Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act, 2008

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise to express my appreciation to my friend from Worcester for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to my long-time Rules Committee colleague, the gentleman from Worcester, I am reminded of a great speech that was delivered last Friday. Last Friday, our very distinguished colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, in an address, said something that I think encapsulates exactly what we just heard from my very good friend.

Senator Lieberman, in speaking of the Democratic Party, and he is now an independent Democrat, sometimes I see him listed as a Democrat, I know he organizes with the Democrats, he is listed as an independent as well, he said, ``The Democrats are emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat.''

Mr. Speaker, I have got to say as I listened to the words of my colleague from Worcester, I can't help but think that Senator Lieberman was right on target when he used that language, ``emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat.'' I was so struck with that when I heard it that I committed it to memory, and I think, again, it really takes on exactly what we have just heard.

It comes as no surprise that I rise in very, very strong, vigorous opposition to this rule and the underlying legislation as well. We have had 40 votes on Iraq policy, and today's bill brings us to vote No. 41. Not one, Mr. Speaker, not one of the withdrawal bills went through the normal legislative process. Not one, not one of these 41 measures is the product of a committee markup. Not one got its own hearing. Not one has been brought up under an even slightly open process, allowing for amendment, and consequently not allowing for any kind of real debate.

Mr. Speaker, most telling of all, not one has been enacted into law.

Now, we all know that the Democrats control both the House and the Senate, and still they cannot produce a single legislative victory on Iraq. Not once, not twice, not 10 times. Forty times. Mr. Speaker, 40 times we have gone through the motions of their failed, bankrupt strategy. I can't recall a more naked display of demagoguery.

Now we come to vote No. 41. It has all the hallmarks of the Democratic majority's work: no deliberation, no gesture towards bipartisanship, and no hope of being enacted.

But there is something different about the vote this time, and that is context. We are considering this vote in a much different context than we have the 40 previous votes that we have addressed on this. In fact, our colleague in the Senate, Johnny Isakson, Senator Isakson, said this debate was understandable in May. He said in July, it was questionable. He said now it is absolutely ridiculous.

For many months, the situation in Iraq has been very bleak. While there were many promising signs of progress, the turnaround in al Anbar province most notably, the overall picture was one of great challenges and struggles. I have argued repeatedly that a precipitous withdrawal would only create more challenges, and, Mr. Speaker, I have highlighted the signs of progress amid the struggles all along.

But today, the tide is turning in Iraq. We are seeing far more than pockets of success, as my friend has said. We are seeing a dramatic shift in the landscape. It began in al Anbar, as I have said. The Sunni sheiks there turned on al Qaeda, joined with the largely Shiite Iraqi army and with coalition forces, and reclaimed the province. Ramadi, its capital, the city that we have all heard of described as the most dangerous city in the world just a year ago, hasn't had an attack in 3 months. The city and the province are rebuilding. They are constructing small business centers so that the entrepreneurial spirit of Iraqis can flourish once again.

A delegation, including the Anbar governor, the Ramadi mayor, several prominent religious leaders and Ahmed Abu Risha, the brother of Sheik Sattar Abu Risha, the father of the Sunni Awakening, was just here in Washington a couple of weeks ago. They came here, Mr. Speaker, to spend several days receiving training in institution building, good governance, transparency and the rule of law.

Mr. Speaker, these are Anbar's political, business and religious leaders, not coming here to seek security assistance, not seeking military assistance. They have achieved security in al Anbar. Now what they want, Mr. Speaker, is help from us in their quest to build a democracy. But, most important of all, they are serving as a model for the rest of Iraq.

Prior to their trip, they participated with Shiite leaders in a summit in Karbala. Sheiks from Karbala and Najaf, Iraq's two holiest cities for Shiite Muslims, reached out to their Sunni brothers in Anbar and asked for their help in combating al Qaeda. This comes at a time when Sunni and Shiite leaders in Baghdad are reaching out to each other to begin the process of reconciliation as well.

Baghdad's notorious Adhamiya neighborhood that we have heard so much about, formerly the site of some of Iraq's worst sectarian violence, is now a place where Sunni and Shiite sheiks are meeting regularly to discuss how to bring their people together, just the things that my friend from Worcester said are so imperative. They are taking place at this very moment.

Now, all of this has been possible, Mr. Speaker, because of the dramatic drop in violence brought about by General Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy. This strategy, which included the surge, has resulted in months of plummeting IED attacks, plummeting American troop deaths, plummeting Iraqi civilian deaths, and plummeting sectarian attacks.

Many of my colleagues have pointed out that this has been the deadliest year for American troops yet in Iraq, and, Mr. Speaker, I will acknowledge that this has been the deadliest year for American troops in Iraq. And it is true over the past year we have tragically seen that great number. But that does not reflect what is happening now in this post-surge world.

The past few months have seen the most dramatic decline in the deaths of American troops because we have had a new strategy. Mr. Speaker, we have had a new strategy, and that strategy is working. And perhaps most important for all of us, that strategy has enabled our military commanders to begin a drawdown in U.S. troop levels.

Not because of artificial timetables. Not because of the micromanagement of Members of Congress from the comfort of our offices thousands of miles away from the front lines. But by empowering our commanders on the ground, they have created a stable security situation that is allowing for both the beginnings of Iraqi reconciliation and the safe withdrawal of our troops.

Mr. Speaker, the big question for today is this: Will the dramatic improvement in Iraq prove to be a true turning point or nothing more than a lull in the war? I don't know the answer to that. Neither outcome is a foregone conclusion. Whether it is a major turning point in the war or just a lull, no one knows for sure. What we do know now will profoundly affect the future of Iraq. Will we fund our troops and empower our commanders to continue to do what is best for our long-term interests? Or will we pull the rug out from under them now at the precise moment they have achieved what we have asked of them?

As one of my friends just said to me, it seems like our friends on the other side of the aisle want defeat before we can win.

For my colleagues who would resort to the latter option out of political expediency, Mr. Speaker, let me remind them of another war our men and women are fighting. Today our troops are also battling a very real enemy in Afghanistan.

We got a terrible reminder just a few days ago of the viciousness of that fight when six of our counterparts, members of the Afghan Parliament, were brutally targeted in the worst attack in Afghanistan's history, and I would like to express my appreciation for the bipartisan support that my colleague, David Price, and I offered as leaders of the House Democracy Assistance Commission.

We have been working with those parliamentarians in Afghanistan, and we are hoping to work with those in Iraq as soon as possible. And we once again express our condolences to the people of Afghanistan who have suffered the single worst attack in their nation's history when a week ago yesterday six parliamentarians and 44 other people were brutally murdered.

Let me also remind my colleagues that this war that we are seeing in Afghanistan is not our first war in Afghanistan. Many of us were intricately involved in their war against the Soviets in the 1980s, many Members who are still here today. And what did we do after the Soviets were defeated? We withdraw and left the Afghans to fend for themselves.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot forget that democracy is hard work. For over a decade, unfortunately, in Afghanistan we indulged in the luxury of ignoring what was going on there. And then on a sunny Tuesday six Septembers ago, 3,000 Americans paid a horrible price for that mistake.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot refuse to learn from history or we are doomed to repeat it. Our support for our troops in Iraq has earned us a far more stable, secure situation. And yet what does the Democratic leadership propose to do? Their bill would reward our military commanders' success by cutting them off.

It would provide constitutional protections for terrorists, while leaving our veterans, including Iraq veterans, without funding. It would force the same disastrous, shortsighted withdrawal that led to the terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan. It would do all of this at a time when we are achieving not just pockets of success in Iraq but broad-based improvements, and at a time when Republicans have been trying every possible means to get an appropriations bill for our veterans to the President, which he will certainly sign if we can ever get it to him.

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic majority's priorities, foolhardy policies, and constitutional rights for terrorists have never been so out of whack. I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that this is all a meaningless charade that will never be enacted, because we all know this will never be enacted. But that is a hollow comfort when we consider our troops in harm's way and our veterans in need.

Mr. Speaker, it is a very cruel comfort for the families of those who have made incredible sacrifices in this war.

I often think of my good friend, Ed Blecksmith, a former marine and the father of JP Blecksmith, also a marine, who died in November 2004 just 3 years ago in the very famous battle of Fallujah. I have talked about the Blecksmith family here on the House floor many, many times. I didn't know JP, but from everything that I have read, and I have a recent article that has just come out about him, he was a very talented young man with a very bright future. He had so many opportunities before him, and he chose to be a marine because he wanted to serve as his father had done. His family proudly, but soberly, supported him. As a

former marine, Ed Blecksmith knew in a very real way the cost of war. JP Blecksmith would not return to his family, having made the ultimate sacrifice.

And his father said something to me that I will never forget. He looked me in the eye and asked me to make sure that we complete his son's mission in Iraq. He has said to me on countless occasions, You must complete the mission or my son JP will have died in vain.

Mr. Speaker, it is deeply heartening to see the beginnings of victory. And no, I am not saying ``mission accomplished'' or anything like that because we know full well that we have difficult days ahead. But it is deeply heartening to see the beginnings of victory in Iraq, for JP's sake and for the sake of all who have paid a very dear price.

We have a profound responsibility to allow our commanders to continue on this path.

Mr. Speaker, after 41, 41 wasted efforts, I can only hope that the Democratic leadership will finally abandon empty demagoguery for substantive legislation, meaningful debate, and a quest at bipartisanship so we can work with the President to come to an agreement. Until that time, I urge my colleagues to reject this closed rule and the terribly wrongheaded policy that it seeks to shield.

[From Details, Holiday 2007]

The Fallen: 2nd Lieutenant JP Blecksmith, 24

(By Jeff Gordinier)

On the night before 2nd Lieutenant JP Blecksmith shipped

out to Iraq, after his family took him out for dinner in

Newport Beach, California, his older brother, Alex, picked up

a pair of clippers and shaved JP's head. When that was done

and JP looked ready for combat, Alex gave his brother a hug.

Then Alex climbed into JP's green Ford Expedition and drove

it north, back to the family's house in San Marino, weeping

part of the way. He had a feeling. So did his parents. A

premonition. They didn't talk about it much, but two months

later, in November 2004, when JP joined a wave of U.S.

Marines roaring into the city of Fallujah as part of

Operation Phantom Fury, the feeling intensified.

On the night of November 10, Blecksmith and his closest

friend in Iraq, Lieutenant Sven Jensen, slept on a rooftop in

Fallujah. It was, miraculously, a quiet night, and chilly.

