Court Security Improvement Act of 2005

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

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

Mr. President, first of all, I thank the Senator from Virginia for his kind comments. He did not say he welcomed my amendment because he probably knows that this amendment is one which we have dealt with before. But I feel so strongly the need to continue to offer the amendment, if only by voice vote, which says what is going on I think is dreadfully wrong and needs to be corrected. I know the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Michigan are legislators with goodwill and good skills. I hope they will join with me as I once again describe the issues of contracting that exist because we are spending so much money in such a hurry that there is waste, fraud, and abuse which simply cannot be addressed in the regular order.

I believe this amendment is once again a proposal whereby there was a Truman-type committee, the type that existed when Harry Truman served in the Senate, a Democratic Senate then, with a Democrat in the White House. Harry Truman, I am sure, caused some real angst at the White House by saying: I think there needs to be a special bipartisan committee established to take a look at waste, fraud, and abuse in military contracting. He traveled all across this country to military installations to meet with contractors. His committee unearthed a substantial amount of waste.

I offer it again, as I have offered it on previous occasions. I understand I have not been successful, but I offer it again only because I don't think the problem has abated. I think the problem still exists.

Just the other day, in a supplemental emergency appropriations bill, we spent $92 billion. Some of that was for Katrina relief, but the rest of it, by and large, will find its way into the Pentagon accounts--to restore accounts.

The Senator from Illinois just came in, and the Senator from Illinois and I have jointly worked on this issue. Senator Harkin has asked to be a cosponsor as well. I offer it on behalf of myself and Senators Durbin and Harkin. This is something that we have talked about at some length over a period of time.

We have approved emergency supplemental appropriations bills to the tune of tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars. I believe it is now over $340 billion. Think of that: almost a third of $1 trillion approved without being paid for. This adds right on the top of the Federal debt.

This spending is in support of our military. I voted for it because we can't send our troops abroad and not provide them the equipment and things they need.

But when you spend this much money, including $18 billion-plus for reconstruction in Iraq, and then begin to see who gets hold of this money, it is hair raising to hear the stories about what is happening.

I am not suggesting that there would never be any waste as a result of this war. Wartime is a different circumstance. I understand that. But I think it is safe to say that there has been more waste, more fraud, and more abuse of the taxpayers' money in the recently short time, several years, than in the history of this country. I think it is unparalleled. I think we have a responsibility to deal with it.

Yes.

Mr. President, it is the case that whistleblowers from Kuwait, Iraq, and various parts of the United States have come to me and said: What is going on is wrong. We have held some hearings through our policy committee to take a look at it. They have wanted to testify.

Let me give you one example. I talked about Rory before. A man named Rory, an engaging fellow, who was a supervisor at a food service operation in Iraq, he said to us that what was going on was wrong. He worked for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton.

No. 1, he said we were charging for thousands of meals that we weren't serving.

No. 2, we were feeding the troops food that had expired date stamps on them.

He brought it to the attention of his superiors. They said: It doesn't matter. Feed it to the troops. It doesn't matter.

He said: We had convoys of trucks that were attacked on the road with food in them. He was told: You go into that truck bed and you find out what food has shrapnel in it. If you find good pieces of shrapnel, you give it to your supervisors as souvenirs, but feed the food to the troops.

The other thing that was very interesting, talking about employees of Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, he said: We were told that when Government auditors come around, don't you dare talk to them. You are forbidden to talk to them. If you do, one of two things will happen. You will either be fired, or you will be sent to a part of Iraq where there is active, hostile shooting going on.

This fellow, in fact, was sent to one of the active areas of Falluja. He had the courage, guts, and temerity, and decided he would talk to Government auditors.

It is unbelievable to me to hear a whistleblower say that a contractor which was being paid with Government funds told the employees: Don't you dare talk to Government auditors. If you do, you will be fired.

That is so fundamentally wrong.

Mr. President, clearly that is what we ought to do on behalf of soldiers.

I tell the Senator that the most recent allegations have been made by two people who worked for, once again, Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation, about the water that was provided to the military installations. Let me describe that.

Taking water from the Euphrates River--and some of it goes into a system where it is purified and used as potable water to drink. Some of it is used as nonpotable water. But the way they designed the lines to serve nonpotable water to the base, which is used for showering, shaving, and brushing teeth, and so on, the water that was coming out nonpotable areas was actually more contaminated with E. Coli, bacteria, than the raw water coming out of the Euphrates River from the sewage disposal.

Halliburton said it is not true. The Pentagon said it is not true.

It just wasn't one base. We have a memorandum from the person from KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary in charge of water to all the military installations in Iraq. That memorandum, which has now been made public, was from the person who was in charge on behalf of Halliburton, or KBR, of all the water for all the installations. That memo admits that they have a serious problem, and they have made big mistakes that could have caused serious problems, including death.

After we held hearings, a young woman, an Army captain in Iraq, wrote us a long, unsolicited e-mail. She said: There is something going on on my base. I saw there was some questions about water to our military installations in Iraq. I am here. I am treating people for all kinds of skin problems. And I began to see things that made me suspicious that there was something wrong with the water.

She said: I had my staff track back to the water line.

She said: What I found out was they were providing nonpotable water to the

soldiers on this base that was contaminated.

This is from a doctor who is there today. This isn't conjecture, speculation, or accusation. This is from a doctor who is actually treating people. Yet, once again, the company that we are paying as a contractor to provide water service to these bases, connect and purify the water and provide the water to soldiers, denied publicly that anything was wrong. We have two eye witnesses who have testified, whistleblowers one that worked for the company. We have the internal document from the company that discussed how they had made these mistakes, and we have a doctor, a physician, who works for the Army. This is like the old Western movie: Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?

The fact is, we know what is happening there, yet no one seems much concerned about it. I write to the Defense Secretary about this and say it is quite clear that unhealthy water is being supplied to troops for showering, brushing their teeth, and shaving. No one seems to get really excited over that. It seems to me the Secretary of Defense ought to say, Wait, what on Earth is going on? Let's put a stop to this.

I will talk in a few minutes about how all of this happens. It happens because we have sole-source, no-bid contracts and very little oversight.

Mr. President, we have had three recorded votes on this, and we have brought this to the Senate maybe six times now, altogether. I know it is repetitious. I know it probably is not pleasant to hear all of these things again, yet I don't think there is any choice.

If I might, just for the benefit of my colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin and I began talking about this some long while ago when we began to see the evidence of waste. We have worked at it since then.

When Senator Durbin was asking a question, I described the water issue. I want to read a quote from a memorandum that was written May 13, 2005, an internal Halliburton memorandum, written by Will Granger, the man who was paid with taxpayer funds to do this contract for Halliburton for all of the water issues in Iraq. These are the water issues for the U.S. bases in Iraq that directly affect United States soldiers.

Will Granger, the Halliburton employee:

No disinfection to the non-potable water was occurring [at

Camp Ar Ramadi] for water designated for showering purposes.

This caused an unknown population to be exposed to

potentially harmful water for an undetermined amount of time.

This event should be considered a ``NEAR MISS'' as the

consequences of these actions could have been VERY SEVERE

resulting in mass sickness or death.

The deficiencies of the camp where the event occurred is

not exclusive to that camp; meaning that country-wide, all

camps suffer to some extent from some or all of the

deficiencies noted.

That is what was covered up. This was not made public until I was able to dig it out. But when a whistleblower said this is happening-- and I am not referring to Will Granger, but to a whistleblower who said this is happening in his testimony to our committee--Halliburton said that it is not happening, you are not telling the truth, the Pentagon says there is no evidence of it.

And here is the internal Halliburton report that says it is happening, No. 1; and, No. 2, this camp was a ``near miss'' and:

. . . the consequence could have been VERY SEVERE resulting

in mass sickness or death.

A lot of people are making a lot of money, spent by this Congress, in support of our soldiers who are at war, and we have some contractors who are not playing straight with the soldiers or the American people.

I ask consent to show two items on the floor of the Senate.

A man whose name was Henry Bunting came to a hearing I held. I believe Senator Durbin was at that hearing. Henry Bunting worked for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton in Kuwait. In Kuwait, he was the purchaser of supplies for the U.S. Army. They wanted some hand towels, needed some towels, so a purchase requisition goes to Henry. Henry is going to buy some towels. Except when he put in the order for the towels, his company said, no, no, no, you cannot buy those regular towels that way. Towels have to have our logo embroidered on them.

