Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I will be offering some amendments to the Homeland Security bill that I think are important. I thank Senator Gregg for his leadership and his interest and his hard work in meeting some of the demands of this Nation with regard to homeland security. Unfortunately, we have not been able to meet all of those demands.

America, we have a problem, a very real problem.

This Senate and its action concerning immigration with relation to the bill that just passed this Senate is beginning to create a circumstance that in every respect looks like 1986, the year we passed the last immigration bill. We must not allow a repeat of 1986. This Senator will do all that he can to see that does not happen.

It goes to the very heart of our service in this Senate. It goes to the integrity of the Senate. It goes to the respect with which we want to be held by our constituents around this country. We must not repeat what happened in 1986. We must not allow a repeat of the 1986 immigration bill.

Back when the immigration bill started moving through the Judiciary Committee, I raised this very point. It came about in an interesting way. I offered an amendment in the committee

to expand bed space. It was accepted. I offered another amendment, and it was accepted. I began to think: It is easy to authorize, isn't it? It is very easy to pass a bill that authorizes more bed space. It is very easy to pass a bill that authorizes a fence to be built along the border to improve our security. It is easy to authorize more Federal agents to be hired, more workplace enforcement to be put in place. It is easy to authorize the expansion of the US-VISIT Program, which is central to an entry-and-exit system. It is easy to authorize interior enforcement agents around the country.

But an authorization is merely an authorization. Those agents do not get hired, they will not be paid, the VISIT system will not be in place, the fences will not be built until money is appropriated. This is the bill we would expect that appropriation to take place.

That is the problem we have. The bill does provide some additional expenditures for Homeland Security and for border enforcement and for other things. For that we are grateful. But the big matters that go to the heart of whether we are going to have a lawful system have not been funded adequately. It is something we have to confront and deal with in an effective way.

In 1986, we promised we would just have amnesty one time. It was the amnesty to end all amnesties, unlike today, when we deny we are offering amnesty. In fact, the proposal we passed in the Senate does just that. It is very similar to 1986.

What was the promise? The promise is we will have enforcement in the future and we will not need another amnesty. They said in 1986 it was an amnesty to end all amnesties. That was the argument. That is what we tried to do. That is what they tried to do at the time.

What happened? The promises that were made about enhanced enforcement did not occur. I point out, 2 million people were expected to claim amnesty; 1.5 million people were expected to claim amnesty. When it concluded, 3 million people had claims. Almost double the number of people came forward to claim the amnesty, many of them with fraudulent documents and inadequate proof. But they got it because it could not be disproved, and the numbers were so large.

That system did not work well, but the amnesty was part of the immigration bill. It became law. Everyone entitled to that amnesty got it. It openly was called amnesty. I note for the record that Black's Law Dictionary, in its definition of the word ``amnesty,'' lists the 1986 immigration bill as one of its definitions.

These people got their legal status, their citizenship track, the benefits of welfare, earned-income tax credit, and all the other benefits that accrue for people in the United States, but the enforcement never came.

Remember, we said it was not going to happen again not too long ago, just 20 years ago. Where are we today? We now have an estimated 11 million people in our country illegally. We say we have to do something about this, but we cannot call it amnesty. But we will create this little system where they pay $1,000 or $2,000 and they are on a track to full citizenship--but it is not amnesty. Mind you, there is hardly any difference between what we did in 1986, but this year it is not popular to talk about amnesty because people have been around the country listening to their constituents, and the people of America are not happy with amnesty. They do not like it.

Many Members of this Senate have promised not to vote for amnesty. So all they do when they vote for this bill is redefine the meaning of words and say it is not amnesty. They just say it is not amnesty. They vote for it and say: I didn't vote for amnesty.

They have to wait a while before they get citizenship. They have to pay $1,000. And if they held back taxes for 5 years, if they pay taxes for 3 of those years--and they pick the 3--then they have paid the price. They have paid the penalty. They earned their amnesty by paying back taxes. Yet American citizens pay their taxes all 5 years. How are you going to prove the back taxes anyway?

This is nothing more than amnesty. I drive this point home. What is the point? The point is, that has been put into law by the bill we passed in this Senate. Now they say: We will have enforcement this time; we are going to do the things that are necessary to have enforcement.

