Floor Statements

I thank my colleague from Florida, Mr. Nelson, and I thank him for his leadership as chairman of the Strategic Subcommittee on the Armed Services Committee, of which I am the ranking member. I want to assert again that I have been pleased to work with him and value his judgment and insight, and value his insight with regard to amendment No. 2024, which I have filed a modification to, and I now ask that amendment, as modified, be called up at this time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Kyl, Dole, Inhofe, and Thune be added as cosponsors.

Mr. President, I don't know if my colleague from Florida wants to make a comment now.

I will be glad to yield to Senator Nelson if he wishes to share some thoughts.

The amendment offered today, simply put, acknowledges that we have a growing threat to peace and security that arises from Iran's nuclear and missile program, and this amendment would make it the policy of the United States to develop effective defenses against this threat as soon as possible.

The amendment also emphasizes the need to ensure that the defenses we deploy are coordinated with existing programs of our NATO allies. A number of Senators and Members of the House want to be sure that we coordinate with the NATO allies, and this amendment would call for that.

Sadly, the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to threaten the United States and our allies and that threat must be recognized and confronted. My amendment signals the resolve of the United States to do that. At a time when Iran is openly threatening to destroy the United States and our various allies--and is providing weapons, such as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, which we have pretty clearly traced to Iran today, and that are killing our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan--demonstrating our understanding of the seriousness of their threat and their purpose is critical for us to have clear thinking and sound policy. So I appreciate my colleagues, such as Senator Lieberman, who spoke eloquently and offered an amendment on the need to confront Iran's support of worldwide terrorism, which we voted on yesterday--in a very strong vote.

I see missile defense as another facet of confronting and facing this threat. Even in the Middle East, where anti-Israel sentiments are all too common, Iran is the only country in the Middle East where the President openly calls for the destruction of Israel. Shortly after taking office in 2005, Ahmadi-Nejad, the President, rallied supporters at a conference, and the conference was called ``A World Without Zionism.'' In that speech he said, ``The current skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said''-- and here he is referring to the Ayatollah Khomeini--``Israel must be wiped off the map.''

But Israel isn't the only target of Iran's crash program to develop long-range missiles with nuclear warheads--long-range missiles they are now developing. He is developing also nuclear warheads. In the same speech Ahmadi-Nejad was quoted as saying this: ``Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury.''

That includes, of course, the United States--us--and our allies in Europe and the Middle East. For anyone who doubts that Ahmadi-Nejad's threat was meant to include America, he has also been quoted as saying this: ``And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism.''

A world without the United States. It does not get much more straightforward than that. Arnaud de Borchgrave, an experienced world observer and editor at large of the Washington Times and United Press International, had a piece in the Washington Times yesterday, and he pointed out some of the examples of the kind of extremism, real extremism, we have seen from the Iranian leadership.

Now, let me say this: The Iranian people are good people. They have quite an educated population, certainly for that area of the world. There is no need and no justification for Iranian leadership to betray those people, the people of that historic nation, with these kinds of policies. In truth, President Ahmadi-Nejad and certain clerics are damaging the history, the economy, the people, and the reputation of Iran. There is no reason for this. It should not continue. Unfortunately, it is reality. And while we can hope for change, change does not seem likely in the short run.

While the people of Iran may, and I think do, oppose this extremism, the President and the extremists, certain mullahs and others, seem to be firmly in control of the country and determined to pursue a radical and extremist ideology and policy. It is not only a tragedy for Iran that this is occurring but for the whole world.

Mr. de Borchgrave lists some of the statements that are more than sufficient to alert the world to the dangers and the intentions of the leaders of Iran today. This is what he wrote yesterday, and I quote:

Whether Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad said he wants

to wipe Israel off the map is still contested, even by anti-

mullah Iranian-Americans. But that he wants to wipe out the

Jewish state, there can be no doubt. As he completes his

visits to every Iranian town, the collection of his

pronunciamentos is edifying reading.

Culled from a wide variety of sources, ranging from the

Agence France Presse, the French national news agency, to the

London Daily Telegraph, to the Suddeutsche Zeitung Online, to

France's Le Monde and Liberation, Mr. Ahmadi-Nejad spells out

the target and the strategy: ``This regime--here he is

talking about Israel--will one day disappear. The Zionist

regime is a rotten tree that will be blown away by one storm.

The countdown for the destruction of Israel has begun.

Zionists are the personification of Satan.''

He goes on to say:

In the case of any unwise move by the fake regime of

Israel, Iran's response will be so destructive and quick the

regime will regret its move forever. The west invented the

myth of the massacre of the Jews (in World War II) and placed

it above Allah, religions, and profits.

So he continues to assert that the Holocaust was a myth, invented by the West.

What about his strategic plan?

We don't shy away from declaring Islam is ready to rule the

world. The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach

the entire world. Our revolution's main mission is to pave

the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, a

5-year-old boy who vanished 1,100 years ago and who will lead

the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but not before

the planet is first convulsed by death and destruction.

He goes on to say:

Soon, Islam will become the dominating force in the world

occupying first place in the number of followers among other

religions. Is there a craft more beautiful, more sublime,

more divine than the craft of giving yourself to martyrdom

and becoming holy? Do not doubt, Allah will prevail and Islam

will conquer mountaintops of the entire world. Islam can

recruit hundreds of suicide bombers a day. Suicide is an

invincible weapon. Suicide bombers in this land showed us the

way and they enlighten our future. The will to commit suicide

is one of the best ways of life.

This is the President of a country that is steadfastly moving forward to develop nuclear weapons and steadfastly advancing its ability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.

What does he say about nuclear power?

By the grace of Allah we will be a nuclear power and Iran

does not give a damn about the IEA, the International Energy

Agency, their demands to freeze enrichment of nuclear fuel.

Iran does not give a damn about resolutions.

That is the U.N. Resolutions. Those are his words. There are other comments. He goes on to say, as I indicated earlier, at this conference on the world without Zionism--the President of Iran said:

To those who doubt, to those who say it is not possible, I

say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is

both possible and feasible.

You can say this is an exaggeration. You can say this is not realistic. But I suggest that is the repeated statements of the leader of a very dangerous nation, a nation with real capabilities. They are developing a nuclear capability and an expanding and growing missile capability. I think yesterday Senator Lieberman, after the vote on his amendment, summed it up very well. This is what he said:

The threat posed by Iran to our soldiers, to our allies, to

our national security is a truth that cannot be wished or

waved away. Congress today began the process of confronting

it.

We also need to take one more step in that process by making clear that we are not going to leave our Nation or our allies in Europe vulnerable to any missile threats from Iran.

Most Senators were in the room a few weeks ago when the Director of National Intelligence, ADM Mike McConnell, gave us a classified briefing and described in detail the threat posed by Iran. Having received that briefing, I think few of us would doubt that Iran does pose a threat to the security of the United States and our allies. It is a threat to us. It is not something we need to be intimidated about. We don't need to back down to Iran. Militarily

there is no doubt in the mind of this Senator or any objective observer's mind what would happen if a conflict developed here. But we need to be realistic, we need to seek to avoid conflict, but we need to pursue policies that will make sure we don't allow our citizens to fall under a risk of a nuclear missile attack.

So they are pursuing, under Ahmadi-nejad's leadership, the means to kill millions of people with the single push of a button. When Iran's Shehab-3 missiles are paraded through the streets of Iran, they are draped with banners stating, ``Israel must be wiped off the map.'' That is what they put on their missiles. With a range of 1,300 kilometers and a payload capacity of over 700 kilograms, the Shehab-3 has the capacities to implement Ahmadi-Nejad's genocidal agenda. Iran is also working hard to develop missiles that can reach Europe and the States. The Shehab-4 is well along in development and will reportedly be able to reach most of continental Europe. The Shehab-5 and Shehab-6 have also been discussed in open sources. They are developing those advanced missiles. These sources claim these models will have the capacity to reach the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Iran's ability to develop nuclear warheads for those missiles are proceeding apace as well. In April, in a speech at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, there in Iran, Ahmadi-Nejad stated:

I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the

nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an

industrial scale.

International Atomic Energy Agency later confirmed that Iranian enrichment capabilities were developing rapidly while our knowledge and understanding of their nuclear program was decreasing. This uncertainty is very disturbing.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported the construction of an underground tunnel complex near its enrichment facilities at Natanz. It appears, therefore, that Iran is preparing to protect and hide its nuclear capabilities.

Nothing about Iran's behavior recently suggests that it will use these capabilities in a responsible manner. In fact, to the contrary, we expect Ahmadinejad to use nuclear-tipped missiles to threaten, blackmail, and terrorize the nations that oppose its radical agenda and using them, actually using them based on some of the extreme statements he has made, cannot be placed out of the question.

We all remember last March when Iran seized 15 British sailors and held them as hostages. Imagine a time in the not-too-distant future when Iran could take the whole city of London as a hostage with a nuclear threat. According to reports in the Washington Post, the intelligence community assesses that Iran's ICBMs and its nuclear weapons capability will both mature in 2015. That is not that far away. As a result, the cities of the eastern seaboard and of Europe are expected to face the threat of nuclear attack from Iran in less than 8 years.

Keep in mind that 2015 is the midpoint of the estimated range. Iran's capability could come online in 2017, later, or even by 2013, if things proceed faster than expected. That may seem like a long way away, but an adequate defense will take a long time to build and we need to start now. According to the Missile Defense Agency, even if Congress fully funded the European defense site--which I hope that we will. We refer to it as the ``third site,'' and it is funded every year--the system would not be up and running until 2013. Any delay to that schedule-- which could happen for a number of reasons--could open up a window of vulnerability during which Iran would have the means to attack us and our allies, perhaps with nuclear weapons, and we will have no means of defending the American people or our allies against them.

The good news is we have it in our power to prevent this window of vulnerability and keep it from opening if we commit as a nation to doing so. My amendment represents an opportunity for the Senate to go on record with such a commitment. An effective missile defense, which we would promptly begin to deploy, could convince the Iranian leadership that developing such missiles for their nuclear weapons is a futile undertaking. Perhaps we may have already missed, however, that opportunity to actually deter them in this way, making it all the more important that we get moving on development of the means to defend ourselves and our allies.

This amendment is more than about setting U.S. policy on missile defense, it is about sending a message to the rest of the world, our friends and enemies alike, that we take this Iranian threat seriously and we intend to stand up to it. The debate over the third site is being watched with great interest around the world. Some may be drawing conclusions about our commitment to meet this threat head on and doubting that we are committed. In fact, I will note that we effectively deployed and continue to upgrade a national missile defense system that can meet the North Korean missile threat, which is somewhat more advanced than Iran's but not a lot. We know we have this capability and we should do it with Iran also.

Imagine sitting in Mr. Ahmadi-nejad's shoes today. He provides sophisticated weapons to our enemies in Iraq, killing hundreds of American troops in the process. In response, one of our colleagues proposed legislation to prohibit the President from attacking Iran without congressional authorization. Ahmadinejad rushes headlong toward a nuclear weapon and long-range delivery capability and both the Senate and the House cut funding for missile defenses that could neutralize the threat. Ahmadi-Nejad must not feel like his bluster and threats will be effective.

They will not be. Imagine the conclusions that Vladimir Putin is drawing from those media reports. In February of 2007, Mr. Putin and the Russian Army Chief of Staff, Yury Baluyevsky, threatened to unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibits the United States and Russia from deploying arsenals of short- and medium-range missiles in Europe. Mr. Putin later suspended Russia's obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, which historically allowed NATO and the Warsaw Pact to remove much of the military personnel and material that was arrayed along Europe's central front during the height of the Cold War.

Finally, in June of this year, Putin directly threatened to focus Russia's nuclear arsenal on ``new targets in Europe.'' Putin claimed that ``the strategic balance in the world is being upset'' and that Russia ``will be creating a system of countering that anti-missile system.''

These threats coincided with Russian tests of an advanced ICBM, the RS-24, by Russia.

