Medicare Provider Accountability Act

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President.

Mr. President, if this were the first time that a 60-vote requirement were made, I would have some sympathy for the Senator from Illinois. I am having staff compile the number of times when the other side of the aisle was in the minority, they demanded 60 votes as well. You cannot do it with a straight face.

You cannot say that all we are going to do here in the Senate is have us govern by 51 votes; otherwise, we may as well be unicameral because we would have the Senate and the House exactly the same.

So, of course, I will object, Mr. President. I wish we would get off this horse of saying that somehow the other side never employed the 60- vote requirement in the Senate, because they did. It is a tradition in the Senate, and it is within the rules of the Senate. It may be frustrating. It certainly was to us when we were in the majority and the Democrats were in the minority and they employed it. But to somehow act as if what is being done is unprecedented--I will tell you what is unprecedented; it is taking a Defense authorization bill that is there for the training and equipping and pay raises and necessities of life for the men and women serving in the military, when we should be passing this--we all know it is going to come up in September. We should be passing this so the men and women can get what they need and deserve in order to defend the security of this Nation. Instead, Mr. President, what we are doing is having, again, for the eighth or ninth time, without having passed one appropriations bill, including the Military Construction appropriations bill, which is ready to be passed--instead, we will have this ``argument'' against the filibuster.

Mr. President, it doesn't pass the smell test. I object.

Mr. President, I am pleased to give that to the distinguished chairman.

The Senator from Nevada, the distinguished majority leader and my friend for many years, points out that in previous years, the Defense authorization bill was passed without requirements for a 60-vote majority. There is a simple answer to that. We never took up an issue such as this on the Defense authorization bill.

In fact, our focus and our attention was, for 45 years, providing men and women who are serving in the military with what they needed to defend this Nation. Instead--instead, of doing what is necessary, including the 3.5-percent pay raise, including the Wounded Warriors legislation on it to take care of our veterans--we are now gridlocked in the Senate because the Senator from Nevada knows he is not going to pass a withdrawal from Iraq on this bill. If he did, the President would veto the bill, because the President has said it. We all know that in September this issue is going to come to a head, whether I happen to favor that or not.

Most people believe that September is a time where we could make the kinds of judgments necessary to see whether we are making the kind of progress that will justify continued effort in this new strategy, which I, of course, would remind my colleagues again, the last part of which was put in place a few weeks ago.

Of course, we did not have requirements for 60-vote majorities in the past few years because no one had the temerity to put an issue such as this on the very vital needs of the men and women in the military to do their job. So, of course, there was not a controversial necessity for a 60-vote majority.

I am happy to tell my friend from Mississippi that Senator Levin and I are moving forward with clearing amendments so we can, we hope, wrap up this bill by the end of this week. I hope that once this display that is going to take place tonight, all night, is concluded, and there is not sufficient votes in order to get the Levin-Reed amendment passed, at some point we can go back to the Defense authorization bill and get them the 3.5 percent pay raise they have earned; get them that MRAP equipment that they need; get this Wounded Warrior legislation through the Senate and to the desk of the President of the United States.

We never grow tired, nor should we, of praising the men and women in the military, particularly those who have sacrificed so much. All of us are embarrassed and ashamed at what happened at Walter Reed. Well, let's pass this Wounded Warrior legislation on this bill and get it done.

Who is holding up passage of the Defense authorization bill? Who is requiring us to stay up all night to discuss it? My friends, this is not necessary. We all know that General Petraeus was affirmed in his position by the Senate by an overwhelming vote. General Petraeus, at the time of his hearings, said we were going to have a new strategy-- that strategy is called surge--and that it would require additional troops.

He also said at that time it would take time, that it would take a period of time before we would know whether it succeeded. Here we are, literally weeks after the last part of this new strategy is in place, the last detachment of an increase in troops, and we are telling them to set a date for withdrawal.

Now, you know, I share the frustration that my friend from Nevada stated about a failed policy. It was a failed policy. The Rumsfeld- Casey policy strategy was doomed to failure, and some of us recognized that and stated that at the time. We said we had to have a new strategy. It has to be the classic counterinsurgency strategy if we are going to succeed in Iraq.

Well, we got a new general. We got a new strategy. There are signs of success. There are clearly some signs of progress, and those are readily apparent. Now, is the Maliki Government acting in the way we want them to? No, they are not. Is it disappointing that they are not? Absolutely, it is disappointing.

But as far as Anbar Province is concerned, as far as some parts of Baghdad are concerned, yes, there is some progress which has been purchased at great and tragic cost, the sacrifice of young American's lives.

I would like to again assure my friend of many years, from Nevada, I understand the frustration that he shows is shared by many Americans. Our failure and our employment of a failed strategy for more than 3 years is well articulated. But I also would plead with my colleagues to at least know that we are not going to stop this now. We are not going stop it now. Even if the majority leader got the 60 votes and got this included in the bill in some way, the President of the United States would veto it. We do not want that to happen. We do not want that to happen.

We know that in September, whether I happen to like it or not--I would like to personally give it more time than September--we know that in September this whole issue is going to come to a head. Here we are in the middle of July. Can't we sit down and work out the amendments in a way that Senator Levin and I and Senator Warner and previous chairmen and ranking members have for the last 20 years, get this bill done, get it out and get it to the President's desk? Then we go into recess. We come back in September. I think that that is not an unreasonable path to follow.

So, my friends, we will continue to debate this issue all night tonight. I understand that. Hopefully, when the majority sees that, the leader sees there is not the votes, maybe we could then get down to the nuts and bolts of the Defense authorization bill of which at last count there are over 100 amendments pending that Members have on both sides of the aisle, they want to be considered and voted on.

I fear--I fear--that the majority leader, because of a lack of time, may feel it necessary to pull the bill from the floor. I think that would not be in any way helpful to our Nation's national security interests.

My friends, if we could lower the rhetoric around here a bit, let us sit down and talk about the best way to proceed, recognizing that September will be a very important point, and pass this authorization bill and not for

the first time in 45 years have us not do what we need to do for our Nation's security and the men and women who are serving.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I was just given information by my staff. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Passed after a cloture vote and/or other 60-vote requirement in 2005, seven; passed after a cloture vote and/or a 60- vote requirement in 2006, 10; defeated by cloture or 60-vote requirement, also in 2006, 10.

It is clear that when the Senator from Illinois was in the minority, they used the 60-vote provision as well, and that is their right to do so. I don't in any way object to their having done that. I do object strenuously to somehow conveying the impression that this is a ``filibuster'' because we require 60 votes, that this is some Earth- shattering, precedent-shattering procedure. In fact, it is not. In fact, the Senator from Illinois knows very well that 60 votes is often required, whether it be a budget point of order or whether a cloture vote, and it has been used quite often by the minority as a tool to assert their rights as the minority. I understand that.

The Senator from Illinois talks about the bill that this has to be on. This is either the eighth or ninth time we have brought up Iraq. He didn't need the authorization bill to do it then. It is the right of the majority to bring up whatever they want, whenever they want. I can assure my colleagues, the Defense authorization bill will probably not be on the floor in September, and one thing I am pretty confident of is that we will be taking up the issue of Iraq in September. So to somehow say that this is appropriate, it is not appropriate because it is controversial, and we know it will not be passed with a provision that requires what the Senator from Illinois wants on it. It will never become law because the President will veto it in the unlikely--in fact, highly unlikely--situation where this bill was passed by both Houses of Congress.

What we are doing--have no doubt about it--is keeping the 3.5-percent pay raise from going into law. We are keeping the wounded warrior legislation from being enacted by both Houses and us acting as quickly as possible. The Senator from Illinois, I believe, and all other Senators voted on behalf of the nomination of General Petraeus in February, knowing full well what General Petraeus's strategy was. That was

very well articulated. So now we find ourselves some months later saying: Well, we have to end it.

The distinguished majority leader, who is no longer on the floor, declared the war lost. I was astonished. Because if we lost the war, then somebody won. Does that mean that al-Qaida has won the war? I don't think the 160,000 young men and women who are serving in Iraq, whom I visited about a week ago, think the war is lost. I don't think the majority of Americans do either. Are they frustrated by what has happened here? Of course, they are frustrated. They want to bring it to an end. But it is the obligation of people such as me to point out what happens when we withdraw in 120 days.

Literally, in the view of every expert on national security, we will pay a much heavier price in the long run. Chaos, genocide will ensue. Quite often I hear from the other side: What is plan B, if the surge doesn't work?

What is plan B if the withdrawal results in chaos and genocide in the region? According to most experts--including Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, General Zinni according to most people who have spent their lives on national security issues, it will be chaos and genocide. What is plan B there?

I hope after the show is over tomorrow morning sometime--and it is clear to all that we will not set a 120-day withdrawal date from Iraq on this legislation--we will then be able to sit down and move forward on the bill so that we can get it passed into law. That is what we should be doing. To somehow think that we have not required, as the majority leader on many occasions required, 60 votes for passage of an amendment or legislation, of course, flies in the face of the clear record which I have just asked to be printed in the Congressional Record.

America is now at a crossroads. America is now at a point where, according to Natan Sharansky:

A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces could lead to a

bloodbath . . .

From Anthony Zinni, who was opposed to us going into Iraq:

. . . reality is that we simply cannot pull out [of Iraq],

as much as we may want to. The consequences of a destabilized

and chaotic Iraq, sitting in a critical region of the world,

could have catastrophic implications . . . there is no short-

term solution.

We have a system of government where the military is subordinate to the civilian leadership, and it should be. It is the most appropriate way. But to completely ignore, as apparently my friend from Illinois is, the leaders whom we have appointed to fight over there and do the dying and carry out the leadership responsibilities, to completely ignore their advice and counsel, they are on the ground. They know what is going on.

General Lynch, 3rd ID commander, says:

[pulling out before the mission was accomplished] would be a

mess.

By the way, these will be the guys who will be required to clean up the mess, if we pass this resolution and we have a mess.

Continuing from General Lynch:

. . . you'd find the enemy regaining ground, reestablishing

sanctuaries, building more IEDs . . . and the violence would

escalate.

I have already quoted before from Henry Kissinger.

General Lynch:

[our soldiers] want to fight terrorists here, so they don't

have to fight terrorists back home . . . I now have the

forces I need to conduct that mission.

General Lynch, the 3rd ID commander, says he has the troops and the wherewithal and the success to get the job done.

The Senator from Illinois wants to say, no, you have to come home in 120 days. I don't think that is right. I don't think General Lynch is reading any polls. I think General Lynch and General Petraeus are fighting an enemy that, according to them, they will be fighting here if we have a precipitous withdrawal.

General Lynch:

. . . surge forces are giving us the capability we have now

to take the fight to the enemy . . . the enemy only responds

to force, and we now have that force.

That is the force that the Senator from Illinois wants to withdraw within 120 days.

We can conduct detailed kinetic strikes, we can do cordon

and searches, and we can deny the enemy sanctuaries . . . If

those surge forces go away that capability goes away, and the

Iraqi security forces aren't ready yet to do that [mission].

Brent Scowcroft, who opposed our entry into the Iraq conflict:

[reduction of American presence in Iraq] should follow

success in our efforts, not the calendar or the performance

of others.

I hope that sometime my friends who were involved in this debate will listen to the people we have delegated to lead the best Armed Forces in the history of mankind who are doing one of the most difficult jobs in history.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, Madam President.

The Senator from Illinois--and this is growing a little wearisome, it really is. The fact is, 60 votes have been invoked by the minority time after time after time, whether it be a district judge or an appellate court judge, or most any other issue that is controversial. The Senator from Illinois knows that, and that is why it is very disappointing to see him using this kind of rhetoric when he is willing to have 60 votes be required for some judge but somehow feels-- which they did invoke when they were in the minority--and yet feels that it is not appropriate to have 60 votes on an issue of this importance.

The Senator from Illinois talks about beginning the withdrawal in 120 days, beginning the withdrawal in 120 days. The day that is signed into law would be the day--would be the day, in the view of every military expert, that al-Qaida would sit back and wait until we left.

The Senator from Illinois continues to call it a civil war. There is sectarian violence. There is very little doubt in the minds--of course, perhaps the Senator from Illinois and others know more than literally every expert I know. It has become, in the words of General Petraeus, a center for al-Qaida and a central front in the war on terror, according to our leading generals.

Now, I resent a little bit this comment by the Senator from Illinois about he has heard the generals before. I heard the generals before, and I disagreed with the generals, and that is our right to do. But to denigrate their opinion I don't think is appropriate to people who spend their lives in the service of the military, defending this Nation. General Petraeus, it is my understanding, has been wounded three times in different wars fighting for this Nation. I think he deserves respect rather than being dismissed by saying: Well, I have heard the generals say that before. We should pay attention to the generals. We should have paid attention to the generals at other times in our history, including those who disagreed with the former Secretary of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld.

Again, I repeat, since we seem to be going in a certain circularity, conditions in Iraq today are terrible, but they become way worse as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, a career foreign service officer, recently told the New York Times. I am quoting from the Washington Post editorial of just a few days ago:

The generals who have devised--

The generals whom the Senator from Illinois derides--

The generals who have devised a new strategy believe they

are making fitful progress in calming Baghdad, training the

Iraqi Army, and encouraging anti-al-Qaida coalitions. Before

Congress begins managing rotation schedules and ordering

withdrawals, it should at least give those generals the

months they ask for to see whether their strategy can offer

some new hope.