A lot of people say we really do not like a fence, but after they talk to their constituents back home--and I offered the amendment to have 350 miles of fences and 500 miles of barriers, and we had a vote. It passed 83 to 13--we passed an amendment to build the 350 miles of fences, 500 miles of barriers. We have authorized it, colleagues. That is all we did was authorize it.

I have heard the comments: I voted for the Sessions amendment. I voted to build a fence. I am for enforcing immigration laws. When do we build this fence? Where do we get the money to build this fence? What bill is it that the money has to come out of? It is a Homeland Security bill. That is the one in the Senate. We have been looking through the bill, reading the fine print, and it is not in there. The money to build the fence is not included.

We should be ashamed. We trumpeted this. The majority leader said he was supportive of this. Everyone was supportive of building a fence. When it comes time to pay up and actually buy the bricks or buy the wire and pay the people to do it, where are we?

I raised this in the Judiciary Committee. I offered an amendment sort of like the Isakson amendment at that time. Senator Isakson offered his amendment in the Senate that said: We see this problem coming, colleagues. This has been the pattern. We authorize things, we make promises, but we do not follow through, so let's do the Isakson amendment which says none of this amnesty takes place until the enforcement takes place at the border and we follow through on the things we promised to do.

That is a pretty clever little amendment. Why would anybody object to that? Why would anybody who voted and promised to build fences, to add detention beds, to add agents--why in the world would you vote for those kinds of things and then not want to follow through on them?

I think it was troubling to me--troubling to a lot of Americans; I know troubling to Senator Coburn, the Presiding Officer--when Senator Isakson's amendment did not pass. Why? Why did Senator Isakson's amendment not pass? Well, the American people are pretty cynical now about our commitment and our integrity when it comes to matters involving immigration. And I suggested at the time and worried at the time that the reason the Isakson amendment did not pass was there was never any intention to fund the fence, to fund increased bed space, and fund the increased agents, make the US-VISIT program work--never any intention.

Now, wouldn't that be a bad thing? Wouldn't that reflect badly on the integrity of the U.S. Senate, when the whole Nation is looking at us? They are frustrated with us. They have not forgotten 1986. People remember that. They remember that. And they are looking at us: Are we going to do this again? And the first bill that comes up, we don't have money in it to fund the fence that we voted 83 to 16 to build. That is just breathtaking when you think about it.

It was a highly debated issue. It was probably one of the more noteworthy amendments in the entire debate. People thought it might be a close vote. As it turned out, it was an overwhelming vote. But it is easy to vote to authorize, isn't it, if you never intend to fund. That is an easy vote. I see the young people and the pages and those around here. Learn something about the U.S. Senate. It erodes public confidence in the integrity of the Government when you brag and speak glowingly about taking aggressive action to improve enforcement of immigration laws in America and then do not do it.

That is not good. That is just not good. The matter is not a little one. This is not a little matter. The American people know that immigration is important to our country. They know it is deeply important to our country. They care about it. They have been watching it. They watch it nightly on television. They write letters to their editor. They call my office. They call other people's offices. They complain about what is going on and how we have done our business.

They have every right to complain. They have every right to complain.

Why in the world would we ever suggest that somehow the American people are not generous and fair and decent when it comes to immigration? They really are. We are a nation that believes in immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. We believe in immigration.

But people are frustrated. Some people say things that are harsh maybe about immigrants, but when you listen to most people, the anger that they are expressing is not at the immigrants, it is at those of us in Washington. It is at a string of Presidents, it is at a series of Congresses that have failed, refused to do what they asked them to do.

And what have the American people asked? They have asked that we create a lawful system of immigration and we create a policy of immigration that is in the national interest of the United States of America, that we allow a number of people to come in every year, that we make a rational judgment about how many that should be. People should not come in illegally. They should come in in accordance with law. And if they come in illegally, they expect the Government to stop them or apprehend them and deport them.

What is wrong with that? Is that harsh? Is it mean-spirited to say that we need to have a legitimate legal system involving immigration in this country? I suggest not. I have been looking at the numbers. I think it is adversely impacting the wages of working Americans. And I am prepared to debate it. But regardless, this is a matter we need to deal with. We are going to maintain a flow of legal immigrants into our country, and we should. We should set up a system that identifies people who are most worthy of coming into our country and approve them in a meritorious way, in an effective system.

