A bill to provide for the safe redeployment of United States troops from Iraq.

Madam President, first let me indicate that as my colleagues were speaking a moment ago, I think it is incredibly important to understand that, in fact, we are talking about a threat in 80 countries, and we do have a FISA law that, in fact, has worked, and no one is suggesting we do not have the need for strong intelligence and support for our intelligence operations. In fact, that is what all of us are willing to see happen. But what we are talking about in this resolution is whether we are going to continue to keep our focus on a country that is now in the middle of a civil war or whether we are going to redirect our efforts to address our real threats not only abroad but threats at home.

When we talk about the threats to our families, I would suggest that if we are now spending somewhere around $15 billion a month, some say, that when we look at what could be done here at home to address the very real threats of job loss, people losing their homes, children walking into schools that are crumbling, the lack of health care, those are also very important threats.

So we certainly want to make sure we are safe and address those threats abroad, but, more broadly, we have many threats affecting our families right now, and they expect us to use the very best judgment to keep them safe both from threats outside our country as well as from threats at home, including a huge economic cloud over many families.

Madam President, I rise today to lend my strong voice of support for the Feingold legislation to provide the safe redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq, and to refocus us on, in fact, those things that are threats to our country and to the families of this country. Tonight, 591 members of the Michigan National Guard will bed down after a long day of working and fighting and facing danger at every turn in the harshest physical conditions imaginable. For every single one of these men and women, a family will go to sleep in Michigan tonight worried that their son or daughter, father or mother, sister or brother won't make it home.

The true cost of this war cannot be measured in dollars and cents. The real cost is measured in the sacrifices of our brave men and women and their families every day. This cost is more than just the possibility and the reality of physical danger. This cost includes the sacrifices that every single American family makes by being apart from each other time and time again. It isn't right what is happening; it isn't fair; it isn't safe. It isn't making us safer as a country, and we need to change this policy.

That is why I am so grateful that, once again, Senator Reid has made it a priority for us to focus on the war in Iraq and what is happening to troops and families and people here at home, and the cost of the lost opportunity by spending upwards of $15 billion a month now in Iraq.

Tonight 591 Guard members in Iraq, with 591 families at home, 591 will have missed birthdays, missed Father's Days and Mother's Days, missed high school graduations and children's first steps or anniversaries or family funerals or holidays; 591 will have missed paychecks, sidetracked careers, with small businesses and farms put in economic danger; 591 lives that will never be the same; 591 sets of missed opportunities that will never be replaced. And these members of the Michigan National Guard make up only a fraction of the 160,000 men and women in uniform currently serving bravely and honorably in Iraq, or the countless others who have served.

In too many cases, these men and women are back in Iraq for their second, third, or fourth redeployment. In addition to the 591 who are already deployed, there are about 1,000 members of the Michigan National Guard who have been mobilized and who will deploy this year. Many of them will be doing their second, third, or fourth deployment to a combat zone. This year alone, there will be a thousand more missed paychecks, a thousand more missed birthdays and holidays and special occasions, and a thousand more lives that will never be the same.

Our fighting men and women are the greatest single resource our military has, and this Government is abusing that resource. America puts our trust in our military to defend us. When our sons and daughters join the military, they are putting their trust in us to give them the tools, the resources they need, and to treat them with the respect they have earned. The current administration policies on redeployment have violated that trust. Those policies have let our troops down. Once again, I am proud to join with my colleague from Wisconsin in saying: Enough is enough when it comes to placing our armed services in harm's way by stretching them to the breaking point with redeployment after redeployment. Enough is enough when it comes to being in the middle of a civil war. And enough is enough when it comes to this administration taking its eye off the ball on the war on terror.

We are all aware of the worsening situation in Afghanistan. However, this administration continues to focus on a civil war in Iraq. Our Armed Forces have traveled a tough road since we invaded Iraq. They have shouldered a heavy burden with pride, with confidence, and with honor. We have asked extraordinary things from them at every turn, and at every turn they have delivered. They have done us all proud. They have faced tough situations and have done their duty. Now we need to do what is right for them. It is time to face the tough situations. It is time to make the hard choices, to make them proud of us, and it is time to remove them from the civil war in Iraq, to change course, and to refocus, as this bill does, and redistribute our resources to those areas that truly address the threats facing our families and our country.

America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are always there when we call on them. The question is: Will we be there for them? What this legislation proposes is as simple as it is right. It requires our forces in Iraq to target

operations against al-Qaida and other international terrorist groups.

Why is this important? Because al-Qaida has declared war against us. We know that. The people in Iraq are in the middle of a civil war that is something they now have to address and come to terms with and bring their own resources to address. So while our troops are in Iraq, they should be targeting those who have said they wished to do harm to us.

Also, our troops in Iraq would be required to focus on providing security for U.S. personnel, of course, and that is extremely necessary in order to bring them home safely. I understand the Iraqi security forces are still developing, still learning, as I have met with them in traveling to Iraq. We have heard certainly of the continual need to train, the need for them to continue to develop, and we know we have a role in supporting that, and this bill recognizes that fact. It would allow our troops to continue to train Iraqi security forces, but only if our troops are training the Iraqis who have not been involved in the sectarian violence or attacks against our troops.

This bill will allow our troops to continue to train the Iraqi security forces, but only if that training does not result in our troops being in combat. Training, yes; but they need to step up at this point, after 5 years, and be the ones at the front line.

This bill also brings our troops home safely. It specifically allows our military to train and equip itself to ensure its safety. Most importantly, it requires that we begin to bring our troops home.

This administration said a surge was necessary; that the surge would give the Government of Iraq the time to reach the political solutions necessary to end their civil war and to end the violence. They said time was needed. Well, the Government has had time, and during this time our troops have continued to pay the price. Our troops have been caught in the middle of a civil war. They have been victims of IEDs. They have come home with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental and physical ailments. The bottom line is, it is time for our troops to be placed first and to begin to bring them home.

That is all this bill does, and it does that while allowing our troops to continue to focus on who we all agree is the real enemy: Al- Qaida.

On October 11, 2002, I was proud to be 1 of 23 Members of this body who stood in this Chamber and said the war was the wrong choice. This administration, I believe, since that time has in fact failed our troops and the American people by committing our troops to a war without a clear reason or goal, and by squandering resources that are desperately needed here at home to rebuild America and to invest in American communities. This administration has failed our troops by not having a clear mission for our Armed Forces in Iraq, by not providing the proper equipment and body armor and logistical support for the troops, by poor planning on the invasion in Iraq and the lack of planning for how to secure the country and what would happen after the initial attack. I believe they have failed by sending our brave men and women back into harm's way over and over again without the proper rest between redeployments.

History will be a harsh judge of this administration, because I believe they have failed the American people. This administration failed because they took their eye off the ball. This legislation is about putting our eye back on the target of what we ought to be doing together.

In closing, let me reemphasize the fact that while the most important thing is to be supporting our troops, to be addressing the threats to them while they are in harm's way, to address the lives lost and the people who are coming home who will need help the rest of their lives, it is also important to look at this from the standpoint of the precious resources that have been lost at a time when so many American families are struggling. We always make decisions based on values and priorities, and it is shocking to me, as we have seen this war go forward, to see upwards of, some say $12 billion, some say now upwards of $15 billion a month--not part of the normal budget--going directly on the national deficit, the national debt, to be paid by our children and grandchildren. But let's say it is $15 billion a month. To see that continue month after month after month, and to see us work together on a bipartisan basis to pass a critically important piece of legislation to increase health care for 10 million children across this country, which costs only $7 billion a year, and yet that is vetoed--there is not a willingness to invest in American children to the tune of less than half of what it is costing per month in Iraq--these are the wrong values and wrong priorities.

We see schools being rebuilt in Iraq, and yet I can go in too many schools in Michigan where there is a bucket in the corner to catch the water dripping from the roof, or we don't have the kind of computer technology in the classroom every single child will need to know how to use in any job they get, from working at a gas station to working at a technology company. We know we have crumbling roads and bridges here in America. We know every time we invest in and rebuild in America, those are jobs that aren't going to be outsourced to another country. Those are American jobs--rebuilding American roads and American bridges and water and sewer systems in America. We are told we can't do that, that there are not the resources to invest in America, but we are spending $15 billion a month in Iraq.

We now have a whole new group of industries producing what are called green collar jobs, and I am very proud to have joined in working with many of my colleagues to focus on the new alternative energy technologies and other things we need to do--small investments with huge results for energy independence and creating more jobs and addressing global warming.

And yet we consistently hear there are not the resources for any new investments in America. There are so many areas where we are told there is no money: for doing the bold research we need to solve Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and to aggressively move forward on other health research; the desire not to help those who lost their jobs because of trade, to be able to go back and get the training they need to be able to move on to new kinds of jobs so that we have a middle class in this country; and that families can pay their mortgage and electric bill and heating bill and know that they have the opportunity to keep their standard of living in our country.

There is a lot at stake. And this bill, while it focuses on what we need to do to change the mission, to refocus on ways to truly keep us safe, to begin to bring our troops home from Iraq, from a civil war where we need to leave and redirect our troops to those areas where, in fact, we will be focusing on the real threat to our country, that is, on the surface, what this legislation does.

I would suggest it does more than that because this is about who we are as Americans, what our priorities are: No. 1, how to make sure we are truly smart enough to be focused on what keeps us safe; and, No. 2, understanding that we have much to do in our country.

Our families are feeling squeezed on all sides. Communities need help, and we have an opportunity to not only redirect our troops and our focus but to redirect critical dollars to be able to make sure, in fact, we are finally putting the interests of America's families first.

I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Senate will vote later today in relation to two bills I recently introduced with Majority Leader Reid addressing the war in Iraq and the disastrous toll it continues to take on our top national security priority, the global fight against al- Qaida.

Many of my colleagues have expressed concern that the exhausting rate of deployments in Iraq and the resources we are committing to that country are undermining our ability to protect ourselves at home and respond to dangers abroad, including the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the global threat posed by al-Qaida. While we all hope that the recent decline in violence in Iraq will hold, lasting stability remains elusive and there is a serious danger that our troops will remain mired in Iraq while our ability to combat al-Qaida elsewhere and protect ourselves at home continues to deteriorate.

Senator Reid and I have introduced two bills to address these problems head-on. One of these bills, S. 2633, is similar to legislation we have offered before. I am pleased that this bill is also cosponsored by Senators Boxer, Brown, Byrd, Cardin, Clinton, Dodd, Durbin, Harkin, Leahy, Menendez, Obama, Sanders, Schumer, Whitehouse, and Wyden. It requires the President to safely redeploy U.S. combat troops from Iraq with very narrow exceptions. Effective 120 days from enactment of this bill, U.S. troops could only remain in Iraq for the following purposes: conducting targeted military operations against al- Qaida and its affiliates, providing security for U.S. personnel and infrastructure, providing limited training of Iraqi Security Forces, providing equipment and training to our own troops, and continuing to redeploy from Iraq.

Unlike previous legislation I have offered, this bill does not have an end date for redeployment. Some of my colleagues who oppose the war have expressed concern about Congress setting such a date, and in drafting this legislation we have tried to address their concerns. By not including an end date, we are trying to provide additional flexibility in how the troops are redeployed. And we are also making doubly clear that at no point will funding be denied to the troops-- they will continue to be fully funded throughout their redeployment.

If there is no end date for redeployment, then (what is to stop the administration keeping troops there indefinitely? The answer is that, after 120 days, troops can only remain in Iraq for the narrowly defined purposes in the bill. Because these exceptions are so narrow, the bill removes any incentive for the President to delay or ``slow walk'' redeployment.

Now, some on the other side are arguing that this new bill is tougher than previous versions, because the funding restriction kicks in sooner, in 120 days. Of course, these are the same people who oppose any limitations on the war, so I don't take their arguments too seriously. I suspect they haven't actually read the new bill, or they would realize that the bill is quite a bit more flexible, for the reasons I just mentioned.

Right now, the administration is considering various ``drawdown'' plans, all of which would leave well over 100,000 troops in Iraq through the end of the year. That would continue to require an exhausting rate of deployments that we simply cannot afford--for our military readiness, our fiscal bottom line, and our national security.

This administration has put Iraq first for too long. In an effort to refocus our national priorities, the second bill Senator Reid and I have introduced with Senators Boxer, Brown, Byrd, Cardin, Casey, Clinton, Dodd, Harkin, Lautenberg, Leahy, Menendez, Obama, Schumer, and White-house, would require the administration to come up with a strategy to wage a comprehensive, global campaign against al-Qaida, without undermining our military readiness. The legislation, S. 2634, does this by requiring a comprehensive report from the Secretaries of Defense, State and Homeland Security, working in coordination with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence. The report will examine the threat posed by al-Qaida and affiliates around the world and recommend ways to ensure that our national security assets are properly deployed to address this threat. To be clear, I am not just talking about military assets, we also have intelligence, diplomatic and other assets that we need to use to defeat al-Qaida. We can't just rely on boots on the ground--we need to use all of the other facets of U.S. power, including aggressive public and private diplomacy, to counter al-Qaida.

