Floor Statements

Mr. President, I see the distinguished Senator from New Jersey in the Chamber. I believe he has an amendment, and if the pricetag is reasonable, we may be able to accept it.

Mr. President, I believe we can accept this amendment. This is an increase, obviously. Our budget has been short in every area. We share the concern of the author of this amendment in ensuring EPA enforcement is strong enough.

There is no objection on this side.

Mr. President, a request has been made by the distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee that we have a voice vote and not just accept these amendments without objection. It would be in order to ask for a voice vote.

Mr. President, Senator Ensign has a statement he wishes to make, but in the meantime we have a number of amendments that have been cleared on both sides.

Amendment No. 2172 to Amendment No. 2150

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Hollings and Senator Graham of South Carolina. This is an amendment permitting the Secretary of VA to enter into an enhanced-use lease for the Medical University Hospital Authority in Charleston.

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

Mr. President, I believe this amendment has been cleared on both sides.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment by Senator Mikulski which provides for the Corporation National Service to refrain from disclosing any information. I ask for its immediate consideration.

I thank my colleague from Maryland for her very thoughtful and well-crafted amendment. She has been regarded as really one of the greatest defenders of the concept of AmeriCorps national service. Nobody has been a stronger champion of volunteer service. I have been pleased to be a junior partner to her in this effort. She has it just right. The volunteers are wonderful. The purpose is wonderful. We have had more than a few bumps in the road in terms of how the program has been administered, but we have high hopes that the new administration in that agency, with the new head, the financial officer, the chairman, will be on the right track.

I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I now see my distinguished colleague from Nevada is in the Chamber. I yield the floor to him for such comments as he wishes to make.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada. We are working on some possible amendments from the Senator from Illinois. Also, Senator Mikulski has a major amendment. I would like to move very quickly to do some amendments that I believe will not require any extended discussion. First for myself, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration

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

At the request of the administration, this amendment would increase funding for the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, OFHEO, for this year by $7.5 million. These funds are intended to strengthen OFHEO's examination, legal and human resources functions, and the fund's special investigation. The amendment includes an additional $10 million that is available only upon certification by the Secretary of the Treasury that there is an emergency need for additional funds.

There is, I believe, a compelling need to reform the regulatory structure governing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At a minimum, the senior management

of OFHEO must be replaced, and replaced now.

Senior management, in my view, has repeatedly failed to meet the most basic requirements of OFHEO's missions. For example, it took over 10 years for OFHEO to issue its risk-based capital standards, despite the fact that this is OFHEO's primary mission and key to its regulatory oversight of the GSEs.

This failing became even more evident when OFHEO publicly praised Freddie Mac's management just days before Freddie Mac's management was removed for accounting irregularities.

I applaud the work of the Banking Committee in the Senate and in the House, Senator Shelby, Congressman Baker, and the ranking members for making regulatory reform of OFHEO a priority. I look forward to working with them next year to help develop the right regulatory system.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

I send to the desk an amendment on behalf of Senator Stevens relating to the Native American Housing Assistance and Determination Act.

On behalf of the Senators from Illinois, Mr. Durbin and Mr. Fitzgerald, I send an amendment to the desk dealing with the North Chicago VA Medical Center, making it available to the maximum extent feasible. I ask for its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I yield for any statement by the Senator from Illinois.

This is something we need to do throughout the system, and we need to have a better integration of the health care facilities of the active military and the Veterans Affairs. I commend the Senators from Illinois and hope this model can be adopted elsewhere.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I send another amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Murkowski relating to rural teacher housing, amending the Denali Commission Act to provide the ability of the Commission to make grants and loans to public school districts serving remote incorporated cities and unincorporated communities in Alaska.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

This is carrying on our efforts to provide the best possible services to people in underserved areas of Alaska. I urge its adoption.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, we are on the amendment, the emergency designation by my friend and colleague from Maryland. She seeks to add $3 billion to the vitally important State revolving funds that are so important to cleaning up our environment. I could not agree with her from my heart more strongly because this is an area of need. We have fought very hard to get our funding up to where it is. That is not enough. We have not been able to fund the National Science Foundation as we should. We had a major effort by the leadership of the full committee to get us the money that we need to get an additional $1.3 billion for veterans health care.

Having said that, this, unfortunately, is far beyond the budget allocated to the committee. It is in conflict with the stated position of the OMB with respect to emergency designations. Therefore, it is with regret that out of necessity I note that section 502, House Concurrent Resolution 95, the fiscal year 2004 concurrent resolution on the budget, created a point of order against an emergency designation on nondefense spending.

The amendment contains nondefense spending with an emergency designation; therefore, pursuant to section 502

of H. Con. Res. 95, the fiscal year 2004 concurrent resolution on the budget, I make a point of order against the emergency designation contained in the amendment.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Parliamentary inquiry: Does the amendment fall without the emergency designation?

I make a point of order that this exceeds the budget allocation and, therefore, must fall.

Madam President, I have six amendments to offer.

Madam President, I have now heard from about five Members on the other side who have amendments on which we would have to have votes. If that is 20 minutes a vote, that would be 100 minutes at least.

Madam President, I am truly overwhelmed by the generosity of my good friend from Nevada, but regrettably I am not driving this bus. I believe there is a unanimous consent order that cannot be altered without talking to the leadership. I apologize to my friends. I would love to finish the bill, but now that I have the floor, I do have a number of amendments that have been cleared on both sides.

Amendment No. 2180 to Amendment No. 2150

Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself to direct the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to conduct and negotiate a rulemaking for purposes of changes to the formula governing the public housing operating fund. I ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Madam President, there are no objections on the other side.

Madam President----

I was going to respond.

Madam President, we are coming up on a 6 p.m. deadline, I say to my friend from West Virginia, that has been long announced and been planned for. I say to the distinguished Senator that unless and until we are able to get concurrence from the leadership, the work on this bill tonight will stop. I further ask the Senator from West Virginia if he would permit us to continue with the cleared amendment that is at the desk. There are five more cleared amendments, four of them by Members from his side of the aisle, that we would like to be able to clear if he would allow me to do so.

Also, I announce to my colleagues there are visiting dignitaries from the European Parliament. My colleagues may wish to greet them.

Madam President, there is one measure pending at the desk, and there are five more amendments that have been cleared on both sides. Excuse me. Coming in over the transom, there are now two more. So that makes a grand total of seven amendments, five of them from Members on the other side of the aisle.

Madam President, these are not at the desk, only submitted.

Madam President, as I said, there are seven amendments that are to be offered. There is one at the desk and there are seven more now that have been cleared on both sides.

I object on behalf of the leadership, Mr. President, and I seek recognition.

On behalf of the leadership, I object.

On behalf of the leadership, I object.

Mr. President, we do have these six measures--seven--eight measures, now, at the desk, that I propounded? We have one from Senator Murkowski on pioneer homes in the State of Alaska; we have one from Senators Dorgan, Rockefeller, and Landrieu on access to primary health care for veterans in rural areas; we have one from Senator Snowe-- Senator Sarbanes, Senators Collins, Byrd, Santorum, and others, a sense of the Senate with respect to section 8 vouchers; an amendment by Senator Clinton and others relating to the Corporation for National Service volunteers; another from Senator Landrieu with respect to the States' deduction for administrative expenses in the Housing and Community Development Act; an amendment by Senator Levin and others relating to Federal water pollution control; a sense-of-the-Senate amendment by Senator Boxer about human dosing studies of pesticides.

I ask unanimous consent that the aforementioned amendments be sent to the desk, the titles read, that they be approved, and that a motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I, too, have heard about the importance of the research infrastructure program and I want to assure the Senator that we have sought to provide sufficient funding to cover existing commitments and states that are currently under review.

I understand the Senator's interest.

cares initiative

That understanding is correct and I look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue.

The Senator is correct. The bill includes more than $461 million for the HUD Secretary to support a range of activities related to the Section 8 program including contract amendments and other measures to ensure that housing authorities are able to lease up to their authorized unit levels. In addition, the bill allows HUD to allocate up to $36 million for new vouchers tied to the designation and occupancy restrictions imposed in public and assisted housing developments for the elderly. This continues a policy established by Congress in 1996 to ensure alternative resources for non-elderly people with disabilities who are being excluded from certain public and assisted housing properties.

