Protecting America's Communities Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that we are on the supplemental appropriations bill at this point.

Mr. President, I want the record to show that I support President Obama's supplemental request for the remainder of fiscal year 2009. This supplemental provides critical funding for military and security efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. A small portion is for international programs, including assistance to Jordan, one of our important allies in the Middle East. Jordan is struggling with a huge influx of Iraqi refugees that strains its national services and particularly its water resources. Jordan has been a friend and ally, and it is right that in the supplemental bill we give them a helping hand because the war in Iraq has created a situation which we should address in Jordan.

It also provides additional support to the Global Fund which partners with other nations to tackle AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. I have worked with my colleagues for years to provide adequate funding for the Global Fund. I am glad this supplemental request from the Obama administration continues critical food assistance to help meet urgent needs of the world's poorest, which is also included. Funding is provided to help stem the flow of drugs and violence across our border in Mexico.

At home, the supplemental includes money to prepare and to respond to a global disease pandemic, including the recent H1N1 virus. This $1.5 billion went through my subcommittee and is money well spent so the President can have resources to respond quickly to any outbreak of disease or pandemic; that we would have adequate money for vaccinations, as well as providing medications, should people be stricken. We are looking ahead, planning ahead, thinking ahead, hoping the H1N1 will disappear from the world scene before the next flu season but being prepared if it does not or if something else threatens us.

This bill also provides funds critical to helping President Obama meet a key campaign promise--bringing an end to the war in Iraq. In late February, President Obama made an important announcement to thousands of marines at Camp Lejeune: bringing an end to the war in Iraq. After only 5 weeks into office, he delivered on his major campaign promise to end one of the longest wars in American history.

The President's plan is measured, thoughtful, and will bring an end to this costly and unnecessary war. The supplemental also wisely shifts resources to the real sources of the September 11 attacks on America-- Afghanistan. For too long, this war in Afghanistan did not receive adequate civilian and military resources as they had been diverted to the war in Iraq. The supplemental corrects this mistake.

It also focuses resources on Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation struggling with insurgents based in the border area with Afghanistan. It provides pay and allowances to our brave men and women in the U.S. military. These are some of the many important needs which deserve our support.

The President should be commended for recently presenting a budget for 2010 which moves away from repeated supplementals. This got to be a habit around here. We didn't go through an orderly debate on the budget about wars. Every time President Bush wanted money for a war, he said: I am declaring this an emergency. It will not be considered in the ordinary budget process. Here it is.

An emergency is defined as something unanticipated. After 5 or 6 years

of emergencies, you begin to realize you can anticipate next year we are going to have another unanticipated emergency.

This President, President Obama, wants to change that so that we go to an orderly budget process. This supplemental bill will be the last of the requests, and I think it is one we should honor as he tries to tackle some situations that were given to him when he took office just a few months ago. The President inherited many challenges at home and abroad, and I hope, on a bipartisan basis, we can help him address them.

This supplemental appropriations bill will provide critical funding for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I hope Congress passes it.

Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to use this legislation to open a debate about the future of Guantanamo. They have filed a number of amendments related to this issue. I am sure it is not their intention, but these amendments will have the effect of slowing down delivery of critical funding for our troops. Nevertheless, it is their right to offer these amendments, and though they are not germane to this legislation, they raise policy questions which we can debate.

Senator Inouye, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, has offered an amendment, which has broad support on both sides of the aisle, that will eliminate any funding in this bill for closing Guantanamo and make clear that none of the funds in this bill can be used to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the United States.

Here is the bottom line: There will not be any Guantanamo funding in this bill. So for the Republicans to bring up a series of Guantanamo amendments tells me they are more intent on raising an issue than on responding to the critical need this supplemental addresses.

These amendments are also premature. President Obama has not yet presented his plan for closing Guantanamo to the Congress and the American people. When he does, we will have plenty of opportunity to debate it. This bill, which will provide critical funding for our troops, is not the right place for this debate. This is not the right time. In fact, some of the amendments would have the effect of tying President Obama's hands, preventing him from moving forward with the closure of Guantanamo before he has even had the chance to present his plan.

There is a great irony here. For 8 long years, Republicans opposed congressional oversight of the Bush administration's counterterrorism efforts. When Democrats in the minority during the Bush years would ask for oversight by congressional committees so that we could get more information about a variety of issues relative to terrorism, we were told: No, the President has an important job to do and don't bother him, Congress; leave him alone.

For 8 years, Republicans criticized Democrats who asked questions about the misguided war in Iraq and controversial policies related to interrogation, detention, and warrantless surveillance.

For 8 years, they claimed congressional oversight was nothing more than micromanaging the important and critical work of the Commander in Chief.

Now, after 8 long years, the Republicans are unwilling to give President Obama a few short months to formulate and present a plan for closing Guantanamo.

Let's take one example. The distinguished minority leader, Senator McConnell, has offered an amendment that would require the President to submit a detailed report to Congress on each detainee at Guantanamo Bay, including a summary of the evidence against each detainee.

For many years, the Bush administration refused to provide Congress with even a list of the names of the detainees at Guantanamo. They claimed that a disclosure of those names would threaten national security. I don't recall Senator McConnell or anyone from his side of the aisle protesting this lack of disclosure by the previous administration.

Yesterday, Senator McConnell said his amendment is designed to prevent released Guantanamo detainees from getting involved in terrorism. He said:

Recidivism is of great concern for those of us who have

oversight responsibilities here in Congress.

I do not recall Senator McConnell, or any other Republican, protesting when the Bush administration, over the course of many years, released hundreds of Guantanamo detainees, some of whom have actually been involved in acts of terrorism since they were released.

So during the Bush years, while Guantanamo was churning hundreds of detainees, some being released and returned to their countries, there was not a whimper or a peep from the Republican side of the aisle. Now that President Obama has said the days of Guantanamo are numbered, they are coming in asking for detailed accounting of every single detainee. It is clearly a double standard.

There is also concern that the McConnell amendment could taint prosecutions of Guantanamo detainees by requiring the Obama administration to turn over critical evidence to Congress. Imagine for a moment that we gathered evidence that can be used successfully to either detain or prosecute one of the detainees, and Senator McConnell insists that it be shared with Members of Congress. Is that in the interest of national security? I don't think so.

For 7 years after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration failed to convict any of the terrorists who planned these attacks. At President Obama's direction, career prosecutors are now reviewing the files of each Guantanamo detainee and gathering evidence to determine if each detainee can be prosecuted. Isn't that what we want, an orderly process looking at each detainee to determine whether they are guilty of wrongdoing, deciding whether they can be prosecuted, whether they should be detained and doing this with the understanding that a lot of the information is classified and most of it should be carefully guarded so as not to jeopardize the prosecution?

The McConnell amendment would say: Let Congress take a look at each detainee and all the evidence. That does not make sense, and I hope Members of the Senate will reject it.

The last thing Congress should do is interfere with the efforts of the Obama administration to gather evidence against terrorists that could ultimately bring them to justice.

There is another amendment. Senator John Cornyn of Texas has an amendment that has 18 detailed findings about the Bush administration's use of abusive interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding.

Among other things, the Cornyn amendment claims these techniques ``accomplished the goal of providing intelligence necessary to defeat additional terrorist attacks against the United States.'' To say the least, we could debate that proposition for quite some time.

Former Vice President Cheney has been burning up the cable channel airwaves in recent weeks. He claims waterboarding produced valuable intelligence in the interrogation of al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah. But back in 2004, Vice President Cheney also told us the Bush administration had learned from interrogations at Guantanamo that the Iraqi Government had trained al-Qaida in the use of biological and chemical weapons. We now know there was no such link between al-Qaida and Iraq. This was part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq, and Vice President Cheney told us the interrogation at Guantanamo was producing the information to confirm a link that never existed.

What about Abu Zubaydah? Just last week in the Judiciary Committee we heard testimony from a former FBI agent who actually interrogated him. He testified under oath in our committee that he obtained valuable intelligence from Abu Zubaydah using traditional interrogation techniques and that abusive techniques, such as waterboarding, are ``harmful, slow, ineffective, and unreliable.''

Senator Cornyn does not serve on the Intelligence Committee. I don't know the basis for his claim that waterboarding produced intelligence that prevented terrorist attacks. I do know the Intelligence Committee, under Senator Dianne Feinstein's leadership, is now conducting a detailed, thoughtful, and thorough investigation into the Bush administration's detention and interrogation practices.

I have said publicly--others have said it as well, including the majority leader, Senator Reid--that before we talk about creating an outside commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee should be allowed to do its work so Members of Congress can at least learn, through open and classified information, what did happen. But Senator Cornyn can't wait. Senator Cornyn wants to pass out ``get out of jail free'' cards to the previous administration before we even have a thorough examination of what happened.

One of the things the Intelligence Committee is reviewing is the effectiveness of these techniques in obtaining useful intelligence. The Senate is certainly not in a position today to go on record with conclusions such as those in Senator Cornyn's amendment before the Intelligence Committee even completes its investigation. It is not only premature, it certainly is questionable as to whether we should be engaged in this debate until their work is done.

I might remind Senator Cornyn, and those following this debate, that the Intelligence Committee is a bipartisan committee. It works in a bipartisan fashion. Senator Bond and Senator Feinstein and others can continue to work together to come to good conclusions, to provide the Senate with good evidence, before we jump at the Cornyn amendment, which reaches conclusions not based on fact.

Senator Cornyn's amendment would also express the sense of the Senate that no one involved in authorizing the use of abusive interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, should be prosecuted or sanctioned. It is inappropriate for Congress to interfere in ongoing investigations by the Justice Department.

During the Bush administration, political interference significantly undermined the credibility and effectiveness of the Justice Department. Attorney General Holder has pledged to restore the integrity and the independence of that department.

There are two ongoing investigations into the Bush administration's interrogation practices. One investigation is looking into the CIA's destruction of evidence of interrogation videotapes. The other is an investigation of Justice Department attorneys who authorized abusive techniques such as waterboarding.

Here is the reality: Both of these investigations didn't begin under President Obama. They began under the Bush administration. Both are being conducted by Department of Justice attorneys. So the suggestion that this is some partisan witch hunt is obviously false.

You wonder, with these two Department of Justice investigations underway and with the Senate Intelligence Committee doing a thorough investigation of this subject, why does Senator Cornyn want to come to the floor and have the Senate go on record saying that nothing possibly could have been done that was illegal or wrong? That would be the height of irresponsibility, should we pass that amendment.

Decisions about whether crimes were committed should be made by career prosecutors based on the facts and the laws, not political considerations or statements made by Senators on the floor without evidence to back them up. I urge my colleague from Texas to withdraw his amendment and allow the Justice Department to do its work.