Some of the information called for in this bill will probably need to be contained in a classified annex. But there is no reason the administration cannot also provide a public report identifying in broad terms the threat we face and how to respond to it. The American public should be kept as informed as

possible about how we are protecting them from the number one threat we face.

I know some of my colleagues do not want to be talking about Iraq again. I know some of them complain that we spent too much time debating Iraq last year and I know some of them have concerns about whether now is the right time to bring these bills up for a vote. But we cannot allow the focus on Iraq to fade because violence has declined in parts of Iraq. It is true violence levels are down to where they were in 2005, but Iraq is still extremely and unacceptably violent, as it was in 2005. Violence has risen in Mosul and in the south, and U.S. casualty rates in January were higher than in December. All is not calm in Iraq, as the administration would have you believe.

Moreover, the surge has not brought Iraq any closer to legitimate political reconciliation at the national level--and it may, in fact, have undermined the prospects for such reconciliation in the long term. The President's policies have empowered former insurgents and militia- infiltrated security forces with questionable loyalties. By supporting sheiks in al Anbar--and elsewhere--we may have reduced violence in the near term, but only by making it more difficult to achieve national reconciliation in the long run. The Director of National Intelligence, or DNI, testified this month that many Sunnis who participate in local security initiatives remain hostile to the Shi'ite leaders in Baghdad, and that some of those leaders see the Sunnis we are supporting as ``thinly disguised insurgents'' who are plotting against them. Mr. President, we cannot, and should not, ask our brave men and women in uniform to resolve these sectarian disputes. Military operations are not a substitute for a viable political settlement, and the American people are simply not willing to leave our troops on the front lines indefinitely in hopes that some day such a settlement will arrive.

Recent gains in Iraq are tactical successes at best, devoid of an overarching strategy to integrate local powerbrokers into a broader national framework. Our presence has only added to the complexities in Iraq as we meddle in local dynamics and contribute to internal divisions and sectarian tensions. Keeping a significant military presence in Iraq will not bring lasting stability to that country. Indeed, the Iraqi people and the Iraqi parliament continue to oppose an open-ended U.S. military presence in their country, which is something they have in common with the American people.

Keeping our troops in Iraq will not solve Iraq's problems, and it won't help us address the growing threat posed by al-Qaida around the world. It makes no sense to devote so many of our critical resources and so much of our attention to one country, rather than to the global fight against al-Qaida.

Every year, I hold town hall meetings in each of the 72 counties of Wisconsin, and over the January and February recess I held some 30 meetings in some of the most conservative parts of the state. I didn't bring up Iraq at those January meetings because I wanted to see whether it was still a major concern, particularly with these audiences. And guess what, in every single meeting, they brought it up with me. And they didn't just bring it up, they asked what we are doing to bring home the troops. But I had to tell them that, instead of getting out of Iraq, we will likely be sending one-third of the members of the Wisconsin National Guard back to Iraq next year, many of whom have served within the last 2 or 3 years.

They will be torn from their family, their jobs, their communities, to be put in harm's way, all in order to create space for a political reconciliation in Iraq that is always just over the horizon. They will not be there to protect the people of Wisconsin in the event of an emergency, nor will they be reinforcing our troops in Afghanistan, who face what one recent report described as a ``stalemate'' in fighting al-Qaida's ally, the Taliban. Like Americans all across the country, the people of Wisconsin don't think this makes sense. They want an end to our involvement in this war in Iraq, and they want to know what's stopping us from making it happen.

This administration has been so distracted by Iraq that it has neglected to address the top threats to our national security. It has allowed security conditions in Afghanistan to deteriorate tremendously, to the point where former NATO Commander General Jones recently concluded that we are in a ``strategic stalemate.'' I need hardly remind my colleagues that this is the country from which al-Qaida launched the 9/11 attacks, and where it continues to operate.

While agreeing to provide 3,200 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Secretary Gates has also requested additional ground troops from our allies. If our allies are unwilling to provide those troops or worsening conditions require additional troops, it is far from clear that we will have the forces we need in Afghanistan without further undermining military readiness and homeland security.

Across the Afghan border, in Pakistan, things are also looking bad. The Director of National Intelligence testified recently that ``al- Qaida's central leadership based in the border area of Pakistan is al- Qaida's most dangerous component.'' The DNI also said that since the middle of 2006, there has been an influx of ``new Western recruits'' into this part of the world, an indication that al-Qaida is ``improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the United States: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the homeland.'' His testimony closely echoed his warnings from almost a year ago when he noted that future attacks against our nation were likely to come from that part of the world. It is worth mentioning that this is the same exact warning we received from the July 2007 NIE, which assessed that al-Qaida has regenerated and reconstituted itself in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

The administration has made matters worse by associating itself with an undemocratic, authoritarian regime in Pakistan, one that the Pakistani people, finally given the chance to make their voices heard, roundly rejected. In return for questionable anti-terrorism assistance, we have given the Musharraf regime billions of dollars, not to mention the cost to our credibility, and to our ability to build strong, sustainable partnerships in Pakistan.

Our endless presence in Iraq is distracting us from these core threats to our national security. Instead of dancing around these vital concerns, we need to address them head on and that is why we need a strategy for defeating al-Qaida and its affiliates around the globe. We need a strategy which identifies the gravest threats to our national security and makes recommendations for addressing them with both military and nonmilitary initiatives.

I know there is no silver bullet to defeat al-Qaida. But it has been made very clear to Congress, and to the American public that if we are to protect ourselves at home, there must be a dramatic shift in how we order our national priorities. We cannot continue with the current agenda. We must refocus not just so we have the capacity to respond to other contingencies abroad but also because our heavy footprint in Iraq makes us more vulnerable at home.

We need to rebuild our domestic response capability, which has been severely compromised by repeated deployments of our National Guard. As long as we keep over 100,000 troops in Iraq we will have to continue to deploy Guard units in a manner that compromises their ability to prepare for domestic incidents. Deployments to Iraq have left those responsible for protecting us at home with, on average, only 56 percent of the essential ``dual-use'' equipment needed to respond to a domestic incident.

Indeed, the National Guard Bureau estimates that it is facing a $47 billion equipment shortfall, including a $20 million shortfall in equipment needed to respond to a chemical, biological, or radiological incident at home, notwithstanding the fact that it is the stated intention of al-Qaida to pursue such weapons. The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves concluded that ``[b]ecause our nation has not adequately resourced its forces designated for response to weapons of mass destruction, it does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available.''

(Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries).

Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the Republican leader, there will be a period of morning business for an hour, with the Republicans controlling the first half, the majority controlling the final half. Following morning business, we will resume the motion to proceed to S. 2633, a bill that calls for the safe redeployment of the troops in Iraq. Today, the Senate will stand in recess from 12:30 until 2:15 p.m.

iraq

Mr. President, another day in Iraq. As we see from the morning papers--the Washington Post is a good example--headline: ``Suicide Bomber Hits Bus in Iraq's North.'' Among other things, the article goes on to state:

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt outside a

bus in northern Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least eight

people and injuring many more.

In a different paragraph:

The Tall Afar bombing followed a bloody weekend of attacks

against Shiite pilgrims, the deadliest incident taking place

on Sunday when a suicide bomber killed at least 63 pilgrims

near the southern town of Iskandariyah. Even as overall

violence has fallen, the recent attacks underscore the

tenuous security environment and the resiliency of the

insurgency.

In volatile Diyala province, armed men set up a fake

checkpoint and kidnapped 21 people.

Near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, gunmen attacked a

checkpoint manned by Sunni volunteers, killing the Sunni

volunteers.

Mr. President, this is 1 day and a half billion dollars. That is what is going on in Iraq.

What impact does that have? General Casey testified here yesterday. General Casey said:

The cumulative effects of the last 6-plus years of war have

left the Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight,

unable to do the things we know we need to do.

And I failed to mention in my earlier comments that below the article about the suicide bomber is the report of three more dead American soldiers: CPT Nathan R. Raudenbush, LCpl Drew W. Weaver, and SPC Keisha M. Morgan.

So that is where we are on the Iraq debate today. I will sum up in a short time, after I make a few other remarks, and I will ask consent so that we have some idea today as to how we will proceed.

I would tell all Senators that we will have, sometime today, either after the 30 hours or before a vote on the motion to proceed to the matter that is now before the Senate--immediately after that, no matter what happens on that--we will have a cloture vote on the second matter, which is, as we all know, a piece of legislation that calls for periodic reports by the President on the war on terror. Following that, when that is disposed of, we will go to the housing stimulus package. That is what I would like to spend a few minutes on because we will get to that sometime this week. It is only a question of when we get to it.

housing

Mr. President, the sights and signs of America's housing crisis are all around us. There is not a State in the Union that doesn't feel the housing crisis. Neighborhood streets are dotted with one ``For Sale'' sign after another. And once we have one ``For Sale'' sign or, even worse, the bank has a foreclosure sign on it, it affects the whole neighborhood.

One of my boys lives in Las Vegas, in a nice neighborhood. The housing prices there in the last 3 months have dropped 20 percent--20 percent. In Las Vegas, last month, there were more foreclosures than there were sales of new homes. This is very unusual because Las Vegas has been the fire that has burned upward for 20 years, creating such an economic strong point that it has been known for 20 years as the most rapidly growing State in the Union.

In these struggles, construction workers are having trouble finding jobs. Construction workers are having trouble making payments on their homes. In desperation, hard-working people have been talked into bad mortgages and are now seeing their homes just slip away. Every day, new statistics illuminate the depth of this growing crisis in the housing market.

The crisis is everyplace. Today, the Associated Press reported that the number of homes facing foreclosure across our country grew by 57 percent in the month of January. That is compared to a year ago. We also now know that sales prices have lost almost 10 percent in the final quarter of last year, and I am sure this quarter is going to be even worse. The last quarter marked the steepest drop in the 20-year history of the Standard & Poor's housing index.

In the crisis in Nevada, I have mentioned briefly last month that we saw the rate of foreclosures rise 95 percent from the previous year; in Reno and Sparks, 611 percent. Now, who suffers from these foreclosures? Families who own the homes? Of course they do, but they aren't the only ones. It is the whole neighborhood, those who live near foreclosures, families who have done nothing wrong, who have paid their bills on time. Yet they are seeing the value of their property zapped.

The Center for Responsible Lending has estimated that 40 million neighboring homes will experience a loss in equity if the expected foreclosures materialize. That would likely lead to a total decline of more than $200 billion in home equity, and some say that is very conservative. This could mean more than $3 billion in losses for Nevada alone.

If that is not bad enough for homeowners, it is very bad for local governments that have already been forced to cut services as a result of the shrinking tax base. One example: Washaw County--that is Reno--is facing a $26 million cut to its local budget, and they say it is mainly due to the housing crisis, and $26 million to Washaw County is a lot of money.

These numbers are staggering. We all know the housing crisis isn't just about statistics, it is about families. I have had, in the State of Nevada, six mobile resource centers where I bring in people. We do advertising and let them know we are going to be there. We bring in experts to talk, and we have people who service the loans there, we have credit counselors, and we have representatives from FHA. We have a wide range of experts there to talk to these desperate people to see if anything can be done to help them, and there are some things that can be done to help. These centers bring borrowers and mortgage services together to talk about how to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

The stories they tell are heartbreaking. I could tell lots of stories, but the one that stands out in my mind is a man by the name of Elisario. What extraordinary challenges this man and his family face. He is a marine veteran of the Iraq war. He has three children, three little girls. Like thousands of others of these heroes returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the war took its toll on him. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and is recovering from many surgeries related to injuries he sustained in Iraq. As a result of the injuries he suffered in service to our country, his family was forced, for a time, to rely on the income from his wife's part-time job. Now, remember the three little girls. They fell behind in their mortgage payments. That doesn't surprise anyone. He called his lender but was told it was his responsibility to pay the loan. They weren't willing to work with them at all. He was told to sell the home and get an apartment.

All across the country, people just like Elisario are looking to us for help. In far too many cases, people like him saw their mortgage payments skyrocket after the interest rate on their loan was reset. The sudden loss of income combined with the dramatic increase in the monthly payment is lethal for any homeowner. These are the families whom the legislation we will get to--hopefully sooner rather than later--this week will help.