They got a decent night's sleep. They awoke just before

sunrise and were amused to find a small pet bird with green

wings and a yellow belly perched a couple of feet away from

their faces. Jensen took a picture of the bird. There were

other ones like it all over Iraq, because when U.S. troops

were searching abandoned houses, they often found cages that

had been left behind. The soldiers let the birds go free so

they wouldn't starve to death.

Hours before, JP had sent a letter to his girlfriend,

addressing it formally, as always, to ``Ms. Emily M. Tait.''

In it he wrote, ``By the time you receive this, you will know

we have gone into the city. We've been preparing for it the

last few days, and my guys are ready for the fight, and I'm

ready to lead them. It'll be hectic, and there will be some

things out of my control, but the promise of you waiting at

home for me is inspiring and a relief.'' Now he was in the

thick of it. Blecksmith and Jensen came down from the

roof, ate their MREs for breakfast, and got their orders.

Before the invasion the battalion commander, Colonel

Patrick Malay, had given his men an analogy: `` `Imagine a

dirty, filthy windowpane that has not been cleaned in

hundreds of years,' '' he recalls saying. ``That's how we

looked at the city of Fallujah. Our job was to scrub the

heck out of that city, and then take a squeegee and wipe

it off so that it was clean and pure.'' Most of Fallujah

was empty, and anyone left in the city was presumed to be

an insurgent.

Blecksmith and the other members of the India Company of

the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines Regiment, moved south

through the city, with their blood types scrawled in

indelible marker on the sleeves of their uniforms. The

streets smelled terrible--a stubborn aroma of rotting food

and bodies. Late in the day on November 11, things started to

go wrong. A marine in Blecksmith's platoon, Klayton South,

was shot in the mouth by an insurgent when he kicked open the

door of a house. Blood gushed from his mangled teeth and

tongue. The medics cut into South's throat to give him an

emergency tracheotomy. (He survived. He's since had more than

40 operations to repair the damage.) ``It shook the platoon

up,'' Jensen says now, ``and JP was the most in-control

person I saw. He had a sector to clear, so he rallied his

guys and said, `Okay, we've got to continue clearing.' ''

Blecksmith's and Jensen's platoons moved off in different

directions, and the two friends shot each other a glance.

``I'll never forget looking at his eyes the last time I saw

him,'' Jensen says. ``He turned and he gave me almost an

apprehensive look, like, Oh, s-it, we've got some s-it going

on. I wanted to say `Hey, I'll see you later.' But I didn't

say anything to him.''

Minutes later, Blecksmith led his platoon into a house and

climbed a flight of stairs to the roof to survey the

surrounding landscape. Shots came from a building across the

street. Blecksmith stood up to direct the squads under his

command, shouting at them to take aim at the enemy nest. He

was tall, and was now visible above the protective wall. ``He

was up front a lot, and he made a big target, and we'd talked

to him about that,'' Colonel Malay says. ``He exposed himself

consistently to enemy fire in the execution of his duties. He

displayed a fearlessness to the point that we had to talk to

him about the fact that nobody is bulletproof.''

As Blecksmith stood on the roof, a sniper's 7.62-mm bullet

found one of the places on his body where he was vulnerable.

It was a spot on his left shoulder, less than an inch above

the rim of his protective breastplate. The bullet sliced

downward diagonally, coming to rest in his right hip, and

along the way it tore through his heart. ``I'm hit,''

Blecksmith said. He fell. He raised his head for a moment,

and that was it. A Navy medic got to Blecksmith immediately,

but he was already dead, and his men carried his heavy body

back down the stairs. He was 24.

That night in San Marino, Alex Blecksmith came home from

work and noticed that the house was dark. He opened the front

door and saw his mother, Pam, sitting at the kitchen table

with a couple of marines in dress blues and white gloves, and

he heard the phrase ``We regret to inform you . . .''

The funeral was so magnificent, so full of pageantry, that

at times it was difficult for Alex to remember that the guy

being buried was his brother. The Marines do it right when it

comes to honoring the fallen. They do it so right that you

can get swept up in the ceremony and feel as though you're

watching a parade. The funeral took place at the Church of

Our Saviour in San Gabriel--the church where the most

celebrated of San Marino's favorite sons, General George S.

Patton, had been baptized as a baby. As the flag-draped

casket was carried out of the sanctuary and into the

California sun, a long, silent line of almost 2,000 people

followed. There were marines and midshipmen and local

firefighters in uniform. There was a 21-gun salute. Four

World War II fighter planes swooped toward the cemetery in

the ``missing man'' formation--just as they passed over the

funeral, the fourth plane symbolically split from the quartet

and veered into the sky. A bagpiper played a Scottish dirge.

One of JP's old friends would later observe that the day, in

all of its glory and pomp, made him think of Princess Diana's

wedding.

As public support for the war in Iraq wavers, it's easy to

forget that people like JP Blecksmith even exist. The

American military is so predominantly blue-collar that we

tend to assume that the sons and daughters of the rich never

voluntarily die in warfare anymore. Blecksmith was born in

September 1980, just weeks before his state's own Ronald

Reagan was elected president, and he spent most of his youth

in the small Los Angeles County town of San Marino during

what felt, for many of its wealthy and conservative

inhabitants, like something of a ``Leave It to Beaver''

golden age. To look at a photograph of him, blue-eyed and

suntanned and grinning, is to understand the enduring

magnetism of the word ``California.'' He stood six foot three

and weighed 225 pounds. His chest was a keg; his biceps were

gourds. His biography reads as though it were scripted by a

Hollywood publicist: legendary quarterback on the Flintridge

Prep football team, track star, graduate of the United States

Naval Academy.

His father, Ed Blecksmith, who is 64, runs an executive-

recruiting firm in Los Angeles. He and Pam met in the early

seventies, while both were working in the White House. Along

a wall leading into their kitchen hang framed Christmas cards

from Dick and Pat Nixon. ``Here's a kid,'' Ed says, ``who

didn't need to do this.'' It's as though JP were transplanted

into our world from the Eisenhower years. Somehow, in an

ironic age of Jon Stewart and ``South Park,'' the guy grew up

in a kind of pre-Summer of Love bubble in which young men of

strength and valor still yearned to distinguish themselves on

the battlefield. He was groomed, in a sense, for something

that no longer exists, at least not for guys who grow up in

the wealthiest zip codes in the country. He believed in

ideals of duty and sacrifice that have become, for many men,

anachronistic and even unfathomable.

``I was in awe,'' says Peter Twist, Blecksmith's closest

friend since preschool. Twist played wide receiver to

Blecksmith's quarterback on the Flintridge Prep football

team; a local newspaper called the duo ``Fire & Ice.''

Blecksmith was known for being fast, composed, smart, and

unflappable, and his giant arms could propel the ball a good

80 yards down the field. If he had an athletic flaw, it was

that he was aware of his own flawlessness. ``He had such

personal confidence,'' says Tom Fry, a mentor to Blecksmith

in high school and one of the assistant coaches on his team.

``He felt that if all the stars aligned, there was nothing he

couldn't do--it was JP's world.'' When they graduated in

1999, Twist and a couple other teammates went off to the

University of Arizona, where it's safe to say the prospect of

partying was on their minds, while Blecksmith opted for the

rigors and restrictions of Annapolis. ``I was stoked for the

man'' says Twist, 26, who lives in Newport Beach and works in

the mortgage business. ``Most of us are still trying to

figure it out, but JP always had a goal.''

November 11, the date on which JP Blecksmith died, was

noteworthy for other reasons. It's Twist's birthday. It also

happens to be the birthday of General Patton, who grew up in

San Marino and holds a prominent place in the town's history.

This coincidence has only bolstered the mythology of JP

Blecksmith--a feeling that it was his destiny to die in

combat. The Blecksmiths have a statue of Patton on a shelf in

their home, and it becomes clear in conversation that Ed, a

decorated Vietnam veteran himself, sees a kind of mystical

link between the fate of his son and the military, triumphs

of the legendary general (who was a passionate believer, it

just so happens, in reincarnation).

Indeed, JP Blecksmith fit the ``hero'' mold in such

classic, square jawed American style that a kind of cult of

JP has begun to develop in San Marino. They give out awards

in his name at the local schools. On the Fourth of July, San

Marino hosts a JP Blecksmith 5K run. A Marine Corps training

center in Pasadena has been christened Blecksmith Hall. On a

hot Sunday morning this past August, Alex parked his

brother's Expedition in the cemetery and walked across the

grass to the pale granite stone that says JAMES PATRICK

BLECKSMITH. An elderly man wandered over to the headstone,

hand in hand with a grade-school kid who had a blond Mohawk,

and told Alex, ``I never met JP, but I go by here and show my

grandson his grave''

THREE YEARS AFTER BLECKSMITH'S death, his bedroom still

looks the way it did when he left for Annapolis in 1999.

There's a Green Bay Packers poster over the bed, a dense

forest of athletic trophies, toy race cars lined up on the

dresser. ``This is all his stuff from Iraq that they sent

over,'' Alex says, looking down at a cardboard box on the

floor. ``We haven't gone through it, really.''

Ed Blecksmith walks into the bedroom, and within a few

seconds his voice is cracking and his blue eyes are growing

wet. ``It's still tough,'' he says. ``You see all these

pictures and things . . .'' He insists on sitting down in

front of the TV downstairs and watching DVD footage of that

magnificent funeral, fighting back a sob at the moment when

one of the eulogists, a Navy SEAL, describes JP as having

been ``the best of the best.'' Ed has some Fox News footage,

too. In it, you can see JP speaking to his men hours before

the battle in Fallujah, and that's where you get a brief

glimpse of the regular guy behind the mythology. Because

there stands JP, in fatigues and a floppy Boonie hat, holding

a map, telling his marines to ``expect everything you can

possibly imagine.'' When he looks at the camera for a moment,

he's smiling.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I prepare to yield 4 minutes to my distinguished friend from Redlands, I would simply say that my friend from Worcester never mentioned the word ``victory'' in his analysis.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on each side.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 5 minutes to my very good friend from Columbus, Indiana (Mr. Pence), a hardworking member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I will say to my colleagues that it's very interesting to listen to this debate, because as we've proceeded, I have yet to hear the word ``victory'' come from the other side of the aisle at all. I have yet to hear anyone interested in trying to build a democracy.