Why do you think the Washington Post and literally most every national security expert feels that this ought to be given an opportunity, remembering that the last part of it has just been put in place a short time ago? Because the consequences of failure, as I have just quoted from many military experts, are a catastrophe.

General Lynch says:

What the Iraqis are worried about is our leaving. And our

answer is: We are staying, because my order from the Corps

Commander is that we don't leave the battle space until we

can hand over to the Iraqi security forces. Everybody wants

things to happen overnight, and that is not going to happen.

So when the amendment of the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Michigan is passed, then the word is spread and General Lynch can no longer say to the Iraqis we are staying, because we will be leaving.

General Odierno says:

My assessment right now is, I need more time to understand

how the current offensive targeting al-Qaida and Iraq

terrorists is working and how it could lead to political

progress in the months ahead.

Odierno said:

I am seeing some progress now here in Iraq. We have really

just started what the Iraqis term ``liberating'' them from

al-Qaida. What I've got to determine is what do I need in

order to continue that progress so that the political peace

can take hold and Iraqi sources can hold this for the long

term.

I want to point out to my colleagues that I am not guaranteeing success. I wish it had gone better. I think there are areas, particularly as far as the government is concerned, where dramatic improvement has to take place. But I do know the consequences of failure, and that view of setting a date for withdrawal is a clear recipe for a much larger conflict with much greater involvement in the region over time.

So when the Senator from Illinois and my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about how this won't be withdrawal if this is passed, I say: My friends, this is withdrawal. This is the message to those people who have to remain in the neighborhood: We are leaving and you are going to have to make adjustments to the neighborhood and the new big guys on the block.

Again, I wish we could take up this issue in September. I wish we could pass the necessary legislation to care for the men and women who are wounded. I wish we could pass the necessary legislation in order to take care of the needs of the men and women in the military. If we pass this bill this week--I tell my colleagues we are going to be going into the August recess. We will be coming back in September with probably a very contentious conference with the House. The chances right now of us getting final passage and the President's signature on this bill by the first of October is not good. So the sooner we get this bill off the floor and to the President, the better off we are going to be.

I certainly hope we will take into consideration the great needs that are existing in the military today.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, yesterday a man whom I had the opportunity of meeting and knowing a little bit, British Army Lieutenant General Jim Lamb--General Lamb is the Deputy Commander of Multinational Forces Iraq and senior British military representative in Iraq--was asked by Jamie McIntyre of CNN about how ``the growing sentiment in our Congress to bring U.S. troops home sooner'' affected the mood of his troops deployed in Iraq, meaning the British troops. Lieutenant General Lamb responded that those troops find it ``a touch difficult.'' I think that is a very interesting phrase, ``a touch difficult,'' because while it is so clear to them that we are making progress, it is not reflected by those who are not in the fight but are sitting back and making judgment upon what they, the troops, can see with absolute clarity.

Lieutenant General Lamb noted that those making such judgments and not taking note of the progress ``are not going out every day in a humvee.'' Moreover, he further noted that the progress the troops see is seldom reported. They see provincial counselors,

they see water going to people who didn't have it before, they see electricity coming online, they see stability to the networks. They see all this stuff that no one portrays.

I say to my friend from Michigan and the Senator from Illinois and others, I hope they pay a little attention to General Lamb's statement or reject it out of hand, of course, as apparently is being done.

I have to repeat, General Lamb responded that his troops find it ``a touch difficult.'' While it is so clear to them we are making progress, it is not reflected by those who are not in the fight but are sitting back and making judgment upon what they, the troops, can see with absolute clarity.

I don't think I have to editorialize anymore on General Lamb's, I think, totally accurate statements.

The New York Post reported on July 10 an interview with General Petraeus. He is asked by Ralph Peters, a person for whom I have enormous respect:

The current military operations in Iraq appear

comprehensive and tenacious, part of a long-term, integrated

plan. What can we realistically expect to achieve?

Petraeus: Our primary goal is to work with our Iraqi

counterparts to improve security for the Iraqi people. This

is intended to give the Iraqi leaders the time to resolve the

tough political issues they face and to pursue internal

reconciliation.

He goes on to say:

As to reasonable expectations, we can expect a reduction in

sectarian deaths and the gradual spread of Iraqi government

authority. The level of sectarian deaths in Baghdad in June

was the lowest in about a year. Nevertheless, the extremists

still have been able to carry out car bomb and other attacks.

Wherever we operate, we try to reconnect Iraqi ministries

and local governments to meet the needs of the people.

Finally, we provide opportunities for Iraqis to use their

local knowledge to help root out al Qaeda. Successful

operations of this nature have played out in recent months in

Ramadi, Hit and Baquba. In each case, Iraqis turned against

al Qaeda and sided with the Coalition.

Question:

Now that the surge is fully in place, what's your sense of

the positives and negatives thus far? If you could have more

of any one item, what would it be? Troops? Time? Iraqi unity?

General Petraeus's answer:

I can think of few commanders in history who wouldn't have

wanted more troops, more time or more unity among their

partners; however, if I could only have one at this point in

Iraq, it would be more time.

I repeat, General Petraeus said:

. . . if I could only have one at this point in Iraq, it

would be more time. This is an exceedingly tough endeavor

that faces countless challenges.

So what does the Levin-Reed amendment do? Deny General Petraeus exactly that. As Senator Levin points out in his statement, the announced withdrawal would force the Iraqi Government to act and, therefore, then we would see progress. What if, I say to my colleagues who support this amendment, what if instead the situation deteriorates into a chaotic situation, then what do we do? Then what do we do if the situation gets worse? Do we come back in? Do we sit on the sidelines and watch another genocide? What if, I say to my colleague who often asks me what is plan B, the surge doesn't work? What is plan B if the withdrawal doesn't work?

I don't think that most people would believe that an international mediator is exactly a solution that is viable.

I wish to talk a minute about the region. Finally, after our stunning military victory and shock and awe and the invasion side of the conflict was over, America was in pretty good shape in the region. The Syrians were trying to be cooperative. There were efforts on the part of the Iranians to join with us in efforts to bring about an end to terrorism in the region. Then we began to fail, and that failure has, obviously, been chronicled in many books. I recommend to my colleagues the book ``Fiasco'' or ``Cobra II'' or a number of other books that have been written that describe the failed Rumsfeld strategy. We paid a very heavy price for it. All of us know that. It has been the sacrifice of our most precious asset.

What has happened since? We find the Syrians continuing to intervene in northern Lebanon. We find the Syrians, according to many experts, transporting suicide bombers through the airport in Damascus into Iraq. We find the Iranians not only orchestrating attacks and providing intelligence and even money and funding, in some cases, but there is clear and compelling evidence that the IEDs, the most lethal IEDs are exported from Iran into Iraq, those that have the lethality even of going through the armor of a tank. We find the Iranians more aggressive in the region with Iranian support for Hezbollah and Hamas. The Syrians continue to try to unsettle the Government of Lebanon, and the Government of Lebanon is having great difficulties.

There is a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. There has been no effort whatsoever to achieve the goals set forth in that U.N. Security Council resolution. In fact, there is strong evidence that Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is being resupplied with the rockets they expended in their latest attack on Israel which provoked an attack on Israel. We find the Saudis becoming more and more uneasy. We once had a report-- that fortunately turned out to be false--that the Turks had crossed over into the Kurdish areas because of Kurdish insurgents who are operating out of the Turkish areas, at least according to the Turks. So we have seen, because of our failure in Iraq, more strife, more conflict, and more threats to the State of Israel.

Meanwhile, the Iranians continue on the path to develop nuclear weapons. A great fear of many of us is not a nuclear weapon aimed at Israel from Iran. One of our great fears is a nuclear weapon passed to a terrorist organization by the Iranian Government, which has stated through its President and its policies their dedication to the extinction of the State of Israel. I could argue that the State of Israel is probably in more jeopardy from a national security standpoint than at any time in its history, since that very young nation achieved its independence.

So what happens in the region when we adopt the Levin-Reed resolution, and the signal is sent throughout the region ``don't worry, the Americans are leaving.'' I think the consequences are fairly obvious. So we are not just talking about Iraq, as serious and consequential as that situation is. We are talking about the region. It is hard for me to believe the Sunnis would not intervene to protect Sunnis if there is a bloodletting in Baghdad, where 2 million Sunni reside and 4 million Shia. But according to the premise of the Levin- Reed amendment, this will force the Iraqi Government to act and to control their own destiny.

My question is: What do we do if they can't? What do we do if they can't?

Some of my colleagues have talked about this ``gradual withdrawal.'' A gradual withdrawal. I think most military experts would tell you that the most difficult operation in military tactics and strategy is a ``gradual withdrawal.'' It is fraught with difficulty. When an army is defeated, and an army tries to come home, it is the most difficult of all military operations.

So I think that as we discuss this specific amendment and the issue of whether we stay or go in Iraq, whether we allow the new strategy of General Petraeus and the Joint Chiefs of Staff a chance to succeed, which calls for a surge in Iraq, while we debate this, I don't think we should ignore the larger implications for the region. I believe, and I cannot absolutely predict the future, but a failure in Iraq, according to most experts, would lead to a chaotic and unsettled situation in the region.

So I would at least ask for my colleagues' consideration of an article by Stephen Biddle in the Washington Post on July 11, entitled ``Iraq: Go Deep or Get Out.'' I think perhaps we ought to start looking at this situation from that respect. Mr. Biddle, in his piece, says:

The result has been a search for some kind of politically

moderate ``Plan B'' that would split the difference between

surge and withdrawal.

I think that adequately describes the Reed-Levin amendment.

The problem is that these politics do not fit the military

reality of Iraq. Many would like to reduce the U.S.

commitment to something like half of today's troop presence

there. But it is much harder to find a mission for the

remaining 60,000 to 80,000 soldiers that makes any sense

militarily.

Perhaps the most popular centrist option today is drawn

from the Baker-Hamilton commission recommendations of last

December. This would withdraw U.S. combat brigades, shift the

American mission from one of training and supporting the

Iraqi security forces, and cut total U.S. troop levels in the

country by about half. This idea is at the heart of the

proposed legislative effort that Domenici threw his support

behind last week, and support is growing on both sides of the

aisle on Capitol Hill.

The politics make sense, but the compromise leaves us with an untenable military mission. Without a major U.S. combat effort to keep the violence down, the American training effort would face challenges even bigger than those our troops are confronting today. An ineffective training effort would leave tens of thousands of American trainers, advisers, and supporting troops exposed to that violence in the meantime. The net result is likely to be continued U.S. casualties with little positive effect on Iraq's ongoing civil war.

It is unrealistic to expect that we can pull back to some

safe yet productive mission of training but not fighting--

this would be neither safe nor productive.

So, Madam President, I think we ought to look at what we are discussing here not only from the standpoint of Iraq but the implications for our presence in the region. And I will say something that is very seldom stated on the floor of the Senate: as long as we are dependent on oil in the region, our greater national security interests are at stake in what happens with the outcome of Iraq. The possibility of success in Iraq, of seeing the world's third largest oil reserves being modernized and used, and those revenues used for the betterment of the American people, also presents a goal that I think is worth striving for.

I would like to again return to the fact that I am deeply disappointed in the Maliki government. Their failure to act unhinges the very important aspect of the military, political, social, and economic aspects of any successful counterinsurgency operation. But I also believe that nothing would embolden the Iranians more, nothing would embolden the Syrians more, nothing would frighten the Jordanians and the Saudis more, not to mention the Egyptians, than the passage of legislation which would require the withdrawal of the United States.

So I urge my colleagues not only to look at how this legislation and this debate affects America vis-a-vis Iraq but affects our western and national interests and values in the entire Middle East.

Madam President, I note the patience of my friend from Rhode Island, who is a thoughtful and valued member of the Armed Services Committee whose friendship I appreciate a great deal.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a short colloquy with my colleague from Michigan, the distinguished chairman.

I say to my colleague that we have one individual, and we do have some 26 amendments that I think are cleared that we could get out of the way. I am working on that right now. I thank my colleague and most of all the staffs for their close cooperation.

Reserving the right to object.

I ask my colleague, does that mean we will be voting after the recognition of the majority leader?

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I think everybody in this body would like to leave Iraq better than we found it. That is not the current situation. The current situation is chaos and violence in Iraq. It is an Iraq that is torn apart by sectarian violence. When you have group slaughtering group in a civil war, a sectarian type of war, it requires that the Iraqi political leaders take action to end the violence. The only way to end the violence is if the Iraqi political leaders will reach a political settlement. I think almost everybody agrees with that. I think our uniformed military agrees with that, our civilian leaders agree, and almost everybody agrees that there is no military solution in Iraq, and that the only solution, the only way to end this violence is if the Iraqi political leaders accept the responsibility to work out political agreements on a number of disagreements they have identified for themselves.

We talk a lot about benchmarks, and the President said the other day that on eight benchmarks we are making progress, and on eight we are not--to make it sound like we have a glass that is half full. But that is not what the facts sustain or support. The facts are that we have a glass called Iraq which has a hole in the bottom. Whatever we pour into Iraq goes right through that hole. It is going to continue to do that until one thing happens, and that is that the Iraqi political leaders decide they are going to work out a political settlement. There is a consensus about that, I believe, among almost all of us.

The Iraqi Prime Minister made the following statement, and every one of us, when we vote on Levin-Reed, ought to keep this one statement in mind, I believe, first and foremost. This is what Prime Minister Maliki said:

The crisis is political, and the ones who can stop the

cycle of bloodletting of innocents are the politicians.

