Mr. President, we have Senators who want to speak on the bill. Mr. President, I remember reading a book I enjoyed very much by James Michener called ``Caravans,'' an excellent history of Afghanistan. Of all the books he wrote, the only one…
Mr. President, we have Senators who want to speak on the bill.
Mr. President, I remember reading a book I enjoyed very much by James Michener called ``Caravans,'' an excellent history of Afghanistan. Of all the books he wrote, the only one I enjoyed more than that was ``Hawaii.'' When I read ``Caravans,'' I knew very little about Afghanistan. After I finished the book, I knew a lot more about Afghanistan and the constant struggles of the Afghan people.
America first focused on Afghanistan during the Cold War. The Soviets came in and brutally tried to take over that country. As we know now, American forces supplied arms to the Afghan people, who courageously drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Many scholars believe that defeat marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. After almost 80 years, the impoverished country of Afghanistan was the reason for the fall of one of the greatest powers in the history of the world.
I will return to the subject of Afghanistan in a moment, but first I want to comment on what some of my colleagues have said this morning about the situation in Iraq. I supported the resolution that authorized the use of force in that country, and my vote was based on more than the evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Still, the controversy that has arisen concerning these weaspons has hurt America in the international community. All the turmoil going on now, the accusations of coverups, the exaggerations and half truths, which persuaded some of my colleagues to vote for the resolution--it has damaged our country's credibility. It could take a long time to repair that damage.
The ongoing fight against terrorism has challenged our military as never before. But I think all my colleagues would agree that our men and women in uniform have risen to the task and performed heroically.
As pointed out by the distinguished senior Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Dayton, American soldiers are still dying in Iraq. Another was killed just yesterday.
I was impressed with the statement of the Senator from Minnesota because he mentioned not only a fallen soldier,
but also the other casualities of war; that is, people who have lost limbs, people who are paralyzed, people who are disfigured as a result of incendiary devices, people who are scarred permanently--and I'm referring also to the psychological scars that will be with these men and women for the rest of their lives.
All of our troops have performed heroically. It is our constitutional responsibility to ensure that our military gets the resources it needs to remain the strongest in the world. The bill we are considering today does that. It was not an easy task, and it is a tribute, as I have said already, to the two managers of the bill, the senior Senator from Alaska and the senior Senator from Hawaii, and of course their fine staffs. But, interestingly enough, as the Democratic leader mentioned today, this bill does not fund continuing operations in Afghanistan or Iraq. I have great admiration for the two managers of this bill, as I said on the floor yesterday. These two Senators are role models for me. These Senators have distinguished careers and represent their States as well as they can be represented. They both understand Defense issues from personal experience.
They both served their country in war. The Senator from Hawaii earned the highest honor that our country can confer upon an American military hero--the Congressional Medal of Honor. We sometimes take this great man for granted, but I try never to do that.
I can remember traveling with the distinguished Senator from Alaska to Czechoslovakia when the Iron Curtain was still down. I can remember in Prague, Czechoslovakia, encountering a man in a World War II flight jacket. It led to a conversation with the Senator from Alaska because that is the kind of jacket he wore.
I have the greatest respect for these two fine men. But I think this bill should have money in it to fund military operations for the next fiscal year in Afghanistan and Iraq. I say, as one of the appropriators, that I think it was genius how the chairman of the Appropriations Committee has allowed the appropriations bills to go forward this year. I think we are going to finish all of the appropriations bills in a reasonable period of time. It was genius how the Senator from Alaska found the money. It was enough to set what we call 302(b) allocations. Those are allocations for the 13 subcommittees. But for his ability to take some money from defense and put it into domestic programs, we could not have gotten that done. I acknowledge from a legislative standpoint how important it was to do that.
But I think we should fund these bills prospectively as we do with everything else.
I heard an exchange between the Senator from Alaska and the Democratic leader about the decision being made by the President and the Republican leaders on enough money to take the military in Afghanistan and Iraq probably up to the first of the year. But we can't fund appropriations bills based upon one-quarter of a fiscal year. We have to fund them for a full year.