So this is what he had to buy, at more than double the cost of the regular towels, so that the company logo could be put on the towels, and the taxpayers could be charged twice as much.

I am sure the soldiers didn't care one way or another whether there was that embroidered logo on the towel. But Henry, the purchaser, was told: You buy these. And don't ask any questions.

Henry says, You know, the American taxpayer got charged double and he didn't like it and he want to speak publicly. And not just this, it was a thousand other examples of costs being run up, from $45 for a case of Coca-cola, to $7,500 a month to lease an SUV. Henry said, It is not just the towels, but he brought the towels along to show us what is going on is really wrong. The American people are taking a bath here and it undermines the soldiers, as well.

Thank God there are some whistleblowers who are willing to come forward.

What we need now, of course, is the opportunity to legislate and see if we can't stop this.

I will not go much longer, although I don't see anyone preparing to offer another amendment yet. I do want to make a couple of points I made the other day on the broader amendment that was turned down by the Senate. That amendment dealt with contracting as well, but it was a much broader amendment than this.

I made the point then, and this actually had to do with Bunnatine Greenhouse. I know there are some who do not want to hear about this anymore. But I don't think we have any choice. This was the top civilian contracting official at the Corps of Engineers. She was the one responsible for overseeing the contracts.

Through the Corps of Engineers, Halliburton and KBR got no-bid, sole-

source contracts, giant contracts. Over one half of the contracts in the war theater are Halliburton.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the Vice President. Whenever you mention that term, they say, You are attacking the Vice President. No, he has been gone a long time. It doesn't have anything to do with him. It has to do with a company that got over 50 percent of the contracts in Iraq.

Bunnatine Greenhouse, the top contracting officer at Corps of Engineers who lost her job, now, as a result of telling the truth, says:

I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to

contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and

improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of

my professional career.

For that, she got demoted. Pretty harsh treatment for people who are whistleblowers in this town. She has been replaced, by the way, by someone without experience. When I have asked the general who runs the Corps of Engineers, he said the person that is replacing Bunnatine Greenhouse is now being trained. Not much consolation or confidence, in my judgment, in that for the American people.

One final story. If the issue of water does not motivate someone, let me talk again about Custer Battles. I have plenty of people come to me about Mr. Custer and Mr. Battles. This is an example of what is going on with so much money available.

Mr. Custer and Mr. Battles show up in Iraq without any money, without much experience in contracting, and decide, I will get some of this; I want to get some of this contracting that is available. It was not very long and they got some contracts very quickly. In fact, they ultimately got over $100 million in contracts.

The first contract was to provide security. They set up a little firm to provide security at the Baghdad airport. Now, among other things, whistleblowers from their own company came forward and said, Here are the things they were doing. They are cheating you blind. They took the forklift troop trucks out of the Baghdad airport, took them somewhere else, put them in the warehouse, painted them blue and sent them back and sold them to the Coalition Provisional Authority. They do not belong to them. They repainted them and sold them back to us. They set up subsidiaries in Lebanon and other places to buy and sell to and from themselves, and inflate the price, and, therefore, injure the taxpayer.

Here is what the fellow who runs the security system at the Baghdad airport said. The Baghdad airports director of security in a memo--a guy, also, that was trying to provide some warning--a memo to the Coalition Provisional Authority, and that is us in Iraq; it was set up by Donald Rumsfeld and that was the United States--here is what he said:

Custer Battles have shown themselves to be unresponsive,

uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war

profiteers. Other than that they are swell fellows.

This from the director of security at the Baghdad airport. These guys ended up getting over $100 million in contracts. I will show you a little bit of their money. This is a picture of $2 million in cash, $100 bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. I happen to know this guy; you do not see his head, just his body standing in front of the $2 million. He showed up here. He wanted to talk about this. Here is what he wanted to say.

What he wanted to say was, When I was there, standing in Baghdad, working on these accounts, the word went out to all of the contractors: We pay in cash; bring a bag. He said it was like the Wild West. Bring a sack because we pay in cash.

This $2 million actually went to Custer Battles. They took a picture of it. He said they used to throw these around as footballs, Saran Wrapped $100 bills. They threw them around as footballs in the office. And down below they had billions and billions of dollars, apparently.

Lest there be any question about the misuse of money, let me show $2 million Saran Wrapped just before it went to Custer Battles. How did this happen? Because this guy right here, this fellow right here, told me that our message to everyone was ``bring a bag because we pay in cash.''

Does anyone doubt there is going to be dramatic waste, fraud, and abuse in those circumstances? Does anyone doubt that at all, and after all of these stories? Doubling the price of hand towels; 25 tons, 50,000 pounds of nails laying on the sands of Iraq because they were ordered in the wrong side, dumped in the sand.

I could go on forever from what I learned from whistleblowers. I will not do that, only to say this: The next step for this Congress, I think, is to establish a Truman-type committee. We have done it before and we can do it again. Never has it been more needed than now. There is, I think, plenty of evidence that the most significant waste, fraud, and abuse that has ever been visited on the taxpayers of this country is occurring now and has occurred in the last 3 years.

The remedy for that? It is not to blame anyone here. The remedy for that is for us to fix it, for us to do something. What should we do? Let's put together the type of thing that worked previously. Harry Truman had the guts to do it.

Harry Truman was a Democrat. There was a Democrat in the White House. I am sure they all were gnashing their teeth at what Harry Truman was trying to do, but on a bipartisan basis Harry Truman put together, with the consent of the Senate, the Truman Committee that sunk their teeth into this issue and really did investigate and came up with a massive amount of waste, fraud, and abuse.

That is a minnow compared to the whale that exists at the moment in waste, fraud, and abuse. It is required of us, in my judgment, required of us to pass this legislation.

Having said all of that, let me compliment the chairman and the ranking member, but let me not do it because it is obligatory but because I really do think they do a great job. I hope they decide to strongly support this amendment. Then I will come back and compliment them some more.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Senator is absolutely correct, first, about the history and, second, about the importance of this. Harry Truman used to have a sign on his desk saying, ``the buck stops here.'' Well, the buck stops here in the Congress on this issue. We are the ones who have to go find this waste, fraud, and abuse and put a stop to it. If we don't do it, it won't happen.

Harry Truman was a straight talker, a straight thinker. He used to say he would only accept one-armed economists because he didn't want people around him saying ``on the one hand'' and ``on the other hand.'' He decided to sink his teeth into the issue of waste, fraud, and abuse, and he made a big difference at a time when there was substantial waste, fraud, and abuse.

But I would venture to say there has never been a case in our history where

we have pushed hundreds of billions of dollars out the door in a very large hurry and put them in the hands of no-bid, sole-source contracts with big companies and said, ``Have a good time.'' It is unbelievable what is going on, and it is our responsibility to stop it--not tomorrow; it is our responsibility to stop it now.

This is the bill in which we should do it. This amendment fits exactly in this piece of legislation. My hope is that when the dust settles, we will have decided to accept this amendment.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to share a few thoughts about the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee, which I chair, which deals with space, missile defense, satellites, and many of the other high-tech systems on which our Defense Department relies. But I just want to respond to my colleague, Senator Durbin. I don't think he actually meant to say that our soldiers are coming home broken in body and spirit, but he came close. That is not what I am hearing. Go out to Walter Reed. They may have broken bodies and broken bones, but they are not broken in spirit.

The night before last, I attended a wonderful ceremony of the 231st birthday of the U.S. Army. I was talking with soldiers there. We were talking about the war and the politics of the Capitol. They are aware of what is going on. I told them that I thought the Congress would not vote for any immediate withdrawal, and indeed we voted yesterday 93 to 6 against any kind of withdrawal requirement for this year. That vote, represents a strong bipartisan consensus of the Senate. One of those soldiers said: I will tell you what we want, Senator; ``We want to win.'' We want to win this war. That is what the American people want, that is what the soldiers who have gone there and sacrificed want, and that is what they believe in. The soldiers who have been there believe in what they have done. They have been courageous in performing their mission.

It is difficult for me and for them to understand this idea that we can support the soldiers but not support the mission we sent them on, sent them by a three-fourths vote of this Senate. A majority of Democrats and Republicans voted for this war, and we are going to stay the course, we are going to help our military succeed, and we are going to help them win.

