Floor Statements

I thank the Senator. I thank the Senator from Montana for the opportunity to use a few minutes to describe what I see as the latest in a series that is rather discouraging for America. It is fair to say, using that expression that has been coined around the country over a number of years: Mr. President, there we go again. For the third time in 3 years, President Bush has gone over the limit on our Nation's credit card. So now the President is asking Congress to raise his limit. That is often an expression used at gaming tables in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and other casino establishments. I don't know whether that is what we have here. Is this a casino where we are willing to bet table stakes, everything that we have, because we are out of control?

I want to say to President Bush that this solution may work for you, but everyday Americans don't have the luxury of simply saying: You know what, give me a little more credit so I can continue to deal with this so irresponsibly. Banks simply will not agree to increase people's credit limits when they rack up dollars and debt on their card. That is what President Bush is asking members to do today. We are the bank's chief lending officers and he wants us to raise his credit limit.

Simply put, what we are seeing in this administration is credit card economics. It is totally irresponsible and among the most reckless administrations in the history of this country with their fiscal management.

Why are we in this mess? Because President Bush and the Republican majority in the Congress decided they wanted to give the wealthiest in America a big tax cut. A portion of the President's tax cut goes to people like myself who are in the highest percentage of wage earners.

I had a successful business career. I was lucky I did what I did in the computer industry many years ago when America presented all kinds of opportunities for me to work and create something of lasting value.

The top 1 percent of the wage earners are receiving this tax cut that equals $100 billion every single year. That is almost a third of the total cost of operating. The worst part about this mountain of debt we are being asked to authorize is it is going to be on the backs of our children and grandchildren. Who among us would say, I want to live high on the hog, so here, kids, here grandchildren, you pay the bill while we go ahead on this spending kick?

President Bush simply wants to leave this debt burden to future generations. I don't want to do it.

If colleagues vote to raise this debt limit, they are voting to saddle every child in this country with an immediate debt burden of $27,764.

I look at the wonderful young people we have, known as pages, who get a taste of government from their experience here, spending a term in their high school years. Each page will owe $27,000 as a result of what we are doing here today. It raises the debt limit above $8 trillion for the first time ever in our history.

It is sometimes hard to get a grasp on numbers like that, so let me try to put that in perspective. I cannot imagine what $8 trillion is like. We are not talking about stacks of $1 bills. It is two-thirds of the value of the entire New York Stock Exchange. That is how much we are in debt. If we want to pay it off right now, we have to hand over two-thirds of our stock market. It is irresponsible. It is impossible to comprehend.

The deficit is a real problem that affects our lives and our Nation's economy. When President Bush took over and got a resounding endorsement from people across the country for his second term, we were in a position of surplus. I was on the Budget Committee. I was fairly senior on the Budget Committee on the Democratic side. We struggled and we pushed and President Clinton encouraged us and he twisted arms of both parties--not just the Democrats, but the Republicans--and we got a balanced budget in place. We had over $200 billion in surplus in the year 2002.

Now we are looking at a debt just for this year that could be somewhere in the $600 billion range; $488 billion. But including the cost for the extra borrowing, it will be somewhere around $600 billion in debt. When President Bush took over we had an almost $300 billion surplus. That is quite a change.

Tomorrow, there is an official dedication ceremony for the Clinton Presidential Center. What a difference between the economic policies of those days and current times. President Clinton understood the importance of fiscal discipline. Right now, there is no concept of it whatever. What we have now is a deficit attention disorder. We look at this credit card and we see what has been asked: Through November of 2004, $7.384 trillion.

I was the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee in 1997 when we negotiated the historic Balanced Budget Act that produced surpluses for the first time in three decades. What we were looking for was a $5 to $7 trillion surplus in 10 years.

There is no fiscal discipline. We are running the biggest deficit in history. Because of the 1997 balanced budget agreement, the surpluses it produced, we were able to pay down $600 billion in debt. We were on a path to pay off public debt by the year 2008. Now, because of the reckless tax cuts that President Bush and the Republican controlled Congress have pushed through, instead of being debt free, we are going to be at least $10 trillion in debt by 2008. No one on the other side can seriously argue that we will be better off $10 trillion in debt.

The Republican plan is to borrow and spend, saddle future generations with the responsibility for paying the bills. That is a terrible abuse of the financial future of our country. I don't think responsibility of our children should be just a Democrat or Republican value. It should be an American value. We cannot abandon it.

We all know in our homes and families, if we spend more than we take in, if we spend more than our salaries, we have to be able to borrow to keep our families afloat. That is what the United States of America is doing right now, borrowing to keep us afloat, putting us ever deeper in debt, and transferring that obligation from ourselves to future generations. My children, my grandchildren, and other people's children and grandchildren will have to shoulder part of that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute and recognize our Nation's veterans. Too often, the sacrifices of our Nation's brave men and women of the Armed Forces go unnoticed and underappreciated. I wish to take a moment now to share a recent experience I had with some of New Jersey's Vietnam Veterans.

On November 11, 2004, I was honored to participate in a Veterans' Day Ceremony hosted by the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Holmdel, New Jersey. At this ceremony, I was touched by the words of Major Frank M. McDonough, Esq., a retired member of the United States Marine Corps. Major McDonough has written a moving piece about what it means to be a veteran.

Mr. President, in honor of the sacrifice of our Nation's veterans, I ask unanimous consent that Major McDonough's written statement be printed in the Congressional Record.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the FSC/ETI conference report. What the Republican Leadership did to this bill in conference is downright shameful.

In July, I supported an amendment Senators DeWine and Kennedy offered to this bill that combined a tobacco buyout with a provision giving the Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco.

The Senate passed the FDA amendment by a vote of 78-15. That is a strong show of support.

But something strange happened in conference. The FDA portion disappeared. So in this conference report we have the buyout, but not FDA authority over tobacco products. That is unacceptable.

It is nothing more than a sweetheart deal for tobacco companies. They get cheaper tobacco and continue to avoid FDA regulation.

I have a long history of working on tobacco control. As a former smoker, this is a personal issue to me. And the more I learn about that menace the happier I am for myself and my loved ones.

I have worked hard in the Senate to protect Americans--especially children--from the deadly effects of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

In 1987, long before tobacco control became a mainstream issue, I worked with then Congressman Durbin to author the law banning smoking on airplanes. That law brought about a seachange in our society's attitudes about smoking.

Once non-smokers could experience a smoke-free environment--in this instance, the cabin of an airplane--they began to demand it.

I also wrote the law banning smoking in all federally-funded places that serve children. And I have long supported FDA jurisdiction over this deadly addiction.

I am deeply disappointed that the Republican leadership is putting politics ahead of the health of our children by opposing FDA authority over tobacco.

Make no mistake: tobacco addiction is still a huge problem in America. Tobacco continues to be the number one cause of preventable death and disease in our Nation. Each year, tobacco claims an estimated 440,000 lives prematurely here in the United States.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, if current tobacco use patterns continue in the United States, over five million children alive today will die prematurely from a smoking-related disease. That is because nearly 4,000 young people try cigarettes for the first time each and every day--a statistic I find mind-boggling.

In addition to the terrible human costs, there are massive economic costs to our Nation. It is estimated that direct medical expenditures attributed to smoking now total more than 75 billion dollars per year.

Despite all of this, the FDA has not been able to take actions to reduce tobacco's harm on society.

A pro-tobacco Congressman recently said:

Tobacco faces enough federal regulation.

But that is a joke. Cigarettes are essentially unregulated. When you go in a grocery store, the only consumable product you can't find a listing of the ingredients for is what's in cigarettes.

The Republican leadership is throwing away an historic opportunity to give the FDA the legal authority it needs to protect the public's health.

Today, we have worthless health warnings on cigarettes, no control over what tobacco companies claim about the relative health effects of their products, no authority to curtail marketing tobacco to kids, and no ability

to order the industry to remove especially hazardous ingredients.

The bottom line is: FDA authority will protect kids and save lives.

The 1998 legal settlement between the States and the tobacco companies prohibited the companies from taking ``any action, directly or indirectly, to target youth . . . in the advertising, promotion or marketing of tobacco products.''

But the tobacco companies are ignoring these promises.

Since the settlement, the tobacco companies have actually increased their marketing expenditures by 66 percent. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the tobacco industry spends more than $11.2 billion per year--over $30.7 million a day--marketing its deadly products just in the United States alone, often targeting youth.

For example, in 2002, Brown & Williamson unveiled a new marketing promotion for their Kool brand of cigarettes called Kool Mixx. This advertising campaign was designed with one simple goal: target young African-Americans and addict them to nicotine.

The ``Kool Mixx'' campaign included new cigarette packages with images of young DJs and dancers:

It is an outrageous attempt to addict youth.

Brown & Williamson doesn't even bother to be subtle when it comes to targeting African-American youth in this campaign.

The press release from Brown & Williamson announcing the campaign contained almost comical sentences revealing their racial targeting.

This is what the company's press release said:

Kool understands the vibrant urban world of the

trendsetting, multicultural smoker.