It is important to note that the bill requires the HUD Secretary to ensure that there are adequate funds to renew all existing rental vouchers before allocating additional funds for disability vouchers for Fiscal Year 2004. It is the expectation of both Senator Mikulski and myself that HUD will be able to make a mid-year assessment in Fiscal Year 2004 to determine if the amounts appropriated for voucher renewals and contract amendments exceed the expected requests from housing authorities for authorized voucher renewals. In our view, such an assessment can be made as part of the periodic measurements HUD routinely makes regarding the pace of voucher renewals. It should also be part of the requirement set forth in S. Rpt. 108-143 by the Appropriations Committee for development of a real-time data model to identify the actual use of vouchers.

Further, it is our view that every effort should be made to ensure that public housing designation plans for elderly-only housing are linked to the vouchers, should they become available in Fiscal Year 2004. I do not believe that HUD should be prevented from including these disability vouchers in its annual consolidated Notice of Funding Availability or SuperNOFA. This would

allow the agency to allocate expeditiously these vouchers before the end of Fiscal Year 2004 to housing authorities that are able to target them effectively to non-elderly people with disabilities who have been adversely affected by the designation of public and assisted housing as elderly only.

I would be happy to engage in such a discussion with the Senator from Hawaii, a member of the Committee and the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Defense.

We face a very tough conference with the House with our tight allocation and other competing funding priority areas such as veterans' health care, affordable housing, and other science and space programs. Nevertheless, I will look at this issue in conference.

Speaking for Senator Mikulski and myself, we would be happy to look at this issue in conference.

I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his remarks, and I will be working to ensure that this important study will be included in the conference report.

I thank the Senator for his kind comments.

I share and strongly support the Senator's view that NASA should continue to work with universities and industry on NASA-related scientific research.

I appreciate the Senator bringing his concerns to my attention. He has my assurance that the Committee's proposed reduction in the Earth

Sciences account is not intended to reduce the funding for the three university partnership programs he has described. I also share your concerns that this reduction could curtail some of the valuable research which we expect and which needs to be accomplished, and therefore intend to work in conference to increase the funding for Earth Science Applications to prevent any unintended shortfalls to existing programs as well as to needed new investments. As NASA continues to implement full cost accounting, we will confront a number of funding issues which will need additional scrutiny as we seek to understand NASA's new requirements with regard to what costs apply to programs under full cost accounting.

Mr. President, I would like to thank the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum, for agreeing to withdraw his amendment to further increase funds for the AmeriCorps program. I look forward to working with the Senator from Pennsylvania in the effort in conference to fully fund the President's request for AmeriCorps.

Mr. President, I could not agree more with my colleague from South Carolina. When I hear asked on this Senate floor, who cares about judicial appointments, who cares about the important judiciary that makes decisions that affect our everyday lives, I would join with him in saying that the people in Missouri care.

I have found all of the problems--and there are many problems, there are lots of concerns. People are concerned about Iraq. They want to see the President carry on the war against terrorism. They are concerned about jobs. They are very grateful, I might add, that the Republican Congress has given the economy such a boost with its good fiscal policy and gotten the economy growing, an economy that President Bush inherited that was in the tank, but it is starting to grow, and we want it to grow faster. They ask me more about this unprecedented filibuster of judges than anything else.

No matter where I go, in the rural areas, in the big cities, in the suburbs--my colleagues on the other side ask, who cares? Well, people in my State understand. They know how important the judiciary is. They know that appellate courts, the courts that oversee district courts usually in many States, make decisions that affect our everyday lives.

The Senator from South Carolina was right. The police officers, the sheriffs, these are the folks who go out and risk their lives and then they see appellate judges, people on appeals courts, making decisions that turn these criminals loose. And they say what is this all about? I am risking my life, I am out there getting shot at, trying to bring somebody in, and an appellate court judge misuses the law to set him free. Our police officers, our law enforcement officers today understand the constitutional rights. They know. They have to abide by the standard. They have to respect the rights of all citizens. But when they do that, when they go through all of the steps and do it right and then a criminal is turned loose, they, who have risked their lives, know how important these judges are.

My Democratic colleagues complain that we are taking time. Well, I have been waiting to get on the floor because this is something we need to talk about. We have listened to them all year long delay, filibuster. They bragged about they finally passed the Healthy Forests bill to stop the wildfires that have burned in California and threaten many States, and do my colleagues know what they are doing? They are filibustering the ability to take that bill to the conference so we can get it passed. They are filibustering that.

My colleague from Illinois was talking about how long it took us to get to the VA-HUD bill, a bill I am responsible for. Well, something may have

interfered with taking up that bill when the minority whip spent 8\1/2\ hours on the Senate floor on Monday complaining about filibusters. Excuse me, but what is that when he will not release the floor beginning at 1:30? I gave up. I heard he went 8\1/2\ hours, maybe it was 9\1/2\ hours. I decided to turn on the ball game about then. But we were blocked from doing anything. We were blocked by the same Democrats who complained, after they filibustered all year long, that we are talking too much.

There is a lot to be said, but the most important thing I can say is that the President has nominated 46 people to serve on the Federal circuit court, and the Senate has confirmed only 63 percent. This is what we are talking about, unprecedented. The President has made four nominations to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, the second highest court in the land, and only one has been confirmed.

Despite the self-congratulations of the Democrats who say they have confirmed 168, they have not confirmed 37 percent of the circuit judges. What nominee has withdrawn his name? One of the most qualified people ever nominated for the judiciary. Three remain filibustered. Three more are being threatened with that fate. Numerous others are being blocked or delayed by the minority. The reason most cited is that these nominees are out of the mainstream.

The mainstream, it appears, is defined by a few of my colleagues and some of the most liberal interest groups in the country. I know the liberal interest groups, the Hollywood group, put in a lot of money, and they have strange ideas of what the mainstream is. When you talk about some of their mainstream Hollywood people or People for the American Way ideas, I tell my colleagues, that dog does not hunt in Missouri. I imagine it does not hunt in South Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania either.

If that is the litmus test, let us talk about who is in the mainstream. For the Ninth Circuit, Judge Carolyn Kuhl, the American Bar Association says she is well qualified for the position. Oh, earlier on, that was going to be the gold standard. The Democrats said: We cannot appoint anybody who is not rated at least qualified by the American Bar Association.

She is rated well qualified, a distinguished career as an attorney with the Department of Justice, U.S. Solicitor General, a clerk for the United States Supreme Court. Twenty-three women judges on the Superior Court of Los Angeles, and nearly 100 judges who serve with her have spoken out on her outstanding abilities and professionalism. The litigation section of the L.A. County bar has also. Are those people out of the mainstream? Are they somehow different? Are they somehow unworthy?

Then Judge Janice Rogers Brown, she is the first African-American woman to serve on the State's highest court. She was retained by the support of 76 percent of the voters in her last election. That is in California. Is 76 percent of the California voters out of the mainstream? Academics from colleges across the State have written in to speak about her professionalism and evenhandedness. Sounds like mainstream to me.

They like to think that the panel of the Ninth Circuit, which is the most liberal, most overruled, most out of touch circuit court in the Nation, is mainstream, but this panel of Ninth Circuit judges tried to stay the recall election in California. The Ninth Circuit judges declared that the words ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional. Is that the mainstream? Two Democrats appointed to the Ninth Circuit ruled that convicted felons serving a life sentence have a fundamental right to procreate by artificial insemination. Are they in the mainstream? Where is that in the Constitution?

Mr. President, I have many colleagues who need to speak. I have a whole lot more to say. I will be sharing it with you. But most of all, I am hearing from the people in Missouri who know their lives could be affected by what the nominees of the appellate courts in the Nation can provide.

After 9/11, a Jordanian named Osama Awadallah was apprehended after material linking him to some of the hijackers was found in a car parked at Dulles by one of the hijackers. It was established that Awadallah knew two of the hijackers and had met with one of them up to forty times. But Clinton appointee Judge Shira Scheindlin dismissed his charges and in the process struck down a federal material witness statute long used by the Department of Justice to detain witnesses who are a flight risk. The fact that this was well-settled law used by the prosecution was no deterrent to the judge. Fortunately, she was overruled by the court of appeals.

Yesterday, we also heard about Clinton appointee Judge Jed Rakoff, who ruled that the federal death penalty is unconstitutional, again disregarding well established precedent. In his opinion, the judge likened the statute to murder. The judge seemed to have total disregard for the fact that the arguments he made were those that should be made in a legislative body, but that would require one to be responsive to the will of the voters--what an old fashioned notion! Even the Washington Post--which opposes the death penalty--condemned this blatant overreaching decision as entirely inappropriate for a judge.

Another recent Clinton appointee has ruled it necessary for the government to permit criminal illegal immigrants bail, rather than holding them for deportation--A very useful tool for our immigration services to ensure that criminal aliens are sent back to their native countries.

