Mr. President, I rise today to talk about three issues that I think are vitally important for our national security. First, there is this matter of terrorist surveillance and our national security.…
Mr. President, I rise today to talk about three issues that I think are vitally important for our national security. First, there is this matter of terrorist surveillance and our national security.
This body passed the bipartisan FISA Act bill overwhelmingly--more than 2 to 1--several days before the Protect America Act was to expire. The Director of National Intelligence has told us how important this bill is because without it, intelligence gaps likely will reopen, putting the safety of America--those of us in the United States--and our troops on the battlefield at risk. Yet the House Speaker refuses to allow a vote on the Senate's bill, even though a majority of House Members support its passage. If you vote, that means something. If you win, you win; if you lose, you lose. But the leadership in the House apparently thinks those rules don't apply to the FISA debate.
Even though the Speaker failed to pass a 21-day extension of the existing law in her own body, the leadership has acted as though the PAA deadline was extended. There has been no action.
So what is the House going to do this week? Well, the Speaker has signaled that the House will vote on overriding the President's veto of the 2008 intelligence authorization bill, even though she knows there are not enough votes to override the vote. Why? Because apparently, the House leadership has decided it is more important to make a political statement about interrogation techniques than to give the intelligence community the tools it needs to conduct surveillance of foreign intelligence.
The IC--the intelligence community--needs these tools and authorities that are provided in the bill we passed. They are working tirelessly to protect us from real and constant terrorist threats, and they should not have to wait any longer for the House to pass that measure.
Secondly, let me talk about Korea briefly. I just came from an Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing with General Bell, our commanding general in Korea. He told us that not just a brave new wind but a typhoon has blown through South Korea, and the previous government that was in many ways anti-American was totally willing to accommodate North Korea in all of its efforts, which included building missiles and nuclear weapons, and rebuff the United States.
Well, the people of Korea had enough, and they overwhelmingly elected a new President, President Lee Myung-bak, who ran on a platform of revitalizing the economy, making any actions with North Korea reciprocal, and improving their alliance with the U.S. position. The candidate who came in second agreed with him on these issues. The previous leadership candidate got single digits.
The most important things we can do are to increase our trade and our military assistance to South Korea. South
Korea is already our largest importer for military equipment, and they live in a very dangerous part of the world. They are right next door to China and close to bordering on Russia, just across the straits from Japan, and they are potentially--they have been and they will be our most important ally. But we have given higher foreign military sales status to three former Soviet Union States and five countries from the Warsaw Pact, none of which are as good friends as South Korea.
I have filed a bill, S. 1846, the United States-Republic of Korea Defense Cooperation and Improvement Act of 2007, that would give them the status of NATO plus 3, so we could continue to expand on our vital defense trade with them. He says this is his top priority. We are already cooperating with them. There is new cooperation. There is an opportunity to build an even stronger ally in the region to help keep that region safe, peaceful, and secure.
Secondarily, for Korea, we also need to approve the United States- Korea Free Trade Agreement. Free trade is one of the best ways we have of assuring that other countries get the development they need, we can develop the friendship we have and improve our economy and theirs. A Korea-United States trade agreement would give lower tariff barriers, and get rid of many of them, to keep our agriculture, machine goods, and high-tech goods from going into South Korea. We need to do that.
But there are political objections. That brings me to the third important point: Colombia. Colombia has pending with the United States a United States-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. As I have just said, trade and commercial ties are one of the most effective arrows in our quiver of smart power. In Colombia, it is an affirmation of support to our friends. They are our strongest ally on an increasingly left- leaning continent--another area where they are our best friends in a dangerous area.
The administration of the President of Colombia, President Uribe, finds itself surrounded by states determined to undermine Colombia's burgeoning democracy. The states around them provide safe haven to insurgent terrorist groups, allowing them freedom to maneuver in border areas, and they even provide monetary support for drug and terror activities against President Uribe's government in Colombia. If we are serious, as we must be, about maintaining peace, security, and stability in Latin America, the northern part of Latin America, we must work with them.
Free trade will not only expand our economic and commercial ties, but it will strengthen the critical cultural ties and strategic alliances, and that will lead to a more peaceful and stable world.
