Iraq, and the British, our top ally, have 12,000 troops. They certainly have been our deepest friends in this particular situation. They have 12,000 troops. We have 146,000. Poland and Australia have a small number of troops. All these troops are greatly appreciated. But you cannot come close to the type of international coalition that we had in the first Persian Gulf war or, more important, what we need to have today so that the burden does not fall so hard on our families.

Last night, I heard a report on CNN about a little child that would just break your heart. He was there with his mom. You never can script a child. This little boy said: I was supposed to

have my daddy home, and this is the second time, but the President changed his mind again.

Clearly, the President doesn't want to see little kids crying for their parents. No one does. But what it means is we need to internationalize the troops in the field so we do not have to carry this burden. We also need rules and regulations so we keep to our word about the length of the terms served over there, and that is an issue that will come back again. We had a vote on that yesterday.

For a moment I rise to talk about the money. In a hearing on July 9 before the Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was unable to recall the monthly cost of U.S. operations in Iraq. The committee actually had to go into a recess so the Secretary could get the information.

This is unacceptable. I have the transcript from that hearing. I am going to read from it.

Senator Byrd:

Mr. Secretary, what is the current monthly spend rate to

support our ongoing military operations in Iraq?

Mr. Rumsfeld:

I'll have to get you that for the record.

It's a combination of appropriating funds, as you know,

sir, know better than any, plus the expenditures of funds

taking place from Iraqi frozen assets, from Iraqi siezed

assets and from U.N.-Iraqi assets under the oil-for-food

program. And I can certainly have Dr. Zakheim come up and

provide a very precise answer as to what's currently being

spent.

Senator Byrd:

Do you recall a figure? Can you give us an estimate? I've

heard the figure of $1.5 billion a month.

Secretary Rumsfeld:

I would not want to venture a guess and be wrong, sir.

Senator Byrd:

Well, somebody ought to know.

Secretary Rumsfeld:

Well, they do know. We'll be happy to brief you on that.

Well, I'd like to know now.

Well, we'd have to adjourn . . .

Well, OK.

Madam President, how do you come before the Armed Services Committee without an estimate of the cost? I don't quite understand it.

Secretary Rumsfeld says these expenditures are in a variety of categories, et cetera.

This is what Senator Byrd said:

I understand that, Mr. Chairman, but I've been around here

going on 51 years and I'm on the Appropriations Committee,

and we want to fund our military and meet the need. But there

must be some figure, some amount that we can cite as an

amount that we're spending monthly in Afghanistan and the

same with respect to Iraq.

Secretary Rumsfeld:

I'm sure there is, and we'll get it for you.

Senator Byrd:

Very well. That'll be another figure we hope to have when

we return, Mr. Chairman, I would hope.

And Secretary Rumsfeld says:

In that case not likely. That fast?

Senator Byrd:

Well, you like to have figures fast when it comes to

appropriating money.

Secretary Rumsfeld:

That's for sure.

Senator Byrd:

I would [like to] know, on behalf of the Appropriations

Committee and the Congress, how much we're spending.

Secretary Rumsfeld:

We'll try and get it for you.

Then Senator Byrd says:

Well, anyhow, so much for that . . .

I ask unanimous consent to print these conversations in the Record.

If anything that happens in the Senate means anything at all, if we are not just spinning our wheels when we have committee hearings, we ought to learn what to do when things are not going right. I suggest things are not going right when a man as intelligent as Secretary Rumsfeld cannot answer a simple question like what it is costing us every single month.

We have found out from the Department of Defense Comptroller that the cost of U.S. operations in Iraq has cost $48 billion thus far. The cost per month is $4 billion, not what Senator Byrd thought, 1.3 or 1.4; it is $4 billion. And given that we are going to be in Iraq for years, not months, according to everyone, how does the administration propose we pay for this, given the tax cuts they have created, deficits as far as the eye can see, and the international community has pledged only $1.7 billion so far, and it is costing us $4 billion a month?

Sometimes it is hard for my constituents--to understand these dollars. What I have done today in a handmade chart--forgive me, it is not the most beautiful-looking chart, but I think it says it all--is ask, how do we know exactly what $45 billion a year is that we are now currently spending on Iraq? I thought I would take a look at selected issues that we care about in the Senate in a bipartisan way and tell the people of this country, as well as remind my colleagues what we are spending on these things compared to $45 billion a year in Iraq.

We spend on the Drug Enforcement Agency--that is the agency that does everything to get the bad guys who are trying to push drugs on our children and interdicting drugs at the border--in a year, $1.6 billion. We are spending $45 billion in Iraq, and we still have people waiting in line to get treatment on demand for their drug habit. We can't take them. We don't have enough money. But we are spending $45 billion in Iraq.

On higher education, across party lines, we have worked so hard to make sure we have enough money for education. Let's look at higher education--the kinds of grants and loans we give out to deserving middle-class families so that their kids can get a college education. We spend $23.4 billion on higher education in a year. We are spending $45 billion a year in Iraq.

Afterschool programs: I have a special feeling for those because I wrote

the law. Senator Ensign, on the other side of the aisle, and I teamed up on that one. We are spending $1 billion a year on afterschool programs, and we have thousands and thousands and thousands of children on waiting lists whom we cannot accommodate because we don't have the money. But we are spending $45 billion a year in Iraq, and that is before the major reconstruction starts.

We are all talking about Head Start. The President has a plan to give it back to the States. I oppose that fiercely. This is a program that works for poor families. Be that as it may, whether it is a block grant or a Federal program, we are spending $6.7 billion a year on Head Start. Millions of children are waiting to get in. We are spending $45 billion a year on Iraq.

Highways: There isn't one Senator in this body who would say their State doesn't need highway funding. We are spending $31.8 billion a year on highways. By the way, that comes from the gas tax our citizens pay. That is less than we are spending for a year in Iraq.