President Clinton nominated a New Jersey federal judge to the court of appeals who once ruled that a homeless man, despite the disturbance he was causing the patrons, had a right not to be removed from a public library. Of course, he was supported unanimously by the Democrats. On the circuit court, he went on to rule that prisoners had a constitutional right protecting their mail from searches and argued that the government could not go after the proceeds of drug forfeitures--fortunately for the war on drugs, he was unsuccessful.

Speaking of prisoner cases, one of the decisions issued by Judge Pickering that the Democrats have been critical of was a prisoner's rights case. A prisoner was dissatisfied with the prison issue typewriter because it was lacking a memory system--Judge Pickering ruled that this prisoner's typewriter was adequate and he did not have the right to one with memory. What a cruel decision. Is that what this debate has come down too? This hardly puts Judge Pickering out of the mainstream, in fact I would bet just about everyone listening to this debate would agree this decision is mainstream--It makes common sense.

I could stand here all morning reading decision after decision handed down by Democrat appointed judges that simply defy reason and bear no resemblance to what most people in this chamber or in their states would consider to be the ``mainstream''. Yet a few of our colleagues have taken it upon themselves to make this critical determination. By their history, they have no credibility on this question. In fact, all the nominees who have been labeled as such actually enjoy the majority support in this body and have the support of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Mr. President, it is time to give these extremely well-qualified, high-respected individuals an up or down vote. It is time for the minority to quit hiding behind this flimsy argument about being in the mainstream.

It is too late for Miguel Estrada, his nomination was withdrawn after 848 days and 7 cloture votes, unanimous rating of well qualified by the ABA, but it is time to give Justice Priscilla Owen a vote, her nomination has been pending for 917 days and there has been three cloture votes, unanimous rating of well qualified by the ABA, it is time to give Judge Charles Pickering a vote, his nomination has been pending for 901 days and he has an ABA rating of well qualified, it is time to give Attorney General William Pryor a vote, his nomination has been pending for 217 days and he received a qualified rating, it is time to give Judge Carolyn Kuhl a vote, her nomination has been pending for 873 days and the ABA has give her a well qualified rating, it is time to give Justice Janice Brown a vote, her nomination has been pending for 110 days, and it is time to give Judge Henry Saad a vote, his nomination has been pending for 743 days.

Mr. President, it is time for the body to give these candidates an up-or-down vote.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Texas and the others who have spoken.

It is a great honor and privilege to be on the Senate floor on this Veterans Day to acknowledge the sacrifices of America's veterans and the priceless service our veterans have rendered to a grateful Nation.

Earlier this morning Senator Thomas, Senator Inhofe, and I visited the Washington VA hospital to say thank you. Previously, I had been to Walter Reed and Bethesda National Naval Medical Center, as I know many Members have, to say thanks also to those returning from the current war. In all of these visits and in everything we do, we should express our thankful appreciation to America's veterans, particularly while we find ourselves embroiled in a war against those seeking to destroy all America stands for, what we hold most dear, our freedom.

It is the soldier, sailor, airman, and the marine to whom we have turned for protection from terrorists and the failed nation states that support them. Our troops are performing in an exemplary manner, taking the fight to those who would harm us on enemy territory and on our terms. The events of September 11 and the military operations that have ensued since then have brought a renewed understanding and respect for our Nation's military and our veterans.

In response to the horrendous acts carried out on 9/11, our men and women in uniform have taken action, as our veterans have done countless times throughout history.

We are fighting the war on terrorism on many fronts, using all the tools at our disposal. We will win this conflict through the patient accumulation of successes, by meeting a series of challenges with determination, with will and with purpose. This campaign is a marathon, not a sprint. We must be mindful to think not only in the near term but to look ahead 5, 10, 15 years and to take this opportunity to shape our future world. We must find a way to help contribute to the peace and stability of what is clearly still a dangerous and unpredictable world.

After 9/11, President Bush said:

In the months ahead, our patience will be one of our

strengths . . . patience and understanding that it will take

time to achieve our goals; patience in all the sacrifices

that may come.

Today, sacrifices are being made by our troops who defend us far from home, and by their proud yet worried families. The sacrifices they make are the same sacrifices made by those who served before them. We ask an awful lot of those who wear the uniform. We ask them to leave their loved ones, to travel great distances, to risk injury, even risk death. They are dedicated, they are honorable, and they represent the very best of our country. We are indeed grateful for these countless sacrifices. We can never repay our debt to those who serve our Nation, but we can ensure they know they will never be forgotten. Today, we have some very real reminders of the cost of freedom. It is an absolute that we would not enjoy the freedoms we have today were it not for the willingness of our men and women to serve each of us and our country by committing to fight on our behalf in the armed services.

We are fighting every day on the many fronts around the world and those of us in this body work to provide not only the resources we need to ensure that our men and women in the field are the best trained, best equipped, best prepared, and the best protected, but we also work to ensure we meet the commitments made to our veterans who have served in the past.

As former Secretary of Defense William Cohen once said, we are ``unwilling to live in a world in which evil triumphs. And as a result, the flag of freedom flies not only over America, but over those countries whose people had to yield to the terror of tyranny and under the heel of boots of dictators.'' Our veterans have kept the flame of freedom alive, and they are a true reflection of the American spirit.

There are many accolades for veterans, but the one I like best is from Father Dennis Edward O'Brien's ``What Is A Vet?''

He is an ordinary yet extraordinary human being, a person

who offered some of his life's most vital years in the

service of his country and who sacrificed his ambitions so

others would not have to sacrifice theirs . . .

He is a soldier and savior and a sword against the

darkness, and his is nothing more than the finest, greatest

testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever

known.

So remember, each time you see someone who served our

country, just lean over and say thank you. That is all most

people need, and in most cases will mean more than any medals

they could have been awarded or were awarded.

President Bush said it best when he described the will of our Nation by saying:

We will not waiver; we will not tire; we will not falter;

and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail.

That peace and freedom will prevail because of the commitment of those who serve in uniform. America's veterans are the rock on which we have defended America's shores and are the reason our President can make such promises.

May God bless our veterans for their service, and may He continue to bless America.

Mr. President, I thank our leader for bringing this matter to the floor. I join with the very distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee because that is what we really ought to be about. We ought to be focused on winning the war against terrorism, not allowing one of our primary, sensitive committees, the Intelligence Committee, to be focused on winning the White House. I can't say it any better than the Senator from Virginia. We have heroic young men and woman in harm's way fighting to bring order to a region of the world where we have had many threats to our security. The least these brave men and women could expect would be that our country and our Congress would be behind them.

Frankly, one of the reasons I sought membership on the Senate Intelligence Committee as a new member was I realized that in this critical battle against terrorism worldwide, we cannot win unless we have the best possible intelligence.

As I understand it, the job of the Intelligence Committee is not only one of oversight but of taking a look and seeing what has happened in the intelligence-gathering analysis and sharing in the past, how we can do a better job. Our staffs have been deeply engaged in this exercise for many months. We have followed it. We have had numerous hearings. We have read some, but not all, of the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of pages that have come before us. We need, on a bipartisan basis, to be able to find out how we can improve that intelligence.

One of the reasons the Intelligence Committee is so special is the tradition it has. The intelligence community members, whose lives are at risk because of what they are doing--often undercover work, dealing with classified, sensitive subjects--have been able to come before the committee in the past, knowing they could count on confidentiality, professionalism, and on a body that was not going to be using their words or their actions for partisan political gain.

Unfortunately, when we first saw this memo, it looked as if there was somebody, or ``somebodies,'' in the Intelligence Committee who wanted to use it to win the White House. That is just unacceptable. Some people on the other side have said this is just an options memo tossed up for review. I have been around here for a few years, and a staff person on his or her own doesn't write a memo saying: We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and we believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows.

I say that the occupant of the chair, and probably everybody else here, would be totally stupefied if they got a memo from the staff that was supposed to be an option memo and said: This is our plan. This is not an accident. Days have passed and there have been no consequences. If somebody was really off base, there would have been something that would have happened. Some steps would have been taken. As the distinguished majority leader has pointed out, nothing has happened. Unfortunately, too many of the actions we have seen seem to fit right in with this plan. Not only are they not disavowing it, they appear to be preparing to implement it, or are in the process of implementing it.

What is this plan? Is it to find out how the intelligence gathering could be better? Not likely. In addition to the President's State of the Union speech, they say, they want to look at the activities of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department. They want to go after political figures.

Somebody in my office said, ``This looks like a political witch hunt.'' I said maybe that is not a bad way to characterize it.