The point I pick up more and more as I talk with these soldiers, what I am hearing from them, is they are afraid we are going to mess it up. They believe they are winning. They believe they are doing their job. They believe they will be successful. And they are really worried that this Congress will be the one that will lose its nerve and not stand with them after they put their lives on the line for this country.

I believe this is a big deal, and that success in Iraq is important for our Nation. I visited that region recently. I talked to the leaders of Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. What would it mean for us if we had a disastrous event in Iraq where the terrorists take over that country? What would it mean to their neighbors? What would it mean to the region? All nations of good will know we must succeed.

Iraq is stepping up. There are now 260,000 Iraqi soldiers and security personnel in uniform and reaching higher and higher levels of performance. They are doing a much better job every day. They will soon be at 350,000 by the end of this year. They are being better equipped and better trained, and I believe we are doing a much smarter job of imbedding our soldiers with the Iraqi units so we can call in air support, we can provide mentoring, we can provide advice, we can call on other kinds of support, if they need it, to be effective.

A majority of the raids and actions that are taking place in Iraq are taking place by the Iraqis. Iraqi soldiers are taking more casualties than American soldiers. We are not babysitting them. This image of millions casting their ballots for a freely elected government of Iraq is not a bad image for us to remember. We need to remember that, and it is important for us, let me note first and foremost, that this Nation not allow the terrorists to win in Iraq.

We are going to be successful. But I realize the American people are concerned. They don't like to see violence and continued death. They don't like to see our soldiers at risk. I certainly understand that; neither do I.

I have been an admirer of General Abizaid, CENTCOM commander, and his team of generals because General Abizaid has always resisted the temptation to see how many troops we can put in Iraq. He said that is not the way to win this war. We need the right number of troops, and we need to begin to draw them down as soon as it is appropriate to draw them down and lift up the Iraqi Army. That is what we need to do.

Some want to have the President set forth a detailed plan so they can criticize it, basically. How will some sort of formalized plan help our soldiers be effective in the battle? It just tells your enemy what you are going to be doing. More importantly, a detailed plan is not going to be permanent. It will have to change because the enemy changes. As soon as you shut off one avenue of enemy success, they take another one and you have to respond to that. That is the history of warfare. That is the way wars have always been fought: you constantly adjust and constantly alter your efforts to be successful toward your ultimate goal of victory. That is what our military is doing.

Trying to demand a date from our military to withdraw or trying to demand from them a plan of what they are going to do 5 months from now fails to understand and recognize the nature of this conflict, and this conflict more than most conflicts because we face an asymmetrical enemy, a nontraditional enemy, who knows it cannot stand and fight our military successfully, so it devises devious and sneaky ways to pit one religion against another, to attack American soldiers, to attack the local police, all designed to crumble the Government of Iraq. But it hasn't happened. Iraqis are still signing up and becoming policemen. Iraqis are still signing up and the army is growing. The Government of Iraq has elected, for the first time, their permanent leadership.

Prime Minister Maliki is in office. His whole Cabinet now has been established. The two key Cabinet positions on which they spent extra time, Defense and Interior, have now been established, confirmed and voted by the 275 member Parliament. So they have their government now, fully elected, a permanent government, just like any other nation in the world. There is no interim government now.

I believe they are going to be successful, and I tell you, it is going to be important for the United States that they are. We have invested a lot; our soldiers have invested a lot. They are proud of what they are doing. They are not broken in spirit. They want to be successful and win.

I have some numbers I will share with my colleagues and those around the country who might be listening. In this conflict, the Army has had the largest number of people serving in Iraq, yet their enlistment rate through May of this year was 104.3 percent. They have exceeded their enlistment goals for this year. They have exceeded their reenlistment goals. The Army for a few months did miss their goals, and some critics said it was a broken Army and predicted disaster. The Army said: No, we are not broken, and we are going to meet our goals. For 13 consecutive months, the Army has met its goals. The highest retention reenlistment rates come from the units that have just come back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Staff Sergeant Barr, who was at Walter Reed, was injured by an explosive device. He was punctured by as many as 100 different pieces of shrapnel. He was told he would have difficulty walking and would probably never run again. He said he was going to run again, and he was going back to Iraq with the unit that he came with. And he worked at it and he worked at it and he ran. He eventually went back to Iraq and served again. That is the kind of spirit that we have. That is the kind of spirit that you see in our Army.

I was told by an officer who knew that story that every single soldier in his squad reenlisted. This is the spirit that this Congress needs to strive to be worthy of. This is the kind of professional commitment and courage that inspires us, or should inspire us. We should not be whining around here and trying to find some error that was made somewhere where body armor did not get to a soldier. Body armor is out there protecting soldiers. It is not a problem. To say that there has never been a shortage somewhere or somehow a supply failed to get where it was supposed to, I can't say; but it is not a systemic problem. But to go around and suggest to the citizens of our country that this Congress and the military is not committed to providing body armor to our soldiers is bogus and false and undermines what they are doing. It must be most confusing to our soldiers there.

But I think the vote yesterday should give them confidence that most of this talk is simply politics. Most of it is just complaining and second-guessing, like is done on the floor of the Senate every day. We hear it every day on many issues and debate and criticism is passed of the strength of American Government.

But I would urge my colleagues to think differently about soldiers in conflict, soldiers in harm's way. We need to be careful what we are saying here. It may sound good, it may hurt President Bush, to make this allegation or that allegation, but is it perhaps creating in the eyes of our enemies a belief that we are divided, that we won't stay the course, and that if they just kill enough people, civilians, Americans, Iraqis, that somehow, it will all just fail. Is that the possibility that we are creating? That is why I urge my colleagues to be very careful and watch what you say in terms of attacks on the efforts that our military have so courageously undertaken in Iraq. Things happen in war. Bad things happen. But no military has done a better job of striving for perfection than ours has.

I would also like to respond to charges that this Nation is going to be embarrassed historically because we have tortured people that were captured in this war on terrorism. We talked about Lincoln. Lincoln eliminated the writ of habeas corpus. Roosevelt, as Senator Durbin said, locked people up, Japanese Americans, in a way that was not justified. He basically takes a view, as so many seem to be saying on the left and on the Democratic side, that we have a policy of torture in the United States. That is not so. The President has repeatedly, time and time again, said: We have no policy of torture; we do not torture.

There is a statute in the United States Code passed shortly before I came here that defines and prohibits torture. It does not say you can never put any stress on someone, but it says you can't subject them to torture, and it defines it precisely.

They say, well, what about Abu Ghraib. Let me remind everybody, we learned about Abu Ghraib when the Army general reported what happened in Abu Ghraib. Let me remind people that what happened to those prisoners in Abu Ghraib, so wrong that it was, had nothing to do with interrogation, had nothing to do with any plan of torture. These were not even prisoners who had any intelligence. It was the late graveyard shift and a group of soldiers lost their discipline--lost their discipline under the stress of war--and performed in a way that got them prosecuted and sent to jail by the U.S. military. That was not the policy of the United States of America. We have heard this most complex chain of thoughts and reasoning, this complex chain of reasoning which is almost laughable, and is worthy of the most incredible conspiracy theorists, that somehow President Bush is responsible for what happened in Abu Ghraib.

It is not so. The military responded firmly and aggressively to this terrible wrong. And do you remember the story--I know the Presiding Officer does--of the fine African-American colonel under the stress of attacks on his men in Iraq, he fired a gun near the head of an enemy that had been captured in order to attempt to frighten him and to get intelligence from him. Apparently, he got some intelligence of value that he believed helped protect the lives of his soldiers. But do you know what. He was booted out of the military because we don't tolerate that kind of thing. His actions went beyond what our standards allow, and he was cashiered from the Army. A fine person with a fine career who made a big mistake, and he paid for it because we don't accept that kind of thing.

It is demeaning, it is dishonest, it is wrong to suggest that we have a policy to torture prisoners. With regard to Guantanamo, I know the President said he would like to see it closed. Well, I want to know what he is going to do with those prisoners. I have been there twice. Those soldiers do their jobs under difficult conditions every single day. They are highly professional. They do not allow themselves to be baited into overreacting when these prisoners display the worst kinds of anti-Americanism.