This legislation we have is not for speculators. It is not for speculators who lost a bet. Are we going to bail out lenders who underwrote mortgages? No. They shouldn't have made those loans. That is their problem. We are not trying to bail out borrowers who should have known better. We are trying to give families like Elisario's a chance to keep their homes and stabilize the Nation's economy in the process.

The administration deserves credit for taking some first steps. I appreciate Secretary Paulson and like him a lot. He has led the efforts to gather mortgage servicers, investors, and housing counselors to form the Hope Now Alliance and Project Lifeline. These efforts should help, but it is such a tiny bit of help, and they are all voluntary. They fall completely short. Some estimate that less than 3 percent of at- risk families will be reached under his proposals--less than 3 percent. We have to help the 97\1/2\ percent who won't be reached.

The legislation before us does that. It will keep families in their homes by increasing preforeclosure counseling funds, expanding refinancing opportunities, and amending the Bankruptcy Code to allow more home loans on primary residences to be modified. This will help communities impacted by foreclosures by allowing parts of the country with high foreclosure rates to access Federal funds to purchase foreclosed properties for rehabilitation, rent, or resale.

The bill will help struggling businesses by making it easier for them to utilize losses incurred in 2006, 2007, and 2008 to offset prior years' income to recoup previously paid income taxes. This was the provision that was in our previous stimulus package that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle stopped us from moving forward on. It is one the home builders liked very much.

The legislation that will be before the Senate shortly will help families avoid foreclosure in the future by improving loan disclosures during the original loan and refinancing process. And one of the provisions that was also in our package that we had, that my good friends on the other side of the aisle defeated, was one the President called for in his State of the Union Message--revenue bonds to help people get into some of these homes that are being foreclosed upon.

Title IV of the legislation makes changes to the Bankruptcy Code. These changes would allow a bankruptcy judge to modify the terms of a mortgage on a primary residence but only under very limited circumstances, limited in scope and duration. Only families who can pass a strict means test in bankruptcy and are currently struggling with an adjustable rate mortgage and subprime loan that already exists are eligible. That is all.

There are limits to the modifications a judge can make to the interest rate, term, the principal amount of the mortgage. We do not aim to drive struggling families into bankruptcy with this proposal. No one should abuse the Bankruptcy Code to get out of debts they owe.

The means test provided in this legislation should prevent that from happening. Remember the reason this is necessary today. For example, in Las Vegas, if you own a home down on the oceanfront in Malibu, you buy that and finances go bad, you can go to bankruptcy court. The bankruptcy court can readjust that loan on your vacation property, your second home, but cannot do that on your primary residence. That is not the way it should be.

We are also mindful of concerns that this provision could make access to mortgages more difficult by increasing costs, it could inject more uncertainty into the market. All the experts say that is untrue. Georgetown has completed a study.

In today's New York Times, there is an article: ``Getting Real About the Rescue.'' That is what it is about. And they go on to state how important it is that we do this stimulus package but

especially we do this bankruptcy provision. This editorial says, among other things:

If the bankruptcy provision becomes law, as it should,

lenders will have a powerful incentive, which they currently

do not have, to modify troubled loans voluntarily. If they

can't or won't come to new terms with borrowers, then they

would run the risk that a bankruptcy court would do the

modifying for them.

But most, or all, I repeat, independent experts agree that any increase in costs would be nonexistent. Meanwhile, this modified bankruptcy language would help more than 200,000 families avoid foreclosure. It would stabilize the housing market, prevent future, perhaps deeper losses to families, investors--and that is so important, we have to do that. That is why we have to act.

There may be no perfect solution to the growing housing crisis, but standing back and doing nothing would be a real mistake. The legislation that will shortly be before us will make a real difference to homeowners, neighborhoods, and our economy.

More than 700,000 families will benefit from the policies in this measure, 80,000 vacant foreclosed homes will be put back to productive use, 30,000 jobs, and $10 billion in economic activity will be created.

I hope my colleagues will join us to support cloture on the motion to proceed to this matter so we can pass the legislation and bring the relief to hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I will use my leader time and ask unanimous consent that the vote not occur at 2:45.

Mr. President, during the recess we had, I was in Nevada. People all across the State of Nevada, just like people all across this country, are committed to ending the war in Iraq.

These are the facts. We need to end the worst foreign policy blunder in our Nation's history, which started with the invasion of Iraq. What has 5 years of war brought to America, to the Middle East, to the world? It has brought thousands of deaths, almost a trillion dollars in debt, catastrophic failure of diplomacy. What has 5 years of war brought to America, to the Middle East, and the world? Debt, depression, and death.

My Republican colleagues, think what this war has done to our Nation's fiscal soundness. It has destroyed it. In less than a year borrowed money for Iraq will be $1 trillion--soon $1 trillion of borrowed money, with the likely Republican nominee for President saying we may need to be in Iraq for another 100 years. We are nearing the tragic milestone of 4,000 dead Americans, more than 30,000 wounded Americans, many gravely wounded, amputations, blindness, hearing loss, untold thousands with head trauma, making life after the war most difficult. This week brings news from the Pentagon that there will be 140,000 American troops in Iraq still in July, 8,000 more than when the surge began in January of 2007.

In Iraq a civil war rages, with the past 2 days bringing us the news of Sunni attacks on Shias while the Shias observe a religious holiday, attacks that killed at least threescore, wounded more than 100. And, of course, the Shias will reciprocate; and just in an off place that you have to search hard in the newspaper, three more dead American soldiers. These are the facts.

In Israel we find the Bush administration has been too preoccupied to be concerned with the volatility of the Palestinian-Israeli situation. Now we have a raging civil war in the Palestinian territory, Hamas versus Fatah. A government can't be formed in Lebanon where some say is also a civil war. Iran is thumbing its nose at us and the world community. Torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, warrantless spying on American citizens--all as a result of this misplaced war. These are the facts.

In an op-ed published in today's Washington Post, three noted writers and foreign policy experts said this:

Republicans will claim that after four years of disastrous

mistakes, the Bush administration finally got it right with

its troop ``surge.'' Yet despite the loss of nearly 1,000

American lives and the expenditure of $150 billion, the surge

has failed in its stated purpose: providing the Iraqi

government with the breathing space to pass the 18

legislative benchmarks the Bush administration called vital

to political reconciliation.

To date it has passed only four.

And some say the four passed are for show; they have no substance.

Moreover, as part of the surge, the administration has

further undermined Iraq's government by providing arms and

money to Sunni insurgent groups even though they have not

pledged loyalty to Baghdad.

My high school pal, my buddy, I named one of my boys after him, he named one of his boys after me. I am proud of my namesake. He is a heroic helicopter pilot, having served a very difficult tour in Afghanistan and now Iraq. We exchanged regular e-mails during his time overseas. These e-mails were wonderful. Before going to Iraq, we had the opportunity to meet in Las Vegas for dinner. He was on his way. It was a nice dinner. He proudly told me of his war stories, stories of real-life valor. Now the e-mails have stopped. I had the good fortune of meeting my friend at my home in Searchlight last week, last Monday, a week ago yesterday.

I said: Why don't I get e-mails anymore. His dad told me that his son said: They need to get us out of here. He wants to come home with the rest of our gallant, even heroic troops. These are the facts.

The mission has not been accomplished. We have not been met as liberators. After 5 years of war, we are still an occupying force. Iraq, with untold wealth because of its oil supply, must take care of its own citizens. Americans need to start taking care of Americans. We cannot spend a half billion dollars every day in Iraq. These are the facts.

We will soon vote on two amendments that will begin to change course in the bloody Iraq civil war. Our first vote is on a bill to responsibly begin to redeploy our troops so we can refocus on other threats and challenges around the world. Do we have them? General Casey testified today in a building a short distance from here that the Army is in a state of distress. We heard on the media this morning about what is going on in the Pacific. The admiral in charge there doesn't have the necessary force to do even intelligence. It has been shipped to Iraq.

We need to begin to redeploy our troops. That is what this amendment is about. We can refocus on other threats and challenges, and there are many, and limit the troops to counterterrorism, force training, and protecting our assets.

The other bill we will vote on later is also extremely important. It calls for a report from the administration on the status of the fight against al-Qaida, the fight against terrorism. As the war in Iraq rages, bin Laden remains free, and his terrorist network is gaining power worldwide. This legislation will shine the spotlight on this unmet challenge of fighting terrorism and keeping America safe--today, tomorrow, and beyond.

I urge my colleagues to seek common ground toward a new American foreign policy that strengthens our security, supports our troops, and begins to restore our Nation's ability to once again lead in the way we have in generations past.

cloture motion

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 hours of postcloture debate prior to the motion to proceed being agreed to, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; further, that upon disposition of this legislation, S. 2633, the Senate then proceed to a cloture vote with respect to S. 2634.

Mr. President, I am satisfied that we got cloture on the motion to proceed to this important legislation, and I appreciate the bipartisan vote in this regard. Usually, however, when we get cloture on a motion to proceed, it means Senators are prepared to actually begin consideration of that legislation. However, I have asked consent that we do just that. My minority colleagues have objected.

The only conclusion a reasonable person could have is that they are resorting to a new variation of the old theme. Remember, in 1 year-- last year--the Republican minority broke all rules in filibusters. In 1 year, we had to file cloture 68 different times. So it is obvious this is only an effort to stall, as they have done for the entire time we have been in the majority.

Now, we are happy to legislate regarding Iraq, but it is obvious to me what the game plan is. They want us to slow the Senate down from getting things done. It is interesting to note that when the 30 hours is up, we will automatically go to cloture on the piece of legislation that calls for a reporting requirement on the global war on terror. From the statements made by the distinguished Republican leader, they don't like that. So it would seem to me it is very clear that they are going to do everything they can to stop us from getting to the housing legislation, which the American people badly need. I think it is important that we do the housing legislation and that we do consumer product safety. Of course, we are going to do the budget resolution. It is obvious the Republican minority is in their usual stalling tactic.

Now, we have a few people who can speak, too, during these 30 hours, but what we should be doing is legislating on this most important legislation. Remember, the Iraq war is within a matter of days going to be starting the sixth year--the sixth year of this war. It has been reported that in less than a year, this war will cost the American taxpayer $1 trillion. Remember, Lindsey was fired because he said it would cost $100 billion. He was fired. Well, he was a little off.

We know that in a matter of a few days we are going to have a milestone, a tragic milestone. There will be 4,000 dead Americans. Our troops have fought valiantly. We all acknowledge that. But as I indicated in my statement earlier today, they want to come home. Wherever you go, that is what they tell you. The parents tell you that. The troops tell you that. A Capitol policeman came home. He has been over there for almost a year. I talked to him yesterday: When are you going back?

He said: In 2 weeks.

How has it been, Jim?

He said: It has been pretty tough.

He is a different person than he was, having been through what he has been through.

So if the Republicans want to talk about Iraq, we are happy to talk about Iraq and about how this money we have borrowed and continue to borrow--$1 trillion--is preventing us--I met with the Governors yesterday, the Democratic Governors. They know what they are not doing in their States because they have no money, whether it is infrastructure, the deterioration of roads, bridges, and dams or whether it is health care. They can't take care of some of the basic needs of the people from their States, and they know it is because of this war.

The President doesn't like to borrow money, except for this war. There is a carte blanche: Borrow as much as you need. This war is costing us now about a half a billion dollars a day--a day. So isn't it good that the American people are hearing us talk about this?

As I indicated in an earlier statement I made a few minutes ago, let's not start boasting about the surge. During the surge, we have lost about 1,000 American troops--1,000 American troops. We are glad the violence is down, but that is all a matter of degree. The Shia religious holiday they are trying to finish, in 2 days, more than 60 killed, more than 100 wounded, and this is Sunni on Shia, and you can bet whatever you have to bet, the Shias will be back to inflict equal damage against the Sunnis, and the Sunnis, to whom we have paid huge amounts of money, have not even declared loyalty to the Baghdad Government.

So we are happy to talk about Iraq. It is obvious the Republicans are doing everything they can to stop us from going forward on legislation, something dealing with the economy, of course. What would have been the right thing to do, if they were sincere about moving forward, a motion to proceed. I want everyone who is within the sound of my voice to understand that motions to proceed are routine. No one made us go forward on motions to proceed, until this Republican minority showed up, and then on virtually everything, they are doing the slow walk on everything--everything. If they

were legitimate and genuine about what they want to do, we would be on this piece of legislation that has been introduced and we would be talking about the merits of it. But, no, that can't start.

Understand that at the end of 30 hours, automatically we have a vote on the next cloture that has been filed because everything we do around here, we have to file cloture on a motion to proceed because of the big stalls taking place. So we are ready to talk as long as people want to talk on this issue. We have Democratic Senators who want to talk about this because they know what this war has done to what is taking place in our States, as indicated by the Governors whom I met with yesterday.