NIH, the National Institutes of Health: Again, there is no one I have ever met whose family or friends have not been touched by cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, or heart disease. The bottom line is that we are spending $27.1 billion a year to find cures for these diseases. And we are spending $45 billion a year in Iraq.

Veterans' health: These are people who have served this Nation proudly. We have made a commitment to take care of them. We are going to have a whole lot more veterans coming back from this war. We want to meet our commitments. How much do we spend a year on veterans' health? We spend $23.9 billion on all of the veterans' health. We are spending $45 billion a year in Iraq.

The Transportation Security Agency: I sit on the Commerce Committee, we know what we have to do to make sure our public is protected from these terrorists who are still in our country. There are declassified reports that say there are tens of thousands in our country. Will they strike again? We are doing everything to make sure the President has the resources he needs. But, bottom line, what are we spending on the TSA to protect the flying public? It is $5.2 billion.

There is a lot more we have to do, such as retrofit airplanes so if there is a shoulder-fired missile a terrorist gets hold of and shoots that at a plane, there will be a missile defense system through the technology that is on our military planes. We want them on civilian aircraft. This is a bipartisan issue. We don't have enough money for that. But we are spending $45 billion a year in Iraq.

Coast Guard: Again, they are out there protecting us from drugs that are being smuggled, from human cargo that is being smuggled, and looking out for terrorists. That costs $6.1 billion a year.

The EPA enforces our laws for clean air, clean water, safe drinking water, and Superfund sites. They are terribly underfunded. The Superfund sites that were to be cleaned up under this administration were cut in half. We don't have the money. As a matter of fact, the ``polluters pay'' is falling on taxpayers, and yet $8.1 billion is all we are spending, compared to $45 billion in Iraq.

My last example is the Superfund Program. If anybody has a Superfund site in their State, they know these are highly polluted sites that need to be cleaned up so that there can be economic development on those sites and so that our children and all of our people can be protected from these poisons. That is $1.3 billion, and we are spending $45 billion a year in Iraq.

Why did I go through this? Because sometimes people's eyes glaze over when they hear numbers. Mine tend to do that. We have to put this into perspective. We are spending $4 billion a month. Secretary Rumsfeld eventually came up with those numbers later. So we know that is a fact. That is what we are spending. That is $45 billion a year, and we don't come close to spending that on the priorities of the American people. We don't even come close.

So why is my amendment important? Because it is going to tell the American people how their taxpayer dollars are being spent in Iraq and how much of a contribution our allies, our friends, are making. It is also going to tell us the details of when people get wounded or killed--how did it happen and why did it happen? We need that information. We need it on behalf of the American people. That is for sure.

In closing, again, this is a very straightforward amendment. It is written in plain English. It is very clear.

I will close my statement by reading the amendment one more time. I cannot imagine why my friends on the other side would object to this. I hope they don't object. The fact is, the American people deserve to know what is happening to their tax dollars. They don't have to have a situation where someone comes up and Senator Byrd asks a question-- regardless of who it is on either side of the aisle--and says, gee, I don't know. That is not acceptable.

Here is how the amendment reads:

Not less than once every 30 days, the Secretary of Defense

shall submit a report to the Congressional Defense Committee,

the House International Relations Committee, the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee that contains the following

information:

(a) Total and monthly costs of U.S. operations in Iraq;

(b) Number of U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq and

the immediate region;

(c) Total and monthly contributions made by foreign

governments and international organizations in support of

U.S. operations in Iraq;

(d) Number of foreign military personnel serving in support

of U.S. operations in Iraq;

(e) Defense articles and services offered by foreign

governments and international organizations in support of

U.S. operations in Iraq;

(f) Total number of U.S. casualties as a result of U.S.

operations in Iraq by date and cause;

(g) All contracts in excess of $10 million entered into by

the U.S. Government for the reconstruction of Iraq.

On this last one, as someone who has fought hard to end that sole source contract to Halliburton, I am very worried that this could repeat itself. That sole source contract was worth many billions--at least $7 billion or $8 billion. It didn't go out for bid. It was going to go forward and we stopped it. I thank Senator Warner for teaming up with me to stop it.

On August 14, we are supposed to get the follow-on contract. I hope that will happen. I am counting on it. Let us not be sanguine about this whole military procurement situation. I served on the Armed Services Committee for many years on the House side. You turn your back one minute and there is another contract; it didn't go out for a bid, it is costing a fortune, and you wind up with $7,000 coffee pots on airplanes. I have been there and I have seen that. So all contracts in excess of $10 million entered into by the U.S. Government for the reconstruction of Iraq--we will know about that, I say to colleagues.

So I think if the Senate has some regard for its own power, its own role in this entire matter, then the Senate will go on record and support this very simple amendment, just asking for information on a monthly basis so we can stay ahead of the curve.

With that, Madam President, I finish my statement. I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is a sad day when one Senator will rename an amendment of another Senator who simply wants to know what it is costing my taxpayers every single day.

If the Senator is right and this has already been done, he did not complain about it then. He did not stand up and say: We want this report, but, gee, we should not have it because it is too much work.

The bottom line is, I have seen the report to which the Senator refers. It is nine pages, and it is estimates. It is not costs incurred. I have asked as recently as today to find out the contribution of other countries, and I have asked it of people in very high-up positions, and they do not have the answer.

Senator Cochran talks about the news: The news knows this; just turn on CNN, they know it. That is not what I was sent here to do, watch CNN. I do not want to give up my power of the purse to CNN or to Fox News or to MSNBC. He talked a long time about the press. If I wanted to be a reporter, I would have stayed a reporter. I was a reporter for a while. But people sent me here to get the facts and figures.

If the Senator believes it is a waste of time and it is a matter of bookkeeping to find out the total monthly cost of United States operations in Iraq so I can stand up at a townhall meeting and tell the people what it costs--if he thinks that is a waste of time, then I am confused. Why are we here? Why are we bothering?