They are going after political scalps, not trying to find out whether the intelligence that we received, the White House received, the Department of Defense received, and the State Department received was good, but how they can use the process of the Intelligence Committee to win political points.

By the way, when they talk about ``when we can pull the trigger''-- pull the trigger on an investigation--they say the best time to do so will probably be next year.

If I remember correctly, that happens to be a general election year. That would seem to square with some of the statements made by the many Democratic Presidential candidates who want to raise questions, who want to attack the President, using the process of the Intelligence Committee.

One of the things that is really bothersome is that they are not just speaking to an audience in the Senate. When they launch these attacks, these attacks get carried across the Nation and across the world. They get back to the people we are trying to fight. Do you know something? There is nothing a terrorist likes better than seeing discord, disharmony, and political infighting among the people they are trying to terrorize. That is one of the victories of terrorists. If they can tie up the intelligence-gathering operation, which is so critical for the protection, first and foremost, of our soldiers on the front line, but ultimately our allies and ourselves--if they can see that tied up in a political Gordian knot, then they know they are winning.

I strongly support what the majority leader has said. I strongly believe that our fine chairman has not only gone the extra mile, he has gone the extra mile and a half.

Some on the other side said we have not been able to get the information we want. When we have found we could not get information, the chairman has demanded it and we are going to get it. When they want to ask questions, they can do so. When they want to call witnesses, they can call witnesses.

There has been a suggestion that there was pressure on intelligence community members. The chairman has gone out and asked publicly of the intelligence community, if anybody has any information or concerns that they have been pressured, to come forward and talk to staff. We have set up elaborate procedures so they can come forward. We are still waiting. If we find any of that, we will certainly let it out.

In the meantime, it is time for us to get back to the job of the Intelligence Committee--how we can support, rather than tear apart, our intelligence-gathering system. It is with great regret we note that we have gone down this path and there doesn't seem to be any remorse or disavowal from the other side.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Madam President, how much time remains?

Madam President, a couple of weeks ago we received reports from inquiring UPI reporter Mark Benjamin and a very active veterans advocate Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, that there was a significant problem with the care and treatment of returning guardsmen and reserves coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan to Fort Stewart, GA. There were, at the time, indications that some of the Guard and Reserve perceived they were not getting the same priority of care, treatment, and housing as was received by those who had been on active duty before they were sent to the combat theater.

So working with my colleague, Senator Leahy, with whom I cochair the National Guard caucus, we sent our military LAs to visit Fort Stewart, GA, and on to Fort Knox and Fort Campbell, KY. We wanted to visit other sites and will continue to visit other sites to see if the problems at Fort Stewart were isolated or were they present at other Army mobilization and demobilization sites.

What Senator Leahy and I found is detailed in the report. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Madam President, I don't have time to go over the entire report, but I think many colleagues will find it of interest to know what we experienced.

First, let me say that the Army was very open and responsive to our staff when they came to review the situation. They were most anxious to have us get a complete look at the situation and to offer to help in any way they could. So they recognized there was a problem.

Basically, there are not enough medical personnel--doctors, clinicians, support staff, specialists--available during ``peak'' mobilization and demobilization phases at a number of mobilization sites. Consequently, injured and ill soldiers have a difficult time scheduling appointments with medical care providers and seeing the specialists required to get the best possible care. Some of them had been waiting literally months to get the kind of care they deserve.

Compounding the problem, large numbers of soldiers either mobilizing or demobilizing created shortages of available housing at mobilization sites, which resulted in some of the returning guards and reservists being placed in housing totally inadequate for their medical condition. Some of these Guard and Reserve members who had been activated and were coming back were put in temporary barracks, with outside latrines, where they normally would house Guard or Reserve members called up for summer maneuvers.

We could neither confirm nor deny that there was any difference in medical treatment between the returning formerly Active and Guard and Reserve soldiers coming back, but one of the things that was different when the Active came back to the bases from which they had been mobilized was that they already had their housing, so they could go back to the housing from which they started. The Guard and Reserve coming back from service had to be put in some form of temporary housing, which, in some instances, was clearly inadequate for people with injuries or illnesses.

So what is being done? Senator Leahy and I issued the report to highlight the problems to senior leaders at the Army, National Guard, and the Army Reserve. I was very encouraged by the response the military gave us. The Acting Secretary of the Army, Les Brownlee, visited Fort Stewart on Saturday, the weekend after we sent our teams there. He met with me last week to lay out his plans for dealing with the situation. He recounted what he discovered at Fort Stewart and promised swift support and changes, where necessary.

Specific issues addressed by Secretary Brownlee included the adequacy of facilities and where they would get treatment. He said, if appropriate, soldiers will be moved to facilities where they can provide more timely care. We suggested that if they don't have the medical personnel available there, why not send them someplace else. He said he would encourage the commands to contract out for special services, such as MRIs, for example. If they don't have the equipment, they can contract out.

I also asked the Secretary to allow soldiers in a medical hold status to be moved to facilities closer to their home, using military, veterans health administration, or civilian providers, as necessary. Secretary Brownlee told me some of the soldiers at Fort Stewart had already been moved to nearby Fort Gordon, where the medical staff was not so badly overworked. Also, at his direction, the Army Medical Command is transferring medical care clinicians to mobilization sites that need them.

The Secretary has also established minimum standards for housing in medical hold status. He said, No. 1, facilities will be climate controlled, meaning air-conditioned and heated. Some of the facilities didn't have that. Second, facilities must have showers and restrooms indoors, and not a path in the back, and facilities must be clean and in good repair. The Secretary also indicated he is considering erecting prefab facilities to alleviate the housing shortages during mobilization and demobilization surges that could be used to house medical hold soldiers.

Secretary Brownlee has issued policy guidance that allows the Army to deactivate Guard and Reserve personnel who do not meet the physical requirements for deployment due to a preexisting condition. One of the problems at Fort Stewart was the fact that some 10 percent of the Guard and Reserve called up had not had adequate pre-callup medical care, a situation we are addressing with the TRICARE measures, and they could not be deployed. They were then the responsibility of the Army at Fort Stewart, and at the time we were there, a third of the 650 soldiers on medical hold had never even been deployed because they did not meet the standards for deployment. Those people will be sent home rather than kept on medical hold.

Also, after meeting with Secretary Brownlee, I followed up with LTG Steven Blum, Chief of the National Guard Bureau and LTG James Helmly, Chief of the Army Reserve, asking them to work with the Army in resolving these issues. Specifically, we asked their cooperation:

No. 1, by doing a better job medically prescreening Guard and Reserve soldiers so they do not activate soldiers who cannot serve.

No. 2, to coordinate the callup and retention of medical personnel-- clinicians, support staff, specialists--to ensure the Army mobilization sites have sufficient medical personnel onsite.

I saw in the news today where the Department of Defense is looking to call up certain support personnel from other Reserve units, other than the Army, to provide perhaps naval medical personnel to assist with caring for the sick and injured soldiers.

No. 3, we asked them to check on Guard and Reserve soldiers who are on medical hold, making sure somebody was looking after them, to let them know they have not been forgotten, or to find out if they have other needs.

Further, Senator Leahy and I have asked the GAO to conduct a survey into the Army's medical hold process to ascertain the breadth of the problems that we saw at Fort Stewart and Fort Knox, and to determine if there is any disparity in medical treatment of returning guardsmen and reservists who come back in demobilization and have health care problems.

It is our understanding that the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as its House counterpart, is going to conduct hearings into the conditions uncovered by Mark Benjamin and confirmed by Senator Leahy's and my investigation, but I regret very much, as all of us do, that this situation has occurred. It is unacceptable to all of us to think that injured, ill soldiers returning from the theater of battle would not get the medical care they need, would not be placed in appropriate housing.

Once it came to our attention and we brought it to the Army's attention, we are very encouraged by the way everybody is handling this, from the garrison commanders and medical directors to mobilization staff to the Acting Secretary of the Army. This is a matter of taking care of our soldiers regardless of whether they are traditional active-duty soldiers or National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers.

Senator Leahy and I are going to continue to monitor the progress of the Army in addressing these issues. We plan on sending staff to additional mobilization sites in the next few weeks and months to make sure there are no problems. We know that in the next few months the National Guard and Reserve will be mobilizing thousands of additional troops. We want to make sure the Army gets it right and keeps it right. The next mobilization schedule is to begin in the January-April timeframe, which means when they go, we want to make sure soldiers get timely care and housing, suitable to getting well, no exceptions.