Until just recently, not a single captive had died at Guantanamo. Now we have three suicides. So I suppose that is our fault now, that we had three people commit suicide who were being held down there. These are not bad conditions at all. They are good conditions. They are treated fine. They are given the Koran, given places to worship, given places to exercise, and given all kinds of things that most prisons around the world don't give to the prisoners of their own countries, much less to the people who want to destroy their country.

But what I would say is this: They committed suicide. Those suicides were a political statement. They were their efforts to attack and undermine the United States. Their fervent desire was that Members of this Senate and the House of Representatives would use their deaths to speak on the floor to try to undermine our war against terrorism to make us less successful in the war on terrorism. That is exactly what their goal was. And, I would say this: does anyone in this Chamber doubt that if they had access to a bomb, they would have put that bomb on their body and killed anybody they could have? They would have killed themselves to promote their terrorist agenda. If they had been given the opportunity, wouldn't they have put a bomb on and killed others at the same time?

I say those suicides are an absolute indication that we have in Guantanamo some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world.

Now, I heard an official of our great ally, the United Kingdom, say we ought to close Guantanamo. I wanted to write him and say: Do you want to take these prisoners to the U.K.? Do you want to hold them? And then if you get tired of holding them, are you just going to let them go in London on your subways and on your buses? Then the critics worry that if we turn them back to their home countries and we have a rendition of the prisoners back to their home countries, that we have to guarantee that they are going to be treated wonderfully. So we can't keep them in Guantanamo, we can't--who else wants them? We can't even send them back to their home countries to be held in prison, apparently.

So this reminds me of nuclear waste. Everybody has nuclear waste, but nobody wants to do anything with it, and they use the argument that you can't dispose of nuclear waste to try to block nuclear power. So this is just another attempt to make it more difficult, in my view, for us to be successful in handling these prisoners. They are not being tortured at Guantanamo. It is not the policy of the United States to torture anyone, and they are not being tortured. The few people who violated our high standards have been disciplined and punished.

So let me say this in conclusion, Mr. President. The good news is that we have free debate here, and we get to duke it out and we get to have our say. We just voted yesterday 93 to 6 to declare we have no intention of any precipitous withdrawal from Iraq; that we are going to stand there with our soldiers, and we are going to stand with our allies in Iraq and help them establish a free, decent, democratic government, a government that will be to our national interests to an incredible degree. It will be more valuable than most people can comprehend to us and to the world to have a decent, peaceful Iraq and to defeat the terrorists there who want to take it over and make it their place.

The other good news is that we have had a very successful attack on the CEO of terrorism, Zarqawi, and he has been killed. He clearly was the No. 1 executive officer of terrorism in the world, and that was a big victory.

We also now completed the confirmation of the Defense Minister and the Interior Minister for Iraq, so the entire Cabinet is in place, and an entire government is in place. The Iraqi Army continues to get better, and it continues to grow, and we are beginning to see the possibility that our troops can be withdrawn. If we have to send more troops there, I will listen to the commanders. If they can bring the troops down, that will make me happy. We are going to listen to our commanders and do what it takes and continue this process in a way that leads to--what? Victory. That is what the soldiers we have sent there want, that is what the American people want, and that is what we in this Congress have to do; to figure out how to help our military people go forward and achieve victory. That will be my effort, and I think for the most part that is the bipartisan consensus of this Senate.

Mr. President, again, I finish with a tribute to the professionalism of those in service, to the risk they have incurred; how they have attempted to conduct the violence of war in a way that mitigates civilian casualties and that reflects the highest ideals of the United States of America. I could not be more proud of their service. The conduct of this war on terrorism will be received as the most humane and careful war in history.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after I speak Senator Dorgan be recognized, and then that Senator Vitter be recognized.

Mr. President, I rise to speak a little about the supplemental appropriations bill, which is now pending. I want to begin by congratulating the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, for the extraordinary job he did in producing this bill. When it left the Senate, it was around $105 billion. It comes back to us from conference at $94.2 billion or $94.3 billion--I forget the exact number. It was not easy to bring it down from the Senate position to what was acceptable to the President and to the House. It was really a result of Senator Cochran simply saying that we are going to make these difficult decisions and we are going to have a bill that meets the conditions the President laid down for our spending responsibility. He deserves a great deal of congratulations and respect for having accomplished that.

Within the bill, he has included also an issue which I am interested in as chairman of the Budget Committee. It is what is called a ``deeming resolution.'' It sets the amount of money that can be spent on the discretionary side of the budget. That is those accounts that we appropriate, on which we spend every year, and which are automatic expenditures for things like education and some of the health care accounts and national defense are some of the big ones, as is homeland security.

This deeming resolution has set a number of $873 billion, which I think is a very responsible number, which the President sent up in his budget, and the number the House had in their budget. It wasn't the number that left the Senate when we passed our budget. One of the Senators who spoke before me from the other side was upset that the number that passed the Senate was not included in the deeming resolution, which is a fairly ironic position for anybody to take since they voted against the budget as it left the Senate.

In any event, the deeming resolution as it is in this budget is the number that was agreed to between the Republican leadership of the Senate and the House, and it was the number that the President felt was appropriate. It will be a difficult number to obtain, there is no question. It represents significant fiscal restraint. It is a clear marker that we are going to try to restrain the rate of growth of the discretionary side of the budget, which is critical to putting in place fiscal responsibility.

I think it is important for people to know that, yes, we presently have a very large deficit. But this deficit is coming down rather precipitously from where it was projected to be 6 months ago. It was projected that we would have a deficit of well over $400 billion. We are projecting this year that it will be in the $300 billion range. That is a very positive move in the right direction. Part of that move is a function of the fact that we have started to control the rate of growth of the Federal Government, independent of our needs relative to fighting the war on terrorism and Katrina, which are events that we need to simply spend money on because of the catastrophe of Katrina and because of the need to have our troops in the field and have what they need to be adequately supported.

Another reason the budget deficit has come down so much in the last few months is because our revenues are coming in as a result of the President putting into place, and the Republican Congress supporting the effort, economic policies which energized the economy dramatically--putting in place a tax policy that is fair to entrepreneurs and risk-takers in this country. We have seen people who are willing to go out and take risk, taking action that creates taxable events. Specifically, they have created new companies, created new economic activity and new jobs.

As a result of those things, revenues are jumping dramatically. We have seen the largest revenue increase in the last 40 years, I believe, in this last year; and the year before that, we saw a historic revenue increase. The Federal Government is back to essentially where they were, in a historical context, over the last 20 years as a percent of gross national product. Those revenues had dropped precipitously over the last 3 years because of the breaking or bursting of the Internet bubble and the attack of 9/11, which caused a recession.

So we are seeing the economy come back. We are seeing 5.3 percent growth, which is extraordinary. We are seeing a job situation where we have virtually full employment. According to the economists, when you get down to an unemployment level below 5 percent, you are basically talking about full employment. We have seen this as a result of this expansion of the economy that has now been going on for 39 straight months, or something like that. We have seen a huge jump in revenues, and the effective result of that is that the deficit is coming down also. In fact, if you were to take out the cost of fighting the war against terrorism and the cost of paying for the Katrina tragedy, we would essentially be functioning on what would be statistically considered to be almost a balanced budget.

We would be at a historic low relative to the deficit as a percentage of the gross national product over the last 20 years. So we are moving in the right direction. By putting in place this deeming resolution 873, we are asserting we are going to be aggressive to try to control the rate of growth on the discretionary side. That is all positive and good, and it largely comes about because we have very strong leadership on the Appropriations Committee through Chairman Cochran and his commitment to fiscal discipline.

Another issue I wish to talk about and put the issue in the correct context so people understand what is actually happening is the issue of border security because there has been a lot of confusion as to how much money we are spending on border security, where we are spending it, and what it is being spent on.

I have the good fortune of chairing the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. As chairman of that subcommittee, I suggested we put in the supplemental as an emergency item--not as an emergency item, we paid for it--$1.9 billion, the purpose of which would be to pay for capital items which were in dire need by Customs, the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard. These are items such as airplanes--Customs is flying 20 or so P-3s, and they were all grounded a month ago because they are 40 years over their useful life and they have serious structural issues that have to be checked all the time or they have the potential of serious structural issues-- new helicopters because the helicopters are 20 years past their useful life; new cars to be used on the border because the Border Patrol goes through cars rather rapidly because of the harshness of the terrain in which they have to use them; sensors; and unmanned vehicles. With the Coast Guard, it is fast boats to be used to make sure our shorelines are protected from people coming across who shouldn't be coming across and maybe want to do us harm.