Why are we bothering? If he thinks it is a waste of time to find out how many U.S. personnel are serving in the region, then I am very confused. There was a Presidential candidate who was asked that question, and he said between 100,000 and 200,000. He was right, but he was chastised. Why did he not know it was 146,000?

So perhaps the Senator believes it is not important to know in any given month how many people are serving in Iraq. I think it is, because, guess what, they are my constituents. I have lost 50 of them. So I would like to know who is over there.

I also would like to know, when one of our Americans dies, the circumstances surrounding that. I want to know what the coalition of the willing is actually doing, not what the Senator talks about, estimates.

See, he is talking about a report that talks about estimates. I am talking about what actually has occurred, and what costs have been incurred. The Senator never mentioned the fact that I am going after these contracts. Maybe that is because he does not want to go after them. The fact is we see a contract let to Halliburton, a sole-source noncompetitive bid. What does it cost? It could have cost $9 billion except some of us found out about it, and happily Senator Warner agreed with me and we came together, and this is supposed to be ended. But it could happen tomorrow.

So I would call the Senator's position, since he has now characterized my position, the stonewall position. I could throw around charged words, too. I could call his words the cover-up-the-true-costs position. That was not my intent. I do not stand here, after a Senator is sincere, to try and demean what they do. I do not think that is right.

But since it was done to me, I say people who do not support this are not interested in knowing the truth, are not interested in getting the facts, are trying to hide something from the American people.

Now maybe the Senator feels $45 billion a year is a little bit of money. I do not know where he comes from. Maybe that is a little bit of money. Where I come from, that is a lot. We spend $1.6 billion in all on drug enforcement in this country. We are spending $45 billion, roughly, but the Senator feels we do not have to have some report that basically tells us how it is being spent. He calls it redundant when it is not at all redundant, because it is not about estimates, which is the report he is talking about, but it is about actual costs incurred.

One thing I thought we could come together on in this Senate is the people's right to know how their money is being spent, and the people's right to know, if troops are lost, what are the conditions, why did it happen, and the people's right to know who is sharing the burden of these costs.

I have spoken to families who have heard from their loved ones that our people over there are more scared now than they were during the hot war, where they performed so brilliantly. I am hearing the words ``sitting ducks'' used now. It is not a happy situation. We have to work to bring down the burden on our troops, and the financial burden on our people, and we could do that with leadership. At least the Senate ought to know the true costs, not the estimated costs. What I am talking about is accountability, and anyone can stand up and say it is redundant, but the fact is it is far from redundant because I saw the report my friend talks about and it has nothing to do with this. It is about estimates and projections. This is about reality.

So I hope that notwithstanding the opposition I have heard today, which I think frankly is couched in a way which was not fair, that my colleagues will vote for this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this amendment strikes funds for the canola oil fuel cell initiative, Shakespeare in American military communities project, control of brown tree snakes, hangar renovation at the former Griffiss Air Force Base, and the Academy for Closing and Avoiding Achievement Gaps.

First, I would like to address the Senate concerning the 2004 Defense Appropriations Act. With each and every appropriations act, I come down to the floor of the Senate to point out many of the special interests and pet projects Members add to the legislation each year. Today I have the opportunity to speak on H.R. 2658, the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2004.

I remind my colleagues, the responsibilities of authorizers and appropriators are supposed to be distinct. The

role of the Senate Armed Services Committee is to establish policy and funding levels and to oversee the Department of Defense and its programs. The role of the Appropriations Committee is to allocate funding based on policies provided by authorization bills.

The appropriators' function today, as we all know, has expanded dramatically and the Appropriations Committee now engages in significant policy decisionmaking and micromanaging, clearly usurping the role of the authorizing committees.

The chairman of the Rules Committee was kind enough, a week or so ago, to have a hearing on a proposal I have to change the rules so that a point of order can be more easily lodged against an unauthorized appropriation. I will not bore my colleagues with further details because I have already introduced the rule and explained it.

But during that hearing, chaired by my friend from Mississippi, Senator Lott, there was discussion of the process. This situation, this imbroglio in which we find ourselves, is not entirely the fault of the appropriators. I know it sounds strange for me to make that statement, but the fact is that there are holds on bills which are authorizing, which are done anonymously in many cases, and prevent the authorizing aspect of the process to be carried out, thereby forcing the appropriators to act in a policy fashion. Many times these holds are permanent and, really, there are some occasions where the Senators themselves do not know that those holds have been imposed.

Additionally, there is the process that, unfortunately, results that many programs and important agencies of Government even are not reauthorized. The Federal Communications Commission, which falls under the responsibility of the committee I chair, has not been reauthorized since 1993. So then it is understandable why the appropriators would act in such fashion.

I preface my remarks with the full acknowledgment that the system itself has broken down to a great degree.

As I came to this floor before and pointed out, the process of earmarking and outrageous appropriating has increased in a dramatic but reasonable fashion when you consider that any evil unchecked is going to rise.

According to information compiled by the Congressional Research Service, which examined earmarks for fiscal years 1994-2002, the total number of earmarks has grown from 4,126 in fiscal year 1994 to 10,540 in 2002--an increase of over 150 percent. The level of funding has risen from $26.8 billion in 1994 to $44.6 billion in fiscal year 2002, an increase of over 66 percent.

We are talking about real money.

We now see on the front page of the Washington Post this morning that the budget deficit may surpass $450 billion.

I might remind my colleagues that there is a little chart on the other side.

In 2000, we had a surplus of $236 billion; $127 billion in 2001; a deficit of $157 billion in 2002; and, in 2003 it is estimated to be $450 billion.

My dear friends, if you believe it is only going to be $450 billion, I have some land in the Arizona desert I would like to sell you.

This does not take into account, as recently admitted by the Secretary of Defense, $4 billion a month just for our operations in Iraq, which I support.