Well, it is long overdue that the politicians in Iraq step up to their responsibility. The amendment before us, it seems to me, states something which is clear. I believe it is obvious that it is in everyone's interest that Iraq not be a failed state. I agree with my friend from Texas. That should be a goal of everybody. The problem is that Iraq is the No. 2 most unstable state in the world right now. That is the status quo. That is what we have to end. The only way to end it is with a political settlement by the Iraqis.

There was an article a few days ago in Foreign Policy magazine called ``The States That Fail Us.'' It is about failed states. It has a list of about 60 states, and they give all of the indicators of instability. Iraq is No. 2 on the list, right after Sudan. That is the status quo. That is what we are trying to end--the failure of a policy in Iraq which has led the Iraqi leaders to believe that there is an open-ended commitment on the part of the United States to give them protection in that green zone to the extent that it exists. It is that open-ended commitment of the United States that must end--if we are going to prod the Iraqi leaders to finally step up, look into the abyss and make a decision, do they want a civil war or do they want a nation?

Mr. President, we cannot save them from themselves. To say that we don't want a failed state in Iraq is to say we don't want the status quo to continue, that the course must change in Iraq.

So I will vote for the Cornyn amendment because I think it states, in general terms at least, what I hope Members of the Senate would all agree on--that a failed state in Iraq is not in the interest of this Nation.

Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request. I need Senator McCain to listen. Apparently, the time the Senator from Arizona took on his reservation came out of our time, and I am wondering if he would give us a minute.

Mr. President, on the question of the 60 votes, there is a procedural roadblock which is being placed here. It is not the first time in history, of course, but a decision has to be made here whether the verdict of the American people last November that there be a change in policy is going to be thwarted by that procedural roadblock, and the Republican leader has apparently decided it will be.

In terms of precedent, last year on the Defense authorization bill, there

were at least two votes on Iraq, both majority votes. That is the precedent. Last year, there was a Levin-Reed amendment that received 39 votes and a Kerry amendment, both on Iraq on the Defense authorization bill, the most recent experience. This issue is so vital. It is so much in the minds of the American people that we should not throw up procedural roadblocks to allowing the Senate to vote. That is why we have asked that we be allowed to vote up or down on this amendment, and that apparently has now been objected to.

Madam President, tomorrow's vote in the Senate is not a vote on the Levin-Reed amendment. It is a vote on whether the Senate will allow us to vote on the Levin-Reed amendment. It is a vote on whether the Senate will break a filibuster so that the Senate can express its will, which I think is totally clear and reflects the will of the American people as expressed last November.

A change in course in Iraq is critical for our national security. If you think the present course is working, if you think we are making progress, as the President has said month after month, year after year, then presumably you are going to vote against the Levin-Reed amendment--if we can ever get to a vote on the Levin-Reed amendment. But if you believe that changing course is the only hope of success in Iraq, that forcing the political leaders of Iraq to accept responsibility for their nation and to work out the political settlements that could prevent this violence from continuing and lead to the ultimate success in Iraq, and if we can get to the Levin-Reed amendment and break the filibuster, then you will be voting yes.

Madam President, it has been more than 4 years since the United States invaded Iraq. Despite a military victory that toppled Saddam Hussein and routed his army, Iraq soon became victim to a Sunni insurgency, to Shiite militias bent on revenge, and became victim to an incursion of al-Qaida terrorists whose actions were aimed and are aimed at promoting an Iraqi civil war.

As the situation on the ground has shifted, so has President Bush's rationale for our involvement. He took us into Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, the President said we needed to create a democracy in Iraq. Now the President says we must stay on to fight al- Qaida.

The President had a pre-surge strategy, a surge strategy, and now he has offered a post-surge strategy. What has remained constant in all of these strategies is one thing: They all have an open-ended commitment of U.S. forces in the middle of Iraq's civil war.

That open-ended commitment of a Muslim country by the West has played right into the hands of al-Qaida. Indeed, the intelligence community is recently reported to have concluded that the years of our occupation of Iraq have seen a surge of al-Qaida in Iraq.

It has come at a staggering cost--the loss of more than 3,600 of America's best and bravest, seven times that many wounded, and a price of $10 billion each month. In spite of the heroic efforts of the U.S. service men and women, chaos and destruction have deepened in Iraq.

Yet, month after month, year after year, the President has touted progress in Iraq and called for patience. It has been a litany of delusion. Just listen to President Bush's repeated claims of progress.

In October of 2003, President Bush said:

We are making progress about improving the lives of the

people there in Iraq.

On September 25, 2004, the President said:

We're making steady progress in implementing our five-step

plan toward the goal we all want: completing the mission so

that Iraq is stable and self-governing, and American troops

can come home. . . .

On April 28, 2005, the President said:

I believe we're really making progress in Iraq. . . .

On October 28, 2005, the President said:

Iraq has made incredible political progress. . . .

On November 14, 2005, the President said:

Iraqis are making inspiring progress toward building a

democracy.

On May 25, 2006, the President said:

We are making progress on all fronts.

On March 19, 2007, the President said:

There has been good progress.

The exaggeration and the hype continues to this day. On June 28, a few weeks ago, the White House press release stated:

The Iraqi security forces are growing in number, becoming

more capable, and coming closer to the day when they can

assume responsibility for defending their own country.

But in the benchmark assessment report released last week we read:

There has been a slight reduction in units assessed as

capable of independent operations since January 2007.

That is referring to Iraqi units. Even that turned out to be an exaggeration. Just 2 days later, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, told the press that the number of Iraqi Army brigades that were capable of independent operations had fallen from 10 to 6--quite a difference from a ``slight reduction.''

Madam President, one merely has to take note of recent incidents in Iraq as reported in our newspapers to know that things are not going well in Iraq and that the administration's assessments of progress have been consistently overblown through the years and continue to be overblown.

Consider the headline in USA Today on July 12: ``Iraqi police assist gunmen.'' The story described our Army investigation into a January attack in Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers. Our investigation concluded that the Iraqi police who were supposed to be partners with American troops colluded with insurgents.

Then there was this story in the New York Times on July 14: ``U.S. Troops Battle Iraqi Police in East Baghdad.'' Those are the police who are supposed to be on our side trying to quell the violence in Baghdad, not attacking American troops.

On the all-important area of political benchmarks, consider this headline from the Financial Times of June 18: ``U.S. Military Frustrated at Lack of Iraqi Reconciliation.'' The story reports that General Petraeus said there has not been any ``real substantial achievements in terms of political reform in progress.''

Reuters reported on June 18 that Iraq was ranked the second most unstable country in the world behind Sudan in the 2007 Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine. Failed state? Obviously, we don't want Iraq to be left as a failed state. It is failing. It is on a failing course. If we don't change that course, it is going to continue to descend into that failed status.

The administration's recent self-assessment of benchmarks that there is progress on 8 of the 18 benchmarks would have us believe that the cup in Iraq is half full rather than being half empty. Eight of eighteen--that sounds pretty good, like progress. But as a matter of fact, Iraq is a cup with a hole in its bottom. We keep pouring in our men and women and resources, and there is a hole in the bottom of that cup through which they go.

It is that Iraqi hole that Secretary Gates addressed on June 14 in Baghdad when he said the message he was delivering to the Iraqi people was that ``our troops are buying them time to pursue reconciliation and that, frankly, we are disappointed in the progress thus far.'' Secretary Gates was accurate in saying that ``our troops are buying [the Iraqis] time to pursue reconciliation.'' But what he left unsaid is that our troops and our Nation have paid, and continue to pay, far too high a price to give the Iraqis that opportunity, and the time is long past due for the Iraqi political leaders to accept responsibility for their own future.

Secretary Gates' statement that we are ``disappointed in the progress'' was surely an immense understatement. The American people are downright incensed at the failure of the Iraqi leaders.

Everybody agrees there is no military solution in Iraq and that the only way to end the violence is for the Iraqi political leaders to settle their differences. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki acknowledged that last November when he said--and these words should be seared, I believe, into the consciousness of each of us as we vote, if we are ever allowed to vote on the Levin-Reed amendment. Here is what he said:

The crisis is political, and the ones who can stop the

cycle of . . . bloodletting of innocents are the [Iraqi]

politicians.

Our service men and women are dying and being wounded while Iraqi leaders dawdle. The Iraqis themselves made commitments to share resources and power, amend their constitution, hold provincial elections, and take over responsibility for their own security in many more places than they have. They made the commitments last year in writing, but they have not kept them.

Secretary of State Rice recently confirmed in a letter to me that Iraqi leaders themselves, including their Presidency Council, had approved those benchmarks and the associated timeline. Secretary Rice wrote me:

We have confirmed with Iraqi President Talabani's chief of

staff that the benchmarks were formally approved last fall by

the Iraqi political committee on national security. This

committee includes the presidency council, the President, and

the two vice presidents, as well as the leaders of all the

major political blocs in Iraq.

Well, the Iraqi leaders' record on meeting the political timelines, which they approved themselves with a timeline, is abysmal.

For example, they said they would approve provincial elections and set a date for those elections by October of 2006. That has not been accomplished. They didn't do what they promised they would do.

The Iraqi political leaders said they would approve the hydrocarbon law by October 2006. That was not done. That has not been accomplished. They didn't do what they said they would do. The Iraqi leaders said they would approve a debaathification law by November 2006. They didn't do what they promised to do. The Iraqi political leaders said the Constitutional Review Committee would complete its work by January 2007 and hold a constitutional amendment referendum by March of this year. They did not do what they promised they would do.

This is not us imposing our benchmarks on them, this is the Iraqi political leaders who adopted their benchmarks, and have not met them.

I ask unanimous consent that my letter to Secretary Rice and her response be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Madam President, while our troops have done everything, and more, of what has been asked of them, while they have risked their all and given their all, the Iraqi political leaders remain frozen by their own history, unwilling to take the political risks that only they can take.

If there is any hope of forcing the Iraqi political leaders to take responsibility for their own country and to keep the commitments they made to meet the political benchmarks that they set and to make the compromises that only they can make, it is to have a timetable to begin reducing American forces and to redeploy those forces to a more limited support mission instead of being everybody's target in the middle of a civil war.

We need to send a clear message to the Iraqi leaders that we will not be in Iraq indefinitely, that we will not be their security blanket forever. That is what the Levin-Reed amendment would do if we are allowed to vote on it. Our amendment would require the President to begin reducing the number of American troops in Iraq within 4 months of enactment.

It would require transitioning the mission of our remaining military forces to force protection, training of Iraqi security forces, and targeted counterterrorism missions. Our amendment would require that the transition to those limited missions be completed by April 30 of next year. Finally, and importantly, it would call for a comprehensive diplomatic, political, and economic strategy, including sustained engagement with Iraq's neighbors and seeking an appointment of an international mediator under the auspices of the U.N. Security Council in order to try to bring stability to Iraq.

Some have criticized our amendment because it contains a timeline for the completion of the transition to new missions. We received similar criticism in the past about the timeline for the commencement of the transition. Timelines need to be established as the only way to force a change of course in Iraq and to force the Iraqis to accept responsibility for their own future. It is human nature to put off difficult decisions. Passage of our amendment would serve as a forcing mechanism and serve to stimulate action by the Iraqi Government to reach a political settlement.

Delaying action until the receipt of the administration's plan in September would only delay the time when Congress applies the needed pressure. There is no indication that Iraqi political leaders will compromise without our pressure. Indeed, there is every indication they will not. As Secretary Gates stated in April:

Debate in Congress . . . has been helpful in demonstrating

to the Iraqis that American patience is limited . . . The

debate itself and . . . the strong feelings expressed in the

Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive

effect in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is

not an open-ended commitment.

There is no indication the administration is willing to change course. For years, they have deluded themselves and the Nation with claims of progress while Iraqis descended into sectarian violence and chaos. On July 4, President Bush repeated his call for patience which he has made so many times over the years.

After more than 4 years, over 3,600 U.S. deaths, seven times that many wounded, and expenditures of $10 billion a month that we are borrowing from the future to finance this war in Iraq, the President's pleas for patience not only have a hollow ring, it is exactly the wrong message to the Iraqi leaders. Our message should be we are out of patience, and the refusal of the Iraqi leaders to work out their political differences is something which is no longer acceptable.

Congress attempted to respond to last November's election with a vote that we made on April 26. We adopted a bill that did provide a timetable to begin the reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq, the beginning of a phased troop reduction, redeployment in no more than 120 days, and a transition to a more limited mission focusing on counterterrorism, force protection, and training and logistical support for the Iraqi Army. President Bush vetoed our bill shortly thereafter.

Senator McConnell made a statement which was, I believe, very direct and very accurate, when he assessed not too long ago that ``the handwriting is on the wall that we are going in a different direction in the fall.'' That Presidential veto does not wash away the handwriting on the wall. It only makes the handwriting clearer and firmer that there is going to be a change of direction in Iraq.

So the question is: Why wait? Why not decide on a change of course now to save months of lost and wounded lives and huge additional expenditure of funds?

The clearer the handwriting on the wall is to the Iraqi political leaders and the quicker they read it and accept it, the greater the prospect for political settlement.

The clearer the handwriting on the wall is that the open-ended commitment of President Bush is over, not just rhetorically but in reality, the greater chance that an even wider civil war can be avoided.

There are some who acknowledge that a change of course is needed in Iraq, including U.S. troop reductions but who then say not now. But surely time is not working for us in Iraq. The sooner we shift strategy to force Iraqis to take responsibility, the better.