There is an organization which I like and respect very much called Amnesty International. When you take a look at John Cornyn's amendment, he would qualify for some amnesty award because he wants the Senate to go on record offering amnesty when it comes to the interrogation of detainees by not only--and let me go through the list--any person who relied in good faith on those opinions at any level of our Government, but also it includes Members of Congress who were briefed on the interrogation program.

To offer this kind of a statement ahead of time, without any gathering of evidence or fact, is, in my mind, an indication of how nervous some people are on the other side of the aisle. We should let this run its course in a professional manner. We shouldn't make a political decision, and we should defeat the Cornyn amendment.

Several of my Republican colleagues came to the floor yesterday to criticize President Obama's intention to close Guantanamo and argue it should remain open. I listened carefully to their arguments, and, frankly, there were enough red herrings to feed all the detainees at Guantanamo.

One of my colleagues said President Obama wants to close Guantanamo ``to be more popular with the Europeans.''

Well, I know President Obama. I served with him. He was my colleague in the Senate. His first interest is the United States and its safety. But the safety of the United States also involves being honest about what has happened. What happened at Abu Ghraib and what happened at Guantanamo has sullied the reputation of the United States and has endangered alliances which we have counted on for decades. President Obama is trying to change that. By closing Guantanamo and responsibly allocating those detainees to safe and secure positions, he is going to send a message to the world that it is a new day in terms of America's foreign policy.

The American people want to see that. They want a safer world and believe that if the United States can work closely with our allies around the world who are opposed to terrorism, we will be safer. That is what President Obama is setting out to do. Some of those allies may, in fact, be European. They may be African or Asian. They could be from all corners of the Earth. But if they share our values and want to work for common goals, President Obama wants to work with them.

GEN Colin Powell and many other military leaders have said for some time that closing Guantanamo will make America safer. Experts say Guantanamo is a recruitment tool for al-Qaida and hurts our national security. That is why President Obama, like President Bush, Senator John McCain, and many others, wants to close Guantanamo.

Some of my Republican colleagues argued that Guantanamo is the only appropriate place to hold the detainees because ``we don't have a facility that could handle this in the United States'' and American corrections officers would ``have no idea what they are getting into.'' Well, I would say to my colleagues who made those statements that they ought to take a look at some of our secured facilities in the United States and they ought to have a little more respect for the men and women who are corrections officers, who put their lives on the line every single day to keep us safe and who make sure those who are dangerous are detained and incarcerated.

The reality is, we are holding some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world right now in our Federal prisons, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the ``shoe bomber,'' the ``Unabomber,'' and many others.

Senator McConnell said yesterday, ``No one has ever escaped from Guantanamo.'' Well, that is true, to the best of my knowledge. But it is also true that no prisoner has ever escaped from a Federal supermaximum security facility in the United States.

In fact, the Bureau of Prisons is currently holding 347 convicted terrorists. Is Senator McConnell going to come to the floor and say they should be moved from these Federal correctional facilities because they pose a threat to the United States being incarcerated in the continental United States? I haven't heard that. But in his efforts to keep Guantanamo open at any cost, he wouldn't even consider allowing a detainee to be brought to the United States for trial and being held, even temporarily, in any type of secure facility.

Republicans are criticizing the President, but the reality is, they do not have a plan themselves to deal with Guantanamo. I assume, from Senator McConnell's statements, he would leave it open. He doesn't care about the impact this might have on the United States around the world. If he has a plan to close it, I would like to hear it. I think he ought to come forward and join with President Bush, join with President Obama, join General Powell, join Senator McCain, Senator Graham, and others who have said Guantanamo should be closed. Otherwise, unfortunately, he is being critical of the President's intentions without producing his own approach.

The Bush administration had many years to deal with Guantanamo, but they didn't follow through. President

Obama has taken on the challenge of solving one of the toughest problems his administration faces, beyond the state of our economy. The President is taking the time to carefully plan for the closing of Guantanamo, with the highest priority being the protection of America's national security.

I urge my Republican colleagues to withdraw these Guantanamo amendments. These amendments don't fit in the supplemental appropriations bill. They tie the President's hands and keep him from making the necessary decisions to keep us safe and to make sure terrorists do not, in any way, threaten the United States. They also slow down our efforts to provide critical funding for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I hope when this matter comes before the Senate in the hours ahead, my colleagues will read carefully and closely, particularly the amendments by Senator Cornyn and by Senator McConnell. The amendment by Senator Cornyn, which grants a sense-of-the-Senate amnesty to those who were involved in interrogation techniques, is not consistent with a nation that is guided by the rule of law. For that Senator to make conclusions in his amendment that have not been supported by evidence and fact should be grounds enough for us to reject his amendment.

I don't know where these investigations in the Department of Justice or the Intelligence Committee will lead, but if we are truly sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of our land, we should allow them to run their course with the facts and law being honestly considered by those different panels.

Senator McConnell's amendment, which asks for more detailed information about detainees at Guantanamo than any Republican ever dared ask under the Bush administration, could jeopardize the prosecution of terrorists. Is that a good idea? It is certainly not. I certainly hope my colleagues will join me in opposing the McConnell amendment as well.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) are necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, one of the amendments which is being discussed and has been filed by the minority leader, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, relates to detainees at Guantanamo. I am hoping we will have an opportunity to debate this amendment because I think it is an important amendment, and I hope colleagues will pay close attention to it. It is not an amendment which is casual or inconsequential. It is an amendment which could have a very negative impact on our treatment of detainees who are guilty of crimes or involved in terrorist activities.

It is interesting that Senator McConnell has brought this amendment before the body to be considered. It appears that when President Bush-- the previous President--announced that he was closing Guantanamo, we didn't have this rush to the microphones on the Republican side of the aisle and objecting. In fact, I don't recall any objection from their side of the aisle when President Bush made that recommendation.

It is also interesting that during the years the Guantanamo Detention Facility has been open the requests that are being made now of this President were not made of the previous President. All the suggestions that perhaps there would be release of detainees from Guantanamo who may cause harm in some part of the world, those suggestions weren't made under the previous President.

Literally hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo have been released by President Bush in the previous administration. It was found that many of them were either brought in with no charges that could be proved or once investigation of the evidence was commenced, they learned there was nothing that could be established. They were released and returned to countries of origin and other places around the world--hundreds of them in that case. I don't recall a single Republican Senator, or any Senator for that matter, coming to the floor and objecting to the release of those hundreds of detainees from Guantanamo by President Bush. It happened. They did not object.

But now there is a new President and a new approach by the Republican side of the Senate. Senator McConnell has come forward with a proposal that calls on the President--not the Attorney General but the President--to provide detailed information about every detainee at Guantanamo--information which has never been requested by previous Senators and the previous administration.

I will make an exception to what I just said. At one point, when the Bush administration was asked for the names of the detainees and their countries of origin, the Bush administration objected and said it could compromise national security to release their

names. That was the only request made. It was denied.

Now come the Republicans, with the new Obama administration, with a brandnew outlook, and they want to know everything about the detainees. It is a long amendment. It goes on for five pages and a lot of detail here about the detainees at Guantanamo. Basic information--name and country of origin, and it goes on for quite a while. Most of it, I think, may be salutary and wouldn't have a negative impact, but there is one paragraph in particular which I think is dangerous. It is a request for information in the McConnell amendment of the President of the United States, and let me read what the request is. It is a request for ``a current summary of the evidence, intelligence, and information used to justify the detention of each detainee listed under paragraph (1) at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.''

Paragraph (1) refers to all the detainees in custody at Guantanamo. So what Senator McConnell is asking for is a summary of the evidence, intelligence, and information justifying detention. This could compromise a prosecution of a detainee. It could put us in a position where someone who truly is dangerous cannot be prosecuted because of this request for information by Senator McConnell.

Senator McConnell wants, I guess, 535 Members of Congress to have a chance to read through the evidence, intelligence, and information about each detainee. Well, some of that may be classified; some may not. Even the information that is classified may leak, with 535 Members of Congress and other staff people. Do we want to run the risk of jeopardizing the prosecution of someone who is a danger to the United States to satisfy the curiosity of a Senator? I don't think so.

Secondly, once this has been presented, if Senator McConnell has his way, then there is a very real possibility that should someone--a known terrorist--be brought to the United States, or any other place for trial under the laws of the United States, they could, in fact, ask--as they do in ordinary criminal cases--for the presentation of all the evidence the State has against them, which would include this document, which would include not only the evidence, intelligence, and information, but quite possibly the work product of the prosecutors who are holding this detainee.

We could not only compromise his prosecution, we could end up with a ``not guilty'' of someone who is dangerous to the United States simply to satisfy the curiosity of a Senator who files this amendment. I think that goes too far. I can't believe that it is in the best interests of the safety of this country for us to allow this McConnell amendment to pass and to require the President to provide to Senator McConnell a current summary of the evidence, intelligence, and information used to justify the detention of each detainee.

Why? Why in the world would we want to compromise any attempt at prosecution? We don't want to do that. Men and women--career prosecutors--are currently reviewing each of these cases to determine whether we can go forward with prosecution. The record of the previous administration is not very good when it comes to prosecuting these detainees. President Obama has said he wants to put that behind us and to deal with these people on an honest basis.

I have listened to the statements that have been made on the floor by the Republican Senators who have come forward with amendments. Many of them clearly want to keep Guantanamo open forever. They talk about a $200 million state-of-the-art facility in glowing terms. Well, I have been there, and I have seen it. I have seen the men and women in uniform who toil there each day under tough climate conditions. It gets pretty hot down there. I know they are working hard for their country. But I think they know, and we know, that continuing Guantanamo is going to continue to deteriorate the reputation of the United States around the world--not because of what our soldiers and sailors and military have done there, but simply because it has become a symbol that is being used by terrorists around the world to recruit enemies against the United States.

That is why President Bush called for the closure of Guantanamo, and that is why President Obama has done the same thing. Yet the Republican platform now seems to be ``Guantanamo forever.'' They have built this platform on fear--fear that somehow this administration would be so negligent that it would release terrorists into the United States, into the communities and neighborhoods of this country. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not this President, or any President I can recall of either political party, would ever find themselves in a position to jeopardize the safety of this country by releasing detainees who would be dangerous to the United States.

But this fear mongering is what has been the basis for their position on the other side of the aisle when it comes to the security of the United States.