It goes on to say:

Kool keeps it real and remains linked to the latest urban

trends.

This campaign to addict young African Americans to cigarettes doesn't stop at product packaging and slick ads. Kool is sponsoring a nationwide ``DJ Competition'' in cities such as New York, Atlanta, Washington, St. Louis, and Chicago.

It seems that ``Kool Mixx'' is the new ``Joe Camel'' for minority teenagers.

This overt racial targeting of youth shows that the tobacco industry has not really changed its ways since its settlement with the State attorneys general.

The big tobacco companies have reverted back to the same atrocious behavior we all saw before they promised they would become good ``corporate citizens.''

Here is something even more outrageous difficult as that is to believe: one of the tobacco industry's new tactics is the introduction of candy-flavored cigarettes and other sweet-flavored tobacco products.

R.J. Reynolds--the same company that once marketed cigarettes to kids with the infamous cartoon character, Joe Camel has launched a series of flavored cigarettes,

One flavor is a pineapple and coconut cigarette called ``Kauai Kolada''; another is a citrus-flavored cigarette called ``Twista Lime.''

These names sound more like bubble gum flavors than deadly cigarettes--which is the point.

These new marketing techniques aimed at kids are especially troubling, given that over 550,000 children will become regular smokers this year alone.

FDA regulation is critical for many reasons. One reason--as we see with these candy-flavored cigarettes--is to keep kids away from these deadly products. Another reason we need FDA regulation is to make sure that preventable dangers in cigarettes are removed.

There are thousands of products for sale in America that people consume, but tobacco products are the only ones--the only ones--which don't have their ingredients disclosed.

That is amazing when you consider that cigarettes are by far the most deadly product you can buy in a grocery store.

Right now, the FDA can regulate a box of macaroni and cheese, but not a pack of cigarettes. If you wanted to know the ingredients of macaroni and cheese, they're listed on the package. But for cigarettes, there is no information whatsoever on the ingredients, toxins, chemicals, etc. It makes no sense.

When a smoker lights a cigarette, the burning ingredients create other chemicals. Some of these are carcinogenic. But tobacco manufacturers are not required by law to disclose the ingredients of their products to the public, including the toxic and cancer-causing ingredients.

A Surgeon General's report in 1989 reported that cigarettes contain 43 known carcinogens.

I wonder how many smokers realize that one of these chemicals is arsenic. I bet most smokers don't know that.

It boils down to this: by stripping out the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco products, we are failing our children. We are putting their health in jeopardy.

This conference report provides billions of dollars to tobacco farmers and boosts tobacco industry profits, but it does absolutely nothing nothing to reduce tobacco's terrible human and economic toll.

I don't know how any Member of this body who is truly concerned about children's health can, in good conscience, support this bill without the FDA provision.

We had a deal; everyone knew it: the tobacco buyout in exchange for FDA regulation. The Republican leadership broke that deal.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this conference report until we give the FDA the authority it needs to regulate tobacco as it does other products.

Speaking for our side, is the Senator asking for 5 minutes from our remaining time?

Mr. President, I will use our time to discuss a couple of subjects, one of which relates to the present debate or dialog, and that is the position of our respective parties on behalf of the interests of the American people. After that, I will talk about the terrible attack that took place in Egypt against a group of Israelis and what the world is saying about events such as that.

First, what we heard in the debate a little while ago was the fact that the reason, as I heard it--and I am willing to be corrected if wrong--that one of the reasons we went to war in Iraq was a resolution that was passed in this body, in the Senate--talking about the resolution that was passed in October 2002--giving the President authority to send our troops to Iraq. That hardly was the reason we did that.

We did not mandate in this body that we go to war. What we said was: OK, Mr. President, if you know about those weapons of mass destruction, and if you know that al-Qaida has a presence there, and if all of these threats are directed at world peace and a threat to the security of the United States, we give you permission, we give you support to send them.

We never relinquished our support for the troops in Iraq, nobody here, not even the most tranquil of the personalities. Everybody said: Take care of our troops. Senator John Kerry stood up and said: Take care of our troops.

I was not in the Senate at that particular moment, but I have been back here again since the beginning of 2003. There was never a moment when it was suggested that we would not support our troops and their needs, the basic things.

So when we were told that all these threats were there, that we have to do it to protect ourselves, that 9/11 was fresh in our memory, that we felt we had to get out there before we had another 9/11 thrust down our throats that would kill more Americans, we said: OK, let's do it. Let's go ahead and make sure that we wipe out these things that menace America's population, that menace American citizens.

That was the reason we did it. Then we found out that we were duped. That is what happened. We were fooled. We were misled, and now everybody knows it. Yes, Senator John Kerry had the same information President Bush had. The fact is, Senator John Kerry did not manipulate the information, did not make sure that people were identifying tubes and pipes as part of the threat that Iraq raised to us and to world peace.

Much of that was, if not fabricated, tainted, biased. Some of our most distinguished Government servants, our distinguished Secretary of State Colin Powell, made such a convincing argument in front of the U.N. and in front of the world at large about where these weapons were stored, how they were transported, and so forth. And all of us--I speak for myself--have faith in Secretary Powell, a distinguished soldier, great statesman, brilliant man, honest--honest. He later on said in a public release that he, too, was deceived by the information that he received.

Now when we try to suggest that we were parties to the origination of this war, it is an outrage. I felt, too--and I was not in the Senate, but I said it publicly, people were still hearing me occasionally--that I supported the thrust to go to war in Iraq because of the ominous reports we had.

It was not that we wanted to throw American lives in there. We are now about to deploy some 1,500 Guard people from New Jersey. I hope that tomorrow I will be able to be there to wish them well when they depart New Jersey. It reminds me of a long time ago when I also was transported out of New Jersey to a ship up in Massachusetts so I could go to Europe during the war. I want to be there tomorrow. They are all concerned. They are frightened. The families are frightened. Their spouses are frightened. Their kids are frightened. We are in a mess, we are in a quagmire, and the world is looking at us and listening to the messages that say we are doing well, we are prepared for the Iraqi takeover fully for the next election.

We hear, well, maybe the next election cannot be held as we thought it might be in the whole country, maybe only part of it, maybe just the part that we think is friendly.

The assertion when Prime Minister Allawi was here, the interim Prime Minister who made his speech at the joint session, that we should be assured--I heard President Bush say we should be assured that things are on the right track. In other words, do not believe what one sees in front of them. No, no. Listen to what we tell people coming from the administration. Listen to the fabrications. Listen to the stories about Senator John Kerry's lack of courage, unwillingness to support the troops. There is an unwillingness that stands largely in our sight about an unwillingness to serve when the country was sending its people to Vietnam, where 58,000 of them perished on the battlefield. For Vice President Cheney, he said, and I quote him, I think--if I do not quote him, I am sure about the general content of what he said, and that is: I had other priorities. He received almost a half dozen deferments.

President Bush's service, yes, I know, it was 30 years ago, and what does it matter? It matters because it shows character. That is what it does. It shows character. President Bush did not want to be over there where the fighting was tough, where one's life

might be at risk. No, no. He managed to have a sweetheart duty and never went to war when he could very well have, with the bravado that is now exhibited. He could have gone to war and stood alongside people like John Kerry and Max Cleland, those who paid a price for their loyalty to country.

I saw a commercial running on TV this morning. I found it shocking. Widows, apparently, whose husbands perished in the Korean War were saying they did not trust John Kerry's judgment because, why? It is because the Bush administration and the political operation there has succeeded in poisoning the minds of Americans.

Do not believe the fact that Senator Kerry got three Purple Hearts, deservedly, oh, no. They want to make the judgment from the White House. Those judgments were made by the medical department of the U.S. military, and they were confirmed by the highest authorities in the military.

The medals for valor, the Bronze Star and Silver Star--I served in Europe during the war and I know what it took to get those medals. It took heroism. I did not get one of those medals. I did my job the best I could. But John Kerry earned his medals, and they are being questioned to try to show he is unpatriotic.

The fact that he rebelled against the purpose of the war in Vietnam after he served, boy, what kind of backbone that takes. The man knows the policy is wrong, and it turned out to be wrong, and it turned out to be a terrible loss of life, but he fought the battle. He exposed himself to danger, to death. He did it. What kind of courage that is. That is not the kind of courage we saw from a young George W. Bush, not at all, or from Vice President Cheney. I think Attorney General Ashcroft also had a few deferments. There is a list of them.

I think the race against former Senator Max Cleland, who lost two legs and most of an arm and struggles to get out of bed every day and do what he has to--he is a courageous man and he lost because he was portrayed as soft on defense. He was portrayed as soft on defense by those who also had Vietnam deferments.

The country was in a rage, with demonstrations all over the place, but John Kerry took up the challenge and went to war.

So now when I hear these spurious assertions that one cannot trust John Kerry, well, I will say, if I was lost in the woods and had a choice between John Kerry or George W. Bush getting me out, I know John Kerry can make a decision. I know he can find his way. I know he can survive when the going is tough. I know he had the guts to reach into the water to pull out one of his companions who was likely to drown and saved his life. The man says so all over the place.