At a time when America's image is suffering in the world and our economy at home is slumping, we should be helping our friends and allies and expanding our export opportunities to create jobs here.
If the Democratic leadership in Congress is so concerned about improving America's image abroad and helping our slumping economy, why don't we start by helping our friends? We can do that by opening up markets for exports. Friends like Colombia and Korea are fighting terrorism, embracing America's values. It is a solid security rock for us to build upon.
In Colombia, the interdiction of two high-value targets--senior terror planners and former operators--is a testimony to the Uribe administration's commitment to ending terror in his country. It is important to remember that the terrorist group FARC currently holds more than 700 political and military prisoners. Three of them are Americans. Yet our Democratic colleagues, through all their rhetoric, seem to care more about improving our image with rogue regimes such as Syria and Iran than helping our friends in places such as Colombia and Korea. Their rejection of the free-trade agreements damages our strategic alliances and says to the world that the United States is closed for business. And it does so at a time when we need to be open for business, open for better ties.
So why, in light of the economic and strategic benefits of the Colombia FTA, are the Democrats determined to delay and deny these benefits? Why, through their actions, are they emboldening Venezuelan leftist Hugo Chavez and undercutting the President of Colombia, who is a friend? President Uribe has done more to reduce violence in Colombia than any modern leader in Bogota, including crimes against labor unionists. He has pushed back Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and the National Liberation Army, the ELN. He has reduced crime and substantially improved Colombia's security and economic situations, with official statistics showing murders plummeting by as much as 50 percent and kidnappings by as much as 75 percent.
Today's Wall Street Journal, which I will submit later, is entitled ``Delaying and Denying.'' They sum it up like this:
What is it about Democrats and Hugo Chavez? Even as the
Venezuelan strongman was threatening war last week against
Colombia, Congress was threatening to hand him a huge
strategic victory by spurning Colombia's free trade overtures
to the U.S.
This isn't the first time Democrats have come to Mr.
Chavez's aid, but it would be the most destructive. The
Venezuelan is engaged in a high-stakes competition over the
political and economic direction of Latin America. He wants
the region to follow his path of ever greater state control
of the economy, while assisting U.S. enemies wherever he can.
He's already won converts in Bolivia and Ecuador, and he came
far too close for American comfort in Mexico's election last
year.
Meanwhile, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is embracing
greater economic and political freedom. He has bravely
assisted the U.S. fight against narco-traffickers, and he now
wants to link his country more closely to America with a free
trade accord. As a strategic matter, to reject Colombia's
offer now would tell everyone in Latin America that it is far
more dangerous to trust America than it is to trash it.
Mr. President, continuing to deny and delay Colombia TPA will be a great disadvantage to America's economy, damage our reputation in Colombia and throughout Latin America, undercut a key ally in President Uribe, and further embolden anti-American dictators like Hugo Chavez, ultimately resulting in a less secure and stable Latin America.
Mr. President, I call upon and urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to let us bring up for a vote and pass the Korean free- trade agreement and the Colombia free-trade agreement. Not only will that benefit us economically, it will strengthen the U.S. image throughout the world and help build a stable, strategic ally in Colombia that can stop the threat of more regimes committed to the Marxism that Cuba so famously demonstrated, which brought destruction and hardship to the people of Cuba.
These are important foreign policy matters. One leader in the majority on the other side of the body said: Well, politically, we cannot do it. Politically, we cannot help those who help us? Politically, we cannot pass a bill that will keep our country safer by passing the FISA bill? Politically, we cannot help an ally such as South Korea, which is in a very strategic position? And politically, we cannot help Colombia, which is fighting narcotraffickers as well as the efforts by Hugo Chavez for spreading a Marxist regime and the totalitarian government which impoverishes and denies rights to his citizens?
Mr. President, the time to act is now. I urge my colleagues on both sides to make these matters a serious concern and see if we can do the job for which we were elected--to help keep our country safe and secure.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial from the Wall Street Journal of today, March 10, 2008, called ``The Chavez Democrats'' be printed in the Record, along with a similar and very compelling article on the op-ed page of the Washington Post, by Jackson Diehl, called ``The FARC's Guardian Angel,'' be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
