Iran Freedom Support Act

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, it is important to go back a little bit in history here. The Iraq Accountability Act of 1998 was about funding a media propaganda machine which was, unfortunately, used to lay the groundwork for a war against Iraq. That act was about encouraging and funding opposition inside Iraq, unfortunately, to destabilize Iraq prior to a war.

You could call this bill the ``Iran Accountability Act.'' This act funds media propaganda machines to lay the groundwork for a war against Iran. It encourages and funds opposition inside Iran for that same purpose.

Notwithstanding what the words are in this bill, we have been here before. This administration is trying to create an international crisis by inflating Iran's nuclear development into an Iraq-type WMD hoax. ``Iran is not an imminent threat,'' this from Dr. Hans Blitz, former Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector, speaking to our congressional oversight subcommittee the other day.

The International Atomic Energy Agency points out that Iran has an enrichment level of about 3.6 percent. You have to go to 90 percent to have weapons quality enrichment. Iran is not an imminent threat. Iran does not have nuclear weapons.

This is a time for us to engage Iran with direct talks, our President to their President. This is the time to give assurance to Iran that we are not going to attack them.

Unfortunately, this administration has chosen to conduct covert ops in Iran. This administration has chosen to select 1,500 bombing targets with the Strategic Air Command. This administration has chosen plans for a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This administration looked the other way when a congressional staff report basically claimed that Iran was trying to engage in nuclear escalation.

We don't need war, we need to talk, and that is what we ought to stand for here. No more Iraqs.

The End of the ``Summer of Diplomacy'': Assessing U.S. Military Options

on Iran

A CENTURY FOUNDATION REpORT

(By Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (Ret.))

This report is part of a series commissioned by The Century

Foundation to inform the policy debate about Iran-related

issues.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author.

Nothing written here is to be

construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Century

Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of

any bill before Congress.

``The doctrine of preemption remains sound and must remain

an integral part of our national security strategy. We do not

rule out the use of force before the enemy strikes.''--

Stephen Hadley, March 16, 2006.

Introduction

The summer of diplomacy began with a dramatic announcement:

on May 31, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared

that if the Ahmadinejad government agreed to halt Iran's

nuclear enrichment program, the United States would talk

directly with Tehran. Secretary Rice crafted the statement

working alone at home. She called President Bush and received

his approval. The Bush administration announced it as a

significant initiative; it appeared to reflect a major change

in policy.

This shift was not uncontroversial within the

administration; Vice President Dick Cheney had opposed the

announcement. But the rationale that prevailed seems to have

been that if the United States were going to confront Iran,

the diplomacy box had to be checked. The secretary of state

was given the summer to try it.

Well, the summer is over. Diplomacy was given a chance, and

it now seems that the diplomatic activity of the past several

months was just a pretext for the military option.

Unfortunately, the military option does not make sense.

When I discuss the possibility of an American military strike

on Iran with my European friends, they invariably point out

that an armed confrontation does not make sense--that it

would be unlikely to yield any of the results that American

policymakers do want, and that it would be highly likely to

yield results that they do not. I tell them they cannot

understand U.S. policy if they insist on passing options

through that filter. The ``making sense'' filter was not

applied over the past four years for Iraq, and it is unlikely

to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran.

In order to understand the position of those within the

U.S. government who will make the final decision to execute a

military option against Iran, you must first consider the

seven key truths that they believe: Iran is developing

weapons of mass destruction--that is most likely true. Iran

is ignoring the international community--true. Iran supports

Hezbollah and terrorism--true. Iran is increasingly inserting

itself in Iraq and beginning to be involved in Afghanistan--

true. The people of Iran want a regime change--most likely an

exaggeration. Sanctions are not going to work--most likely

true. You cannot negotiate with these people--not proven.

If you understand these seven points as truth, you can see

why the administration is very close to being left with only

the military option. Administration officials say that they

want to give diplomacy a chance. But when they say that, we

need to remind ourselves that they do not mean a negotiated

settlement. They mean that Iran must do what we want as a

result of our nonmilitary leverage: suspend enrichment, and

we will talk. But enrichment appears to continue, and there

are no direct discussions between the two main parties.

Satisfied that nonmilitary leverage is not going to work,

those who believe the seven ``truths'' argue that the only

viable option remaining is a military one. The story,

however, is more complicated.

This report draws on my long experience of running military

war games to examine some of the complications of the current

situation: the various pressures and rationales for an attack

on Iran; the probable direct and indirect consequences of air

strikes; the significant gap between what proponents of the

military option want to achieve and what in fact such attacks

will achieve; and the likelihood that policymakers will

ignore those gaps and proceed to war despite them.