Now, we saw three elections take place in Iraq, as we all know, with a 70 percent voter turnout.

We know that there are problems there. My friend from Worcester correctly said that we have problems with corruption in government in Iraq. We've had corruption problems in this country as well. But the fact of the matter is we have seen dramatic improvement. There is no doubt about the fact that we've seen improvement.

And I've got to say, Mr. Speaker, that we continue to hear this term ``redeployment.'' That means one thing. It doesn't mean victory. It doesn't mean build a democracy. It means withdraw and lose. And I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, we are determined to ensure that that doesn't happen.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds, and I do so to say I still have yet to hear the term ``victory'' come from the other side of the aisle. I still have yet to hear anyone talk about the notion of building a democracy in Iraq so that self-determination and the rule of law and the building of democratic institutions can, in fact, have a chance to succeed. And there is no recognition of the fact that we have seen a tremendous number of reduction in IED attacks, and the number of overall attacks has dropped dramatically.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I've still not heard the term ``victory'' or ``building democracy.''

I would inquire of the Chair, how much time is remaining on each side?

I think at this juncture I might reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

I'm very sorry that my friend wouldn't yield so that we could engage in debate. And I will say, victory means ensuring that our children don't face the threat of another terrorist attack like what we saw on September 11. We know that Iraq is the central point for al Qaeda, and I am absolutely determined to ensure that we achieve victory.

There have been tremendous achievements when it comes to democracy building. We can't ignore that. But we want to bring our troops home as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Let me just first say this has been an interesting debate and I do think that victory, a dramatic reduction in the number of attacks, the fact that reconciliation is, in fact, taking place in Baghdad is something that cannot be ignored.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today, before the House voted for the 12th time to allow the House to go to conference with the Senate on the Veterans Affairs funding bill, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) and I had a brief colloquy after which a Member on the other side of the aisle claimed that we had misrepresented the facts about this Congress's track record on getting the Veterans Affairs appropriations measure signed into law.

Well, I take this as akin to being accused of lying. Here is what we said, and, Mr. Speaker, I will say it again: The House passed the Veterans and Military Construction funding bill on June 15, 2007, by a vote of 409-2, with the Senate following suit and naming conferees on September 6. Unfortunately, the majority leadership of the House has refused to move the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations act to conference and has refused to name conferees.

So whether the majority likes it or not, that is a fact. Now, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and the gentleman from New York said that we were misrepresenting the facts. How is this so? For 68 days, Mr. Speaker, the message from the Senate requesting a conference has languished at the Speaker's desk without action. How is this fact disputable? Just look at the

calendar and count the days between September 7 and today, and you'll come up with 68. Every day the Democrats choose not to act to move this bill forward, our Nation's veterans lose $18.5 million.

Those are the facts surrounding this bill in this Congress. The gentleman from Texas went on earlier to malign Republicans for what we did or didn't do concerning veterans funding over the last 12 years, which begs the question, what does the last 12 years have to do with this year? Are Democrats trying to use past Congresses' shortcomings as excuses for their own failed policy? Otherwise, how is this even relevant?

I am sure that the gentleman from Worcester would stand up and attempt to deflect this plea by criticizing Republicans, just as his colleagues before him, and touting the increases in funding for our veterans provided by this Congress which all but two Members of this body voted for. The sad fact is that this Congress hasn't provided the funding that the gentleman has espoused. Why is that? That's because not one dime will flow from the Treasury to the Department of Veterans Affairs until the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill is signed into law, and in order to do so, this House has to go to conference with the Senate and send a bill down to the President to sign. So let's finally get that process started.

Mr. Speaker, anyone who is concerned about funding for our veterans must join us in voting against the previous question so that I can amend the rule and we can go to conference with the Senate on this much-needed and far-delayed funding measure.

I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the amendment and extraneous material appear in the Congressional Record just prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I understand the Senator from Idaho intends to speak. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak after he is concluded.

Madam President, I rise to address the issue which has been noted by the Senator from Idaho,

which is the process under which the farm bill is being considered in the Senate.

A number of the Members on the other side of the aisle, primarily the leadership, have spoken on this process and have made the representation that in some way we, on our side, are slowing down this bill. Nothing could be less accurate, in my opinion.

I know, although I do not happen to support the farm bill because I think it is bloated in many ways and essentially ignores the concept of a marketplace, the farm bill is going to pass. It always does pass. It always passes with a very large majority, which is assured by the fact that enough commodities are put into the subsidy system so that you can add up enough people to support it, so it will always pass with a large majority. And there will be 20 or 25 people who will vote against it.

So I have never held any belief or even thought for a second this farm bill was not going to pass the Senate. It is going to pass the Senate. It has not been my intention to either slow it down or try to defeat it because I know I cannot do either--or I did not think I could do either.

My intention was to improve it and to address issues which I think are relevant to it or which are appropriate to the issues which the Senate should be addressing today generally.

But, unfortunately, on the procedure that has been structured by the majority leader, all Members of the Senate, but especially members of the minority--the Republican Members of the Senate--have been shut out of the ability to amend this bill.

The majority leader has essentially created a system which you could call the ``permission slip'' approach to legislating. If he does not give you a blue permission slip, you cannot bring forward an amendment on this bill.

Obviously, that does not work for those of us who wish to amend the bill. But, more importantly, it does not work for the institution. The essence of the Senate is the ability to amend legislation when it is on the floor.

Washington described the Senate as the place where the hot coffee from the cup--referring to the House--it is the saucer into which that hot coffee is poured, so it can be looked at, thought about, and reviewed to make sure there is not hasty action, to make sure there is not precipitous action, to make sure there is not action which will come back to haunt us because we did not try our best to anticipate the consequences.

So the Senate was structured to be a deliberative institution. That was its purpose. Our Founding Fathers designed it with that intent in mind, as expressed by George Washington. It has always worked that way. We have always, when we have had major pieces of authorizing legislation on the floor, had the opportunity to amend that legislation. Even if they are not major pieces of legislation, in many instances we have had the ability to amend it in just about any way we wanted. There was a statement that you have to do relevant amendments. Well, under the rules of the Senate, there is no such thing as relevant amendments. Everything is relevant. Irrelevant amendments are relevant because that is the way the Senate is structured. That is the way we work. If there is an issue of the time which a Member wants to bring forward to discuss and have voted on, the idea is the Senate will do that. Now, there is a procedure to cut off and go to relevant or germane amendments, but that procedure is a very formal procedure known as cloture and it takes 60 votes. That should not be done on a bill of this size until there has been adequate debate and a reasonable number of amendments considered.

I noticed that the Senator from Michigan, whom I greatly admire and enjoy working with, had a large chart today which talked about the fact that there have been 55 filibusters by the Republican Party since the Senate has convened. That is sort of like, as I have said on occasion, the fellow who shoots his parents throwing himself on the mercy of the court because he is suddenly saying he is an orphan. The simple fact is the only reason there have been 55 cloture motions filed around here is because the majority party has decided to try to shorten debate and shorten the amendment process at a rate that has never occurred before. Bills are brought to the floor and cloture is filed instantaneously. That never used to happen around here. It is not our party which has been trying to extend these debates; it is the other party which has been trying to essentially foreshorten the debates in an extremely artificial and premature way and limit the capacity of the minority to make its points and to raise the issues it considers to be important.

On almost every one of these bills--the 55 that are noted--agreement could have been reached, timeframes could have been agreed to, an amendment list could have been set, and we could have proceeded under regular order. But regular order was not allowed because the other side of the aisle wants to manage the Senate the way the House is managed: Where the majority party essentially does not allow the minority to offer amendments to the bills unless the majority party agrees to the amendments. Well, I can understand that in the House. There are 435 people there and it would be pretty much chaotic. But in the Senate, we are not designed that way. The whole purpose of this institution is to allow extensive discussion of legislation and amendments on legislation, whether the amendments are relevant or irrelevant.

So the process that is being put in place is harmful, in my opinion, to the fundamental institution of the Senate, when you have a majority leader who comes forward, immediately fills the tree, and then says the majority leader is not going to allow any amendments to the bill unless the amendments are accepted by the majority leader which, of course, on its face is a little absurd. Obviously, if we were all going to offer amendments that agreed with the majority leader, we would all be in the majority leader's party. That is why we have a two-party system. The idea is a two-party system. The one party sometimes disagrees with the other party and tries to make the points we feel are important to govern us. But the majority leader closes the floor down, says we have a permission slip process where you have to get his blue slip of approval before we can move forward, and then he files cloture on the bill after having not allowed any amendments to move forward. I think that does fundamental harm to the institution. It creates a precedent around here that may well be a slippery slope for us as an institution. I remember a couple of years ago there was a big debate about whether we should do cloture, or needed cloture, on the issue of Supreme Court judges. On our side of the aisle, because there was a lot of foot dragging about some of the Supreme Court judges who were being nominated, there were many who felt we should go forward and have a ruling of the Chair which says it only takes 51 votes; the Constitution does not allow filibusters against Supreme Court judges. Well, some on our side of the aisle felt that was a slippery slope, that that type of a procedural heavy-handedness by the majority would harm the institution and would lead to serious ramifications down the road when the parties changed governance.

This institution will not always have a Democratic majority. The facts are pretty obvious. We change around here. The American people like to have Government change. They like change. They get frustrated with the way things are going, so they make a change. There will be a Republican majority; I absolutely guarantee that. But the Democratic leadership, the majority leader, is in the process of setting a precedent, if he is successful, which will be extraordinarily harmful should a Republican majority take control and use that same precedent. So I think it is a huge mistake that this process has proceeded in this way and it is inconsistent with the facts on the ground.

The majority leader has said we can only have relevant amendments-- relevant, ironically, as defined by the majority side. Well, history has shown us that is not the case. Even on farm bills--even on farm bills--especially on farm bills, amendments are brought forward which are irrelevant to the farm bill all the time. In fact, ironically, the majority leader has brought forward a number of those amendments. In 1996, for example, he offered an amendment to the farm bill regarding the importation of tea and the Board of Tea experts. In 1990, he offered an amendment to the bill regarding

testing consumer products containing hazardous and toxic substances. In the year 2000, he offered an amendment to the farm bill regarding the Social Security trust fund and tax policy. In the year 2000, the majority leader offered an amendment to the farm bill regarding pest management in schools. The manager of the bill, Senator Harkin, in the year 2000, offered an amendment regarding fees on pesticide manufacturing. In the year 1985, he offered an amendment regarding the creation of additional bankruptcy judges in the State of Iowa.