My point is we can't afford to do this anymore. We can't afford to continue to spend money like drunken sailors. I never knew a sailor, drunk or sober, who had the imagination to spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars on the Shakespeare in American Military Communities Project--$1 million. Shakespeare in America Communities Project? Come on. Out of the Defense appropriations bill?

The hangar renovation at the former Griffiss Air Force Base--the Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, NY, was closed in 1995. It has been reopened to civilian flight operations. In 1999, the airbase hosted Woodstock. Yet we are going to spend money to renovate the hangar there. We are going to spend $2 million. On a closed Air Force base we are going to spend $2 million. Meanwhile, we still have men and women, wives and husbands and family members who are fighting in Iraq on food stamps.

I don't know what the Canola Oil Fuel Cell Initiative is. Canola is grown in the Western United States and Canada. Forty percent of each seed can be produced into canola oil. Prices for canola oil have dropped, I am sorry to say. But we are spending money for a Canola Oil Fuel Cell Initiative.

What does that have to do with defense?

Let me just add an additional comment. The very highly respected, I believe, Concord Coalition came up with a study in the last couple of days which is excoriating in its comments. I think it is right on the mark.

The Concord Coalition Report on Fiscal Responsibility:

Deficits, Deception and Denial Rate a Failing Grade

The first six months of the 108th Congress were the most

fiscally irresponsible in recent memory. The crux of the

program was the schizophrenic pursuit of small government tax

policies and big government spending initiatives. Following

the lead of the Bush administration, Congress made no attempt

to reconcile the cost of new tax cuts on spending initiatives

within the framework of a realistic long-term balanced budget

plan. Instead, policymakers took a deteriorating budget

outlook and made it worse. To add insult to injury, Congress

used deceptive accounting gimmicks that would land a

corporate CEO in jail. It is hard to say which is worse, the

sunset gimmick used to hide the cost of an unaffordable tax

cut, the doughnut hole gimmick used to hide the cost of an

unaffordable, new Medicare entitlement, the shell games used

to hide the appropriations of the disingenuous budget

resolution that led to such in the first place. Then there

was denial. Policymakers simply closed their eyes to the

inevitable cost of reforming the alternative minimum tax and

the growing cost of the war against terrorism at home and

abroad.

I commend the Concord Coalition report to my colleagues which gives a grade of a D and an F.

You know what we are doing. We are heading for a train wreck. Everybody knows it. I don't know whatever happened to the old lockbox. Do you remember the old lockbox where we were going to take everybody's money for Social Security and put it in a lockbox so it couldn't be touched? You know what we are doing with the lockbox. It is simply because we are paying the retirement benefits of people who are retired. Those who are working have no money in accounts bearing their names. It is unfortunate.

The summer blockbuster is not showing on your local movie screen but rather on the floor of the Senate. I am alarmed about a large green monster, and it is not the ``Incredible Hulk.'' I am talking about the exploding national deficit, and it should make the blood boil. We are now learning that the irresponsible tax cut and spending binge in Washington is resulting in this huge deficit. Even ``The Terminator'' can't stop the river of red ink that is endangering our fiscal future. It is like the ``Pirates of the Caribbean'' stealing our children's and our grandchildren's financial future.

I thought that was pretty well written.

I recognize the failure. I want to tell my colleagues that I recognize that the failure of the authorizing committees to pass authorizing legislation contributes to the broken system.

I want to work together with the appropriators to try to solve this issue because often the appropriators have no choice but to fund unauthorized programs and take it upon themselves to make policy determinations.

The fiscal year 2002 Defense Appropriations Act not only contained $3.7 billion in pork but also the dubious Boeing tanker lease. The conference report for the fiscal year 2002 Defense appropriations bill contained $8.1 billion in pork. The Senate version included $5.2 billion. This year's bill contains well over $4 billion. This number is less than last year's Senate version of the legislation.

This is real money.

The projects that appear in the Defense appropriations Member-add-ons are items requested by Senators and not included in the President's budget request. They do not appear on the Joint Chiefs unfunded priority list. They are not authorized in the Defense authorization bill.

This criteria is used by many organizations. And it has been useful in ferreting out programs of questionable merit and determining the relative priority of projects requested by Members for parochial reasons.

The fact remains that in the years I have created these lists no offsets have been provided for any project.

At a time when some of our soldiers and sailors still receive food stamps and live in inadequate housing, we find a way to provide over $4 billion in unnecessary spending through the Defense appropriations bill.

For example, the Joint Chiefs provided a list of critical requirements above what was provided for in the President's budget request. That list totaled nearly $18 billion for fiscal year 2004. We should provide additional funding for defense for items and programs which the Joint Chiefs need, and we need to set that as a priority.

I point out once again that the bases in Alaska stand to benefit a great deal in this legislation. Alaskan bases alone will receive $214 million in unrequested spending for improvements, renovations, and upgrades.

Looking back at my career in the Navy, I wish I had been so fortunate as to be stationed in Alaska.

Some of the more egregious examples of pork in this year's legislation include, as I mentioned, $1 million for Shakespeare in American Military Communities.

What is wrong with Ernest Hemingway? I wonder why Shakespeare was the greatest writer in the English language. But there may be a difference of opinion as to who the greatest writers in the English language were. Why not Chekhov or Ibsen?

Forty-nine million dollars for the Maui Space Surveillance System. Arizona is home to an observatory. But we are going to earmark $49 million to Maui while there are many observatories in the United States that offer many of these same benefits.

Two million dollars for miniature autonomous vehicles.

There is $5 million for the bug-to-drug program. It is not often I bother the distinguished chairman but perhaps he can tell me what the bug-to-drug program is. There is an appropriation of $5 million for the bug-to-drug program. While he is looking it up, I will continue.

There is $1.5 million to educate the 21st Century Information Operations Workforce, $2.5 million for the Hawaii Undersea Vehicle Test and Training Environment.

I mentioned there is $2.5 million for the canola oil fuel cell initiative. I would think the only canola oil the Department of Defense should be investing in should be used for salad dressing for our troops, not inventing batteries.