The reason this is done, of course, is that we have a supplemental appropriations bill for emergency expenditures. They don't count against the budget rules we have around here. As a result of that, they add to the deficit. I wish that were not how we had to do things this year. But I accept that it has been done. Unless there is some magic that occurs, or something that I don't see which is untoward, I will support the supplemental appropriations bill. We have to support the military.
But I have to say this is not the way to do things around here. I continue to believe that any operation that puts our young men and women at risk should be funded through the regular appropriations process which allows people an opportunity to weigh in on our priorities, policy judgments, and efforts.
Last week, I came to the Senate floor and urged my colleagues to support our neighbor, Mexico. I acknowledge and appreciate the Members of the Senate having supported that amendment. Today, as we consider our military priorities for the coming year, I want to speak today about what I fear has become another forgotten commitment, the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Keep in mind, Mr. President, that we walked away from the people of Afghanistan once before. We supplied them with weapons. After the Soviets took tail and ran, the United States followed suit. We no longer were interested in Afghanistan after we won that battle of the Cold War. The chaos that ensued after we left led to the rise of the Taliban, one of the most brutal, repressive tyrannies in the history of the world. Remember. We walked away once before. We cannot allow history to repeat itself.
When U.S.-led forces defeated the Taliban more than 19 months ago, President Bush promised a ``Marshall Plan for Afghanistan,'' and he assured us that our Nation would help Afghanistan become a stable, self-governing state free from the clutches of terrorism. I welcome that commitment from the President. The people of Afghanistan deserve that.
In the months immediately after the war, Afghanistan appeared to be making progress. A council of Afghans elected Hamid Karzai, a very courageous man, to lead an interim government. But we haven't done much to help this courageous man. As hope returned to Afghanistan for the first time in many years, the administration redirected its focus toward Iraq. Afghanistan virtually fell off the radar screen. Now, the Afghan people are paying the price. In short, all is not well in Afghanistan.
What are the current conditions? The security situation is particularly threatening. I was in a meeting this morning. I asked my Senate friends to guess how many troops are in Afghanistan today. The answer surprises people. I got different estimates--40,000, 20,000. We have 9,000 troops in Afghanistan. Where are they? They are in Kabul. The rest of the country is a jungle.
Outside Kabul, there is no security unless you are on the good side of one of the warlords. Aid workers don't feel safe. They don't travel through the country anymore. Many of the organizations have pulled out. In some of the provinces of Afghanistan--particularly in the southeast region--there is anarchy. Where there isn't anarchy, warlords are in control. These warlords seek only to enrich and empower themselves instead of helping President Karzai to address the urgent needs of the people. They fight among themselves and hoard Afghanistan's precious resources. Afghanistan does enjoy the luxaries of fertile land, oil and riches. Afghanistan is a country that is driven by poverty. It is a desert.
On rare occasions when the warlords aren't battling each other, they are joining together to weaken the central government. The absence of central authority in Afghanistan isn't anything new. That is why we had to cooperate with some of these warlords when we fought the Taliban. But when the war ended, we promised the Afghan people we would help them develop a stable country. That came from our President. We are reneging on that promise.
We simply can't accept a warlord-dominated Afghanistan. That would spell certain defeat for a long-term war against terrorism.
I came to this floor and said there is a need for the interim government in Afghanistan to include women. The Taliban brutalized women, but in some areas of Afghanistan women are not doing much better now than they were under the old regime. Some warlords are imposing Taliban-like restrictions on women and girls.
What does that mean? This means they are treated like nonpeople. It means they cannot show their faces. It means they cannot go anyplace unless they have their husband with them. They cannot even go to school. Some of the schools that were opened just for girls after the war have closed up.
Border security in Afghanistan is nonexistent. Is Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan? Is he near the country's border with Pakistan? It does not matter. He's certainly not in Kabul, where most of our forces are stationed. The rest of the territory is controlled by warlords or is in complete anarchy.