If we wish to improve the chance of a positive report on political progress in September, we need to put great pressure on Iraqi political leaders in July. We cannot and must not continue to have the lives of American servicemembers held hostage to Iraqi political intrigue and intransigence.

If we can get to the Levin-Reed amendment, if we can overcome the filibuster, and if we can adopt the Levin-Reed amendment which provides for the beginning of the reduction of our forces in Iraq in 120 days and transitioning to more limited missions, no more than 120 days after enactment, if we can adopt an amendment which says we will complete that transition by April 30, 2008, if we can adopt our amendment which provides for the appointment of an international mediator under U.N. auspices, we believe we will have passed the best chance of success in Iraq, and we will have adopted the only course of action which has a chance of pressuring the Iraqi leaders to do what only they can do.

The clock is ticking. We are losing more American lives and more American resources every day we delay. The time has come to set deadlines, to reduce our forces in Iraq, to transition to the new limited missions, and to embark on a comprehensive, diplomatic, political, and economic strategy to bring stability to Iraq.

I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

U.S. Senate,

Committee on Armed Services,

Washington, DC, May 9, 2007.

Hon. Condoleezza Rice,

Secretary of State,

Washington, DC.

Dear Madam Secretary: I am writing in connection with your

letter of January 20, 2007 in which you advised me regarding

a set of benchmarks that the Government of Iraq has set for

itself.

You wrote that ``Iraq's Policy Committee on National

Security agreed upon a set of political, security, and

economic benchmarks and an associated timeline in September

2006. These were reaffirmed by the Presidency Council on

October 16, 2006, and referenced by the Iraq Study Group; the

relevant document (enclosed) was posted at that time on the

President of Iraq's website.''

Yesterday, I met with Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Prime Minister

Maliki's national security adviser. During the course of our

meeting, Dr. Rubaie stated that the Presidency Council never

reaffirmed the benchmarks. He was adamant on this point even

after I showed him the statement in your letter.

This is an important point as the Presidency Council, whose

three members, President Jalal Talabani (Kurd), Deputy

President `Adil `Abd al-Mahdi (Shia Muslim) and Deputy

President Tariq al-Hashimi (Sunni Muslim), are elected by the

Council of Representatives and represent the three major

ethnic groups of the country.

Earlier today, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack

stated ``These are the benchmarks that they've laid out for

themselves. We didn't come up with them. They came up with

them. And they need to be seen in the eyes of the Iraqi

people as delivering for the Iraqi people.''

It seems to me that it would make a difference if the

benchmarks and associated timeline were only approved by an

advisory group as compared to the Presidency Council.

Accordingly, please confirm that the benchmarks and

associated timeline, which you attached to your January 30,

2007 letter, were reaffirmed by the Presidency Council after

being agreed upon by the Policy Committee on National

Security, as stated in your letter.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Carl Levin,

Chairman.

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

Mr. President, I understand our staffs have reached a point where we were able to clear something like 26 amendments on this bill but that there is one last hurdle on the Republican side. I am wondering whether my good friend from Arizona feels there may be a possibility that we can jump over that hurdle in the next couple hours.

I thank my friend.

I understand the Senator from Nebraska wants the floor, and I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I wonder if the Senator will repeat that.

Objection.

Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the Senator from Maryland finishes her remarks, then on the Republican side, I understand Senator Warner will be the next speaker, and then that Senator Schumer be recognized on our side.

I thank my friend from Maryland.

If I can respond to my good friend's question.

We know what we hope will happen, and there are some things we can predict that will happen.

What do we know? We know that Iraq is in chaos. We know that the Iraqi President, or Prime Minister more accurately, has said the only way to end the bloodletting of innocents in Iraq is if the Iraqi leaders reach a political settlement. We know that. We know there is no military solution in Iraq. We know there is only a political solution and that the violence cannot end unless Iraqi leaders reach a political settlement.

I think those are consensus points. Those are things we know. We know how many of our troops have been killed and how many are killed every

month and how many are wounded and come home. We know those things.

Then the question is: Since there is no military solution, there is only a political solution--that is the only hope of succeeding in Iraq--how do you promote a political settlement in Iraq? Is the current course we are on succeeding or do we need to change the course?

We all have the same goal. We all want to maximize the chances of success in Iraq. If you believe we are succeeding in Iraq now, then you vote to stay the course. If you believe after all these years and all these deaths and all these wounded and all these expenditures, now over $10 billion a month, that we need to change course because we are not succeeding in Iraq, you have to ask yourself: How do we change course? How do we change what is going on in Iraq?

So those are the things that we, each of us, I think in our own conscience, are trying to figure what is the best way to maximize the chances of success in Iraq. I believe the only hope in getting the Iraqi leaders to reach the political settlement, which everybody agrees is the only hope, is to force them to accept responsibility for their own nation, to work out the political differences on revenue-sharing, on elections, on debaathification amendments, and on constitutional changes.

They have been dithering for years. They made a promise to their people, to the American people, and to the world last year. It is on their Web site, 16 of their benchmarks--not ours, their benchmarks. They have not carried out the commitments they have made. There was a timetable attached to those benchmarks. I put that timetable in the Record. It was part of a letter that Secretary Rice sent to me.

So we have a situation--

They are different.

Some are the same, some are different, but they are political benchmarks which the Iraqi leaders said they would meet. They made those benchmarks. We didn't impose them, those are their benchmarks. The letter from Secretary Rice makes it explicit that the Presidency Council, which represents all the factions in Iraq, formally adopted those benchmarks. They were supposed to have been adopted in October, November, December, January, and in February. They have not been met.

How are we going to get them to meet them, to keep an open-ended commitment, which is what the President wants us to do. Another delay and then patience. The President asks us to be patient? We should be downright impatient with the Iraqi leaders. The message to the Iraqi leaders shouldn't be, for heaven sakes, after all these casualties, that we are going to be patient with them when it is in their hands as to whether this civil strife is going to end.

If the Senator will yield for an answer.

I think the Senate spoke also prior to adopting your amendment. We voted 51 to 48, adopted an amendment which said we will begin to reduce our forces and to transition to the new mission, and that we would begin that transition within 120 days. That was vetoed by the President.

The Senate spoke even before it adopted the amendment of the Senator from Virginia. So we have spoken in many ways over the years. But now it is our belief, those of us who support this amendment, that the earlier we put pressure on the Iraqi leaders to reach a political solution, which everybody agrees is the only hope, the earlier we put that pressure on them, the better.

I think the Senator is well aware this President is not compelled to veto anything. As a matter of fact, the report the Senator refers to, which is due in September, will be coming in before this bill gets to the President. At least there is some hope the President will see what the Republican leader in the Senate saw a month ago. It was the Senator from Kentucky who a couple of months ago said: The handwriting is on the wall. There is going to be a change of course in September.

Now, why wait? We are losing men and women, our best and our brightest, our bravest, every day in Iraq. Those who return wounded will have a lifetime of recovery in many cases. We have record numbers of problems that have come up--post-traumatic stress disorder, we have traumatic brain injuries which are plaguing our troops who survive. Thank God we have great medical care on the battlefield. Why wait until September? The Republican leader said the handwriting is on the wall. There is going to be a change of course in September. There should be a change of course, not just in September, it should have changed a long time ago. But there is no way to change this course unless the leaders of Iraq do what only they can do, what their own Prime Minister said had to happen before the bloodletting of innocents ends in Iraq. They and they alone have it in their hands to work out the political settlement, which, according to their own agreement, was supposed to have been reached months ago.

I thank my friend, and I don't view this at all as personal.

A matter of fact, we had this interim report on July 15. What did it come in and say? It came in and said, on the political side, nothing has happened in Iraq; and on the political side, we see no advances. But the political side is

where the advances have to take place. As a matter of fact, the President said, when he came up with this surge policy, that the purpose of the surge was to give the political leaders an opportunity to reach a political settlement.

Well, they have had that opportunity, they haven't done it, and the surge has not accomplished anything in the area of a political settlement.

If the Senator will yield, I think we all share that view, but the amendment, if it is anything, it is not precipitous. This is coming after a great deal of debate. We have had a vote on this. The Senate voted to do something very similar to this, and it was vetoed.

We have a 120-day period to begin to reduce forces. That is not precipitous. That gives the Iraqis notice, now 4 months more notice after enactment, which can't come for many months, that they have to begin to get their political act together.

Reserving the right to object, could we add that the next Democratic speaker will be Senator Feinstein?

I thank the Chair

I will yield to the Senator for the purpose of propounding a unanimous consent request but without yielding the floor.

Mr. President, responding to the Senator from Georgia, I understand the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown, wishes to speak next in order.

Then if my friend from Georgia will allow, I gather the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, will be next.

Mr. President, I rise to address the amendment offered by Senator Levin and Senator Reed and to explain why I will vote against cloture on the amendment tomorrow morning.

I think it is important to explain that because my friend from Louisiana who spoke before me had behind her a sign that said: Let us vote. We may see that sign again. I wish to indicate that we are going to have a vote. We are going to have a vote tomorrow morning. And the question is: Will we sustain what has been a bedrock policy of the Senate to require 60 votes for a matter of great importance that comes before this body, particularly a matter where there is a lot at stake?

This amendment offered by my colleagues from Michigan and Rhode Island is a very serious amendment. Some of us believe it would have disastrous consequences for the security of the United States of America, for the safety of our troops in Iraq, for the stability of the region, for any hope for democracy in the Middle East, and a better future for the people of that part of the world than the suicidal death and hatred al-Qaida offers them.

But you know, I have recollection of times in the Senate hearing the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd. He has made, over the years, some compelling arguments for why the Senate has this unusual procedure of requiring 60 votes on matters of great importance. I am not quoting him directly, but this is consistent with the vision of one of the Framers--I believe it was Madison, I am not sure--who said, if you will, that the Senate is the saucer in which the Congress will cool the coffee. As Senator Byrd said much more to the point, we in this Chamber have had for a long time this ability to request 60 votes to pass a matter when there are Members of the Senate--and I am one in this case--who believe the passage of this matter would have a profoundly negative effect on our country and its security.

I know some of my colleagues disagree with me, of course. But I am exercising my right within the tradition of the Senate to do what senior colleagues have advised over the years: to stop the passions, the political passions of a moment from sweeping across Congress into law and altering our future permanently. I have done it on other matters. I have done it on environmental matters, where I think something proposed will have so adverse an effect on some of the natural wonders that God has given the United States of America that I have said: No, I am going to be part of a group to demand 60 votes because if I allow this to pass by less, there will be an irreversible change that will occur.

With respect to my colleagues who are saying let us vote, we will vote. But the question on that vote is will we ask for 60 votes to adopt this very significant amendment? I say it is in the best traditions of the Senate to require 60 votes before this amendment is adopted.

Second, before I get to the merits of the amendment or my opinion about it, I wish to respond to something my friend from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, said about the bipartisan meeting we had this morning, people of different opinions on this issue discussing in a closed room across a table looking for common ground. I wish to express my own sense of disappointment, sadness, though unfortunately in these

very partisan times not surprise, that this debate we are having which reaches a kind of pitch, a moment of confrontation on the Levin-Reed amendment which would mandate a withdrawal from Iraq, that this debate is so partisan. I have a point of view about the war in Iraq and what I think is best for our security and future policy in Iraq.

I know people have different points of view. I respect that. This is a difficult, a very difficult matter on which to reach judgment. So people, of course, can have different points of view, but why do we divide in those different points of view on party lines? There is no inherent reason why that should happen. It is a sign of what ails our political system, what afflicts our Federal Government and hamstrings it, what frustrates and ultimately angers the American people about what they see here because what they see is that too often we seem to be playing partisan politics, we seem to be in a kind of partisan tug of war. The net result of that is that nothing gets done.

Wars are always controversial. Wars have been controversial throughout our history. But rarely have the divisions between those who support a war and oppose it or support particular policies associated with it and oppose it been as partisan as they are at this moment. It has to stop. If it doesn't stop on Iraq, I believe our Nation will be weakened seriously.

We have to find ways, no matter what the partisan pressures are, to come together as Americans to defend our Nation against those who hate us all--al-Qaida, Iran, the fanatics running around who exhort the tens of thousands to shout ``Death to America.'' They have been doing it since the revolution of 1979. They do it weekly throughout Iran: ``Death to America.'' Surely we understand they don't distinguish between Republicans and Democrats when they shout ``Death to America. We should have the common sense, let alone a sense of responsibility to our country, to come together and defend our Nation against those who want to destroy us, as al-Qaida began to do on 9/11.

I regret the partisanship that characterizes this debate.

I wish to talk very briefly about how we got here, not going over it in any detail. This Congress authorized the President to take action to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the administration had attempted, through the United Nations Security Council, to get Saddam to take certain steps, including proving to us he had destroyed the weapons of mass destruction, he had filed an inventory with the United Nations Security Council as a condition of the truce and end to the gulf war of 1991.

I don't wish to revisit that. I know people look back at him and think they were deceived in why we went to war. I think the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power. But this takes me to this point. For 3 years afterward, this country followed a strategy in Iraq that didn't work. We followed a strategy in Iraq for too long that didn't work. I strongly supported the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and deeply desired that we do everything we could not just to overthrow him but to try to create within Iraq a new Iraq, a free Iraq, a self- governing Iraq that would give hope to people throughout the Arab world, the Muslim world, of a better future than the one that al-Qaida offers them, which is a return to a millennium ago, away from the modern world, but we erred for 3 years. Many of us cried out that we did not have enough troops there, we were following a strategy that did not work, too few troops and not focusing on al-Qaida training, an insufficient ability to do that, and letting the terrorists essentially take hold of the country.