I think the country would be far better off if we followed John Kerry's courageous character and tried to find a way out of the mess. We are almost a year and a half after President Bush declared the mission was accomplished. It is almost 18 months ago but more importantly it was more than 800 lives ago. We have now lost over 1,000 people and more than 800 of them since May of a year ago, and they are still trying to portray what the President said as gospel: mission accomplished.

He said, bring them on. Boy, that one got to me because I know what it is like to be worried about the enemy. They shoot at you. Bring them on? I never wanted to see a German uniform, I can say that. I never wanted to see more of the enemy. I wanted to make sure I did my duty. I wanted to make sure that I got through. I wanted to make sure I got back to my widowed mother and my kid sister. That is what I wanted to do. So we never said, bring them on. I have never heard of another Commander in Chief say, bring them on.

I do not want to elongate this discussion, but I must say when I see these character assassination ads that run on television regularly, I do not hear them talking seriously about the job recovery, no, no. Some jobs are newly created but not as many as we lost.

They talk on the other side about how John Kerry is going to raise taxes. Outrageous, the thought that he had voted to increase taxes. No, they would rather vote to increase the deficit and to increase our indebtedness. That is what they want to vote for. Let America owe so much money that we may one day tip the world's economy into a recession mode. That was said by former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, a very reliable voice. Both Republicans and Democrats had faith in Bob Rubin. He said if this indebtedness continues to grow, we could upset the world's economy, not just ours. And I believe it. Anybody who has ever been in business, anybody who has ever paid bills, anybody who has ever lived in a serious adult life knows that indebtedness is a killer. But the administration managed to turn things around. It wasn't my doing, I can tell you. I tried to help. When I left here, we were having surpluses, a couple of hundred billion dollars in surplus with forecasts of a $5 trillion surplus at the end of 10 years. That has turned around. Instead, we expect about a $7 trillion deficit after 10 years.

We have managed to take this economy and turn it on its ear, borrow from Social Security, threaten Medicare with insolvency in 15 years. By 2019, the expectation is that Medicare will go belly-up at that time. Social Security? We are borrowing everything available there. Why don't we tell the people the truth? Why don't we talk about those issues in depth?

In the debates coming up tonight and another one next week, I hope the focus will be on what kind of plans each of the candidates has. What kind of plans has President George W. Bush for getting us out of Iraq? What kind of plans does he have for getting this economy back into surplus performances year after year? What kind of plans does he have to fulfill the obligation he took on with the Leave No Child Behind Act? It is one thing to enact legislation, to create law; it is another to pay for it. When it comes to paying for it, that didn't happen.

When you think about these tax cuts, we were accused before by one of our distinguished colleagues on the other side of trying to create class warfare. That is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard. Class warfare? I happen to be in a class of income earners who did very well in America, I and two other kids who came from the same poor neighborhood that I did. Their father worked in the same mill my father worked in, and my father died at 43 from an occupationally hazardous environment. We built a huge business, a huge business. We went from nothing, three of us together, kids in their 20s, and we built a business that today employs 40,000 people. That is the old-fashioned American way. I made some money with this, as did many others who succeeded in business. We did it the old-fashioned way.

Class warfare? I come from working-class stock, and I am proud of it. But because I have been successful, because this country was the enabler that permitted me to be successful, as everybody else who has been successful here, I say I don't need a tax cut. It will not do me any more good. I can't buy more, I can't eat more, I can't do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day, struggling the way I remember my mother and my father did just to keep things on an even keel, to provide clothing, to provide food, to provide decent shelter. I lived in the back of the store for a lot of years, I can tell you, four of us in one room. Nobody wants to hear those stories anymore. The Great Depression is a thing of the past. But we do understand when people want to rise above their circumstances and educate their children and make sure they have a chance at a job, a career, and a family where they can afford the ordinary things of life--not the luxuries.

So we can't talk about class warfare. If there is class warfare, boy, it is over there. They say take the upper class, give them a lot of money back, and don't worry about those poor people or those who now have two jobs, who now find their purchasing power is substantially reduced, who now are worried about what it is going to cost for health care and who are worried about pensions.

I was at a hearing the other day on the financial condition of the airlines. What they want to do is to get rid of their pension obligation. If you work 26 years for an airline, a factory, or a company, work 27 years, count on your pension, and wake up one day and find out it is not there, what do you do? You are 55, 60, 65 years of age. These are terrible blights. I hope we are going to see something of the truth.

Terrorist Bombing In Egypt

Mr. President, I want to discuss another subject. I want to discuss the news we heard today of a raid in Egypt aimed at a bunch of Israelis who were there on vacation--brutalizing, suicide bombers, the whole thing. An Israeli official says maybe it was al-Qaida. Obviously it was some mad group.

What I see lately is disturbing trends regarding the various criticisms of Israel. We have seen two prominent church bodies decide to take away their investments from Israel because of Israel's--maybe it is because Israel wants to defend itself, to keep its people alive. Maybe it is because Israel wants to live as any other country--in peace, without torture, without suicide bombers ripping up the society.

The Israelis have lost over 1,000 lives since 2000. Think of it in terms of America and the numerical equivalents because their population is so much smaller. One thousand citizens of Israel would be the same as 48,000 Americans lost to terror. Heaven forbid it, but that is the truth of the matter.

Israel has taken appropriate measures to defend itself against the terrorist threat it faces every day. Israel has made tough choices to defend her people. But now we are seeing these respected, mainstream church organizations contemplating divestment campaigns against the State of Israel. I wish they would talk about ending the violence that has been the pattern there for so long. There is so much violence and strife in the region, not dissimilar to that which we are facing in Iraq.

There is a trend. You can see it in the talk of a divestment campaign--blame Israel first. The innocents killed by terrorists are ignored, but there is a disproportionate focus on civilian victims of Israeli military operations against terrorists. To blame Israel for the turmoil and violence in the Middle East is outrageous. Review some of the recent history in the Middle East, events that had nothing to do with Israel. Yet when I was in Syria with other Senators, we heard the President of Syria, President Assad, say all the problems that exist in the area are because of Israel.

Millions died in the Iran-Iraq war. It had nothing to do with Israel. In Sudan, Arab Muslims are murdering thousands of Black Christians-- nothing to do with Israel. Iraq invading Kuwait in 1991 and threatening Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with Israel. The Taliban took control of Afghanistan and severely oppressed women and gave safe haven to terrorists--nothing to do with Israel. None of these events had anything to do with Israel, yet somehow or other the region's problems are Israel's fault.

How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, with that, I will close my comments and hope the world takes a look at what is causing the problems within Israel and her right to defend herself.

I yield the floor.

Quorum Call

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to ask the Senate to honor an individual who stands in high esteem in America and throughout the world. I am pleased to submit a resolution calling on the Postal Service to issue a stamp commemorating the life of Oskar Schindler. Postage stamps are often reserved for individuals who have offered especially significant contributions--Oskar Schindler demonstrates how one person truly can make a difference in the world.

The stories of Oskar Schindler and his heroism are well-documented and must never be forgotten. To speak against Hitler's genocide during the Holocaust was rare; to help Jews escape from persecution was perilous. Yet Oskar Schindler selflessly risked his own life to save the lives of over 1200 Jewish men, women, and children. He also rescued from the Golezow concentration camp approximately 100 Jewish men and women who were trapped in a sealed and freezing railroad car.

I have had the benefit of learning about these heroics first-hand from a New Jersey resident and friend of mine, Abraham Zuckerman. In 1942, Abraham was sent to the Plaszow concentration camp, where he faced certain death--until the day he was told that he was on Schindler's List. He attests: ``I am one of the Survivors and I owe my life to the courage and strength of this great man. His life was always in danger but still he persisted to do what he knew to be the right thing, he saved the Jews anyway he could.'' Since the day Abraham immigrated to the United States, he has made it a mission to keep Oskar Schindler's contributions alive in the minds of Americans, and I thank him for his efforts.

A ``general policy'' of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, which decides the subject matter of postage stamps, is that U.S. postage stamps and stationery ``primarily will feature Americans or American- related subjects.'' Oskar Schindler rescued many Jewish people who fled areas ruled by Hitler and made America their home. His valor and selflessness exhibit attributes that parallel the founding principles of America and all democracies. He devoted much of his life in the pursuit of freedom and humanitarianism. That is the ultimate American- related subject.

Oskar Schindler's bravery and contributions make him worthy of honor and recognition. Issuing a stamp in his memory would assure that his story is told to a new generation.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the bill to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration, EDA, which provides critical support to needed communities. Since its establishment, the Economic Development Administration has invested over $18 billion in more than 50,000 projects in all parts of the United States. These investments have been supplemented by matching funds from investment partners, and have leveraged a great deal of investment by the private sector.

The reauthorization bill before us today includes assistance for the productive use of abandoned industrial facilities and the redevelopment of brownfields. I support that effort. While the Environmental Protection Agency's role under the 2002 law is to facilitate the environmental assessment and cleanup of abandoned brownfield sites, EDA's role is to encourage the economic reuse of the property.