Those who are arguing that we cannot safely hold a terrorist in the prisons of America--that is the argument; don't let a detainee from Guantanamo ever be considered for a jail or prison of the United States--have overlooked the obvious. Currently, we have 208 inmates in the Bureau of Prison facilities of the United States who are sentenced to international terrorism--208 already there; 66 U.S. citizens, 142 non-U.S. citizens. In addition to that, 139 inmates in our U.S. Bureau of Prisons have been sentenced for domestic terrorism; 137 U.S. citizens and 2 non-U.S. citizens. Do the math. That is 347 people who have been convicted of terrorism, international and domestic, currently being held in the prisons of the United States.

Do I feel less safe in Illinois--in Springfield or Chicago--because of that? No, because I know they are being held by professionals in facilities that have a record of safely holding these individuals.

The other side suggests if we put one of these Guantanamo detainees in a U.S. prison, they will be on the street in a heartbeat. I can't imagine that. That is not going to happen. The President wouldn't let it happen. Our Bureau of Prisons wouldn't let that happen either.

Then there is this other aspect. If we decided at some point to prosecute a Guantanamo detainee in the courts of the United States for a crime, some of the language that has been brought to us by the Republicans would make that impossible. You know why. Well, one amendment by the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, would not allow the Attorney General to bring that person from Guantanamo Naval Station into the continental United States. The amendment prohibits that. We couldn't even bring them in to try them for a crime, couldn't even bring them in to hold them accountable in a court of law for terrorism.

Another amendment says we can't hold these prisoners in any U.S. prison facility. How do we try a person in the United States and not at least, when they are not in trial, hold them in some prison facility? That is just common sense. The person is dangerous. They are, of course, detained in a secure facility during the course of the trial. Some of the Republican amendments would make that impossible.

I don't understand what they are headed to. I think they want to keep this Guantanamo facility, as we have known it, open forever, without resolution of the people who are there. That is fundamentally unfair. I have said on the floor of the Senate before, and it is worth repeating, that there are people being held at Guantanamo for whom there are no charges. I know one person in particular who is being represented by a pro bono lawyer in Chicago. This man has been held for 7 years at Guantanamo. Originally, he was from Gaza in the Middle East. There was a report that he was dangerous. With that report, he was arrested, taken to Guantanamo, and held. After 6 years, he was notified there were no charges against him; he would be free to go if he could figure out where to go. And that has been the problem. He has been waiting for a year for permission to return to Gaza. He is now 26 years old. From the age of 19 to 26 he has been sitting in Guantanamo. Guantanamo forever? For him, it must feel like forever.

It is about time that we mete out justice. For those being held unfairly, they should be released. For those where there are no charges, we should acknowledge that and return them as quickly and safely as possible. For those who are a danger to the United States, we should continue to detain

them so they never pose a hazard to our country. For those who can be tried, let's try them before our courts of law.

President Obama is going through that arduous, specific process now on each one of these detainees. While his administration is working to clean up this mess that he inherited from the previous administration, the Republicans in the Senate are doing everything they can to block his way and make it impossible for him to resolve the situation at Guantanamo.

I would say the McConnell amendment, page 3, paragraph (2), is a dangerous amendment. It is an amendment that could compromise the ability of the United States of America to prosecute those who could be a danger to our country. Why would we possibly do that?

I urge my colleagues, if I am not given the authority under the rules of the Senate to strike that paragraph, to oppose this amendment.

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

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

Mr. President, what is the business pending before the Senate?

I have sent an amendment to the desk. I ask the clerk to report the amendment.

Mr. President, I would like to withdraw the pending amendment I just filed.

Thank you, Mr. President.

No. 1, I would like to associate myself with the comments of the minority leader about Guantanamo Bay. It is a location that does protect our national interests in terms of a location. It is probably the best run military prison in the world. I have been there several times.

To the guard force and those who are serving at Guantanamo Bay, in many ways, you are the unsung heroes in this war because it is tough duty. You have to go through a lot to be a member of the Guantanamo Bay guard team.

They do a wonderful job. It is a very Geneva Conventions-compliant jail, and there are some pretty bad characters down there who make life miserable for our guard force. But those who serve at Guantanamo Bay do so with dignity and professionalism. Their motto, I believe, is ``honor bound.'' That certainly reflects upon them well.

The idea of the Congress saying we want to plan before we appropriate money to close Guantanamo Bay makes a lot of sense to me. We see a bipartisan movement here to make sure we know what we are going to do with the detainees who are housed at Guantanamo Bay. The American people should be rightly concerned about how we dispose of these prisoners. Quite frankly, they are not common criminals accused of robbing a liquor store; they are accused of being a member of al-Qaida or allied groups that have taken up arms against the United States. Their mission and their purpose is to destroy our way of life and to put our allies and friends in the Mideast into the dark ages. So if you do not want to go back to the dark ages in terms of humanity; if you want young girls to grow up without having acid thrown in their face; if you want a young woman to be able to have a say about the future of her children in the Mideast, then we need to come up with a rational policy regarding fighting al-Qaida and, once we catch them, how to dispose of their cases and make sure they are not only fairly treated but their mission and their goals are defeated and they do not return to the fight.

We have seen in Iraq that there are Muslim populations that do not want to be part of the al-Qaida agenda. Al-Qaida followed us to Iraq because they understood if we were successful there in creating a democracy in the heart of the Mideast, it would be a threat to their agenda. Iraq has a way to go, but I am very proud of the Iraqi people. They have come together. They are making political reconciliations. Their army and police forces are getting stronger. The story of the surge is that the Iraqi people joined with our forces and coalition forces and delivered a mighty blow against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is, quite frankly, in the process of being defeated by the Iraqi people with our help. Now the fight goes to Pakistan and Afghanistan. I cannot think of a more noble cause than to take up arms and fight back against these terrorists who wish the world ill, who will do anything in the name of their religion to have their way, and who would make life miserable for parts of this world and eventually make life miserable for us.

Imagine a caliphate being established in Baghdad, which was their plan, to put the Mideast in constant turmoil. We would not be able to travel freely in this world. We could not interact or do business with the people in the Mideast. It is a very oil-rich region, so it is in our national security interests to stand with moderate people in the Mideast and other places where al-Qaida attempts to take over, and fight back. But when we fight back, we don't have to be like them. Quite frankly, if we are like them when we fight back, we will lose.

This is an ideological struggle. There is no capital to conquer. There is no navy to sink or air force to shoot down. We cannot kill enough of the terrorists to win the war. What we have to do is contain them, fight them, and empower those who live in the region who want to live in a different way, give them the capacity to defend themselves and bring about a stable life in their countries. That is what we are trying to do in Iraq. If we win in Iraq, we will have a democracy in the heart of the Arab world that will be an ally to this country in perpetuity. We will have replaced a dictator named Saddam Hussein, and we will have a place where we can show the world that there are Muslims who do not want to be governed by the al-Qaida agenda, and to me that is a major win in the war on terror. Now we are in Afghanistan. We have lost ground, but we are about to recapture that ground from the Taliban, which are al-Qaida sympathizers and, quite frankly, allowed them to operate in Afghanistan late in the last century and early in this century to plan the attacks of 9/11.

So that is why we are fighting. That is why we are in this discussion. That is why we are concerned about releasing these prisoners within the United States, and that is why we are concerned about Guantanamo Bay. We have every right and reason to be concerned as to how we move forward.

I want to move forward. We need a plan to move forward. We should not close Guantanamo Bay until we have a comprehensive, detailed, legal strategy as to what we will do with these prisoners. Where we put them is only possible if people know what we will do with them. So we have to explain to the American people and our allies the disposition plan. What are we going to do with these detainees? Then where you put them becomes possible. Without what to do, we are never going to find where to put them.

I do believe the President and our military commanders are right when they say it is time to start over. It is a shame we are having to start over, because Guantanamo Bay is a well-run jail. But as I mentioned before, this ideological struggle we are engaged in, the enemy has seized upon the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the mistakes at Guantanamo Bay, and they use that to our detriment. They inflame populations in the Mideast based on our past mistakes. Our commanders have told me to a person that if we could start over with detention policy and show the world that we have a new way of doing business--a better way of doing business--it would improve the ability of our troops to operate in the regions in question where the conflict exists; it would undercut the enemy; it would help our allies be more helpful to us. Our British friends are the best friends we could hope to have, and they have had a hard time with our detainee policy. So we have every reason in the world to want to start over, but the Congress is right not to allow us to start over until we have a plan. The Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, is absolutely right to keep Guantanamo Bay open until we have a complete plan. I do believe this President understands how to move forward with Guantanamo Bay.

The best way to move forward, in my opinion, is to collaborate with the Congress, to look at the military commission system, which I think is the proper venue to dispose of any war crimes trials. Remember, these people we are talking about have been accused of taking up arms against the United States. They are noncitizen, enemy combatants who represent a military threat. Military commissions have been used to try people such as this for hundreds of years. We did trials with German saboteurs who landed on the east coast of the United States for the purpose of sabotaging our industries. They were captured and tried in military commissions. So there is nothing new about the idea of a military commission being used against an enemy force.

I do think the President is right to reform the current commission. I, along with Senator McCain, Senator Warner, and others--Senator Levin particularly--had a bill that set up a military commission process that received complete Democratic support on the Armed Services Committee, and four Republicans. I think that document is worth going back to. The ideas the President has put on the table about reforming the commission, quite frankly, make a lot of sense to me.

So we do need to move forward. We do need to start over. If we could start over with a new detention policy that is comprehensive, it would help our war effort, it would help operations in the countries in question and in the

Mideast at large, and it would repair damage with our allies. Quite frankly, we have lost a lot of court decisions. It would give us a better chance to win in court.

What do I mean by starting over? Come up with a disposition plan that understands that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay represent a military threat and apply the law of armed conflict in their cases. That means we have to treat them humanely. The Geneva Conventions now apply to detainees under Common Article 3 held at Guantanamo Bay based on a 2006 Supreme Court decision. We are bound by that convention because we are the leader of the convention. We have signed up to the convention. As a military lawyer for 25 years, I hold the Geneva Conventions near and dear to my heart, as every military member does, because it will provide protections to our troops in future wars. Yes, I know al-Qaida will not abide by the conventions but, quite frankly, that is no excuse for us to abandon what we believe in. When you capture an enemy prisoner, it becomes about you, not them. They don't deserve much, but we have to be Americans to win this war. There are plenty people in this world who would cut your head off without a trial. I want to show the world a better way. How we dispose of these prisoners can help us in the overall ideological struggle.

What I am proposing is that we come up with a comprehensive plan that will reform the military commissions and that the President come back to the Congress and we have another shot at the commissions to make them more due process friendly but we realize that the people we are trying are accused of war crimes and we apply the law of armed conflict.