Mr. President, I am happy to yield to my friend from Illinois in a minute.

We are happy to debate the Iraq issue. We have always been happy to do it. Thirty-five times we have, and that is 35 times more than when the Republicans were in the majority. The war went on for years with no oversight, none whatsoever. We have at least demanded that, and I think it is important we have done that.

I would also ask my Republican colleagues, why don't they ever talk about the costs of this war? The costs in life, bodily injury, and money--money that is keeping this country from taking care of its own?

Mr. President, will my colleague yield for a brief statement?

Mr. President, I just finished a conversation with the Republican leader. We have decided it is to the interest of everyone we have no more votes tonight, so everyone should understand that. We will be out tomorrow to decide what we are going to do after Senator McConnell and I have a chance to get together in the morning.

No more votes tonight.

Mr. President, first of all, I, too, want to express my respect for the Senator from Wisconsin. We have a lot of things on which we agree. This happens to be something on which we adamantly disagree. But I appreciate, as someone who pushes the limits in this body, his desire to have this debate because I think it is important.

We just heard the Senator from Michigan talk, and the statement would have been a fairly accurate reflection 2 years ago. But it has nothing to do, and it is not even anywhere close, to what is ongoing in Iraq today.

I think the case could have been made 2 years ago that Iraq was in a civil war. Nobody who has visited Iraq in the last 2 months can make that claim. It is not there. Outside of the Green Zone, I met with people whose daughters had been murdered by al-Qaida. I met with people whose father had been murdered. I met with both Sunni and Shia in the same village, in multiple villages, who had reconciled because they reject the terrorism of al-Qaida.

There is no question lots of mistakes have been made with the Iraq policy. But the claims under which we try to describe Iraq today in light of how it was 12 months ago are fictitious at best and damaging probably in terms of what the truth is.

Do we find ourselves in a very difficult situation? Absolutely. Is this an expensive war? Absolutely. Would we all like to not be where we are? I think almost everybody would agree to that. But probably the more important question for me is, where are we today compared to where we were 12 months ago, and have, in fact, the mistakes of the past been reflected in policies that have changed and bode for a greater future absent additional mistakes?

The desire of the Senator from Wisconsin to have us out in a way that limits our exposure is something that I would love to be able to see. But the practical nature of what he wants to accomplish could not be accomplished in less than 18 to 24 months. I mean, it could not happen. You go and talk to the military; it could not happen without us leaving tons of equipment.

But the point is, we should not dwell on that. The point is, did we make the necessary changes that can create an outcome that gives us an honorable exit from the situation, and does it leave a genocide behind? I firmly believe, having traveled--my trip prior to this one was 6 months before the surge. I want to tell you the difference is like night and day, everywhere I went. I duplicated places I went before.

So with the earnestness that the Senator from Wisconsin drives his position, we ought to reflect on what has been accomplished. I also find it very disingenuous to talk about the cost of this war by the person who sponsored more legislation and greater Government spending than anybody in this body in the 109th Congress, in the first session of this Congress.

The fact is, $349 billion worth of new spending was coauthored by the Senator from Michigan last year, $349 billion, the same Senator who voted to fund the bridge to nowhere.

I happen to agree we ought to be paying for the war. We ought to be paying for the war, and we could easily pay for the war by eliminating wasteful spending.

I would direct you to the Reader's Digest last month where they estimated $1 trillion we are missing in wasteful spending. That is an underestimate. So for us to make a claim of a fiscal nature, by the person who has cosponsored more spending than anybody in this body, and has voted against amendments to decrease wasteful spending, is somewhat less than genuine, I believe.

I think the other thing that needs to be said is we had a debate, and we actually funded the surge. It actually happened. We ought to be talking about what happened with that. To me, it is phenomenal, the difference. I will tell you, I am very--we lost a soldier from Ardmore, OK, a 19-year-old soldier killed by an IED.

How can it be that we can continue to do this unless we are doing it for the right reasons and the right cause? I believe if we walk away, no matter how we got there, rightly or wrongly, if we walk away, what I see happening, from my experience in Iraq in 1993 after the first gulf war and before this one, as a medical missionary, here is what I see happening: If we do what the Senator from Wisconsin wants us to do, and we effectively carry this out, I see an unstable northern Iraq. I see a war between Iran, Turkey, and Kurdistan. I see a marked civil war between Shia and Sunni, with involvement of the Sunni Triangle, Sunni crescent. I see a total destabilization of the Mideast. But beyond all of that, what I see is tremendous additional tragedy that we will have impacted onto the people of Iraq, and in the deaths of 500,000 to 1 million more people.

And the question ought to be: Do we have a moral obligation to fix what we started? The assessment of the Senator from Wisconsin is that we cannot fix it so therefore we ought to come home, we ought to get out, that it was a mistake to begin with; it does not matter what has happened in the past other than we learned from it.

The question is, what can we do about the future? I want to tell you, I do not buy everything the Pentagon says. I am pretty critical across their spending, across everything else. I accused them of lying to me on the training of Iraqi troops in 2006.

But when you see what has been transformed in the training of troops in Iraq, which is comparable to our training of our own troops over the same period of time, and what they have accomplished both in terms of synergism with both their equipment, their military leaders, and their troops, and they walk out of training as a Sunni and Shia together and you see that and you say we are going to walk away from that, we are not going to finish it, we are going to allow this thing to collapse-- and it will.

So then the question is, have we made another mistake in not fulfilling an obligation in something that we started? I do not believe we can do that. If we do that, I think the blood of every Iraqi that is displaced or dies after that is on us--not on the Taliban, not on al- Qaida, not on Shia extremists, not on Sunni extremists but on us.

We can win. We will win. We can. There is political progress all across the board, locally and at the regional and at the national government level. I would remind the Members of this body how long it took us to get a functioning government, a functioning government after our independence, one that was based on a constitution, one that was based on the rule of law. It was not smooth sailing. We did not do it in a short period of time. And we did not even get it right when it came to equal rights of individuals. We did not get it right. Yet we are frustrated with that.

I see a new day in Iraq. It is not over. It is dangerous, it is still very dangerous. But the progress, the improvement, the reconciliation between Shia and Sunni is unbelievable.

In province across province, the Shia, the Sunni awaking, the sons of Iraq phenomenon, the coordination of local governments across ethnic lines is in stark contrast with what was there a year and a half ago. Do we just abandon that? Think about the message it sends if we are not going to create a stable Iraq. What immediately do they do? They immediately start going to their own intrinsic ethnic corner. We divide. We send the Kurds one way, the

Shia one way, and the Sunni one way. We create a holocaust.

I want to say publicly I have had a lot of misgivings about what our country has done in the Middle East. But I have no misgivings at all at this time about the course we are on. The leadership of General Petraeus, the leadership of Ambassador Crocker, the leadership of the people within Iraq, sheikhs within small communities risking their lives every day to stand up and say: I will join hands with a Sunni, with the Shia. I am going to reject al-Qaida and we are going to get our lives back together--that is happening. That is a dynamic that is forcefully happening because people want peace.

This will eliminate that movement. This will create insecurity. This will drive people to their corners. This will drive people to extreme positions. In fact, what we have accomplished in the last 12 months will be denuded and neutered out to the point where we will have created a worse situation rather than a better one.

To the soldiers and families who have sacrificed so much in this war, I say thank you from my family. The real problem of the administration, the mistake they made, is we should all be sacrificing for this war, not just our military families. We have refused to do that as Members of the Senate by making sure that we pay for this war, by getting rid of things that are lower priorities, getting rid of things that are duplicative. We didn't do that. We said, we will charge it to our kids. We can't ruffle any feathers and make the hard choices.

The Senator from Michigan said: We do things based on value and priorities. That is baloney. We do things based on how we get reelected, with the exception of the Senator from Wisconsin, who is one of the most honorable men in this body. He never thinks about that issue. He thinks about what he thinks is right. But the way we do things around here is what is politically expedient, not what is right. For her to claim that that is how we do things, when we can't even get rid of billions of dollars in duplicative programs, $8 billion worth of buildings that the Pentagon wants to get rid of because it might ruffle some politician's feathers somewhere--we don't do things based on priority or on value. We do it on political expediency.

Again, I thank the troops and the families who are sacrificing. I am amazed at the progress that has been made, literally amazed. I believe we ought to honestly look at that before we walk a different direction. We ought to truly reassess where we are. It is a big price. I know it is. We have paid a big price in this endeavor. It is fair to question whether we should continue it. But it is not fair to not look at what has happened over the last 12 months in a realistic and open assessment that says, is there light at the end of the tunnel? I will tell you, there is. Individually, in talking to Shia and Sunni families while over there, outside of the Green Zone, walking among them without protection, seeing the hope in their eyes that finally things are going to get back to where they can take care of their families, move ahead with their goals and their personal lives, the leadership exhibited by our military, not just in leadership roles but all the way down to the private and what they are doing and how they are doing it and how they are carrying it out in Iraq, is something we can all be proud of. I don't think we should jeopardize what they are doing by voting for this bill. It is great for us to question. Sometimes we haven't done that well enough. But to ignore the reality of what is happening today in Iraq and the trend lines and the movement lines and the economic growth lines and the power lines and the oil production lines and the agreement among Shia and Sunni at all of these regional and provincial levels, to ignore that is a grave mistake on our part.

It is my hope that we don't carry forward with this idea. It is also my hope that we will truly recognize, not be blinded, not be sold a bill of goods. I am not suggesting that. We should ask the tough questions. But to deny the marked change, the tremendous progress, the tremendous freedom, the tremendous lifting of the burden on the Iraqi people that has happened in the last 12 months and not say that means something and not say that that means we are going absolutely in the right direction--we haven't won this war, but we certainly have them on the run. We certainly have the Iraqi people enamored with us to the point where we are not despised. We are welcome now in the vast majority of Iraq. In 95 percent of Iraq we are welcome because we are a liberator of them from al-Qaida, not from Saddam but from al-Qaida, the one who cut their 8-year-old daughter's head off because she looked at them wrong, the ruthlessness of radical Islam. That is what is at stake right now. We can differ in our approach on how we might battle that, but this is the heat sink right now. Iraq is the heat sink for al- Qaida. It is where they are, where they are coming.

We are winning. The Iraqi people are winning, and the Iraqi troops are winning. Let's not destroy that.

I yield the floor.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. President, I am a little confused. About an hour and a half ago the majority leader brought up a bill. He and the Senator from Wisconsin had filed this bill to leave Iraq in 120 days. And he filed cloture on that to see whether enough Senators would agree to debate the bill. So that we can start to debate it, it took 60 Senators to vote yes. The majority leader must have been surprised when we voted yes because he does not seem to want to take yes for an answer.

He filed the bill, wanted to debate it, and presumably have a vote on it. But when we agreed to debate it, he called foul and said: You are trying to stall because you did not vote no so that we can move on to the next bill and then the next bill which will be the economic stimulus package.

So I am confused. Maybe I should not be because almost half of the members of the majority voting voted against cloture; that is to say, they voted against proceeding to the bill that the majority leader had filed. Now, ordinarily members of the majority do not vote against these cloture motions that the majority leader files to take

up a bill. Ordinarily, all of the members of the party vote with their leader on these votes.

I gather that the majority leader must have thought that the bill would not get cloture; that is to say, that we would not start the debate. Then I suppose Republicans would be accused of trying to stall, of not being willing to vote on the bill that he and the Senator from Wisconsin had filed, maybe putting Republicans into a no-win situation, damned if we do and damned if we do not.

If we agree with the majority leader and take up his bill to debate it, we are stalling. And if we do not agree, then I suspect we would have been accused of not being willing to debate Iraq and not being willing to vote on the amendments or the bill that he and the Senator from Wisconsin filed.

So as I say, I am confused. All Republicans did was to say: OK, you wanted to debate the bill that you filed. We will agree to proceed with that. Now the distinguished minority whip just said Republicans are speechifying this to death. Well, Republicans have spoken about 5 minutes out of the last hour. All of the rest of the time has been taken by members of the majority party. The majority whip himself spoke, I think, a little over half an hour. I do not intend to take that long.

But I think it is hard to accuse Republicans of speechifying the bill to death when all we did was, an hour and a half ago, agree to debate, and the minority leader has spoken a total of about 5 minutes. Do you want a debate on Iraq or not? Now that the surge is working, it appears maybe that members of the majority party are not so anxious to have that debate.

But as Minority Leader McConnell pointed out, Republicans are willing to have that debate. A group of Republicans were just in Iraq over the course of the last week. Several of us have been there since the first of the year and have a very positive story to report about the work that our troops are doing there and the effect of their efforts.