Under this bill, Federal funds provided by EDA for assessment or cleanup will only be provided consistent with the ``Polluter Pays'' principle. That is, funds will not be provided to those who are responsible for the pollution. They are responsible for cleaning up the mess they made. That is, funds will not be provided to those who are responsible for the pollution. They are responsible for cleaning up the mess they made.

Specifically, EDA shall not provide funds for response costs to parties potentially responsible for those costs under section 107 of CERCLA, or to owners or operators responsible for corrective action under the Leaking Underground Storage Tank program pursuant to the Solid Waste Disposal Act, or to any other party responsible for the pollution.

It is very important to ensure that assessment and clean-up costs are not shifted from the polluter to the taxpayers. To the extent that EDA is involved in funding cleanups, Congress'

intent in this bill and EDA's policy must be the same: polluters are responsible for paying to clean up their own messes.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be able to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, I want to discuss the situation in Iraq.

Every day we see the terrible news about innocent Iraqis being killed, about the terrible tension in the country, about our young people being attacked and killed and, frankly, the mess we are witnessing, which is painful to see.

It came home today in a stark recitation, in a statement by Paul Bremer.

Paul Bremer was sent to Iraq to be in charge of the transition as we tried to go from the culmination of what appeared to be the end of the violence until we got to a government that was going to be run by Iraqis on an interim basis and the vote coming up in January. But what we heard from Mr. Bremer was painful to hear, and it has to be particularly painful to President Bush and his administration. What he said was there were not enough troops to do their job. We believed that from the beginning. General Shinseki said it, and he was overruled by the Pentagon and by the Defense Secretary. He was fired for saying: We need more troops to do the job, Mr. President.

People across the country understand that we need more people. Over 300,000 I believe was the number he used. He now says that and the failure to immediately stop the looting, stop the violence, and stop the response from those who would commit violence on the country were part of the reasons we are in this terrible situation we are in.

Last week, we finally had a chance to hear what President Bush's plans for Iraq were. And this is the image of what we got. It is blank. It says nothing. There is no plan.

Last Thursday, we heard repetition from President Bush, the same tired slogans we have heard for almost 2 years now, no plan was articulated, no new ideas, nothing, just the same as we see on this placard. President Bush basically said that we are going to get more of the same in Iraq. What a terrible condition that is. Iraq has become an absolute crisis, and there is no plan to fix the situation.

When the President asked Senator John Kerry what his plan is, it adds insult to injury. He has a plan. He talked about his plan. But the President has offered nothing on his side and challenges John Kerry to have a plan, and John Kerry presents a plan and the President doesn't show any. The President is showing a stubbornness. He calls it ``staying the course.'' It is a stubbornness that is costing American lives, the lives of our young people, the lives of our soldiers, and the lives of American workers in Iraq.

We need a dramatic change in direction. Everything that was assumed to be in order was wrong. They were

wrong about the weapons of mass destruction, and they were wrong about how our troops would be greeted on the streets of Iraq. Certainly, as I said earlier, they were wrong about how many troops we needed to secure the country. They were wrong about the reaction of the Shiites. They were wrong about how long the conflict would last and the toll it would take on Americans lives.

The President and his team have just about done it wrong. The President's worst adviser in terms of being wrong on almost everything is Vice President Cheney.

At the outset of the war in March of 2003, Vice President Cheney declared:

We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

In fact, be greeted as liberators? In fact? I don't think so.

But maybe the reason Vice President Cheney kept getting things wrong on the war is he has not ever seen it. He has never worn a uniform, and he was never on a battlefield. In fact, when duty called, Vice President Cheney turned his back on the call while many answered the call to serve. Dick Cheney took five student deferments in order to avoid service in Vietnam.

He wasn't, however, the only member of the Bush team who kept getting it wrong. I want to review some of the quotes of President Bush's top advisers. One is by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He said on February 7, 2003:

It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could

last 6 days, 6 weeks, I doubt 6 months.

It is one thing to be wrong one time but you try to correct the situation.

Here is what Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said:

We know that there are ties between the Iraqi regime and a

whole range of terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, and we

know that Saddam has these weapons.

Again, what kind of a statement is that? It doesn't tell us anything except that we are wrong.

When we look at other statements that have been made, on March 30, 2003, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said:

The area in the south and the west and the north that

coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be

the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We

know where they were. They're in the area around Tikrit, and

Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Each one of these statements indicates a lack of knowledge and a lack of understanding as to what was going to happen when this war was concluded. It has not been concluded.

When we look at the cost of the war, as of today, 1,058 our troops have died, some 7,000 injured, many with terrible injuries that will handicap them all of their lives.

We need to change course. We don't need more of the same. Senator Kerry, our colleague, is offering a new direction, and that is what we need. We need to stop bearing the entire burden of Iraq. We are taking 90 percent of the casualties, and the American taxpayers have shelled out almost $200 billion for Iraq. It is not right. It is not fair to the American taxpayers. It is certainly not fair to the families whose young sons and daughters are in service over there. Senator Kerry prepared a plan for a new direction in Iraq, a direction that will bring other countries to the table.

President Bush makes reference to Poland helping us in Iraq. He was almost obsessed with Poland during the debate.

What are the facts? Poland has 2,500 troops in Iraq, and they announced just this week they are getting out. They will have all of their troops pulled out sometime next year. Thailand wants to take its troops out--I think they have some 400 people there.

Again, under the administration's war plan, we are left with even more of the burden, and we are left with almost all of the costs both in terms of our soldiers' lives and American taxpayer dollars. All that has been accomplished in the last 2 years is we have alienated critical allies, and we are paying the price for that.

A big part of the problem is that the President refuses to accept reality.

Last week in a television interview President Bush was asked whether he regrets the moment on the aircraft carrier on May 21st in 2003, the infamous ``Mission accomplished'' speech. Incredibly, President Bush said he would do it all over again. In fact, in response to that question, would he have done it, he said he would ``absolutely'' do it again. He went on to say, ``You bet I'd do it again.''

It is incredible. He made that speech approximately a year and a half ago, saying, ``Mission accomplished.'' That meant it was over, that we would not have to worry about things.

Instead, we have lost over 800 people, four or five times the number killed during what was considered the active part of the war. We are moving to the delusional. The President does not regret telling our Nation's military families ``Mission accomplished''? He does not regret giving families false hope that major combat operations had ended?

We are now facing the biggest fallout of reservists ever in the State of New Jersey. There are pictures in the paper of men and women, saying they are scared; they are worried. Their families are frightened. Their kids are scared. Their spouses are scared. They know darn well it is dangerous over there.

Does the President regret taunting the terrorists and insurgents when he said ``Bring 'em on''? I'm sure the men and women on the ground in Iraq wish he had never said those words.

When I was wearing a uniform a long time ago, during World War II in Europe, I never wanted to see the enemy. I never wanted to see anyone who was hostile.

It was the wrong thing to say. I hope one day we will be able to face up to the truth that these were terrible statements.

More recently, President Bush told the world that the war on terror could not be won, but a couple days later he said, no, no, we will win. When the President was asked about a CIA report and the material he was looking at on intelligence, he said he dismisses the CIA report as just guessing when they told him the situation in Iraq was bad and could get much worse. Just guessing? The arm of our intelligence corps that is supposed to have the latest and the fullest data, and they are just guessing?

We need someone to take the bad news seriously, a President who will react to it and fix the situation. So far, President Bush simply ignored the bad news. I guess he hopes it goes away.

Unfortunately, he is inflexible on one simple point. He would repeat every one of the mistakes he has made over the last few years. The plan to go to war without a real alliance in place, he would do again. The decision to ignore the advice from General Shinseki that 300,000 troops would be needed, he would ignore the general's advice again. The argument that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to reconstitute a nuclear programs, links to al-Qaida, he would make all of those arguments again.

All of this while ignoring, for all practical purposes, North Korea, Iran, countries that are actually developing nuclear weapons, while taking some of the attention away from the pursuit of Osama bin Laden who killed 3,000 Americans.

Not only does the President like to stick with bad ideas but there are flip-flops when someone else suggested good ideas, often resisting and then supporting. One flip was the Department of Homeland support. President Bush strongly opposed creating it in March 2002. His spokesman said a Homeland Security Department ``doesn't solve anything.'' Then flopping 3 months later, the President said he did want a Homeland Security Department.

President George Bush opposed creation of the 9/11 Commission. In April of 2002, President Bush said he was against the creation of the 9/11 Commission. He flopped after that as a result of increased political pressure. The President said he does support creating the 9/ 11 Commission in September of the same year. In April, no; In September, yes. It goes on and on.

Then the President, in response to an inquiry about Osama bin Laden, which in September of 2001 President Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive. In March of 2002, President Bush said, I don't know where he is; I truly am not that concerned about him.

Not concerned? He murdered 3,000 Americans, 700 of my constituents in New Jersey. A terrible comment.