These are all capital items. The reason I suggested we do capital items is because I didn't want to create an outyear cost which we couldn't afford to pay for under the present budget system, but I did want to take off the table items I knew we were going to spend money on if we were going to have an effective Border Patrol, to have an effective Customs agency, and to have an effective Coast Guard.

The White House looked at that number and said they really didn't want to do that. Instead, they shifted over and said: Let's do operational items, and they decided to take, of that $1.9 billion, about $800 million and spend it putting the National Guard on the border, and the balance of the money they

basically used to project the hiring of new people and the addition of beds for detention, both of which I support, but both of which create certain issues, and that is what I want to talk about briefly--the issues created by the supplemental and what will occur in the followup appropriations bills of Homeland Security so everybody knows the playing field that is being defined.

The practical effect of this supplemental is, yes, there will be money in place to hire an additional 1,000 agents. We already had money in the pipeline to hire an additional 1,500 agents this year. It takes about 40,000 applications before you can get 1,000 agents. It is not easy to hire them. Then you have to train them, and you have to have a physical facility to train them, which we have in New Mexico. But that facility doesn't have the capacity to train 2,500 agents a year; maybe 2,000 but not 2,500. It is unlikely we can hire an additional 1,000 agents before the end of this fiscal year--maybe 300 or 400, maybe even 500. But I will agree that by putting the money in now, we accelerate what we planned to do next year, which is to hire another 2,000 agents. So we are accelerating that event, if that is the goal.

Secondly, the proposal basically prefunds bedspace which should be funded and creates an outyear cost as a result of that and does a series of other operational things and actually some capital items with which I totally agree, such as technology investment and unmanned vehicle investment.

But the practical effect of doing it this way is we create what is known as a budget tail or an expense in the outyear which we are going to have to pick up, and that is the point I wanted to make today in as factual a way as I can because it is a very big issue we are going to have to deal with as a Congress, and that is this: The President sent up a budget proposal for next year, 2007, which was essentially $32 billion, rounded up. That request had an assumption of 1,500 new agents, 1,500 new agents we put in this year would be paid for, and then an additional assumption of another 1,500 agents, I believe, on top of that for next year.

It also had in it a request that part of the money, the $32 billion, be paid for by raising the airline fee which people pay as a tax when they get on an airplane basically to fund the increase in the border security activity, primarily with the Border Patrol agent expansion, of $1.2 billion. That proposal of $1.2 billion had been sent up 2 years ago, and it was rejected out of hand. Why? Because the chairman of the authorizing committee, in what I think is a fairly legitimate view of the issue, said: You shouldn't be raising the tax of people getting on airplanes for the purpose of protecting the borders. The airplane tax should go to TSA and FAA and things which are used to make air transportation safer, but it shouldn't tax the airline transportation industry, specifically the passengers, to fund border activity.

When it was sent up again this year, it was basically dead on arrival, which the administration knew it would be. It wasn't a surprise because they had gone through this before. Actually, what they sent up was a request for about $32 billion in spending but funding for about $30.8 billion in spending, which means there was a $1.2 billion gap. That will be difficult to fill in, in and of itself, were that the only problem. But in order to fill that, basically Senator Cochran, as chairman of the full committee, is going to have to take it from some other committee to give it to my Homeland Security Subcommittee to pick up that $1.2 billion, if he is generous to do that or believes it is the right policy. He will have to take it from somebody else. I assure you, whomever he takes it from is not going to be all that appreciative of having lost $1.2 billion.

That would be a major hurdle to begin with. Now throw on top of that $1.2 billion shortfall the fact that in this bill, they have forward- funded 1,000 agents plus a lot of other operational expenses, and they have not funded the Coast Guard costs of what is called their fast boat or the expansion of their coastal protection efforts. They have taken the $600 million we intended to use to do that and spent it on the National Guard. And we have created approximately--the number fluctuates on what one deems to be capital and doesn't deem to be capital. My guess is we are somewhere in the range of $1.4 billion in operational expenditures which are now put in the pipeline which are not funded for the year 2007.

In addition, the administration tells us--and I would agree with this if we could do it--in the 2008 budget, they are going to ask for 3,500 new agents so that we can ramp up as quickly as possible to the ultimate goal, which is 20,000 agents. It is possible by the 2008 period that we will have the training facilities at a position where we can hire 3,500 agents. It is also possible that we could get 100,000 applications or 120,000 applications or so, whatever it would take to get 3,500 people. So that is a possibility. But the implications of that are significant in the form of cost.

What does this put at risk? All these costs have been put in the pipeline in a manner which is basically upfronting operational costs but not taking off the table capital needs. The practical implications of the $1.2 billion, if it is not found by Senator Cochran--and I am not asking him to. I think if the administration is going to take this position, if they are going to make their bed, they ought to be asked to sleep in it.

If Senator Cochran cannot find that $1.2 billion, the practical effect is we could not maintain the funding for the 1,000 agents that have just been put in the supplemental. We also could not add the new 1,500 agents we would need in order to fund what we expected to do in the 2007 bill. We would have to reduce technology and science and sensor technology by about $100 million. We would have to limit infrastructure construction, especially fence construction, by about $100 million. We would have to reduce detention expansion capability by about 6,700 beds.

We would have to reduce fugitive operations, where we try to find these people and get them out of the country, by about $60 million. We would be unable to forward-fund the effort to get the IDENT and the EFIS systems to communicate with each other for the purpose of a U.S. visit, which is absolutely critical. That is where you come across the border, and they fingerprint you. They take two fingerprints of you. By taking 2 fingerprints of you, they can't communicate with the FBI database which has all the criminals in it because that database requires 10 fingerprints. So essentially we are limiting our capacity to figure out who is coming across the border as it relates to the FBI database. There is a protocol where they try to get the worst people and make it work, but the fact is, we have tens of thousands of fingerprints that are not able to be adequately vetted. That would have to be put off. The need to come up with a card with biotics attached to it so we could have a tamperproof identification system would probably have to be put off because we couldn't pay for that. That is a big one.

These items would have to be put off, plus the Coast Guard--and this really frustrates me--the Coast Guard, in order to build out the fleet they need--and they are functioning under old boats, a lot of old boats, and they have helicopters which are not properly structured, many of them, most of them, the vast majority of them are not armed-- build out program to get things right and get positioned correctly to protect our coastline, instead of being completed in 2015, which was our goal under our supplemental request, will end up being completed in 2023 or 2024 and cost more money to do it because of the spread out.

So we are facing a lot of very serious issues as to what we will be able to fund and how much we will be able to fund under the present game plan or blueprint as it is set out for this year and next year as a result of this supplemental.

I thought it was important to come down to the Chamber and try to lay out the specifics because at some point, we are going to have to face up to the reality that there is a disconnect between what is being proposed and what is being paid for. This is not going to work.

Mr. President, as chairman of the Budget Committee, I regularly comment on Appropriations bills that are brought to the Senate for consideration and present the fiscal comparisons and budgetary data. Because of its importance, I will also follow that practice for the pending conference report.

The conference report to accompany the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2006, H.R. 4939, provides $94.430 billion in budget authority and $24.327 billion in outlays in fiscal year 2006 for contingency operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global war on terrorism; relief from Hurricane Katrina; other emergency assistance; border security; and avian flu. Of these totals, there are no mandatory funds included. $143 million in outlays in the conference report are not designated emergency; these outlays will count against the discretionary allocation for regular appropriations for fiscal year 2006.

The budget authority in the conference report is within the level of the President's request of February 16, 2006, when adjusted for avian flu. It is also $14.468 billion less than the Senate-passed bill, which clearly demonstrates significant progress in conference with respect to conforming the measure to the initial request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the Budget Committee's estimate of the bill be inserted in the Record.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank the very able Senator who has just spoken for his service to the Nation and to this body. I thank the very able chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Thad Cochran, for all of his meticulous--meticulous--work on this bill.