It ought not. Of course, any third site in Europe will be ineffective against the massive missile capability of Russia. We don't have any capability of doing that. We can create a system that will be very effective against anything the Iranians can do in the decades to come but not Russia. Our plans have no intention of affecting Russia. But we also need not be affected by Mr. Putin's bluster or that we be slowed down in our legitimate interests in protecting our country and our allies from Iranian threats by these kinds of comments from the Russians.

We reduced somewhat--not greatly--but $84 million in funding for the third site in Europe. Colleagues felt that money could not be effectively spent. They did not believe it was necessary in this year's budget. The problem might be that some would conclude the action by our committee in taking those steps to trim the budget would be a plan to kill missile defenses in Europe.

Yesterday, an article in the Christian Science Monitor entitled ``Obstacles Ahead for Missile Defense,'' stated the Senate was opposed to building defenses against Iranian missiles, in effect, saying:

In Washington, the Democratic-controlled Congress appears

reluctant to fund the move, scrambling its near-term

prospects.

I don't think that is true. I think there is bipartisan support for creating a missile defense system, but a firm belief exists on the part of my Democratic colleagues that we should not go so fast that it is not done wisely.

We have reached a proposal in the legislation as written that we can live with. However, there has been some confusion as to our seriousness in this commitment.

In fact, on July 5 the Washington Post ran an article entitled, ``Senate Panel Faults Missile Defense Plan.'' In the article, the Post states:

Democrats in Congress are building a legislative roadblock

for the Bush administration's plan to place elements of a

missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

It is an incorrect perception. It undermines our alliance relationships by causing our allies to think we are not committed in a serious way to building a missile defense system that would be effective against Iranian attacks and be protective of Europe. So I think it is therefore incumbent upon us to clarify the Senate's stance.

The Poles and the Czechs and other NATO allies have all undertaken the momentous challenge of winning over their populations to the idea of American missile defenses in Europe. They have battled anti- Americanism, pressure from Europe and Russia, because they value our friendship, but more importantly because they realize Europe may soon be vulnerable to Iranian nuclear intimidation and potential nuclear attack unless steps are taken to develop defenses now.

I think it would be a slap in the face and unbefitting to our Nation if we were to pull the rug out from under these projects after our allies have stepped up and been supportive of them. We cannot stand idly by, my colleagues, when a madman threatens to destroy the United States and to wipe from the map allies of the United States, then defies the international community by developing the means to carry out these threats.

We are the most powerful military in the world, but some people doubt our seriousness and our commitment. In the Middle East, in particular, this perception of weakness can be a fatal error. So I think it is appropriate for us to make clear to Iran and to Russia and to our allies worldwide that we understand that the Iranian danger is clear and present.

We must leave no uncertainty in anyone's mind that we intend to defend ourselves and our allies from this threat. Our security, the security of our allies, and the credibility of our commitments are all at stake. I will just add that while the Iranian actions are very troubling, they should be taken very seriously. Iran's words cannot be ignored.

I would say one thing further. We have no reason to be intimidated by Iran. We have the capability of defending ourselves, our military, and our interests, and the leaders in Iran need to know this. This Senator is prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to defend our national interests.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, would the Senator yield 1 minute for my response?

I thank Senator Nelson for his comments. I agree with him that, properly read, our legislation does what he says. But I even had a military person think that perhaps we had done something to weaken our commitment. I think others, such as the Washington Post, may have overinterpreted some of the things that are in that language. I believe this would be a good way to clarify our policy. I thank him for his leadership.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, this amendment, which has been modified in agreement with my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle to reach an amendment I think we can all support, would state it is the policy of the United States that we should have a system that will protect the United States and its allies against Iranian ballistic missiles. The findings are that Congress finds that Iran maintains a nuclear program in continued defiance of the international community, while developing ballistic missiles of increasing sophistication and range that pose a threat to the forward-deployed forces of the United States and to its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in Europe, and which eventually pose a threat to the United States homeland.

That is the problem we are dealing with. So we would state with clarity, so there is not any doubt about it--and I think our bill we passed in committee does that, but some have misinterpreted it, in my opinion--that it would state that it is our policy to develop and deploy as soon as technologically possible, in conjunction with allies and other nations wherever possible, an effective defense against the threat of Iran as described in the previous paragraph.

And to develop an appropriate response.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that MAJ Pamela Powers, an Air Force fellow in Senator Collins' office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the consideration of H.R. 1585.

Mr. President, we have been blessed in the Armed Service Committee to have outstanding chairmen. I was pleased to serve under Senator McCain and Senator Levin. A lot of hard work has gone into the Defense authorization bills each year I have been here. It is remarkable how much we agree on in committee. We come out with very few differences, and those are reasonable differences that we sometimes can bridge and sometimes we have to vote on and let someone decide. Some of the questions are pretty close questions, whether to fund that system or that program or not, and good people can disagree regardless of their political party.

I have been pleased to serve with Senator Bill Nelson on the Strategic Subcommittee. I chaired that when the Republicans were in the majority. He chairs it now that the Democrats are in the majority. We have very few differences. I respect his judgment. He is committed to serving his country.

We have produced a bill that I think, all in all, is a good piece of legislation that will actually strengthen our Department of Defense, the ability of our men and women in uniform to serve their country, and take better care of them. So that is a good thing.

But now we get the bill on the floor, and I guess that group I have been referring to in recent weeks as ``masters of the universe''-- somebody up there, up high--decides that this is the time we are supposed to have fights, and we are supposed to utilize this opportunity to push and push and push on various different areas.

Now, of course, it is legitimate to debate our commitment and strategy in Iraq at this time. But I think what Senator McCain is telling us is this, that this bill fundamentally is a bill to deal with and strengthen our military, that we just had debates in April and May and great detail about our Iraq policy, and we decided on that policy.

We all know that we will expect a report from General Petraeus in September. This is not the time to alter the policy we established about 2 months ago. I agree with Senator McCain about that. We can talk about it. We can do those things. But is it the right thing to jeopardize this bill over other issues--over the issues relating to Iraq?

Let me say a couple of things. The fundamental debate we are having here with regard to our Iraq policy, when you boil it down to basics, is whether to reverse the policy we established in May.

That was a decision by an 80-to-14 vote to fund the surge in Iraq, after having voted on it in April. We had another vote back in May, and we funded this operation through the fiscal year, through September 30, if not longer--at least through September 30. And we affirmed and confirmed General Petraeus as the commander of that surge by a 99-to-0 vote. He is a fabulous commander, and he received a bipartisan, unanimous vote in the Senate. That is what we decided, after great debate.

Now, what I will say to my colleagues is this: A great nation has to conduct itself as such. We are not able to flip-flop around week after week and change our minds every few weeks based on this or that event. If a serious situation occurs, we can change our mind at any time. But great nations are more akin to great battleships. They do not dart around similar to a speedboat. They set their course and have to justify it carefully before they act. Once they act, they need to stay that course, subject to any changes that occur.

So what I would say is this: I am worried we are doing what some political consultants would like to see Democratic leadership do and talk about the war because they think that is politically beneficial. We ought to be talking about those soldiers we have committed out there, placed in harm's way, who are, this very day, walking the streets of Baghdad and Al Anbar Province and Tikrit and Mosul, executing the policies we voted 80 to 14, in May, to send them to do. We voted 99 to 0 to send General Petraeus.

At that time, we made clear to him we expected a report in September. I think that is what we are about here, and we ought to be about, that we would go forward--and always subject to our constitutional responsibilities to make any changes that are required--but go forward to allow the general to carry out the surge we told him to carry out.

This surge, let me say to my colleagues, has only reached its full effort--what?--2 weeks ago when the last brigade reached Iraq. So we only reached full capacity of that surge a few weeks ago.

We know it is difficult now. They said: Well, the bombings are occurring outside Baghdad now. Why is that? Well, it is a given that it is tougher for them in Baghdad, so they have gone outside Baghdad to do bombings. What does that suggest? I would suggest that would lead us to conclude the work in Iraq, in Baghdad itself, has already made progress. Indeed, if the capital city of Iraq, the biggest city, cannot maintain order, it is difficult to see how we can have a political settlement all of us wish to occur.

General Petraeus has taken the case to the enemy. He is moving forward aggressively and making military progress. The difficulty--and we all know it--is that the Government of Iraq is not performing at the level it needs to perform. This is a matter we are not able to deny. I know when I traveled to Iraq with Senator Levin--and when I was there more recently with Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska--we raised the importance with the Iraqi people and the Iraqi leaders of having a functioning government.

Senator Levin has strongly believed and consistently argued that one way to get them to perform is to threaten to pull out our troops. I have come to believe their failure to perform cannot be altered by threats to pull out troops. I wish it could be. I wish we could do it that way. But it is more difficult than that.

So they are struggling, and I do not know whether they can pull this Government together. I certainly hope so. But I will tell you one thing. Progress is being made in a number of different areas militarily. This gives me some hope they can pull this Government together. That is where we are at this point. I do not see any other way to analyze it, honestly, to the American people. That is what I say to them as best I can.

I believe our military is performing magnificently. I believe the Government in Iraq continues to have serious problems in effectuating the kind of stability and reconciliation they need to effectuate so we can have a better capability of reducing the troop levels we have in Iraq today.

Now, the way this deal went down--and we voted to send General Petraeus there. We talk about making reports back to us. I remember distinctly in the Armed Services Committee, when he was up for confirmation, I asked General Petraeus did he believe we could be successful in Iraq. He said: Yes, sir, I do. General Petraeus had been there when the initial invasion occurred. He commanded the 101st Airborne in Mosul. He came home for, I think, less than a year and went back to take over the training of the Iraqi military. He then came back, wrote the Department of Defense manual on how to defeat an insurgency operation--the very project he executes--and the President has asked him to go back to Iraq to execute a strategy to defeat the insurgency that is going on in that country at this time.

So I asked him, would he tell the American people and the Congress truthfully whatever the situation was when he was there? He previously said this was a difficult but not impossible task he was taking on. He said: Senator, you can count on it.

I asked Secretary Gates, the Secretary of Defense, at a hearing: Secretary Gates, will you tell the American people if this military effort in Iraq cannot succeed and we ought to do something else? He said: Yes, sir, Senator. I feel that is my responsibility as Secretary of Defense.

I will say to you, my colleagues, let's not flip-flop around here every week with another amendment trying to set another strategy, written by a group of us sitting in air-conditioned offices, when we have some of the best military minds this Nation has ever produced, with great depth of experience--by the way, General Petraeus has his Ph.D. from Princeton and was No. 1 in his class at the Command and General Staff College. He is over there right now, and we have it set for him to come back and go through a very deep and serious evaluation of what has happened, where we are, and where we need to go in the future.

So it is all right. I know we are going to have people talk about strategy and alteration in our policy. But I think, in truth, it would be more responsible for us to pass this Defense authorization bill, which will make the lives of our military men and women far better, will make our Defense Department more effective, and will give us a better chance of being successful in Iraq. We need to pass this bill. We will be coming back in September, no doubt, for a very serious debate on how we go from here in Iraq. That is where we are, in my opinion.

I respectfully disagree with some who see it otherwise, who think they have divine strategy--reading a few newspaper articles, I guess, and talking to a few folks and going to Iraq once or twice; I have been there six times--and trying to come back and formulate a policy. I do not think that is wise right now. I urge our colleagues not to go in that direction.

I will take one brief moment to say I respect my colleague from Virginia, Senator Webb. I recognize the goals and the desires reflected in that amendment--his belief that soldiers ought to have guaranteed time of deployments passed by statute by the Congress of the United States. But I do not agree. I think this is a very significant amendment. I believe it is an amendment that alters the traditional power of the President as Commander in Chief. I think it could put us in very difficult circumstances in the future.

I urge my colleagues to remember the amendment is not limited to Iraq, it covers any military activities we get involved in, in the future, any war now or series of wars we may find ourselves in, in the future. War is very difficult, indeed.

I remember our former colleague, Senator Strom Thurmond, I think at age 40, volunteered to go in the Army.