Finally, last year, the President of the United States, as Commander in Chief, changed the course in Iraq. He changed the leadership of the Pentagon, which was critically necessary. He brought in a new Secretary of Defense, consulted with experts on all sides about what to do, how to improve what was happening in Iraq, and adopted a totally new strategy. That is why when I hear people in this debate saying we need a change of course in Iraq, well, we got a change of course, finally. It was later than I hoped for, but, finally, at the end of last year, beginning in February, the counteroffensive, called a surge, and a new general, a great general--a general in the tradition of Maxwell Taylor, General Abrams, a general who was called on in a very difficult situation, probably the single most informed leader on counterinsurgency in our military, GEN David Petraeus, to take charge of these troops--and he gave him 30,000 additional troops.

The evidence thus far is incomplete, because as has been said, and will be said again, the surge was just fully staffed about a month ago. But you have to look at the statistics. I know the benchmark that came in, the interim one last week, was mixed. But on the security side, which is what the surge was first aimed at, deaths from sectarian violence are way down in Baghdad, more than half the city is now under the control of American and Iraqi forces, and normalcy is returning to many parts of the capital city, and Anbar Province, the story is well known now. Basically, the additional troops and the new strategy enabled us to convince the Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar, which al- Qaida was going to make the capital of its Islamist extremist caliphate, We convinced the tribal leaders we were there to stay, so they came to our side, and al-Qaida is on the run--and for the first time. Always before we had the strategy where we would chase the terrorists out of a community, a city, in Baghdad, and we would leave and then they would come back. This time, in Anbar Province, we left some of our marines and some of the Iraqi security forces, working with the Sunni indigenous tribal leaders, and what did we do? We followed al-Qaida on the run to Diyala Province, to Baquba city, the major city there, and we have them on the run there as well. As a result, the tribal leaders there are beginning to come over to our side. So this surge, interim as the reports are, is, on the ground, working.

Now comes the Levin-Reed amendment. I wish to say to my colleagues this is not the Levin-Reed amendment we voted on earlier this year. That amendment did require the beginning of a withdrawal of troops within 120 days of passage, as this amendment does. But that amendment set a goal--G-O-A-L--a goal for our troops to be substantially withdrawn from Iraq by the end of March of next year. It is no longer a goal in this Levin-Reed amendment. It is a mandate, a rigid deadline that by the end of April of next year most of our troops are out of Iraq. A core group is left, presumably with the stated purpose to train the Iraqis and to fight al-Qaida, which is exactly what the previous policy that failed was aimed at doing.

Some have said this is the only amendment with teeth. It does have teeth. But I think we have to ask: Who does it bite? I think it bites our hope for success in Iraq. It bites our troops, as they proceed day in and day out, courageously, compassionately, effectively. It bites our hope for keeping al-Qaida and Iran out of controlling Iraq. This amendment mandates a retreat to begin in 4 months, 120 days, regardless of what is happening on the ground.

This is not a debate about whether to change course in Iraq, it is a debate about whether to accept and embrace defeat in Iraq. We have changed course, as I said before. This is a debate about whether we are going to give our generals and our troops the chance that they say they need to succeed, and succeed they know they can, or if we are going to order them to retreat--we order them to retreat--as they on the ground are risking their lives every day and succeeding.

We are going to, if this amendment passes, impose a deadline that is as inflexible as it is arbitrary. I say this with respect, but I say it from the bottom of my heart. This is a deadline for an American defeat, one that we will pay for, I fear, for a generation to come.

Let us be absolutely clear again about what the amendment we are debating now would do. If adopted, this amendment would literally put this Congress between the Commander in Chief, our generals, and our soldiers in the field. So just as our troops are on the offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq, just as our troops have the enemy on the run, this amendment would reach 5,000 miles across the ocean and put our troops on the run in retreat and defeat.

I will tell you this, the American military, the best in the world-- courageous, resourceful, fighting a tough fight but adjusting to it, resilient, finding ways to succeed--the American military will never lose the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq, if it is to be lost, will be lost as a result of a loss of political will here at home, and you have to judge the consequences of that. Each one of us has to.

In the midst of an unpredictable war, this amendment would strip our military commanders not only of the troops they say they need to succeed--this amendment would remove the troops from our commanding generals--it would strip them of the authority and the ability to adapt to changing conditions, which, after all, is what success in war is all about, putting America's military in a legislative straitjacket.

I am going to do everything I can to stop that from happening, and that is why I am going to vote against cloture. This amendment is wrong. I truly believe it is dangerous. In fact, this amendment should not even be considered now. I welcome the debate, but I believe, when we passed the supplemental appropriations bill in which we authorized the surge to go forward, in which we appropriated funds for the surge, in which we established the requirement for the benchmark, for which we got the study last week and then the next one coming in September, to me we made an institutional pledge in that to General Petraeus and the troops. Because in that bill we required General Petraeus, along with our Ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, to come back in September and report to us. We wanted to give them, at the request of General Petraeus, time from the middle of June, when the surge troops would have arrived, to September to see whether he could make it work and report back to us.

I don't think there is a person in this Chamber, no matter what our position on Iraq, that doesn't trust General Petraeus to tell us the truth, what he believes, when he comes back in September. I think we made an institutional pledge to him. But I know this: I made a personal pledge to him. I am going to give him and the troops a fair chance, which this amendment would deprive him of, and I am going to give him until September to come back and tell me how it is going.

All of us would like to believe, I certainly would, that there is a quick and easy solution to the challenges we face in Iraq. All of us, I certainly would, would like to go back and do over a lot of what happened after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. All of us want our brave men and women in uniform to come home safely and as soon as possible. All of us are keenly aware of the frustration and fatigue the American people are feeling about this war. But we, who have been honored by our constituents to be elected to serve in the Senate, have a responsibility to lead, not to follow. We have a responsibility--it is the oath we took when we were sworn in--to do what we believe is right for our country, even if it is unpopular.

I speak for myself, but I firmly believe what is right is that we cannot allow our Nation to be defeated in Iraq by the same Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11, with whom we are engaged now in a worldwide war that stretches from Baghdad to London, from Madrid to Riyadh, from Bali to Jerusalem, and from Fort Dix to JFK Airport.

The sponsors of this resolution insist what is happening in Iraq is a civil war, and they want us to not be part of it. But this argument flies in the face of the statements of al-Qaida's own top leaders who have repeatedly told us they consider Iraq to be, today, the central battlefield of their world war against us. We didn't start this world war, they did, by attacking us.

I wish to take a moment to read some comments, direct quotes, from leaders of al-Qaida that make this clear. I am not making it up. I am not quoting somebody in the administration.

December 2004. Osama bin Laden.

I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic nation.

Listen and understand. The most important and serious issue

today for the whole world is this Third World war. It is

raging in the lands of the two rivers--Iraq. The world's

millstone and pillar is Baghdad, the capital of the

caliphate.

July 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri, second to bin Laden, as we know, in al- Qaida. A letter to Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the head of Iraq, subsequently killed by coalition forces. Quote from Zawahiri to Zarqawi:

I want to be the first to congratulate you for what God has

blessed you with in terms of fighting a battle in the heart

of the Islamic world, what is now the place for the greatest

battle of Islam in this era.

Zawahiri, in that same letter:

The Mujahadeen must not have their mission end with the

expulsion of the Americans from Iraq. No, the first stage is

to expel the Americans from Iraq; the second stage is to

establish an Islamic authority, or emirate, over as much of

the territory as you can, to spread its power in Iraq.

And then there is a third stage Zawahiri says.

The third stage is to extend the jihad to the secular

countries neighboring Iraq.

This is not me. This is not some administration spokesperson, this is Zawahiri, No. 2 in al-Qaida.

December of 2006, Zawahiri says:

The backing of the jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq today is

to back the most important battlefields in which the crusade

against Islam is in progress, and the defeat of the crusaders

will have a far-reaching effect on the future of the Muslim

Umah.

I could go on. I will read one final one. May 2007, 2 months ago, and this is Zawahiri again in a tape.

The critical importance of the jihad in Iraq and

Afghanistan becomes clear, because the defeat of the

crusaders there soon, Allah permitted, lead to the setting up

of two mujahedin emirates, which will be launch pads for the

liberation of the Islamic lands and the establishment of the

caliphate. That is why I call on the Muslim Umah not to lag

behind or tarry in supporting jihad in general and jihad in

Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, in view of the pivotal

importance of these two arenas.

I started this because I said that some of my colleagues offering this amendment say we are in a civil war in Iraq and we ought not to be there. There is sectarian violence. That is why we have the counterinsurgency plan, which is to try to stop the sectarian violence, and it is working so far. Surely we don't know whether it will work finally, but sectarian violence has been significantly reduced in Baghdad and now Anbar and Diyala Provinces. But the argument that this is simply a civil war is totally rejected, denied by these statements of al-Qaida's own leaders.

We are fighting al-Qaida in Iraq. You can't withdraw from Iraq and fight al-Qaida. That is whom we are fighting. Who is going to win if we pull out? Al-Qaida will and Iran will. Listen to what Zawahiri and bin Laden said they are going to do: They are going to establish the capital of the caliphate, the empire, and they are going to go out into the neighboring countries.

Incidentally, the notion that somehow we are not fighting al-Qaida in Iraq and that this is just a civil war also flies in the face of the National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaida that was released today, which describes al-Qaida in Iraq as the most visible and capable affiliate of al-Qaida worldwide. Of note, and I quote in full:

We assess that al-Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the

context and capabilities of al-Qaeda in Iraq, its most

visible and capable affiliate, and the only one that is

beyond bin Laden and Zawahiri, the only local affiliate known

to have expressed a desire to attack the American homeland.

So I know people laugh or jest when people say if we don't defeat them there we will be fighting them here, but this is what the National Intelligence Estimate says. We are fighting al-Qaida in Iraq, the only local affiliate of al-Qaida that has also talked about, and some have reason to believe may be acting upon, their desire to attack America here in our homeland. That is the National Intelligence Estimate.

It seems to me that it is perverse that on the same day we receive this National Intelligence Estimate about the threat posed by al-Qaida and about its direct linkage to Iraq, Zawahiri to Zarqawi, bin Laden talking about the centrality of what is happening in Iraq, that the Senate would consider voting for an amendment mandating our retreat in the face of al-Qaida from Iraq.

I ask, why is this amendment before us? One of the most commonly heard explanations for the amendment mandating the beginning of a withdrawal of American troops in 120 days, and most of them out by next April, is that an American military retreat is necessary--and I quote here one of the

sponsors of the amendment--``to prod the Iraqi Government to reach a political settlement.''

So we are going to force a retreat, probably threaten the viability of the Iraqi Government, yield the country to al-Qaida and Iranian- backed terrorists, and we are doing it to send a message to the Iraqi political leadership that they better get their act together. But the argument that our forcing a retreat of our military, our troops, will prod the Iraqi Government to reach a political settlement is pure speculation. It is amateur psychology without any evidence that I can see to support it. In fact, the expert evidence goes in the other direction. From people who follow what is happening in Iraq closely, who say that as soon--and maybe some of this is psychology, too, but to me it seems more sensible than the other argument--as soon as we begin to set a deadline date, the Iraqi political leadership is not going to suddenly come together and settle their differences, they are going to hunker down in camps and get ready for the battle of all battles, which will be a total civil war, huge ethnic slaughter I fear, probably a kind of genocide.

One of our military leaders in Iraq when I was there 5 weeks ago said to me: Senator, if your colleagues don't like what they see in Darfur today, and they should not like it, they are going to hate what they see in Iraq if the American military pulls out before the Iraqis can maintain security.

Here, too, we have a National Intelligence Estimate that directly rejects the contention that we need to force a retreat of our troops, open the country to a takeover by al-Qaida in Iraq, to convince the Iraqi Government to reach a political settlement.

There was a recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. In it, the conclusion was presented that the rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops required by this amendment would, ``almost certainly have adverse effects on national reconciliation'' in Iraq.

So rather than promoting political progress, this amendment would have the exact opposite effect than its sponsors intend, and actually undermine it.

I know that cots have been brought in tonight to allow Senators to sleep during parts of the night when they are not required on the floor. I think, really, what I hope this does is wake up the Senators and wake up the American people to the threat we face; to wake them up to what our intelligence agencies are saying about Iraq, to what the stakes for us are in Iraq, for what the consequences are for us of a defeat in Iraq, for the strength of the Petraeus counteroffensive surge and how much it is achieving.

It is time for all of us to wake up to what is actually happening in Iraq before it is too late. It is time to stop dreaming that a mandated withdrawal, or whatever you call it--a redeployment is really nothing other than a mandated defeat. I suppose if you don't think that defeat in Iraq will have consequences for our future security, then I can understand that. But I, of course, profoundly disagree.

We face vicious enemies in Iraq today. We know who they are. They are al-Qaida and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Al-Qaida is fighting in Iraq because they want to bring down the Iraqi Government and they want to stop any progress toward self-government until a modern Iraq. They want the state to fail so they can establish what bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Zarqawi said clearly, a caliphate, an empire with the capital of the empire there.

What about Iran? Iran is training, funding, and arming terrorists to kill Americans in Iraq. This Senate spoke unanimously against that, presenting evidence of it last week, 97 to 0. Why does Iran do that? It wants America out of Iraq so it can dominate that country and the region.