I would argue that none of those amendments, under the most liberal interpretation of what is relevant, would be defined as relevant in a postcloture exercise and, therefore, by the actions of the majority, and specifically the majority leader and the chairman of the committee; they have set a precedent that even if it weren't the right of the membership of the Senate, they have set a precedent that amendments which are not--which are irrelevant to the underlying bill can be brought forward, and they should be brought forward.

For example, today the majority leader came down and made a very compelling statement relative to the dire straits that people are in who are having their mortgages foreclosed on because of this subprime meltdown we are having. It is serious. It is very serious. It is serious to those people especially, but it is also serious to the Nation as a whole because it is affecting the credit markets and it may be contracting the economy. I filed an amendment which would address that issue. Some farmers I suspect are caught up in this subprime foreclosure exercise, unfortunately. I bet there are some farm families who have been hit by this. I know there have been. So I think it is probably pretty relevant to these people who are farmers and, therefore, an argument could be made it is relevant to the bill. But I am not making that argument. I am saying that issue should be raised right now--we shouldn't wait--that the amendment I have offered which would essentially say that if your home is foreclosed on, you don't get hit with a tax bill for phantom income, which is what happens today. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to have your home foreclosed on, you get a tax bill from the IRS, even though you lost your home and even though you didn't get any income out of the foreclosure sale. That puts a little more pressure on the person who has had their home foreclosed on. That is a traumatic enough event, but to then have the IRS come after you, that is horrible. So this amendment would basically stop that practice. It would say to the IRS: No. You can't deem that as income.

There are going to be some farmers who are going to need that protection, and there are going to be a lot of Americans who are going to need that protection, unfortunately. So we should take that amendment up. I would be happy to offer that amendment right now, but if I offered it right now, it would be objected to under the proposal because the majority leader has deemed it is not relevant to the farm bill and, therefore, he is not going to allow it to be debated. I happen to think it is a pretty darned important amendment.

There are a couple of other amendments I have suggested. I have suggested 11 amendments to the bill. That is not outrageous. Some of them I think could probably be negotiated. I even suggested I would take 15 minutes of debate on them, 7\1/2\ minutes divided equally on each one of them. Unfortunately, the other side of the aisle rejected that idea--or they didn't formally object to it, but they told us we would want to talk a little bit more about some of these amendments. But the assistant majority leader on the Democratic side of the aisle came down to the floor and specifically called out a few of my amendments and said that they were the problem. They were the problem because they shouldn't be heard on this farm bill. He mentioned the mortgage amendment which we discussed.

He also mentioned an amendment which I happen to think is pretty darn relevant to this bill, especially to rural America and farm communities, which is that in most of rural America today, there is a crisis relative to the ability of baby doctors to practice their profession. It is virtually impossible, for example, in northern New Hampshire to see an OB/GYN unless you drive through the mountains and down to the southern or mid part of the State. That is true across this country, because OB/GYN doctors--baby doctors--people who deliver babies in rural communities can't generate enough income because the populations aren't large enough to pay the cost of their insurance against frivolous lawsuits or lawsuits generally. So I have suggested that for those doctors specifically, so we can get more of them into the rural communities delivering babies for all the people who live in the rural communities but obviously for farm families, that we give protection to them--protection which tracks--it is not outrageous protection--the California protection for doctors which occurs generally under California law so the cost of their premium for malpractice insurance will not drive them out of practicing and delivering babies in rural America and especially to farm families.

The Senator from Illinois said that was a frivolous--he didn't use the term ``frivolous''--he implied the amendment wasn't a good amendment; we shouldn't have to debate that amendment on this bill. Why not? Why not take up that amendment? Fifteen minutes I am willing to debate that amendment, 7\1/2\ minutes on both sides, and vote on it.

Well, it is not because it is not relevant and it is not because it shouldn't be taken up; it is because there are a number of Members on their side of the aisle who said we don't want to vote that issue. It is a hard vote. Why? Because it makes sense. That is why I think it is a hard vote. But there are other people on the other side of the aisle who simply don't want to have to cast that vote. It is not about the relevance of that amendment; it is about the desire to avoid casting a difficult vote. Well, you were sent here; you should make difficult votes on public policy that is important, and that happens to be a fairly significant point of public policy that is important, whether women in rural America can have adequate and prompt access to an OB/ GYN. I think that is pretty darn important.

Then the assistant leader said an amendment I had on the list, my 11 amendments--a small number of amendments--was not appropriate because it dealt with the Gulf of Mexico. Well, this amendment says, as a follow-on to the Oceans Commission, which did a very large, extensive study of the status of the ocean and America's involvement and what we should be doing relative to the ocean, which was completed about 2 years ago and which was created, authorized, and funded as a result of an initiative by Senator Hollings from South Carolina, with my support as a member of the appropriations subcommittee that had jurisdiction over NOAA, and the conclusion of this Commission, which was filled with the best and most talented scientists and leaders we have on the issue of how the ocean was being impacted, was that the Gulf of Mexico is being uniquely impacted by fertilizer runoff from the Midwest coming down the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the other tributaries of the Mississippi and going into the Gulf of Mexico, and we are getting a dead zone there, a very significant dead zone because of the phosphates and I think the nitrates. The Commission called for action. It said: We have to do something as a country about this.

But what does this farm bill do? It expands dramatically the incentive to put more acreage into production, and I say: Fine. That is great. But it doesn't address the runoff issue, which is that additional production is going to occur, or the runoff issue that is occurring as a result of already existing production. So all this amendment does is say let's give NOAA the ability to go out and study this problem and see if they can come up--working with the Department of Agriculture--with some ideas on how we might be able to abate the harm we are doing as an unintended consequence of expanding our agricultural community, the harm we are doing to the Gulf of Mexico. But no, no, we can't take up that amendment. No, no. It doesn't get a blue slip, permission slip from the majority leader.

Then the fourth amendment which was mentioned or cited by the assistant leader as being something that was

problematic--and that is sort of a conservative description of the way he addressed the issues--was an amendment I have that says the firefighters should have the ability to pursue collective bargaining.

Now, maybe farms don't have fires. Maybe barns don't burn down and silos don't blow up. Maybe there weren't any wildfires in San Diego. Maybe I missed all that. But it seems to me that fire protection is a pretty big part of everybody's lifestyle in this country, and having fire departments that know what they are doing and are properly paid, have proper equipment and training is really important whether you happen to be in New York City or on a farm somewhere in the Midwest or the West. So I cannot imagine under what scenario it is deemed that this amendment should not be discussed and voted on.

Again, I am willing to do this for a briefer period of time. I am not trying to slow the bill down. I want to get a few issues up that I think are important to the definition of the problem as I see it in the farm region.

Then I had a series of amendments--well, I only had 11, but 5 of the amendments I had dealt with the budget process.

This farm bill does fundamental harm to the concept of responsible budgeting. It plays games with our budget process. We hear so much from the other side of the aisle about how they use pay-go to discipline spending around here. That is the term, the motherhood term we hear, ``pay-go.'' It turns out that it is ``Swiss cheese go'' as far as the other side of the aisle is concerned regarding spending restraint. On 15 different occasions, they have gimmicked pay-go, played games with it to the point where they have spent almost $143 billion in this Congress which should have been subject to pay-go but was not subject to a pay-go vote because they managed to gimmick their way around it.

This farm bill is a classic example of that procedure occurring again. By changing dates--1 day--so that they shift years and take items out of the pay-go--what is called the pay-go scorecard--they are able to avoid pay-go charges in this bill to the tune of $10 billion. That is not small change, by the way. We should have a pay-go vote on that $10 billion if we are going to maintain the integrity of the budget process. That is reasonable. I have asked for that vote.

In addition, they have created a new emergency fund--a $5 billion emergency fund. The way we have handled emergencies--and there are, I admit, many emergencies in farm country--is that we have always paid for those emergency costs through an emergency supplemental, whether it is because of a flood or if there is a drought or if there is a hurricane. We fund the costs after they have occurred, and we pay the costs of the emergency. What this would do is set up what amounts to a slush fund--what I am afraid will become basically walking-around money--of $5 billion and a floor so that we are going to be guaranteed that every year for the next 5 years at least a billion dollars will be spent on emergencies, whether there is an emergency or not. You know, if a large wind blows a mailbox over in North Dakota, it is going to be declared an emergency because somebody is going to want to get their hands on that billion dollars. That makes no sense from a budget standpoint. We know that human nature--especially legislative nature-- will spend that money once it is allocated, and we should not do it up front, create a floor; we should do it the traditional way, which is to pay for emergencies when they occur. Now, some people here obviously disagree with me. I suspect I will not win that vote. But it doesn't mean we should not have a vote on that point of budget discipline and the importance of budget discipline.

In addition, on the budget issue, there is a $3 billion gimmick in here that is so creative it sets a new standard for creativity. There always has been movement of money from the discretionary side of the account to the mandatory side, and vice versa, to free up more spending. That is a game that has been played a long time, where an expenditure that is discretionary will suddenly find out it is being put under a mandatory account, so the money being spent in the discretionary account can be freed up to spend it on something else. If you get it into the mandatory accounts here, you basically put it on autopilot and don't have to worry about it ever again.

This bill takes this concept to a new dimension. It takes a mandatory spending responsibility and moves it over to a tax credit, so that we now have a $3 billion tax credit where we used to have a $3 billion mandatory expenditure, and then it takes the $3 billion that was being spent on the mandatory side of the account and spends it on a new program. So, essentially, by using the tax law in a very creative way, you have generated new spending of $3 billion. I think that is terrible budget policy. I think we should address it, debate it, talk about it on the floor, and definitely vote on it before we allow this bill to go to cloture.

Obviously, there are a lot of issues raised by this bill; otherwise, there would not be 240 amendments filed. The majority of them have been filed by the other side of the aisle. But the fact that the procedure has been structured in a way that these amendments, which are totally reasonable, which are parts of significant issues of public policy, such as whether women in rural America will be able to see an OB/GYN or whether farmers get the equipment they need or whether a person whose home is foreclosed on will get hit with an IRS tax penalty or whether the Gulf of Mexico should be looked at relative to maintaining its vitality as a environmentally sensitive area--we are not going to be allowed to look at all of these issues because the majority leader set up a blue-slip permission process, which is totally antithetical to the system the Senate historically works under and undermines the capacity of issues to be debated and voted on. I just think, as I said, it is doing fundamental harm to our institution. Even if I didn't want to bring these amendments forward, I would not want to have a process that denied the right of other people to bring amendments like them forward.