He had to make them take him. He was a sitting judge. He was not required to go. He was deployed to England. I do not know how long he had been in at the time D-Day occurred. He volunteered to go in on a glider behind enemy lines in the nighttime at the time of the D-Day landing to try to protect the soldiers on the beach from counterattacks.

I remember asking Strom--former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I will note--I asked: Strom, well, how long did you stay in? Did you stay in until Germany surrendered? He said: Yes, sir, we stayed in until Germany surrendered--there to the day they surrendered. He said: In fact, after Germany surrendered, I was on a train heading across the United States to the Pacific. They were going to send us to Japan when they dropped the bomb on Japan.

I wish to say, I do not know what General Eisenhower, General Marshall, General MacArthur would think about a policy that says, in a time of war, Congress is going to decide how long people are deployed. I do not think it is good policy for a lot of reasons. I would express my objection to the amendment. I know it is well intentioned.

I say this: The military understands it. The military is determined to reduce deployment times in Iraq. Secretary Gates has made that clear. But had he not been able to extend for 3 months those soldiers he extended, it would have required as much as five new brigades to be sent over there. Some of them would not have had their full time at home that he wanted them to have at home. He thought it was better to do it that way than the other way. I believe, under the circumstances, that was a correct decision. People could debate that, but I think he made the right decision there. So it is better to do it that way. To pass a law, sitting here in air-conditioned offices, that is going to direct how the military deploys its troops in times of war is something I think we should not do.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Nicholas Greenway and Eugene Lipkin, interns in Senator Warner's office, be granted floor privileges for the period July 10 through August 3, 2007.

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

Madam President, we have had an unfortunate event occur. The Senate and House Judiciary Committees have issued subpoenas to the President for internal personal communications with the President's own personal staff and documents related thereto in a matter unrelated to a criminal investigation. A political inquiry is all this is about. Yesterday the President had to assert executive privilege and refuse to produce a very certain, limited number of documents relating to the replacement of U.S. attorneys around the country.

I served as a U.S. attorney for 12 years. I know U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. I know U.S. attorneys on a few occasions actually try cases and get involved in cases. I did pretty often. I tried some fairly big cases. Most U.S. attorneys in larger offices preside over the office and career assistant U.S. attorneys and FBI agents and so forth and investigate cases and prosecute them. That is the way it goes.

The reality is that they can be removed at any time by the President. It is not a congressional function to determine whether or not a U.S. attorney is removed. The Congress is involved only in the confirmation of U.S. attorneys.

The President and Attorney General Gonzales did not handle the recent resignation of 8 U.S. Attorneys very well. I believe they thought they could do it and not really have much of a reason for it, yet say they thought performance was not good. Maybe they simply wanted to replace that attorney with someone else. But U.S. attorneys have friends in law enforcement. They have friends in the local community. They have Senators who recommend them and help them get confirmed. They have clout. It became a big brouhaha. There was a big dispute about it, and various accusations were made.

I was present for the hearings before the Judiciary Committee. Frankly, most of the accusations have been proven baseless. But in explaining it all, the Attorney General and some of his staff did not do a good job. They embarrassed the Department, frankly, and fed demands for more and more and more to keep this story alive, to keep this matter going. Now we are at the point where subpoenas have been issued.

The committee issued five subpoenas on June 13. Two of the subpoenas were issued to the White House for documents to be produced on or before June 28, 2007. A third subpoena was issued by the House Judiciary Committee to Harriet Miers for both documents and testimony, for a response by July 12. Harriet Miers was a lawyer for the President. She was White House Counsel. The fourth and fifth subpoenas were issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee to Sara Taylor for documents and testimony respectively and called for a response on or before June 28 and testimony for a hearing on July 11.

This is an overreach legally. It is an overreach insofar as the traditional comity that should exist between coequal branches of Government. Executive privilege is not a principle that should be lightly dismissed. It is a very real, legitimate principle that our Government has. What would we have next? Would we want to be subpoenaing the law clerks for Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg and Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court to see what those staffers told the judges before they rendered their ruling? What about Senators and our staffs? How about that?

This has not been a stonewalling by the administration on the U.S. attorneys issue. The Department of Justice has released or made available for review approximately 8,500 pages of documents. Top officials in the Department of Justice, including the Attorney General himself, the Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty, the Attorney General's former chief of staff, and many other officials have testified at public hearings and submitted themselves for on-the-record interviews to answer any questions. The President offered to go even further by providing Congress with additional documents, to make available for interviews the President's former Counsel, Harriet Miers; Karl Rove, his political counselor; Deputy Counsel, Bill Kelly; former Director of Political Affairs, Sara Taylor; Scott Jennings, Special Assistant to the President. All of those would be made available to be inquired of.

That was an effort by the executive branch to satisfy the curiosity of the legislative branch and to go as far and even further, maybe, in my view, than required by law. That was a genuine, generous suggestion as to how to handle this conflict between the two branches, our desire to look in there and see everything that went on and pry open the lid and probe and fish a little bit and see what we find and a legitimate right of a President to have a

staff that responds to his or her demands and gives the President unvarnished advice, pointing out problems, honestly and openly, without any expectation it is going to be on the front page of the New York Times the next day, for heaven's sake.

So I just want to say, I am sorry and disappointed our chairman, Chairman Leahy, has utilized the power the committee gave him to decide whether to issue a subpoena or not, to actually issue subpoenas.

So now what has happened? The President said: These subpoenas go too far. Even so, I am not afraid to have my people talk. The President has offered that Harriet Miers come to the Hill and be interviewed by the Judiciary Committee. But in preserving the historic integrity and confidentiality of a President and their own staff, the President does not want to produce confidential communications made to him by his staff. I think it would erode any President's legitimate prerogative, for time immemorial, if Congress were able to do that.

I would suggest we in this Senate can understand that. Who of us would want our chief of staff to be hauled in to some committee when there is no suggestion of a criminal offense having occurred and then being cross-examined on everything our chiefs of staff told us? I just met with my chief counsel, Cindy Hayden, and we talked about these issues. She is an excellent lawyer. We have recently met and talked about the immigration bill that the Senate was debating.

Maybe the White House, which took a different view than mine on immigration, would like to embarrass me by issuing subpoenas to see if they could find out something in memos or documents or conversations we had about the bill and the flawed legislative process that brought it to the floor.

The executive branch has the power of subpoena also. Would our Members over here on the Senate Judiciary Committee be happy if the White House issued subpoenas to find out if any of our Members may have delayed the confirmation process in order to impact the outcome of some case that might be pending before a court of appeals at a given time in a given State?

Would we want to have all that happen to us? If these are criminal things, you get to do that. If they are not criminal things, comity, respect between our branches would suggest that any leader have certain rights to have candid, confidential communications with their own staff about matters of great importance to our Nation. The courts have it. Congress has it. The executive branch has it. There is case law that has addressed this type of privilege. Executive privilege is not something that is made up; it is something that is very real.

Now, I am not one who would want to come in and predict how cases would come out, but based on the openness the President has shown with regard to providing to the Congress his staff people for interviews, I am not sure there is a legal basis for this.

Yes, in the meantime, it will look good politically. Those who issued the subpoenas--and are proud of themselves, knowing the President probably will never be able to accept this and would have to resist and have to object--can accuse him of hiding. They can accuse him of stonewalling. They can say he is in denial, that he will not cooperate with the Congress, that he is operating in secrecy. These baseless accusations will just further fuel the charges people have made about this good man who is trying to serve the country the best he can. I certainly believe that.

So here we are. Chairman Leahy issued the subpoenas. Now the President has objected, which he has a perfect right to do. What happens now? There are several options, one of which is to litigate. If that path is chosen, a court will have decide it. It will go to the courts, and there will be an argument whether there is a legitimate evoking of executive privilege.

I wish it had not happened. That is all I am saying. We, I believe, have overreached in this instance. I cannot imagine we would want to demand that the President's own lawyer, Harriet Miers, be required to produce every memo she gave to the President and every conversation she had about any matter in the White House unless it amounted, as I said, to some criminal offense, which nobody is suggesting has occurred here. It is just not good policy, and we have to be bigger than short-term politics in this Senate. We have to be bigger than that.

I want to say, in my best judgment, we should not have shoved it this far. We have overreached. The President does have a legitimate claim of executive privilege. Over 8,500 documents and e-mails that went from the White House to the Cabinet Department, the Department of Justice, have been produced. It is only those conversations and communications between the President's closest advisers and the President himself which the White House feels should not be produced because of the historical implications of it for Presidents in the future. In this instance, I think the President is within his rights.

My best judgment, based on what I know today, is that this is not legitimate under our current law, and it is absolutely not justified under our discretion as Members of Congress. We ought to have more respect for the other branch than to push this request beyond the limits to the point we have today.

So, Madam President, I want to be on record to say that I understand why the President would object to making these disclosures of internal communications between the President and his own personal, closest staff, after, of course, having produced communications between he and his staff and the Department of Justice that have been produced and making those staff members available for private inquiry among the leadership of the Congress. I think that was a real strong gesture of openness, but that was promptly rejected because I think some in the Congress--Senate and House--would rather have a fight and try to make a political point than actually get to the truth of those matters.

Madam President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I understood it was 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I would be pleased to use 5 minutes now. I believe some of the other Members I wanted to share time with are available and can speak.

Mr. President, I will be pleased to yield 2 minutes to the Senator from North Carolina, Mrs. Dole.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Dole and yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Corker.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee and would recognize the Senator from South Carolina, thanking him for his leadership. As the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Specter, said, this has been a tough battle. I thank Senator DeMint for his courage. I yield him 1 minute, I believe.

Mr. President, I reserve my 5 minutes remaining.

Mr. President, I believe there is 5 minutes on this side.

Mr. President, I know good people have worked on this bill, and they are promoting it as a good step forward on immigration. But our own Congressional Budget Office has answered that question. They have said if this bill becomes law, we will see only a 13-percent reduction in illegal immigration into America, and in the next 20 years we will have another 8.7 million illegals in our country. How can that be reformed? I submit this would be a disaster.

The American people, I do not believe, desire to double illegal immigration. That is what this bill--legal immigration. That is what this bill does.

Mr. President, I ask that I be notified after I have spoken for 2 minutes.

The bill is promoted as providing security, but the Border Patrol Association, the former Border Patrol Officers Association, two former chairmen, chiefs of Border Patrol of the United States, former Assistant Attorney General in charge of immigration and security say it will not work, and they are scathing in their criticism and steadfastly reject this bill. I believe it will further diminish, therefore, the rule of law.

The procedure used to get us to this point is unprecedented in the history of the Senate. It allows the leadership to approve every single amendment that gets voted on and gives us only 10 minutes in opposition this morning, while the masters of the universe get over 40 minutes, 50 minutes to promote their side. It is typical of the way this debate has gone, and it will breed more cynicism by the public.

I have just seen a notice this morning from the Sergeant at Arms to tell us that the telephone systems here have shut down because of the mass phone calls Congress is receiving. A decent respect for the views of the American people says let's stop here now. Let's go back to the drawing board and come up with a bill that will work.

I thank the Chair. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana who has been effective and courageous in his advocacy on this issue.

I yield to the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint.

Mr. President, I wish we had been given more than 10 minutes, while the other side has been given 40 or 50. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, under the UC, I think we are well passed the time the leader had, and this side only received 10 minutes.

Mr. President, point of order. The unanimous consent gave the leader 12 minutes. It is now about 12 or 15. Does that override the leader's time?

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

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer for his insight into the legislation we considered. I guess the Presiding Officer understands, when you have completed a tough campaign and you have talked to voters, you learn some things. Hopefully, our Senate has learned some things: That the heart of the American people is good, that they are not mean spirited, but they are concerned about a lawful system of immigration.

I was on an Alabama-based radio show ``Rick and Bubba.'' They are expanding out around the country and do an excellent job and are very fair about immigration. One told me the other morning: Senator, let me tell you my philosophy. My philosophy is that if you have a broken pipe in your attic, and there is water on your floor, you don't go spend all your time mopping up the floor, you fix the leaking pipe.