I have been a military lawyer, as I said, for 25 years. The judges and the jurors and the lawyers who administer justice in a military commission setting are the same people who administer justice to our own troops. It is a great legal forum. You have rights in the military legal system. You get free legal counsel. Usually cost is not an object. The men and women who wear the uniform who serve as judge advocates take a lot of pride in their job. They are great Americans. They are great officers. They believe in justice. We have seen verdicts, and the few verdicts we have had at Guantanamo Bay indicate that our juries are rational. Our military jurors do hold the prosecution to the standards of proof and they balance the interests of all parties. As I say, I have never been more impressed with the legal system than within our military justice system. Military commissions need to be as much like a court-martial as possible, but practicality dictates some differences.

The one thing this body needs to understand is that it is illegal under the Geneva Conventions to try an enemy prisoner in civilian court. Why is that? You are afraid that civilian justice, jurors and judges, will have revenge on their mind. They are not covered by the Geneva Conventions. Participants in a military commission are covered by the convention--every lawyer, every judge, every juror. They have an obligation to hold to the tenets of the convention and any misconduct on their part in a trial could actually result in prosecution to them or disciplinary action, and that would not be true in the legal world. So having these trials in a military commission setting is the proper venue because they are accused of war crimes. Having the trials in military commissions is consistent with the Geneva Conventions. It is a world-class justice system. Quite frankly, it is the best place to balance our national security interests.

But to the hard part. We can do that. We can reform the commissions. Some of these detainees can be repatriated back to third countries in a way I think is rational and will not hurt our national security interests. But there is going to be a group of detainees--maybe half or more--where the evidence is sound and certain that they are a member of al-Qaida, but it is not of the type that you would want to go to a criminal trial with. It may have third country intelligence service information where the third country would not participate in a criminal trial because it would compromise their operations. Some type of evidence would be such that you would not disclose it in a criminal trial because it would compromise national security. You have to remember, when you try someone criminally, you have to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. You have to share the evidence with the defendant. You have to go through the rigors of a criminal prosecution. Under a military commission people are presumed innocent, and that is the way it should be. But I want America to understand that we are not charging everyone as a war criminal; we are making the accusation that you are a member of al-Qaida. In military law what you have to do if you are accusing someone of being part of the enemy force is prove by a preponderance of the evidence that you are, in fact, a part of the enemy force.

So what I would propose is to set up a hybrid system. For every detainee once determined to be an enemy combatant by our military or CIA, there will be a process to do that, a combat status review tribunal, and we need to improve that process--but you run each detainee through that process and if the military labels them as an unlawful enemy combatant, a member of al-Qaida, then we will do something we have never done in any other war, and that is allow that detainee to go into Federal court.

Under article 5 of the Geneva Conventions, status decisions are made by the military, not by civilian judges. It is usually done by an independent member of the military in an administrative setting. These are administrative hearings. But this war is different. There will never be an end to this war. We will never have a signing on the Missouri as we did in World War II. I realize that. An enemy combatant determination could be a de facto life sentence. So I am willing to build in more due process to accommodate the nature of this war.

What I have proposed is that every detainee determined to be an enemy combatant by our military would go to a group of military judges with uniform standards where the Government would have to prove to an independent judiciary by a preponderance of the evidence that the person is, in fact, an enemy combatant, and if our civilian judges who are trained in reviewing evidence agree with the military, that person can be kept off the battlefield as long as there is a military threat. About 12 percent of the detainees released from Guantanamo Bay have gone back to the fight. The No. 2 al-Qaida operative in Somalia is a former Gitmo detainee. It is true we put people in Gitmo, in my opinion, where the net was cast too large and they were not properly identified. You are going to make mistakes. What I want to do is have a process that our Nation can be proud of: transparent, robust due process, an independent judiciary checking and balancing the military, but never losing sight that the goal is to make sure that the determination of enemy combatant is well founded and, if it is, not to release people back to the fight knowing they are going to go back and kill Americans. That doesn't make us a better nation, to have a process where you have to let people go when the evidence is sound and clear they are going to go back to the fight. That does not make us a better people. You do not have to do that under the law of armed conflict. Let's come up with a new system that will give every detainee a full and fair hearing in Federal court. If they are tried for war crimes, put them in a new military commission, and every verdict would be appealed to civilian judges. Let the trials be transparent. Balance national security against due process. But never lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with people who have taken up arms against the United States. Some of them are so radical and their hearts have been hardened so much, they are so hate-filled, it would be a disaster to this country and the world at large to let them go in the condition that exists today.

Where to put them. Mr. President, 400,000 German and Japanese prisoners were housed in the United States during World War II, and 15 to 20 percent, according to the historical record, were hardened Nazis. A hardened Nazi is at the top of the pecking order when it comes to mass murder. The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational. We have done this before. They are not 10 feet tall.

It is my belief that you need a plan before you close Gitmo, and when you look at a new facility, it needs to be run by the military because under the Geneva Conventions you cannot house enemy prisoners in civilian jails.

I look forward to working with the President of the United States to start over, but we need a plan to start over--a plan to try these people, consistent with the law of armed conflict, in a military commission that is reformed, that will administer justice fairly and balanced and will realize that these people present a military threat. We need a system to allow for keeping the detainees off of the battlefield--who are committed jihadists--that will allow them to have their day in court with an independent judiciary but also will allow a process that will keep them off the battlefield as long as they are dangerous. If the judges agree with the military on the enemy combatant, you should have an annual review process to determine whether they present a military threat. No one should be held without a pathway forward, but no one should be released because you think this is a crime we are dealing with.

If you criminalize this war and do not use the law of armed conflict, you are going to make a huge mistake. There are countries that have terror suspects in jail right now that are about to have to release them because under criminal law you cannot hold them indefinitely. Under military law, you can hold the enemy force off the battlefield if they are properly identified as part of that force, as part of the military threat. That has been the law for hundreds of years, and it ought to be the law we apply. Where we put them is important, but what we do with them is more important, how we try them and detain them.

We have a chance to show the world that there is a better way, a chance to showcase our values. Yes, give them lawyers and put the evidence against them under scrutiny. Put burdens on ourselves, make us prove the case--not just say it is so, prove it in a court that is appropriate for the venue we are talking about, appropriate for the decisions we are about to make. Put that burden on us, and treat them humanely because that is the way we are. That may not be the way they are, but that is the way we are. That makes us better than they. The fact that we will do all these things and they won't is a strength of this Nation, not a weakness. Some people in the past have lost sight of that. The fact that we give them lawyers and a trial based on the evidence, not prejudice and passion, makes us stronger.

We will find a better way to do what we have been doing in the past. We will find a way to close Gitmo, and we will come up with a new plan because we are Americans and we are committed to our value system and committed to beating this enemy.

I look forward to working with the Members of this body to come up with a comprehensive disposition plan that will find a new way to try these people, a new process to hold them off the battlefield, and always operating within our values, which will allow our commanders the chance to start over in the region. Every military commander I have talked to said it would be beneficial to this country to start over with detainee policy. They also understand that we are at war and we need to have a national security system.

As to where we put them, there were six prison camps in South Carolina during World War II. There is a brig near the city of Charleston, a naval brig. It is not the location, because it is near a population center. The place I have in mind is an isolated part of the United States--if necessary--that will be run by the military, with a secure perimeter, that will be operating within the Geneva Conventions requirement, that will have a justice system attached to it, that will be transparent and open where we can administer justice and reattach our Nation to the values we hold so dear.

Part of war is capturing prisoners. That is part of war. We know what the other side does when they capture a prisoner. Let the world know that America has a better way, a way that will not only make us safe but help us win this war.

In conclusion, the goal of this effort to start over is to undermine the enemy's propaganda that has been used against us because of our past mistakes, allow our allies to come join us in a new way forward, and protect us against a vicious enemy that needs to be held off the battlefield, maybe forever. Some of these people are literally going to die in jail, and that is OK with me because I think the evidence suggests that if we ever let them out, they would go back to killing Americans, our friends, and our allies. I will not shed a tear. The way to avoid getting killed or going to jail forever is, not to join al- Qaida. If you have made that decision to do so, let it be said that this Nation is going to stand up to you and fight back, within our value system. Some of these people will never see the light of day, and that is the right decision. Some of them can be released.

Let's have a process that understands what we are trying to do as a nation. Make sure it is national security oriented, make sure it is within our value system but also that everything we do is as a result of a nation that has been attacked by these people. They have not robbed a liquor store; they have tried to destroy our way of life. The legal system I am proposing recognizes that distinction.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I call up the Lieberman-Graham amendment No. 1157.

Madam President, I will talk about the amendment, if I may.

Madam President, I wished to thank Senator Lieberman for his leadership on this issue. We have been working together on what I think is a very big deal for the American people in the overall war effort. As many of you know, particularly our colleagues and the public at large, we have had a discussion in this Nation about whether we should release more

photos showing detainee abuse in the past.

The President of the United States has decided to stand for the proposition that releasing these photos would jeopardize the safety of our men and women serving overseas and Americans abroad, as well as civilians serving in the war zones. He has indicated the photos don't add anything to the past debate about detainee abuse. They are more of the same. No new person is implicated. These photos, again, were taken by our own folks, detailing abuse, and a lot of that has been dealt with already and prosecuted.

The President, I think rightfully, has determined, after consulting with his combat commanders, that if we release these photos, it would not help us understand any more about detainee problems in the past than we already know. But it would be a tremendous benefit to the enemy. The enemy used these photos in the past to generate resentment against our troops. It has been a propaganda tool. The President is rightfully concerned that to release more photos would add nothing to the overall knowledge base we have regarding detainee abuse, and it is simply going to put American lives in jeopardy. I applaud the President, who stood for our troops and men and women and the civil servants overseas.

There are a lot of mysteries in this world, but there is no mystery on what would happen if we release those photos. I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if these photos get into the public domain, they will inflame populations where our troops are serving overseas and increase violence against our troops.

What we have done--Senator Lieberman and myself--is we came up with an amendment that addresses the lawsuit before our judicial system about the photos. This amendment says any detainee photos that are certified by the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with others, that would result in harm to our men and women serving overseas, jeopardize the war effort, and put our troops in harm's way, with Presidential approval, those photos cannot be released for a 5-year period of time. To me, that is a reasonable compromise. It doesn't change FOIA, in its basic construct, but it provides congressional support to the President's decision that we should not release these photos.

Senator Lieberman and myself have been to the theater of operations many times. We have met with al-Qaida operatives who have switched sides, basically, and they have told us firsthand how at prison camps in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib photos were used in the past to recruit new members to al-Qaida and generate resentment against our troops.