I would be interested in the bug-to-drug program.

I thank the chairman for that explanation. It makes it much more clear. I appreciate that.

There are a number of them. One of them that is interesting is $9 million for SensorNet. SensorNet is developed by a company in Modesto, CA. They obviously make hardware and software because that is in their advertisement. In researching this earmark on the Web site, I found this 10- to 15-percent-off coupon on the Internet.

Now, I would ask my colleagues, if they are going to give average Americans 10 to 15 percent off, and we are going to give them $9 million, could they give us 10 to 15 percent off? Maybe we could save over $1 million. They are giving everybody else 10 to 15 percent off. Maybe they could give us 10 to 15 percent off as well.

This is the advertisement:

10-15% 0ff--Order Now and Save

At AccuLab Products Group, we understand the difficulties

of integrating science applications into the classroom.

That's why we developed the SensorNet Science Program--the

friendliest system on the market! Its ease of operation and

flexibility offers the user wide ranges of applications

without requiring a degree in computer technology. Our

precalibrated, precision engineered probes offer the accuracy

and reliability needed to perform in the toughest of

situations and are backed by a 1 year guarantee.

So they are going to give 10 to 15 percent off. I would hope we could negotiate 10 to 15 percent off on our appropriation to them.

The hangar renovation at the former Griffiss Air Force Base, New York, the site of Woodstock 1999. Perhaps unintentional damage was done during Woodstock that requires that hangar to be renovated.

Of course, we are back to the old smart truck for the auto industry, and $12 million for the 21st century truck. It would be fun to drive one, I am sure.

Here is an interesting one: $4 million for the Ernest Gallo Clinic & Research Center. I love a fine wine as much as the next guy, I think, but do we need to fund Ernest Gallo or his research center with defense dollars?

Here is another: $8 million for the New England manufacturing supply chain. This is above and beyond the $6 million earmarked for them in last year's legislation. There is $9 million for the medical free electron laser, $1 billion for the brown tree snakes.

The Senator from Hawaii and I had a discussion about this item and the following items. The brown tree snake may be a serious threat to the Island of Hawaii. The question remains--and the Senator from Hawaii has never satisfactorily answered, at least not to my satisfaction--why this money has to come out of defense, why the brown tree snake should not be addressed by the Department of the Interior or the appropriate branch of Government. Why do we have to take it out of the hides of the men and women in the military to fight the brown tree snake? Shouldn't it come out of the appropriate agency of Government?

We have $150 million for breast cancer research, $85 million for prostate cancer research, $50 million for the Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program, $24 million for the Hawaii Federal Health Care Network, $3 million for tribal colleges-science lab and computer equipment, $3 million for Pacific Island health care referral, $1.5 million for neurogenetic research and computational genomics--this is on top of $650,000 included in this year's omnibus appropriations.

These are all worthy causes. The cause of breast cancer research is worthy. The $85 million for prostate cancer research, it has no place in the Defense bill. When we are spending $3.9 billion a day just to take care of our operations in Iraq, we cannot take much needed defense dollars and put it for other programs that are not related to defense.

So I want to talk about one other area that is of concern, and that is the potential impact on readiness because of our restrictive trade policies with our allies.

From a philosophical point of view, I oppose these types of protectionist policies. I believe free trade is an important element in improving relations among all nations and is certainly essential to economic growth. From a practical standpoint, ``buy America'' restrictions could seriously impair our ability to compete freely in international markets.

I would like to point out something else to my colleagues. We impose these ``buy America'' provisions while we buy from our allies and friends overseas a much smaller amount than they buy from us. If we keep restricting the ability of our Government to buy products that are made in other countries, sooner or later those countries will stop buying equipment, military equipment and others, that are built in the United States unless there is a compelling national security interest.

``Buy America'' provisions include these items: anchor chains, carbon, alloy, or armor steel plate, ball and roller bearings, computers, diesel engines, and propellers.

There is a seafood waiver as a provision in this legislation in which we dictate we can buy only American seafood. I wonder if there is a 3- mile limit or a 10-mile limit or a 100-mile limit. Or does it have to be just caught by Americans, the same fish but caught by Americans, not by somebody else?

Why does the Department of Defense need to protect the American seafood industry? Why is the entire industry singled out for protection? Why not protect the American dairy product industry? Why aren't they covered?

Believe it or not, I do not enjoy coming to the floor on this issue. But I

would argue--I would argue strenuously--that with a budget deficit--and it is in the headlines of every major newspaper in America: $455 billion--we cannot afford to spend additional billions on unneeded and unwanted projects.

There are many projects on this list that I will submit for the Record which are very badly needed and are legitimate but it is hard to know the difference when all we know is it appears in an appropriations bill. All of a sudden it just appears.

Was there a hearing on the issue of allowing the Department of Defense to only buy American seafood? That is a pretty significant measure that only American seafood can be purchased by the Department of Defense. Was there ever a hearing on it? Was there ever any discussion or debate on it? No. It shows up in this appropriations bill.

Do we really have to not allow other countries to sell us things as simple as anchor chains? What are we protecting? Could we save money by buying somebody else's anchor chain and spend that money, perhaps, on upgrading the lives of the men and women in the military?

In case you haven't heard, my friends, we have a problem in the military today, and it is keeping people in the Reserves and the Guard, and it is keeping people on active duty. I think if you watch television tonight you will see interviews with a number of men and women serving in the military who have just been told they will be extended for another 6 months on duty in Iraq because there are not sufficient troops to replace them.

So instead of perhaps expanding the size of the military to meet these new requirements, we are going to spend $1 million on the canola oil fuel cell initiative, brown tree snakes, the Shakespeare in American Military Communities project, and an Academy for Closing and Avoiding Achievement Gaps. The Academy for Closing and Avoiding Achievement Gaps is a grant to the Timbuktu Academy located in Baton Rouge, LA to conduct research on academic achievement gaps between students of varying socioeconomic backgrounds. It sounds like a very worthy cause to me. But why again should this come out of defense dollars?