So I guess I would say the failure of the legislation today, despite the good efforts of my esteemed colleagues who met together and wrote this bill--and they did not want anybody to change a jot or tittle of it--despite all of that, despite their good efforts, it did not do the job. It did not shut off the water. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it would only have reduced illegality by 13 percent, and in the next 20 years we would have another 8.7 million people here illegally.

I think our Senators--after hearing that and having it pounded in and seeing this is not an exaggeration but an objective report by the Congressional Budget Office, and then we heard the promises: The only way to get a lawful system in America is to vote for this bill--they were not persuaded, especially because the American people saw through it.

Rightly, the American people have grown to be cynical about the words of Congress on immigration. They have grown to be cynical about that. For 40 years, Presidents and Congresses have promised we are going to make a lawful system: We are going to do this. Don't worry, I voted for that bill last year. It was going to do this and do that, double Border Patrol--but nothing ever happens.

We arrested a million people trying to enter our country illegally last year--a million people. Why do we have that many people arrested? One reason is because the border is known, worldwide, to be insecure and that you have a very good chance of being able to enter the country illegally.

If we can change that and we create a clear message around the world that our border is secure and if you come you are going to be apprehended and you will be prosecuted if you come across the border illegally, we could see a dramatic dropoff in that and a dramatic increase of people applying, waiting in line to come legally. That is what it is all about, and this bill did not do it.

Now, somebody was saying to me and asking me recently about President Bush and his legacy. I have to tell you, I like President Bush. He is a friend of mine. I believe his heart is good. I believe he wanted to do something good about immigration. I have the highest regard for him.

What I would ask President Bush to do with regard to his legacy on immigration would be to carry on at a much more effective and aggressive rate than he has with a movement toward enforcement. He has done things in the last several years to improve immigration enforcement more than the previous four or five Presidents, but it has not been enough.

So I would suggest to the President: Make it your legacy to leave a secure border for America. Enforce our current laws. Utilize every effective and appropriate tool we now have, which would make a huge difference. Ask the Congress for what additional tools you need. Let's begin to create a lawful system at the border.

As the American people see that and gain confidence in us as a government, then we begin to talk about some of the more difficult problems: What do we do about 12 million people who are here illegally?

One of the things that very much concerned me in this bill--and it shows the mindset that seemed to be driving the legislation and was an indication there was no real commitment to enforcement--was moving the date of the people who would be allowed to go on a path to legality and even citizenship to even if you came into our country last year.

Now, last year's bill, which I vigorously criticized, said you could take advantage of the amnesty or legalization process if you came into America before January 1, 2004. This bill said you could take advantage of the amnesty--you would not be asked to leave--and you could become an American citizen if you broke into our country before January 1, 2007, this year.

So after the President has called out the National Guard, after we have said the border is closed--and it has not been closed; we made some improvement, but it has not at all closed the illegality at the border--but if you could get past the National Guard last December 31 and get into this country, this bill would have put you onto a citizenship path.

But that is not what our colleagues told us who supported the legislation. They said it was going to help those people who have deep roots in America who have children here and ones we cannot ask to leave. I am sympathetic to that. I am prepared to work on something like that. But the idea that some single person who broke across the border last December, past the National Guard, is being given all the benefits of citizenship, all the benefits we would give to somebody who waits in line to come legally makes no sense to me and indicates the mindset we have here.

The mindset is confused is all I am saying. The President, the executive branch, and the Congress have not yet gotten the message. The message is: We don't want talk. We don't want promises. We want you to get busy and create a lawful system of immigration, and then we can begin to talk about how to deal with people who are here illegally and what our future flow of immigration would be. They had some good ideas in the bill about how to improve the future process by which we select for admission immigrants who desire to come. We know we can't accept everybody. Eleven million people applied for the 50,000 lottery slots we had in the year 2000. It just indicates that the number of people who would like to come here vastly exceeds our ability to admit them all, so we must select some way for those who come. I believe that a touch, a bit, in this bill that tended toward a Canadian-type

system was a great first step and should give us a model for future flow.

So to my colleagues and particularly to my friend, the President of the United States, whom I respect so much, I would say let's make it a legacy of this Congress and this President to do everything possible, beginning today, to have a secure border in our country. I believe it would be widely approved by the American people. I believe it would be good for our country. It would be a true contribution to American society and put us on the road toward a step to adopting new and better policies for immigration.

It is great to see my colleague, Senator Hutchison from Texas. I thank her for her insight and commitment to creating a good system. Being from Texas and having lived with this issue for years and years, she is sympathetic and compassionate to those who want to come to America, but she also understands the need to create a system of laws we can be proud of.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Will somebody yield me some time?

Yes.

Mr. President, I ask to be notified after 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I think Senator Levin and Senator Warner have pointed out the fact that this is not an unprecedented appointment and that it is consistent with what has been done before. People have their own ideas about how the chain of command should work, but that is fundamentally the question to be answered.

Let me join with Senator Warner in saying how much I admire the record of General Lute. He is a three-star general. He was a director of operations at the operational section of Central Command for 2 years. He is intimately familiar with the Middle East. He has demonstrated in his positions with the Department of Defense in recent years with the joint staff his willingness to question ideas that many consider popular. In fact, it is reported that he asked a lot of tough questions about the surge, and how that would go, and how it should be handled if done. I think, if anything, we know for sure that he will do what he believes is in America's interests.

Let me tell you why I truly believe we need a position such as this and a man like General Lute. We have about 170,000-plus soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are serving us in a dangerous area of the world. We know and have had so many colleagues say--and Senator Levin is most articulate in saying this--it is more than just the military; there is a political settlement, there is reconstruction, there are economic issues involved, oil and gas, water, electricity, which are all key components of having a government effective in Iraq that serves the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is important. The problem is we have all our agencies involved in Iraq, not just the military. We have the State Department involved in Iraq. The State Department is the one responsible for trying to move the Government along in an effective way. They also have responsibility over the economy, trying to help Iraq have a good economy. They are responsible for trying to negotiate safety agreements with its neighbors. They are responsible for infrastructure, actually. They are not responsible for law and order, the court system, and the prison system, which has not gone well at all. I have been a major critic of that situation. That is under the responsibility, not of the Department of Defense but the Department of Justice. If your court system is not working, if you don't have an adequate jail system, if you can't get the water turned on or the electricity turned on, our soldiers are at an increased risk to their safety.

So it is absolutely critical that all our agencies of Government work together, agree, work out differences, and create the greatest possible opportunity for those fabulous soldiers we have sent to be successful in helping to create a stable and decent government in Iraq. It is not at the level of cooperation we need. We have not gotten to that level.

I am telling my colleagues, I have seen it. The Department of Defense is here, the Department of Justice is here, the Department of State is here. The Department of Defense--probably in frustration, I will say it this way. I said we probably would have been better off just giving everything to the Department of Defense. They are pretty doggone competent in what they do. But the State Department has huge responsibilities in Iraq. Therefore, the Defense Department steps back and they interface, but State has responsibilities, Justice has responsibilities, and Interior has responsibilities in Iraq. Virtually every department and agency does. They are not at the highest level of effectiveness, in my view.

It is not as important, I have to say, for Justice to get a court system up and running as it is for the Defense Department because it is their soldiers at risk if we don't create a good justice system in Iraq.

I thought we needed somebody such as General Lute to go into Iraq, go into Afghanistan, and find out what is going on and be able to tell the President where the problems are. When there is a dispute between agencies, one person can fix it, and that is the President of the United States. He can say: I want it done this way or your resignation tomorrow, Mr. Secretary. Or you and I have had a long friendship over the years. I want this done, you don't want it done. I will get somebody who will get it done.

But how can he know all these different problems that are occurring? How can he personally be on top of it? Likewise for the Secretary of State. She is expected to be in China, to go to Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Europe, Kosovo, South Korea, or Japan. The National Security Adviser has the whole world under his responsibility. He has to be managing all these issues

and personally advising the President. The Secretary of State has to manage all the bureaucracy contained in the State Department.

I guess what I would say to my colleagues, it is obvious to me the National Security Adviser cannot drop all of his or her responsibilities and spend his or her time negotiating problems in Iraq. The President is going to have to designate somebody to do that. He has chosen General Lute who is a man, by all accounts, of extraordinary ability, proven experience in the region, a person who knows the difficulties so he can carefully and with good judgment analyze the different disputes and try to get them settled so we can get on with producing more oil and gas, having water for the citizens, having the sewage system working, having the electricity on, and helping to make sure we have a legal system with sufficient bed spaces to detain criminals.

I discovered that we have one-ninth as many bed spaces in Iraq as we do in my State of Alabama. I saw a similar story for New York. There are not enough places to put the criminals, and we have to increase those places. The bureaucracy is sitting around and not getting that done.

If we catch and release terrorists, they are going to go out and kill again. There have been several articles that have picked up on this situation. I have to say, it has been a theme of mine for 3 years now, and we still haven't gotten the justice system up like we would like it.

I see the Presiding Officer, a former attorney general in his State, Senator Salazar. We were together in Iraq and talked about these issues. I know he shares a genuine concern that things are not being accomplished as fast as possible. So I think that operating in the name of the President to try and find out what difficulties are occurring in Iraq, where the bottlenecks are, and being able to get the parties together in the name of the President--he has no direct authority to order the Department of Justice or the Department of Defense to do anything. But he has the authority given by the President. If they can't agree, he can appeal to the President. He can say: Mr. President, the Department of State wants to do this, the Department of Justice wants to do this, the Department of Defense wants to do this. My recommendation is to do this, but you need to make this decision. Then the President can help eliminate these problems.

The truth is, when somebody such as General Lute says we have a disagreement between State and Justice and I am inclined to say this is the way it ought to be settled, but the President told me, when I call him tomorrow, to let me know if there are any difficulties, I am going to tell him that you two children cannot agree, usually they get together and settle it. They don't want to have the President come in and settle these disputes and get involved. They know he has a lot of issues on his plate.

That is the concept that I think can be helpful in making us more effective in creating the infrastructure, the civil justice system in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby enhancing the ability of those governments in those countries to be successful, therefore enhancing their ability to be effective against terrorists and violence, therefore reducing the threat to our soldiers--that is the bottom line--and increasing their ability to be successful.

I am pleased to support this nomination. I think all the serious questions that have been raised have been answered.

I see my friend and colleague from Virginia. He raises a good point about this matter of a uniformed person being in the executive branch, the political branch, I guess one can call it. We have done it before and, in this case, in my view, that concern, while a legitimate one, I believe is outweighed by the fact that we need help right now and General Lute is the guy who can do it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time remains on this side?

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, if we are waiting for the vote, I was going to quote a few items from General Lute's statement, but otherwise I don't need to do that.

Mr. President, if Senator Levin is comfortable with this, I ask for 3 minutes. If someone comes to the Chamber at 3 and needs to take the floor, I will yield.

Mr. President, we had a hearing with General Lute. Senator Levin presided in his able way, as always. He gave us a short written statement of some of his principles. I thought the American people might appreciate how he approaches this issue.

He spoke to people. He said this about this position:

To a person, those with whom I have spoken conveyed two

clear messages: first, a message of concern for the well-

being and safety of our men and women in harm's way; and

second, that we would all like to see us pursue a course

of action that makes our country safer while safeguarding

our national interests in the region. Surely, this is our

common ground.

He went on to say:

But the stakes for the United States are also high. This

region--where America has vital national interests--will not

succeed if Iraq and Afghanistan do not succeed, and the U.S.

plays a vital role in this cause.

He went on to say this:

No one is satisfied with the status quo: not the Iraqis,

not key regional partners, not the U.S. Government, and not

the American public. To change this, we are in the midst of

executing a shift in course as announced by the President in

January. Early results are mixed. Conditions on the ground

are deeply complex and are likely to continue to evolve--

meaning that we must constantly adapt. Often, measures that

fix one problem in as complex an environment as this reveal

challenges elsewhere.

That is certainly true. General Lute continued:

But one factor remains constant--the dedication and

sacrifice of our men and women, military and civilian,

serving in these combat zones. They are a continuing source

of inspiration to me and to my family.