There is a positive report that the American people deserve to hear. So I think you will see Republicans agreeing to debate the resolution. For my purpose, I am perfectly happy to vote on it. But under the rule that the majority leader has taken advantage of, as soon as we have had 30 hours to debate this, then automatically we go to the next Feingold- Reid bill.

That is a bill that does not have us get out of Iraq, but rather says we should try to develop a strategy to deal with al-Qaida. Well, of course, the administration's first strategy, as we have discussed on this floor many times, the first, best way to deal with terrorists is to get good intelligence on them to know what they are up to. Maybe we could have prevented 9/11 had we had better intelligence. And so the FISA--this is the law that allows us to listen in on the communications of these terrorists--that bill, that law expired.

The President said: We are losing good intelligence. You need to act to reauthorize that law.

The Senate did. I think we had 68 votes, a bipartisan vote. We acted in a bipartisan way to support that. Many of our colleagues, I think it was 28 or 29, voted to oppose that. Now the leadership of the House of Representatives has said: Well, let it expire. And they went on the break 12 days ago without having acted to reauthorize the so-called FISA law.

That law needs to be reauthorized. Each day that passes that it is not reauthorized, we are losing intelligence. Now, what happens if there is another 9/11 and we later find out that one of the reasons is because for a period of several weeks we could not listen in to what those terrorists were saying? We are missing intelligence.

Frankly, we ought not to do anything else around here until we get that law reauthorized and the President can sign it into law. But the majority leader said: First, we are going to have a debate on the Feingold-Reid bill to get out of Iraq in 120 days. Then we need to have a debate on developing a new strategy for dealing with al-Qaida.

Okay. Republicans are happy to engage in that debate, as I said. But to be accused by the majority of trying to stall by simply agreeing to the debate that the majority requested, is not correct.

Moreover, nobody is trying to stall consideration of a housing bill or an economic stimulus package. We understand that the majority is going to be bringing such a package to the floor. We have not seen it. We do not know what is in it. We are certainly not stalling it. It is not here yet. The majority leader could have brought that to the floor. He could have told us what is in it. He could have filed cloture on it so that we had the vote on whether we are going to take it up, but instead he brought up the first Iraq resolution. Then that is going to be automatically followed by a second resolution dealing with al-Qaida. Then, only after that, apparently, do we get to the economic stimulus or housing package.

So it is not Republicans who are holding it up. We have not done anything to hold it up. We have not even seen it yet.

So I think this criticism of Republicans for stalling simply because we agreed with the majority leader to take up his bill and debate it is not accurate, and it is not fair to Republicans.

Now what about the surge and this Iraq resolution? I think it is interesting that the first criticism was that we had a failed policy in Iraq. So when General Petraeus developed a new policy, the surge policy, which began to work, the debate suddenly began to shift. Now that it is very clear the surge has worked it is shifting even more. It is shifting now to, well, OK, maybe the surge is working, but the Iraqi Government needs to do more.

Well, the Iraqi Government is now doing a lot more, too, as we will hear. But I suspect nothing is going to be good enough for those who want to get out of Iraq now because, as the majority whip has pointed out, we really need to improve America's image abroad. And there a lot of people who disagree with us, so that is one of the reasons we need to get out of Iraq.

But he also said--how many times--that we are doing better in Iraq. Well, I do not know how many times, but certainly since General Petraeus reported to the Congress, and every week thereafter, there has been improvement. And all we have to do is listen to our colleagues who have been there recently to see this reported progress in Iraq.

I do not know why people are so afraid of good news when you are winning in a war. Why is that not a good thing? Why are you not proud of that? Why do you not say: That is great; let's finish the job.

I suspect if you ask the majority of our troops: Now that you have got your boot right on the neck of these enemy terrorists, do you think we ought to let it up and walk away or do you think we ought to finish the job? My guess is they would all say: Let's finish the job or you all back in Washington let us finish the job. Do not pull the plug on us so that we have to leave Iraq before we finish the job.

It is interesting there is now a new argument: OK, maybe the surge is working. Maybe the Iraqi Government is going to be taking the action we asked them to do. And, in fact, they have. They are now taking action on the so-called reconciliation there on local elections and the like.

But now the argument is, well, we could actually spend this money on other things. Of course, you can always spend money on other things. When you are in a war, however, it is a little different. You cannot just pull the plug and say we would rather spend the money on housing or transportation or education than we would on the war. You do not have that option. You cannot just pick up stakes and leave because you have to consider the cost of what you leave behind.

Most of the experts who have talked about this have made it crystal clear if we decide we want to leave because we would rather spend the money on something else, the ultimate cost would be far greater than if we finished the job. Because by most estimates, the situation would deteriorate. Al-Qaida would reinfiltrate, and the other enemies of the Iraqi people would create more problems. The next thing you know, we would have to come back in and try to clean up the mess that was created because we left prematurely. The bottom line is, the cost of leaving prematurely would be far greater than the cost of finishing the job once and

for all. It is also difficult to put a price on our national security, especially because of those young men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We owe it to them to ensure that what they have done, the sacrifice they have made, is not going to be wasted, is not going to be lost because we were too anxious to get out of there to spend money on something else. That is not good policy. It is not the way to win a war. It is certainly not the way to beat the terrorists.

The final point the majority whip made was we should return to the original al-Qaida threat. I get back to the point I made before. If you want to return to the original al-Qaida threat, there is no better way than, A, to finish the job in Iraq where we have al-Qaida on the run-- they are essentially defeated; let's don't let them rise back up again--and B, pass the FISA legislation, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows us to collect intelligence on these terrorists abroad. Again, we did that in the Senate, though many on the other side--28--voted against it.

The House of Representatives leadership has an obligation to try to get this done. Therefore, I call upon the Democratic House leadership to bring up the bill the Senate passed and see if it will pass the House of Representatives. I suspect the reason it has not been brought up is because they know it would pass. That is a bill the President would sign. Why wouldn't that be a good thing? That is the appropriate way to move forward.

Let me try to summarize. Republicans have put us into a stall, our Democratic friends say, because we agreed to debate the bill they wanted us to debate. They expected us to say no, that we wouldn't debate it. Then we would have been accused of trying to avoid debate. But we agreed. We will have the debate. It is only 30 hours. That is hardly enough time for all of my colleagues to be able to say the things they want to say, if we have half of that time, but nonetheless we will try to give the report of the truth of what is happening in Iraq. The American people will be better off for that. So I am glad we agreed with the majority leader to proceed to the debate on this bill. I suspect we will want to do the same thing on the next bill.

If and when the Democratic majority puts together an economic stimulus package, then we can take a look at that and see whether we want to debate that as well. But, again, our first priority ought to be to get the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed because every day that goes by that that law is not in effect, we jeopardize our national security. We jeopardize our ability to collect intelligence on al-Qaida and other terrorists, and we put the lives of Americans at risk. That is unacceptable.

Mr. President, at this time I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Wyoming, speaking to essentially the urgency of where we are, and the recognition that we have been working on this legislation, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and its reauthorization--and as he mentioned, it should have passed a year and a half ago--but that we have been working on it for a good 10 years. It has been a collaborative effort of many leaders in the Senate. Senator McCain has been mentioned, as the former chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. Prior to his chairing that committee, it was Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell who was leading the effort to move forward with this very important reauthorization.

I had the opportunity to go home to Alaska over this past recess, and it was a busy recess for me, as it was for, I know, many of my colleagues. I had an opportunity to visit Galena, which is the Athabascan Indian village on the Yukon River. I was in Fairbanks, Seward, Anchorage, and my hometown of Girdwood. I had a chance to visit with seven or eight Alaskan natives who are training under the dental health aide therapist program in Anchorage. This is a very unique partnership with the University of Washington School of Medicine. What we are doing in Alaska now is training Alaska natives as mid-level professional dental health aide therapists to go out and provide for the dental health needs of so many in our rural communities, in our villages around the State where they simply do not have any level of dental health care. I am not talking about a dentist who comes every other week. I am saying we don't have a dentist every other year practically in some of these villages. So we are providing a training opportunity that is unique to Alaska and is very important.

So even though it is tough to leave home and come back here to work, it is good to be back here knowing that we are working on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, working to finish this very important legislation.

We have had many of our colleagues speak about the challenges of delivering quality health care to America's Native people and the funding environment that all have admitted is inadequate to support those needs.

Those challenges are not limited to the lack of funding, they also include the lack of trained personnel who are willing to live in some of the most remote places in which Indian health care is delivered. So that is one side of the coin. But there is also some very real innovation that is going on within the Indian health care delivery system.

As I listened to the debate that went on on the Senate floor in the past several weeks, it dawned on me that we saw a lot of focus, a lot of attention on some of the inadequacies but that we did not spend any time during that debate to recognize the people, the tribal leaders, the health care professionals who are unwilling to let the lack of funding stand in the way of excellence in health care delivery.

So as we move to conclude our debate on this very important piece of legislation for the health of our Native people, I wish to take a few moments this evening to focus on some of the ways, in my home State, our Native leaders and our Indian health care professionals have partnered to overcome what seemed to be insurmountable obstacles in their quest for excellence.

My focus now on these examples from Alaska is not intended to imply we are not seeing innovation in Indian health care delivery in other places of Indian Country, but I have chosen to speak about these programs because I know them, I believe in them.

In the State of Alaska, we have Native people who have lived in more than 200 traditional villages along the rivers and coasts for thousands of years, and Natives continue to occupy those villages today. But those are places, many of them are places where doctors and nurses and physicians assistants or the PAs, where they did not live, and they will not live.

But that does not mean Alaska's Native people lack access to basic medical care. If one gets sick or injured in a Native village which may be hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital, you need to know you are not alone. In our State, we faced up to the challenge of providing access to medical care in remote places by training Native people to serve as community health aide practitioners. This is a program that originated during the tuberculosis epidemics back in the 1950s. They had volunteer chemotherapy aides who gave out oral medicine in the village under the remote supervision of a physician.

In the 1960s, a structured training program was created to train Native people residing in the villages to function as the eyes and ears, the hands of medical personnel who may be hundreds of miles away.

At one point in time, this link between the village health aide and the doctor in the regional hospitals was carried out by a single- sideband radio similar to what the ham operators use. Then later it was carried out by telephone, subsequently e-mail. Now we have a state-of- the-art telemedicine backbone that connects the health aides and the supervising physicians.

Alaska's Community Health Aide/Practitioner Program was first recognized and funded by the Congress in 1968 and is 40 years old this year. It has earned the respect of the medical profession and has tremendously improved the health condition of Alaska's Native people. I mentioned earlier I had a chance to view those young people who are currently in the Dental Health Aide Therapist Program. This is an extension of this concept to improve the oral health condition of Native people who live in places where the dentists may visit once a year if they visit at all.

These are a few examples from my State of the kind of innovation we have seen going on in Indian health care delivery for some time. I wish to give you a more recent example. This is the Southcentral Foundation's patient-centered primary care initiative.

The initiative has transformed the quality of health care delivered to Native people residing in a service area of

150,000 square miles within southcentral Alaska. The Southcentral Foundation is a tribal health provider which delivers health care under a self-governance compact with the IHS.

Our CEO of the Southcentral Foundation is Katherine Gottlieb, an Aleut. She was the first Alaskan ever to win the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. She won that award for the patient-centered primary care initiative I will describe for you.

The initiative itself has been discussed in professional journals ranging from the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Family Practice Magazine published by the American Association of Family Physicians. It is the subject of a case study published by the Institute for Health Care Improvement in Boston, which is one of our Nation's foremost think tanks on health care quality.

In 1977, when Southcentral Foundation began to take over primary care delivery from the IHS, the average delay to schedule a routine appointment ranged from 4 weeks to several months. The no-show rate was about 25 percent for appointments, and patients did not have any idea who their primary care provider was. In 1999, Southcentral Foundation embarked on a massive effort to redesign their system.

Today, patients are guaranteed same-day access to their own primary care provider if they call by a certain point in the afternoon; they get to choose their own primary care provider. They get to change their provider if they do not like the one they have chosen. Use of the emergency room and urgent care for primary care is down 50 percent. Use of specialists is down 50 percent. Wait times have decreased across the system.

Customer satisfaction, 91 percent of customers rate their overall care favorably. That is pretty impressive. Staff satisfaction has improved immeasurably. This is a system where you have members of the medical team, the doctors, the nurses, the physicians assistants, their technicians, and they all come together, they all rely on one another. Everyone is expected to work at the highest level allowed by their professional license.

What we saw with this transformation of Southcentral Foundation was it was not just achieved by throwing more money at the problem, it was achieved by changing the values of the system, from a staff-centered system to a patient-centered system that basically went from kind of a big and impersonable crank-them-through-the-process place--and these are the words of the medical director, Doug Eby--to a customer-owned- and-directed system which operates in accordance with Native values, not necessarily bureaucratic principles.