We know the Army knows of the problems and is aggressively tackling them. We expect garrison commanders at mobilization sites to continue to do their best, and we will continue to support them, as well as every soldier in the war on terrorism. We owe a great debt of gratitude to our fighting men and women. They have and deserve our highest regard and respect. We will do all we can to ensure they get the kind of care we would expect for them.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

U.S. Senate National Guard Caucus Report

Senators Kit Bond and Patrick Leahy, co-chairs of the U.S.

Senate National Guard Caucus, dispatched their aides to Ft.

Stewart to investigate reports that activated Guard and

Reserve members were being poorly housed, with inadequate

medical attention, while on ``medical hold.''

Summary

Approximately 650 members of the National Guard and the

Army Reserve who have answered the call-to-duty and in many

cases were wounded, injured or became ill while serving in

Iraq, are currently on medical hold at Ft. Stewart, GA. Army

base. As a result of an investigation by a reporter and

expeditious follow-up by a veteran service organization

representative it has come to our attention that these

National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers have been receiving

inadequate medical attention and counsel while being housed

in living accommodations totally inappropriate to their

condition. Of the roughly 650 injured soldiers currently

awaiting medical care and follow-up evaluations,

approximately one-third of these soldiers were found not

physically qualified for deployment and therefore never

deployed overseas. The remaining two-thirds deployed overseas

and were returned to Ft. Stewart as a result of wounds or

injuries sustained while serving or as the result of illness

encountered either before or after deployment. Regardless of

the nature of the medical malady, these soldiers have been

enduring unacceptable conditions for as many as 10 months.

The return of the 3rd Infantry Division from the Middle

East (18,000-strong which is permanently stationed at the

base), has forced commanders to lease barracks from the

Georgia National Guard that were designed as temporary

quarters for National Guard soldiers undergoing annual

training. They are not designed to accommodate wounded,

injured or ill soldiers awaiting

medical care and evaluation. The Army has designed a

Disability Evaluation System that is purposely slow to ensure

that National Guard and Army Reserve citizen-soldiers who are

found not physically qualified for duty receive a fair and

impartial review when undergoing a medical evaluation board.

The process, similar in many respects to the workmen's

compensation process, requires that these soldiers be given

every opportunity to recover. If full recovery is not

possible, the system works to establish a baseline condition

before the soldier is evaluated by a medical evaluation

board.

The situation at Ft. Stewart unfortunately was, and

remains, hampered by an insufficient number of medical

clinicians and specialists, which has caused excessive delays

in the delivery of care. Exacerbating the situation, was the

Army's placement of wounded and injured soldiers in housing

totally unsuitable for their medical condition. Additionally,

these soldiers were placed under the leadership of soldiers

who were also injured, resulting in a situation where the

sick and injured were leading the sick and injured.

Furthermore, the perception among these soldiers is that the

traditional active duty soldier is receiving better care,

compounding an already deteriorating situation that had a

devastating and negative impact on morale. Most of the

soldiers in the medical hold battalion, which was established

administratively to provide a military structure for the

soldiers, have families living within hundreds of miles; yet

they have been unable to join their families while awaiting

the final deliberation of their cases.

In the short term, we must alleviate the unacceptable

conditions at Ft. Stewart and determine if the problem is

isolated to Ft. Stewart alone or part of a larger system wide

problem.

Alleviating the problem at Ft. Stewart will require the

immediate assignment of additional medical clinicians,

specialists and medical support personnel and/or the

transfer, where appropriate, of our National Guard and Army

Reserve soldiers to faculties close to their families so they

can continue to receive quality care and await further

medical reviews if necessary in an environment conducive to

healing. We must also ensure that the conditions at Ft.

Stewart are not replicated elsewhere, while ensuring the

fixes we install at Ft. Stewart are applied throughout the

Army if necessary. In the long term, the Congress must

address the physical readiness of the National Guard and the

Reserve by passage of a pending bill, TRICARE for Guard and

Reservists, to ensure that every member of the Guard and

Reserves has adequate health insurance coverage and is

medically ready to deploy.

Fundamental Problem

More than 650 members of the National Guard and Army

Reserve, who have been activated and put on active duty (some

of whom have already served in Iraq or Afghanistan) are

currently on medical hold at Ft. Stewart, GA. These numbers

change almost daily as some soldiers are returned to duty,

others receive medical evaluations for medical conditions

that prohibit their continued service on active duty, while

more soldiers are brought into the system (the result of

sustaining injuries, wounds or falling ill overseas; or

failing to qualify for deployment after being mobilized

because of injuries or preexisting conditions.)

About one-third of the citizen-soldiers currently in the

disability evaluation system at Ft. Stewart could not

originally deploy with their units because they were not

medically fit, while approximately two-thirds were injured,

wounded or fell ill while on deployment overseas and were

returned stateside to receive special medical attention. When

the 3rd Infantry Division, which is based at Ft. Stewart,

returned from its deployment in Iraq, available housing was

in short supply which resulted in those on medical hold being

moved from one barracks to another in a form of musical

housing. The U.S. Army resorted to leasing open-bay barracks

with detached restroom facilities and no air-conditioning in

most cases, which are normally used to house Georgia National

Guard troops during their two weeks of annual training.

These National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers have been

kept in place at Ft. Stewart according to standard Army

policy while they await medical care and work-ups, which

senior officials say is designed to protect their careers

and ensure they receive the best medical care. The goal is

to put these medically held Reserve soldiers in a holding

pattern until they are healthy enough to return to duty

and go back to their units or to prevent soldiers from

being permanently discharged from service until the nature

of their conditions have been fully assessed and optimal

treatment regime prescribed. When soldiers cannot return

to duty, a final determination about their status is made

by a Medical Evaluation Board (MEB). The MEB process can

take anywhere from an average of 42 days to 76 days after

the soldier's treatment has been ``optimized.'' That is

when a sufficient diagnosis and treatment regime has been

put in place to establish enough confidence to make a

decision. Some troops have been on medical hold for more

than 10 months.

The primary task of the Army Medical Department is to

return these soldiers to duty. While undergoing medical care

and reviews they can be assigned light duty around the post.

Adequate convalescence requires a great deal of rest in most

cases and cannot be properly pursued if there are unnecessary

life stressors, such as placement in housing that is designed

to house ``healthy'' National Guard forces on annual

training--not injured, wounded or ill soldiers.

The barracks for these medically held National Guard and

Army Reservists are totally inappropriate for soldiers

injured, wounded or ill who are in need of quality care and

are garrisoned in a stateside Army installation. The worst

accommodations to which these medically challenged soldiers

were subjected are 1950s-style, concrete-foundation barracks

with no air-conditioning or insulation and detached toilets

and shower facilities, though they do have heat. On a

relatively cooler day in the area (October 22nd), the

temperature in one of these huts was noticeably warm if not

stifling. Bunks sit in open bays, no more three feet apart.

In some cases, there are no footlockers for the troops to

store their gear. In a few of the better barracks, for

soldiers with more severe medical conditions, there is air

conditioning, indoor-plumbing, and storage space.

The fundamental problem, as summarized colorfully by one of

the base commanders, is that soldiers are going through a

``go slow medical review system while living in `get them the

hell out of here barracks.''' Many of the medically held

reservists--mostly from Southern states like Georgia,

Alabama, and Florida--expressed frustration and anger over

the duration of their medical hold and the quality of their

housing while in this seemingly interminable holding pattern.

complicating factors

Feeding these justifiable frustrations are several real and

perceived considerations regarding their medical care and

treatment on the base.

There has been a shortage of clinicians and specialists to

see the medically held Reservists and to accelerate the

review and treatment process. At various points over the past

several months there may have been only a handful of doctors

to care for these hundreds of troops, as well as to assist

with regular forces and their families. Most reserve doctors

called to active duty were deployed forward, and those

remaining in the states can stay on duty for only 90 days

before returning to their civilian practices. One soldier on

medical hold said it took him almost three weeks to get a

follow-on appointment necessary to optimize his care.

Further feeding the anger and frustration is inadequate

leadership. Typically, a soldier will receive advice,

counsel, and assistance in accessing the military's health

system from the soldiers's unit or from upper echelon chain-

of-command. The units of the medically held reservists,

however, have deployed abroad in most cases, and their

commanders are focused on their operational mission overseas.

The Reservists at Ft. Stewart have been grouped together in a

``medical hold'' battalion for administrative purposes but

the effectiveness of the unit chain of command is suspect.

Additionally, many of the battalion leaders--at the officer

and NCO level--are sick themselves, raising the question of

whether these leaders are capable to care for themselves, let

alone hundreds of their comrades. Without a familiar advisor

and leader, deployed away from home and their parent National

Guard or Army Reserve commands, and lacking experience

dealing with a huge bureaucracy like the Army, these

Reservists were left without the leadership to which they

were accustomed.