What we have seen shows we are on a very bad track right now. In fairness to the American people, families, those who are serving, we ought to come forward with a statement about what we

intend to do. How much longer will we have to have people in harm's way? How are we going to get the troops that it is suggested are needed--30,000 or 40,000? Where will they come from? Is there an intention to initiate a draft? I don't know where we are going to get the soldiers and other service people to fill these obligations.

I know one thing. Every day we read about another American serviceperson being killed or American civilians being captured or beheaded, it tells everyone in the country we are on the wrong path and we have to make a change.

I hope President Bush, even in this interim period, can see the necessity to come forward to the American people and say, look, we made some errors; we are going to correct them. We are going to get more people in there, but we are going to end this conflict by that time so we can start to bring our people home. There is no encouragement out there to believe that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today what we have seen is a fresh topic of interest, as discussed in the newspaper. I ask unanimous consent that in my hour of time, whatever time I have remaining be available to me as if it were in morning business and that I be permitted to use 15 minutes of that time at this point.

Mr. President, the topic of very active discussion is Mr. Paul Bremer's comments that are in the papers, particularly the Washington Post, today. I say this with a great deal of respect for Paul Bremer. I think he worked hard to do a very good job. He can hardly be described as a leftwing liberal, for sure. He said something that was, to use the vernacular, kind of a show stopper. He said:

We paid a big price for not stopping it (looting) because

it established an atmosphere of lawlessness. . . . We never

had enough troops on the ground.

This is our person in charge of the transition from Iraq's former government, purportedly to become a democracy. He is the fellow who was in charge in Iraq. We all, whoever went there, visited with him, listened to him. He worked very closely with the military. He is very skilled. But he said it. ``We never had enough troops on the ground,'' and that was the beginning of the problem in which we are now so deeply enmeshed.

We have had generals saying it. We had General Shinseki saying that we needed 300,000 of our troops there to do the job, and not having had enough caused us, frankly, to become mired in a situation that, at least by current appearances, seems as though it is going to hold us there for a long time at a terrible cost in life, terrible cost in family relationships, terrible cost financially as well.

The Vice President and HalliBurton

Tonight, as everyone knows, the debate will be between Vice President Cheney and Senator John Edwards, for each of them to present their credentials and their views. But I rise to discuss the Vice President's relationship with Halliburton, his financial relationship with the oil company he ran from 1995 to the year 2000, the company that is reaping the benefits of multibillion-dollar contracts from the Bush-Cheney administration.

Vice President Cheney still receives salary checks from Halliburton for well over $150,000 each year. He holds 433,000 unexercised Halliburton stock options. It presents a very questionable picture when we look on this chart at the orange line which conveys the Halliburton income to Vice President Cheney from 2001 on, and his Vice Presidential salary. If one looks, we see the compensation from Halliburton exceeded that of the U.S. Government's compensation or pay for the Vice President. In the year 2002, Halliburton fell to $162,000 but then crept back up to where they are very close together. That is, the salary paid by the U.S. Government and the deferred compensation plan that gives Vice President Cheney $178,000.

When you look at this, it presents a terrible picture. Here is a Vice President of the United States, the next person in line to take over if, Heaven forbid, something happened to the President, and he is getting paid from a company he used to work for. We know this is a deferred compensation plan, that it was earned before.

I also mention the fact that Vice President Cheney, when he left Halliburton, got a $20 million termination bonus plus over $1 million in another bonus. If we looked at the deferred salary and the nontermination bonus Dick Cheney has received from Halliburton while Vice President of the United States, it is up to almost $2 million.

This is, if not corrupting in its reality, its functionality. It has the appearance that raises enormous questions. This relationship, coupled with Halliburton's no-bid contract and other contracts in Iraq, is extremely problematic.

On top of the salary, there are 433,000 shares options that are exercisable. I come out of the corporate world and I know how valuable the stock options can be. The profits are committed to a charity, purportedly, but the more you get, the more you can give away.

Why does the Vice President permit this salary arrangement to continue when he could have done away with it, as did Mr. John Snow, who was the Secretary of the Treasury. He wrapped up 6 years' worth of deferred compensation into one year and said: I want to be done with this. I don't want to have my income coming from my former employer while I work for the U.S. Government at such a high level.

By continuing this financial relationship, the Vice President undermines our Nation's ethical credibility here and abroad. On September 14, 2003, the Vice President was asked about his relationship with Halliburton and the no-bid contract on the program, ``Meet the Press.'' Vice President Cheney told Tim Russert--and I happened to be watching the program; that is what stimulated my interest--the Vice President said:

I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of

all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in

Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over 3 years.

The problem with that statement is that when he said it, he held those 433,000 Halliburton stock options and continued to receive a deferred salary from the company and still has a salary for the year coming into 2005.

I went to the Congressional Research Service to see what the definition of a ``financial interest'' might look like. The Congressional Research Service confirmed to me that holding such options and receiving deferred salary constitutes a financial interest. They agree, and so do I, that when you have deferred compensation, when you have stock options, that is a financial interest. They say if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it must be a duck. There it is, a financial interest.

Even though the exercised prices for Vice President Cheney's Halliburton stock options are above the current market price, the majority of the options extend to 2009. My goodness, what does it take to free himself from a previous business contact?

When I left the company that I helped start and at which I spent 30 years, the minute I left there all of my options were canceled, to my regret, because there was a lot of money involved.

Any option holder has to hope that the stock price surges so the value of the options increase. One way this can happen is to be sure that lucrative contracts keep coming from the U.S. Government.

In the first quarter of 2004, Halliburton's revenues were up 80 percent from the first quarter of 2003. Why? Wall Street analysts point to one simple factor: The company's massive governmental contracts in Iraq. Those are the things that are responsible for

this increase in revenue and profits, if any.

Vice President Cheney's annual deferred salary from Halliburton is significant. As I pointed out earlier, in fact, the Vice President's Halliburton salary is as high as his government pay--last year, $178,000 in salary from Halliburton. I have heard the Vice President's defense of his Halliburton deferred salary. He claims that the deal was locked in in 1999 and there is no way for him to get out of his deferred salary deal.

How about if he had an employment contract with the company for 10 years and then became Vice President of the United States, would he say he had to have both jobs at the same time because he had a contract? Come on.

Checking of the facts revealed otherwise. I obtained the terms of Vice President Cheney's deferred salary contract with Halliburton, and the bottom line is that the deferred salary agreement is not set in stone. In fact, one need only look at the ethics agreement of Treasury Secretary Snow to see what the Vice President should have done in order to avoid taking salary from private corporations while in public office. Secretary Snow took six different deferred compensation packages as a lump sum upon taking office. Get rid of any shadow of doubt, any shadow of conflict.

Worst of all, this financial relationship is going on while Halliburton is ripping off American taxpayers. I am very specific about this. Halliburton is ripping off American taxpayers. I have said it, and I will say it again. Look at the record.

The Pentagon's inspector general revealed that Halliburton, while our people were fighting for their lives, overcharged $27.4 million for meals that were never served to our troops. False records. Fraudulent.

Another Pentagon audit found Halliburton overcharged the Army by $1.09 a gallon for 57 million gallons of gasoline deferred to citizens in Iraq.

Auditors found potential overcharges of up to $61 million for gasoline that a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, delivered as part of its no-bid contract to help rebuild Iraq's oil industry.

Under its cost-plus contract with the Pentagon, the more Halliburton spends, the more profit it makes regardless of whether that spending is necessary. Several former Halliburton employees have come forward to reveal how the company has taken advantage of this sweetheart deal by spending millions on nonexistent or vastly overpriced goods and services.

According to these former employees, Halliburton engaged in the following wasteful practices: They had its employees drive empty trucks back and forth across Iraq in order to bill for the trips despite the obvious risks that this practice posed to both truck drivers and the 85,000 trucks. Halliburton, under their arrangement, whatever they spent, came up with a profit for them.

If they needed an oil change they would buy a new truck. Halliburton removed all of the spare tires from its trucks and failed to provide basic maintenance supplies like oil filters. This is not something I am making up. It is in the record. As a result, when tires went flat or trucks broke down, they were abandoned or torched, with Halliburton making a profit on the replacements. This is the most sinister of behavior.

When a Halliburton employee needed one drill, his supervisor told him to order four. When the employee said he did not need four drills, the supervisor responded: Don't worry about it, it is a cost-plus contract.

One employee discovered that Halliburton was paying $45 for a case of soda in Kuwait when local supermarkets charged only $7.

I remind the Chair that according to the rules under cloture I have an hour of time to be used if I can get an agreement for unanimous consent.

I ask unanimous consent, because the time is going to be used by me, that I be allowed a few more minutes until I finish my remarks.

Mr. President, I thank the manager. The Senator from Maine has worked very hard on this intelligence reform bill. I supported her as a member of that committee. I know this might be a diversion to her, but I appreciate her consent.

One employee discovered that Halliburton was paying $45 for cases of soda in Kuwait when local supermarkets charged about only $7. And then there are the kickbacks. Halliburton admitted to the Pentagon that two employees took kickbacks, valued at approximately $6 million, in return for awarding a Kuwaiti-based company with lucrative subcontracts.