The position for which I have been nominated is designed

for one fundamental purpose: to advise the President on how

to provide our troops and civilians in the field with

increased focused, full-time, real time, support here in

Washington.

He goes on to say:

The aim is to bring additional energy, discipline, and

sense of urgency to the process. Our troops deserve this

support.

I think that is a good statement, a sense of urgency for all our agencies and departments of Government, not just the military. He concludes this way:

Mr. Chairman, I am a soldier; and our country is at war. It

is my privilege to serve. This position represents a major

personal challenge and I am humbled by the responsibility it

entails. If confirmed, I will give the President my

straightforward, candid, professional advice.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I know Senator Reid has assured people of what is in the bill, but he hasn't read what is in this amendment-- neither has any Senator in this body, I suggest. Only a few staffers have, and there have been tremendous errors made already in the previous amendment they offered. And just to say there have been nothing but minor changes is not something I think Senators ought to rely on.

My good friend, Senator Reid, has always been courteous to me, but we disagree on this issue. He said he wants to make people happy. How about making the American people happy? They oppose this bill overwhelmingly, and yet the leadership here continues to use every parliamentary tactic that we have ever used, and new tactics never before used, to limit debate and move this bill to final passage. I object to that.

I think about our former colleagues, Senator Paul Wellstone and Senator Helms. I wonder how they would feel if it was said: Well, this is unprecedented, we are going to eliminate debate, but I have talked to the leader on the other side, and we two leaders have just decided, since it is bipartisan, we will do that.

Make no mistake about what is being done here, Mr. President. There is no dispute whatsoever. Amendments will not be allowed to be voted on that the majority leader does not personally sign off on. The power to control this process is in the majority leader's hands, and he has met with a group of people who are interested in this legislation and they have agreed to control this process. It has never been done like this before in the history of the Senate to eliminate these amendments. It is not right.

My colleagues, I urge you to understand this is an unprecedented step. It is a step by which the leadership is creating a new tactic that will eliminate the power, the ability of individual Senators to offer amendments and engage in debate.

This is a body of 100. Yes, we have leaders. They have significant authority and we understand that. But that is a limited power and we have always celebrated the great potential of this body that any one Senator can raise an objection, any one Senator can have an amendment voted on.

I tried to offer amendments when the bill was up before. Time and time again they were objected to. Other Senators objected. Why? Because they were able to object to making those amendments pending. Then, when cloture is filed, they are not able to be voted on because they have never been made pending, although they were filed.

This is not a small matter. I do not think our colleagues understand. I see Senator Specter here. He will stand by himself on an issue in which he believes. There are other Senators here who share those same independent views. We do not need to go down this path. I think it is a big mistake.

I would say this: The majority leader said the people want one thing, they want border security. What do we know about this legislation? It does not give us border security. The Congressional Budget Office, our own analysis team, has looked at this bill and concluded in the next 20 years we will have another 8.7 million people in our country illegally. It will only reduce illegal immigration by 13 percent. That is what our own staff, under the majority leader's control, has told us.

I think that is the fundamental thing. I am flabbergasted and amazed our leaders keep telling us this bill is essential to have security. You have to have this amnesty. You have to give up and we will have amnesty. In exchange for that, we will have a legal system that will work in the future.

But it will not work. That is what they said in 1986. Senator Grassley noted on the floor, people in this body do not even say there will not be another amnesty anymore, as they did in 1986, because they know this bill will not create a legal system. There will be 8.7 million more people in our country illegally and the same group will be here, asking for amnesty again. It is a failed system.

Let me add one thing. One thing I have learned in this debate, we can make this immigration system lawful and we can make it work. We ought not to be having a 13-percent reduction in illegality, as the Congressional Budget Office says. We can get to 90, 95 percent reduction of illegality. We can create a system of immigration that serves our national interests. It is within our power to do so. This bill will not do it. We must not go forward with it because it will not work.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object--

Is the proposal--

Mr. President, I have a brief question. I thank the majority leader for his courtesy. I had asked, in exchange for agreeing to a process that kept us from working this past weekend, that I would have 2 hours in the debate today set aside. It is in the agreement. But I am hearing that people want to push that into the wee hours of the night, if not into the morning.

I ask that I have a substantial portion of that before the afternoon is over. What is the status of that negotiation and discussion?

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

Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, the process has not been a pretty one to date. It has been particularly ugly in the last few hours in that we had an amendment yesterday of nearly 400 pages. The people who wrote it apparently found that they made numerous errors which even they were not happy with. They filed another amendment which our Senators don't have a copy of, I don't think even to this moment. At least an hour ago, Senator DeMint was asking for a copy of the amendment so people could see it and actually read what is to be voted on. It is not good, on a matter that almost every American is watching, a matter that is important to our country, to stumble and bumble into this process, and part of the reason, as my good friend and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, said, it would have been better probably had we gone through the committee process. When he was chairman of the committee, it did go through the committee process. It didn't do a lot of good, but at least it was looked at in some of the areas that are inevitably fixed when we go through that kind of process. So I am worried about this process.

The procedure the majority leader has chosen, and he says he has support of some kind from the Republican leadership side--I assume he does--he has chosen to utilize a procedure never before used in this Senate. That procedure will allow the majority leader, Senator Reid, to have the power to approve every amendment that will be offered to this legislation. If it is not part of his clay pigeon, you are not in. If some other amendment is offered and accepted, it is because he decided it is appropriate. He could well accept amendments that he knows are going to fail. He could well accept amendments that he doesn't mind passing. But he picks the amendments. That has never happened in the history of the Senate, never happened in this fashion before.

We must not allow that procedure to happen now. There will be opportunities for us, before this process is over, to execute votes that will demonstrate we don't accept this process, and it should be a big part of any Senator's vote as we go forward with this process.

Mr. President, I have to say to my colleagues, as I indicated to the majority leader earlier, what would Paul Wellstone say, that great liberal advocate, a Senator who enjoyed standing alone, or Senator Jesse Helms, that great conservative who enjoyed standing alone, both doing what they believed was right, something we take great pride in as an institution.

We do not have a lot of power here, but if you don't agree to unanimous consent requests and you are consistent in your advocacy of positions you deeply believe in, you can get a vote. Under this procedure you do not get a vote. I offered amendment after amendment before when this bill was before the Senate. As a result, the leadership on the other side objected. I could not get those amendments pending, and that leaves us unable to get a final vote postcloture.

I am not exaggerating. It has never been done before. It allows the majority leader, under the procedure that is being used today, to completely approve or disapprove of whether an amendment gets voted on. So I object to that process. It is not right. We should not be doing it, and we shouldn't be doing it on a bill that is 750 pages with a 300- or 400-page amendment that goes to some issues that are important to America.

Let me share with my colleagues my concerns about this legislation. I will try to summarize it and go right to the point.

Senator Reid, the President, the President's Cabinet members, leaders of the coalition, this grand bargain group--I call them affectionately the masters of the universe--they all tell us this bill is going to fix illegality, and if we don't vote for this legislation, somehow legality will not happen. A group of us have written to the President asking him to utilize 13 special powers he already has under law that will dramatically reduce illegality in immigration. We have not heard from him.

We could do additional legislation that would help enforcement. I believe that is so. But the bill will not stop illegal immigration and, in fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, June 4, they rendered their report and

they concluded that instead of 10 million people coming into the country illegally as they project under current law, 8.7 million people would be entering our country illegally.

What kind of legislation is this? We have been promised it is going to stop illegality and it only reduces illegality by 13 percent, a fundamental failure, a fundamental misrepresentation to the American people about what this bill will do. It is shocking.

This chart shows that situation. The blue, according to the CBO score over 20 years, the blue shows that 10 million people would be coming into our country at the current rate over the next 20 years. If we pass the bill, the red will occur, 8.7 million people.

Every Senator ought to know what our own Congressional Budget Office has reported. Every Senator who is aware of that cannot go home to their constituents and say: I voted for comprehensive immigration reform to make sure we create a legal system in the future. How can you do that? This can't be done. It is an important issue.

The legislation would double legal immigration. I don't think that is what the American people want or expect. The blue represents current law. The red represents the new bill--and it could be more--and the number of legal permanent resident statuses, the green cards, will double in the next 20 years under this legislation.

I think most people thought we were going to do something to get control of immigration and reduce illegality and reevaluate the numbers who come. Certainly, they don't think we are doubling legal immigration. We also know there are high costs involved. According to the Congressional Budget Office, our study we got back a couple weeks ago, in 10 years this legislation will cost the taxpayers of America in welfare and social benefits $30 billion--this is their number; I didn't make this up--$30 billion. They have been saying this is going to bring in more tax revenue, we are going to legalize people, and they are going to pay taxes. Wrong. It is not going to happen. It is not so. I wish it were so. I wish I could tell my colleagues that the numbers show when this amnesty occurs, everybody is going to pay a lot of taxes and it will help balance our budget. Wrong. It is not going to happen that way. It will cost $30 billion in the first 10 years, and our own Congressional Budget Office says it will be dramatically greater in the next 10 years and increase as the years go by.

It is going to increase the cost to the Treasury and, in fact, let me share with you what the highly regarded Heritage Foundation study found. Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the architect of welfare reform for our country, has been alarmed at the cost of this bill. I am not talking about the cost of Border Patrol agents and barriers and those kinds of items. I am talking about the cost of providing all the social benefits we give to American citizens, to people who came into our country illegally, what it will cost in terms of tax credits, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and the like. If they are all made legal permanent residents, Z card holders, even the temporary visas, they will be entitled to virtually all of these programs.

According to Mr. Rector, over the lifetime retirement years of the 12 million who would be given amnesty under this provision, it will cost the taxpayers of America--hold your hat--$2.6 trillion; over $2 trillion. It is a stunning figure. It is a figure so large that we almost can't comprehend it or think about it. But anybody who tells you that somehow legalizing the people who are here illegally and providing them with every benefit we provide to American citizens is somehow going to add revenue to our Treasury cannot be correct. CBO says no. They say it will be even worse in the outyears. And the Heritage Foundation has calculated the outyears to be over $2 trillion. This is a stunning figure.

I submit that by passing this law, we will provide a path to citizenship for people, for even those people who broke into our country last December 31, running past the National Guard the President called out. If you could get past the National Guard last December, you will be given amnesty under this bill and be placed on a full path to all these benefits and citizenship.

They have been saying we have to help people who have been here for years and have children and deep roots. I am willing to discuss that situation. I don't believe we can ask everybody to leave this country who came here years ago, who have children and roots and are dug in. I am not prepared to ask them to leave--I really am not--and I have said that publicly for some time. But Senator Webb just had an amendment that said if you came here in the last 4 years after we had been talking about this issue, after we have called out the National Guard and made clear we want to do something about it, you don't get on this path, you haven't been here long enough to entitle you to be given amnesty. It was voted down by a substantial vote a few moments ago. His amendment was tabled. It is no longer on the agenda. It will not become law. The current law, what is in the bill, provides amnesty to people who came in last December.

I have talked about, and we have had hearings that I think demonstrate with absolute clarity, this incredibly large flow of immigration into America today is, in fact, depressing wages of American workers. Oh, yesterday, we had this great union debate that we are going to eliminate the secret ballot so people will be forced into unions. My Democratic colleagues had charts showing wages haven't gone up in the last few years. And I am inclined to agree because that is what the experts told us on the immigration question. They told us that wages have not gone up--not because of some oppressive businessperson but because we have allowed millions of people to come into our country to take jobs at lower wages that Americans ought to be paid to do. Those are just the facts.

Professor Borjas of Harvard, himself a Cuban immigrant, at the Kennedy School--and I suggested Senator Kennedy perhaps should walk over there to Harvard from his Boston home and talk to Professor Borjas. Professor Borjas concludes that for people in this country without certain education levels, their wages from 1980 to 2000 have been depressed 8.2 percent.

Anecdotally, I would just note that when I left the Chamber here last Friday, there was a gentleman out here on the street--had gray hair and a gray beard, with a little sign about jobs--and I talked to him. He said he was a master carpenter in Florida and he used to make as much as $75,000 a year--which is not too much money for a master carpenter, in my opinion--but he can hardly make a living today because of an incredible influx of cheap labor that has pulled down the value of his labor.