Moreover, many of the medically held Reservists perceive

bias against them on the post. Whenever they go the hospital,

PX, or dining hall, they are asked whether they are a

Reservist or a traditional active duty service member. This

question is made for accounting purposes, but it makes the

Reservists--many of whom are likely disappointed about being

on sick call in the first place--feel like they are being

singled out. Similarly, many of the medically held

Reservists, lacking sufficient knowledge of the military's

medical bureaucracy, chalk up delays in treatment to

preferential treatment for active forces.

an avoidable situation

This situation could have been avoided. In early June,

medical and garrison staff realized that there would be a

surge in housing needs when the 3rd Infantry Division

returned from Iraq. The division was manned at over 115

percent authorized strength, which would force commanders to

use triple bunks to accommodate 6500 troops in their barracks

that usually hold about 4300. These commanders recognized

then that these permanently assigned troops would have to

take priority over the troops temporarily at the post on

medical hold. Six weeks ago, medical staff submitted a

request up the chain-of-command for 18 additional care

providers who could help manage and accelerate the reviews of

the medical holds. No action was taken on the request.

At about the same time, the garrison commander submitted a

request to 1st Army Headquarters at Ft. MacPherson, Georgia,

for additional funds to renovate the barracks that are leased

from the Georgia National Guard. The command provided $4

million, divided into two parts, but the prospective

contractors could not begin work until this week. That

project, which would have taken 90 days at the very least,

was postponed pending the outcome of the investigations the

Army has currently undertaken after media reports about the

medical hold situation surfaced.

Additionally, it is reported that the Army had the

opportunity in the initial stages of

the mobilization process to provide for rear-detachment

elements staffed by National Guard personnel. These elements

are designed to provide stateside oversight and support to

National Guard personnel and units deployed overseas. Had

they been present it is possible the conditions described

herein might have been identified and rectified before they

reached a crisis point.

medical readiness of the guard and reserves

It is clear that part of the situation was created by the

fact that some of the mobilized reservists were not as

healthy as possible. Almost ten percent of Guard/Reserve

personnel mobilized for duty at Ft. Steward could not deploy

because of a medical condition and were put on medical hold

status for some period of time.

In the barracks visits, there were also troubling

indications that a handful of Reservists were knowingly

activated and sent to mobilize with medical conditions that

would preclude them from actually deploying. Such an

unjustified deployment might have been designed to take

advantage of the fact that once soldiers are activated (put

on active duty orders) they become the full-scale

responsibility of the U.S. Army. The service is then charged

with their care and feeding to include medical care and

medical evaluations.

The hundreds of Reservists who could not deploy because

they were medically unready raises a number of larger

questions, which the caucus has already begun to address

through its effort to ensure every member of the Guard and

Reserves has adequate health insurance. The caucus will

continue to address the issue in detail during its ongoing

investigation of the medical readiness and mobilizations,

examining questions like whether the resources and process

for screening at the unit level within the National Guard and

Army Reserve ranks are sufficient, and how to explain the

recall of soldiers to active duty who are not fit for duty.

recommendations

There are a number of actions that the Army must take to

address this situation at Ft. Stewart and the larger issue of

``medical holds,'' which will continue to arise as the

country pursues the war against terrorism and sustains

operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas where

military forces are operating.

In the short term, the Army National Guard and the Army

Reserve must jointly provide for the leadership, guidance and

medical care our Reservists require to operate at maximum

proficiency. These dedicated and loyal soldiers need to know

what to expect in the medical review process. They need to

understand thoroughly the Army's health care system, warts

and all. This strong, steady leadership must have the goal of

reaffirming the Army's seamless support for the ``Army of

One'' and the country's gratitude for their service and

sacrifice, reassuring them that they are not forgotten

despite the fact they are separated from their units.

To move the Reservists along to a Medical Evaluation Board

if required, many more doctors need to be assigned to Ft.

Stewart and, specifically, to these cases. The biggest delay

in getting the Reservists off medical hold is the wait to

optimize care. Many soldiers are seeing a different doctor

every time they enter the hospital, each of whom may

prescribe a different remedy. Additional doctors and

specialists, who could help coordinate care, would provide

greater continuity-of-care, one of the central reasons to

keep them at their mobilization station in the first place.

It is unacceptable to have these citizen-soldiers--every

one of whom answered the call-to-duty--living in such

inadequate housing. However, more adequate barracks cannot be

completed quickly because it will take almost three months to

complete any upgrades. Other 3rd Infantry Division barracks

are unlikely to become available soon.

It would be far better to send these troops back home. They

could be assigned to another Military Treatment Facility

(MTF), a State Area Command (STARC) or possibly a VHA medical

facility closer to their families. Liaisons from the TRICARE

management authority could ensure that they are receiving

adequate care and that they would be available to return to

Ft. Stewart if they get better and can return to duty. The

benefit to morale among the medically held Reservists would

far outweigh any of the unlikely risks that might go along

with moving troops away from their mobilization station.

Current Army Regulation 40-501 directs medically held

soldiers to remain near their mobilization post, but there is

no statutory restriction against assigning them to another

facility close to home.

In the longer-term, the Army, working together with the

leadership of the National Guard and the Army Reserve, must

ensure that our citizen-soldiers who are identified for

activation are medically ready to deploy. Enactment of the

cost-share TRICARE proposal for Reservists, currently

attached to the Senate version of the Fiscal Year 2004

Supplemental Spending Bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, would

ensure that every member of the Reserves has access to health

insurance and would increase the likelihood that citizen-

soldiers are medically and physically ready for duty.

Currently, reservists are required to complete a physical

once every five years. The high percentage of reservists

found to be physically unable to deploy raises the questions

of whether this five-year interval is too long. Another

question the Caucus may want to raise, is the Army's

mobilization and demobilization policy sufficient in

providing a housing standard for soldiers on medical hold?

Furthermore, is the working relationship between the Army's

medical department and the Veterans Health Administration

(VHA) structured to allow for the transfer of soldiers on

medical hold from Army military facilities to VHA facilities?

Also, new medical case management software included in the

second version of the military's Composite Health Care System

(CHCS II) will permit continuity-of-care wherever a soldier

accesses care. Guard and Reserve units across the country

could assign liaisons to help manage a Reservist's care and

maintain contact with their mobilization base at any point.

Lastly, it has been reported that architectural hardware

and software exist that will allow the Army to equip its

hospitals, dining halls, and commissaries with scanners that

could read an ID that can show whether a member of the

service is from the active component or the Reserves. Perhaps

the Caucus should look at such systems as a means of

addressing the perceived bias that exists when reservists are

queried about their service status.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who I believe is doing a very fine job under very difficult circumstances, leading a bipartisan inquiry, which is the legitimate scope of the Intelligence Committee on how we can improve our intelligence system.

When we are fighting the battle against terrorism, there is no question that intelligence is the coin of the realm. There is no way we can deter terrorist attacks by threatening to retaliate or administer retributive justice to those who make terrorist strikes against us. When you are dealing with suicide bombers, there is not going to be anything left for us to retaliate against or take retribution against.

Finding the holes in our intelligence system, and how we can do a better job, is a major challenge. I joined the Intelligence Committee this year because I realized how important it is to the future of peace and security in the world and to our own security. I know from personal experience that we and our staffs--and particularly our staffs--have been engaged in an exhaustive examination of what the intelligence was prior to declaring Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was a major effort.

As those in the Chamber may know, I have supported the President. I supported the Iraqi supplemental, and I thank our colleagues for passing that bill to defend our troops and also to make sure we build Iraq so we can move our troops out.

But when the revelation came out yesterday of a memorandum apparently from Democratic staff, minority staff on the Intelligence Committee, indicating there was a different agenda, I was very much concerned. The key element in the Intelligence Committee, unlike any other committee, is that we have to do our work in confidence. We have to be able to maintain the confidence of the intelligence community that comes before us. We must protect intelligence sources, and we cannot get engaged in partisan battles.

Yet the memorandum that came out yesterday has such interesting quotes such as:

Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may

lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or

questionable conduct by administration officials.

They are not looking at the Intelligence Committee; they are looking at the administration. They say:

We need to look at activities of the Office of the

Secretary of Defense and the State Department.

They talk about preparing additional views. And they say:

Among other things, we will castigate the majority for

seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

They talk about an independent investigation, and they say:

We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation on

the administration's use of intelligence at any time.