These are enemies that cannot be negotiated with or reasoned out of existence. I am all for diplomacy with Iran. I am glad our ambassador met with their ambassador in Baghdad in May, but ultimately negotiations that have gone on with Iran, conducted by the European Governments for more than 2 years to try to convince them to stop the development of nuclear weapons, produced nothing but giving them 2 more years to go ahead with that development. These are not enemies who are interested in the political reconciliation of which the sponsors of this amendment speak.

In other words, al-Qaida and Iran are not fighting in Iraq to encourage or bring about a political reconciliation. These enemies must be confronted and defeated through force of arms. That is precisely what our brave men and women in uniform are doing today under this new counterinsurgency strategy, and they are succeeding. I ask my colleagues in this Chamber finally to listen carefully to the words of a great American soldier, Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division now serving in Iraq. His soldiers are, today, leading the fight south of Baghdad. General Lynch reported just this past weekend that his forces were making significant gains in reclaiming areas that just a few weeks ago in Baghdad were terrorist safe havens. These are towns on the outskirts of Baghdad where al-Qaida in Iraq had terrorized the local population into submission and then set up shop, assembling the car bombs that then were used to kill hundreds of innocent people earlier this year. That is the way to try to stop these suicidal maniacs from blowing themselves up and killing a lot of Iraqis and Americans with them--which is their attempt to respond to our counteroffensive surge policy and their attempt to do something else: to influence the American public opinion to get out of Iraq.

General Lynch also stated that in his professional military judgment--this is a soldier, not a politician--the current troop surge must be maintained through early next year in order to achieve success. In his words:

It's going to take us through the summer and fall to deny

the enemy his sanctuaries and then it's going to take us

through the first of the year into the spring to consolidate

these gains.

Incidentally, it may be that those gains will be consolidated by next spring, and we will be able to begin to draw down some of the American forces there. But do we have the confidence to know that today, to mandate that to happen? I hope we are in a position--and I am sure General Petraeus does, and I am sure the President does--to begin to order that kind of beginning of withdrawal because the surge has succeeded, not order a withdrawal as an alternative policy to the surge.

I return to General Lynch. He warned that pulling back before the job was completed would ``create an environment where the enemy would come back in and fill the void.'' General Lynch also reported that he was ``amazed at the cooperation his troops were encountering in previously hostile areas.'' In his words:

When we go out there the first question the Iraqis ask us

is, are you staying? And the second question is, how can we

help?

In other words, what General Lynch said is what they are worried about is our leaving. And our answer is: We are staying. And when we give that answer they say: How can we help?

They want a better future than al-Qaida and Iran controlling their country. General Lynch has given us a clear and compelling explanation in the direct words of a soldier about the nature of this war. In his view, the U.S. military needs the additional troops that are now in theater to prevail, and they are, as we speak, prevailing. In this regard, the choice before this Senate is a direct one. Either General Lynch is badly mistaken about the reality of this war or this amendment is badly mistaken about the reality of this war. They cannot both be right.

I go with General Lynch. He is on the ground. He has no motives other than to do what is right for his country. He has every motive to want to protect his troops. But he believes in our cause.

We have a choice to make. We can ignore the recommendations of our general in the field and withdraw in defeat. We can rationalize our action with reassuring but falsely hopeful words such as ``redeployment,'' but no matter what we say our enemy will know that America's will has been broken by the barbarity of their blood lust, the very barbarity we declare we are fighting, but from which, if this amendment ever passed, we would actually be running.

There is, of course, no guarantee that the path we are on will lead to success. There never is in war. But what General Petraeus is offering is a strong, smart, and practical strategy, informed by his experience and expertise, that carries a reasonable hope of victory

from whose jaws this amendment would snatch defeat. This amendment is a surrender to terrorism. It is a victory to al-Qaida and Iran. It is an invitation to a disaster for Iraq, the Middle East, and most directly the United States of America.

Iraq is not lost. It can be won, and if it is won we will have secured a better, brighter future for the people of that country, the hope of greater stability and opportunity and peace for the people of the region, and the hope and promise of greater security for the American people. Iraq is not lost. But if we adopt this amendment it will be; so, I fear, will so much of our hope for democracy and stability in the Middle East and for our own safety from terrorism here at home. That is why I will vote against cloture and against the Levin- Reed amendment tomorrow morning.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to comment on a bill I am introducing to help ensure the long-term ability of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims to promptly dispense justice in all veterans cases.

In 1988, Congress created this court to hear appeals from decisions of the Department of Veterans Affairs, most commonly on veterans' claims for disability compensation based on injuries or diseases they suffered during service. As was discussed at a hearing I called last year while serving as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the CAVC is facing some serious challenges, which may impede its ability to consistently provide timely decisions to our Nation's veterans.

In fact, between 2004 and 2006 the court experienced something akin to a ``perfect storm.'' The last four of the original judges, who were appointed when the court was created, all retired, taking 60 years of experience with them; the court's incoming caseload experienced a dramatic 67-percent increase; and the court was left with a single judge who had at least 2 years of experience deciding these often complex cases. As a consequence, the court received 30 percent more cases than it decided during that time and the number of pending cases doubled in less than 2 years. With over 6,000 cases still pending, almost 4,000 more than a decade ago, and with the court continuing to receive record levels of incoming cases, veterans seeking justice from the court may feel the effects of this ``perfect storm'' for many years to come, as the court struggles to eliminate the existing backlog and to keep up with new appeals.

For the men and women who have served, sacrificed, and suffered for our Nation, I believe we must take steps to ensure that they will receive timely decisions on their appeals, not just today but for many years to come. That is why I am introducing this bill to help the court deal with its existing caseload and to help ensure that, in the long term, the court will not face such a devastating combination of events.

As one means of helping with the current caseload, the bill would modify the rules that govern the recall of retired judges. Under current law, a retiring judge may opt to be recall eligible, which means the judge may be involuntarily called back to work for up to 90 days per year when needed and may voluntarily serve up to 180 days per year. For this court, like other Federal courts, the option of receiving help from retired judges can be an extremely important resource. In fact, last year, after the court began recalling retired judges to help with its caseload, the court's productivity rose over 19 percent in 3 months.

In view of the obvious value of having experienced retired judges continue to decide veterans' cases and the fact that they currently receive the same salary as active judges regardless of how much, if any, service they provide in a year, it would be a win-win situation for veterans, the court, and taxpayers if a retired judge opted to return to the bench more frequently or for longer periods than current law permits. To allow for that possibility, the bill would eliminate the 180-day cap and permit a retired judge to voluntarily serve in recall status as many days during a year as he or she wishes.

Also, because the court may need an unprecedented level of service from retired judges in the next several years to help deal with its caseload, the bill would provide an incentive for the current complement of recall-eligible judges to provide as much service as practical during that time. Specifically, the bill would provide that, once a recall-eligible judge has served an aggregate of 5 years of recall service, the judge will no longer be subject to involuntarily recall and will continue to receive the same salary, that of an active judge.

To put that into perspective, if a retired judge were to be recalled for 90 days each year, as current law permits, it would take 20 years to provide the equivalent of 5 years of recall service. In addition to allowing judges to accelerate their service into fewer years, at a time when it may be most beneficial to veterans, this change may also encourage retired judges to serve in recall status for longer periods of time. This should help minimize concerns expressed by the Chief Judge in recent years about how much retired judges would be able to accomplish in the limited 90 day recall period. With these changes, the court should have the judicial resources it needs to handle its caseload in the near term.

In addition, this bill would take steps to ensure that the court, in the long run, is not faced with a difficult transition like the one it experienced in recent years. By way of background, the original judges, except for one who died, all retired between 2000 and 2005, with four of those retirements occurring within a single 12-month period. Given the delays inherent in the appointment and confirmation process, this left the CAVC without a full complement of active judges for much of that 5-year period. As the Chief Judge testified in 2006, functioning with less than seven judges ``led to a backlog'' of cases at the court.

Perhaps more significantly, this cluster of retirements meant that, as of August 2005, the court had only one judge, the new Chief Judge, who had at least 2 years of experience on the bench. In the words of that Chief Judge, ``no other Federal court would be faced with the transition that we were faced with as of August 2005. Where else in the Federal judiciary system could I, the junior judge . . . suddenly become the senior judge, and have all of the experience of the court departing?'' The Chief Judge also opined that ``[t]his turnover on the Court has had great significance, particularly in the short term, on the Court's case management.''

The effects of this turnover may have been magnified by the fact that this court deals with a very specialized area of law, which by all accounts has become increasingly complex in recent years. In fact, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States recently described veterans' law as ``a complex thicket of court decisions and statutory requirements.''

To further complicate the situation, the court experienced a dramatic rise in the number of incoming cases in recent years. In fact, in 2005 the court received 37 percent more cases than it had received in any prior year and, then, in 2006 the court received an even higher level of incoming cases. As I indicated earlier, the combined effect of these factors led the court to be ``in the red'' for several years, taking in almost 3,000 more cases than it decided.

Although some factors that have contributed to the court's challenges cannot be controlled, it seems clear that multiple retirements of experienced judges within a relatively short period of time can have a profound impact on the court's ability to decide veterans' cases. It is worth noting that Congress previously attempted to stagger the retirement dates of the judges by temporarily expanding the size of the court and by shortening the length of two judges' terms. Despite those efforts, it is possible that 6 of the 7 judges now on the bench will retire within a 4-year window, an even shorter period than the disruptive turnover between 2000 and 2005.

That is why I believe we need to try a completely new approach to help ensure that experienced judges will stay

on the bench for as long as practicable and will not retire in clusters as their terms expire. To that end, this bill would eliminate the term limits for any new judges appointed to the court and would provide those judges with full pay-of-the-office only when serving as an active judge or when providing service as a recalled retired judge. The combined effect of those provisions should encourage judges to stay on the bench longer before they retire and to regularly volunteer for recall service after they retire.

Yes, this represents a significant departure from the traditional model for article I courts. But as experience has shown, the current model is not adequate to consistently provide veterans with timely decisions on their claims and we simply cannot allow further disruptions in service to our Nation's heroes each time the court turns over. Once judges gain years of valuable experience in this complex, specialized area of law, we should not force them, and their experience, into retirement. Rather, we should take steps, as this bill would do, to permit veterans and the court to receive the maximum possible benefit from their years on the bench.

To avoid ``changing the rules'' on those judges who have already been appointed and confirmed, these changes would be prospective, applying only to judges appointed to the court on or after the date of enactment of this bill. In the meantime, I hope the changes to the current recall provisions that I mentioned earlier will help avoid a difficult transition when the current sitting judges retire.

In addition to these changes to the term limits and recall rules, the bill would require the Chief Judge, in conjunction with the court's stakeholders, to set guidelines for when recall would be appropriate, taking into account such factors as the number of active judges, temporary or prolonged increases or decreases in caseload, and the complexity of the caseload. It would also require the court to submit annual performance reports to Congress including information on the court's workload during the prior year, as well as an analysis of whether the standards for recalling judges were met and what service, if any, was performed by retired judges. Such guidelines should aid the court, retired judges, and Congress in planning for periods when recall will likely be used and when it will not.

More importantly, the number of recall-eligible judges and their level of activity are important factors that must be considered in determining whether the court has sufficient judicial resources. If current caseload trends continue and the court, even fully utilizing the services of recalled judges, is unable to provide veterans with the level of service they deserve, the addition of judgeships may need to be considered. These guidelines and reports will allow Congress to closely monitor that situation to ensure that the court has the necessary capacity.

Finally, the bill would recognize the critical and increasingly demanding role of the Chief Judge by allowing the salary of the Chief Judge to be increased by $7,000 per year, and the bill would direct the General Services Administration to provide Congress with a report as to the feasibility and desirability of converting the court's current location into a dedicated Veterans Courthouse and Justice Center.

It is my sincere hope that the fundamental changes in this bill will help ensure that the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims is able to consistently provide veterans with timely decisions, now and for many years to come. I ask my colleagues to support this legislation.

I also ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to comment on a bill I am introducing to ensure that veterans and their families have access to educational assistance benefits unimpeded by layers of bureaucracy and inflexible legal requirements.

Each year, the Department of Veterans Affairs provides educational assistance benefits to veterans, servicemembers, reservists, and their families to pursue a wide array of educational opportunities, including traditional college degrees, vocational training, apprenticeships, and on-the-job training programs. VA contracts with entities called ``State approving agencies,'' SAAs, to assess whether schools and training programs are of sufficient quality for individuals to receive VA education benefits while pursuing their programs. That SAA approval process was originally instituted after World War II to help stem abuses of veterans' education benefits, such as scam vocational and business schools profiting from those education benefits and then not providing veterans with an education of any value.

Today, unlike 60 years ago, schools and educational programs of all types may be scrutinized by a number of different entities, including the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, various national and regional accrediting bodies, and state licensing agencies. In fact, in 1995 the Government Accountability Office found that a substantial portion of the approval activities performed by SAAs overlapped with work done by others. Several years later, the Commission on Servicemembers and Veterans Transition Assistance concluded that veterans should be ``the primary judge of the appropriateness of accredited courses to their plans for the future'' and that ``[a]pproval of institutions accredited by accrediting bodies recognized by the Department of Education should suffice for veterans' training approval.''

In the years since those findings, Congress has altered the responsibilities of SAAs by requiring them to perform additional functions, such as promoting the development of apprenticeships and on- the-job training programs, conducting outreach services, and approving licensing tests. However, the traditional approval functions performed by SAAs, which are specifically required by statute, have not been significantly modified.