Timing and Uncertainty

Waiting makes it harder. The history of warfare is

dominated by attackers who concluded that it was better to

attack early than to wait. One source of the momentum in

Washington for a strike on Iran's nuclear program is the

strategic observation that if such an attack is in fact

inevitable, then it is better done sooner than later.

I conducted a war game for the Atlantic Monthly magazine

two years ago. On a chart prepared for a mock meeting of the

National Security Council, I identified thirteen nuclear-

related targets in Iran. I still do this kind of gaming. My

most recent chart reflects twenty-four potential nuclear-

related facilities. In the past few years we have seen Iran's

Natanz uranium enrichment facility buried under more than

fifteen meters of reinforced concrete and soil. There is

evidence that similar hardening is taking place at other

facilities, and there is some evidence of facilities being

placed inside populated areas. The longer the United States

waits, the harder the targets--and the harder the targeting.

Another major issue that affects timing is the conspicuous

absence of reliable intelligence about Iran. A report by the

House Intelligence Committee found that we have serious gaps

in our knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program.

Paradoxically, those gaps in intelligence produce not

caution, but further pressure to attack. U.S. intelligence

agencies do not know the locations of all of Iran's

facilities; they are not certain how far Iran has gone with

enrichment. They know that Iran's nuclear program bears a

striking resemblance to the Pakistani program, but they do

not know whether Iran has acquired technology that might put

it ahead of current estimates.

Some U.S. officials say that Iran is ten years from a

weapon. The Pentagon, we are told, is operating under the

assumption that Iran could have a weapon in five years. Some

Israeli estimates say that Iran could have a weapon in three

years. John Negroponte, the U.S. director of national

intelligence, recently said that Iran could not develop a

nuclear weapon until some time in the next decade. But the

next day, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he did

not trust estimates of the Iranian program.

The very ambiguity of the intelligence picture has become

another argument for military options, because even if U.S.

policymakers could agree on a firm policy red line, there

would be no way of determining if and when Iran crossed that

line. Vice President Cheney's espoused calculation for

dealing with global threats is that if there is even a 1

percent chance of a country passing WMD to a terrorist, the

United States must act. Because there is a 1 percent chance

Iran could pass WMD to a terrorist, the Bush administration

finds itself obliged to reject nonmilitary options.

Regional Pressures

Adding to the political momentum toward war with Iran is

significant pressure from the Israeli security establishment.

Israel says that it has a plan for attacking Iranian nuclear

facilities. Israel recently appointed an airman to be in

charge of the Iranian theater of operations. It was announced

that this major general would coordinate Israeli planning for

Iran. Israeli military planners have U.S. penetrating weapons

and a replica of the Natanz facility. They say that the

attack would resemble the kind of operation they used against

Egypt in 1967. They say that the plan involves more than just

air strikes from the ``Hammers'' of the Israeli Air Force's

69 Squadron. It would include Shaldag commando teams,

possibly some version of sea-launched missiles, and even

explosive-carrying dogs that would penetrate the underground

facilities.

Israel probably could hit most of the known nuclear

targets. But such an attack would leave Iran with significant

retaliatory options. That is a serious problem. U.S. forces

and interests in the region would be likely targets of

Iranian retaliation, so even an independent Israeli military

operation would have critical consequences for the United

States.

Part of the problem is that the two countries' red lines

for Iran are not the same. Israel's red line is enrichment.

The U.S. red line used to be the development of an Iranian

nuclear weapon. But over the past six months, America's red

line has drifted closer to Israel's. On March 21, the

president said that the United States could not allow Iran to

have the knowledge to make a weapon. He repeated the phrase

in August.

By redrawing the red line in this manner, U.S. policymakers

are creating pressure to go to war with Iran. In saying that

Iran could not be permitted to have the knowledge to develop

nuclear weapons, the president used almost the exact words

the Israeli Foreign Minister had used a year earlier. More

recently, a senior State Department official said that Iran

was near ``the point of no return'' on its nuclear program.

Again, this was an exact echo of the words of Israeli

officials. The Israeli pressure has worked.

Marketing the Military Option

I often hear from those who were strongly supportive of the

Iraq invasion that the targeting of the Iranian facilities

would be simple. If you understand the elements of the

nuclear process, all you have to do is go after a small

number of targets. The argument continues that Iran's nuclear

facilities could be devastated on a single night, in a single

strike, by a small number of U.S. B-2 bombers. The apparent

ease of the operation is another element of this pressure to

go now: If the Iranian nuclear program can be stopped in one

night by a simple strike, why should the United States wait?