The fact that the leadership on the other side of the aisle wants to insulate its membership from making tough votes on things like baby doctors being available to farmers and farms getting the equipment they need and people whose homes are foreclosed on not being subject to IRS penalties--the fact that they want to protect their membership, that is understandable. That is their leadership. Their leadership is clearly trying to protect them in their jobs. To abuse the process of the Senate to accomplish that, to create a procedure where you basically foreclose amendments in a manner that actually is even more strict and more contracted than what the House does, does more harm than good to the institution. As I said earlier, it puts us on an unnecessary and inappropriate slippery slope, and it is a fundamental change in the way the Senate works.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss one of the issues we have been talking about an awful lot recently, and that is the farm bill; more specifically, the unique nature of agricultural production in the United States.

We are all going to leave next week and go home, hopefully, to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families, to talk about this wonderful blessing we have in this great country of ours--the enormous bounty that exists, the blessings of living in a free country, living in a place where we do not have to worry about going to the grocery store and finding the shelves empty or we do not have to worry about those things that are produced here not being safe or acceptable. That is because we have not only very conscientious producers and farmers, but we have a system and respect in our Government that recognizes how important it is to the American people to maintain that bounty.

As we all go home to celebrate Thanksgiving and give thanks for this wonderful country in which we live and the bounty that it provides us, I think it is so important to talk about the big tent that exists in this country, the big tent that encompasses all of the diversity of agricultural production in different regions across our Nation. It is an important aspect that we should embrace, and I hope my colleagues will think about that as well.

As we discuss the farm bill and agricultural production, my colleague, the Presiding Officer, is representing a wonderful agricultural State, beautiful and vast, and it is very different from mine in terms of its assets and what it contributes to this great land. My State is different than Colorado. It is vast and different, just within the boundaries of my State, but certainly in terms of what it brings to the table in our Nation in terms of the bounty that it provides.

Perhaps one of the most frequent questions from so many, particularly of my urban colleagues--because I do share a seat with so many other farm Senators on the Agriculture Committee, but a lot of times the question from my urban colleagues is, why are farms in Arkansas different from, say, farms in North Dakota or Michigan or Indiana or Colorado or other regions of our Nation?

Although the answer is pretty simple, it does require quite a lot of time to talk about. It looks as if we have a good bit of time today, so I thought I would seek this opportunity and, for the benefit of those inquisitive Senators who sometimes ask why are things different in different parts of our country and in all of our different States, offer an explanation that I give, certainly, to my colleagues and to others who are interested and concerned about us as a nation maintaining the safe and abundant and affordable supply of food and fiber that exists in this country for which we are all so thankful.

First, and this should come as no surprise, each of our States produces the agricultural products for which its climate and its soil are best suited. That is one of the things we do in Arkansas. It, obviously, has been that way for years. Farms in Arkansas might be older than those in some of the States that exist to our west. As our country was explored and discovered, many of those lands in the West were discovered, and their climates and their soil types were different. As we have grown as a nation, they have adapted themselves to the crops for which they are best suited. For the colder climates of the Midwest, it makes sense to produce corn and wheat and sugar beets. For us in the South, with our more humid climates, and given, certainly, our soil types--we have a large clay content and often sandy soil along our river bottom--we are suited for cotton and rice production. So that is the first explanation I try to give people, to talk about those differences so we better understand what the differences are.

Second, you have to take into consideration what the markets are for our commodities. Again, we are a vast country, full of so many blessings and diversity. As we have grown, international markets have grown and changed as well.

Let's start with corn. By now I think everyone in this body is familiar with the fact that we mandate a corn ethanol market through the renewable fuels standard. It is important that we move toward a renewable fuel. It has multiple purposes. Renewable fuels will help us clean up the environment and will certainly lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It also gives secondary markets for our growers. But so far we have only gotten pretty far on corn-based ethanol.

We have mandated this market for corn, and it has done quite well. We make sure those corn growers' prices stay up because there is a market. There are tax incentives that are built in to ensure those markets are going to be there for corn.

In addition to the creation of the market, we place a prohibitive tariff at the borders of our country to ensure that only American farmers have access to that corn market. That is for good reason. That marketplace has really matured in terms of ethanol production and the direction we are going to the point we are now realizing that renewable fuels are going to need to come from other sources as well; that we cannot just depend on that corn-based ethanol program but that we have to start looking toward cellulosic and biodiesel and biomass and a whole host of other renewable energy sources. But the fact is, we still protect that corn market to a tremendous degree.

For sugar, we have a unique program that doesn't make payments to farmers, but, like ethanol, it limits the international competition, and it supports the processing of these commodities.

Sometimes sugar is supported in the processing facilities, and therefore those protected markets and that payment coming down to those farmers is a little bit trickier to understand than the regular commodity program.

Rather than offering a whole lot of detail on a program that does not directly impact my State, I would rather direct folks to the individuals who represent the States here that are affected by those crops. I think it is most important to let those who understand crops in their States give their descriptions because they have a better intuitive idea of how those programs work and how their growers benefit and how the economy benefits from it and certainly how the American people benefit. There are a lot of Members who can tell you about that.

As the President knows, we on the Ag Committee--everyone has their specialty and certainly their best understanding when it comes to corn and sugar. I kind of focus on the folks who know those the best to be able to provide you the details. But, in short, sugar has an entirely separate program

subject to different disciplines but with a market that is very domestic and exclusively limited to American sugar farmers. So you have two of these products now, or commodities, that have very different disciplines in terms of what protects them or what provides them that very defined as well as insured marketplace through both the constricting of the marketplace without allowing imports to come in and also the incentives they have in the way those safety nets are provided to them through their processing.

Now, here is a market that I do know about and that I can talk about, and that is what comes from my region of the Nation, which is cotton and rice.

First and most importantly, I need to point out that these two commodities are subject to very intense global competition. Rather than simply state that as a fact, I will offer a couple of explanations.

Rice is a stable commodity globally, all over the world. As such, it is produced in many regions, including the developing world, those nations which are not as developed as we are or as old and efficient as we are. The same is true for cotton.

What is also true is that our market is open to direct competition from international producers while our access into their foreign marketplace is extremely limited. Now, that means our border is open to their rice and cotton being shipped into our country. So our growers not only have to compete to get into our marketplaces, but they have to compete here with products that are allowed to come in from other countries--the rice and cotton, specifically.

I think the best example or one of the best examples is Japan. Japan's rice tariff comes in at over 400 percent. That is more than enough to keep American rice out of their marketplace, I have to tell you, a 400-percent tariff on rice going into Japan. Yet our markets are open. Our markets are open to commodities coming into this country.

Another good example that can be used is the treatment of rice in the recently negotiated Korean Free Trade Agreement. For every product produced in the United States of America, we reduce the Korean tariff, limiting our access into theirs immediately or phased in over 20 years, every one with the exception of one commodity--it is rice, one commodity that is not allowed to be exported into the Korean marketplace.

So it just goes to show you the fact that our commodities, although they are different and grown differently and a whole host of different things, also are treated differently in the global community and in the global economic venue. At this point, you should start to be seeing a pattern here in terms of the differences not only in how we grow our commodities but also how our commodities are dealt with in the marketplace. Our market is open to competition, while our export markets remain closed to our growers of our commodities.

Now, do not get me wrong, I am not here advocating that we need unabashed free trade for agriculture because I know that to expose the Third World to our productivity would decimate vulnerable parts of their economies that support the poorest of the world's poor. So that is not what we are talking about. This dynamic is more than a reality for U.S. farmers; it is a part of America's obligation within the World Trade Organization.

Now, I will summarize that point just briefly. In the WTO, the United States and other developed nations must report their subsidy level, and they must restrict their tariff level. The conversion is true for the developing nations that are members of the WTO. They are not subject to even reporting their subsidy, and they have little to no obligation with respect to opening their markets.

Now, again, I am not saying this is a total and complete outrage; I am merely trying to paint a more comprehensive picture of what American agriculture is up against in the global economy. Without a doubt, as we have heard in multiple different meetings across the Hill that many of us go to, whether it is our lunch groups or our hearings in committee and others, we hear all of the talk about global trade and about the global economy and developing countries and where they are going, placing priorities in education and infrastructure investment and a host of other things, and we see our trade deficit growing. Yet agriculture has always been one of those areas where not only we as Americans feel it is important to maintain that domestic production of a safe and affordable and available food supply, but we also know it is a big issue to other countries that they can maintain some domestic production and hopefully as much as they possibly can grab hold of in terms of that domestic production.

With that said, it simply cannot be ignored that these disparities in international competition contribute to the world in which the U.S. cotton and rice producers must compete and therefore influence how they must structure their operations. So, again, for us, in meeting different demands, in looking at the global marketplace and trying to figure out how we structure ourselves as growers, it is not just about the soil type or the weather and the climate; it is also about the international marketplace, which leads me to the explanation of the last question which is posed to me; that is, Why are Arkansas farms so big?

It should not be difficult for Members of this Chamber to understand that when you face intense competition and your foreign markets are closed, you have to create efficiencies. You have to create efficiencies elsewhere in your business operation in order to be able to compete because you do not set the world market price. You have to be able to compete on that international global stage by your own efficiencies.

It is the good fortune of everyone in America that our farmers are the most efficient farmers in the world. Certainly, we are the beneficiary of that in this great country, but people all across the globe understand that, that not only are we the most efficient and can do it the most affordably, but we produce the safest and set a standard in many instances across the globe of what is going to be produced in future generations in terms of sustenance of life. We have improved our efficiencies in ways that cannot be described here in a short period of time, but suffice it to say that the American farmer is the most efficient on Earth, and are we not all glad? That is something for us to be proud of in this body and across this land. If you are not or if you take our bounty for granted in this great Nation, you should be ashamed of yourself. That is the reason this bill is so important, is that we have been handed this blessing. We have worked hard on this Earth in this great land of ours. But we certainly have reason to be proud.

Despite our efficiency in cotton and rice country, we are still operating on very thin margins of profit. In some years, we merely hope for profit that really never comes.

What we have done to help level that playing field is to expand our operation to further reduce our per-unit cost and, in turn, create a competitive economy of scale. Now, that means we have to spread our risk out over a greater abundance of production because that is one of the only ways we have to get the efficiency to be able to be competitive in a very restrictive market, and that is to have a large economy of scale and mitigate our risk over a greater area.