When I raised this with Senator Kennedy last year in our debate, he said: Well, we are going to raise the minimum wage. Well, how much are we going to raise it? We are going to raise it to $7 an hour. That is not good enough. We want people to make $15 an hour, $20 an hour.

If you want to know why wages haven't gone up for working Americans, ask Professor Borjas at Harvard; Professor Chiswick at the University of Chicago; Alan Tonelson, an expert; and one of the other professors we had actually--I think he was with the Chamber of Commerce group, and he admitted it. The Secretary of Treasury just recently admitted he was concerned about the fact that wage earners were not keeping up with the growth in the economy. That is my opinion. If somebody wants to dispute it, so be it.

I don't think this legislation in any way provides for assimilation to the degree we would like to see it in accordance with our great American heritage of assimilation.

So I think the fundamental issue in this entire debate, the issue that goes to the heart of the question, is whether this Congress and this President really intend to keep the promises they are making. Isn't that the real question? Because in 1986, they spun a beautiful song: one-time amnesty, and we will have law enforcement next.

I ask: Does this bill do what the supporters claim it will? Fundamentally, will it work? Will it secure the border? Senator Reid, just a few moments ago, said what the American people want--they want our borders secure. Well, will it do that? Will it enable us to enforce the law in an effective, diligent, and consistent way that breeds respect for law? Will it clearly reward right behavior and firmly penalize bad behavior? Will it encourage immigration by lawful means, a means that serves our

national interest and not special interests, or will it continue to encourage illegal immigration? Are we just drifting through, once again, a charade, a predictable cycle where every few decades amnesty is rewarded to lawbreakers and enforcement never follows? Would that not be a tragedy?

This Senator has no intention and will not vote for and will oppose in every way he can--and others share this view--a bill that is going to be like 1986, that will fail again. When this cycle occurs again, as I predict it will if this legislation passes, those who ignore our laws will be rewarded; those who dutifully comply will consider themselves to be chumps for going through that process.

In recent days, I have had three people who have entered our country legally, done it correctly, come to me and tell me: Senator, stand in there; we support you. We did it the right way. We don't appreciate these people doing it differently.

There was a good article in the Montgomery Advertiser about a lady named Singh--I assume she is of Indian ancestry--who spent several years, hired a good lawyer, spent $4,250, and eventually got her citizenship, for which she was most proud. She was absolutely crystal clear that she did not appreciate it that other people came into our country illegally and would get the same privileges she got that she had to work hard for doing it the correct way. I think there is a moral order here that we need to respect. Repeated amnesties erode a moral approach to the law of this country.

In the past 2 months, we have heard other Senators and the President make promises that this is going to work. The political elite have all said to our top magazines and newspapers that they promise real enforcement will begin following the passage of this bill. They promise this bill will decrease illegal immigration, it will secure the border, and reform our legal immigration system to better serve the national interests. That is a great promise. If that is what this bill did, I would be for it. In fact, I was quoted in the paper several times this spring when I heard the masters of the universe, our friends who tried to write this bill, promise those very principles. I said that those are principles that are getting close to something I can support. I am really interested in it. But as I read it and studied it, I became more and more discouraged, and as independent critics and other experts examined it, they indicated the same.

So will the promises be fulfilled? That is a question I would like to discuss today. Remember this: Even in 1986, President Reagan was the President, and he was a law-and-order man, and when the bill passed in 1986, what did he emphasize? Did he emphasize the amnesty they granted? No, because people were dubious about that. He emphasized the future law enforcement--and this is so familiar today--and he said:

It is high time we regained control of our borders, and

Senator Alan Simpson's bill will do this.

Well, President Reagan was wrong. We had 3 million people here illegally then. Now we are talking about providing amnesty to 12 million, maybe 20 million. It didn't work. Nobody had the Congressional Budget Office score at that time, our own Congressional Budget Office which tells us this bill won't work and we are going to have another 8.7 million people enter our country in the next 20 years.

At least we have been warned this time. Why shouldn't that cause us to pause? Why shouldn't that cause us to give a decent respect to the opinions of our own constituents who strongly oppose the bill and have great doubts about it? Why don't we pull back, rethink it, and begin to do what one of the pollsters suggested the American people are saying, which is take some smaller steps incrementally, emphasizing enforcement? That is what I would suggest we should do.

I would like to make this point. Even if President Bush--who has done some things in recent years that are better than we have had done in a number of years but still isn't using all the powers of his office-- even if he kept the promises he is making, he is not going to be in the White House after another 18 months. Somebody else is going to be there. There will be a new Congress here. So the test is really going to be when these trigger events are met, and that will be in 2009 when we will have a new President in office.

Now, let's think about this: Some of the Democratic candidates already oppose the core components of the bill, such as the merit-based system, like Canada's. Governor Richardson and Senator Obama--if they win the Presidency, are we going to assume they will fulfill the promises made by this administration? It won't be their priority.

Let us talk in a little more detail about this No. 1 issue which is so critical: Will we secure the border, and is this legislation going to help?

The bill proponents all make the same claims--that without this bill, the border cannot be secured. But if we pass the bill, they say, we will secure the border. Essentially, they are claiming that enforcement can't be done unless we get amnesty and enforcement. They also claim to be adding 18,000 Border Patrol officers, increasing the detention bedspace, and expanding fencing. Now, you have heard that said. Of course, I want to remind everyone we passed a law which already requires that last year. In my view, that is not contingent on this bill being passed. And I will go into that in some detail.

In its first articulated principle about the immigration legislation, the White House PowerPoint that was shown to Senators this spring--and that was intriguing to those of us who have been concerned about creating a lawful system of immigration--the PowerPoint promised ``to secure U.S. borders'' and ``not to repeat the 1986 failure.''

Senator Kennedy, at the famous press conference just about a month ago, said this:

The agreement we have reached is the best possible chance

we will have in years to secure our borders.

Best chance in years.

In this legislation, we are doubling the border patrol, we

are increasing detention space.

Senator McCain said this:

This legislation will finally accomplish the extraordinary

goal of security at our borders.

Another Senator:

I am delighted we are going to secure the border.

Another one:

It will make sure our borders become secure. We have had

broken borders in this country for 20 years. It is time to

get them fixed. This bill will do that.

Another:

What happens if we fail? Our borders continue to be broken

at a time when we need to secure our country.

That is what they all said. Oh, gosh. Well, let's talk about it. They said: Well, we started out in this legislation with 18,000 additional Border Patrol officers; we will increase detention capacity to 27,500 beds; and another one--this is former Governor Jed Bush and Ken Melman--``It doubles the border patrol and expands the border fence.'' That is what they said in their May 31 Wall Street Journal Open Borders editorial. It doubles the Border Patrol and expands the border fence.

Maybe these people think this. All right. Let's see if we can get this straight. Before we address whether this bill actually will secure the border, it is important to clarify for the record that the bill does not require a doubling of the Border Patrol, it does not require more bed space than required by current law, and it does not require more fence than current law requires. If anybody doesn't agree with that, come on down and show me that I am wrong. This is a promotion.

What about agents? The bill does not add 18,000 Border Patrol agents, Senators. When these statements were made, the trigger only required that a total of 18,000 Border Patrol agents be hired.

Since then, Senator Judd Gregg got the number up to 20,000. I think we have that. So we are close to that number now. We are close to 18,000 now and are already on track to have that number hired by the end of 2008, so no more Border Patrol agents are required to be hired under this bill's enforcement trigger than current law requires. Those of you who want to see enforcement are not being given anything on Border Patrol officers.

What the bill does do for agents outside the trigger is add 6,000 to the total authorized level by requiring 2,400 agents to be hired in 2011, and again in

2012, and increasing the numbers that are supposed to be hired in 2008, 2009, 2010, from 2,000 to 2,400 per year. In other words, we are already projected to hire 2,000; they say we will add 2,400 a year.

Current law authorization only went through 2010 at 2,000 a year, so this bill does increase the authorization by about 30 percent. But it certainly does not require an actual doubling of the Border Patrol, and a 30-percent increase is not in the trigger. The reason that is important is, if it is not required as part of the trigger that kicks off the amnesty and the permanent residence, then appropriators in the future are not likely to do it. I can give you a string of examples of us authorizing Border Patrol, authorizing fencing, and never coming up with the money to fund it.

What about bedspace? What is inside the trigger? The claim the bill increases the detention bedspace is factually false. The bill does nothing more than current law. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004 requires that 43,000 beds be in place by the end of this year. In 2004 we require 43,000 bedspaces by the end of 2007. The enforcement trigger contained in this bill, though it improved a bit after the Gregg amendment, still only requires 31,500 beds. It really weakens the number.

What about bedspace outside the trigger? Even with the bill's latest section on bedspace found outside the trigger, which requires the eventual addition of 20,000 beds, the bill still only gets to 38,000 beds, still below current law. So that is a problem.

Let me mention the fencing. We hear so much about that. The claim that the bill expands the border fence is also not true. The trigger requires only the building of 370 miles of fencing. Listen to me now. The trigger--the thing that was set up to make sure it happened, knowing how in the outyears things never get funded and seldom get funded and are unlikely to get funded, we were trying to mandate that with the trigger--it only requires 370 miles of fencing. Current law since last year's enactment of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 requires the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the southern border.

In a recent column published in the National Review, Deroy Murdock asked:

Americans who want secure borders wonder why the 700-mile

southern frontier fence Congress authorized last year, of

which only 12 miles have been built to date, stretches only

370 miles.

All I am saying to my colleagues is, we in the Senate have been around here a long time. We have heard how these things go, and we know a song and dance when we see one. But if you read the bill carefully you will conclude that the promises, though promises that sound so good, are not reality. They were absolutely headed to a failure, just like the Congressional Budget Office said, of almost as much illegality in immigration in the next 20 years as we had in the last 20 years-- only a 13-percent reduction. It is just not sufficient.

I see my colleague from Texas, Senator John Cornyn, one of our most able Members, who is exceedingly knowledgeable about this issue. He is a member of the Judiciary Committee. Of course, he was a former attorney general in Texas and a member of the Texas Supreme Court. I value his judgment. Out of the time left to me, I will yield--how much time would the Senator request? First, let me ask how much time is left?

I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Senator Bunning from Kentucky is here and desires to speak on this legislation. I thank him for his comments previously and for his clarity of thought on the issue.

How long does the Senator desire to speak?

I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky. On this question, this fundamental promise by our friends, whom I refer to affectionately as the masters of the universe, that we would secure the border--what does our expert congressional arm say about it? What does the Congressional Budget Office say about it? They say, no, it will not. Senator Cornyn and Senator Bunning have pointed out a number of things that are weaknesses with the bill. Will this weakness and other items they talked about in the bill actually secure the border? According to CBO, the new Senate bill will only reduce the annual illegal immigration by 13 percent. Illegal inflow at the border will be reduced by approximately 25 percent, but that will be substantially offset by increased additional visa overstays, almost over a half million in the next 10 years. According to CBO, the net result will be only a 1.3 million reduction in new illegal immigrants over the next 20 years. Because we expect under current law 10 million to come over that period illegally--that is a lot--enactment would reduce that expectation to 8.7 million new additional illegal immigrants by 2027. Out of 10 million, we have 8.7 million. I ask my colleagues, is that securing the border? Is that effecting a legal and lawful and effective immigration system? I suggest it is not. There is no way you can say it otherwise.

One of the key things of an effective immigration system is the US- VISIT exit system. That is not affected in this. I have talked about that some, but I won't go back into that.

I see my colleague from Louisiana here, Senator Vitter. He is an outstanding lawyer who has spent a great deal of his time and energy studying these 700 pages and trying to get the amendment of 370 or so pages so he can study it and help decide what it will do. I see Senator Vitter is here. I am pleased to yield to him 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Louisiana.