But the elimination of Iran's nuclear capability, while it

might be the stated aim for the United States, is only part

of the objective. While the Iranian regime's weapons program

is a genuine source of concern, American policymakers are

also troubled by Iran's interference in Iraq. Despite U.S.

warnings, the Revolutionary Guard continues to supply

weapons, money, and training to insurgents inside Iraq. Some

proponents of attacking Iran feel that Tehran should be

punished for supporting militias and extremists in Iraq.

In addition to Iran's role as an aspiring nuclear rogue and

a supporter of the insurgency in Iraq, the country has been

repeatedly portrayed as a key adversary in the war on

terrorism. The United States has put Iran into a separate and

new terrorism category, dubbing it the ``Central Banker of

Terrorism.'' The new National Security Strategy says, ``Any

government that chooses to be an ally of terror, such as

Syria or Iran, has chosen to be an enemy of freedom, justice,

and peace. The world must hold those regimes to account.''

``Unnamed intelligence officials,'' citing evidence from

satellite coverage and electronic eavesdropping, have told

the press that Iran is hosting al Qaeda, granting senior

operatives freedom to communicate and plan terrorist

operations.

Indeed, the case against the regime is so forceful, and so

multifaceted, that it becomes clear that the goal is not

simply to do away with the regime's enrichment program. The

goal is to do away with the regime itself.

And on top of all of those pressures--pressure from Israel,

pressure from those worried about a nuclear Iran, Iran in

Iraq, and Iran in the war on terrorism--is another, decisive

piece of the puzzle: President George W. Bush. The argument

takes several forms: the president is said to see himself as

being like Winston Churchill, and to believe that the world

will only appreciate him after he leaves office; he talks

about the Middle East in messianic terms; he is said to have

told those close to him that he has got to attack Iran

because even if a Republican succeeds him in the White House,

he will not have the same freedom of action that Bush enjoys.

Most recently, someone high in the administration told a

reporter that the president believes that he is the only one

who can ``do the right thing'' with respect to Iran. One

thing is clear: a major source of the pressure for a military

strike emanates from the very man who will ultimately make

the decision over whether to authorize such a strike-the

president. And these various accounts of his motivations and

rationales have in common that the president will not allow

does-not-make-sense arguments to stand in the way of a good

idea.

Below the CNN Line

Stay below the ``CNN line.'' That was the guidance given to

the Air Component Commander, General Mike Mosley, as the

secret air strikes began against Iraq in operation SOUTHERN

FOCUS. It was July 2002. This classified bombing campaign

would involve strikes on almost 400 targets. It was initiated

just after the president visited Europe where he announced

numerous times, ``I have no war plans on my desk.''

There was no UN resolution. The congressional authorization

was not to come for four months. But the United States was

starting the war.

All of the pressures described above are pushing for war

with Iran, and increasingly, a public case for such a war is

being made. But behind the scenes, military operations are

already under way. (See Figure 1.) Most likely, the same

guidance has been given to military commanders. The pattern

is repeating.

When U.S. commandos began entering Iran--probably in the

summer of 2004--their mission appears to have been limited.

The objective was to find and characterize the Iranian

nuclear program. From press reports, we know that the task

force doing these operations was implanting sensors to detect

radioactivity. Intelligence for these early operations inside

Iran was coming from information provided by A.Q. Khan, the

Pakistani dealer in black market nuclear material. The

incursions were focused in the northeast, where the Iranian

nuclear facilities are concentrated. The base of these

incursions was most likely Camp War Horse in Iraq.

Israel also was conducting operations inside Iran in late

2003 or early 2004. The Israeli commandos reportedly were

operating from a base in Iraq. These commandos also were

implanting sensors. I would expect the U.S. and Israeli

operations to have been coordinated. At about this time the

United States began operating remotely piloted vehicles

inside Iran over nuclear facilities. (Although this was

certainly an embarrassment to the Iranians, they mentioned

the flights numerous times in their press.)

In 2005, the balance within the U.S. government shifted in

favor of those who were pushing for regime change in Iran.

This was to result in the eventual creation of the Iran/Syria

Operations Group inside the State Department, a request to

Congress for $75 million, and the creation of a robust

``democracy promotion'' program. Meanwhile the United States

moved from intelligence collection inside Iran, to

establishing contact with ethnic minorities, to being

involved in--and most likely conducting---direct action

missions. Reports suggest that the United States is

supporting militant groups in the Baluchistan region of Iran.

There have been killings and kidnappings in this region. Iran

Revolutionary Guard convoys have been attacked. In a New

Yorker article, Seymour Hersh confirmed that this region was

one of the areas where U.S. forces were operating. The

Iranian press also has accused the United States of operating

there. In addition, press reports suggest that the United

States may be sponsoring former members of the Iraq-based MEK

(Mojahedin-e Khalq) in Baluchistan.