Now, unfortunately, many newspapers and some of my colleagues attribute USDA statistics for commercial-size operations to many of our Arkansas and southern farms and assume we are no longer family farms simply because of our size. What a terrible misrepresentation. I think it really diminishes what we are about in this body, which is to embrace our diversity and embrace the good work all of these hard- working farm families do across this Nation. And without a doubt, it is simply untrue. I do not know of too many nonfamily farms in my State. There are a lot of people who are going to tell you that because they belong to a cooperative or because they maybe farm more acreage, they are not a family farm. In fact, I do not even know of one.

What I do know a lot about is fathers and sons, wives, daughters, brothers and sisters who work the land with one another. They have to come together. They have to build their operation, come together, and stay together if they are going to survive. Even when that generation upon generation finds

that one of those brothers or sisters happens to move to the city to become a doctor or maybe an electrician or maybe a fireman or maybe a lawyer, they still help share the risk of what that farm has to do, which is to create that economy of scale in order to be competitive.

So hopefully we can still consider those people a family farm, because, guess what, they are still a family, and they are still farming and they are all carrying the risk of what it takes to be competitive in that global marketplace. Now, their operations may exceed several thousand acres, and they most certainly are still family farms.

In fact, I cannot imagine a definition of a family farm that does not include the overwhelming majority of Arkansas farmers, but apparently such a definition exists. USDA seems to come up with these definitions, and they print them out up here in Washington, inside this bubble, and they fail to realize that there is a lot of diversity in this great country. There are a lot of family farms that exist. It is not just family farms in the Midwest, it is not just family farms on the east coast, but it is family farms in other regions of the country too--yes, in our region of the country too.

Now, I will go ahead and put my colleagues on notice that until those misrepresentations cease--and I have to tell you, they have been long and hard for many years in terms of the misrepresentations of what a farm is and who constitutes that farm. You know, I am a daughter of a farmer, but I cannot imagine the way I get labeled as having been this huge farmer when I am not even farming. Yet that misrepresentation continues to come out there just because it is convenient and it is sensational and people can use it.

Well, I have to say that it does not matter to me what happens to me, but it does matter what happens to those hard-working farm families who are working so hard to make sure we enjoy that safe and abundant and affordable food supply regardless of what happens in the international community. My colleagues know they are going to hear a lot more from me on farm policy that supports farmers throughout this great country as the debate goes on.

It is my opportunity to describe and talk about the individuality of each of these areas. I will hone in on my part of the country because I leave how other commodities are farmed up to those who farm them. But I can definitely tell you, having walked rice levees and scouted cotton and chopped down coffee bean plants in a soybean field, how our farms run and why they run that way, I understand the markets. I understand the global trade implications that exist. I understand that all of the programs we design oftentimes in the farm bill don't fit us.

For example, take disaster assistance. I was glad to work with my colleagues in the Midwest who wanted to see a disaster assistance program, even though it doesn't benefit my farmers that much. When you have a farm in the South and you are farming rice, you have to control your environment. Have you ever seen a rice field that has no water on it? Unless it is being harvested, you haven't. The reason is, you have to control that environment. When it comes to disaster assistance, those counties get the same national disaster declaration on a drought. But guess what. They are never going to get that disaster assistance because they hardly ever hit the 35-percent yield loss that comes with another stipulation in disaster assistance, because they have controlled their environment.

I will tell you what: They have spent twice the effort and resources and money in plowing into that crop what they needed to combat that drought and that disaster that was occurring. So they need another tool. They need another tool within the confines of our farm legislation that allows them to market their crop, to market their crop in this competitive global marketplace so the Government doesn't have to do it for them.

As I plow through this--and I know I will have many other opportunities to do so--I hope I have answered some questions or at least demonstrated some of the differences in our ag land down in the southern half of the Nation. We are all a little different. I have to tell you, for that we should be extremely grateful and proud, and we should embrace that diversity. As a nation, that is what makes us strong, our diversity and our willingness to embrace it and our willingness to respect it. That is what makes us Americans. Despite these differences, it has always been my view that regardless of the type of crop or the region of the country you live, if you contribute to the production of safe agricultural commodities, I consider you a farmer. I consider you an American farmer. I don't judge that and I don't judge you as an American farmer based on whether you are in one region or another or how big your family is or how big your farming operation is. I judge you by the fact that you are willing to go to work and work hard every day to do the best you can, to be as efficient as you possibly can, not only in this country but in the global marketplace, with tremendous respect to the environment, the conservation of land, and the ability to produce a safe and productive food supply. That is who farmers are.

If we let other people define who a farmer is and a farm family is, then we will be sorely disappointed when we start to outsource our food to other countries. I think we have become sorely disappointed to find ourselves dependent on foreign oil, to have outsourced our need for energy in the oil arena to other parts of the world. We will find ourselves once again in the next several years with a trade deficit in agriculture, outsourcing our food supply. I don't think Americans want to go there; I really don't. I think they are willing to listen for the diversity and expertise and the hard work that goes on by America's farmers to continue to produce that safe and abundant, affordable food supply. As a farmer, regardless of the region of the country, we have to help our farmers keep meeting that competition.

I have the reputation of being that kind of person, of reaching out and working with people, understanding differences, accepting differences and accepting other people's ideas. I hope we all have that attitude. But mostly, I try to be respectful of people. Unfortunately, my farmers and I have not been given that same respect by everybody. I am going to continue to work hard to prove my point because I am going to earn that respect. I am going to earn that respect not only in what we have done in this underlying bill, in creating the greatest, most substantial reform in decades. We started over here in current law and most of the extremes that people want are way over here. Guess where we have moved. In terms of providing the reforms that the media and others all clamor about, we have come from here all the way over here. That last little bit people want to ask of us will outsource the food supply that southern growers have so proudly provided this country for many years.

I am proud to be here to defend and support and be proud of Arkansas farm families. They have worked hard. They will continue to work hard. I have fought this fight for several years, and I will continue to defend the programs and my farmers who use them within the limits of the law. Creating greater reform is important. Our farmers want to make sure they are in compliance with the law and that they are working hard within the parameters to do their very best. But they also want to be able to be competitive, because they want to continue to provide that safe and abundant supply of food and fiber. And they can--most efficiently, most effectively, most safely, as well as with the greatest respect to the environment. I hope people will not continue the sensationalized stories and misrepresented facts in order to get something done that does nothing but move forward in outsourcing our food and fiber supply.

I hope I have brought some clarity here today. I will continue to try to do that. I look forward to working with my colleagues. We have a long road ahead of us to get something done. But I think everybody will agree it is worth it. It is well worth it, as we return home to be with our families, to give thanks for this wonderful Nation we live in and the bounty it provides. I hope we will come back and sit down and get to work supporting America's farm families and the hard work they do, recognizing all of the tremendous challenges they face, mostly challenges they have no control over. Whether it is the trade agreements they operate

under, whether it is the environment and the weather they deal with that they have no control over, it is certainly within the confines of the requirements and the regulations we present them to empower them to do a better job or certainly the best possible job in taking good care of the land and being good stewards of this great land we have.

I thank the Chair. I look forward to working with my colleagues.

I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, the American people get it. Over 50 percent of the American people believe that we should now begin a reduction of our troops.

As I listened here on the floor of the house, and I listened to my good friends on the other side of the aisle claiming the me-me's and the I-I's, I hear no one talking about victory.

Victory in what sense? So that we can pound our chests and brag about what this Congress and this President has done?

We're talking about lives here. We're talking about lives. And I am sick and tired of listening to people bragging about who can claim a victory.

Well, my belief is that the soldiers on the battlefield, the most deadliest year that we've ever had, 2006, we buried more than we could ever imagine. Those soldiers have already claimed victory. They took Fallujah. They took Baghdad.

And my concern is why have we not championed the victory of those soldiers? Why haven't we welcomed them home, given them accolades because they have been victorious?

Someone on the other side has not read this bill. This bill allows for a redeployment in an orderly manner, and it demands that the President use these dollars to redeploy.

I am not going to trample on the graves of dead soldiers and continue a war that has no end. That government has the ability in Iraq to diplomatically deal with democracy. We have died so they can deal with democracy.

It is time to end this war now and to bring our soldiers home with the dignity and victory they deserve.

Right now, in the Nation's hospitals, we are seeing the results of his victory. We are seeing soldiers with brain injury, soldiers with no limbs. And we have a broken health care system that can't even address the question of those soldiers with posttraumatic stress brain injury and otherwise.

My voice is gone, but I am tired of this question of victory because I believe, and I have a bill, and I ask my good friend from California to join it, the Military Success Act of 2007 that chronicles the victories of our soldiers.

We can bring them home with dignity. I am not going to tolerate one more dead body. And it is time to end this war and end it now.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4156, introduced by my colleague, Mr. Obey. I would like to thank him for his ongoing leadership as chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and on this important issue in particular.

The legislation we are considering today provides our troops with the resources they need, but it does not give the President the blank check he has asked for to fund an endless combat operation in Iraq. Instead of his additional $200 billion, we are considering a $50 billion package, which institutes a redeployment timeline, as well as other critical directives designed to transition our role in Iraq and bring our troops home.

Madam Speaker, the funds provided by this legislation are, crucially, tied to a requirement for the immediate start of the redeployment of U.S. forces. It sets December 15, 2008, as the target date for the completion of the redeployment, and requires redeployment to begin within 30 days of enactment.

As lawmakers continue to debate U.S. policy in Iraq, our heroic young men and women continue to willingly sacrifice life and limb on the battlefield. Our troops in Iraq did everything we asked them to do. We sent them overseas to fight an army; they are now caught in the midst of an insurgent civil war and continuing political upheaval. The United States will not and should not permanently prop up the Iraqi Government and military. U.S. military involvement in Iraq will come to an end, and, when U.S. forces leave, the responsibility for securing their nation will fall to Iraqis themselves. However, whether or not my colleagues agree that the time has come to withdraw our American forces from Iraq, I believe that all of us in Congress should be of one accord that our troops deserve our sincere thanks and congratulations.

For this reason, I extremely please to have worked with the Democratic leadership to include language recognizing the extraordinary achievements of our men and women in uniform. Paragraph 2 of Title I reads, ``the performance of United States military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan should be commended, their courage and sacrifice have been exceptional, and when they come home, their service should be recognized appropriately.'' I believe that the inclusion of this language makes it clear that we are proud of the accomplishments of our troops, and we look forward to commending them as they return safely home.