Last year, in order to assess whether veterans face unnecessary or inefficient barriers in accessing VA education benefits under the current system, I asked GAO to evaluate the extent to which SAA approval activities currently overlap with functions performed by the Departments of Labor and Education and what value is added by the services performed by SAAs. Let me give you a few examples of GAO's recent findings:

Many education and training programs approved by SAAs have

also been approved by the Departments of Education or Labor

and VA and SAAs have taken few steps to coordinate approval

activities with those Departments.

To streamline approval processes, VA should collaborate

with other agencies but, according to VA, that may be

difficult because of the specific approval requirements in

law.

VA does not require SAAs to track the amount of resources

they spend on specific duties and functions, including those

that may be performed by other agencies, and thus does not

have all relevant information to make resource allocation

decisions or to determine whether it is spending federal

funds efficiently and effectively.

It is difficult to assess the effectiveness and progress of

SAAs because VA does not have outcome-oriented performance

measures in place to fully evaluate their performance.

Although I have no doubts about the dedication and sincerity of SAA personnel in the field, I believe GAO's findings demonstrate that we do not have a systematic or objective way to determine whether the current mix of services provided by SAAs, which are mandated by statute, are either necessary or beneficial to the veterans and their families who participate in VA's education programs. That is why I believe we should overhaul the entire statutory scheme regarding SAAs, as this bill would do, to help eliminate redundant administrative procedures, increase VA's flexibility in determining the nature and extent of services that should be performed by SAAs, and improve accountability for any activities they undertake.

Specifically, this bill would strike statutory provisions that mandate what activities SAAs must perform, how those functions must be carried out, and how VA must pay for them. Instead, VA would have authority to contract with SAAs for services that it deems valuable and to determine how those services should be performed, evaluated, and compensated. The bill would also require VA to coordinate approval activities performed by State approving agencies, the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and other entities to reduce overlapping and unnecessary layers of bureaucracy. To ensure that VA, Congress, and other stakeholders will be able to objectively assess the effectiveness of any functions performed by SAAs, VA would be required to establish outcome-oriented performance measures and SAAs would be required to track and report information on the resources expended on all activities they perform.

Finally, the bill includes a provision, similar to legislation that the Senate passed last year, that would provide a $19 million spending authorization for SAAs effective at the start of the upcoming fiscal year and would allow, for the first time, SAA funding to be drawn from both mandatory spending accounts and discretionary accounts. By way of background, since 1988 VA payment for the services of SAAs has been made only out of funds available for ``readjustment benefits'', a VA account funded through mandatory appropriations, and has been subject to annual funding caps.

For the current fiscal year, SAA funding from this entitlement account is capped at $19 million, but under current law there will be a $6 million reduction in authorized spending, to $13 million, for every fiscal year thereafter. Although the provisions of this bill would maintain a $19 million funding level in future years, it is important to note that that level is a ceiling, not a floor. As with any private- sector business or good-government business model, budgeting and funding decisions should be linked to performance and VA should contract only for those services that are necessary and valuable.

In sum, this bill would provide VA with the flexibility to streamline approval processes, eliminate redundant bureaucratic procedures, focus resources on services that will meet the current needs of education program participants, and ensure that veterans and their families will not confront layers of bureaucracy and inflexible legal requirements in accessing their educational assistance benefits. I ask my colleagues to support this measure.

I also ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to comment on a bill I am introducing to enhance educational assistance benefits provided to active duty servicemembers, veterans, members of the Guard and Reserve, and their survivors and dependents by the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, and the Department of Defense.

In recent years, many veterans' organizations, members of Congress, and others have highlighted the need to modernize these education programs to support emerging and alternative education opportunities and to recognize that the role of Guard and Reserve members has been transformed since September 11, 2001. This bill would take significant steps in that direction by providing greater flexibility in the use of these education benefits, revising eligibility criteria to reflect current mobilization strategies for Guard and Reserve units, and enhancing the education program for our ``citizen soldiers'' who have been called up to serve in the war on terror.

First, this bill would provide veterans, Guard and Reserve members, and their spouses and dependents with additional flexibility in using existing education benefits. Traditionally, educational assistance benefits have been paid in equal monthly allotments throughout a semester or term. For veterans, the maximum basic rate is now $1,075 per month, which means a veteran may receive at least $9,675 over the course of an average school year and almost $39,000 during a 4-year college program.

This system works well for veterans attending a traditional four-year college. But, as the Commission on Servicemembers and Veterans Transition Assistance reported in 1999, the existing payment structure ``constrains veterans and servicemembers desiring to enroll in short- term career-focused technical courses,'' a problem that is ``especially acute if the cost of the course dramatically exceeds the benefits payable for the few months' duration of the course.''

That is why in 2001 I cosponsored legislation to establish an ``accelerated'' payment option for veterans' education benefits. With that program now in place, a veteran may receive an up-front, lump-sum payment of up to 60 percent of the cost of certain high-tech, high-cost programs. Since that option was made available, many veterans have used that additional flexibility to train for jobs in high technology sectors of the economy, such as the computer and telecommunications industry, the aerospace industry, and the electronics industry.

Then last year, as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I supported legislation that would have expanded this option to allow accelerated payments for short-term, high-cost education programs leading to jobs in any high growth sectors of the economy. Although VA also supported that legislation, VA testified that ``implementation would be challenging'' and that ``[i]t would be cleaner and more direct if the bill simply stated that all high-cost short-term courses were eligible for accelerated payments.''

Having taken those concerns into account, this bill would allow veterans to receive accelerated payments for any short-term, high-cost education programs, and it would authorize VA to spend up to $3 million for those payments in each fiscal year from 2009 to 2012. Not only would this provide veterans with the flexibility to pursue nontraditional or technical educational opportunities, but it may help veterans quickly obtain job skills that currently are in high demand.

For example, the trucking industry is now experiencing a critical shortage of trained drivers, but the GI Bill, as currently structured, may pay only a fraction of the cost for a veteran to take the 6 to 8 week training course, about $2,000 of a total $6,000 bill. With the availability of accelerated payments for those and other short-term, high-cost training programs, veterans may be able to obtain the skills needed

to thrive in sectors of the economy that, today, are growing rapidly and can provide them with lucrative, rewarding career opportunities.

In addition, the bill would, for the first time, provide Guard and Reserve members with the option of receiving accelerated payment of their education benefits. They, too, would be eligible to receive up- front, lump-sum payments of up to 60 percent of the cost of any short- term, high-cost education program. For fiscal years 2009 to 2012, the bill would authorize $2 million per year for the Montgomery GI bill, Selected Reserve program and $1 million per year for the smaller Reserve Educational Assistance Program to make these payments.

To ensure that the families of veterans also have flexibility in the use of their education benefits, the bill would extend the same accelerated payment option to participants in the Survivors' and Dependents' Educational Assistance program. It would authorize VA to spend up to $1 million per year for those payments in fiscal years 2009 to 2012.

The second principal goal of the bill is to update and enhance the education program for members of the Guard and Reserve who are called to active duty. In 2004, recognizing the increased sacrifices being made by our ``citizen soldiers'' who are fighting in the War on Terror, Congress created the Reserve Educational Assistance Program for Guard and Reserve members who are activated for at least 90 days after September 11, 2001. This program was a significant step in the right direction, providing a maximum benefit of $860 per month for 36 months, a total possible benefit of over $30,000.

However, the maximum monthly benefit requires a deployment of 2 continuous years or more of active duty, and the Secretary of Defense has recently announced that ``from this point forward, members of the Reserves will be involuntarily mobilized for a maximum of one year at any one time, in contrast to the current practice of sixteen to twenty- four months.'' To bring those eligibility criteria in line with current practice, this bill would allow members of the Guard or Reserve to receive the maximum benefits if they are deployed for an aggregate period of 3 or more years.

Finally, the bill would provide these ``citizen soldiers'' with access to a valuable option now available only under the Montgomery GI bill program for active duty servicemembers. Specifically, it would allow members of the Guard or Reserve to contribute up to $600 in order to receive an additional $150 per month in education benefits, which amounts to an additional $5,400 in benefits over the course of 36 months. Under this bill, Guard and Reserve members would, for the first time, have access to this valuable opportunity.

With these modifications, we can take significant strides towards ensuring that current education programs are up-to-date and flexible and that they provide members of the Guard and Reserve with benefits commensurate with the level of service they are now performing on behalf of the entire Nation. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I rise in strong support of the Levin- Reed amendment. That is the amendment that, unlike the Iraq Study Group, has a date certain for changing and transitioning our mission and bringing our troops home. Maybe if the Senate had listened to the Iraq Study Group last year when it presented its report and had adopted it and moved in that direction, we would not be where we are today. I personally believe it is well past time to now suggest that it is appropriate to adopt their recommendations when what we need is a date certain.

We are here tonight to ask for a vote, not just any vote. We are here to ask for a fundamental American principle: a majority vote for majority rule. Not a supermajority vote of 60 votes. A majority vote for majority rule, the same principle that has stood our country over the test of time, the same principle that average Americans fully understand, the same principle that would reflect the reality of where the American public is as it relates to this critical issue. A majority vote for a majority rule. Not just any vote.

We are here tonight because the American people deserve an up-or-down vote on this important amendment that will finally bring an end to this mismanaged war.

The war in Iraq, in my mind, is the most pressing issue of our day, and the fact that the Republican leadership and those who join them will not allow the Senate to have a straight up-or-down vote, a simple majority vote, speaks of obstructionism and of hiding behind procedural roadblocks in order to avoid facing the American people who have called for a change of course in Iraq.

Those of us who voted against the war, as I did in the first place, against popular opinion of the time, have been vindicated by history. I say to my colleagues, history will judge the votes we

cast tomorrow, and I believe those who vote against a simple majority rule and changing the course will be judged harshly.

The President has lost the support of the American public and the confidence of the global community. The only support for his misguided policy in Iraq is a minority, a minority, in the Senate. That is why they are afraid of a simple up-or-down vote on this issue because given in this body a simple majority vote proposition, a majority of the Senate would vote to transition us out of Iraq and bring our men and women home. That is why they are afraid of the vote that we ask for.

Unfortunately, some--and I say ``some'' because I know some of our Republican colleagues have joined us in the past and will again--some of my Republican colleagues seem more interested in protecting the President than doing right, in my mind, by our troops. To the Republican leadership and those who support them, I say it is time to stop filibustering and time to start a vote, a simple majority vote for majority rule.

Maybe if more of the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, or sisters and brothers of Members of the Senate were in Iraq, some of my colleagues would not be so cavalier about filibustering an up-or-down, simple majority vote. If our loved ones were in Iraq, who among us would be content with the counsels of patience and delay? Who among us would be satisfied with another mission accomplished? Who among us would be satisfied with ``victory is around the next corner''? Who among us would be satisfied with benchmarks of which not one--not one-- has been accomplished, and yet we somehow suggest that is progress years later?

After 4 years of a failed policy, it is time to stop hiding behind procedural hurdles and allow the Senate to cast a definitive vote about our future course in Iraq. A majority vote for majority rule.

The American people are waiting impatiently for the Senate to heed their calls and face the facts on the ground. It is time for a responsible change of course in Iraq. And that is exactly what the amendment on which we want a simple majority vote--let's see how people vote, a simple majority vote--does.

The Levin-Reed amendment says our forces should be out of Iraq by April 30 of next year, except those needed to protect U.S. personnel, to train Iraqi security forces and for counterterrorism activities.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed very similar legislation, sending a clear message that the time for change has come. The only obstacle left is for this body to act with a simple majority vote.

Now the Senate, once again, faces a critical vote on Iraq, and I point out, as I did a few days ago when we debated an amendment to take care of our troops--we hear all the time about ``support the troops.'' Yet we had to have a supermajority vote to simply permit the rotation of our troops to be able to have a year back at home for every year they served abroad, a proposition that even the Defense Department has as its goal. No, we couldn't have a simple majority vote on that issue; we had to have a 60-vote threshold. Support the troops?

The only way we could have done that was with bipartisan support, and we didn't get it. The only way we can stop this war is with bipartisan support. But so long as we keep having these 60-vote thresholds, Democrats have 51 votes in this body and that leaves us 9 votes short. The American people know that. That is why we want a simple majority vote for majority rule.

Despite overwhelming public support, the public is way ahead of this institution, the American people are way ahead of this institution, and growing support from some of our Republican colleagues, which I respect--Democrats do not have the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster in the Senate.

I know that many more of our Republican colleagues have serious concerns about the war in Iraq. I have been reading about it. I have been reading in the local and national papers of so many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying: We have grave reservations about where the President is continuing to take us. We believe we have to have some type of change. I urge them to listen to their inner voice. I urge them to find their moral compass. I urge them to back their strong words with meaningful votes.

A vote for Levin-Reed, a simple up-or-down vote, is a vote to transition out of Iraq, a vote to change the course, a vote to end the war.

Robert Kennedy said about the war in Vietnam:

Past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation. Tragedy

is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which

to live.

``Past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation.''

He went on to say:

All men make mistakes, but a good man--

And I would paraphrase in today's terms, a good woman--

yields when [they] know [their] cost is wrong, and repairs

the evil. The only sin--

The only sin--

is pride.

This is not an issue where we can afford the sin of pride to deviate us, to take us into the appropriate course, to change the course in Iraq.