I recently attended a Middle East security conference in

Berlin. At dinner one night, I sat next to the Iranian

ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali-

Asghar Soltanieh. I told him I had read that the Iranians

were accusing the United States of supporting elements in

Baluchistan. I asked him how they knew that. Without any

hesitation, Soltanieh told me that they have captured

militants who confessed that they were working with the

Americans.

The United States is also directly involved in supporting

groups inside the Kurdish area of Iran. According to both

western and Iranian press reports, the Iranian Party of Free

Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) has been allowed to operate from

Iraq into Iran and has killed Revolutionary Guard soldiers.

The Iranians have also accused the United States of being

involved in shooting down two of their aircraft, an old C-130

and a Fa1con jet, carrying Revolutionary Guard leaders.

NEXT STEPS: Above the CNN Line

How do we get from being below the CNN line to the next

step? The path is fairly clear. The United Nations Security

Council will fall short of imposing serious sanctions on

Iran. The United States, then, will look for a coalition of

the willing to implement smart sanctions, focused on the

Iranian leadership.

But the sanctions will be designed less to ensure

compliance from the Iranians than to generate domestic and

international support for the American position. I do not

know an Iranian specialist I trust who believes that the

sanctions would cause the Iranians to abandon their nuclear

program, any more than did the sanctions on India and

Pakistan after their nuclear tests in 1998. The sanctions

will be used to raise the collective conscience that Iran is

a threat, and to convince the world that the United States

has tried diplomatic solutions.

If the experience of 1979 and other sanctions scenarios is

a guide, sanctions will actually empower the conservative

leadership in Iran. There is an irony here. It is a pattern

that seems to be playing out in the selection of the military

option. From diplomacy to sanctions, the administration is

not making good-faith efforts to avert a war so much as going

through the motions, eliminating other possible strategies of

engagement, until the only option left on the table is the

military one.

When imposing the sanctions fails to alter Tehran's

position, policymakers will revert to a strike on Iran's

nuclear facilities. One can imagine the words of a planner in

the meeting: ``If we are going to do this, let's make certain

we get everything they have.'' I have done some rough

``targeting'' of nuclear facilities for which I can find

satellite photos on the Web. By my calculation, an attack of

relatively high certainty on nuclear targets would require

400 aim points. (An aim point is the specific location where

an individual weapon is directed. Most targets would have

multiple aim points.) I estimate seventy-five of these aim

points would require penetrating weapons. (See Table 1, page

12.)

But it is unlikely that a U.S. military planner would want

to stop there. Iran probably has two chemical weapons

production plants. He would want to hit those. He would want

to hit Iran's medium-range ballistic missiles that have just

recently been moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen

airfields with sheltered aircraft. Although the Iranian Air

Force is not much of a threat, some of these airfields are

less than fifteen minutes flying time from Baghdad. Military

planners would want to eliminate that potential threat. The

Pentagon would want to hit the assets that could be used to

threaten Gulf shipping. That would mean targeting cruise

missile sites, Iranian diesel submarines, and Iranian naval

assets.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a couple of issues that I think are very important. One I will get to in a minute, the pending legislation before us, the issue of immigration, illegal immigration, and what we are trying to do to combat that in the Senate.

Today, I am very hopeful that with the proper cooperation, we can get this done today and over to the President in the next 48 hours to begin the process of securing the border and dealing with an issue that may be the No. 1 issue in my State right now. I probably hear about this issue of illegal immigration from casual contact with my constituents in grocery stores, the train station, et cetera. I have more people asking me about the issue of illegal immigration than any other issue we deal with.

It is remarkable in the sense that if you talk to folks here in Washington and the ``experts'' in the media, this is not important to people. Particularly, you would think in a State such as Pennsylvania, which is miles away from the southern border but not too far from the northern border, this would not be an important issue. But it is an important issue. It is one that I am very pleased the Senate is going to deal with today after, I think, making a misstep in the previous consideration of illegal immigration legislation. We have now taken a step in the right direction, a step where we put the horse before the cart instead of the cart before the horse. So I am very excited about that. I will mention that in a moment.

There is one issue I wanted to get to. It is an issue the leader spoke about last night, the issue of Iran and the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which was passed in the House of Representatives yesterday. The House negotiated--and many of us in the Senate were involved, as well as the White House--and worked on an extension of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, to update that act, which needed to be done, and to take into consideration the change in dynamics in Libya and the change in dynamics with respect to Iran.