The President asked the Congress to approve $92.2 billion of emergency spending and $2.3 billion to combat pandemic flu. When the committee opened its hearings on the supplemental on March 7, I stated my belief that it is our duty--our duty--to scrutinize the President's request, not only for what is in it, but also for what is not in it.

The conference report that is before us includes $65.7 billion for the Department of Defense to fund the wars--and there are two of them going on--two wars: the war in Iraq, to which I was opposed, and I feel I was right, and in Afghanistan, which I supported; I support that war, and I supported that war from the beginning in Afghanistan--an amount said to be sufficient to prosecute those wars and supply our troops.

Upon passage of this legislation, the total amount appropriated for the war in Iraq, including the cost of reconstruction, will be $318 billion--$318 billion. That is $318 for every minute that has passed-- every minute--$318 for every minute since Jesus Christ, praise the Lord, was born. That is a lot of money. Mr. President, $318 for every minute that has passed since Jesus Christ was born 2,000 years ago. That is a staggering figure. And what is even more unbelievable is that the monthly cost of this war in Iraq, which I have opposed from the beginning, has been steadily escalating from $5 billion per month in 2004 to more than $8 billion per month now.

The American people--hey, those people who are out there in the prairies, in the Rocky Mountains, in the lands between Washington, DC, and the Rocky Mountains--they are all asking: How on Earth has the monthly cost of the war in Iraq grown so much in just 2 years? The Bush administration announced that major combat operations ended in May of 2001. Remember that? The banner that we saw on the ship? Let me repeat. The Bush administration announced that major combat operations ended in May of 2003. But the costs of the war continue to spiral. How can that be? Why? Why? This administration does not want to answer these questions. Instead, the administration continues to request funds for these wars--two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration continues to request funds for the wars through ad hoc emergency supplemental appropriations bills.

Regrettably, the Congress continues to duck for cover. Since the President took us to war in Iraq in 2003, the Congress has approved eight different emergency supplemental appropriations measures to fund the wars--eight. None of those measures received the full scrutiny that is required of such massive expenditures. You know it. I know it. We know it. Everybody should know it. The President refuses to include the full costs of these wars in his regular budget request. Instead, he sends the Congress emergency requests with little or no detailed justification.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this President has requested $515 billion of emergency spending--yes, you heard me, $515 billion of emergency spending that does not appear in the budget. This conference report includes language that I authored, urging the President to put the full costs of the wars in his annual budget. This is the fifth time the Congress has approved such a provision.

My amendment was approved 94 to 0. It is time for the President to get the message. The administration's failure to budget for the wars means that neither the White House nor the Congress is making the tough decisions about how to make the most of public funds to pay for the ongoing wars.

Tales of waste abound. Our troops deserve better treatment, as do you, the American people out there. I am pleased that the conference agreement includes $35.6 million for improved mine safety and health programs. Since January of this year there have been 19 coal mining deaths in the State of West Virginia, and another 14 mining deaths in the States of Kentucky, Alabama, Maryland, and Utah. This conference report will ensure that an adequate number of safety inspectors will be provided for our Nation's mines and will expedite the introduction of critical safety equipment into the mines. These are critical dollars which will begin to fill the gaps, the unacceptable gaps at the Federal Mine Safety Agency. There are too few inspectors, there is too much out-of-date safety technology, there are too many unprepared rescue teams, and the litany of problems at the Federal Mine Safety Agency goes on while the lives of our Nation's coal miners continue to be at risk.

In the past 5 years at the Mine Safety Agency, safety has taken a back seat. At least 217 coal safety inspector jobs have been eliminated--wiped out. The political leadership at MSHA puts protecting miners' lives on the back burner.

We have a moral obligation to make our coal mines safer. This funding will jump-start the job of protecting our coal miners' lives and providing some peace of mind to the coal miners' families.

I know how those families feel. I grew up in a coal miner's home. My wife's father was a coal miner. You are looking at somebody who speaks the coal miner's language. I do. Coal mine safety should not take a back seat to coal production. Protecting the lives of our coal miners has to be job No. 1 in the mines.

I cannot find the words to adequately express my heartfelt appreciation for the support of Chairman Thad Cochran of Mississippi and the other Senate conferees, particularly Senator Specter and Senator Harkin, for their cooperation. With this funding and with the recent approval of the mine safety authorization bill, Congress will have given clear, unmistakable direction to the administration. The safety of our coal mines and the brave miners who work in them must be paramount, uppermost. I will say that once more. The safety of our coal mines and the brave miners, men and women, who work in the coal mines must be paramount.

With regard to funding required to recover from the gulf coast hurricanes, the chairman of our Senate Appropriations Committee took the bull by the horns. Under Senator Thad Cochran's leadership, the Senate added $9.2 billion to the President's budget request to aid the victims of the hurricanes. In addition, the Senate added funds to meet pressing emergency needs for drought relief, port security, the security of U.S. borders, and much needed

medical care for the Nation's veterans. Sadly, the President, our President, threw down the gauntlet and threatened--yes, threatened--to veto the bill. The White House insisted that $14 billion of what it called low-priority items be dropped from the bill. As a result, the Republican leadership of the House and Senate sat down with White House staff and agreed to drop from the bill emergency disaster drought relief for our farmers, funding for critical veterans' medical services, and funding for increased security at the U.S. ports. Over $9 billion of critical funding for the victims of the hurricanes--over $9 billion--has been eliminated, including housing assistance, education assistance, and transportation funds. Where are our priorities?

Instead, this administration has put its highest priority not on disaster needs but on massive tax cuts to the tune of $254 billion for 2006, tax cuts--yes, hear me, tax cuts at a time when the Nation is at war and spending on that war is on the order of $8 billion per month. That is like spending $8 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born-- $8 for every 60 seconds since our Lord Jesus Christ was born.

The administration continues to have a huge credibility gap when it comes to homeland security. There is a continuing drumbeat that another terrorist attack is likely.

Yet once again the administration is trying to secure the homeland on the cheap.

The White House insisted that the conferees strip away $648 million for port security and $600 million for the Coast Guard from the bill. Take it out. The administration's speechwriters and the administration's policywriters seem to be living in different worlds.

How serious is the administration about port security when the administration decides to allow Dubai Ports World to operate six major U.S. ports before the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security were made aware of the decision? Who is in charge? Who is in charge? What a fiasco.

How serious are we about port security when Customs inspects only 5 percent of the 11 million containers that come into the country each year? How serious are we about port security when the Coast Guard inspects only one-third of foreign ports that trade with the United States? Yet at the insistence of the White House--hear me now--at the insistence of the White House $648 million for port security is eliminated--gone, gone with the wind.

With regard to border security, the administration continues to be a day late and a dollar short. They opposed my efforts--this little boy from the hills of West Virginia--yes. The administration continues to be a day late and a dollar short. They opposed my efforts last year to add funds for border security. How about that--your security, border security.

Fortunately, Chairman Gregg, the great Senator from New Hampshire--I like him. No, he is not a Democrat. What difference does that make? I like him.

Fortunately, Chairman Gregg and our House counterparts agreed--yes, that old boy from the mountains--agreed with me, and we now have 1,500 more Border Patrol agents. We now have 1,500 more Border Patrol agents and 581 more immigration investigators and agents, and 1,950 more detention beds.

On May 18, 3 weeks after the Senate adopted the comprehensive Gregg- Byrd border security amendment, the White House sent up its own border security package. Rather than following our lead--Senator Gregg and Senator Byrd--the White House insisted on reducing the package for the Department of Homeland Security by $728 million--that isn't chicken feed--and narrowing the focus to just the Southwest border.

While some may view border security through a microscope, Chairman Judd Gregg and I share the view that when the border is tightened in one place, the threat will move elsewhere. We should anticipate that inevitable dynamic so that our border enforcement agencies will have the tools to effectively do their jobs when they need those tools, not 2 or 3 years from now. Yet the President requested no funds--no funds, none--for the Coast Guard and no funds--none--for the northern border.

Just few days ago, 17 alleged terrorists were apprehended in Toronto, Canada. This ought to have served as a wake-up call to all of us that the threat to this country is not only on our Southwest border but on all of our borders.

Regrettably, the President had his way in conference. While I appreciate that we have another $1.2 billion for border security, I worry that the funds are not based on a sound plan for border security.