We do not have that today. The bill we have passed pretends to be a comprehensive bill for immigration reform, and it is an utter failure. It should never, ever, ever become law. It is a total disaster. They say: Well, we will just send it over to the House. The same people who may well vote against funding this amendment say: We will just send this bill now over to the House, the House of Representatives, who they made fun of a few months ago for passing a border enforcement bill first. We will send it over there, and maybe we will fix all this.

How does it work in conference? The majority leader of the Senate appoints a group of conferees, the Speaker of the House does, the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate appoint conferees, and this group of hand-picked Senators and Congressmen meet. They go meet someplace, and they work it all out, basically in secret, without any real input from the American people.

We have a bill from the Senate that has comprehensive review and reform, so-called, of the entire immigration policy of the United States of America and the House of Representatives has a law enforcement security bill only. And these are going to be just written out of thin air by these hand-picked people in secret? I don't think that is healthy, not on a matter this important.

Let me ask you, do the American people have a right to expect that this Senate and the House of Representatives are going to protect their interests and do what they have been asking them to do for 30 years. Or do they have a right to be cynical and expect that they will meet, plot out some sort of immigration bill, trumpet it as solving all our problems, bring it on the floor of this Senate, not subject to amendment, and drive it through and pass it? And it will not work again just like 1986.

How can you test what we do here? How can the American people have a test of this Senate? I submit to you, one way is to watch the vote on the funding of the enforcement issues that are dealt with in the amendments I have offered.

So let's see. Are we going to pass a fence amendment or not? If we pass it, maybe we are beginning to get serious over here. But even that can be fixed in conference. That is not the final passage of the bill. They can still go into conference and take it out. But it would be a step.

I say this to my colleagues: If we vote down funding the agents, the fencing, the detention beds that we have authorized in this bill, why shouldn't the American people really look at us askance? Why shouldn't they say: they just authorized it, and they are not even going to fund this fence? They are not even going to add the agents? They are not going to even add the bed spaces? I think that is what the American people are going to ask. And the truth is, they are correct.

Now, some will say: Well, we don't have the money. We don't have the money? We spend over $2 trillion a year in this country. What do you mean we don't have the money? We could do a ``Cadillac'' program for $2 billion or $3 billion. That is a lot of money. We are spending $100 billion on hurricane relief, $85 billion, in the supplemental, on the war.

Let me tell you some other things we spend money on in this country, when people say we don't have the money to do what the American people are demanding that we do: According to the Congressional Budget Office--this is from March 2006--spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone is expected to increase by $106 billion from 2006 to 2007, a 9.5-percent increase. It is a 9.5-percent increase in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone, with the increase totaling $106 billion. And we can't find $1 billion or $2 billion to make the border secure? Give me a break.

Defense spending: We spent $76.8 billion in 2005 on that. How about $32 billion to fund this Department, the whole Department of Homeland Security? The bill budget for the Department of Homeland Security is $32 billion. We cannot find another $1 billion or $2 billion to follow through on the commitments we made to make the immigration system in this country lawful? And within that Department of Homeland Security money is all the funding they will get. It is all the money we are going to get to increase immigration enforcement efforts. It is just not there. In this appropriations, the money has not been funded to meet the authorizations we passed and made a commitment to.

I am not here to break the budget. I am tired of that. I know the Presiding Officer is. He has fought harder than anybody I know in this Senate to bring integrity to spending, and I have been pleased to support him. But I will tell you, he has been a breath of fresh air and a great addition to the Senate. He has called our attention to the wasteful spending we carry on in this body on a regular basis. We cannot afford everything. We are paid to set priorities.

Has anybody ever listened to the people in their States about what they want us to do? I am telling you, they want us to make the immigration system a legal one, not a lawless one. They want us to spend the money that is necessary--no more but they want to spend whatever it takes. That is a priority with the American people. It should be a priority of those of us who are here because they are right. In the scheme of things, the money we spend is not that great, but it is important for us to do it correctly.