When you talk about what goes on and how intelligence is used, that is a topic of debate in the political realm, and there is no shortage of that debate in particularly the Democratic primaries right now. We see many of the candidates who are arguing very forcefully about it. I am disappointed that the discussion in the Presidential primary has totally ignored or forgotten the old adage that politics stops at the water's edge; that we should not be getting into political battles when we have troops in harm's way, and there is no question we have troops in harm's way.

It appears this memo suggests there is, at least at the staff level, a Democratic game plan to make the Intelligence Committee a focal point for the 2004 Presidential debates. This memorandum said:

Yet, we have an important role to play in revealing the

misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and

motives of the senior administration officials who made

the case for a unilaterally preemptive war.

Those are pretty harsh words. Those are the words of a political attack.

Unfortunately, it is not just the staff who has been talking about them. There is an article in the Sunday Telegraph of London quoting a Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee:

We want to know whether the administration put pressure on

the agencies to come up with certain kinds of information.

It's a question that's been explored at great length in

Britain. If the Republican leadership of the Senate

Intelligence Committee is determined to protect the

administration at any cost, we'll do the investigative job on

our own.

I can assure you that this inquiry goes into every area that we can find in the intelligence operation, in many intelligence agencies, how that information is developed. There are suggestions that there is improper influence. This is something we are exploring assiduously. The committee staff has interviewed many members of the Intelligence Committee, anybody who might have information. They have been asked: Were they pressured? Was the information tainted or changed or pressured? And absolutely not. If there is evidence of pressure, that will undoubtedly be included in the chairman and vice chairman's report.

Moreover, I tell you regrettably, it will be leaked almost immediately because the committee has a tendency right now to leak like a sieve. There was one person who said he had a problem, and I turned to my colleague on the Intelligence Committee and said: Let's take bets on how long before it is on the national news wire. It was less than an hour. It turns out that the analyst did not have any problem with the intelligence related to the operations of Iraq, but it came out immediately.

The question that is being raised that some of our Democratic colleagues want to address in the Intelligence Committee is: Can we find a way to undercut the President, the Vice President and the administration? That, I submit, is not the role of the Intelligence Committee. The Intelligence Committee has a very important responsibility. We need to determine how to improve our intelligence system to win the war on terrorism, not to win the war for the White House.

What is the job of the Intelligence Committee? Is it to determine and argue with the policy or is it to find out if the intelligence- gathering information is appropriate? The people in the intelligence community have to deal with information that is fragmentary. We criticized them as a result of 9/11 for not having connected all the dots and come together to forecast and perhaps forestall the attacks of 9/11. Now we are saying they didn't have enough information, but this information has been available and has been supplied by the Intelligence Committee for some time.

I quote a statement by the President. The President said:

Heavy as they are, the cost of action must be weighed

against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and

we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the

future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will

make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will

develop weapons of mass destruction, he will deploy them,

and he will use them.

Those are the words of the President talking about intelligence that he received. And by the way, that was a speech on December 16, 1998, by President Bill Clinton. That was based on the information he was receiving at the time.

If that intelligence was grossly inaccurate or inadequate, then we in the Intelligence Committee need to fix it. I happen to think there were some major mistakes made 7 or 8 years ago in the intelligence community when they decided to restrict severely the number of human intelligence sources they could use by refusing to take intelligence sources from people who didn't meet the highest moral and ethical standards. Frankly, those people often don't deal with terrorists and provide us the information we need.

We need to do a better job. We are making improvements in intelligence, but I don't think anybody will say we have an intelligence system that is as good as it should be. I can tell you, the battle over how intelligence is used is a broader political battle.

Leaving aside the question of whether it should be carried on while we have troops in harm's way in Iraq, it is not a question, in any case, to be fought out in the Intelligence Committee by trying to change or develop information that is not there.

I thank the Chair, and I urge our colleagues to remember that the battle of the Intelligence Committee is to win the war against terrorism, not to win the White House.

On behalf of the Senator from Texas, I claim 9 minutes of the time that has been reserved for her and ask that the Chair notify me after 8 minutes.

Madam President, I rise this morning in support of the U.S. forces in Iraq and all our forces engaged in the war on terrorism. I am delighted and very pleased that the vast majority of this body voted overwhelmingly in support of the supplemental and our ongoing efforts to protect our troops to finish the job so we can bring our troops home.

Last week, I had the honor of going out to Walter Reed to visit a number of our wounded soldiers recently returned from Iraq. The spirit and enthusiasm of our service men and women serving in the war on terror is inspiring. It should remind all of us that our warfighters have the will to win as long as the American people have the will to win.

We cannot be defeated by Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden militarily. They are engaged in a psychological war to break our will. This past weekend brought news of the tragic loss of 16 soldiers in a Chinook helicopter mishap. No one in this body takes that current conflict lightly. Any loss of life is difficult to bear, particularly this tragic situation. Yet we must not forget the losses incurred in the United States on 9/11, and the loss of innocent lives in other terrorist attacks, from the marine barracks in Lebanon to the disco bombing in Bali.

The message we must send, if we are to avoid future catastrophic attacks, is that no price is too great for the freedoms we and other freedom-loving peoples now hold dear. The message we need to send our enemies is that we will not cut and run.

There are critics of U.S. foreign policy who now want us to pull out. They are just dead wrong. Do they think Saddam Hussein was not really evil, was not really a threat?

Last week, I talked a little bit about the unclassified report released by Dr. David Kay, the head of the Iraqi Survey Group, who has been over there looking. He has found a tremendous record of denial, deception, and destruction, which among other things is likely the reason we have not found the storehouses of weapons of mass destruction.

Dr. Kay believes that people have been distorting his record. I will submit for the record a copy of his November 1, 2003, piece in the Washington Post. It begins:

The October 26 front-page article ``Search in Iraq Fails to

Find Nuclear Threat,'' is wildly off the mark.

I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record after my remarks.

I am going to quote from just pieces of his report, because apparently a lot of my colleagues who are saying it confirms that there were no weapons of mass destruction have not read the report.

Here is what Dr. Kay said:

With regard to biological warfare activities, which has

been one of our two initial areas of focus, ISG teams are

uncovering significant information, including research

and development of BW-applicable organisms, the

involvement of Iraqi intelligence service in possible BW

activities, and deliberate concealment activities. All of

this suggests Iraq, after 1996, further compartmentalized

its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert

capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the

production of BW agents. Debriefings of IIS officials and

site visits have begun to unravel a clandestine network of

laboratories and facilities within the security service

apparatus. This network was never declared to the U.N. and

was previously unknown.

Again, he said two key former BW scientists confirmed that Iraq, under

the guise of legitimate activity, developed refinements of processes and products relevant to BW agents. Iraq concealed equipment and materials from U.N. inspectors when they returned in 2002. One noteworthy example is a collection of referenced strains that ought to have been declared to the U.N. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced.

ISG teams have developed multiple sources that indicate that Iraq explored the possibility of CW production in recent years, possibly as late as 2003.

Information obtained since OIF has identified several key areas in which Iraq may have engaged in proscribed or undeclared activities since 1991, including research on a possible VX stabilizer, research and development for CW-capable munitions, and procurement concealment of dual-use materials and equipment.

Officials assert Saddam would have resumed nuclear weapons development at some future point. Iraq did take steps to preserve some capability from the pre-1991 nuclear weapons program.

Detainees and cooperative sources indicate that beginning in 2000, Saddam ordered the development of ballistic missiles with ranges of at least 400 kilometers and up to 1,000 kilometers, and that measures to conceal these projects from UNMOVIC were initiated in late 2002, ahead of the arrival of inspectors.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Kay report be printed in the Record. It talks about several revelations of his efforts to obtain ballistic missiles and unmanned air vehicles.

We are engaged in a monumental fight against terrorism and tyranny on a global scale, one in which all freedom-loving people have a stake. Other free countries ought to realize this is a battle in which we all have a stake. The Middle East region has long been marked by instability and marred by war, the threat of war and torture, terrorism, and ruthless dictators. Saddam Hussein was at the heart of it. On September 11 we lost close to 3,000 citizens when foreign terrorists attacked innocent civilians. It is a miracle we did not lose more. But we are now fighting that battle against terrorism in Baghdad, not in Boston or Boise or Baldwin, MO.

As I said earlier, some argue that Saddam has not been linked to terrorism. Well, what David Kay has already described puts the lie to that. Also, tell that to the thousands of Israeli families who have lost innocent relatives at the hands of Hamas suicide bombers whose families received $25,000 from the Iraqi dictator for each successful attack on innocent men, women, and children.

Today, on the good-news side, there are close to 100,000 Iraqis who are assuming control of essential civil responsibilities such as border police, civil defense, police facilities protection, and as soldiers. With each passing day, more and more Iraqis are taking the lead in security and in protecting Iraq. Over 85 percent of Iraq is relatively stable, with the exception of the troubled Sunni Triangle.