Afghanistan's porous border with Pakistan has allowed pro-Taliban elements to slip in and out at will, on the rare occasions they need to escape U.S. forces searching remote areas. Iran continues to try to influence affairs in the areas around Kabul.
The Afghan army does not have the manpower, training, or the resources
to deal with these cross-border incursions. The hinterlands of Afghanistan are essentially up for grabs to the lethal, devious, and dangerous insurgents that were cast out of Kabul at the start of Operation Enduring Freedom some 20 months ago.
Economically, the landscape is bleak, to say the least. Fifty percent of the population in Afghanistan lives in absolute poverty. The average life expectancy in Afghanistan is 46 years. It goes without saying there are exceptionally high rates of malnutrition and child and maternal mortality. Up to 7.5 million Afghans are said to be dependent on external food aid. It is the only food they get. Unemployment--we don't know how high it is but we know it is well over 50 percent. Illiteracy--maybe one out of four can read and write; maybe one out of four. Seventy percent of Afghans cannot read or write.
But the real impetus for me to come here and say how I feel about this issue is the result of my reading Newsweek magazine last week. Newsweek had a feature story about the No. 1 product in Afghanistan: poppies, used in the production of heroin. Unfortunately, the development of illegal narcotics is the one sector of Afghanistan's economy that has experienced positive growth.
Last year, Afghanistan regained the dubious title of the world's largest opium producer, and it is on track this year to produce even more. Afghanistan accounts for almost 80 percent of the world's illicit opium production.
It has been a long time, but I used to do criminal law work. The first case I ever had--at that time Clark County, Las Vegas, did not have a public defender. I was appointed by Judge Zenoff, Department 1, the Eighth Judicial Court, Clark County, to represent a young man who was in jail. I can still remember his name: Humbert Gregory Torres, the first criminal case I ever had.
I went to the jail. I was a new lawyer. I had my suit and tie on. I went to the jail and talked to a man through the bars. I thought: This guy's a criminal? He should be a movie star. He was so handsome. He was a heroin addict, and had been since he was 15 years old.
When I met him in that jail, he was 20 years old. He was smart, handsome but terribly addicted to heroin. I saw the life he led after that. Because it was my first case, I kept in touch with him, represented him in many different battles with the law. He went to prison. I don't know where Greg is now. I am sure he is not in a good situation. Last I heard, he was back in prison.
Heroin destroys people, families, neighborhoods, and societies. It is a horrible thing. That young man did not want to be addicted to heroin. He got addicted to it when he was a little boy in New York City. He could have done anything with his life had he not been addicted to heroin. Instead, he became a criminal.
Well, almost 80 percent of the product that gets to people like Greg Torres comes from Afghanistan. Drug laboratories are sprouting up across Afghanistan, producing heroin that eventually finds its way into our country, our cities, and our neighborhoods.
Most of the money from this deadly trade does not even go to the impoverished farmers, but instead to corrupt civil servants and drug lords. Look at the Newsweek article. It tells of a senior general in northern Afghanistan who brought in experts from Burma to help him operate a string of heroin labs, and of a senior police official in a northeastern province operating a heroin lab in the garden of his home.
The nexus between the illegal drug trade and civil servants is very clear but even more troubling is the link between the opium trade and the remaining Taliban extremists. It is no coincidence, according to the United Nations, that Taliban insurgents are most prominent in the poppy-producing provinces of Afghanistan. This ``unholy alliance'' serves the interests of the drug lords, who need the protection, and the Taliban, who want the money.
We have the Drug Enforcement Administration, of course. Its agents are very professional, and very well trained. We have really unloaded on Afghan drug lords with these agents. We have two in Afghanistan--two DEA agents in the entire country. Eighty percent of all the heroin in the world is produced in that country, and we have two Drug Enforcement Administration officers there. With that kind of manpower, I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this. I am being a little facetious, but I don't know what two agents can expect to accomplish.