There is no country that I see on the horizon that is more dangerous to the national security of this country, in my opinion, than the country of Iran--not just to the national security of this country but the safety and security of the world. We need to have a better regime of sanctions as well as a better overall policy for dealing with Iran than what we have today in the ILSA, or Iran Libya Sanctions Act.

The House of Representatives, on a bipartisan basis, worked on the legislation, again, with the administration, which previously had opposed the Iran Freedom and Support Act, a bill that has 61 cosponsors here in the Senate, which we debated earlier this year. They took elements of that bill and the companion bill in the House, offered by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Florida. Working together with several House and Senate committees and with the administration, they were able to come up with a compromise and, again, many of us in the Senate worked with the administration and the House in crafting this. We were able to pass a bill that got so much support, they didn't even have to take a record vote on it. It passed by consent over there. That tells you the kind of strong support the bill enjoys. It was a bill authored by Tom Lantos and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the chairman and ranking member of one of the committees of jurisdiction, the International Relations Committee, were on the legislation and, again, it passed yesterday unanimously. That bill now is sitting on the floor of the Senate, at the desk.

The leader mentioned last night that it is our intent to bring this legislation up and to try to pass it in the Senate. We did not, last night, ask consent to do that because we were made aware there might be concerns on the other side of the aisle with respect to some of the provisions. We wanted to give ample opportunity to have the other side go through the legislation.

Again, I state that this is not a new issue. I know the Democratic leader got up today and suggested that there have been no hearings on the bill and there hasn't really been a discussion on the bill. I will tell you that just within the last year, the following hearings were held:

There was an ILSA reauthorization hearing in the Banking Committee, June 22; a terrorist threat hearing in the Homeland Security Committee, November 15 of last year; a nuclear Iran hearing, Foreign Relations Committee, March 2; response to nuclear Iran, Foreign Relations, September 19 of this year; Iran's nuclear and political ambitions, a two-part hearing, May 17 and 18 of this year; Iran's nuclear program/ intelligence, Foreign Relations Committee, May 11.

In addition, as I mentioned, the Senate fully debated for 3 days the amendment I had offered to the National Defense Authorization Act back in June of this year. We debated that amendment for 3 days. We had a vote on the Senate floor. We had a full discussion of all of the provisions in the act, many of which, as I mentioned before, have been dropped. But many of the provisions that were debated were added to this bill--the ones that were noncontroversial. Things that were controversial were adapted to make them noncontroversial.

To suggest that somehow this is a brandnew piece of legislation, we haven't seen this before, there haven't been any hearings, we don't know anything about it, is just not accurate. We have had a full debate.

This is an important issue. For the United States Senate, for the Congress, the President to speak out on the issue of Iran at this time is critical as we confront, as we saw from a couple weeks ago, the machinations at the United Nations and President Ahmadinejad up there saber rattling as he does a little bit at the United Nations, but he is rattling sabers and all other types of weaponry in front of the people of Iran when he goes home and he speaks in his native language.

This is a very serious and dangerous threat. It is without question the principal reason we are having increased problems in Afghanistan and Iraq, because of the influence of Iran. Iran is there with fighters from Iran, with money and support, weaponry from Iran to foment sectarian violence. One of the reasons we are having the level of sectarian violence that we see there is because of Iran and its stated intention of being the dominant view in the Islamic world. The clash between Shia and Sunni is front and center in the ideology of the ruling mullahs of Iran and the President of Iran, Ahmadinejad. This is what their objective is. It is part and parcel of their own war within their religion, but it is also part of their strategy of destabilizing Iraq so democracy cannot flourish because if democracy flourishes, then it is an opportunity for moderate Islam to win the day over the fanatics who are trying to destroy that religion and destroy the world.

This is a vitally important issue for the Senate to bring up, I think no more important issue than for us to deal with this real threat, as I said on the floor a couple of weeks ago, I think the greatest threat that has ever faced this country and the world. If we do not act now when this threat is in its nascent stage, we risk cataclysmic consequences by not confronting this evil in time. We risk cataclysmic consequences if we don't, as this legislation permits, put increased sanctions on companies that do business with Iran and their nuclear program.

This is a very important piece of legislation, one that is so important that we were able, as I mentioned before, to get this kind of very quick consideration on the floor of the House of Representatives, and it passed unanimously. People in the House understand the threat of Iran. I hope the Senate does so also.

I will submit for the record the provisions of what this bill does. Some have suggested that it is a watered-down version of the Iran Freedom and Support Act. So to that degree I say, yes, it is, but it is watered down for the purpose of arriving at a consensus so we can speak into the moment.