In conference, Chairman Thad Cochran offered an amendment to establish a limit on discretionary spending for fiscal year 2007. He did so to expedite the consideration of the appropriations measure through the Senate in the absence of a final budget resolution. Chairman Thad Cochran and I share the goal of debating in the Senate and sending to the President 12 individual, fiscally responsible appropriations bills.

I support setting clear, enforceable limits on the spending contained in the appropriations bills. The issue is: At what level should we cap spending? Chairman Thad Cochran presented to the conference a deeming resolution that would limit spending to $872.8 billion, the level proposed by the President.

Once again, the President's budget represents an irresponsible plan that trades America's long-term future for short-term political gain. If the Congress approves the President's request for Defense and Homeland Security, the President's budget will fall $14 billion short of what is needed for domestic programs, just to keep pace with inflation.

The President proposes the largest cut to education funding in the 26-year history of the Education Department, $2.1 billion or a 4 percent reduction. This is a nonsensical squandering of the future of our children.

How are we going to compete in the global marketplace unless our young people have the tools they need?

Although we have thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the President wants to collect $795 million in new or increased fees charged to whom? To our veterans to pay for whose health care? Their health care. He also proposes $800 million of additional fees for the health care of military retirees. What a way to say thank you to our dedicated troops.

The President proposes a level of funding for Amtrak that will force it into bankruptcy. The logic behind that decision totally escapes me. With gas prices soaring, why would we want to eliminate a major provider of public transportation?

At a time when we are facing record energy prices, our President is also proposing a $1.4 billion cut in funds for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance. What a farce.

Despite the fact that the White House continues to raise the specter of another terrorist attack, the President proposes to cut first responder grants by 25 percent. The President proposes to cut fire grants by 55 percent. These are just more examples of budgeting in a closet.

This week the FBI announced that in 2005 this country had the largest increase in violent crime in 15 years. And yet the President proposes to cut grants for State and local law enforcement by over $1.2 billion.

So may I say that while our President talks a good game on investing in alternative energy supplies, his budget includes only half of the funds necessary to implement the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

To complicate matters even more, the President has proposed that the Appropriations Committees approve $7.4 billion of new user fees and changes in mandatory law, most of which are not even under the jurisdiction of the committees. For example, the President wants us to approve a $1.2 billion increase in the ticket tax charged airline passengers. At a time when the airlines are already facing financial difficulties, this is folly, pure folly. If there is one lesson that we should have learned from Hurricane Katrina, it is that there are consequences to starving Federal agencies. FEMA, which performed marvelously after the Northridge earthquake, the Midwest floods, and the 9/11 attacks, FEMA was no longer up to the task when Hurricane Katrina hit.

After 5 years of starving domestic agencies, I wonder which other agencies will be the next FEMA. Will it be the Coast Guard? Will it be the Food and Drug Administration's ability to approve safe drugs or the ability of the Food Safety and Inspection Service to protect food supplies?

I offered an amendment in conference to modify the amendment offered by Chairman Cochran to increase discretionary spending for fiscal year 2007. One of the amendments was adopted on a bipartisan vote of 15-13 to increase spending by $7 billion.

Sadly, the White House and the House majority leader objected to the inclusion of the deeming resolution as modified by my bipartisan amendment. The conference report that is before the Senate, therefore, limits total discretionary spending to the President's stingy--too stingy--$872.8 billion request.

At this funding level, the Senate will have little choice but to starve Federal agencies of the resources they need to responsibly meet the needs of the American people. That means relegating people's needs to the bottom of the barrel.

The White House got what it wanted in this conference report. Less money for the victims of the hurricane, less money for drought relief, less money for key border security programs, no money for port security, and a ``cheap Charlie'' limit on other domestic spending.

The President has just made a surprise visit to Baghdad.

Let me say that again. Today, a little while ago, the President made a surprise visit to Baghdad. That is all right. Supporting our troops is very important. However, I have to ask, when will the President be visiting American ports to determine if they are safe?

When will the President visit American farms that have been devastated by drought?

When will the President meet with our Governors, our mayors, our police chiefs to understand why violent crime is on the rise?

When will the President visit our Nation's hospitals to learn why health care in this country is unaffordable?

When will the President visit our Nation's campuses to learn why the cost of a college education has grown 57 percent during his administration, while the level of Pell grants has been frozen for 5 years?

When will he start to look and listen to the voices of American citizens who want a leader for their future here at home?

We now have appropriated $318 billion for the war in Iraq while America's needs go begging. I wonder if the President will ever ask himself about the consequences of that choice.

While I have serious reservations about what has been dropped from the conference report, the conference report that is before the Senate provides essential resources for our troops and help for hurricane relief. Therefore, I will support the adoption of the conference report.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Through the Chair, I am happy to join him in this effort in which we are trying to have some oversight on tax money being spent on this war. The Senator and I have worked on this concept together. We went back to a day when the Senator from Missouri, Harry Truman, decided to ask the same hard questions of the administration during the Second World War, trying to find instances where tax dollars were being wasted and people were profiteering and soldiers were getting equipment that wasn't up to standard.

I ask the Senator from North Dakota: Isn't it curious that Senator Harry Truman, a Democrat from Missouri who created this commission and asked hard questions, when there was a Democratic President named Franklin Roosevelt, was suggesting that when it comes to profiteering, Congress doesn't do the administration nor the people of this country any favors by saying we are going to protect our own party in the White House? Shouldn't we be dealing with a nonpartisan issue of waste at the expense of taxpayers and, more importantly, at the expense of soldiers?

Isn't it true that at the hearings which Senator Dorgan has chaired bringing together whistleblowers who tell us these terrible stories of waste of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, that absent these hearings there has been very little done on Capitol Hill by way of oversight of the giants who are winning these no-bid contracts, multibillion-dollar contracts, and wasting too much of taxpayer dollars?

Mr. President, if I may ask one more question, in one of the hearings that I attended, I recall that Senator Dorgan brought in one of these whistleblowers who talked about the monogrammed towels they were charging the Government to be put into certain facilities. The Senator talked about running up the price of gasoline that they were charging to the Government. I hope the Senator will recount those particular instances.

But I would like to ask the Senator, when Members of Congress get up here and say: We love our soldiers and we love our troops and we stand behind them, how can we then cast a blind eye and overlook the obvious? When our soldiers aren't getting the right equipment, when our soldiers aren't getting the goods they deserve, when they are not getting the supplies they need to be safe and successful, how can that reflect any love of our troops? If we are truly committed to these soldiers, wouldn't we be holding oversight hearings, bringing in under oath these whistleblowers and their bosses? Let us bring them in and put them before the cameras and ask them if they are wasting taxpayer dollars and endangering the lives of our troops. Wouldn't that be the true measure of our commitment to these men and women in uniform?

If the Senator will yield for one last question, what strikes me is there is not a sense of outrage that American tax dollars are being wasted but, even more important, that American troops are being shortchanged.

What do we ask of these men and women in uniform? Quite simply, we say, take an oath to wear this uniform and risk your life for America-- how much more could we ask--and they do it. And then they expect from us support--support when they are in the field and support when they come home.

I don't understand why there isn't a sense of outrage in this Congress on a bipartisan basis, on both sides of the aisle, that we are not only being ripped off as taxpayers by these no-bid contracts but that we are shortchanging these men and women who are risking their lives while we stand in the comfort and safety of this Senate.

I know Halliburton is a big political force in this town. I know in some quarters you are not supposed to question Halliburton. This is some sacred institution politically. I don't buy it. I count the soldiers that are putting their lives on the line to be much more sacred and much more valuable than any big, huge, no-bid corporation.

I say to the Senator from North Dakota, we have done this before, the two of us have joined together, and said let's put together a bipartisan commission that will ask the hard questions, a commission that will bring people in and put them under oath, find out if they are cheating us, find out if they are profiteering during a war, find out if they are shortchanging our soldiers, and let the chips fall where they may. If we find there is a violation of law, even if it reaches all the way to the boardroom, so be it.

How many times have we come to the Senate, I ask the Senator from North Dakota, refresh my memory, how many times have we brought this option to the Senate and said to our colleagues, please, for the sake of the troops, let's have real oversight, let's ask these questions.

How many times have we done this during the course of this 3-year war, I ask the Senator from North Dakota who has been the leader in this effort, and I have been glad to join him, how often have we tried?