I will be offering amendments that will deal with five different areas. Those amendments will be offset, will not add additional spending to the budget or increase the debt in any way. We will set some priorities. We will set some choices. That is what the people pay us to do.

What do we need? We need strategic fencing and vehicle barriers at the border. We need an interior investigative agent increase--that is for the ICE agents, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents--to increase worksite enforcement. We need to increase the detention bed spaces.

Detention beds are critical. The reason is, we still are carrying out a catch-and-release policy. What do you mean ``catch-and-release''? This is what happens: Someone comes into the country from a country, say, other than Mexico. They are referred to as OTMs, other than Mexicans--Brazil, Central America, South America, Asia--and they are apprehended here illegally.

What happens then? Well, you say: They try them and deport them. Wrong. Not really. What has been happening is, these particular people who are apprehended in this country illegally are not from Mexico, so they cannot be readily taken back across the border. They are then detained and then given a trial date. Since there are

no bed spaces, they do not have a place to keep them. What do they do? They release them on bail. They catch them and they release them on bail. They sign their name because they do not have any money to put up for the bail. They just allow them a signature bond, and they are asked to come back at a certain date to have their trial on whether or not they are going to be deported.

How many do you think come back? They have already entered the country illegally. They are apprehended and released. They do not come back for trial. One reporter did an interesting article that showed that 95 percent did not show up. What a joke that is. The only way to end the catch-and-release problem is to have enough detention beds so they could be detained until they could be deported from the country.

Secretary Chertoff is making some progress in this regard but not enough. We will never get there without some more beds. So if we are serious about making a legal system here work, then we need more bed spaces.

Everybody says we need worksite enforcement. We have a pilot program that has been played with for a number of years that is supposed to work. It really has the potential to work, but it is not working today. We need some more money for that to make that system work. If you don't want the workplace enforcement system to work and you are President of the United States, you don't ask for funding for a program that will work, and if you are a Member of Congress, you don't vote for the money to make the program work. If you are part of Homeland Security, you don't come and demand money so you can make it work. Everybody's hands are dirty on workplace enforcement. We know that. Let's be frank about it.

We need agents. You have to have law enforcement agents. Those law enforcement agents can have a tremendous impact on the worksite. It does not take that many prosecutions, frankly, to have a complete change in behavior. I strongly say we need that.

We need to protect the funds that were already appropriated for section 287(g). The 287(g) program is the cooperative immigration enforcement effort with State and local law enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security has this program. They train local law enforcement. They set up abilities to work together. If they apprehend someone for speeding and find out they are here illegally, then they call the agents and they can transfer them for processing and deportation. Wouldn't we want to see that happen? Wouldn't we want to take the help of State and local law enforcement agencies? Well, we don't have the money for that. We put the money in. It was in there for a while. Now they have spent it on something else. It is a bargain, a real bargain to do that.

Finally, we need to fully implement the exit portion of the US-VISIT system to track visitors who leave the country as well as when they come in. That is what the system was set up to do. We have been working on it for 10 years. It has not been completed, they say, because of various problems.

Let's be frank. It hasn't been completed because Congress and the President over the last 10 or 15 years have not wanted it completed. There has been plenty of time to complete it. Agencies hadn't come forward and demanded the money necessary. They haven't told us what they needed. The President hasn't put it in his budget, and Congress hasn't spent the money. So it hasn't been completed. That is just it. I don't know any other way to say it.

We now can track people when they come in the country, and we need a good biometric card so people can enter really easily. If they have a legal right to come, they present their card. It clears immediately. They come right on through. If they work in the United States a week, they can go home and see their family, come back on Sunday or Monday, travel back and forth. They can do all those things.

We would like to see this system work. It can work. We are close to it, but we don't have the exit system working. Unless the exit system works, you have no idea of who is in the country and who has stayed, who did not go home when they were supposed to.

That is where we are. We will have some of those votes tomorrow. I don't mean to be unfair in my comments or unduly harsh, but the truth is the American people are watching us this time. They saw what happened in 1986. They don't want that to happen again. We should not want that to happen again. We should do what we promised to do. We should follow through and fund the projects that we have authorized. When we authorized these projects, we knew they were necessary to make this system move from a lawless system, a system that makes a mockery of law, to a lawful, decent system. It can be done. It actually can be done. It will not take an excessive amount of money, but it will take a significant amount of money.