I applaud the President. This legislation will help the administration in court. I thank Senator Lieberman, who, above all else, puts his country and the security of our men and women ahead of any political calculation. For that, I very much appreciate his leadership and his friendship. I wish to recognize what he did.

Madam President, here is a closing thought. The President understands very well, and I know Senator Lieberman does, and I think we all understand we have some damage to repair. We have made mistakes in this war. Detainee operations are essential in every war. Part of war is to capture prisoners and how you dispose of them can help or hurt the war effort. There have been times in the past where detainee operations have hurt the war effort. We need to start over. That is why we need to look at a new system to replace the one we have regarding military commissions--but keep it in the military setting--and a way to start over with basic detainee operations in a comprehensive manner. But in repairing the damage of the past, you have to make sure you are not creating future damage. If you release these photos, you will not repair damage from the past, and you will not bring somebody to justice that is in these photos whom we already don't know about. There will not be a new person named. It is more of the same. So it doesn't contribute to repairing the damage of the past, but it sure does create damage for the future.

The one fact I am very aware of is that the young men and women serving overseas today--soldiers, military members, and civilians--have done nothing wrong. They should not pay a price for the people who did something wrong in the past whom we already know about.

If you release these photos, Americans are going to get killed for no good reason. That is why we need to pass this amendment--to help the President defeat this lawsuit that would lead to violence against Americans who are doing their job and have done nothing wrong. They should not be punished for something somebody has done in the past, which has already been addressed.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it is my understanding that there is an agreement we can bring up the amendment at this time. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 1157 on behalf of Senator Lieberman, myself, and Senator McCain.

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

Madam President, Senator Lieberman and I have already explained the need for this amendment. It will help the President win a lawsuit that is moving through our legal system regarding the release of photos of past detainee abuse. As I said, that will not help us to learn more, and it will only put American lives at risk, as the commanders have told the President. The Senate can avoid that by passing this targeted amendment.

I hope we can get a large vote for this amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Madam President, I call up amendment No. 1156.

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

Madam President, I am very pleased to rise now to offer this amendment on behalf of a bipartisan group: Senators Thune, Begich, Graham, and Burris, all of us members of the Armed Services Committee.

I take the floor today to speak on their behalf and mine for a constituency that every Member of the Senate represents; and that is, the men and women who serve in the U.S. Army.

On September 11, 2001, the Army's active-duty strength was just 480,000, after a decade in which we in Congress cut it nearly in half after the Cold War ended.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, many Members of Congress urged a major expansion of the military and the Army for the years of war that were clearly ahead. But, unfortunately, that did not happen. We watched with growing concern as our soldiers--members of a force too small for the missions we had assigned to them--served through repeated deployments, heroically, but under increasing stress.

Finally, 3 years ago, the administration and Congress increased the size of the active-duty component of the U.S. Army from 480,000--the level on 9/11--to 547,400. That was to be realized over a period of years.

In February of this year, the Army reached that goal well ahead of the schedule that had been originally anticipated, fortunately, because every man and woman who joined the Army is necessary and has been critically necessary. So now we actually have 549,000 active-duty soldiers.

Recall that I said the statutory end strength of the Army is 547,400. So the Army now is literally at a strength greater than its current authorization. This achievement expresses the patriotic commitment of the American men and women who have answered the call of duty. In other words, recruitments and reenlistments have been so high that there are more people in the Army than the statutory end strength.

But there is still not enough. I will explain why.

Growing the force was clearly necessary to support our troops in the Army, our soldiers who are bearing the major responsibility for the wars we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But these increased numbers simply have not proved sufficient to relieve the continued strain on our soldiers. That is what this amendment intends to do during the remainder of this fiscal year, covered by this supplemental appropriations bill.

I want to talk about dwell time. It is a term the military uses. What is ``dwell time''? It is down time but not R&R time. It is time that is spent back here at home in the bases, with the families, not just recovering from the last deployment, but also, obviously, preparing and training and upgrading for the next. And perhaps most significantly to the men and women of the Army, it is precious time for our soldiers to spend with their families.

Today, dwell time of members of the U.S. Army is about slightly more than 1 to 1. That means for every year of deployment, they are back home at the base, training, preparing, spending time with their family, for a year--1 to 1.

General Casey said--and everybody in our military says--that is simply inadequate; too much duty, too quickly, too much stress on our men and women in the U.S. Army, in the military.

General Casey said he has the goal to get the ratio to 1 to 2--2 years at home for every 1 year out at war--and to do so by 2011. In fact, he would like to take it higher than the 1 to 2--beyond that-- hoping that our conflicts we are in in Iraq and Afghanistan do not require that many American military by that time.

Incidentally, the dwell-time ratio is particularly dire for a category in our Army called ``enablers.'' They are involved as Army aviators, engineers, people involved in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance work. They really are under dwell-time pressure.

As the Presiding Officer knows, the Obama administration is implementing what I consider to be a very responsible strategy, and a correct strategy, for drawing down our force in Iraq. But if you combine the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the planned increase in Army presence in Afghanistan, as we slowly decrease in Iraq, Army deployments will actually increase for the rest of this year.

This is what General Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, said to the Armed Services Committee the other day: It is a simple question of supply and demand. If the supply of the Army stays only constant or even goes down, and yet the demand--which is the increasing deployments for at least the remainder of this year, and probably well into next year--goes up, the dwell time--the time these soldiers of ours, heroes of ours, have to spend away from the war zone back at base--will not rise from the unacceptable level it is at now.

Our military leadership has made clear in public statements that things are going to get worse before they get better.

Army Chief of Staff Casey recently warned that the number of deployed soldiers will actually, as I said, rise through the rest of the year. Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the Army faces a ``very rough time'' over at least the next 2 years before it reaches what Admiral Mullen called the ``light at the end of the tunnel.''

Keep in mind, these predictions do not reflect or absorb the possibility of a new crisis or new crises elsewhere in the world outside of Iraq and Afghanistan--what such a crisis would place in the way of additional demands on our soldiers--a possibility that recent experience warns us to at least keep in mind as a possibility.

So we are in a situation now where we have a constant level of soldiers on Active Duty, demand in the short term going up, and, therefore, dwell time--time away from the battlefield--not rising. This equation leads to strain and stress on our soldiers. Unfortunately, there are facts that show this strain and stress. The Army is on track this year to overtake the grim record of suicides of our Active-Duty Army personnel that we saw last year, in 2008. The murder a week or two ago of five soldiers by a fellow soldier in Baghdad was a devastating example, I fear, of the stress on our deployed force. We hear increasingly stories of the stress on the families back home. Any of us who have visited military bases, spoken to the families, hear this constantly as a growing appeal to do something to increase the dwell time. The fact is, we are not, and that really does hurt.

I think we can say--as was said the other day at an Armed Services Committee hearing by witnesses before us from the Defense Department who were talking about all we are doing to improve the quality of life of our men and women in uniform, including housing for their families, health care, childcare, et cetera, et cetera--benefits--all true. So we are improving the benefits to our men and women in the

U.S. Army, but so long as there are not enough of them, which there are not today, the major factor of stress, which is how often, how many times are they going to be sent back to Iraq and Afghanistan, or how frequently, will not change. That is what this amendment aims to do something about.

I wish to make clear what is obvious to everyone: that our Army is not broken. This is the greatest--this is the next greatest generation of the American military, performing with unbelievable skill, heroism, resilience, agility, and personal compassion in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our Army is not broken, but it is, as General Casey said the other day, out of balance. Secretary of the Army Geren said--summarizing this part of his testimony before the Armed Services Committee--the U.S. Army is ``busy, stretched, and stressed.'' And he is right. We have to give those heroes in uniform some help, and the best help we can give them is more people in uniform fighting alongside them.

Here is a strange twist. In the face of the current crisis in manpower, the administration has been forced to effectively direct the Army to not only stop growing but to actually shrink by the end of the year as deployments overseas increase, dropping back from over 549,000 soldiers to the statutory limit of 547,400. In other words, this supplemental appropriations bill closes a gap that existed in the Army's ability to pay for the 547,400 they are entitled to, but they are still over by 1,600 soldiers. Therefore, there is a guidance out that directs the Army to take drastic measures to cut back; in fact, reducing their recruiting goals this year by 13,000 soldiers, which the Army knows it can meet, and cutting its retention goal by 10,000 troops, which the Army also knows it can meet. So here we have this ironic--really worse than that--moment where we need more troops and more soldiers and the Army is going to be forced to cut back.

I must tell my colleagues that I think it is going to be hard to shrink the Army in this way by the end of this year because so many of our troops are reenlisting, which is quite remarkable--so committed to the cause, proud of their service, want to keep fighting for the United States alongside the others in their unit. Obviously, some are affected by the economy and the instability and difficulty in finding job opportunities in the economy.

So I think it would be a terrible mistake to order the Army to cut its ranks at this time, which would mean less dwell time for our soldiers. That is why Senators Graham, Begich, Thune, Burris, and I introduced this bipartisan amendment which would enable the Army to maintain its current strength and continue to grow for the remainder of this fiscal year as the Secretary of Defense determines. No compulsion here.

Current law forces the Army to get smaller before the end of the year. This amendment would say it can grow beyond the 547,400 within the limit of the waiver that the Army has, and it provides the money to do that, which is an additional $400 million for the remainder of this fiscal year--frankly, a small price. It is a significant amount of money, but when we think about the impact it will have on the lives of just about every man and woman wearing the proud uniform of the U.S. Army, it is more than worth it.

I wish to explain, while I have a moment and while I see no one else on the Senate floor, that the amendment literally will increase the minimum end strength for the Active-Duty Army from the statutory level it is at now up to 547,400. When that point is reached, it gives the Secretary of the Army a 2-percent waiver, and that means that working with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army could actually raise the Army as high as 558,000 by the end of the fiscal year. I don't expect that to be possible in the next few months, but it gives that latitude and the money to back it up.

The second part of the amendment provides additional funds to help the Army cover the immediate personnel shortfall it faces because of the toll the ongoing conflicts are taking on the force.

If I may add just this final argument of reality. The Vice Chief of Staff, Peter Chiarelli, told the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness last month that the Army has about 30,000 soldiers among that current 549,000 who are, for one reason or another--three reasons, actually--not available to meet the requirements of the Army, not able to be directly involved.

For example, nearly 10,000 soldiers now either serve as Wounded Warriors or support their recovery, while thousands more are not deployable because of injuries they have suffered, often not in conflict, but that are, nonetheless, though less severe, disabling enough that they can't be deployed. So the truth is, there already is a 30,000-gap beneath the 549,000 that is on the books as actively deployed.