It does make major changes particularly with respect to the President's waiver. We have had ILSA now for 10 years. We have a situation where a waiver has only been utilized, to my recollection, one time because there is no requirement the President has to

use his waiver authority. The President can look at these issues and decide yes or no sanctions, but there is no trigger, there is no force for the President to actually do something.

This compromise bill would encourage him to actually do something, to actually look at this information, make a decision, and if sanctions are warranted as a result of the investigation, then the President either has to impose those sanctions or waive them for six months. Right now he doesn't have to waive them. He simply keeps investigating. That is an important point to highlight.

That is an important pressure point that Iran needs to know that we are ratcheting up--albeit slightly compared to the original Iran Freedom and Support Act--we are ratcheting up the pressure on this illicit regime in Iran to do something. It is very important for the future security of our country.

I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a fact sheet on the bill.

Mr. President, I am hopeful today that the leaders will be able to get together and will be able to get consent to move forward on this bill. I assure you, this is a bill we must pass. This is ``the extension'' of ILSA with some very well thought out, negotiated compromises between Republicans and Democrats in the Congress, as well as the administration. I am hopeful that we can get a successful conclusion to that bill. The security of our country demands it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, in the years since we enacted our attack against Iraq, the threat from Iran has only grown more difficult, and our capacity to meet that threat actually has diminished. It is one of the reasons many of us opposed that action against Iraq.

There is no question Iran's President is a thug, an anti-Semite, and a dangerous man. He exploits Iranian national grievances to consolidate power and has openly expressed his desire to wipe Israel off the map. Well, our troops are bogged down in Iraq, placing them at risk should Iran launch a wave of terrorism. We have done nothing to break our global dependency on oil, the control of which gives Iran its greatest ability to blackmail other countries.

Now, I appreciate the good will and passion of the sponsors of this bill, bringing a critical issue before us. I rise in opposition, however. We have been at this point before. We passed an earlier version of this bill. The Senate rejected it as an amendment to the defense authorization. I appreciate that there have been some positive changes that have been made to this legislation. One is a sunset. The earlier bill would have made it permanent.

And I appreciate that it contains a provision that I authored that would prohibit assistance to groups who had appeared on the State Department's list of terrorist groups in the last 4 years. However, the problem is nothing in this legislation points us in the direction of a solution. It is, if you will, a cruise missile aimed at a difficult diplomatic effort just as they are reaching their most sensitive point. The timing for this legislation could not be worse.

While the United States has largely been missing in action from the diplomatic game, the European Union and Iran have been making progress at developing a formula that would lead to the suspension of Iran's nuclear enrichment program and the start of serious negotiations. This bill specifically targets Russia, which may have some influence with Iran and which is critical to a unified diplomatic front.

This bill has another fundamental flaw besides sanctioning people whose help we need to reach a diplomatic solution. It gives equal weight to overthrowing the Iranian government as it does to nonproliferation. These two goals work against each other.

Yes, the regime's human rights record is atrocious, but preventing them from developing nuclear weapons should be our first priority. By not prioritizing behavior change over regime change, we pull the rug out from anyone in the Iranian leadership who values survival over the nuclear program and eliminates incentives for diplomatic solutions.

Now, in my opinion, Iran holds, if not the key, a key to many of the issues that confound us in the Middle East. Their cooperation ultimately is going to be critical if we are going to be able to deal with the mess that our policies have created in Iraq, the problems that we are facing in Afghanistan with a resurgence of the Taliban, and it is going to play a key role on issues that deal with Israel, Hezbollah, and Hamas. They are like a puzzle. And, sadly, Iran is one of the missing pieces.

After September 11, when the United States took action to overthrow the Taliban, our interests and Iran's aligned, and we were able to coordinate quietly but effectively. They were partners with us at some tough sessions in Bonn when we were having the negotiations that set up the Afghanistan government. And in the midst of this tentative effort at cooperation, President Bush decided to declare Iran part of the axis of evil and most hope for progress disappeared.

Mr. Speaker, the irony is that Iran is one of the few nations in the world where the majority of the people still have a positive view of the United States.

This is difficult. It is not easy. But to simply sanction potential partners and confuse what our priorities are, I am sad to say, is going to be a step backward. We ought to make clear to Iran that they need to stop their support for terrorism, end development of nuclear capacity, and begin the process of free, fair, and open elections. But I am sorry to say that this legislation in front of us ignores the opportunities that we have incorporating the lessons we learned in our success with Libya.

I respectfully suggest that this is legislation that we ought to reject, and that we ought to instead prioritize what our goals are with Iran, and we are going to. By all means, have our sanctions but not be reckless in terms of the pressure we try to exert against the very people who are going to be necessary to help us with a diplomatic solution to prevent nuclear proliferation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).