Then there will be a tipping point. When people find out that the way to come in and work in the United States is to have a biometric card to come lawfully, that will be successful. If they wait in line, they can work. When they find out they can't get a job and it is very hard to get across the border, maybe impossible almost to come illegally across the border, they will quit coming illegally. When they can't get a job and it is too hard to get across the border, they will decide then to wait in line and get their card and come and work in due course lawfully. Right now the system is a mockery of the law. It is not working. Let's fix that.

When we vote tomorrow, we will send a signal to all those people back home that we are committed now to creating a lawful system of immigration. We are going to follow through and put up the money, a significant amount of money, but in the scheme of the size of the United States budget, it is a very small amount to make this system work.

If you went back home and asked the American people, do you want to see us follow through, do you want to spend a few more billion dollars, $2 to $3 billion--that would be super; maybe we could do it for less than that--a couple billion dollars more than what we are spending today to make us move from a lawless system to a lawful system, they would say: Do it--in a heartbeat.

That is where we are headed. I thank the Presiding Officer for his leadership and commitment to creating a lawful system of immigration for the United States.

Mr. President, the amendment we are debating is short and to the point. It contains only 17 words:

Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical

desecration of the flag of the United States.

We are discussing this today because in 1989, in Texas v. Johnson, five members of the Supreme Court held that flag desecration-- specifically burning the American flag--was a form of first amendment- protected speech and Texas's law banning desecration of the flag was unconstitutional. Adding insult to injury, when Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989, codified as title 18, section 700 of the United States Code, five members of the Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional, too, in United States v. Eichman, 1990.

I believe the amendment we are considering today is entirely appropriate, and I am proud to cosponsor it. I wish to respond briefly to some of the criticism I have heard. Some would say: Well, you want to limit free speech when you want to stop burning the flag.

Now, it is true that the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 majority, held that the act of burning a flag is free speech. Well, I don't agree. The Supreme Court for a long time has allowed reasonable ``time, place, and manner'' restrictions on speech.

Moreover, the Supreme Court has long recognized that:

[t]here are certain well-defined and narrowly limited

classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which

have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem.

These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the

libelous, and the insulting or `fighting' words--those which

by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an

immediate breach of the peace.

The late Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in his dissent in Texas v. Johnson: ``Far from being a case of `one picture being worth a thousand words,' flag burning is the equivalent of an inarticulate grunt or roar that, it seems fair to say, is most likely to be indulged in not to express any particular idea, but to antagonize others.'' It is not really ``speech'' at all, but if you consider it some sort of expression, it is certainly inarticulate. It is not of great value compared to the unifying symbol of the flag.

The first amendment is about intelligent debate, argument, concern over policy issues--not whether you get to ``grunt'' or ``roar'' by burning a flag. I don't believe flag-burning was ever intended to be covered by the Constitution. So I believe the Supreme Court got it wrong in Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman.

More importantly, the American people agree that the Supreme Court got it wrong. All 50 States have asked Congress to propose an amendment prohibiting flag desecration. In our democracy, the people have the last say on the Constitution. If the people think the Supreme Court is wrong, they have every right to amend the Constitution and tell it so.

In my view, the flag of the United States is a unique object, and prohibiting its desecration will not in any fundamental way alter the free expression of ideas in this country.

It seems to me if burning the flag is speech and if the Court is correct in saying it is speech and the people of the United States care deeply about protecting the flag, then they should adopt a restricted, narrow constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to stop flag desecration.

Indeed, it would be healthy for this country to adopt a constitutional amendment that would allow the protection of the flag. More Medals of Honor have been awarded for preserving and fighting to preserve the flag than any other. We know the stories of battle when time after time the soldier carrying the flag is the target of the enemy. When he fell, another one would pick it up. When he fell, another one would pick it up. When he fell, another one would pick it up. That is the history.

We pledge allegiance to the flag, not the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. We pledge allegiance to the flag because it is a unifying symbol for America, and having a special protection for it is quite logical to me.

I do not believe we should never amend the Constitution. I do not think we amend the Constitution enough. But we want to have good amendments that are necessary, that are important, that enrich us, and that make us a stronger nation. In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote: ``Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.'' Jefferson disagreed and proposed amending a constitution every 20 years or so so that it could ``be handed

on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can last so long.''