I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues. The amendment I proposed will eliminate the canola oil fuel cell initiative, the Shakespeare in American Military Communities project, the brown tree snake funding program, hangar renovation at the former Griffiss Air Force Base, and the Academy For Closing and Avoiding Achievement Gaps.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will ask my colleague from Alaska a question. I will preface it by saying I do appreciate the cooperation that has been displayed while addressing this bill. I tell my friend from Alaska also that it has been very helpful for us to have the information and to be able to look at these amendments as they have come up. I hope next year we will see Hemingway, Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others of my favorite authors included in this program.

I also ask the Senator, concerning the Corzine amendment, isn't it true that the Senate Armed Services Committee is holding, and will be holding, hearings concerning the entire conflict, including friendly fire casualties, including the enormous success, including the issue of weapons of mass destruction; and those will be held openly and in a systematic manner, which Senator Warner and Senator Levin have been working on in a bipartisan manner? Didn't the chairman of the Intelligence Committee hold a closed hearing today, and will he not hold a public hearing next week? Aren't we going through an orderly process of hearings concerning the conduct of the war?

The American people, of course, want to know about the friendly fire tragedy, and they also want to know how we did so well, how our equipment performed in such a magnificent fashion. It was one of the most rapid military victories in history.

Isn't it true that we are going through an orderly process of hearings concerning this conflict, in a very appropriate manner? If at such time those hearings are not satisfactory to the American people, or they don't cover enough information, or something like that, wouldn't sometime later be more appropriate to say a commission should be appointed rather than at the time when the appropriate committees, as far as I can tell, are carrying out their responsibilities and reviewing the conduct of the war and the oversight policies dictating our military? Does the Senator agree with that?

Mr. President, just a few days ago I had the privilege of traveling, with Senator Warner and Senator Levin, and other colleagues, to Iraq. I wish to comment upon my observations of that trip in the context of this Defense appropriations bill.

After the most stunning victory in the annals of military history, the fighting and dying in Iraq goes on. The war is not over. It has changed its character. Conventional warfare of major formations against major formations has yielded to hit-and-run attacks against our troops. We are in a tenuous moment where the momentum of the battle has shifted from our coalition forces and may shift dramatically to opposition forces in Iraq.

We are being opposed by groups of Baathist diehards, Islamic fundamentalists, and criminals. Although this resistance, until recently, appeared to be uncoordinated and spasmodic, there are strong signs emerging that organizations are beginning to coalesce and we are facing a much more serious threat.

Just today, in Iraq, a manned portable air defense missile was fired at an American aircraft over Baghdad International Airport, signaling a major escalation of the capabilities of our opponents and the ability of these opponents to interfere with our occupation forces in a significant way.

Another American soldier died. The mayor of an Iraqi city was gunned down. Indeed, today General Abizaid indicated that we are facing a classical guerrilla-type war situation. And I must say, General Abizaid is a person I had the privilege of serving with 30 years ago in the 82nd Airborne Division. There is not a more talented and dedicated and decent officer in our Army or our military force. His expertise and knowledge make him the most capable person we could have there. So his conclusion, I think, is one that should resonate through these halls.

Now, if one of these groups--Baathists or fundamentalists, radicals, or criminals--becomes more coherent in their efforts--and it seems, based on today's events, they are becoming more coherent--then the danger to our force will rise.

Let me suggest this is a startling revelation today. It was difficult to bear the sight of American troops being hit with RPGs, rocket- propelled grenades, but to have the capability and the cunning to launch a missile against an aircraft in Baghdad should send shivers down our spine, not just with respect to Baghdad but throughout the world.

One of the issues which I am sure they are desperately trying to determine today is: How many of these manned portable missiles are there in Iraq? I do not know for a fact, but I would suggest there are hundreds, if not thousands.

While we were visiting the northern area of Iraq under the control of the 4th Infantry Division, General Odierno, the commander, indicated they had identified and were securing almost 3,000 ammo dumps, including small arms, all the way up to medium-range missiles with about a 100-kilometer range. This country is chock-full of RPGs and other weapons. The other question is: If they are in Iraq today, have some of these manned pads exfiltrated out of the country into very dubious hands? We face a serious issue.

Now, if all of these elements are able to come together with a common purpose--the Baathists and the criminal elements and the radical fundamentalists--we have a very serious challenge. And, most important, if any one or all of these groups can tap into an innate nationalism among the Iraqi people, if they can translate their disappointment about their economic position today, their dashed expectations of what liberation would mean, then we have a great challenge to our occupation of Iraq.

To dismiss these forces as inconsequential or without support, I think, is a serious mistake. What they may lack in popular support and skill--although, again, their demonstrated performance increases each day--they can make up in desperation and fanaticism. There are remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime. The disgruntled Baathists have no place to go, and they know it. For them, it will be a fight to the death.

In Chris Hedges' brilliant polemic about the corrosive effects of war, entitled ``War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,'' he described a visit to an Iraqi prison in Northern Iraq that was liberated at the end of the gulf war. In his words:

When it was attacked in 1991 by Kurdish fighters and

enraged civilians, 300 Iraqi secret policemen and guards,

including the warden, held out for three days. None of the

defenders survived. And after the battle, a triumphant

fighter expressed the wishes of many. In his words:

We wanted them all to come back to life . . . so that we

could kill them again.

This is the nature of the struggle and the combatants in Iraq. There are thousands of former secret police and Fedayeen, not just the 52 cards in the famous deck. We can expect fierce and persistent resistance from most if not all.

It is no surprise, then, that our military commanders assume that the situation in Iraq will get worse before it gets better. We should be prepared for continued casualties on a frequent basis. Indeed, we should be prepared for heavy casualties on given days.