Let me say what I believe is not in dispute. The procedure Majority Leader Reid has chosen to utilize is a procedure never before utilized in the Senate. They say: You are just saying it is unfair. Everybody says things are unfair.

The reason this is more than a question of fairness is because it is a transfer, an arrogation of power to the leadership by which, for the first time in the history of the Senate, the majority leader will be able to approve or disapprove whether a Senator gets a vote on an amendment. If one wanted to do that up until this time, since the founding of our Republic, they stayed down here and didn't agree to unanimous consent requests. They stood their guns. It might not be easy, but one could get a vote. They could talk about what they wanted to talk about. But this process by which the leadership will select a limited number of amendments, place them in this clay-pigeon maneuver and only those amendments get voted on and every other amendment is rejected, is unprecedented in the Senate.

I had a senior Member of the Senate come up to me with some alarm not long ago this morning and say: You need to be able to get amendments.

I don't think we have thought this through. It is dawning on me how significant this is. I said earlier: What would Paul Wellstone say? What would Jesse Helms say? What would other Senators say, individual Senators who are proud of the ability--seldom used, perhaps--they could utilize to raise a point that they believe in, even if everybody else disagrees. That is part of our heritage. It will be eroded if we go through this process.

I know my time is up. I appreciate the personal courtesies of the majority leader. He has always been courteous to me. In this instance, a bad decision has been made. Hopefully it will be rectified in some fashion one way or the other by denying cloture on the legislation.

Madam President, I will be pleased to use 30 minutes now, and will reserve the remainder of my time, if I could.

Madam President, we are in the process of dealing with a very important issue. A number of our colleagues--in some ways dismissive, I think, of the concerns of the American public--refer it to as an emotional issue. I think it is more than an emotional issue. I think it is a serious issue that requires our serious concern. It requires that this great Senate, on a matter of tremendous importance to our Nation and to our constituents, do it correctly.

I love my colleagues who met to try to write this bill. I believe their hearts were correct. But they are not law enforcement officers. They have not investigated and prosecuted cases. They apparently were inundated with information and ideas, and so forth, from special interest groups and others.

I have said I wish the American people had been in the room. I wish the head of our Border Patrol association had been in the room or perhaps the chief of Border Patrol during President Reagan's tenure or the chief of Border Patrol during former President Bush's tenure. All of those people, including the current chairman of the association of retired Border Patrol officers, have criticized this bill in the most severe manner, saying it is a slap in the face to people who followed the law, saying it will not work, saying the 24-hour name check is not going to work at all, and will not provide security to our country, that it will actually be a benefit to terrorists. I am not saying this; they said this. It would be a benefit to terrorists. One called it the ``Terrorist Relief Act,'' or something to that effect.

What I want to tell my colleagues is, the professionals who deal with these issues absolutely oppose this legislation. Now, we can dismiss that. Maybe you talk to somebody from some news outlet or talk to somebody from some business group or some activist organization, and maybe you have a different view. But the people who enforce the laws every day oppose this legislation.

They do not believe it will work. I suggest it will be demoralizing to them.

Our own Congressional Budget Office has analyzed the legislation. We have them for our use. We rely on that organization. It operates under the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the majority leader here, and all of us. It is a bipartisan group. But the Congressional Budget Office has analyzed our current law and concluded that if current law is not changed, we will have 10 million more illegal immigrants in our country in the next 20 years. We have 12 million now, maybe 20 million. But we would have 10 million more under current law. They say if this legislation were to be passed, we would have some reduction of illegality at the border--not much--but we would have an increase in visa overstays because we have so many temporary guest worker programs going on, and the net result would be that this Nation would only have a reduction of 13 percent in the illegal flow of immigrants into our country. Indeed, there would be 8.9 million more persons illegally in our country 20 years from now than today.

Now, what does that say about my good and well-intentioned colleagues who are trying to tell us all that the thing is going to work, that if you do not pass this amnesty, if you do not give these benefits to people who came here illegally, then you will not get enforcement?

Well, we are not getting enforcement, everyone. The bill does not provide enforcement--not in any significant way that would allow us to proceed effectively.

We had hearings in our committees that dealt with the question of the impact of large numbers of foreign workers on the wages of American workers. It is not, I think, subject to dispute. At the current rate we are going, at the current rate of immigration, legal and illegal, wages of lower income Americans are being adversely affected. Professor Borjas at Harvard, who has written a most authoritative technical book on immigration at the Kennedy School, has said it has brought down the wage of low-income workers 8 percent. That is a lot. That is a lot, an 8-percent decline in wages. In many areas, it could be even greater than that, I suspect. It is pretty understandable that it would happen. If you bring in more cotton in this country, if you bring in more cotton, you will have a lower price for cotton. If you bring in corn, you will have a lower price for corn. If you bring in large amounts of labor, it will pull down the value of a working man's hourly wage. So I am concerned about that.

My colleagues have said a number of times that by getting this--Madam President, there is a little bit of a buzz.

So we have a number of questions that cause us concern. I talked about wages. Let me mention the rule of law.

Our Nation is founded on law. Edmund Burke, when he talked about reconciliation between the Colonies and the King, asked that there not be a war against the Colonies. He said: They follow us in law. He even said: I understand the Colonies have more copies of Blackstone's Commentaries on the law than they have in England.

We have always been a nation of laws. It is our strength. We should not create a system that will not restore that law, even at our borders; otherwise, we are going to have a difficult situation.

Under this bill, we carefully looked at the number. I don't think anyone will dispute it. The level of legal immigration will double-- double the amount of legal immigration. That is a number I don't think most Americans understand. I think they are worried about the current level, which is at about the highest this Nation has ever had--highest by far in real numbers we have ever had--and it is going to double, without any reduction in illegal immigration. So this is a bargain, a grand bargain we should not take. If we do, I think we will regret it because the American people are not going to be happy with us.

By the way, the polls continue to show that our constituents overwhelmingly oppose this legislation. A decent respect for our own constituents, even if we might think them wrong, on an issue of this importance where they are so decidedly hostile to this legislation suggests we ought to slow down and listen to them and talk with them about what their concerns are and make sure when we go back home and campaign and seek reelection, we can look them in the eye and say: I heard your concern, and I fixed that concern, or I believe the legislation answers your concern.

But here we have a completely new bill that has been plopped down on the Senate floor, first with over 700 pages, and then I guess last night there was a 370-page amendment, and that had so many errors in it that even the sponsors themselves have plopped down another amendment of 403 pages. They want to vote that through right away. I don't think that is what we owe our constituents.

They say: Well, we have had 2 years of debate, and all that. We had a bill last year that was quite different from this one. It had some things in it better than this one. I thought this year's bill was going to be better, and said it was better several times, but it actually--as I have studied it, I am not sure it is any better. It is weaker in a number of different areas. For sure, it is weaker in a number of different areas. So that is a matter we should consider as we go forward with this legislation. I think we ought to give careful attention to what we are doing.

I want to address one more very important matter that very fine Senators have raised. They have suggested one of the best things that is going to be happening with this legislation is everybody will be given an identification, and the Nation will be safer for that. Therefore, even if the bill is not perfect and has lots of problems, let's vote for it anyway because it has that in it. Let me share some thoughts with my colleagues on that issue.

Michael Cutler, who is a retired INS--Immigration and Naturalization Service--senior agent, participated in a press conference last Thursday at the National Press Club. It focused on the grave threat to national security the immigration bill represents. He also authored an op-ed in the Washington Times last Friday entitled ``Immigration Bill a No Go.'' This is an experienced INS agent. He focused on the security question in the bill: Does it make us safer? This is what he said. I doubt our good friends who met in secret and wrote this bill asked his opinion, but this is what he says after reading it:

If a person--

Let me quote:

If a person lies about his or her identity and has never been

fingerprinted in our country, what will enable the

bureaucrats at the USCIS--

That is who will be checking his 24-hour background----

the bureaucrats at USCIS to know that person's true identity?

If the adjudicators simply make a fictitious identity through

a computerized database, they will simply find the name has

no known connection to any criminal or terrorist watch list.

What is the value of that? Remember, we are talking about a

false name. There is absolutely no way this program would

have even a shred of integrity and the identity documents

that would be given these millions of illegal aliens would

enable every one of them to receive a driver's license,

Social Security card, and other such official identity

documents in a false name. Undoubtedly, terrorists would be

among those applying to participate in this ill-conceived

program. They would then be able to open bank accounts and

obtain credit cards in that false name. Finally, these cards

would enable these aliens to board airlines and trains even

if their true names appear on all of the various terrorist

watch lists and no-fly lists. That is why I have come to

refer to this legislation as the ``Terrorist Assistance and

Facilitation Act of 2007.''

Do you get it? Unless you already happen to be fingerprinted and you come here and you are a known terrorist and you give a false name with some false electric bill, they will give you this temporary visa and you get an ID then. Before, if you are illegal, you would have a hard time getting a bank account or a Social Security card or a driver's license. Now, you are given one. You can travel all over the country with no problems. That is what he is saying. So in many ways, it is going to facilitate a dangerous situation.

How about this gentleman, Mr. Kris Kobach, a former Department of Justice attorney under Attorney General Ashcroft, who specialized in the Department of Justice in terrorism and immigration issues and who has spoken out often and is a college professor

now. He agrees with Mr. Cutler. He posted an article on the Heritage Foundation Web site titled ``The Senate Immigration Bill: A National Security Nightmare.'' He says:

The bill will make it easier for alien terrorists who

operate in the United States by allowing them to create

fraudulent identities with ease. Supporters of the Senate's

comprehensive immigration reform bill have revived it under

the guise of national security. However, the new public

relations campaign is a farce. The bill offers alien

terrorists new pathways to obtain legal status, which will

make it easier for them to carry out deadly attacks against

American citizens. The top priority in this bill is extending

amnesty as quickly and as easily as possible to as many

illegal aliens as possible. The cost of doing so is to

jeopardize national security.

That is Mr. Kris Kobach who has testified before Congress a number of times, former Assistant Attorney General specializing in immigration and national security issues.

So I urge my colleagues to look at this bill because we don't need to pass a piece of legislation that we can't defend to our constituents, that we cannot tell our constituents with confidence it will make them safer. It will reduce illegality dramatically at the border 13 percent; 80, 90, 95 percent is the goal we should have to reduce illegality, and that should be the beginning point. We can get there. We don't need to pass a piece of legislation that is going to double the legal flow, not reduce the illegal flow, and end up having the wages of Americans further diminished by this incredibly large flow of low-skilled, low- wage workers. We don't need to further erode the morale of our Border Patrol officers and erode American confidence in the rule of law.

Those are my thoughts. I hope we will give this serious consideration as we make our judgment tomorrow about whether we should proceed. If we don't proceed tomorrow, that is not the end. Of course, we are going to consider this bill and this issue--continue to consider it. Polling data suggests the American people, what they want us to do, is to take incremental steps focusing on enforcement.

Why don't we just do that? We might could get that done. That would be what I suggest.

Also, one more time, I urge my colleagues to give the most serious consideration to the procedure by which we are moving forward with this legislation. People have said it is unfair. I think it is unfair, but it is more than unfair. It is a historic departure from the traditions of the Senate. The leader of this Senate is arrogating to himself the ability to approve every single amendment that is voted on. No amendment can be voted on the leader does not approve. That is the way this clay pigeon has been set up. That has never been done before. Any Senators willing to come down here and battle and hold out and not give up can get his amendments up and voted on. I think it is a matter that most of us haven't fully comprehended yet. I think Senators who are proud of the great ability of individual Senators, when they feel strongly about an issue--it doesn't happen often--but they can stand up and make sure their amendments get voted on, and they have an opportunity to speak.

Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time and note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I will yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from Iowa.

I understand this would be time allotted to me. The Senator does still have his entitlement to speak on his amendment when that appropriate time comes.

Reserving the right to object, under the circumstances and the nature of the amendment, I am prepared to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Iowa from the balance of my time.

No, I object, Madam President. If the Senator is going to be speaking on his amendment, it is not mine. I don't like his amendment. I am going to give him 5 minutes out of courtesy. I am disappointed that the Senator from Arizona would not be able to respond.