I don't know whether we need to amend the Constitution every 20 years, as Thomas Jefferson proposed, but I do think a constitutional amendment is a healthy way for us to remind ourselves that this Nation is a democratic republic. We are not a nation under the rule of the Supreme Court. The Constitution belongs to ``We the People of the United States,'' as its preamble states--not the judiciary of the United States. The Constitution was democratically adopted. It was meant to be democratically amended. It must remain democratically accountable--or lose its legitimacy as the foundation for a democratic republic.

Let me finally address one more concern about the language of this amendment. It is short. It is concise. And it leaves it to Congress to address the details on what specific forms of conduct to prohibit. I trust Congress to do that. Congress did it in 1989 with the Flag Protection Act codified at title 18, section 700 of the United States Code.

Concern has been expressed that the term ``desecration'' is too broad, too vague. I don't think so. I think it will clearly grant Congress the power it needs without any restriction on our great freedoms, particularly real speech.

Mr. President, the flag of the United States is a unique, unifying symbol of our country and all it embodies. Brave men and women have fought and died for that flag and what it represents. Let us today act to protect the flag and adopt S.J. Res. 12.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 4471 and ask that it be modified with the changes that are at the desk.

I further ask unanimous consent that Senators Allard, Kyl, Thune, and Vitter be added as cosponsors.

I don't think the Senator will find that objectionable. It dealt with funding allocations, the offsets.

Yes.

I will be pleased to.

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

Mr. President, recent concerns over a long-range ballistic missile launch or possible launch toward the United States by North Korea is an event that many experts have predicted and an event of serious import for the world.

President Bush, in December of 2002, directed the Department of Defense to begin fielding a missile defense system to protect the United States. There were many concerns expressed at that time, but Congress followed his orders and has moved forward. Today, we have nine GBIs--ground-based interceptors--in Alaska in silos in the ground, and two in California that are able to be launched to attack and destroy incoming missiles. The system and those missiles that we have are not complete nor fully perfected, but the Commander of Strategic Command, General Cartwright, says it does have capability to defend our Nation.

So I would first like to give my thanks to President Bush and to the Department of Defense for moving on this issue some time ago.

I would also like to express my appreciation for a bipartisan effort that was begun not long after I came to the Senate by Senator Thad Cochran and Senator Joe Lieberman and the legislation they passed that called on this Government to deploy a ground-based missile defense system as soon as feasible. That was a major step forward. Following that, President Bush's actions in 2002 have moved us farther forward.

These missiles that we have in the ground are able to be launched, they are able to attack and destroy incoming systems. So it is a remarkable thing that has been accomplished. Many doubted it. We have a lot more testing to do to deal with decoys and other matters to make sure the entire system works in an harmonious and effective way, from the ground-based radar, sea-based radar, to launch sites and our intercept capabilities and all of the computer systems that are necessary to make these missiles move at incredible speeds to collide in the air with such great force that they basically vaporize without any explosives being involved. So I think, Mr. President, it is an important event in our lifetime as a nation to note that this defense shield is now being employed.

I also was pleased that our Democratic leader a few days ago noted that: ``We live in a dangerous time and the threats to our Nation are many.'' He said, ``They range from terrorist attacks like those on 9/11 to rogue nations with nuclear ambitions like North Korea and Iran.'' He went on to note the: ``Headlines about North Korea's new missile test.'' He discussed that and noted: ``It is important that we as a country address each of these threats.''

Mr. President, I suggest, based upon the events of the past few weeks, that the debate over the need for missile defense is no longer an academic one, but it is a debate that must now take place in the reality of current events.

As we convene today, North Korea may perhaps still be preparing to test launch its Taepo-Dong II long-range ballistic missile. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, this missile has the potential to reach the shores of the United States, given its purported maximum range of 9,000 miles, far enough to hit the west coast of the U.S. mainland and all of the Pacific bases, according to an article in the Washington Post earlier this week.

The leaders of South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, and the United States are warning, as Secretary of State Rice did Monday, that, as she said, ``The launch of a ballistic missile would be a provocative act that would deepen North Korea's isolation.'' She urged the North Koreans not to end their moratorium on long-range missile testing. Japan's warning was even stronger. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi said that Japan ``would have to respond harshly'' if there were a missile attack.