The best way to honor the sacrifice and service of these soldiers will be to ensure that their brothers and sisters in arms go to battle with reinforcements who can take their place; to guarantee that the Army can build those enabler units I talked about that the service needs most now on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq--and both battlefields are now beginning to compete for those uniquely trained enablers; and to provide the Army leadership with the flexibility it needs to have the manpower for the theater while giving our troops more time at home.

I wish to go to two final questions. Would growing the force today relieve the strain on the force when it matters most? And is this a proposal we can afford? In terms of the first, we know the greatest demand in the theater falls upon our most junior soldiers, such as the Army's privates and specialists who face the most difficult dwell time ratios in the force and keep going back and forth.

If we commit to growing the force now, these are the types of troops we can recruit, train, and deploy in this time of greatest need, and we can retain them. In short, if provided the additional personnel, the U.S. Army can definitely use them and use them well.

In terms of the second question, of course, I am concerned about the long-term costs of increasing the size of the force. The price of military personnel has risen over the past decade because we better recognize the service of our soldiers, and we are taking better care of them. Nonetheless, I don't see how we can explain to our soldiers and their families that we in Congress decided that we could not afford reinforcements at a time when the force is so stressed under the strain of war and still performing so brilliantly.

The Army is not broken, I wish to stress. It is out of balance, and it needs our support to come into balance. This amendment would provide the funds to give the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense the option--not mandatory--to raise the number of Active-Duty military personnel, from now until the end of this fiscal year, to a level above--slightly above--the 547,400 now statutorily authorized.

I hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us in giving this amendment unanimous support. I honestly think it is just about the best thing we can do for the heroes of the U.S. Army who serve us every day to protect our security and our freedom.

I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Objection.

Madam President, I thank my friend from South Carolina for his kind words, first, but also for working together on this in a bipartisan way. Senator Graham serves in the Senate, but he also serves in the U.S. Air Force. When we travel with him, he usually remains behind to do some time and be of service in the battle zones. That is the kind of person he is. He is an extremely skilled lawyer.

We approached this trying to do what was right from a legal point of view but also understanding what the President, to his great credit, understood and expressed in the decision he has made on these photos. These are old photos. They portray, I fear, behavior that is unacceptable and, in fact, has been made illegal by the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act, which Senator Graham played the leading part in drafting. This behavior portrayed in the pictures already has also been made illegal by Executive order of President Obama. So what purpose is served by putting these pictures out now? What good purpose? None. It is a kind of voyeurism, frankly, to see the pictures just for the sake of seeing the pictures. Maybe in a normal time that would be OK; it probably would be. Disclosure and transparency are values our country, our Government, holds high. But there is something different now, and this is what President Obama recognizes. We are at war. When you are at war, you have to ask the question the President asked General Petraeus, General Odierno, and others: Will the public release of these pictures endanger America, American military personnel, and American Government personnel serving overseas?

The answer came back loud and clear: Yes, it will. So the President, with strength and decisiveness, stepped onto what I am sure he knew was politically controversial ground. He did what he thought was right for the country as Commander in Chief. As Senator Graham said, we applaud him greatly for that. We are at war, and you don't do the things when you are at war that you might do at other times.

This proposal basically codifies into law the process President Obama suggested in reaching the decision he made to fight the release of these pictures.

Last week, the President made exactly the right decision as Commander in Chief that will protect our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere and make it easier for them to carry out the missions that we have asked them to do.

After consulting with General Petraeus, General Odierno and others, the President decided to fight the release of photographs that depict the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Those photographs are the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Last fall, the Second Circuit court of appeals ordered the release of those photographs. Instead of appealing that decision to the Supreme Court, government lawyers agreed to release the images as well as others that were part of internal Department of Defense investigations.

I strongly believe that the President's decision to fight the release of the photographs was the right one. Today, Senator Graham and I introduced this amendment to H.R. 2346, the supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, that will codify the President's decision and establish a procedure to prevent the detainee photos from being released.

Before the President decided to fight the Second Circuit decision, Senator Graham and I sent a letter to the President making the case that the release of the photographs serves no public good.

The behavior depicted in those photographs has been prohibited by Congress in the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act as well as by Executive orders issued by President Obama. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense has investigated the allegations of detainee abuse for the purpose of holding those responsible accountable.

We also know that the release of the photographs will make our service men and women deployed overseas less safe. There is compelling evidence that the images depicting detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib was a great spur to the insurgency in Iraq and made it harder for our troops to succeed in their mission there.

Now we learned valuable lessons from those pictures. And as I said, Congress and this President have taken steps to prevent that abuse from ever happening again.

But the same is not true about these pictures. These pictures depict past abuses that have already been addressed and we know that the release will only empower the propaganda operations of al-Qaida and other Islamist terrorist organizations.

Even before 9/11, terrorist groups like al-Qaida recognized the immense value of using propaganda to recruit and radicalize followers around the world. Since 9/11, the al-Qaida propaganda operation has only gotten more sophisticated. Should pictures like these be released, we know that they will be circulated immediately on al-Qaida connected Web sites and many other Web sites that readily post images just like this.

And to be clear, it is not al-Qaida leadership we are worried about-- they are committed to destroying America regardless of what happens with these photos. Rather it is the thousands of

young men--and some women--around the world who may not otherwise be inclined to sympathize with or support al-Qaida but may change their minds after seeing these photos. Those recruits are the ones that keep al-Qaida and other Islamist terrorist groups vibrant and capable of planning and executing attacks against us.

By introducing this legislation today, we do not condone the behavior depicted in the photographs. We expect that those responsible for the mistreatment of detainees will be held accountable. And that is exactly what the Department of Defense has done with the internal investigations it has conducted.

This bill--the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act--would establish a procedure just like the one that led to the President's decision not to release the photos.

This legislation would authorize the Secretary of Defense, after consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to certify to the President that the disclosure of photographs like the ones at issue in the ACLU lawsuit would endanger the lives of our citizens or members of the Armed Forces or civilian employees of the U.S. Government deployed abroad.

The certification would last 5 years and could be renewed by the Secretary of Defense if the threat to American personnel continues. Also, the language in the bill is clear that it would apply to the current ACLU lawsuit that gave rise to the President's decision last week.

Let me state clearly that we cannot become complacent about the stark reality that we are still at war with enemies who continue to seek to attack America and kill Americans. In the heated partisan environment in Washington, we are unfortunately sometimes more engaged in finger pointing and recriminations than being focused on defeating the vicious determined enemy we face.

I applaud President Obama for the actions he has taken in the past week on the photos and the military commissions and I believe that this legislation will provide him with an important tool to assist him in leading the war on terror.

Bottom line: I hope, again, this can be a bipartisan amendment, which it is, but I hope it will be supported by Members across the aisles. When we do that, we are all going to be saying we know we are at war and that we have no higher responsibility than to protect the security of our country and our military personnel, which would be endangered if these pictures go out.

For a quick moment, I speak as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, which I am privileged to lead. These pictures will be a recruiting device for al-Qaida and the rest of the terrorist ilk. These pictures will go up instantaneously on jihadist terrorist recruiting Web sites. Not just people elsewhere in the world but people in the United States will be drawn to those Web sites and perhaps recruited through these pictures into a life of terrorism, where the essential target will be America and Americans. There is no reason to let that happen, and this amendment will make sure, in an orderly and fair way, that it doesn't happen while we are at war.

Again, I thank my friend from South Carolina. I gather we are waiting for word on whether we can introduce the amendment soon.

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

Madam President, later today, or at some point in time, with respect to the supplemental, there will be an amendment that will seek to strike funds that have been put in this supplemental for the purpose of providing additional loan money to the IMF. I would like to talk about that for a moment because this is a proposal of the President which has the bipartisan support of members of the Foreign Relations Committee, and it has serious implications with respect to the health of the world's economy. It also has serious implications with respect to America's leadership.

Madam President, everybody understands that the United States of America is not alone in wrestling with an economic crisis that is global at this point. We all understand how it began. We understand the implications of our own irresponsibility with respect to the regulatory process and the greed and other excesses that drove what happened on Wall Street and what has affected the lives of millions of Americans, but it has also affected the lives of people around the globe. The fact is, what started in the United States has now spread to countries around the world, and it continues to reverberate beyond our financial systems into all of our economies. The global economic crisis is in fact seriously affecting emerging markets and developing countries, and they are now experiencing severe economic declines and massive withdrawals of capital.

We don't know yet where this crisis will end, but we know we do have an ability to be able to address this crisis in various ways. One of the most powerful instruments, one of the most powerful tools available to the leaders of the governmental financial marketplace, is the IMF itself. President Obama understood early on that our actions on the global stage in response to this financial and economic crisis would be a very important test of America's leadership. That is why in his first major meeting abroad at the G-20 leader summit in London, the President called for an expansion of the IMF's new arrangements to borrow. It is often referred to just as the NAB--the new arrangements to borrow. The President proposed expanding that up to about $500 billion in order to help the world's economies avoid collapse.

This crisis of the last months has offered us a vivid illustration of how the increasing interconnectedness of our global economic financial system actually comes with a greater susceptibility to systemic risk. The IMF contains risk, deals with risk, minimizes risk by serving as a bulwark against rolling financial failures, and it addresses volatility in the global financial system. The result of that is actually to help everybody. The NAB is a contingency fund to which many countries contribute, and today other countries are looking to the United States to deliver on our earlier commitment.

Japan has committed $100 million, the European Community members have already committed $100 billion, and may well commit up to $160 billion. In the last few weeks, countries such as Canada, Switzerland, China, South Korea, Norway, Australia, the Czech Republic, India, and others have all offered commitments in the billions of dollars in order to support the IMF. The President's promise helped to galvanize this global response, and it is critical that we, the United States, having galvanized this response, having helped to lead people to the watering hole, now fulfill our obligations ourselves. We need to do our part, and we need to approve the President's request for up to $100 billion of authority. In fact, in terms of the budget authority here, this is scored at about $5 billion. Why? Because this is a loan process, and it is a loan process over which the United States continues to have input and the ability, in fact, to help make decisions.

The reasons to support the President's request frankly go far beyond

the need of other countries at their moment of economic vulnerability. A fortified IMF is in our interest also. There are real national security concerns about the way this crisis could trigger a political crisis around the world. It is, in fact, a crisis which has already brought down the Governments of Iceland and several east European countries. It has helped to spark riots in Europe and Southeast Asia, and it will very likely be a driving political force for a long time to come.

For all the volatility that we have seen, Madam President, we value our investment in the IMF all the more for the things we have not seen. The fund has been able so far to act swiftly to stave off balance of payment crises in countries such as Pakistan. Obviously, whatever we can do to avoid economic crisis in Pakistan right now is critical to the survival of that democracy and to the ultimate success, we hope, against the insurgencies the Government of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan are fighting.