The scandal is playing itself out in the real world, while this Senate sleeps. It is neglect on everybody's part that this was permitted to continue.

This kind of corporate behavior resembles that of Enron and other corporations that have sought to defraud the Government with kickbacks and bribes and overcharges.

Profiteering during war is an outrageous action, if not a crime. When I served in World War II, if a company profiteered as people were losing their lives, they would be punished. They would have jail sentences in front of them.

That is not what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is that this is abominable behavior and it ought not be permitted.

When I think of the debate that is going on and John Kerry is accused of being soft on defense, when he served so bravely, when even though he disagreed with the policy of the Government, he served the country loyally, bravely, and was wounded. The assertions that maybe the wounds weren't deep enough were challenged by statements in the paper yesterday where it said that he still has shrapnel in his body from those wounds. Anyone who would suggest that because Senator John Kerry examined the question on moneys being spent for the war, because it included tax relief for some of the richest among us, the fact is, he served without question, without any reservation whatsoever, except he had a difference in policy. But he put his life on the line, which we haven't seen around here, I can tell you, as I have described in past speeches.

I used the identification of the chicken hawk. The chicken hawk is someone who makes war that other people are to fight. I don't think it is fair to tear apart the loyalty, the heroism of Senator John Kerry anymore than it was fair to challenge the heroism or the loyalty of former Senator Max Cleland.

I hope this assault on character can stop and we can discuss the issues that affect the American people.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time from my hour when I come back to the floor.

Mr. President, may I challenge whether this is part of the debate on the intelligence reform bill or is this discussing a different matter?

I have made my request, but I have no objection.

Mr. President, I rise today to submit a concurrent resolution that allows for a temporary display in the Capitol Rotunda memorializing the soldiers lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can think of no greater tribute to the families of those who died for our country than to honor their memories right here in the Capitol Building.

This temporary memorial would provide pictures and biographical information for each serviceman and servicewoman who has died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Also, it would include space for people visiting the Capitol to write notes and tributes to be shared with the families so they know that their loved ones will always be in our thoughts and prayers.

To date, the United States has lost 1,409 soldiers in Iraq, and 138 in Afghanistan. There are currently 150,500 active duty and reserve forces in Iraq and Afghanistan combined--135,000 in Iraq and 15,500 in Afghanistan--including 3,709 from New Jersey.

The Capitol Rotunda is the symbolic heart of the United States Capitol and our Nation's democracy, and it is visited by thousands of people each day. The Rotunda has long been considered an ideal setting for important ceremonial events, including state funerals for presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Lyndon Johnson, distinguished Members of Congress, military heroes, and eminent citizens. The Rotunda is filled with portraits and sculptures reminding Americans of past battles and more modern achievements. Eight framed niches hold large historical paintings--four revolutionary period scenes and four scenes of early exploration.

There is precedence for a memorial to fallen heroes in the Capitol Rotunda. Beginning in 1921, the Capitol Rotunda was used to honor the Unknown Soldier who lost his life serving in World War I. Memorials to the Unknown Soldier from World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War followed. In addition, in 1989, an official POW/MIA flag was installed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where it remains today, as a result of legislation passed overwhelmingly during the 100th Congress.

This memorial builds upon congressional action of the past and presents an opportunity for the United States Congress to thank our fallen soldiers and their families. I urge my colleagues to join me in this endeavor.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I thank our esteemed friend and colleague, the Senator from West Virginia, for his words--always words of wisdom and words of rage when he sees such an affront to the basic tenets of our society.

Mr. President, what is the pending question? Do we have an amendment pending?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3802 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I offer an amendment to this intelligence reform bill because I think it is consistent with the mission of that bill. There has been a lot of work and a lot of debate about the bill, and I personally am supporting it, but I offer an amendment to do something we very much intend to have happen, and that is to shut down the source of revenue for terrorist organizations.

The 9/11 Commission report talks about the critical issue of terrorist financing because as President Bush has said, money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations.

Amazingly, some of our very own corporations help provide revenue indirectly to terrorists by doing business with state sponsors of terrorism. My amendment would close the loophole in the law that allows this to happen, thereby cutting off a major source of revenue for terrorists.

As the 9/11 Commission stated:

Vigorous efforts to track terrorists' financing must remain

front and center in the U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

We took pains to check with the Parliamentarian about the germaneness, the relevance of our amendment, and it was confirmed that this would be relevant.

We need to starve the terrorists at the source and that is why our sanctions program in law is so critical, but now we know a loophole in the law exists that enables companies to do business with Iran, which openly boasts about its support for Hamas and Islamic jihad.

Iran also funded the 1983 terror attack in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines; 241 of our finest young people killed by Iranian terror, and yet we are permitting U.S. corporations to provide revenue flows to the Iranian Government. We have to put a stop to it as quickly as we can.

How do companies get around terrorist sanction laws? It is a fairly simple process. They simply establish a foreign subsidiary and run their Iranian operations. It is demonstrated on this chart which says that U.S. corporations have subsidiaries all over the place and that is common in our economic and business structure. Once a foreign subsidiary is created, then people can do business with Iran or other rogue nations, people who are determined to kill our citizens, can do business with them and provide services--intentionally, I do not believe--but nevertheless to people like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is a terrible thing to recognize that American companies can be providing sustenance to countries that support terrorism actively.

Our American sanctions law prohibits American companies from doing business with Iran, but the law does not mention an American company's foreign subsidiaries. As long as a loophole like this is in place, our terrorist sanction laws are considerably diminished in their force.

After brutally murdering 241 of our young marines in their sleep in Beirut in 1983, an Iranian-backed terrorist killed two American women whom we show in these photos. Look at these young faces. They are people at the dawn of life. Sara Duker was a constituent of mine, a 22- year-old from the town of Teaneck, NJ. She was a summa cum laude graduate of Barnard College. Sara was killed with her fiance when the bus she was riding in in Jerusalem in 1996 was blown up by Hamas. An American court confirmed that Iran was responsible and assets were seized to try and provide compensation to the families.

Hamas receives its funding and support from the Iranian Government and that is why this attempt to sequester assets was done.

Last year, Abigail Litle, a 14-year-old Christian missionary originally from New Hampshire, was riding home from school in Haifa, Israel, when her bus exploded as a result of a suicide bomb. That attack killed 15 people and was directly linked to terrorists funded by Syria and Iran.

I was in Iran with several other Senators and we talked to the President of the country about supporting terrorism. He denied any suggestion that they might be operating out of his country, but the Israelis last week apparently took an action to eliminate the head of one of the terrorist organizations who was clearly functioning there.

We have to worry about these countries and we cannot give them any latitude, any encouragement to continue with their killing ways. We also have to worry about providing revenue to Iran because of its well- known desire to build a nuclear bomb and other weapons of mass destruction.

The 9/11 Commission concluded:

Preventing the proliferation of [WMD] warrants a maximum

effort.

Certainly, ``maximum'' includes providing funding for some of these firms. So allowing U.S. companies to provide revenue to rogue WMD programs is clearly not a maximum effort.

Some people think this is an isolated problem, but it is not. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, there are large numbers of companies doing business with Iran and other sponsors of terror.

Iran sponsors terrorism, period. The terror they help fund has killed hundreds of Americans. Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and yet U.S. companies are using a loophole in the law in order to do business with the Iranian Government. It is wrong. It is not illegal yet, but this amendment would change it. I am sure when my colleagues examine what we are talking about, they will consider joining us, I hope, enthusiastically.

It is inexcusable for American companies to engage in any business that provides revenue, any business practice that provides revenues to terrorism. We have to stop it. We have a chance to do that with this amendment. I remind our distinguished colleague, the chairperson of the committee, that she supported this amendment before and I hope she will once again support the amendment and let all of us close the terror funding loophole.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Arizona for his patience. I send my amendment to the desk and I ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, first, I commend the chairman of the committee and our esteemed ranking member and say I am pleased to see that we have a chance to wrap up discussion on this reform attempt in the time we are presently allowing.

I offer an amendment to establish a 5-year term for the national intelligence director. Our colleague from Pennsylvania has put forward an amendment to extend the term for the national intelligence director, to put in place a term that is 10 years in length, and I salute the Senator's attempt to try to assure objectivity for the new intelligence chief. The Senator from Pennsylvania and I share the same goal and that is to do all we can to make sure the national intelligence director is as independent and nonpartisan as possible.

My specific proposal differs from the approach used by the Senator from Pennsylvania. Mine would establish a 5-year term, not a 10-year term, for the national intelligence director. Under my amendment, if the President wants to reappoint that person, he could, as long as he sends the nomination to the Senate and we confirm him or her.

Under Senator Specter's amendment, the director's term would be limited to a single 10-year term. I think a formula of 5-year terms that could be renewed is more practical. If we are serious about objective intelligence, then we have to provide a national intelligence director with as much independence as we can, that allows him to tell the President things the President may not generally want to hear. The NID should be able to provide information and analysis to the President without necessarily worrying about job security.