The lessons of history are poignant and instructive about today's quagmire. Rather than hiding behind a shrinking minority and procedural posturing, Republicans should listen to the American people and change the course of this failed war policy. They should stand with the American people and tell the President, even though we have given him opportunities, even though previous efforts of the Senate have given him flexibility, he has outright rejected it and, so, yes, there must be a date certain, and the message to the President by this body is if you are not going to bring our troops home, then we will.

I have heard many of my colleagues claim that what is happening now on the Senate floor is nothing more than political theater. The war in Iraq is the single greatest issue before the country and before this Senate. How many lives, how much money, how much risk to our security by being bogged down in Iraq, when we have real challenges in the world such as Iran, when we have a reconstituted al-Qaida in Afghanistan, that is the real challenge. That is the real challenge, I say to my friends. This is not about political theater. If there is political theater here, it is the sad, sad plot that the Republican leadership has weaved in creating this procedural hurdle to not permit a simple majority vote for majority rule.

I heard my distinguished colleague from Connecticut, for whom I have enormous respect, lament the proceedings as partisan. I have the deepest respect for him, but I couldn't more passionately disagree with him. This isn't about partisanship. These are deeply held views of principle--principle that moves us to take these extraordinary measures so we can get a simple majority vote for majority rule. That is what we are simply seeking tonight.

So to the Republican leadership and those who support them, I say it is time to stop filibustering and time to permit a simple majority vote to allow us to change the course in Iraq.

Today we are living with the consequences of the administration's failed policy, and only a minority of the Senate wants to stay that failed course. Over 3,600 troops have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war, including 87 servicemembers with ties to my home State of New Jersey. April and May was the deadliest 2-month period of the war for U.S. troops, with 230 servicemembers killed.

We have now spent over $450 billion on the war in Iraq, with a burn rate of $10 billion a month. Frankly, I never believed the administration's estimates that the so-called surge would only cost $5.6 billion. We have been misled time and time again, and these new numbers only prove once again we have been misled.

Each day we read horrific stories about the violence and tragedy on the streets of Iraq. This week officials report that dozens of Shiites were massacred by Sunni extremists during an overnight raid in Diyala Province. Yesterday, suicide car bombs in Kirkuk killed more than 80 people and injured some 150 others. It was the deadliest attack the city had seen since the beginning of the war. In fact, suicide attacks have more than doubled across Iraq from 26 in January to 58 in April.

In terms of reconstruction, measurements we all previously swore ourselves to be listening to, oil production in Iraq is still lower than it was before the war, and Baghdad is getting less than 6 hours of electricity a day, significantly less than before the war.

That is why we must proceed with a vote on the Levin-Reed amendment and bring an end to our military involvement in Iraq which has cost our country so dearly in human lives and national treasure.

Even all of the military personnel tell us we cannot have a military victory in Iraq. When I listen to General Pace say we need the Iraqis to love their children more than they hate their neighbors, that is probably a powerful truism, but it does not come through the power of military might. That is about reconciliation, confidence-building measures, revenue sharing, and participation of all Iraqi society in the Government. It does not come through the barrel of a gun to have the Iraqis love their children more than they hate their enemies.

So to the Republican leadership and those who support them, it is time to stop filibustering and time to permit us a simple majority vote for majority rule.

Let me take a minute to discuss the administration's recent report on benchmarks in Iraq which President Bush is using as a justification for the United States to stay in Iraq.

Just as some were misled into the war, I think this report is misleading. I wish to make sure everyone understands exactly what it says because I have listened to the debate and, boy, has it been mischaracterized, as far as I am concerned. I am sure not intentionally because people read the document different ways. Let me tell what it clearly says to me.

The report did not say that eight of the benchmarks had been met. Instead, the report said that satisfactory progress, a very significant distinction, has been made on only 8 of 18 benchmarks in Iraq, while the rest have not even seen--not even seen--satisfactory progress. In simple terms, none of the benchmarks were met.

Let's make it clear: None of the benchmarks were met. And when this report came out, President Bush said:

Those who believe that the battle in Iraq is lost will

likely point to the unsatisfactory performance on some of the

political benchmarks. Those of us who believe that the battle

in Iraq can and must be won see the satisfactory performance

on several of the security benchmarks as a cause for

optimism.

I want to reiterate to the President the fact that none of the benchmarks were actually met. None.

Now, let me be clear. The absolute best version of the story is that the Iraqis made some progress on some of the benchmarks. That is it. But the fact is, zero out of 18 benchmarks were met, and this is after years, and this is after changing the goalposts so that we can continue to suggest that we are making progress. If we kept the goalposts where they were supposed to be, we would have an even greater rate of failure.

So I don't see any cause for optimism for this failed strategy of escalation. Frankly, I think the President's comments represent yet another example of the administration's delusion and denial.

For years, this administration has refused to face the truth about Iraq. Let's take a look at some of the benchmarks the Bush administration told us would be met.

We were told by the end of 2006 that a provincial election law would be approved and new election laws would be put in place. But that benchmark has not been met.

We were told the Iraqis would approve a law for debaathification. But that benchmark has not been met. In fact, the Iraqi Parliament is barely functioning. It is stuck in gridlock. Even worse, one of the Bush administration's best Iraqi allies, Ahmed Chalabi, has been leading the charge--this is one of the administration's best allies who has been leading the charge--to block the debaathification legislation.

We were told the Iraqis would create a law to help restrain sectarian militias. But that benchmark has not been met. In fact, the Iraqi Government hasn't disarmed the Shia militias, and the security situation on the ground continues to rage out of control. The surge hasn't staunched the violence, and civilian casualties were actually higher in June than in February when the surge began.

We were told that the Iraqis would establish a law to regulate the oil industry and share revenues in Iraqi society. But that benchmark has not been met. In fact, the oil law is stuck in parliamentary gridlock, and it is unclear whether it actually addresses even the core issues.

We were told that by March, this past March, that the Iraqi Government was supposed to hold a referendum on constitutional amendments necessary for a government of national unity to possibly exist. But that benchmark has not been met. In fact, 3 years after the United States turned over power to the Iraqi Government, the Iraqis still don't have the constitution finished.

The Bush administration seems to think that ``satisfactory progress'' has been made on performing a constitutional review committee. But in fact this committee has had to keep extending deadlines to get their work done, and it is unclear whether they will even meet the next deadline at the end of this month.

As I said before, it is time that the administration and the President finally face the real facts. And the fact is, by invading Iraq, the President took our focus away from the war in Afghanistan-- the birthplace of the Taliban, the home to al-Qaida, the land of Osama bin Laden, and the place where the attacks of September 11 were planned.

Now, nearly 6 years after those terrible attacks on the United States, the most recent National Intelligence Estimate tells us that al-Qaida is operating where? In a safe zone along the Afghanistan- Pakistan border. Let me repeat that. Al-Qaida is operating, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, in a safe zone along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In fact, according to the New York Times:

U.S. officials have warned publicly that a deal between the

Pakistani government and tribal leaders allowed al-Qaida to

plot and train more freely in parts of western Pakistan for

the last 10 months.

It is clear that by shifting our efforts to Iraq, we have taken our eye off the original threat in Afghanistan. We cannot forget that our fight against terrorism started where it should have, in Afghanistan-- an engagement that I supported--where it should have remained. But we have not yet been able to end the fight in Afghanistan.

Now, as I listened to the debate here today, some of our Republican colleagues are back to the same parroting of the same old refrains--it won't work--criticizing Democrats as being weak on defense. It is we who have consistently called for finishing the job we started in Afghanistan, and bringing Osama bin Laden and his followers to justice, and as far as I am concerned, to have him meet his maker. It was a Democratic Senator who offered a higher ransom on Osama bin Laden's head. It is Democrats, through the supplemental appropriations bill, who funded the resources for those men and women whom we supposedly are going to stand by so that they would have the plated jackets that they needed, and whom we sent into war without having the resources they needed, the vehicles to protect their lives as they seek to pursue their mission, the opportunity to make sure that a grateful nation says we are grateful not just on Memorial Day, marching in a parade, or on Veterans Day, going to an observance, which we should, but in how we treat those men and women in their injuries, in their disabilities, and for those who commit the ultimate sacrifice, in how we take care of their survivors. That is what Democrats did when they achieved the majority in this institution.

So that old refrain, my friends, that Democrats are weak on defense, that dog won't hunt.

I joined a rally earlier tonight outside the Capitol with Iraqi war veterans. In my mind, no one--no one--has a greater right to question their Government and to say, as they did, that it is time to change the course in Iraq and bring their fellow soldiers home, and that is what they said tonight. They hold the high ground in any debate.

Afghanistan was the right place to pursue the national security of the

United States. It was in Afghanistan that the murderers of September 11 were located. We had Osama bin Laden pinned down in the mountains of Tora Bora. But instead of having a large contingent of the best trained, most equipped, most technologically advanced military in the world go after him, we outsourced the job to the warlords. We gave them money, and they put the money in their pockets and they let bin Laden get away.

Many of us have been horrified as we have watched the resurgence of the Taliban, the new threats of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, and the increasing poppy cultivation. A few years ago, I talked about the possibility of the Iraqitization of Afghanistan, and now we see some of those fears coming true.

Just last month, Afghan security forces found a new type of sophisticated roadside bomb, one that is very similar to that being used in Iraq. Afghans, and our troops in Afghanistan, face the daily horror of roadside bombs targeting civilians or coalition forces.

The Taliban continues its battle to terrorize the Afghan people. As the New York Times article said last week:

Shootings, beheadings, burnings, and bombings: These are

the tools of intimidation used by the Taliban and others to

shut down hundreds of Afghanistan's public schools. To take

aim at education is to make war on the government.

Afghanistan now produces 92 percent of the world's poppy, and it has a record crop again this year. Again, according to the New York Times:

Not so long ago, we trumpeted Afghanistan as a success, a

country freed from tyranny and al-Qaeda. But as the Taliban's

grip continues to tighten, threatening Afghanistan's future

and the fight against terrorism, Americans and Afghans are

frequently asking what went wrong.

My friends, what went wrong is that instead of finishing the mission in Afghanistan, the President took us to Iraq. Of course, we remember all the reasons why: weapons of mass destruction, uranium from Niger-- this in a State of the Union speech before the entire Congress, none of it true. The battle in Afghanistan, the battle against al-Qaida, the Taliban, against terrorism is far from over. Yet the United States is still held hostage by the President's war in Iraq--a war that we were led into based on a false premise, with false promises, with no plan to win the peace and no plan to succeed.

The President is fond of evoking Franklin Roosevelt and our noble mission in World War II when he talks about Iraq. But he must have forgotten that when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt didn't run off and invade China. That would have made no sense. Just like our going to Iraq made no sense because we dropped the ball in Afghanistan. The failures in Iraq, coupled with the reinvigoration of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, underscore the fiasco of the Bush administration's decision to take its focus off Afghanistan, its disastrous war policy, and the consequences of its ``stay the course'' mentality. They took their eye off the ball and created a quagmire in Iraq.

We didn't have al-Qaida in Iraq. We now have elements of al-Qaida in Iraq, but we did not have al-Qaida in Iraq before we invaded. Now we are paying the price in the form of less security and a beefed-up terrorist network. Maybe Secretary Chertoff's infamous gut feeling about an increased terror threat was caused by knowing that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist allies are still out there plotting and planning thousands of miles away from Iraq--thousands of miles away from Iraq.

Madam President, let me conclude by saying that the President says that the only role for Congress is to provide a blank check for his failed war policy. He is so wrong. He is so wrong. Time to reread the Constitution. This body's responsibility is not to blindly sign a blank check to the President for a failed policy. We have a responsibility to the American people as fiduciaries both in terms of national treasure and lives. Most importantly, we have a responsibility to the men and women in uniform to do the right thing and stand up to the President's failed policy so that we may give them a mission worthy--worthy--of their sacrifice. We should honor the troops who continue to sacrifice and shed blood not by being silent, not by being hoarded like sheep, not by signing on to a blank check, and not by being complicit in the President's failed war.

I have heard some of our colleagues on the other side cry that we are fighting for freedom in Iraq, but here in America, here tonight, we have a tyranny of a minority in the Senate who want to use the procedures of the Senate, in my mind in a way that is totally unacceptable, to thwart the will of the majority of the Senate, and, more importantly, the majority of the American people.

We want a vote--not just any vote, a simple majority vote for majority rule. The amendment before us reflects the reality on the ground and the will of the American people. It changes the course in Iraq by setting a responsible timetable for our troops to leave. How many more lives--how many--I hope we all go home before tomorrow's vote and say to ourselves, how many more lives, how many more tens of billions of dollars, how much more chaos? We have heard about chaos. What will happen, how much more chaos can unfold than that which we see unfolding as we have 160,000 troops there?

Years from now, we will come to the same conclusion. Or we can act with courage tomorrow in a vote, a simple majority vote, and by doing so we will be in a position to meet our national security challenges and our national interests. Our brave troops have answered the call of duty. Let's now answer the call to do what is right by them.

It is clear to me that the President continues to live in a world where the reality in Iraq never collides with his fantasy of what is happening there. It is time for the President, and a minority in the Senate who support him, to give the American people a chance for a majority vote, for a majority rule. The American people have awoken way before the Senate, and they want the nightmare to end. The American people know it is time to responsibly withdraw from Iraq. The House of Representatives voted to do so, and it is time for the Senate to finally vote for a responsible withdrawal from Iraq.

And so we close again. It is time for a simple majority vote for majority rule.

Madam President, I yield the floor.