We are also seeing the steps taken by the IMF thus far are also lending strong support to key U.S. allies, including Mexico, Poland, and Colombia. These are vulnerable nations with very important American interests at play. Successes obviously don't make headlines the same way that failures do, but make no mistake; IMF financing has helped to stabilize several potentially volatile situations in this crisis already.

Madam President, I am not alone in warning of the security threat that is posed by this crisis. Back in March, the Director of National Intelligence, ADM Dennis Blair, testified before Congress about the risks in front of our Nation. This is what he said:

The primary near-term security concern of the United States

is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical

implications.

That is a remarkable statement coming from a person who is in the middle of struggling with potential dirty bombs and terrorism and counterterrorism and the threat of al-Qaida in various parts of the world. He nevertheless still emphasizes that the primary threat is a global economic crisis, and I believe we need to understand the full implications of it.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter signed by 14 former National Security Advisers and Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury, all urging us to move expeditiously to live up to the President's commitment.

Madam President, I emphasize that the signatures on this letter come from both sides of the aisle, from respected public servants and admired strategists, such as GEN Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, James Baker, Robert Rubin, Lee Hamilton, and Paul Volcker. All of them urge us to complete the task of providing the support funding for the IMF.

If there is one lesson we should take away from the worst impacts of this global crisis, it is that we should never underestimate the severity of these economic challenges or the urgency of tackling them head on rather than deferring the tough decisions. The IMF needs a robust contingency fund. Let me emphasize this is a contingency fund. This is a fund that doesn't represent money that is transferred to the IMF, and then they take on some spending spree, nor does it represent money that goes to the IMF and is used for IMF expenses. This is a direct loan program--loan only--and in the past the United States has actually made money when we have made these loans.

The fact is that this financial crisis is still brewing. For example, in central and Eastern Europe, in this part of the world where we saw the Berlin Wall and a repressive Communist regime of Eastern Europe crash down 20 years ago, we see the risk that if we don't act, it is possible that the economies of Eastern Europe will come crashing down too. Then we will replace an era of promise and progress in Eastern Europe with one of soaring unemployment, instability, and a retrenchment of the influence and ideals that we have been investing in and helping those countries to put more permanently in place.

The IMF is the best channel for providing balance of payment assistance to emerging and developing markets that are currently suffering as a consequence of their economies and banking systems. In some cases, political systems are collapsing around them. The alternative to having a legitimate and robust IMF to deal with countries at risk is, frankly, not a pretty one. IMF loans come with strings attached, but they are mainly financial strings not strategic strings.

As we balance the domestic and global demands of this crisis, we need to be warned that in cutting corners for short-term savings, we risk creating far greater costs down the road. As it stands now, the large and urgent financing needs projected for emerging markets and developing countries cannot be met from existing IMF lending reserves. There is no cost-free, risk-free option, and lendings to the new arrangements for borrowing allows us to leverage our contribution toward a global capacity to manage economic risks. Managing those risks benefits all of us.

The reasons to act, in fact, go well beyond foreign policy interests. This is not a foreign policy issue. In fact, our domestic economic interests are also vulnerable if we fail to stem economic crises in other countries.

Why is that? Well, for a very simple reason. Expanding the IMF's NAB resources is actually essential to our overall strategy for restoring the health of the U.S. economy, for our exports, and it helps us to secure U.S. jobs.

Some in America might take the short-term view. We have heard that before. Some in America may try to appeal to the lowest common denominator and say to people: Well, why on Earth are we sending money to some fund that might, in fact, help a foreign country, when we ought to be just focused on the bailout at home? Well, the reality is that is a completely, totally false choice. The truth is, America's economic recovery depends not just on our own stimulus package and on spending here, and not just on fiscal and monetary policy and programs that sustain domestic demand, but we also need to sustain demand abroad. We sell to those countries. We have millions of Americans making products that go to those countries and, in fact, those emerging markets in developing countries have been, up until now, some of the best growth opportunities for American investment and for American jobs to be able to supply goods.

Economic growth abroad helps us to kick economic growth into gear at home. That is why we need the IMF to help protect the markets we export to and from which they import American products.

Let me just be specific about that. Between 2003 and 2008, U.S. exports grew by 8 percent per year in real terms. Since 2000, our exports show a 95-percent correlation to foreign country growth rates. In large part, our economy was benefiting from the rapid growth of other economies in other parts of the world. During that period, the role of exports in driving American economic growth actually increased. The share of all U.S. growth attributable to export growth rose from 25 percent in 2003 to almost 50 percent in 2007, and then almost 70 percent in 2008.

Now, unfortunately, our exports peaked in July of last year, and they have been falling ever since then. Most of our partners are in recession. In the first quarter of 2009, our real exports were 23 percent lower than in the first quarter of 2008.

Our export decline is now contributing to the recession in the United States. With an export share in GDP of 12 percent, a 23-percent decline of that share of GDP, if you sustain that 23 percent over the course of the year it actually makes a negative contribution to the GDP of the United States of 2.5 percent. In other words, if our domestic demand were stagnant, our GDP would fall by nearly 3 percent. With that, we lose a lot of jobs and a lot of the struggle to get our economy back into gear just becomes that much more complicated and that much more delayed.

Congress passed, and the President signed, a stimulus plan that is designed to boost domestic demand. But if we fail to act, all the money we have spent to stimulate our own economy could actually be offset completely by the decline in exports.

We need to help these foreign countries lift themselves out of recession. Our recovery now depends on many of these countries that are now at risk. Some foreign countries can take care of themselves with a stimulus of their own and in cleaning up their own banking sectors. But many other countries, especially emerging market economies, have been so hard hit that they need a helping hand.

Some countries have been cut off abruptly from capital markets and shut out of the credit markets by the banking problems originating in the United States and Europe. Let me give an example. We exported to a lot of countries our notions about how one ought to bank and how you, in fact, use banks to leverage and to go out and create jobs by investing in businesses. The fact is that many banks in Western Europe practiced that so effectively that they bought up banks in Eastern Europe, and so banks in parts of Eastern Europe, when they stopped lending, stopped lending because the banks in the western part of Europe are taking care of their immediate home-based problems and their capital problems, and the result is those eastern economies are particularly hard hit. This crisis actually started with us, and it is reverberating because of this and these systemic failures, and it will hurt more if it reverberates back to us because we failed to help some of those countries to hold up the export demand as well as to sustain their political systems which we have invested in very deeply since the end of the Cold War.

As countries recover, the United States is going to gain. We are going to be spared the risk of an even more precipitous decline in our exports, with greater job loss. In time, our export growth will resume and people in export industries across our country are going to be able to go back to work.

While we take part in a global effort to increase the NAB, we also have to shore up our influence inside the IMF and give greater voice to the emerging markets. The President is looking to increase by approximately $8 billion America's quota subscription to the IMF. These quotas actually determine how the IMF assigns voting rights, and it decides on access to IMF funding. This increase in the U.S. quota is part of a larger practice to address long overdue governance reform and create greater legitimacy for the IMF.

It is also part of a two-way street. If we want major exporting companies to step up and contribute for the first time to, amongst other things, this expanded NAB facility, then we need to show that they can have a larger voice in the IMF itself. It also makes certain the United States can keep its current voting weight in order to maintain our leadership in the IMF so we have the ability to shape the future of the institution.

Before I finish, I would like to directly speak to two misconceptions that I think are involved in the amendment that will seek to strike this particular portion. The first is a very important point, and I wish to emphasize it. I spoke about it a moment ago, but I really wish to emphasize it.

The United States, in providing lending money to the New Arrangements to Borrow, to the IMF, is not giving away money. We are not spending money. This is a deposit fund. It goes into an account, and we get an IMF interest-bearing asset in exchange for those funds. It actually can turn out to be a good investment because, while we participate in the IMF because of the enormous benefit it brings to the United States and to the world in terms of emerging countries and their markets, in fact, the United States has earned money historically on its participation in the IMF. According to the Treasury Department's most recent report to Congress, the fact is, we have been on the plus side. This is not a payout, therefore, of the IMF; it is an exchange of assets. We put assets in the fund, and we get an interest-bearing asset in exchange for those funds. This is a particular arrangement that has worked out very sufficiently for the U.S. Treasury in the past.

Second, let me be very clear on what is being asked here. The NAB, the New Arrangements to Borrow, is a contingency fund to be used only when other resources of the IMF are exhausted. The United States and other members of the NAB have control over these funds, and the IMF needs to get approval from the NAB providers in order to draw down on these funds. So we have to think of this as an insurance fund over which the United States continues to have control.

We have before us legislation to replenish the IMF's resources just in time for it to be able to stand up and help fight this crisis. With this money, the IMF will be able to help many countries revive their economies. With this money, the IMF will be ready in case the crisis deepens and creates more victims. With this money, America is able to lead at a moment of crisis and keep the promise of the President and help us to sustain the viability of emerging markets and countries, which is vital in the context of the struggle against extremism and religious fanaticism and terrorism, which we see has its prime targets in places that are failing. The ability to be able to prevent that failure is in the strategic as well as in the economic interests of our country. The world is looking to us to keep our word.

I urge support for the request of the President.

Mr. President, how much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be notified after 10 minutes and that the approximately 6 minutes be reserved for Senator Inhofe.

It is to reserve the 10 minutes I had scheduled and to reserve 6 minutes for you, I say to the Senator.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment to prohibit funds from the supplemental being used for relocation of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

President Obama has asked for $100 million in the regular 2010 Defense appropriations bill for his proposal to close Guantanamo Bay. As Congress considers that plan for 2010, it is reasonable for us to ask the President to come to Congress with his plan so we can consider the funding requirements as part of the normal oversight process. But right now, I think it is clear, from all the debate we have heard, the President does not have a plan. Instead, he is proceeding with a decision to close Guantanamo Bay, even though there is no viable alternative for the detainment of terrorist combatants.

On September 11, 2001, we know the United States peered into the face of evil, when 19 foreign terrorists brought the violence of extremism to our soil, claiming the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans.

That day changed the course of American history. In the 8 years since, America has boldly waged the global war on terror in an effort to prevent terrorism from ever reaching American shores again.

This conflict has presented our Nation with operational challenges which we had not seen before. It is where to and how to detain captured terrorists who are enemy combatants but do not represent legal combatants of a country. They are not an organized military. They do not have the honor code that any military of a country has. No. They are terrorists. They do not have an honor code. Therefore, how and where we detain them has been a unique situation for our country.