During one of our hearings in the Governmental Affairs Committee on intelligence reform earlier this month, I asked interim CIA Director John McLaughlin what he thought of a limited term for the national intelligence director. His response was that it may be yet another way to ensure the objectivity and nonpolitical character of whoever holds that office.

Interim Director McLaughlin is on target. A term for the national intelligence director will bolster objectivity and help keep politics out of our intelligence data.

Some of my colleagues have voiced concern that they want to make sure the director is someone the President trusts, and I wholeheartedly support that. I agree it is critical that the individual and the President have a relationship built on trust. I believe my amendment bolsters that trust. With an independent, objective national intelligence director, the President can trust that the data he gets is objective.

When it comes to intelligence data, a President surely does not want a simple yes-man. The President needs independent, clean, quality analysis.

Unlike the amendment that has been proposed, my amendment does not restrict the director to only one term. If the President wants to renominate the same person to serve in the post again, then he may do so, and the Senate will then decide whether to confirm the person for another term.

I want to be clear that while the amendment provides a degree of independence to the NID, it is not absolute. Under my amendment, the President could certainly dismiss the NID if he

did not have further confidence in his ability to perform. In fact, all it takes for the President to remove the director is the will to do so. So I believe my amendment will help improve the quality of nominees for the position of national intelligence director. With a 5-year term in place, there will be an expectation that the individual serve both Democrats and Republicans. Given what I hope will be a nonpartisan mandate, we will see much more objective and nonpartisan nominees.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, may I ask the Chair what the status is of our schedule right now?

I thank the Chair. I will take the opportunity to speak in morning business.

Mr. President, in the last couple of hours, a news conference was held with President Bush and Prime Minister Allawi, the interim Prime Minister from Iraq, in an attempt to clarify our Iraq policy. It was held in the Rose Garden.

What we heard was a peculiar use of words, when a reporter asked President Bush to explain some comments he made on Tuesday. Those comments are on this chart. President Bush--this was on September 21 at the Waldorf-Astoria. The quotation is that of the President when he says:

The CIA laid out a--several scenarios that said, life could

be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better. And they

were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like.

That is talking about Iraq. The reporter further asked President Bush why, after faithfully relying on CIA intelligence estimates to justify invading Iraq, he now calls CIA intelligence ``just guessing.'' Once again I quote President Bush:

I used an unfortunate word, ``guess''; I should have used

``estimate.''

An unfortunate word? It was unfortunate, all right, because many of us in the Congress are taking the quality of our Nation's intelligence very seriously. It was unfortunate because the American people are trying to understand what has taken place, what took place on 9/11, what took place in the review of 9/11 with the 9/11 Commission. The demand is that we take intelligence seriously after the failures of 9/ 11.

Yesterday, we approved the appointment of a new CIA Director, Mr. Porter Goss. Although I challenged that appointment, the fact is he won the confidence of this body and, without any possible interruption, is going to be the head of the CIA. I think that is pretty darn important. There were hours of debate in the Senate, covered on TV channels, in newspapers, you name it; everybody must have thought it was pretty important. But President Bush said something else. President Bush said he was trusting the word of a foreign leader, and the statement is made like this:

And the CIA came--

Once again, he is talking about the situation in Iraq--

and said, ``this is a possibility, this is a possibility, and

this is a possibility.'' But what's important for the

American people to hear is reality. And the reality is right

here in the form of Prime Minister Allawi. And he is

explaining what is happening on the ground. That's the best

report.

Are we hearing that President Bush is dismissing the word of the CIA, the comments of the CIA, to say they are just guessing or that might be a guesstimate, and what is really happening, the reality is right here in the form of the Prime Minister? Are we going to trust the Prime Minister of a foreign country to supply intelligence that is more reliable than the CIA? Lord willing, I hope not.

First the President says our intelligence data is just guessing, and then he says the word of a foreign leader is more valuable than U.S. intelligence. The entire purpose of our intelligence program is so we do not have to rely on the word of a foreign government for information. Would we take the word of a Prime Minister of a country to say I think this is the condition in a territory, that is the condition in that territory, and use that information to declare war and send over 1,000 people to their death? I hope not.

The President has finally admitted he uses unfortunate words. He certainly has. I remember some words that shocked me. I was a soldier once, a long time ago, and I never heard a commander, whether it was a lieutenant in charge of my platoon or the general of the army, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or any other world leader say,

``Bring 'em on,'' when they were talking about the enemy. The last thing I wanted to see was a German soldier, I can tell you.

But when President Bush said ``Bring 'em on,'' it was unfortunate. There were tragic consequences. And now since we lost four more people than when I talked yesterday, the number is up to 1,041 troops killed and so many more injured.

On May 1, 2003, President Bush made another unfortunate statement. He said: ``Mission accomplished.'' It was a grand presentation on the deck of an aircraft carrier with proud American sailors standing behind him, flags waving all over the place. He said: ``Mission accomplished.'' That premature statement gave false hope to our troops and the families back home who were waiting for them now that it was all done, all wrapped up.

``Mission accomplished'' says: Job well done, finished. This was not a job well done, not at all. Yes, our troops fought hard. Yes, there is plenty of bravery. Yes, there is plenty of courage out there. But for the Commander in Chief to say ``mission accomplished,'' he could have said: ``Pack your duffel bags; you are going home.''

When I heard ``mission accomplished'' in World War II, I was on a ship headed for Japan, having served in Europe first. When President Roosevelt and President Truman at the time said, ``mission accomplished,'' we came home. When it was said here, May 1, 2003, roughly 18 months ago, ``mission accomplished,'' the mission was not at all accomplished. Ask the families of the 1,041 who perished in Iraq. Ask those families, more than 800 since the President declared ``mission accomplished,'' ask them whether they think the job is done.

Then the President flip-flopped on whether we can win the war on terror, which is what he said. One day, he told Matt Lauer from NBC on national television:

I don't think you can win the war on terror.

The next day he said:

We will win the war on terror.

President Bush is speaking more and more unfortunate words, and flip- flopping on fundamental issues. I think that is what they accuse John Kerry of, flip-flops. Maybe we ought to put up a chart that shows who did more flip-flops than the other. We can prove President Bush's flip- flops were accompanied by pain and grievous losses.

There was a ``Hardball'' interview last night by Chris Matthews. Bush supporters on that program, a man by the name of Ed Rogers, said Senator Kerry is like George McGovern. Anybody who served in this body understands that George McGovern fought in World War II heroically, and there is not anybody who served with George McGovern or who knows anything about him who is not proud of his accomplishments and his commitment to the well-being of America. So that is a sarcastic way of saying something is wrong with those two men--John Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and three Purple Hearts. George McGovern served in Europe during World War II--and that there is something sinister about their character.

Bush supporters say Kerry is like George McGovern. The real analogy that ought to be made is perhaps President George W. Bush is like Richard Nixon, campaign dirty tricks, misleading the American public. Maybe that is the right comparison.

We can continue to criticize and assassinate character, which seems to be the thrust of the Bush-Cheney campaign. This chart was shown on the floor by another Senator about John Kerry's record. John Kerry's record is three Purple Hearts. Those are awards for being wounded, confirmed by medical personnel. You cannot get a Purple Heart by writing a letter and saying: I am hurt here and hurt there. And you cannot get a Silver Star without the Secretary of a service signing on or you cannot get a Bronze Star without certification by someone of very high rank in the military.

Instead, we ought to look at a chart such as this: Bush rhetoric, and the reality in Iraq.

If the measure of your performance is to be the interim Prime Minister of Iraq, brave man though he may be, who insists Iraq is going to be ready to take over in January with an election and they will have 145,000 people in uniform ready to fight, and a year later up to 200,000--I hope that is not wishful thinking because if it is, it could turn into a nightmare.

No, we have to do better than that. We have to be able to tell the American people the truth. We have to be able to look at the record of both people. I know this: If I were being called into battle, I would sure as heck follow John Kerry in because I know if I fall in the water he is going to turn around and pull me out. But I would not be able to find George W. Bush because he was not there in the unit to take up his part. No, he was absent, I think the record has established, and I am not getting into CBS's authenticity.

We have other records that say he did not show up for his physical and, thusly, could not qualify to fly any longer.

So I think it has to stop. When we look at the reality of the Bush- Cheney campaign and we see what Halliburton, a familiar tie to Vice President Cheney in an earlier period, has done to defraud the American Government, the American people of their funds, overcharging here, bribery there, a Vice President with a financial interest in this company that is held up for such disregard, that is the record at which we have to look: what was their performance, not what were their words.

An irate, angry Senator spoke at the Republican convention. He said one thing you have to remember; it is not what people say, it is what they do that counts. Let us judge Senator Kerry by what he did that counts. Let us judge President George W. Bush on where we stand in this conflict: 1,041 dead, thousands more wounded, many of them very seriously.

I visited some of them at Walter Reed Hospital.

I would, indeed.

I thank the Senator from Nevada. No, I did not know that, but I am not surprised. I am not surprised because there are several thousand wounded and we know that in war the wounded is a multiple of those who are killed.