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

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's work because the bill that we have before us, as I mentioned earlier, is, a substantial improvement over the one that was approved by the House earlier this year. I had hoped it would come back to our committee because I think these issues are worthy of further discussion, and there is more fine- tuning we could do.

For instance, dealing with the provisions for terms of the promotion of democracy, reading the language that is in this bill, the Ayatollah Khomeini, in exile in France, would have qualified for U.S. assistance. We could have had a debacle like we had with Chalabi. I don't think it is as tight and precise as we would like.

But most important, it fails to deal with the fundamental choice we need to make between whether we want regime change or whether we want to stop nuclear proliferation.

I deeply appreciate the points raised by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach). We could end up actually making the situation worse.

I am deeply troubled that we are going to ratchet up the pressure on the very people who we most need for a diplomatic solution, the people like China and Russia who are going to be key to ultimately resolving it.

Mr. Speaker, part of the problem that we have great difficulty with is that some of the most disagreeable people, some of the most dangerous people, are people that we ignore at our peril. We should not do that. We should engage them directly, diplomatically and not under the auspices of this bill, which I hope that the House will reject.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6198) to hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

For decades, the Iranian regime, one of the world's most dangerous political entities, has been pursuing a covert nuclear program. According to multiple reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, Iran has been deceiving the world for two decades about its nuclear ambitions and has breached its international obligations dealing with the most sensitive aspects of the nuclear cycle.

Iran's violation of the IAEA safeguards, the safe reporting to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the denial of the agency's request for access to individuals and locations, the involvement of its military in parts of it nuclear program, as well as the Iranian regime's continued support of terrorist activities around the globe contradict any assertion of the peaceful intent of the program.

It would be a critical mistake to allow a regime with a track record as bloody and as dangerous as Iran's to obtain nuclear weapons. Iran drives Hezbollah extremist ideology and provides it with weapons and funding, estimated by some at more than $80 million per year. In turn, Hezbollah has helped advance Iranian interests through continued terrorist attacks against the United States and our allies in the region.

This bill before us, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6198, as amended, will help prevent Iran from acquiring the technical assistance, the financial resources, and the political legitimacy to develop nuclear weapons and to support terrorism. This bill requires the imposition of sanctions on any entity that has exported, transferred, or otherwise provided to Iran any goods, services, technology, or other items that would materially contribute to Iran's ability to acquire or develop unconventional weapons. This bill codifies U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran by Executive Order.

The bill also amends the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act by extending the authorities in the bill until December 31, 2011. It also requires the President to certify to Congress that waiving the imposition of sanctions is vital to the national security interests of the United States.

Furthermore, the bill authorizes the provision of democracy assistance to eligible human rights and pro-democracy groups and broadcasting entities. Moreover, this legislation will allow the United States to use the necessary tools against financial institutions which are involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or missiles.

This bill provides a comprehensive approach, providing U.S. officials with strong leverage to secure cooperation from our allies in order to counter the Iranian threat. The sanctions under title II of this bill seek to target the Iranian regime where it is most vulnerable: Its energy sector. Knowledgable experts agree that for Iran, a fuel importer, sanctions could be crippling.

Thus, Mr. Speaker, this bill is not an alternative to diplomacy, but rather complementary to our multilateral efforts. We cannot afford to wait any longer as the potential consequences of further inaction could be catastrophic. I urge my colleagues to lend their support to this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am attaching an exchange of letters between Chairman Hyde and Chairmen Thomas and Oxley concerning the bill H.R. 6198 ``The Iran Freedom Support Act'' for printing in the Record.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Ways and Means,

Washington, DC, September 27, 2006.

Hon. Henry J. Hyde,

Chairman, Committee on International Relations, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield 10 minutes of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and that he may be permitted to control that time.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), our distinguished majority whip, without whom we would not be here today considering a bill with strong bipartisan support as well as administration support. Thank you, Mr. Blunt.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield time to my colleague from Florida on this bipartisan bill, the essence of which has been extensively debated on the floor several times and in committees, as well.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw).

Mr. Speaker, as recently as last month, Iran blatantly refused to respond to the August 31 deadline as set forth by the United Nations Security Council to stop enriching its uranium in exchange for a very generous incentives package.

We have tried to coax. We have tried to induce. We have tried to talk the Iranians into cooperating. Enough with the carrots; it is time for the stick.

We hope that all freedom-loving nations are allies in this struggle for nonproliferation efforts and would, out of their own volition, take the necessary steps to hold Iran accountable for its own behavior. However, sometimes even friends need a little prodding.