Included in the detainees at Guantanamo Bay is the self-confessed mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Since just after 9/11, these enemy combatants have been at a prison facility that is a U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. I have been there. Conditions are good. Medical service and food is good. Customs of the combatants are recognized and respected.

My colleagues are discussing Guantanamo, saying it is divisive. They are talking about the whole issue of what is torture. I think it is very important that we separate what is torture from detaining enemy combatants who must be detained because they have information and because they are either suspects or known terrorists or are self- confessed terrorists who want to harm and kill Americans and our allies.

So as we are discussing the issue of where they are detained, I think we should put aside the issue of what is torture, which is a legitimate issue for discussion but not in where these prisoners are housed. This issue should be: Is this a secure facility? Are conditions clean? Does it meet the standards of any American prison? Does it protect Americans by holding the detainees in a secure place from which it would be very difficult for them to escape?

One other point, because it has been brought out that we have secure prisons in America. Well, there is a difference here because we are putting these enemy combatants who do not have an honor code on American soil, if that is the choice that is made, and we are also allowing people from the outside to then start plotting for their escape into America's neighborhoods.

I believe the President's initiative saying we would close Guantanamo Bay within a year is premature, and I am extremely concerned that this deadline, when there is no alternative and no plan for these dangerous terrorists, is taking precedence over the plan that must be put forward for the security of Americans.

There are five scenarios that have been outlined here on the floor about what we would do with these detainees: hand them over to their home countries for incarceration, transfer them to a neutral country, transfer them to prisons in America, send them to U.S. facilities abroad, or release them outright. Unfortunately, every one of these options heightens the threat to the lives of Americans.

Let's talk about putting them in America. That is the worst of these options. By taking this action, we allow people to plot the takeover of a prison or the escape of these detainees, put them in cell phone range where they could be talking to the outside. That would be the worst option.

In 2007, the Senate voted 94 to 3 expressing its firm opposition to any plans to release Guantanamo detainees into American society or to house them in American facilities. So what about other countries? What about putting them out into other countries? That, too, is very dangerous. In January, it was reported that former Guantanamo detainee Said Ali al-Shihri, who had been released into the custody of Saudi Arabia, has subsequently resurfaced as a terrorist operative. Today, he is one of the al-Qaida leaders in Yemen and is charged with planning and executing acts of violence against the United States and its allies. He is not the exception. According to the Pentagon, as many as 61 enemy combatants released from Guantanamo have since reconnected with terrorist networks and renewed their commitment to destroying America and our way of life. Even more frightening, these 61 former prisoners came from the group of 500 who were deemed ``less dangerous'' and thus were released. That means the approximately 270 detainees currently housed in Guantanamo represent the most nefarious of prisoners.

Clearly, a viable alternative to Guantanamo has not been identified. Expediting closure of this detention facility without absolutely assuring that American lives would be safe, not endangered by this act, would place misguided foreign policy goals above the protection of our homeland and our people. Moreover, it signals a dangerous return to the pre-9/11 mindset.

Before setting a deadline to close this facility at Guantanamo Bay--a U.S. naval base where they have been secured and from which there have been no escapes and no attempts to escape--before setting that deadline, the American people must be assured that the transfer or release of these detainees will not increase the risk to American citizens at home or abroad. As it stands, the administration cannot give that assurance today. We must require a plan before this order is executed. Not doing so is a pre-9/11 mentality that we cannot afford to adopt.

We must remember what happened on 9/11. We were complacent. We were a people who never thought we would be attacked on our homeland by people even within this society who were helping to plot this destruction. We cannot go back to the mentality of ``everything is going to be OK and we won't be attacked again.'' There are people in Guantanamo and all over the world today who are plotting to undo the freedom in America and the ability to live with diversity and in peace, and we must hold up that flag of America and what it represents for the world. That is what will make America good in the eyes of the world--not releasing terrorists to harm other people and our allies.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to talk about an amendment I have filed, amendment No. 1189. I am told the Democrats will object to my asking that it be pending, but I am going to talk about it. I hope very much I will have the opportunity to offer this amendment in regular order. As a right of a Senator, I hope that will be given. I don't know why it is being objected to, but I would very much like to speak on it. I hope I am not going to be prohibited from the opportunity to offer it, since I am on the floor in a timely manner trying to offer an amendment, as we have been asked to do.

The amendment I hope to call up is amendment No. 1189. It is an amendment to try to help those automobile dealers that have been notified, particularly by Chrysler, with a deadline of June 9, and told they are going to have to shut their doors of those dealerships by June 9. They were given 3 weeks' notice.

The President's task force on the auto industry has taken unprecedented steps to negotiate with each of the affected stakeholders to bring General Motors and Chrysler closer to sustainable viability. I know Members of this body sincerely appreciate the enormity of their task; however, there are many growing concerns with their actions. The group that has arguably taken the biggest hit by their negotiations is the auto dealers.

Auto dealers are some of the biggest and best employers in our Nation, in small towns across my State and every State. Many of them are the largest employers in their entire counties. Auto dealers run a tough business. They assume a lot of risk. They purchase the vehicles from the manufacturer. Each dealer is forced to move their product in order to make payroll, to cover overhead, to pay property taxes, or close their doors, all of which is no cost to the manufacturer. These are all dealer expenses.

While I understand that if an auto dealer is forced to close their doors because the dealer is unable to make the business profitable, of course, we can understand that would be the choice of the dealer and they would be closed. But I don't understand why General Motors or Chrysler would arbitrarily shut down thousands of operating and profitable dealers across our country.

The Treasury Department has back-pedaled from any involvement in the decision to shut down auto dealers across the Nation. A recent Treasury press release states:

As was the case with Chrysler's dealer consolidation plan,

the task force was not involved in deciding which dealers or

how many dealers were part of GM's announcement.

An earlier press release from the Treasury said:

The sacrifices by the dealer community alongside those of

auto workers, suppliers, creditors, and other Chrysler

stakeholders are necessary for this company and the industry

to succeed.

I don't think that is any kind of help for our dealers that are taking the risk and the responsibility for all the costs of their dealership.

Before the closing announcements were made, another Treasury press release regarding Chrysler Fiat, on April 30, says:

It is expected that the terminated dealers will wind down

their operations over time and in an orderly manner.

However, Chrysler, in their notification to close 789 dealers on May 14--last Thursday--has given dealers until June 9 to wind down. That is just over 3 weeks--3 weeks. Chrysler determined that an orderly wind- down--an orderly manner--to sell all their inventory, sell all their parts, get rid of all their special equipment--3 weeks.

My amendment simply states that no funds shall be expended from the Treasury to an auto manufacturer which has notified a dealership that it will be terminated without providing at least 60 days for that dealership to wind down its operations and sell its inventory. Sixty days, that is what we are asking for.

We are not asking that any decisions be changed. It is not our place to do that. However, we are saying that with all the taxpayer dollars that are going into the automobile manufacturers, the road kill here is the auto dealer and they have done nothing that would be unbusinesslike. They have taken the risks. They employ people in the community. They pay the taxes in the community. Sometimes they are the largest employer in the community. Yet they are given 3 weeks to close down their operations. If we are going to help anyone in this country without one taxpayer dollar going into it, it should be these auto dealers, by giving them 60 days to have an orderly process to close down their operations.

I wish we could go further. I disagree with the decision to arbitrarily close down profitable auto dealers. I wish to give my colleagues an example. There is a town in my State called Mineral Wells. In that town of less than 20,000 people is Russell Whatley, a Chrysler dealer, whose family has owned his dealership for 90 years. It is the oldest dealership in Texas. Russell doesn't sell 1,000 cars a year, but he has been profitable. He actively supports his community. He has actively supported many employees. What is it going to save Chrysler to close Mr. Whatley's profitable dealership in Mineral Wells? I can't even imagine, but it isn't my decision to make. However, I am going to say that I do think Mr. Whatley deserves 60 days to have the orderly process that Treasury itself said they would expect from the auto manufacturers.

I am worried about Mineral Wells when Mr. Whatley's dealership is closed, just as I am worried about communities all over this country with dealerships that are going to be arbitrarily closed. If they have 3 weeks to sell their inventory, what is that going to do to them and to the people who have to go out and find jobs? I don't think it is right. I think we should pass my amendment.

The reason I am offering it on this bill is because this is a bill that is going to go through quickly, and this is a deadline that is coming very fast. If we can let those dealers know they are going to have 60 days, at least, for the orderly processing of their closures, I am told by dealers this will help them immensely in that process, and it will not cost the taxpayers one dime--not one dime.

I hope we will pass this amendment. I hope the majority will allow this to be brought up in the regular order. I was told when I came to the floor that I would have the opportunity to offer this amendment and get into the line for a record vote. I hope that will be done, because we don't have much time to help these dealers. With all the money we are putting into the automobile manufacturers, and all of the help we are giving to others affected by that industry, the ones who have been left out are the auto dealers.

I hope that giving them 60 days--2 months--to shut down a business that may have been in place for 25, 30, or 90 years is the least we can do in these troubling times. We are taking some very different positions that we have never taken as a Senate because these are tough times, and sometimes that is necessary. But this is the least we can do in fairness to a business that has done nothing to produce cars that won't sell. It has done nothing that has caused any of the financial problems of General Motors, and I think they deserve a break that will not cost the taxpayers a penny.

I am going to be here, and I will ask the majority to allow amendment No. 1189 to become pending right after the votes that will occur very shortly.

Mr. President, I have another amendment, and it is an amendment that I hope will help all of the hospitals in this country that are giving medical care on an emergency basis to illegal immigrants in our country get some reimbursement from the Federal Government for those costs.

We have had in place funding--called section 1011 funding--for 5 years. I am only trying to extend this program so that all of the States that deal with

the growing problem of taxpayer dollars--that the hospitals that have to absorb these costs will be able to recoup some of those costs from the Federal Government. The program provided $200 million over 5 years to help hospitals and doctors recoup these costs. It was not 100 percent reimbursement, I assure you.

In my State of Texas, we had about $600 million in uncompensated care in 1 year, and we were able to obtain $50 million in reimbursement. That was a little bit of help that helped many of the hospitals make it. These are eligible for any hospital in America. I hope we will be able to pass an amendment on this bill to alleviate that situation.

I am told that the Finance Committee is objecting to this amendment because it is in their jurisdiction. You know, I think it is incumbent upon the Finance Committee to work with me on this very important issue for all the States in our country, because this is a Federal problem, and it should not be put on the local communities to foot the bill for emergency care that they are required by Federal law to give, but not get reimbursement from the Federal Government.

I hope the Finance Committee will agree to work with me on that. I urge the majority to allow amendment No. 1189, which is filed and has no objections, that I know of, to be in the next set of votes.

I yield the floor.