I also worked with the Leadership to include the language in Paragraph 3 of Title 1. This paragraph reads, ``the primary purpose of funds made available by this Act should be to transition the mission of United States Armed Forces in Iraq and undertake their redeployment, and not to extend or prolong the war.'' This language makes explicit that this legislation is providing funding for the safe and responsible redeployment of our troops, not for the continuation of combat operations.

This legislation protects our troops, by providing them with the funding they need to safely and successfully redeploy from Iraq. It also prohibits the deployment of forces to Iraq who are not fully trained and fully equipped. In addition, this legislation includes an extension to all U.S. Government agencies and personnel of the current prohibition in the Army Field Manual against the use of certain interrogation techniques.

Mr. Speaker, this bill contains important language that changes the mission of U.S. forces in Iraq to diplomatic and force protection, targeted counterterrorism operations, and limited support to Iraqi security forces. I firmly believe that we must make diplomacy and statecraft tools of the first, rather than the last, resort. We must seek constructive engagement with Iraq, its neighbors, and the rest of the international community, as we work to bring resolution to this calamitous conflict that has already gone on far too long.

Because of my deeply held belief that we must commend our military for their exemplary performance and success in Iraq, I have introduced legislation, H.R. 4020, with the support of a number of my colleagues, entitled the ``Military Success in Iraq Commemoration Act of 2007.'' This legislation recognizes the extraordinary performance of the Armed Forces in achieving the military objectives of the United States in Iraq, encourages the President to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe a national day of celebration commemorating the military success of American troops in Iraq, and provides other affirmative and tangible expressions of appreciation from a grateful Nation to all veterans of the war in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, we have already expended 3,500 American lives and $400 billion in taxpayer dollars in Iraq. We have occupied the country for over 4 years. And our President continues to push a strategy devoid of clear direction and visible targets, while rejecting congressional calls to solidify an exit strategy.

Last November, the American people clearly stated that they did not want to see an endless conflict in Iraq; they went to the polls and elected a new, Democratic Congress to lead our Nation out of Iraq. I am proud to be a member of the Congressional class that listens and adheres to the will of the American people, as we did when both houses of Congress approved Iraq Supplemental bills that instituted a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. We need a new direction, because we owe our brave, fighting men and women so much more. Washington made a mistake in going to war. It is time for politicians to admit that mistake and fix it before any more lives are lost.

This Congress will not, as the previous, Republican, Congress did, continue to rubber stamp what we believe to be an ill-conceived war. As we continue to receive reports on the situation in Iraq, it is important that we continue to look forward, to the future of Iraq beyond a U.S. military occupation.

Despite the multitude of mistakes perpetrated by President Bush and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, our troops have achieved a military success in ousting Saddam Hussein and assisting the Iraqis in administering a democratic election and electing a democratic government. However, only the Iraqi government can secure a lasting peace. Time and time again, the Iraqi government has demonstrated an inability to deliver on the political benchmarks that they themselves agreed were essential to achieving national reconciliation. Continuing to put the lives of our soldiers and our national treasury in the hands of what by most informed accounts, even by members of the Bush Administration, is an ineffective central Iraqi government is irresponsible and contrary to the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the American people.

Our Nation has already paid a heavy price in Iraq. Over 3,810 American soldiers have died. In addition, more than 27,660 have been wounded in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003. June, July, and August have marked the bloodiest months yet in the conflict, and U.S. casualties in Iraq are 62 percent higher this year than at this time in 2006. This misguided, mismanaged, and misrepresented war has claimed too many lives of our brave servicemen; its depth, breadth, and scope are without precedent in American history. In addition, the United States is spending an estimated $10 billion per month in Iraq. This $10 billion a month translates into $329,670,330 per day, $13,736,264 per hour, $228,938 per minute, and $3,816 per second.

For this huge sum of money, we could have repaired the more than 70,000 bridges across America rated structurally deficient, $188 billion, potentially averting the tragedy that occurred August 1 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We could have rebuilt the levees in New Orleans, $50 billion, protecting that city from future hurricanes that could bring Katrina-like destruction upon the city. We could have provided all U.S. public safety officials with interoperable communication equipment, $10 billion, allowing them to effectively communicate in the event of an emergency, and we could have paid for screening all air cargo on passenger planes for the next 10 years, $3.6 billion. And, we could have enrolled 1.4 million additional children in Head Start programs, $10 billion. Instead of funding increased death and destruction in Iraq, we could have spent hard-earned taxpayer dollars on important progress here at home.

The Foreign Affairs Committee, of which I am proud to be a member, has recently heard a string of reports from military and civilian officials about the political, military, social, and economic situation in Iraq. Two weeks ago, the Government Accountability Office, GAO, informed the Congress that the Iraqi government has met only 3 of the 18 legislative, economic, and security benchmarks. Despite the surge, despite increasing U.S. military involvement, the Iraqi Government has not made substantial progress toward stabilizing their country.

President Bush rationalized his surge, over opposition by myself and other House Democrats, by arguing it would give the Iraqi government ``the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas,'' bringing about reconciliation between warring factions, Sunni and Shia. However, non-partisan assessments, such as last week's GAO report, have illustrated that escalating U.S. military involvement in Iraq is instead hindering that nation's ability to move beyond the devastation of war and death, to build a successful new government, and to create a stable and secure environment. In the 7 months since the surge began, increased American military presence has not been able to end the relentless cycles of sectarian violence that continue to plague Iraq. Nor have larger numbers of U.S. troops been successful in unifying and strengthening the Iraqi Government.

Instead, the security situation continues to deteriorate. Sectarian violence remains high, and even the Bush administration has noted the unsatisfactory progress toward political reconciliation. The Sunni-led insurgency continues, with insurgents conducting increasingly complex and well-coordinated attacks. The August 2007 National Intelligence Estimate cited ongoing violence, stating, ``the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remain high; Iraq's sectarian groups remain unreconciled.'' The report went on to note that al-Qaeda in Iraq, AQI, ``retains the ability to conduct high-profile attacks,'' and ``Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively.''

The ever-increasing sectarian violence is causing immense daily challenges for Iraqis. Millions have been displaced, and an Iraqi Red Crescent Organization has reported an increase of nearly 630,000 internally displaced persons from February 2007 to July 2007. The same organization predicts an additional 80,000 to 100,000 persons are displaced each month. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis are now refugees, with an additional 40,000 to 50,000 fleeing to neighboring countries each month. Iraq has become a humanitarian disaster, and one that continues to get worse every day.

The United States military is a skilled and highly proficient organization, and where there are large numbers of U.S. troops, it is unsurprising that we see fewer incidents of violence. However, it is our responsibility to take a longer-term view. The United States will not and should not permanently prop up the Iraqi Government and military. U.S. military involvement in Iraq will come to an end, and, when U.S. forces leave, the responsibility for securing their nation will fall to Iraqis themselves. And so far, we have not seen a demonstrated commitment by the Iraqi Government.

In addition, evidence suggests that not only is increased U.S. military presence in Iraq not making that nation more secure, it may also be threatening our national security by damaging our ability to respond to real threats to our own homeland. The recently released video by Osama bin Laden serves to illustrate that President Bush has not caught this international outlaw, nor brought him to justice. Instead, he has diverted us from the real war on terror to the war of his choice in Iraq.

The former Chairman and Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, share this view. In a recent op-ed, Kean and Hamilton note that our own actions have contributed to a rise of radicalization and rage in the Muslim world. Kean and Hamilton write that ``no conflict drains more time, attention, blood, treasure, and support from our worldwide counterterrorism efforts than the war in Iraq. It

has become a powerful recruiting and training tool for al-Qaeda.''

Our troops in Iraq did everything we asked them to do. We sent them overseas to fight an army; they are now caught in the midst of an insurgent civil war and political upheaval. I have, for some time now, advocated for congressional legislation declaring a military victory in Iraq, and recognizing the success of our military. Our brave troops have completed the task we set for them; it is time now to bring them home. Our next steps should not be a continuing escalation of military involvement, but instead a diplomatic surge.

Democrats in Congress will not continue to rubber stamp the President's ill-conceived war effort. Last November, the American people spoke loudly and clearly, demanding a new direction to U.S. foreign policy, and we here in Congress are committed to seeing that change be brought about. We are working to see the extensive funds currently being spent to sustain the war in Iraq go to important domestic programs and to securing our homeland against real and imminent threats.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been given numerous chances and ample time by the American people and the Congress to straighten out the mess in Iraq. They have failed. It is pure fantasy to imagine that President Bush's military surge has created the necessary safety and security to meet economic, legislative, and security benchmarks. It is time for a new strategy, a new plan that will encourage Iraqis to take charge of their own destiny, seek constructive and sustained regional engagement, and substitute the ill- advised military surge for a thoughtful diplomatic one. It is time to be realistic and pragmatic, to recognize that our troops achieved what they were initially sent in for and that continued U.S. military engagement is not bringing about the desired results.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation provides our brave soldiers in Iraq with the resources they need, while requiring that the President begin to redeploy our troops. It keeps our soldiers safe, and it keeps our Nation safe. By bringing an end to this conflict, this Democratic Congress is making significant strides forward toward protecting and securing America.

I strongly urge all my colleagues to join me in supporting today's legislation, and in giving the troops the resources they need to safely redeploy from Iraq.

Madam President, on tomorrow, we will be voting on several items. Two are going to be related to our policy on Iraq. Tonight, I wish to express my views on the choices that are before the Senate and the American people. I know later in the evening a number of colleagues will speak to this issue. I welcome the chance to now express my view.

Madam President, I oppose the minority leader's effort to provide a $70 billion blank check to President Bush for his failed Iraq policy. I will support legislation approved yesterday in the House of Representatives requiring the President to begin to bring our combat troops out of Iraq in 1 month and complete the withdrawal by December of next year. I hope the Senate will support it, and I hope President Bush will sign it into law.

Earlier this month, we reached another tragic milestone in Iraq. We have lost more Americans in Iraq this year than in any other year. It is another painful and somber reminder of the enormous price in precious lives the Iraq war continues to impose. It is long past time for the administration to change course and end the national nightmare the Iraq war has become. Our military has served nobly in Iraq and done everything we have asked them to do. But they are caught in a

continuing quagmire. They are policing a civil war and implementing a policy that is not worthy of their enormous sacrifice.