North Korea also fields some 200 medium-range No-Dong ballistic missiles that can reach Japan, and it deploys some 600 short-range ballistic missiles tha could reach throughout the Korean Peninsula, where we have some 30,000-plus troops.

Likewise, on the other side of the world, Iran continues to enhance and

test its SHAHAB-3 medium-range ballistic missile to extend its range and effectiveness. U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that Iran could have an ICBM capable of reaching the United States before 2015 with continued foreign assistance.

According to press reports, Israeli intelligence noted in April of 2006 that Iran received a shipment of North Korean-made BM-25 ballistic missiles which have a range of 2,500 kilometers.

This activity was noted by the Prime Minister of Israel, who stated in a press conference with President Bush on May 23 that:

There is a major threat posed by the Iranians in their

attempts to have nonconventional capabilities and the

ballistic missiles that can hit major centers all across

Europe, not just the Middle East.

These are real, not hypothetical, threats to the United States and its allies posed by these ballistic missiles.

These missiles are threats that require a multifaceted response, not the least of which is by means of an effective ballistic missile defense system.

I would imagine that over the past 5 weeks, the Department of Defense has been carefully watching the arrival and fueling of Taepo-Dong missiles at its launch pad on the eastern coast of North Korea. And I would suspect that our missile defense capabilities have been carefully integrated into our diplomatic and deterrent options for dealing with the situation--a situation that Secretary Rice said is an ``abrogation of obligations'' of North Korea, a path not of compromise or peace ``but rather instead to once again saber-rattle.''

So our Secretary of State has called the situation correctly. The Nation and Congress should heed her words.

While I have no direct knowledge of any administration plans beyond what is being said in the press, I would hope that our U.S. Navy ships, which are capable of tracking and potentially intercepting ballistic missiles, have been deployed in the area. I saw this part of our fleet last year when I was in Pearl Harbor right after they conducted a series of successful intercept tests in the Pacific.

I would also hope that the ground-based midcourse defense system, with missiles deployed in both Alaska and California to provide protections against long-range missile attack, has been activated in case it is needed. To be sure, these systems are still undergoing testing. They have been designed to be available in an emergency, and I would think an imminent Taepo-Dong launch falls into that category.

At the very least, such a capability would add to the options available to our President. In a radio interview last week, Ambassador Vershbow, the top U.S. envoy in South Korea, commented on a potential North Korean launch saying, ``Since it would be clearly a provocative step vis-a-vis the region and international community, we should not simply let it pass without some response.''

I don't know what response the Ambassador had in mind, but certainly the ability to intercept that missile before it struck a populated area would be high on my list.

My main point to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both Houses of Congress, Mr. President, is that missile defenses must now be considered an integral and important tool of U.S. diplomacy and national security policy.

This is all the more reason to support the administration's efforts to develop test and field effective missile defenses against missiles of all ranges. So I am pleased to report that the Defense authorization bill reported out of the Armed Services Committee fully funds the President's request for missile defense to include $56 million for site survey and design work associated with the European defense missile defense site.

The European missile defense site, scheduled to begin construction in 2008 with full fielding expected in 2011, will allow 10 ground-based interceptors capable of protecting both the United States and much of Europe against a long-range missile fired by Iran.

If you look at the globe carefully, you could indicate a long-range missile launched towards the United States from Iran would fly over northeastern Europe. That would be an excellent site to protect both the United States as well as protecting Europe.

Congressional support for this activity is timely for our defense and to support Western diplomatic efforts aimed at halting Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon capability.

Should diplomacy fail, a European missile defense site will be critical to defer Iranian ballistic missile threats aimed at attacking or intimidating the West.

Our NATO allies recognize the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles. In 2010, the alliance expects to have the capability to protect deployed troops against short- and medium-range missiles. The alliance is now reviewing the results of a 4-year feasibility study that examines options for protecting alliance territory--that is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance--and population against a full range of missile threats.

Congressional commitment to a U.S. missile defense site in Europe at this time would be a significant factor in shaping NATO's decision to provide missile defense protection in Europe. Our commanders tell us that. They tell us it is very important.