The Senator from Iowa looks at me. The majority leader won't allow you to speak. I was trying to give you 5 minutes.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what is the plan for debate time in the morning prior to the cloture vote? I have been involved in the debate and would like to be involved in having some opportunity to speak in the morning prior to the vote, if that would be appropriate.

How does that happen when they both agree on this bill?

They both agreed. That is the problem. Is there any time set aside for the opposition?

I ask for 10 minutes.

That will be fine.

Mr. President, is it now appropriate that I utilize a few of the minutes I have remaining--I am not going to use them all-- before we adjourn? Is that what we agreed to?

Mr. President, this has been a very important day, a day that was pretty contentious. The procedural mechanism that the Majority Leader had invoked to control the debate in the Senate had its wheels come off today. The plan by the group, the grand bargainers and the leadership, was to push through a controlled series of 27 or so amendments today. The plan was to vote on this controlled group of hand picked amendments, mostly by motions to table, today. Had they voted on all of these amendments today we would have heard claims about the full and fair amendment process that had taken place this week--even though it was all just a show--no amendment would have gotten a vote unless the Majority Leader had approved it. My amendments, Senator Cornyn's amendments, and amendments by Senators Dole, Vitter, Coburn, and DeMint would not have gotten votes.

Well, the Baucus amendment was part of their plan but a surprise happened, it was not tabled. As a result, that amendment remained alive and the majority leader had the plan that had been so carefully constructed, almost to the degree of the Normandy invasion, come to a halt. So we are now no longer voting and debating tonight. But we will be getting ready for a key vote in the morning. So I would say to anyone who might be listening, tomorrow morning is a very important vote. I believe a number of Senators who voted yesterday to move forward on this bill, some of the 64 who did, may not be for the legislation tomorrow.

I firmly believe that as the legislation and debate has gone along this week, more people have seen the fatal flaws that are in the legislation. I think we are going to see an erosion of the support tomorrow. I would say to my colleagues, let's end this tomorrow. Let's have this bill come down tomorrow. Let's not invoke cloture. Let's not continue to move forward on this bill because the legislation cannot be fixed in its present form.

I have had some people ask me, Jeff, why can't you compromise on this legislation? Why can't a compromise be reached? Well, I would just say that if you are trying to fix a leaky bucket, you can't compromise to fix the bucket by fixing four holes in the bucket and leaving six more holes in the bucket. Under that compromise, all of the water is still going to leak out.

The problem with the immigration bill currently before the Senate, and I have seen this problem repeatedly in the immigration realm, is that when we come up with provisions and concepts that would actually work, ones that would restore lawfulness to the immigration system, we pull back, we compromise too much. In my own mind, it has been like trying to jump across a 10-foot cavern, but only jumping 9 feet. You still fall to the bottom. You do not get across, you do not achieve your goal.

Until we complete some of the currently inadequate enforcement provisions, until we draft a bill that will create a legal system that will actually work, compromising about this or that matter is not going to amount to much.

The bill, I do believe, as I have indicated before, is only going to reduce illegal immigration by a net 13 percent over the next 20 years. That number comes straight from the Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate on this bill, which they released June 4th, I did not make it up. Our own Congressional Budget Office, has told the Senate that we can expect to have an additional 8.7 million people illegally in our country after this bill becomes law.

That is not what we had been promised by the grand bargainers that brought this bill back to the floor. That is not what they are claiming will happen. They have promised us that this bill will secure the border. I assume that they mean they believe this bill will end illegal immigration. Well, it just simply will not secure the border and end or even substantially reduce illegal immigration. The Congressional Budget Office has told us it will not. In the beginning, I analyzed the bill and my staff worked on it, and we did not believe it would be an effective enforcement mechanism. The Congressional Budget Office has now also concluded that the bill will not fulfil the

enforcement promises being made on the floor of this Senate.

I will note again that the Association of Retired Border Patrol Agents roundly criticized the legislation. Two former chiefs of the Border Patrol of the United States, one of them under President Bush, one under President Reagan, have strongly and totally condemned the legislation.

The current Association of Border Patrol Officers opposes the legislation. The former Assistant Attorney General, Kris Kobach, who served in the as counsel to Attorney General Ashcroft on issues dealing with immigration and national security says this bill will not make us safer but will make us less safe. So does Mr. Cutler, a former INS agent of many years of experience. He is worried that we will be issuing U.S. government identities to people who we have no idea who they really are.

So, bottom line, the bill is not going to do what supporters are promising it will do. Those of us who were not in the little group of grand bargainers certainly have no responsibility to affirm the deal they may have reached, especially if we know that it is not going to work.

If the bill before us was a good piece of legislation and it solved the problems it claims to solve, then maybe we would just have to hold our noses and live with this sort of secret pressure that our good friends, the masters of the universe, have put on us by meeting and writing up a bill and telling us we have to take it or leave it. They tell us they will only allow a few little amendments, but anything that goes to the core of the legislation we will not allow you to change. They tell us they are all going to stick together and vote against it amendments that offer any real changes to the deal.

I have had members of the group say to me, and I find this very disturbing: Well, Jeff, that is a pretty good amendment you have, but it changes what we agreed on. I might agree with your amendment, but I cannot support your amendment. That is a rather unusual way to do business on the floor of the Senate, it is not a way of doing business that should make us proud, not one that is worthy of a matter of this importance.

Constituents all across the country are opposed to this legislation. I think I earlier said 20 percent support it. I think more accurately it is 22 percent that support this legislation. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, there has been a continual drop in support for the last 3 consecutive weeks in the tracking they have been doing.

Twice as many said they prefer no legislation at all to the bill that is before us today. We have been told by our colleagues promoting this legislation, that the only way to get the enforcement we want, is to vote for this legislation. Well, I don't think that all enforcement items should be held hostage to amnesty, and I have just explained why the enforcement they promise is not going to work.

The bill does have some concepts that are fairly significant. For example, the idea that people get legal status in the form of the probationary benefits visa a mere 24 hours after filing an amnesty application is very significant. These are legal documents we will be giving them, a certification that a person is in our country legally. It can then be utilized to get a state driver's license, a Social Security card, and those kind of things.

So the only thing that is going to be done before people are given this document just 24 hours after filing an application is a cursory background check. I submit to my colleagues that a full background check can not possibly be performed within 24 hours. The only way an amnesty application will not get legal status in 24 hours is if they had been arrested and fingerprinted somewhere in the country, and their fingerprints have been put into the national fingerprint index. That is really the only thing that will disqualify them within that 24 hour period.

But I wish my colleagues would think back to 9/11. Several of the 9/ 11 hijackers were stopped by state and local police at various times prior to 9/11 for speeding or such and each time they were let go by local law enforcement. Local law enforcement was now aware that some of them were here illegally. In the future, all of these 12 million would be given an identification document that would give them legal status, so, in fact, their position would be enhanced to an even greater status than the 9/11 hijackers. They would have U.S. government issued identification and a driver's license. They could travel the whole country with freedom under these documents.

So Mr. Kris Kobach and Mr. Mike Cutler and others have written op-eds and editorials that point out that this could be a tremendous advantage for terrorists, not a disadvantage.

These are complex issues. I think it would be better if our wise colleagues had invited somebody like Mr. Kobach, who is a professor of law now, a former Assistant Attorney General, to speak on these issues. Maybe they should have sought his opinion instead of the special interests they were listening to when they cobbled together this political deal.

Maybe they would have been better off if they asked some of experts, such as the former chairmen of the Border Patrol, what they thought, or the present head of the Border Patrol Association.

SO, the question is, what do we need to do now? The first thing we need to do is take this bill off the agenda tomorrow by defeating the cloture motion. Let's just end this agony, please. Let's not continue down this path. Let's say: No, it is time to pay a decent respect to the opinions of our constituents. They do not like this. Let's respect them. Let's acknowledge that independent experts say this bill will not work. This is not just the opinions of some radio talk show hosts, as I have heard my colleagues talking about this week, but we have independent experts saying it will not work. I will just observe that the radio talk show hosts know more about the bill than most of the Senators do, if you want to know the truth.

But at any rate, this is where we are. I think we ought to come down with it. We should probably follow what the people have suggested in the polling data that I saw. The American people would favor incremental steps emphasizing enforcement. There are some things that we could do to achieve what the American people want. I suggest that if we can come up with a credible enforcement mechanism--and we can--then we need to enact it. Then we can begin to talk about the future flow in immigration levels. I don't think most people know--I am not sure most Senators have fully understood--this bill over the next 20 years will double the number of people given green cards, legal permanent residence in America. It will double the current numbers. It has only a 13-percent reduction in the 500,000 or so who come illegally every year. Remember, it was last year when we arrested 1 million people coming into our country illegally. What kind of system is this when our Border Patrol agents are out there working their hearts out and risking their lives to arrest a million people and we want to give immigration benefits for those that snuck past our agents?

That type of immigration system does not work. The way to make it work is for this Nation to state with crystal clarity that our border is not open anymore. Don't bother to try to illegally cross our border. People are coming from all over the world, not just Mexico, to sneak across the Mexican border, because it is wide open in their thoughts and it has been easier to get into the United States that way. It is not that difficult to create the reality that it is not open, and people will not spend their money trying to go through deserts and so forth to get into this country if the word gets out that it is no longer possible to be successful at it. That is what we need to do, reach that tipping point. We could see a big drop in the flow of illegal immigrants into our country. Then we could focus on a compassionate solution to those who have been here for a long time, who have children and families and have jobs and solid ties to our country. But the legislation before us today moved the date by which you could make claim for legal status from January of 2004 to January of 2007. Basically, no illegal alien is left behind; everybody is going to be a participant in this deal. I was stunned at that. Senator Webb offered an excellent amendment today on that point to say it ought to go back 4 years. Why would we do that? The reason that is important is because we made an announcement that we were going to close the

border down. The President said so. He looked the American people in the eye and said we were going to do this. He called out the National Guard last year, and the National Guard has been at the border, I guess, now over a year.

This bill would say, if you got past the National Guard before last December 31, then you are in the pot. And the argument that I have heard is that we need to do something about the people who have been here for a long time. They have children. They are deeply embedded in the communities. We can't ask them to leave. But what about a person who ran past the National Guard last December? How can that person be deeply embedded in our society after sneaking in after we have said that the border is no longer open? What do you tell our Border Patrol officers when they are out there trying to enforce the law and somebody just got past them last November and now they are free and on the path to receiving some type of permanent status? Congress just says: Forget it, those who snuck past the border six months ago are going to be given a legal status and a path to citizenship.

These concerns should not be lightly dealt with. Politicians can meet and plot and think, but you have to remember what we are doing here. This is a great nation. A great nation creates laws. That nation should see that those laws are enforced and followed through effectively. If the laws are not enforced then that nation loses respect. Its law officers lose respect. Instead, people who are inclined to violate laws are encouraged. Clearly, the nation will have more violations if that nation doesn't enforce the laws it passed. The bottom line is that this bill evidences a lack of commitment to make sure that the system that is getting established will work any better than the old one. So if we are not able to establish with confidence and clarity and conviction a new system of immigration that we intend to enforce, what is the point of legislating another immigration bill that won't achieve those goals?

But the American people aren't ready to quit. If any Senator doubts that, I suggest they sit at their front desk a while and answer the phone. That is the deal. We need as a nation to make a decision, are we going to create a lawful system of immigration or not? That is the question. This bill answers it in the negative. This bill is not going to create a legal system. To pass it is one more indication of our lack of will and commitment. It will breed cynicism and unhappiness among our constituents.

I thank the Chair for its patience allowing me to wrap up. I do believe the last vote on the Baucus amendment that did not table the amendment sent a signal that Senators are frustrated and uneasy about this process. I do believe more and more Senators, some of whom voted for cloture just yesterday, may not vote for cloture tomorrow.

I urge my colleagues not to worry. The issue is not going away. We have had it going since 1986. Just because this grand compromise by the grand compromisers didn't work does not mean we don't have a problem that needs to be fixed. But next time let's make sure we do it right for our country.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.