The best way to protect our troops and our national security is to put the Iraqis on notice that they need to take responsibility for their future so that we can bring our troops back home to America safely. As long as our military presence in Iraq is open-ended, Iraq's leaders are unlikely to make the essential compromises for a political solution.

The administration's misguided policy has put our troops in an untenable and unwinnable situation. They are being held hostage to Iraqi politics, in which sectarian leaders are unable or unwilling to make the difficult judgments needed to lift Iraq out of its downward spiral.

BG John F. Campbell, deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq, spoke with clarity about the shortcomings of Iraq's political leaders. He said:

The ministers, they don't get out. . . . They don't know

what the hell is going on on the ground.

Army LTG Mark Fetter said that ``it is painful, very painful'' dealing with the obstructionism of Iraqi officials.

About conditions on the ground, Army MG Michael Barbero said:

. . . it's not as good as it's being reported now.

All of these military deserve credit for their courage in speaking the truth. We should commend them for it. These are courageous, brave military speaking the truth.

Yet the President continues to promise that success is just around the corner. He continues to hold out hope that Iraq's leaders are willing and capable of making essential political compromises necessary for reconciliation.

The American people know we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a failed policy that is making America more vulnerable and putting our troops at greater risk. The toll is devastating. Nearly 4,000 American troops have died, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured, and over 4 million more have been forced to flee their homes. Nearly a half trillion dollars has been spent fighting this war.

It is wrong for Congress to write a blank check to the President for this war. It is obvious that President Bush wants to drag this process out month after month so he can hand off his policy to the next President. It is time to put the brakes on this madness. It is up to us to halt the open-ended commitment of our troops that President Bush has been making year after year. We need to tell the Iraqis now that we intend to leave and leave soon. Only by doing so can we create the urgency that is so clearly necessary for them to end their differences.

We cannot allow the President to drag this process out any longer. This war is his responsibility, and it is his responsibility to do all he can to end it. It is wrong for him to pass the buck to his successor when he knows thousands more of the courageous members of the Armed Forces will be wounded or die because of it. Every day this misguided war goes on, our service men and women and their families continue to shoulder the burden and pay the price.

If this issue were only about the tragedies of the war, there would be reason enough to end it. But it has become about so much more. Now we are also starting to see the fallout at home as the President refuses to deliver the relief our families need.

Earlier this week, the President signed a Defense appropriations bill that includes a 10-percent increase in funding compared to last year, but he vetoed a bill that includes an increase half that big that would fund cancer research, investments in our schools, job training, and protection for our workers. That bill included $4.5 billion more than the President proposed for education. He said that $4.5 billion more for students is too much. Yet he has asked for 35 times that much more for the war in Iraq. He wants us to say yes to $158 billion for Iraq when he says no to $4.5 billion for American children.

In Iraq, anything goes. The sky is the limit. Billions and billions of dollars for Iraq. But here in America, right here at home, a modest investment in our school children gets a veto.

The bill included $3 billion to improve the quality of our teachers. Those funds would have been used to hire 30,000 more teachers, provide high-quality induction and mentoring for 100,000 beginning teachers, and provide high-quality professional development for an additional 200,000 teachers. One week of the failed policy in Iraq is the cost. We could do all of this for our teachers for the cost of a single week in Iraq, but the President says no.

The bill that he vetoed included $7 billion to provide high-quality early education through Head Start. Yesterday, the Senate approved a Head Start bill to strengthen the program and make Head Start even better. The bill goes a long way in strengthening the quality of the personnel, tying Head Start to kindergarten and other education programs in the States and consolidating all the various programs in the States that are available to children to make them more effective. Each of these improvements make an enormous difference in the lives of Head Start children. Funds the President vetoed would be used to build a basic foundation for learning that will help low-income and minority children for the rest of their lives. We can improve this foundation for the cost of a little more than 2 weeks in Iraq.

But even as we work in Congress to improve this vital program, the President says no. No, no, no to this program, no to the Head Start children. We are only reaching half of those who are eligible for the program at this time. We have over 4 million poor children under the age of 5 in the United States of America; we only reach 1 million of them. We all know what a difference early intervention makes for children in education. It is critically important for us to continue strengthening the academic programs, socio-emotional support, and health services delivered through Head Start and yet the President continues to say no.

The same misguided rationale applies to other investments in this bill. The President's choices cast aside urgently needed research on heart disease, diabetes, asthma, infectious disease, and mental health, and many other areas that could find cures and bring relief to millions of our fellow citizens.

This chart shows $4.9 billion in cancer research which would fund over 6,800 grants; diabetes research, pandemic flu, with all the dangers we are facing with the potential for a pandemic flu--that is necessary--support for the CDC, one of the prime health agencies to help protect Americans. It does such a good job in terms of immunizations and community health centers, which is a lifeline for 15 million of our fellow citizens, so many of whom have lost their health insurance. And the answer is no to those individuals.

It is true, in terms of American workers, the President rejects funding to enforce the labor laws that keep workers safe and to give them a level playing field. Instead, the President's veto takes bad employers off the hook and puts the safety and lives of American workers at risk. The President's choices are devastating to veterans as well. Listen to this, Mr. President. Each year nearly 320,000 brave servicemen return to civilian life, many coming from Iraq and Afghanistan. Tens of thousands--here is the chart. These are the returning veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. Tens of thousands of reservists and National Guard have lost their benefits and even their jobs because they served their country. That is why the appropriations bill provided $228 million to help veterans find jobs, obtain training, and protect their right to return to former jobs. They are guaranteed now under existing law, but what is happening is that law is not being implemented. We found that three-quarters of returning veterans do not even know about their rights and, in many instances, they are losing their jobs, they are losing their overtime pay, and they are losing their pensions. That is why today one out of four homeless people in the United States is a former veteran. The bill we approved would help address this issue, but that was also vetoed.

The bill we will have a chance to vote on tomorrow in the Senate, which was approved by the House of Representatives yesterday, also takes an important step in reining in the Bush administration's use of torture. It is difficult to believe that in this day and age, Congress needs to legislate against the use of torture to prevent the President of the United States from abusing prisoners. Torture and cruel, inhuman, and

degrading treatment are already prohibited by law. Yet, once again, we must legislate, not because the conduct we would prohibit is somehow unlawful, but because the Bush administration continues to twist and distort existing law in its misguided, immoral interrogation practices.

The Nation was shocked by the horrible images from Abu Ghraib prison, and America was shamed in the eyes of the world. The administration tried to whitewash the episode by blaming it on low-level soldiers, but the truth about our use of torture couldn't be concealed. Led by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Gonzales, the administration had set a course that undermined fundamental American values in the craven belief that torture could somehow make us more secure.

Our interrogators were authorized to shackle prisoners in stress positions, induce hypothermia, and use sleep deprivation, extend isolation, bombardment with lights and loud music, and even now the infamous practice of waterboarding. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel--listen to this, Mr. President--the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel gave its approval to the legality of these practices in the morally outrageous Bybee torture memorandum. The Bybee torture memorandum was in place for more than 2\1/2\ years until Mr. Gonzales appeared before the Judiciary Committee when he wanted to be the Attorney General of the United States. He could look over that committee and tell that if he had to defend that memorandum, he would never make it, and he was right.

What happened? The administration repealed the Bybee torture memorandum, and Mr. Gonzales got through the Judiciary Committee, although there were more than 40 votes in the Senate against his confirmation.

Under the Bybee memorandum, if the President approved the use of torture, no one could be prosecuted for breaking our Nation's laws or international obligations.

Do my colleagues understand? Under the Bybee memorandum, if you were going to prosecute an individual for using torture, you had to demonstrate a specific intent that the purpose of the torture in which you were involved was not to gain information but just to harm the individual. Unless a prosecutor would be able to demonstrate that the purpose of torturing an individual was not to gain information, you were effectively let off, free.

As the distinguished Dean of Yale Law School, Dr. Koh, said, it was the worst piece of legal reasoning he had seen in the history of studying laws in the United States and legal opinions.

The administration withdrew the Bybee memo in embarrassment when it became public. Indeed, the now-Attorney General Mukasey refused to denounce waterboarding as torture.

Only leaders who fail to understand the founding principles of America could approve such behavior. Our country needs to stand beyond reproach for the sanctity of each individual, for freedom, for justice, for the rule of law. But the administration turned its back on all these traditions and on the ideals of America itself.

In 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act to ensure that all interrogations conducted by the Department of Defense would comply with the Army Field Manual, a comprehensive and effective approach to interrogation that prohibits the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading techniques in favor of techniques that are most likely to be effective in gaining necessary information.

LTG John Kimmons said, when releasing the manual:

No good intelligence is going to come from abusive

practices. I think history tells us that. I think the

empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells

us that. The Manual itself tells us that the use of torture

is not only illegal, but also it is a poor technique that

yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection

efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks

the [interrogator] wants to hear.

Last May, General Petraeus echoed these statements in a letter to all our servicemembers in Iraq saying that ``torture and other expedient methods to obtain information'' are not only illegal and immoral, but also generally ``neither useful nor necessary.''

We now know, however, that the 2005 act left open a loophole that undermines the basic safeguards against torture and cruel and degrading treatment. We applied the field manual to the Department of Defense, but not to the CIA.

Last year in the Military Commissions Act, Congress left it to the President to define by Executive order the interrogation practices that would bind all Government interrogators, including the CIA. The President's Executive order drove a Mack truck through this small loophole. The vague terms of the order permit many of the most heinous interrogation practices.

The provisions of the bill we will have an opportunity of voting on tomorrow closed that loophole. They require that all U.S. interrogations, including those conducted by the CIA, conform to the Army Field Manual. This very simple and easily implemented reform means no more waterboarding, no more use of dogs or other extreme practices prohibited by the Manual. There will still be great flexibility in use of interrogation methods and our interrogators will be able to effectively get the required information, but torture will be off the table.

This bill is an opportunity to restate our commitment to the ideals and security of our Nation. It is an opportunity to repair the damage done to our reputation by the scandal of Abu Ghraib and the abuses of Guantanamo. It is an opportunity to restore our Nation as the beacon for human rights, fair treatment, and the rule of law. It is an opportunity to protect our brave service men and women, both in and out of uniform, from similar tactics. It is a simple but vital step in returning our Nation to the rule of law and the ideals on which America was founded, and it deserves to be enacted into law as soon as possible.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.