Mr. President, I have an amendment related to the rendition of prisoners which I would like to say a word about before we adjourn today. There may be an indication that there are still a few more amendments to be forthcoming. I will bring my amendment to your attention today, and I hope all Members will do the same so that you can plot the schedule for the upcoming week.

Mr. President, I would like to ask through the Chair, if this would be an appropriate moment, I would like to speak to the amendment which I will offer and a few other remarks not to exceed 5 or 10 minutes.

Mr. President, after wars are completed, history stands in judgment of the leaders, not just whether there was a victory or defeat in the war but whether the war was conducted properly. Almost without fail, history has been a brutal, sometimes difficult judge of the conduct of war. Caught up in concern about protection and security, nations do things which don't stand the test of time and reflection. The man I think was our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, in the course of the Civil War suspended the writ of habeas corpus. By suspending that writ, he held prisoners without charges and without due process for long periods of time. It was controversial. Later on, it was judged that perhaps President Lincoln had gone too far.

In the midst of the First World War, with our concern over espionage, Congress enacted the Sedition Act which unfortunately tarred and condemned innocent Americans, and later on we came to realize that. In World War II, the most notorious conduct by our own Government was against our fellow citizens of Japanese ancestry who were interred in camps, innocent people. I know some of them. I have grown up with some of them. I know they carry scars from that incarceration. Throughout our history, as we reflect, we find there are things we should not have done in the course of a war.

I have said on this floor several times that I believe eventually history will be a very strenuous judge of our conduct in this war on terror when it comes to the use of torture. For decades, the United States had established a clear standard that we would never engage in torture--cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Then after 9/11, in the shock and fear that followed, this administration ended up trying to rewrite the standards for interrogation and torture. It wasn't a proud chapter in our history. We now know the administration abandoned that effort after some time. We know as well that some of the people who were involved in it have been reluctant to even discuss what they were doing. But there was a good ending when last year Senator John McCain offered an amendment in the Senate to state unequivocally that the United States would not engage in the torture of prisoners, not engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners.

The reasons are obvious. Prisoners who are being tortured will say anything. It doesn't have to be true. Secondly, the standard we set in the treatment of our prisoners could one day be used against Americans who are taken as prisoners. So not only does it give you invalid information, it sets a standard that we never want our soldiers to be subjected to.

By a vote of 90 to 9, the Senate enacted John McCain's standard for torture, saying that we were not abandoning our longstanding commitment to it. I was happy to cosponsor that effort. There was a debate where Vice President Cheney came forward and said we need to make an exception for agents of intelligence agencies in our Government. Thank goodness, the Vice President's recommendation was rejected. The President signed it, and I hope he is living by it. Sadly, most of that is being done behind closed doors, and we won't know for a long time, if ever, whether it is being followed. I trust the word of the President when he says we are not engaging in torture. Now comes the next chapter.

If the President's words are an indication, Guantanamo Bay is likely to be closed. That is a good thing. Guantanamo Bay and the prisoners who are being held there have to be moved to a different situation. If they are in fact a danger to the United States or to any soldiers or any person we value, they should be charged and held or held as enemy combatants. But if they are being held for intelligence purposes, we should be honest. After 3 years, for goodness' sake, what value could they possibly bring to our intelligence?

Several hundred men are being held. Last week, there was the startling discovery that three had committed suicide. It is an indication to me that Guantanamo Bay should be closed, as the President has suggested. I hope it is sooner rather than later.

Then what will happen to the prisoners? The amendment I will offer says that if we are going to be involved in the rendition of these prisoners, the transfer of these prisoners to some other place, some other country, we need to make sure that country abides by the same standards of humane conduct to which the United States ascribes. We cannot be content in sending these prisoners to some other place where they will be subjected to torture if, in fact, we have expressed a value in the United States that we are opposed to torture. That is what the amendment will say, that we make that effort to ascertain and to review regularly those detention facilities to make sure they live by that same standard.

There has been a debate this week in Washington over the war in Iraq. It was also a week when the Department of Defense reported that we have lost 2,500 soldiers. White House spokesperson Tony Snow was asked to comment on this loss of 2,500. I am sure the statement he made doesn't reflect what he really feels in his heart when he said:

It's a number.

I am sure he feels as we all do that it is more than a number. It is more than an aggregate. It is 2,500 precious lives that have been lost by men and women in uniform willing to stand and serve and risk their lives for America.

I have attended some of the funerals. They are heartbreaking. Most of the soldiers are very young. I recall going down to southern Illinois where the funeral service was right outside the farmhouse where this young man grew up, down in Perry County. His mom and dad brought out for us to see, around the tent where the service was taking place, little souvenirs from his life--his fishing rods, his hunting rifle. We were just a few feet away from the tree house he and his dad built. I will never forget that scene as long as I live. It was a reminder that before he was in uniform, he was a son, he was a boy. Their heartbreaking experience will be with them for a long time. There are 2,499 other stories just like

that of grief which will be shared by families for years to come.

We are debating now what should we do in Iraq. The idea that we pull out our troops quickly, precipitously, is unacceptable. It would leave a situation which I am afraid would descend further into chaos and maybe create more instability and more problems to come.

But here is what worries me. When the President of the United States goes to Iraq and says to our enemies in Iraq that we are here to stay, that may be a strong message to our enemies of our resolve, but it is the wrong message to our allies and friends. The Iraqis have to understand we are not going to stay indefinitely. Think of what we have done in this country, not only giving 2,500 of our best and bravest lives, not only having 20,000 of our soldiers come home, half of them with serious permanent injuries, 2,000 of them with head injuries, not only spending $300 billion in behalf of this effort in Iraq, not only sacrificing at home where we can't afford to fund medical research, Amtrak, education, health care, and the programs which Americans value, not only all these things, but we have been successful; we have deposed their dictator, Saddam Hussein; we dug him out of a hole in the ground and put him on trial.

We have given the Iraqis more than ample opportunity to control their fate and future. We offered them free elections. We have given them a chance to form a government. We have given this country so much in the 3 years we have been there. Now we must say to them: The day has come when you must stand and defend your own country. If you value Iraq as a nation, be prepared to stand and fight and maybe even die on behalf of that nation. But if we say to the Iraqis that we are staying there indefinitely, it is the best deal on Earth because it is the best military on Earth that will be there for them serving as a babysitter and a referee in an ongoing civil war for an indeterminate amount of time.

How many more lives will America give to this conflict before the Iraqis stand and defend their own nation? And when the President and many in the Chamber here don't want to speak to any kind of withdrawal date, they are suggesting to the Iraqis we are there to stay. That is the wrong message. We need to tell them that we have fought and offered our best for their future and that they need to accept that responsibility from this point forward.

This week, I stood in silence at my desk on the floor of the Senate with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in reverence to the 2,500 lives that have been lost, saying a prayer for their memory and their families, thinking as well of the veterans who have come home, some broken in body and in spirit, who have done so much for this country. We owe it to them, we owe it to their families to reach a point where we can come home with our mission truly accomplished.

It is more than just a number. Mr. President, 2,500 of our soldiers have given their lives. When this came up initially, I voted against authorization for war. I believed at the time that the administration had misled us as to what was happening there, this threat of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons and connections with 9/11. It turned out they were all false. None of it was true, and we went to war anyway. We were told as soon as we arrived that the Iraqi Army would turn on Saddam Hussein and join us in the fight, and that didn't happen. We were told the Iraqi people would greet us with open arms, and I know many are appreciative for what we have done, but it is still so unsafe in that country. The average soldier just going down the street in a military vehicle is risking his life every single day, more than 3 years after our invasion.

Having voted against that authorization for war, though, I have voted for every penny this President asked for. I lived through Vietnam. I remember what happened. An unpopular war was taken out on our soldiers, and that is not fair. Our soldiers did what we asked of them in the Vietnam war, as they are doing today. Politicians and elected officials can debate and differ on policy, but the bottom line is our soldiers are serving us and we should stand by them. I voted for every penny because of one basic standard: If it were my son or daughter in uniform, I would want them to have everything they needed to come home safely. That is the way I feel, and that is why I voted this week for the supplemental appropriation. But that won't stop me today and in the coming days from challenging this administration and challenging this Congress to make it clear that the Iraqis have to stand and fight and defend, and the American troops are coming home. It is only when that happens that we can truly say that our mission is accomplished.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.