That transformation began with the decision of Native leaders to exercise their rights of self-governance under the provisions of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.

These self-governance provisions allowed tribes to take over the responsibilities for the delivery of health care from the Federal Government. The bill that is before us today, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, will provide self-governance providers, such as Southcentral Foundation, with the tools and the flexibilities they need to further expand these innovations.

We know the bill, S. 1200, was not written in an ivory tower; it was written primarily by Indian health care providers, tribal leaders who know the challenges we face in improving the health conditions of our Native people.

The leaders of our Alaska Native delivery system were key players in the process of formulating this legislation. For me, it is truly an honor and a privilege to be able to give voice to their ideas in the Senate. It is my sincere hope our colleagues today will vote to bring the debate on this important legislation to a close.

The process, as has been mentioned, of drafting this legislation began back in 1999. It has moved through the Indian Affairs Committee in so many different years--I mentioned, under the leadership of Senator Nighthorse Campbell, Senator McCain, Senator Thomas before his death, Senator Dorgan, so many who have put so much time and effort into this very important legislation.

It is long time that Congress modernize the legislation which governs the Indian health care delivery system in a way that promotes exactly this type of innovation I have spoken to that we have seen in Alaska. It is long time that we give our Indian health care providers the tools they need in their quest for excellence.

I anticipate we will move this legislation to final passage. It is something that as I speak to my constituents back home and as we talk about those issues that are most important to them, so much seems to come back to health care and how we are providing health care within the State of Alaska or around the Nation.

So passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act is long overdue. I look forward to seeing the day the President will be able to enact these changes into law.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, while we are waiting, I wish to make a few brief comments in reference to the amendment Senator Smith has introduced regarding the area distribution fund.

Coming from the State of Alaska, I do support Senator Smith's amendment, as we believe it will enable more Indian tribes to build the facilities and to address the inequities currently in the system. We recognize it has been under review, having been looked at for revision for years, but I think it is time to do something to create improvements to the system to get more facilities for the tribes.

Now, we recognize that funding is at the crux of this, but Senator Smith's amendment does not mandate that the Secretary create this system. It says if funding is available, that opportunity exists. Furthermore--and I think this goes to the concern many have--that within the current priority system, if there is a change, somehow or other those who have made their way up to the top will somehow be displaced. We understand it doesn't impact the current health care facilities priority system. What we are attempting to do with this amendment is to enhance that system.

I appreciate Senator Smith working with the committee, with the tribes, and with our colleagues on this issue. It is a very important issue, as Senator Dorgan has noted. So I do stand in support of Senator Smith.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I, too, want to thank so many who have done so much to advance this legislation. Very rarely do we see an opportunity for Indian bills of any nature to receive floor time, so I want to thank all our colleagues to be able to debate this very important issue with them.

I thank especially Chairman Dorgan for his leadership on this legislation. He has mentioned so many who have participated throughout the years, including the staffs, but we also need to recognize the leadership of the former chairman, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and, of course, Senator McCain, Senator Dorgan, Senator Inouye--so many who have done so much.

I also want to acknowledge the National Tribal Steering Committee for their efforts--great tribal leaders coming together to advance this very important legislation.

I have a long list of thank-yous, but truly it has been a great effort, and we appreciate the leadership on both sides in advancing this legislation.

Mr. President, I rise to recognize the passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. I again thank the majority leader and minority leader for committing floor time for this bill. Rarely have Indian bills received time on the Senate floor, but this is one that is very important to the well-being of our country's Native people that the attention it has been given by the Senate is more than justified.

I thank my colleagues for their commitment in considering this legislation, addressing the issues, and supporting our efforts to improve health care services for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

As with many bills, the provisions fall under more than one committee's jurisdiction. The Committee on Indian Affairs, on which I serve as the vice chairman, has shared this bill with the Finance and HELP Committees, and both of these committees have worked in earnest to assist us in crafting a bill to carry the Indian health care system into the 21st century.

I am fortunate to have a chairman on the Indian Affairs Committee-- Senator Dorgan--with whom I share a close working relationship. We both have significant populations of Native people in our States with similar issues and challenges in many areas such as health care, education, housing, economic development and transportation.

We have had numerous opportunities to work together in our committee, particularly on youth suicide prevention and treatment and telemedicine. I truly appreciate his persistence and dedication in advancing this bill.

Senators Grassley and Baucus have also worked with us closely to advance this measure through the Finance Committee last year which reported the bill out favorably in both the 109th and 110th Congresses. I also wish to recognize their staff Rodney Whitlock, Becky Shipp, and David Schwartz, who worked so closely with the Indian Affairs staff on this bill.

Likewise, Senator Enzi, in his capacity as chairman and now as ranking member of the HELP committee--worked very diligently on this legislation to refine key pieces of the legislation during the 109th Congress and again this year. Greg Dean, Shana Christrup, Randi Reid and Amy Shank devoted countless hours of work with the Indian Affairs Committee to work out issues, which I appreciate. I especially appreciate the leadership and commitment of Senator Kyl. He has one of the largest Indian populations in his State. His commitment to Indian issues was reflected by his continued involvement and that of his staff, Jennifer Romans, in working out issues to advance this bill.

We must not forget that this bill reflects the work of our dear colleague and my predecessor, the late Senator Craig Thomas, who held the reins as vice chairman last year. He eagerly pursued efforts to improve health care services for all American Indian communities, including those in his home State of Wyoming on the Wind River Indian Reservation, and it is most fitting that we will honor his work with the passage of this bill. I pointed out on the floor yesterday, in the 109th Congress, Senator McCain made a great effort to reauthorize the act in his role as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. Before that, Senator Campbell, who also served as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, carried this legislation since the 106th Congress as the original sponsor, along with Senator Inouye, until Senator Campbell's retirement in 2004.

Between Chairmen Campbell and McCain in the 108th and 109th Congresses, there were 8 hearings on the reauthorization, including joint hearings with the HELP Committee and with the House Resources Committee.

Our efforts had also great help from my good friends Senators Stevens, Domenici, Smith, Cochran, Hatch, and Thune. These Senators have been long-time friends of our country's Native people, and I want to acknowledge their dedication in promoting American Indian and Alaska Native health.

The Republican staff of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has waited a long time for this day to come. David Mullon, the Republican staff director and chief counsel, and Rhonda Harjo, the deputy chief counsel, came to the committee during Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell's tenure.

Rhonda Harjo has been the lead Republican staff member of the committee for Indian Health Care Improvement Act reauthorization since 2003. Indian country takes pride in her devotion to the betterment of her Native people and I share that pride today.

I also wish to acknowledge the efforts of Jim Hall and Jon Murphy and two Alaskans who recently joined the committee--Gerald Moses and Megan Alvanna-Stimpfle--in preparing this bill for floor consideration.

I also acknowledge the tireless efforts over the past 8 years of the Indian tribal and health care leaders and advocates across the U.S. in helping develop the legislative proposal which served as the basis for this bill. In particular, the National Tribal Steering Committee, consisting of tribal leaders and Indian health representatives, brought together the diverse interests of over 560 tribes across the country to a consensus on this very important measure.

That is no small task and it was handled dutifully by the cochairs of the National Tribal Steering Committee, Chairman Buford Rolin of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Atmore, Alabama, Rachel Joseph, former Chairwoman of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, in Lone Pine, California, and staff, Kitty Marx from the National Indian Health Board.

Three key Alaska Native leaders played significant roles on the National Tribal Steering Committee: Sally Smith, the chairman of the National Indian Health Board and the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation; Don Kashevaroff, the president of the Seldovia Village Tribe and chair of the Tribal Self-Governance Advisory Committee; and Valerie Davidson from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. I appreciate their leadership and thoughtful consideration in the development of this legislation.

A lot of good work went into this bill and our efforts should not go in vain. I look forward to working with my House colleagues and getting this bill on to the President's desk for signature.

Mr. President, we had a brief opportunity to express our thanks to those who have worked so hard on the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Again, my sincere thanks and gratitude to Chairman Dorgan for all that he has done.

This is a good day for Indian country, for Alaska Natives who are just waking up back home right now. They are going to wake up to news that they have been waiting to hear for a good decade: that finally we have advanced the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. We have taken that step. We recognize this is not the end-all and be-all in terms of providing for the health care needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives. We know we need to do more, and we are challenged to do that.

We talked about the funding issue and how we must make that next step to make sure it is not just what we put in the authorization, but we back that up with the dollars for the programs.

We have a long way to go, but I think we have made a very significant step today. I am proud of the work of my colleagues today and those who came before us on this very important issue.

``Exxon Valdez'' Oilspill

Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes this morning to talk about tomorrow because tomorrow the United States Supreme Court will hear the appeal of the ongoing litigation between ExxonMobil and commercial fishermen and other plaintiffs whose livelihoods were negatively impacted, devastated, in fact, by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oilspill. The Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. on March 24, 1989. It spilled 11 million gallons of oil--this is about the same size as 125 Olympic-sized swimming pools--directly into Prince William Sound in Alaska. The oil from the spill migrated several hundred miles from Bligh Reef and polluted roughly 1,300 miles of Alaskan shoreline. There were 11,000 square miles of ocean that were ultimately affected by this spill, which is believed to be the worst oilspill worldwide with respect to environmental damage.

Regrettably, the spill area is still affected some 19 years later. In 2001, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studied the shoreline of Prince William Sound for any remaining effects of the spill. Scientists reviewed 91 sites within Prince William Sound and found that 58 percent of these locations were still polluted by oil. Again, this is 19 years after the fact. Some estimates note that beaches and streams in this area are still polluted with over 25,000 gallons of oil.

Of course, the fisheries in Prince William Sound were affected. The herring fishery in this area experienced a dramatic decrease in the years immediately after the 1989 spill. As of 2007, the herring fishery had not improved to the pre-1989 levels. Another example is what has happened with the value of the fisheries permits in this part of the State. In 1988, a fishing permit in Prince William Sound was worth $400,000. As of 2004, the value of each such permit was less than $70,000, a drop of more than 82 percent.

There was a class action jury trial held in Federal court in Anchorage, AK, in 1994. The plaintiffs at that time included over 30,000 commercial fishermen, among those whose livelihoods were gravely affected by the disaster. The jury awarded $5 billion in punitive damages to the plaintiffs. This punitive damage award has been on repeated appeal by ExxonMobil since that time. On December 22, 2006, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reduced the punitive damage award to $2.5 billion. In early 2007, ExxonMobil petitioned the Ninth Circuit for a rehearing en banc. Within a few months, the Ninth Circuit denied

this petition and ExxonMobil appealed to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, in this intervening time period, with years and years of litigation bringing delay in resolution, we have had several thousand plaintiffs pass away since this litigation began.

Due to the limitations in admiralty law with respect to the recovery of compensatory damages, many Exxon Valdez plaintiffs were not able to recover the financial losses they sustained in the aftermath of this spill. So the punitive damages that are under consideration by the Supreme Court will provide them that level of compensation.

Once the Supreme Court decided to hear this case, I joined with Senator Stevens and Representative Young in submitting an Alaska congressional delegation amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. In that brief, we argue that the award of punitive damages in this case of reckless and wanton conduct by Exxon not only is permissible under the Clean Water Act, but it is supported by Federal maritime law. Only punitive damages will provide those who were harmed--and who continue to be harmed--with the justice and the fair compensation they deserve.

This litigation needs to end. Nineteen years is far too long for these plaintiffs to wait to be compensated for their loss of income. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the plaintiffs in this case, and I, along with so many Alaskans, look for a final resolution to this great tragedy that occurred to us as a State some 19 years ago.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the words of the chairman on the need to improve Indian health care. It is clear from the Government Accounting Office study that there is no doubt Indian health is suffering and there are many reforms that are desperately needed. I wish to talk about several amendments we proposed that we think will help the bill. One is related to what Senator Dorgan was just talking about and the fact that there is just not enough money currently to provide the health care that is needed for many Indians across the country today.

Unlike a lot of other Federal support for health care, Indian health care provides 100 percent coverage to all members of tribes across the country, regardless of income level. The problem that creates at a time when we are offering new programs and reforms is we are not offering enough money to actually support all the programs that are in this new bill.

My amendment No. 4073, which we call the Indian gaming amendment, would allocate the scarce resources to the poorer tribes by excluding some of the richer tribes that benefit from class III or casino-style gambling.

Many of us have looked at the statistics. Revenues from Indian casino gambling have surpassed $12 billion, and many members of these tribes will receive income from these casinos from $30,000 to over $300,000. There are clear discrepancies in the income in the tribes across the country, and in designing Indian health care reform, it is important that we recognize that fact.