When we look at what is happening, we talk about mission accomplished and we see a picture in the paper of the latest beheading--how dreadful, how horrible, how savage is our enemy--there is nothing I would rather do than to salute President Bush for ending the misery, for ending the war, for bringing the troops home. There is nothing I would rather do, but I do not see that in the picture, no, not if I look at the record, not if I look at what has been done, not what has been said. I do not see that. So I think we must be very careful.

In World War II, they had an expression that was kind of basic which talked about what we had to do to protect our troops. There were 16 million of us in uniform. They used to say ``loose lips sink ships.'' They asked people not to talk about things. They asked other things of people, too, during World War II. I remember hearing President Roosevelt's broadcast about sacrifice, about turning out the lights in places so we could not be seen by an enemy bomber, a ship--sacrifice. I have not heard President Bush talk about sacrifice to the American people.

I have heard a lot of bragging about what has been done. I have yet to witness the accomplishments that accompany those boastful comments.

I hope it will not be too long before the thousands of people who we have in harm's way, those who are doing their best to fight the battle, will be able to come home and rejoin their families. There is terrible upset in the homes of reservists in particular across the country, a lot from my home State of New Jersey, where daddy is not there, where mom has to take care of the kids. In some cases, mom is away and dad is taking care of the kids, still trying to earn an income, saddled by indebtedness, mortgages, health care needs for parents or grandparents. They want those people home, and we all do. It does not have to be a Democrat or a Republican or otherwise who would not want to see a smiling face come walking through the door.

So let us not hear any more talk about mission accomplished. Let us

hear the truth about where we are. If it is a painful truth, as someone who has to go in for surgery has to know at times so they can get better, let us hear the truth, let us hear when it is that we are going to bring our troops home. Let us hear when it is that the fighting is going to end. Let us hear when it is that there is confidence to be restored in the Presidency. Above all, let us stop assailing the character of those who would challenge the positions that we are in, because I think that is the essential working of a democracy: Challenge, ask questions, instead of snide criticism that says they are unpatriotic if a question is asked about an appropriations bill or something such as that. Do not do that.

We have John Kerry who served honorably, bravely, in Vietnam and had the courage to say: I disagreed with the policy but I had the courage, the guts, the backbone to go do what I had to do. Let his record speak for itself and do not try to color it with innuendo and insult.

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

Mr. President, I rise to submit a resolution honoring our Nation's oldest Federal law enforcement agency, the United States Marshals Service, on the occasion of the Service's 215th anniversary.

The United States Marshals Service was created when President George Washington signed the Judiciary Act into law on September 24, 1789. Subsequently, President Washington appointed the first 13 United States marshals that same year. Although their primary mission was to support the Federal courts, United States marshals and deputy United States marshals performed a wide variety of duties, including: executing warrants; distributing Presidential proclamations; registering enemy aliens in time of war; controlling riots; conducting the national census; collecting commerce statistics; and protecting the President of the United States. Although some of its responsibilities have changed over the past 215 years, the Service's dedication to justice, integrity, and service remains constant. As it continues to serve in the 21st century, the United States Marshals Service only enhances its role as one of the most versatile and effective law enforcement agencies in the world.

Today, the United States Marshals Service remains steadfast in its commitment to protect the Federal judiciary and carry out all Federal court orders. This entails providing for the custody and transportation of Federal prisoners, ensuring protection of witnesses, and maintaining and disposing of seized and forfeited properties. Of great importance is the fugitive apprehension mission of the Service: United States marshals capture more Federal fugitives than all other Federal agencies combined, and they have become an invaluable resource for State and local law enforcement agencies regarding fugitive apprehension tactics and techniques. Across the Nation, the United States marshals and deputy United States marshals carry out complex and life-threatening missions daily to maintain the integrity of the American judicial process.

The 4,500 men and women of the United States Marshals Service are proud of their history and their service to our Nation. I, too, am proud of their commitment to justice. On behalf of the Senate, I wish to honor the men and women of the United States Marshals Service and thank them for their contributions to the law enforcement community and to our Nation for 215 years and counting.

I ask Unanimous Consent that the full text of the Senate resolution be included in the record following my remarks.

Mr. President, we are discussing the nomination of Representative Porter Goss to be Director of Central Intelligence. This nomination comes to the floor at a critical time for our Nation's intelligence community. With Chairman Collins's leadership and Senator Lieberman's ranking membership, the Governmental Affairs Committee is in the process this very day of marking up legislation to reform the intelligence community. It is a task that all of us on the committee are taking very seriously. After all, it was the failures of intelligence that led to the horrors of 9/11 and the loss of almost 3,000 lives. Seven hundred of them came from my home State of New Jersey. It was a painful moment in American history.

It was failures of intelligence that led to our false premises for invading Iraq. I thought everyone from the President on down had agreed that we needed to take intelligence data more seriously. That is why it was so shocking to hear President Bush's odd statement yesterday about our Nation's intelligence data on Iraq. A few hours after the President spoke at the United Nations about why we went it alone in Iraq, President Bush was asked by a reporter about the CIA report that he had received in July, regarding the deteriorating situation in Iraq, which could even lead to a full-blown civil war.

The President at that moment dismissed the CIA report by saying that the CIA might have been ``just guessing.'' Just guessing? The Central Intelligence Agency just guessing? That is quite a way to describe their activities.

On this placard we see what President Bush actually said.

The CIA laid out a--several scenarios that said, life could

be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better. And they

were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like.

That is quite a description, on September 21, yesterday, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. If the President thinks our Nation's intelligence system is just guessing, then we are really in trouble. Casual statements.

I remind President Bush that when you pronounced ``mission accomplished'' on the deck of that aircraft carrier, we had lost 138 American citizens. But since then, since the mission was accomplished-- ``mission accomplished'' means job done--almost 900 people, 900 Americans have perished.

How do we treat subjects so casually, statements like this? Does President Bush believe Congressman Goss will simply direct the guessing game at the CIA? Is that all he expects from our main intelligence agency?

As we now know, in July the CIA sent the President a report that laid out three scenarios for Iraq, with the rosiest scenario being the continuation of the disastrous status quo. Under this scenario, we see an average of 87 attacks a day against our troops, and 1,037 dead to date. That is a horrible situation.

The CIA report to the President identified the worst scenario as an all-out civil war, with our troops in the crossfire. This is not what the President wanted to hear. So what did he do? He ignored it. And now when asked how the information came to him, he said: The CIA--just guessing.

President Bush's comments are a frightening sign he is not dealing with reality, in that he continues to ignore the truth about what is happening on the ground in Iraq. That is why I am so concerned about the nomination of Porter Goss to head the CIA.

I know Mr. Goss only casually. Certainly he seems like a nice enough, intelligent fellow. But what the President needs more than ever is an intelligence chief who will tell it like it is, and not revamp intelligence to meet the President's expectations.

Congressman Goss has not shown himself to be a person who will deliver nonpartisan, objective information to the President.

At a time when the independence and the objectivity of the CIA is more crucial than ever before, President Bush has nominated a politician who has been particularly partisan. In a PBS ``Frontline'' interview after 9/11, Representative Goss refused to characterize what happened as an intelligence failure. How could one argue that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure? He also opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission.

Congressman Goss attacked Senator Kerry claiming that Senator Kerry tried to cut the Nation's intelligence budget during the Clinton administration. But Congressman Goss made the attack against Senator Kerry while not revealing that he cosponsored a bill during the same period that would have made even deeper budget cuts.

Here is what Mr. Goss called the Senate Armed Services Committee in recent hearings on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. I quote him. He said:

We've got a circus in the Senate which is always a likely

place to look for the circus.

Quite a commentary about what Mr. Goss thinks of our Government. First of all, the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib--he thinks the Senate is a circus in hearings, and then he describes this place as a big circus tent. Is that what he thinks of us? I hardly think that is the kind of person who ought to be taking this serious job.

When asked whether he would investigate the disclosure of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, he dismissed the scandal, saying, ``There's a much larger dose of partisan politics going on right now than there is worry about national security.''

Then he added flippantly, ``Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA and I will have an investigation.''

What kind of an insulting comment is that intended to be? Do you want to trust this individual with a bipartisan responsibility to the entire Nation who can be so casual, so insulting, so sarcastic in his view of what takes place here? Do we honestly expect someone who has been a partisan attack dog for President Bush's reelection efforts to be independent and nonpartisan? It is just not realistic.

It is time for the President and this administration to return to reality--the reality of Iraq, the sadness of the loss of life, the ruination of families, the emotional disturbances that occur. We have some reservists from the State of New Jersey on active duty in Iraq. We just had our 33rd death of service people from New Jersey in Iraq. The disturbances that go to normal life, the daddies missing, mommies missing in the household--it is terrible. We have to get back to reality, the reality of Iraq, the reality that our Nation's intelligence is not just guessing, and the reality is that we need an objective, nonpartisan intelligence chief in this Nation.

I say with regret that we cannot accept turning responsibility over for managing this Nation's intelligence gathering to someone who first looks at which side of the political aisle someone is on before he makes decisions about the responsibility for the CIA.

I yield the floor.