Amid the drug, economic, and security crises plaguing Afghanistan, we cannot forget that the key government and private financial institutions were all destroyed under the Taliban. The image I see when I think of the Taliban is of them destroying that huge, historic, religious monument, which had been there for more than 1,000 years, by shooting rockets from airplanes. That is what the Taliban is all about.
We can't forget that they destroyed key government and private financial institutions. Recovery and reconstruction in Afghanistan therefore is an enormous challenge, but if we fall short, the consequences will be enormous. We cannot afford to fail in Afghanistan, and yet we are not doing anything to address the problems there.
Some are saying: So what? Does it matter? I don't think it is possible to exaggerate the stakes in Afghanistan. It is, of course, the front line in the war on terrorism. That is why we went there in the first place. Terrorists had built training camps there. The September 11 attackers all had contact with terrorists in Afghanistan.
Although a diverse and committed international force is participating in the reconstruction effort--there are several thousand international people in Kabul--we can't pass the buck and say reconstruction in Afghanistan is somebody else's responsibility. It is our responsibility. We led the war there. We need to lead the reconstruction.
We have a responsibility to help Afghans create a stable, self- governing state with the resources for long-term economic development. If we succeed, we will have denied the terrorists a strategically located base. We will have put a long-suffering people in a position to lift themselves to freedom and prosperity. We will have created a model that can help the international community in reconstruction efforts elsewhere. And we will have silenced skeptics around the world who thought the United States would not fulfill its promise to Afghanistan and would cut and run a second time. These are the benefits of success.
The costs of failure are almost too troubling to imagine. Terrorists could again regain a foothold. The Afghan people would remain impoverished under a fundamentalist regime. And this confluence between a failed state in a strategically vital area and terrorist forces could result in lethal consequences, as we so painfully learned in 2001.
What can we do? As the President stands ready to deploy troops to Liberia--and I have been to Liberia and acknowledge that it deserves our attention--we cannot forget about Afghanistan. The President also is weighing options on what to do about force protection in Iraq. As important an issue as that is, I again implore him not to forget our promise to the Afghan people.
There is much more we can do. The report issued last month by Ambassador Frank Wisner and the Council on Foreign Relations provides an excellent roadmap. First, with regard to security measures, we need to maintain adequate military forces until Afghanistan can assume the responsibility itself. We should also be seeking ways to bolster the international security forces there as well as substantially expanding the proposed size of the Afghan Army, which at its peak will stand at 10,000 soldiers. This hardly seems adequate for a country of 28 million people. Reconstruction efforts cannot be effective until the territory beyond Kabul is secure.
Second, politically and diplomatically we need to support the Afghans as they organize presidential and parliamentary elections to be held next year. We need to continue to press Iran and Pakistan to secure the border region and end their interference in Afghan affairs, and we need to continue to assist the Afghans in developing a vibrant civil society that is inhospitable to extremism.
Third, reconstruction measures must resume fully. Despite the urgency of the situation, road building and other major reconstruction projects have stalled. Despite receiving billions of dollars in financial commitments from
the international community, President Karzai still faces a gap of $276 million in his very modest budget. Afghanistan will require $15 billion over the next 5 years in reconstruction funds, over and above humanitarian aid.
Congress has authorized funds to cover one-third of this total. Authorizing it, as we have learned, doesn't mean much. We have to appropriate the money. It is great to issue press releases about all the things we are going to do with this program and that program, but in the Congress there is a two-step procedure: We authorize and appropriate. If we don't appropriate, the authorization is meaningless. We should fully fund the authorization so that, among other things, we can complete construction of the road linking Kabul and Kandahar.
The United States obviously can't cover reconstruction costs on its own. I don't expect us to do so. The reconstruction effort will fail unless we persuade other countries to live up to their financial commitments. But we cannot do that until we fulfill our own obligations.
President Bush has the power to place the reconstruction of Afghanistan back on the world agenda. But as I said earlier, the issue seems to have fallen off the White House radar screen. I say to President Bush: Fulfill the promise you made to the Afghan people and to the American people, and deliver on your Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. The Congress will support those efforts. We will do so not only for the Afghan people but also for the security and safety of the United States and its allies.