In 2001, there were 290 Indian casinos across 28 States that brought in more than $12.5 billion with more than $5 billion in profit. To put this in context, the average family in South Carolina makes around $50,000 a year. These families, sometimes on their own, sometimes through their employers, have to pay and help pay for their health care and many times deductibles and copays. The average income in the tribes that have casino gambling is generally much higher than that amount. Yet we are providing free health care for these tribes.

This amendment would exclude from the new programs in the underlying bill those tribes with casino gambling, class III gambling, which would take the money that is provided in the bill and allocate it to the poorer tribes, which uses just basic common sense. If we have a limited amount of money to go around, let's target those tribes with the greatest poverty and the greatest need and allow those tribes with the highest incomes to participate in purchasing their own health care. That is amendment No. 4073. We will vote on that amendment today.

Let me address another amendment that will be voted on today; that is, amendment No. 4070 which recognizes that some of the programs in the bill that are designed for injury prevention or safety have actually been used in the past by Government agencies to promote antifirearm programs, gun buyback programs, or programs that generally stigmatize the ownership of guns for collecting, hunting, or self- defense.

This amendment provides that none of the funds in the bill may be used to fund antifirearm programs, gun buyback programs, or programs aimed at discouraging or stigmatizing the private ownership of firearms for collecting, hunting, or self-defense. That is basically the language in the bill.

We know from programs we have looked at before--we have legislation, for instance, that we passed that would prohibit the Centers for Disease Control from doing exactly the same thing; that is, using money that is supposed to be used for safety programs or other injury prevention and actually use it to promote a political agenda which is an anti-second-amendment agenda. This is another amendment we will vote on today.

So two amendments we will be voting on today after the cloture motion vote is the Indian gaming amendment that would exclude those tribes that have the revenue from casinos, as well as the other amendment which would prohibit funds from being used to stigmatize the ownership of guns.

Mr. President, I wish to address another amendment which is pending to this bill, which is what we call the health savings account choice. This amendment would simply make another choice available to Indians in the purchase of their health care. Right now, they have most of the options that we have at the Federal level in our Federal employees plan, but they do not yet have a health savings account option which we have added to our Federal programs. This simply would allow Indians the same choice that we have. They could purchase a PPO or other plans-- managed care, HMO, or with this amendment, they could also have a health savings account with a high-deductible plan.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. I am actually working with the chairman on the possibility that this amendment could be accepted and avoid a vote on the amendment tomorrow; otherwise, we will be voting on it tomorrow before final passage.

I wish to make a few comments on a second-degree amendment that I added to one of these amendments the week before we left last week which we call the Semper Fi amendment. This is an amendment that is not germane and will fall after cloture but still deserves some comment. The Semper Fi amendment is named in honor of the marine motto, which means ``always faithful,'' and it is a bill which I introduced after the Berkeley, CA, city council voted to refer to our marines as unwelcome intruders and had proposed that they leave town--that their recruiting office actually leave town. When I heard of this, it immediately angered me and we developed this bill which would simply take away about $2 million of wasteful Federal earmarks, which were not voted on in the Senate or the House, but were added as what we call report language. We are not trying to take away all their Federal funding but simply to say, if they are not going to respect our marines or their mission, which part of it is recruiting, then certainly they should not be the beneficiary of taxpayer-funded earmarks, and certainly those that aren't necessary.

When I first introduced this bill, it was more to make a point and maybe rattle the cages of the city council, because I know all the people in Berkeley don't feel this way. If anyone looked at the video-- and it was one of the most watched videos on YouTube--you could see person after person stepping up and maligning our marines and the job they are doing, not only in Iraq but throughout history, and referring to them as murderers and thugs, unthinkable things being said about the same marines who provided them their freedom of speech.

Some have said by my introducing this bill I am against freedom of speech, and that is not it at all. In fact, the anti-American group Code Pink had been demonstrating for months in front of the marine recruitment office there in Berkeley, and I have no problem with that. They have every right. But they wanted more than freedom of speech, they wanted the power of the local government behind them, to give them an advantage over those who supported the marines, supported their mission, and supported our country. So the city council voted to give Code Pink a free parking place in front of the marine recruitment office, and also voted to give them a permit to use a bullhorn, a megaphone, to shout down any who would want to come into that recruitment office. That is not free speech. That is a government- sponsored political agenda that took the side of a few liberal demonstrators against traditional Americans and the marines who have fought for our freedom of speech.

My amendment got a fair amount of attention and a lot of supporters here in the Senate, which I appreciate. The same bill was also introduced in the House by a number of Republicans. I have been surprised at the response we have gotten--literally thousands of phone calls and e-mails and letters. What this has exposed to me is it is not only a single event, but it has exposed a raw wound not only of our marines but everyone serving in uniform, and their families.

I have heard it when I have been in Iraq, more than once, when I ask our soldiers, marines, and airmen what they need, and the response has often been: Don't forget us. The letters and e-mails I have gotten have indicated the same thing, that finally some are standing up for those who are fighting for our freedoms.

I was surprised by the response. I have gotten letters at home from mothers who have sent me pictures of their marines, thanking those of us who have stood up for their marines. I have agonized over the fact that they need someone to stand up for them.

But when I go back and see what was said in this Chamber and the House Chamber, and what governments such as the city of Berkeley have done, it should come as no surprise to us that there are doubts in the minds of those who put on the uniform that we support them, that we believe in what they do, and that we support their constitutional mission to recruit and to talk about what we offer in our services. People--Americans--are concerned about this.

We have tried to get the Semper Fi act on the floor for an up-or-down vote, and we have not been able to do so. We tried to pass it by unanimous consent, which got 100 percent Republican support but was blocked on the Democratic side. I added it to an amendment to this bill, to try to get a vote, but it will fall after we vote for cloture.

I promise the marines and all those in uniform that I am going to continue to persist until we get a vote on this, because it is not just about this amendment, it is not just about those who support it, it is about letting those who put on the uniform and who are willing to fight for our freedoms know we stand behind them. When any government, at any level, takes a position against them, it is our responsibility here in the Congress to stand up for those marines and those fighting men and women and not to allow them to be taken advantage of and intimidated and bullied by some local government such as we saw in Berkeley.

I have been happy to see some local governments across the country actually pass resolutions in support of the marine recruiters, and I appreciate any across this country who stand and make a statement on behalf of those who are fighting for our freedom. Again, I emphasize that anyone who wants to speak out in protest against marine recruiters, against the Iraq war, or anything, it is their free right. But when government, whether it is a local government or a State government, takes a position against our Federal constitutional amendment to defend this country, which requires the recruitment of marines, soldiers, airmen, and Coast Guard, that is part of our job. It is not freedom of speech when a local government takes a position against what we are charged to do here at the Federal level.

I encourage all those parents, all those in uniform, that the majority of those here in the Senate, in the House, and across this country respect and appreciate what you are doing every day. I got back from Iraq last week, with 2 days on the ground, and I know I speak for all my colleagues when I say I was never prouder of my country and what I do here than when I stood with those in uniform who are sacrificing, in many instances, more than a year away from their family, and some on second and third tours. They are fighting for us and we need to stand up for them. I am going to continue to persist until my colleagues give me a chance to stand with our marines and to support the Semper Fi bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, the underlying Indian health care bill allows Federal funds to be used for certain health promotion activities which include injury prevention, personal safety, and violence prevention. My amendment would simply say that none of these funds in the bill may be used to fund any firearm programs, gun buyback programs, or programs aimed at discouraging or stigmatizing the private ownership of firearms for collecting, hunting, or self-defense purposes, which are important to the Indian community. So that is my amendment.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized following the remarks of the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. President, I have been listening to the discussion this afternoon, which is a repeat of a discussion we have heard often in this Chamber: Who supports our troops; who waves the white flag of surrender. You know, in the discussion in this Chamber and out on the Presidential trail, we hear all of those terms, and who is willing to stick with it and defeat the terrorists with respect to the war on terror.

Well, let me, if I might, suggest there is a smart way and a tough way to deal with terrorists, and we are not doing it very effectively, in my judgment. I want to review for a moment, because we have people coming to the floor who forget to review where we are, and where we have been, especially.

In 2001, on September 11, terrorists attacked our country. Following the attack that killed thousands of innocent Americans--the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a farm field in Pennsylvania--following that attack, Osama bin Laden and the leadership of al-Qaida boasted that they engineered the attack against the American people. They boasted they engineered the attack against the American people. So the President says: We are going to have an effort to bring to justice the terrorists.

Well, it is now 2008. That was 2001. In 2008, our National Intelligence Estimate, released about 4 months ago, said the greatest terrorist threat to our country, to our homeland, is the al-Qaida organization and its leadership, who are now plotting additional attacks against our country. Our National Intelligence Estimate says the greatest terrorist threat to our country, 7 years after 9/11, is the al-Qaida leadership, because they are planning new attacks. They have reconstituted in a safe and secure hideaway in northern Pakistan. Those are the words of our National Intelligence Estimate, not my words--safe, secure. Iraq leadership, Osama bin Laden, still alive 7 years later and creating new training camps, training new terrorists.

So how effective has the war on terror been when the greatest terrorist threat to our country 7 years after the 9/11 attack, the greatest terrorist threat is now building and reconstituting in northern Pakistan? It is reasonable to ask the question: Who took their eye off the ball? Why has this country, why has our policy not been a policy to bring to justice Osama bin

Laden and his al-Qaida leadership? Instead, 7 years later, we are mired down in a war in Iraq, we have spent nearly two-thirds of $1 trillion dollars, thousands of American soldiers have died, and we have people asking us about who waves the white flag of surrender and who supports our soldiers. That is unbelievable to me.

Let me review a bit. Following 9/11, we had top secret briefings for Senators and Congressmen--top secret briefings conducted by the head of the CIA. The Vice President was involved, the head of the National Security Agency, Condoleezza Rice, was involved. We went to those top secret briefings. All of us did. We were told things in top secret, shown classified materials, about what was happening in Iraq. It turns out that was a foundation for the invasion of Iraq. In fact, it was presented at the United Nations by Secretary of State Colin Powell. It turns out most of it was false; wrong on its face.

Let me review it for a moment--the issue of mobile chemical weapons laboratories in Iraq that threatens our country. Mobile chemical weapons laboratories in Iraq. You know where that came from? We now know it came from a single source, through our intelligence organizations to the American people, to Congress, in top secret briefings, to the world at the United Nations, a single source: A fellow who used to drive a taxicab in Baghdad nicknamed ``Curveball'' and widely considered by German authorities as a drunk and a fabricator.

A single source named Curveball gave this administration the ability to, in top secret briefings, tell us that Iraq had mobile chemical weapons laboratories and gave then-Secretary of State Colin Powell the opportunity to tell the world that Iraq had mobile chemical weapons laboratories. Turns out it wasn't true.

Will Rogers once said:

It is not what he says he knows that bothers me, it's what

he says he knows for sure that just ain't so.

Curveball. One single source this administration used to tell us that mobile chemical weapons laboratories in Iraq threatened this country, and it turns out to have been false, and they should have known it. And some may have known it, as it was described to us.

The aluminum tubes. The aluminum tubes for the reconstitution of a nuclear capability in Iraq. Now, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, then National Security Adviser, even used the term the specter or the threat of a nuclear--or I guess she said mushroom cloud on television. The mushroom cloud. Well, it turns out her office had the information that a substantial portion of the Government didn't believe the nuclear tubes that were ordered by the Iraqis were for the purpose of reconstituting a nuclear capability. Most of that was discredited. The information in the National Security Adviser's office existed to say that there were very qualified people in this Government who didn't believe that.

It turns out none of that was true. The aluminum tube issue was not true. Those who were telling the world, and in top secret briefings telling Members of Congress about the threat of the nuclear tubes for the reconstitution of nuclear capability, had information in their possession and knew better.

Yellowcake from Niger is another big deal that made it into the President's address to the Congress in the State of the Union. It turns out that was based on falsified documents. It is unbelievable.

Maybe we should review the facts a bit. All of this information turns out to have been false--the information that represented the foundation on which the administration made the case about the need to invade Iraq. Well, this country invaded Iraq and had no plans, once the invasion was complete and the military takeover was complete, on how to deal with Iraq at that point, and it turned into a civil war.

Saddam Hussein, following that invasion, was captured and executed. He was hung by his neck until dead. He doesn't exist anymore. The Iraqi people then voted for a new constitution, and then the Iraqi people voted to constitute a new government.

So Saddam Hussein was killed, executed, a brutal dictator was executed by the Iraqi people. They got a new Constitution, they got a new Government, and then this country, in the context of spending almost two-thirds of a trillion dollars, this country spent $16 billion training 350,000 able-bodied Iraqis to be policemen and firefighters and safety personnel and soldiers. We trained an array of people in Iraq for security; $16 billion training 350,000 Iraqis, principally for security, police, and soldier duty.