Writer Charles Krauthammer points out the chilling reality of the opportunity costs of not dealing effectively with Iran at this time. He says, ``If we fail to prevent an Iranian regime run by apocalyptic fanatics from going nuclear, we will have reached the point of no return. It is not just Iran that might be the source of great concern, but that we will have demonstrated to the world that for those similarly inclined, there is no serious impediment.''

This bill will help contain the Iranian threat and will send a clear message that we will not tolerate flagrant violations of international nonproliferation obligations.

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

Mr. President, we have had a long and full day today. I have some remarks to make on a couple of bills, and then we will close down, with a brief statement on what I see unfolding over the next couple days.

Mr. President, the Senate has before it two very important bills dealing with critical foreign policy issues facing our Nation.

One of them is the Iran Freedom Support Act, H.R. 6198. This is a bipartisan bill which passed the House earlier today by voice vote. In other words, it was a noncontroversial bill in the House. It was cosponsored there by Congressman Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the Committee on International Relations, as well as by Congressman Gary Ackerman, the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Middle East and Central Asia. The Iran Freedom Support Act is also strongly supported by the Bush administration.

Enactment of this bill is time-sensitive because it will extend for another 5 years the provisions of the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, or better known here on the floor as ILSA. ILSA has been an important element of the U.S. sanctions regime against Iran for the past 10 years, and ILSA will expire tomorrow unless Congress acts to extend it.

Iran is continuing to defy the will of the international community by persisting with its efforts to produce nuclear weapons in violation of international nonproliferation norms. I could not think of a worse time than now to allow ILSA to lapse; the signal this would send to Iran of U.S. irresolution and weakness would be terrible.

Just today, President Ahmadi-Nejad publicly declared that Iran will not suspend its nuclear enrichment program, despite being called to do so by the United Nations Security Council. The U.N. is now poised to impose multilateral sanctions on Iran if it continues to defy Security Council mandates. But if we allow ILSA to lapse, the Congress will be relaxing U.S. sanctions on Iran at the very same time the rest of the world is thinking about tightening sanctions.

This is not the kind of leadership I was elected to the Senate to provide, and I think every Senator will have to lower their head in shame if the Senate fails to act tomorrow to extend ILSA.

H.R. 6198 has been cleared on our side of the aisle. We are ready to pass it. We are ready to pass it tonight. I will not ask unanimous consent to pass it tonight, however, because I understand it has not been cleared on the Democratic side of the aisle. I hope that does change overnight, but whether it changes or not, I wish to serve notice to all Senators that tomorrow I will ask unanimous consent to pass H.R. 6198, and I hope there will be no Member of this body who steps forward at that time to reward Iran's intransigence by blocking passage of this bipartisan legislation.

The second very important bill affecting our foreign policy that is today pending before the Senate is the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act, S. 3709. This bill was reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations on July 20 and has been pending before us since that time. It is strongly supported by Chairman Lugar and the ranking Democrat of that committee, Senator Biden. Together they have developed a managers' amendment that they both support and that they would like the Senate to approve. The House companion measure has already passed that body by a wide margin.

Enactment of this legislation is essential in order to begin a new era in relations between our Nation and India, the world's largest democracy. This legislation will enable us to commence cooperation with India in the area of civil nuclear energy, something that is today contrary to U.S. law. We need to be able to do this to fulfill commitments President Bush made to Prime Minister Singh of India on July 18 of last year. If we are unable to fulfill those commitments, the disappointment in India will be such that United States-India relations could be set back by many years, and the promise of a new era in relations that was born on July 18 of last year will be lost.

Like the Iran bill, the India legislation has been cleared on our side of the aisle. Republican Members of the Senate are ready to approve the managers' amendment to S. 3709 tonight, in its current form, with no further debate or amendment.

Regrettably, the same is not true on the other side of the aisle. Senate Democrats are not ready tonight to pass the managers' amendment to this legislation in its current form.

This is regrettable because if the Democrats would permit us to pass the

bill tonight, we could send it to conference over the recess, where the differences between the House bill could be resolved, and we could be assured of sending this bill to the President before we adjourn.

I understand that the reason they are not prepared to pass the legislation is because they have a large number of amendments they wish to offer. Some of these Democrat amendments are so-called killer amendments which, if adopted, would simply make this legislation unacceptable to the Indian government. Others of the Democrat amendments are not necessarily designed to kill the legislation, but their sheer volume will slow down this whole process considerably and could, as a practical matter, make it impossible for the Senate to consider this legislation this year.

I have worked with my colleague, Senator Reid, to come up with some sort of unanimous-consent agreement that would enable us to consider this legislation in a reasonable period of time. We have not yet succeeded, but I will keep trying. We need to bring this matter to a resolution before we recess.