It is no surprise the Sunni Baathists are putting up the most resistance, for they have the most to lose. We have seen recently declassified reports of the Iraqi-sponsored torture, which are too disturbing even to watch. We found mass graves. We know Saddam conducted mass chemical attacks against his own people and launched chemical attacks against Iran.

I believe the President was correct when he said we must take on the war on terrorism, which would take years, not months. This is a global conflict against terrorism. The will of the American people is being tested. We cannot flinch. If we do not pursue terrorists where they live now, then we will continue to invite more attacks any time U.S. interests collide with the interests of terrorists.

Exhibit 1

The Oct. 26 front-page article ``Search in Iraq Fails to

Find Nuclear Threat'' is wildly off the mark. Your reporter,

Barton Gellman, bases much of his analysis on what he says

was told to him by an Australian brigadier, Stephen D.

Meekin. Gellman describes Meekin as someone ``who commands

the Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center, the largest

of a half-dozen units that report to [David] Kay.''

Meekin does not report, nor has he ever reported, to me in

any individual capacity or as commander of the exploitation

center. The work of the center did not form a part of my

first interim report, which was delivered last month, nor do

I direct what Meekin's organization does. The center's

mission has never involved weapons of mass destruction, nor

does it have any WMD expertise.

Gellman's description of information provided by Mahdi

Obeidi, chief of Iraq's pre-1991 centrifuge program, relies

on an unnamed ``U.S. official'' who, by the reporter's own

admission, read only one reporting cable. How Gellman's

source was able to describe reporting that covered four

months is a mystery to me. Furthermore, the source

mischaracterized our views on the reliability of Obeidi's

information.

With regard to Obeidi's move to the United States, Gellman

writes, ``By summer's end, under unknown circumstances,

Obeidi received permission to bring his family to an East

Coast suburb in the United States.'' The reader is left with

the impression that this move involved something manipulative

or sinister. The ``unknown circumstances'' are called Public

Law 110. This mechanism was created during the Cold War to

give the director of central intelligence the authority to

resettle those who help provide valuable intelligence

information. Nothing unusual or mysterious here.

When the article moves to describe the actual work of the

nuclear team, Gellman states that `'frustrated members of the

nuclear search team by late spring began calling themselves

the `book of the month club.' ``But he fails to note that

this was before the establishment of the Iraq Survey Group.

In fact, the team's frustration with the pace of the work is

what led President Bush to shift the responsibility for the

WMD search to the director of central intelligence and to

send me to Baghdad.

One would believe from what Gellman writes that I have sent

home the two leaders of my nuclear team, William Domke and

Jeffrey Bedell, and abandoned all attempts to determine the

state of Iraq's nuclear activities. Wrong again, Domke's

assignment had been twice extended well beyond what the

Department of Energy had agreed to. He and Bedell were

replaced with a much larger contingent of experts from

DOE's National Labs.

Finally, with regard to the aluminum tubes, the tubes were

certainly being imported and were being used for rockets. The

question that continues to occupy us is whether similar

tubes, with higher specifications, had other uses,

specifically in nuclear centrifuges. Why anyone would think

that we should want to confiscate the thousands of aluminum

tubes of the lower specification is unclear. Our

investigation is focused on whether a nuclear centrifuge

program was either underway or in the planning stages, what

design and components were being contemplated or used in such

a program if it existed and the reason for the constant

raising of the specifications of the tubes the Iraqis were

importing clandestinely.

We have much work left to do before any conclusions can be

reached on the state of possible Iraqi nuclear weapons

program efforts. Your story gives the false impression that

conclusions can already be drawn.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, it is my honor and great privilege to recognize my fellow Missourian and personal friend, Mr. Charles E. Kruse, president of Missouri Farm Bureau. Mr. Kruse has been recently awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, the highest honor awarded to Eagle Scouts by the Great Rivers Council. Today I am proud to join with family and friends to recognize and honor Mr. Kruse on this occasion.

I have, over the course of my career, worked with Charlie Kruse on many occasions and have come to know him as a great friend and close ally on behalf of agriculture. In 1983, as Governor, I appointed Charlie to serve on the University of Missouri Board of Curators. Since his appointment Charlie went on to serve as director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, as the sole Missourian on President Bush's Council on Rural America, Brigadier General of the National Guard, and as the exclusive vice president of North American Equipment Dealers Association.

Since August of 1992, Charlie has solidified his longtime friendship with the Missouri farmer by serving as president of the Missouri Farm Bureau. He is a fourth generation farmer; is on the American Farm Bureau Federation Board of Directors; has served on numerous Presidential commissions making recommendations on farm, tax, trade and environmental policies, and; he is married to Pam--the lady whose name is on the farm combine and who harvests corn at home when Charlie is harvesting awards around the country.

Charlie has been a close friend and advisor for as long as I have been in the Senate and longer than either of us care to admit. He has contributed immeasurably to his community, State and country. He is the product of generations of rural ancestors and is blessed to be deputy commander of his own terrific family. His tireless and enthusiastic contributions and his family inspire his love and inspiration. Charlie is as good a friend as rural America could ever have. We congratulate him for this important recognition and thank him for his for your service to our country.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will transfer the control of the Mingo Job Corps Center to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be administered by the U.S. Forest Service. Since its inception, the Center has served at-risk youth by providing a facility where students can complete their secondary education and serve the local area through community service projects. The Department of Labor has expressed their plans to contract out operations of the Mingo Center, which is currently administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service, an action that would greatly increase the chances for the permanent closure of the facility.

The Mingo Job Corps Center has been extremely successful in southern Missouri. For over 40 years, the Center has been a place for students to complete their education, learn a trade, and serve the community. Through the Center, students master trades from auto repair to fire fighting, from carpentry to culinary arts, and from bricklaying to business. The closure of the facility would mean 250 students would not be able to receive their High School Diploma, GED, or learn the skills necessary to earn gainful employment.

For over 40 years the Center has made a substantial contribution to the community through service projects. Mingo students have participated in national projects such as the recovery of the space shuttle Columbia and fighting western forest fires. However, the main impact of their activities are felt locally in southern Missouri. Each year the Mingo Job Corps completes over $1 million worth of community and conservation projects. These projects include construction of the Poplar Bluff Forest Service District Office, construction of many Puxico School buildings, and the painting and repair of furniture at various local schools.

The Mingo Job Corps Training Center is truly an invaluable asset to the State of Missouri that must be preserved. Last year, with the help of Congresswomen Jo Ann Emerson, I secured a commitment from the USDA to have the Forest Service assume operation of the Mingo Job Corps Center. However, now it has become necessary for this transfer to be handled legislatively. My legislation will ensure that the Center will continue to be a positive force that shapes the lives of our youth. Our economy and the kids who depend upon this facility will remain the real winners here.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will transfer the control of the Mingo Job Corps Center to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be administered by the U.S. Forest Service. Since its inception, the Center has served at-risk youth by providing a facility where students can complete their secondary education and serve the local area through community service projects. The Department of Labor has expressed their plans to contract out operations of the Mingo Center, which is currently administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service, an action that would greatly increase the chances for the permanent closure of the facility.

The Mingo Job Corps Center has been extremely successful in southern Missouri. For over 40 years, the Center has been a place for students to complete their education, learn a trade, and serve the community. Through the Center, students master trades from auto repair to fire fighting, from carpentry to culinary arts, and from bricklaying to business. The closure of the facility would mean 250 students would not be able to receive their High School Diploma, GED, or learn the skills necessary to earn gainful employment.

For over 40 years the Center has made a substantial contribution to the community through service projects. Mingo students have participated in national projects such as the recovery of the space shuttle Columbia and fighting western forest fires. However, the main impact of their activities are felt locally in southern Missouri. Each year the Mingo Job Corps completes over $1 million worth of community and conservation projects. These projects include construction of the Poplar Bluff Forest Service District Office, construction of many Puxico School buildings, and the painting and repair of furniture at various local schools.

The Mingo Job Corps Training Center is truly an invaluable asset to the State of Missouri that must be preserved. Last year, with the help of Congresswomen Jo Ann Emerson, I secured a commitment from the USDA to have the Forest Service assume operation of the Mingo Job Corps Center. However, now it has become necessary for this transfer to be handled legislatively. My legislation will ensure that the Center will continue to be a positive force that shapes the lives of our youth. Our economy and the kids who depend upon this facility will remain the real winners here.

Mr. President, I claim the time that has been set aside for the Senator from Texas.