Now, if the able-bodied people in Iraq who have been trained by this country are not willing and cannot and will not provide security in their country, our soldiers cannot stay there forever and do it. We cannot.

It is interesting to me, and very disappointing to me, that the President decided: we are going to invade Iraq, but we are not going to pay for it. Every single penny we are going to borrow.

So we are going to send soldiers to Iraq and send the bill to the debt. When the soldiers come back, they can pay the debt.

As I said earlier, it is two-thirds of a trillion dollars now in Iraq and Afghanistan, all of it emergency, none of it paid for. In my judgment, that is exactly the wrong thing to have done. We should have been saying: Yes, we will ask soldiers to sacrifice. If that is what we ask our soldiers to do, we will ask the American people to reach a similar sacrifice. But this President would not do that.

So we come now to a position where we have been in Iraq longer than we were engaged in the Second World War and we have folks who come to the Senate Chamber and we have folks out on the campaign trail saying: Who is going to wave the white flag of surrender?

Some say we are going to stay in Iraq forever, 100 years. Others look at a Taj Mahal that has been built in Iraq, nearly $800 million for an embassy in Iraq, the largest embassy in the world by far, and they think they know, as a result of that, how long some intend for us to stay in Iraq.

But we cannot do that. Let me mention one other addition. On top of all the things I have described--basically the false foundation of information on which this country made a decision to go to war--on top of all that, with this money we have spent, there has been the greatest amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in the history of this country and nobody seems to care very much.

Let me tell a couple stories: $85,000 trucks on the side of the road in Iraq, because they had a flat tire and no wrench to fix it, so they torched it, burned it. It does not matter, the American taxpayer is paying for it because big companies got sweetheart, no-bid, cost-plus contracts. Got a flat tire, torch the truck. Got a plugged fuel pump, it does not matter, torch the truck.

I mean, the stories are unbelievable. You got two builders to provide ice. The Haliburton Company is going to select between two bidders to provide ice. One is seven times more than the other bid. Well, pick the contract that costs seven times more than the other because the taxpayer is picking up the tab.

They buy little hand towels for the troops, because Haliburton has to do that. Well, they do not want to buy ordinary hand towels for the troops, they want their logo embroidered on the hand towels, KBR, the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root. Well, that is going to increase the cost of the hand towels triple, quadruple. It does not matter; the taxpayer is going to pay the bill.

Do you want to know where there are 50,000 pounds of nails, 25 tons of nails? They are on the sands in Iraq. They ordered them. They were too short. What do you do with 50,000 pounds of nails that are too short? You throw them away because the taxpayer is going to pick it up. You just order the right size.

This is the most unbelievable story that is yet to be told about the greatest waste, fraud, and abuse in the history of this country. There is a lot to talk about.

We are going to have a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee. I have held 12 hearings in the policy committee on these issues. We are going to hold more. I have to run to a meeting. But I did want to come and talk a bit. I did not have the opportunity to describe who is it that is supporting America's soldiers and what is

it that does support our fighting men and women? We send them off to war.

There is going to be a Medal of Honor, by the way, awarded next Monday at 2:30 in the White House to a man who died 26 years ago, a Sioux Indian named Woody Keeble. I hope perhaps to come over tomorrow and tell the story of Woody Keeble. There are soldiers who have given so much for this country.

Woody Keeble had 85 pieces of lead in his body when he finished what he did. He was still alive.

But these folks then go to war and do what they do and come back home. And then the question is: Who stands up for our soldiers? Who stands up for our veterans? Who is willing to stand here and say we will keep our promise for veterans health care? Who does that?

There is a lot to say. I regret I have a commitment that I have to be at in the majority leader's office, but I would like tomorrow to come back and speak at greater length about a remarkable American who on Monday will be recognized by President Bush, a North Dakotan from Wahpeton, ND, Standing Rock, the Wahpeton-Sisseton Sioux Tribe. He will be recognized as the first Sioux Indian in this country's history to receive the Medal of Honor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak against the measure introduced by Senator Feingold.

It has been only a year since GEN David Petraeus arrived in Baghdad and took command of American forces in Iraq. But in these brief 12 months, he and the American and coalition troops under his command have brought about a tectonic shift in Iraq that has altered the course of the war there and, with it, the future of at least two great nations-- Iraq and the United States of America--and the lives of hundreds of millions of people in those two nations and so many others threatened by violent jihadist terrorists in the Middle East and beyond.

When the surge first began a year ago, many doubted that the violence then raging in Iraq could be brought under control. Even as American troops began implementing this bold new counterinsurgency strategy, some opponents of the war inside and outside of Congress declared that the war in Iraq was already ``lost,'' that the surge had already been ``tried and failed,'' and that it mattered more, frankly, that we get out of Iraq than that we succeed in Iraq.

They could not have been more wrong. Thanks to the surge, the bravery and skill of American and Iraqi troops and the will of the Iraqi people to be free from terrorists, conditions on the ground in Iraq have been totally transformed from those of a year ago.

A year ago, al-Qaida in Iraq was entrenched, in control of, exercising murderous control in Anbar Province and Baghdad. Now those evil forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since 2001.

This is not just my opinion. It is a matter of fact. In Baghdad, a fact: sectarian killings are down 95 percent in the last year; suicide bombings are down nearly 70 percent; IED attacks have been cut nearly in half.

In the face of those extraordinary improvements in Iraq--and many more I will speak of in a moment in the social and political and economic life of that great country--however, antiwar forces here in America have reacted not with sighs of relief and gratitude but, instead, by doing everything in their power to downplay or diminish our hard-won gains in Iraq.

Rather than admit the possibility that they had been wrong about the surge and about the capability of reestablishing security in Iraq, they, instead, reached for another rationale for retreat. What they argued was the lack of political progress in Iraq and, therefore, that the surge had failed.

But this argument has also now been defeated by facts on the ground in Iraq.

In the first place, the Iraqi people have taken over their local and provincial governments in a grassroots up democratic revolution. At the national level, a response is occurring. It took too long, but it is now significant. Benchmark legislation has surged forward in the Iraqi Parliament. The budget law, passed; the debaathification law, passed; the provincial powers and election law, passed; the amnesty law, passed.

Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs, who once constituted the core of the insurgency, have now risen, because we stood by them, to join with us

and go ahead on their own to fight against al-Qaida and put al-Qaida-- the same al-Qaida that attacked us on 9-11-01--on the run.

Thanks to the surge, the Shiites, who had turned in desperation to militias and death squads for protection from al-Qaida and Iranian- backed extremists, are now rejecting those militias, death squads, and extremists. They want a better, more peaceful life for themselves and their families. And the American-led surge has put that within their reach.

Last week, Moqtada al-Sadr announced he is extending his unilateral cease-fire. He did not do this as a favor to the United States of America or the Maliki Government in Baghdad. He did it because in Iraq today, thanks to the surge, and all that has been part of it, the rules of the game have changed. Violence and extremism are no longer the clear path to power in Iraq. In fact, they are becoming the path to political oblivion in Iraq. The people of Iraq want peace and stability and hope.

What then has been the reaction of antiwar groups here at home to these enormous achievements in Iraq? Are they now ready to admit they were wrong about the surge? Even if they were opposed to the war in Iraq in the first place, are they now ready to acknowledge that we are there, we are succeeding, and it would be wrong and hurtful to the United States for Congress to force a retreat now that would, in Churchill's terms, ``snatch defeat from the jaws of victory''?

To judge by the resolution now before us, the answer to that question is no. On the contrary, even as the facts on the ground have changed so much for the better, the resolution before us offers the same familiar prescription for retreat and surrender--ordered by Congress, not by our military leaders in the field or here at home--and it orders that, no matter what the consequences for the freedom of the Iraqi people, the future of the Islamic world, and the future national security of the United States of America.

Some claim the war in Iraq is a distraction from the ``real'' war on terror. Al-Qaida disagrees. And so do I. Al-Qaida's leadership has repeatedly made clear they consider Iraq to be the central front of their campaign against us and most of the rest of the civilized world. According to our intelligence agencies, al-Qaida in Iraq remains al- Qaida's most visible and capable affiliate worldwide and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the American homeland--us here at home.

I know there are some who hear these arguments, watch what is happening, and say: Oh, no. The sponsors of this legislation certainly understand exactly how much political and military progress we are making against al-Qaida and Iranian-backed extremists in Iraq and how much is riding on the line there for America and most of the rest of the civilized world faced by this threat of violent jihadist terrorism. But this argument goes that the sponsors of this kind of resolution feel compelled to offer it to show antiwar groups in the United States that they have not forgotten them.

I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe--I do not believe it-- that my colleagues would so trifle with the honor of American soldiers who have served and are serving in Iraq--too many of whom have given their lives in that service--or they would play such a political game with our national security. I respect my colleagues too much to take this legislation as anything other than what it says. It orders a retreat within 120 days.

It actually imposes so-called caveats on American forces after that 120 days, which are exactly the kind of caveats, limitations, on what they can do that we are now arguing with our European allies to stop in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, some of our NATO allies are there, but they can only do certain things. They cannot enter into battle, et cetera. They cannot go out into the field with the Afghani National Army. We are saying you cannot fight a war that way.

Listen to what one section of this matter before us offered by the Senator from Wisconsin says. Our troops, after the 120 days, can provide training to members of the Iraqi Security Forces ``provided that such training does not involve members of the United States Armed Forces taking part in combat operations or being embedded with Iraqi forces.''

That is a caveat, a limitation, exactly what we are arguing with our European allies to stop doing in Afghanistan.

The fact is, the legislation, this measure now before this Chamber, flies in the face of the recommendations of our proud and tested commanders on the ground in Iraq. If enacted, it would unravel all the hard-won gains our troops have made in the past year. It would hand victory to the suicide bombers and fanatics who are now on the run. It would betray the millions of Iraqis who are standing with us today because they desire a better, freer life for themselves and their children. And it would endanger the lives of and hopes of hundreds of millions more who live in the Middle East and throughout the Islamic world who yearn for a life of peace and justice, not a life of extremism, death, and primitivism that al-Qaida offers them.

I wish to close, if I may, with a word directed to my colleagues on this side of the aisle, the Democratic Members of this Senate. I have thought a lot about this war, and I cannot help but wonder, in a moment such as this, what some of the political heroes of my youth, who were Democrats, would think if they were here and could see and listen to this debate and read this resolution.

I think of President Kennedy, who declared:

We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,

support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the

survival and the success of liberty.

In my opinion, that is exactly what we are doing in Iraq today.

I ask my colleagues: Do these words have meaning, have significance or are these just words?

I think of President Harry Truman, who proclaimed, at the outset of the Cold War:

It must be the policy of the United States to support free

peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed

minorities or by outside pressures.

Are these too just words? Isn't that exactly what is happening in Iraq today? The people of Iraq, liberated from the terrible dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, hoping to secure a better future for themselves, now, with our assistance and encouragement, ``are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities''--read here: al-Qaida--``or by outside pressures''--read here: Iran. Are these just words? I hope not. I do not believe they are.

There was a time when these were not just words, but they were the convictions that lay at the heart of the Democratic Party's foreign and national security policy.

The legislation now before this Chamber, if implemented, would not, in my opinion, only betray our friends in the Middle East, it would not only betray America's own vital national interests against our deadliest enemies, al-Qaida and Iran, it would also betray the best ideals of the Democratic Party that I joined decades ago.

They were strong and liberal ideals, and I use those words intentionally. Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy, great Democratic Senators such as Hubert Humphrey and ``Scoop'' Jackson, believed that the party stood for being liberal at home and liberal abroad. What did that mean? Liberal in the classic sense of the term ``freedom,'' which is what America is all about: the self-evident truth that we are all endowed by our Creator with the rights to life and liberty.

So I wish to appeal particularly today to my Democratic colleagues in the Senate to reject this resolution, and in that sense to return to what I believe are the strongest, proudest, most purposed moments of the history of the Democratic Party in recent decades on matters of foreign and national security policy.

In sum, a year ago, the Bush administration acknowledged its mistakes in Iraq and changed course there. It is now time for opponents of the war and the surge to do the same. It is time for them to admit that the surge has worked and that America's security and freedom are on the line in Iraq today, that we are winning there, and it would be a disastrous mistake to impose the policies ordered by this resolution, this amendment, which would deprive our brave American men and women in uniform and the brave soldiers of other countries, including Iraq,

of the victory that they are winning now for the people of Iraq, the people of America, and the cause of freedom, which is America's cause.

I implore my colleagues, vote against this resolution.

I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.