Again, this is absolutely consistent with General Abizaid's conclusion that we are in a classic guerrilla war struggle today.

The most obvious objective of opposition forces is to inflict sufficient casualties on our troops so that support within the United States for a continued presence within Iraq will erode and evaporate. As such, our immediate response must be to communicate to the American people that the road ahead will be difficult. We are likely to sustain constant casualties, and we must commit significant resources to the struggle to rebuild Iraq.

That is why the absence of appropriations in this bill for our effort in Iraq is unfortunate. The administration has not requested funds so this absence is not the fault of the committee. It represents a very deliberate policy of the administration to avoid declaring to the American public, in an explicit fashion, the true course of our operations in Iraq.

We all anticipate that the administration will make a supplemental request early next year and argue that the funds are critically needed to cover costs that have already been incurred. But the American people deserve something better. They should know these costs now.

Having decided to use military force to eliminate the regime of Saddam Hussein, we cannot walk away from the difficulties of pacifying and rebuilding Iraq. We may come to seriously question the commitment we have undertaken, but to walk away at this point from the challenge would deal a serious blow to our prestige and power in the international community. To ensure that we stay the course, it is essential the American people know the costs, and the cost of our passage.

Our efforts in Iraq ultimately depend on the attitudes of the Iraqi people. They will be the final judges of our policies and our continued presence. At present, the long and terrifying shadow of Saddam Hussein continues to bedevil them. Many of our military officers and our civilian administrators attribute the noncommittal attitude of the Iraqis to the continuing uncertainty of Saddam's fate. There is much truth to this assertion. But we should be careful not to see the capture or death of Saddam as the ``silver bullet'' that will transform our presence in Iraq.

The Iraqi people seem to be withholding their enthusiastic endorsement for our efforts not just to await the fate of Saddam, but to be assured that the coalition can deliver at least the same degree of economic security they enjoyed under Saddam and, hopefully, much more.

It strikes me that the Iraqi people are not simply motivated by a residual fear of Saddam. They have grown up in a system that provided meager sustenance in exchange for utter subservience, a subservience that was enforced by ruthless terror. It will take more than Saddam's demise to erase this pervasive authoritarian culture. It will take many years and significant improvements in every phase of Iraqi life.

The most pressing demand in Iraq today is to provide a secure environment for our forces and for the Iraqi people. That challenge is inextricably linked and bound up with the economic revitalization of Iraq. Coalition forces are occupying a country whose economy has collapsed. Iraq under Saddam was a country in which everyone directly or indirectly worked for the regime. And now the regime is gone. Perhaps the single greatest long-term danger to our efforts is the huge number of unemployed. Unless we can rapidly put these people to work, they will be vulnerable to the overtures of those who wish us ill. We are in effect in a sprint to revive the Iraqi economy before the Iraqi people decide that freedom is not worth the uncertainty of a dysfunctional economy, and they become susceptible to the overtures of those who want to eject us from Iraq.

Another pressing demand is to create a legitimate Iraqi Government acceptable to the Iraqi people. We have begun to take the first steps in that process by the selection of a governing council. This council will exercise defined powers such as the appointment of Iraqi ministers. All of their actions, however, are ultimately subject to the veto of Ambassador Bremer. The council was selected to reflect the ethnic, religious, and demographic realities of Iraq. That was a positive and appropriate step. This council will participate in the selection of a larger conclave that will draft a constitution for Iraq.

All of these efforts are leading up to putting, as so many people have said, an Iraqi face on the Government of Iraq. We all realize that the longer we appear to be running the show, the more likely it is that opposition to our presence will grow.

At this juncture, we have avoided ceding authority to any one faction in Iraq. We are for the moment holding the various factions at bay. But this balancing act will become more and more difficult as we approach the time when real power is transferred to a real executive. At that point, the traditional rivalries of Sunni and Shia and Kurd will emerge and emerge with some force.

One aspect of the new governing council that I find troubling is the attention and influence given to exiled leaders. According to a report in the New York Times:

. . . significantly, the new interim government will be

dominated by the Iraqi exile leaders and Kurdish chieftains

who carried out the long campaign to remove Saddam Hussein

from power.

Given the presence of Kurds in northern Iraq and their obvious power--they have their own army; they control their own territory--it is not surprising that they would have a major role. But giving such a significant role to the exiles seems likely to be more controversial than constructive.

The best known of these exiles is Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi has long resided outside of Iraq. In 1992, he was convicted in absentia by a Jordanian court for embezzlement and bank fraud. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. It is not surprising that reaction to Chalabi and the exiles is not entirely favorable.

Hassan Zahrawi, a 23-year-old student at Baghdad's Mustansariya University, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying:

We are the people who suffered. . . . They are thieves.

They do not know anything about the suffering of the Iraqi

people.

This certainly is not a scientific sampling. You could perhaps find people who would endorse Mr. Chalabi. But I think we are taking a risk by inserting, insinuating exiles in a dominant place in this governing council. I think that will strike a chord in Iraq and not a favorable chord as people who have suffered, who have very little, see these people who have just arrived dominating the political process. It could be a severe miscalculation.

Let me suggest another potential miscalculation. I read with great interest Ambassador Bremer's op-ed piece in the New York Times. One quote struck me:

Our economic reform plan will entail a major shift of

capital from the value-destroying state sector to private

firms.

No one could disagree with that logic. But I think we have to be very careful that we do not replicate the experience we have seen in Russia, for example, where the winners of this transition of capital from the state to the private market were the insiders, the people with the connections, the people who were able to influence the government. We have made serious mistakes in our occupation planning. I hope we don't compound those mistakes by creating a government that has no legitimacy really and that serves simply as a conduit to enrich those who are participating in that government.

All of these concerns resonate throughout a country with distinction and disparate regional characteristics. On our trip, we visited Basra in the south, Baghdad in the center of the country, and Kirkuk in the north. The southern portion is predominantly Shia. They are engaged in a very careful balancing act between Iranian influences and their desires to participate in a secular government but certainly participate so that their religious culture is recognized. They are the largest population group in Iraq. We have been working with them. In the south my impression is that they are still weighing all of their options, and we have to be extremely careful.

In the north there is a significant population diversity, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Arabs. They are much more comfortable with our role there. They have seen the example of several years of a virtually autonomous region the Kurds established after the 1991 war.

The most stable regions at the moment seem to be the north and the south, although there are incidents of violence in all parts of Iraq.

But the key point, the most dangerous place is Baghdad. There in the suburbs leading to the west towards Falluja and up towards the north, toward Tikrit, the ancient home of Saddam and his tribal relatives, that is where the action is, that is where our soldiers are, frankly, being killed.

Our biggest concern at the moment is intelligence. Frankly, we did not expect this type of operation, and we are rapidly and diligently trying to understand who is attacking us, where they are getting their weapons and money and their support and supplies. Are their foreign influences? How many foreign fighters have come into Baghdad? We are in a race to find out about them before they do us even more grievous harm.

There is, of course, the issue of how many troops we should have in Iraq. I have heard reports that General Abizaid will recommend force strength in-country of about 160,000 soldiers and sailors, marines, all of our Armed Forces participating in one way or the other. That is a function of how much we know. My sense is that if we don't know who the enemy is, if we have uncertain threats from multiple directions, then we will err on the side of more troops rather than fewer. This situation could go on for a very long time.

There are those who have said we have gotten ourselves into another Vietnam. No, we haven't. That was a different time, a different place, a different situation. We don't have a rural insurgency as we did in Vietnam. We don't have a country that is a proxy for international politics being supported and encouraged by a significant infusion of foreign resources, wealth, and guidance. But we very well might have our own version of Belfast or the Intifada, urban guerrilla warfare in which there is insignificant foreign support at the moment but, as I indicated before, more than enough people who are determined to attack us and to hurt us.

As we traveled around in Iraq, we talked about the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Just one point: I assumed in my deliberations that the Iraqi regime would have chemical and biological weapons, but I assumed that they did not pose an immediate threat to the United States. Therefore, I did not vote to authorize the unilateral use of force. We have been surprised. But now what I sense is happening is that the search for weapons which so many declared were absolutely there and were so critical in their decision to mount a unilateral military attack, now that has been transformed into a search for a program. I wouldn't be surprised that in the months ahead, based upon analysis of documents, that some type of program emerges.

But with each passing day, it seems less and less likely that we will find a militarily significant concentration of chemical or biological weapons. I thought there was no credence to the

claims by the President and others that there was an ongoing nuclear program in Iraq at the time, and I think that will be borne out.

Now, all of this leads me to several conclusions. One is particularly pertinent to this appropriation. Our Army and our marines--particularly our Army--are stretched thin, taut. They won't break because they are magnificent soldiers. They are under extraordinary pressure.

Let me suggest where our Army is. We have 370,800 soldiers in 120 countries, not just Iraq. In Iraq itself, we have the 3rd Infantry Division. These are the troops who led the fight into Baghdad. They have been told they are going home; they have been told they are staying. Once again, decisions have been reversed because of the situation. They are good soldiers. They will do their job, but certainly this is not the way to have a good plan, to rotate and move soldiers throughout the world.

The 4th Infantry Division is in the north. The 101st Airborne Division is in the north in Mosul. The 1st Armored Division has elements in the country. The 173rd Airborne Brigade conducted a parachute assault in the first days, and they are in Kirkuk. The 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is there. The 2nd and 3rd Light Cavalry Regiments are there. There are about 134,000 soldiers, together with 44,000-plus soldiers in Kuwait for supporting operations. In Afghanistan, we will have, by the end of summer, two brigades of the 10th Mountain Division. In the Balkans, we have the 34th National Guard Division from Kansas. In Kosovo, we have elements of the 1st Infantry Division, which will be replaced shortly by the Pennsylvania 28th National Guard Division. In the United States, we have soldiers deployed in counterdrug and other operations. Our Reserve elements are the 1st Cavalry Division, 1st Infantry Division Brigade, and we have new Stryker battalions or brigades up in Fort Lewis, and one in Alaska.

This is an extraordinary deployment of American forces. Included in the total are a significant number of National Guardsmen. These National Guardsmen and Reserve are one part of our great Army--one whole unified element.

I have left for last Korea. We have 37,000 soldiers there from the 2nd Infantry Division. I was shocked when I read yesterday of Secretary William Perry's conclusion that we are in a serious crisis with North Korea. Over the last few months, the administration has been trying diplomatically. But Secretary Perry, who is probably the most knowledgeable and experienced with respect to North Korea, is now convinced that we might have missed our opportunity for diplomacy to work.

One of the factors that goes into our strategy is whether we can complement our diplomacy with real military force. There is not much left to do that. Those 37,000 soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division are not the kind of combat power you need to stare down the North Koreans if there is a serious breach of the current situation. But we are stretched thin. We cannot pull forces out of Iraq. We would jeopardize the mission there. We cannot pull them out of Afghanistan. We would jeopardize that mission. We have to consider what is most important for the Army, and we have to make decisions. Those decisions have to come to us quickly from the Department of Defense. What will we do?

This bill should have considered and included those types of recommendations--not our ideas, but the proposals of the Department of Defense and the administration, and there is scant detail with respect to Iraq and potential conflict with Korea. I hope diplomacy will work. But we have discovered that diplomacy without credible and complementary military forces is not as effective. This is a situation where we are stretched and we have an ongoing classic guerrilla war in Iraq, we have a situation in Afghanistan that is unstable, and we have a potential crisis in Korea. We need recommendations from the Department of Defense about where we are going to get soldiers to take these missions. I had hoped this bill would include such information. It doesn't.

Certainly, I am going to support the legislation, but I hope these questions are answered very quickly.

I yield the floor.