I realize some of our colleagues are concerned that funding a European site would be premature at this time. They suggest a slow fielding program until more extensive tests and evaluations have been completed. While I appreciate that concern, I do believe that current Missile Defense Agency approach of simultaneously fielding and testing a GMD system has proven to be wise, as we see the threats to our Nation increase in just recent days.

The Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command has testified that the current missile system provides a thin line of defense that could be used. The independent Pentagon Director of Operational Tests and Evaluation stated on April 4 of this year:

With the current program and the tests that have been

scheduled, it's very likely that the GMD system will

demonstrate that it is effective.

The things that are needed to turn this thin line of defense into a robust defense system are more interceptors coupled with more flight testing, both of which are programmed by the missile defense agency and funded by our bill.

While we have crafted a good funding stream in our committee--and I thank my colleague, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, and others, for the bipartisan way he worked on this--we have worked hard at containing costs and keeping the costs under control.

The possible launch of a long-range North Korean missile that could even reach the United States of America calls for us to evaluate this year's authorization to ensure that all necessary funding exists to move forward with deployment as well as testing, and to be sure that throughout that time we are ready. General Trey Obering, who directs the program, understands these challenges.

My review of this authorization has convinced me that an additional appropriation of $45 million is critically important in allowing us to, in the words of our amendment:

accelerate the ability to conduct concurrent tests and

missile defense operations [and] to increase the pace of

realistic flight tests.

The funds that I am talking about and the projects that I am talking about are already in the 2008 budget. This would allow them to move forward to the 2007 budget.

The amendment for which I am seeking support today will help ensure that we can continue testing and always remain ready; not have to have the readiness of our system degraded by testing that we need to be doing. This is necessary so that we can respond to any possible missile launch that may threaten our Nation.

The key matter is that we test and we test regularly. But we cannot shut down the readiness of our system that could have the capability to knock down incoming missiles that could be aimed at us.

Congressional support for this amendment, I think, will send a strong message to any nation, North Korea or Iran, that we will be constantly, 24/7, ready to respond and knock down and destroy any missile that would be directed at our Nation. It will also reassure our allies that we will be ready to protect them and help us create the kind of umbrella of defense that we have dreamed of for many years and accelerate our ability to make that a reality.

I thank my colleagues. I thank those who indicated they would accept this

amendment. I think it is a good step forward.

It is great to see my colleague, Senator Allard, here. He used to chair the subcommittee that I have now, the Strategic Subcommittee. He has been a long-time champion of national missile defense.

I say to Senator Levin, he is due to be recognized next, but I know Senator Allard is here also.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his comments, and in particular I want to express my appreciation to him for his steadfast leadership to ensure that this Nation has a ballistic missile defense.

He was active in this long before 9/11. Ever since he has been in the Senate, this has been a long passion of his. I am delighted that he could be here today to share some thoughts about it.

The system is not yet where we want it to be. But it has been proved. We have demonstrated hit-to-kill technology on two occasions. Now we have this entire system in place where we have ship-based radar, ground-based radar, our missile satellite system, and the computers are tied all together.

I ask my colleague, Senator Kyl, a Member of the leadership in this Senate, if he remembers those debates in the late the 1990s--I guess it was when the Cochran-Lieberman bill passed to deploy this system. Maybe he could share some of his thoughts. He must feel some satisfaction to know that we now have a system in place that can give us at least some protection from a missile attack.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I do think that is appropriate.

Mr. President, I would just say that the projected launch from North Korea has caused us to focus intensely on the missile defense system. To celebrate what we have accomplished, we have nine missiles now in place in Alaska and two in California that are capable of knocking down such an attacking missile. This amendment would allow the capability for continued testing and, at the same time, be on 24/7 readiness to knock down an incoming missile.

We think it is a good amendment, and it is offset. I urge my colleagues to support it. In effect, we would also be sending a message to North Korea and Iran and other rogue nations that we would be ready to defend this Nation.

Mr. President, I ask that I be notified when I have consumed 12 minutes.

Mr. President, I didn't expect to hear the Democratic leader talk about the immigration bill this morning and his and Senator Kennedy's desire to rush it through the House of Representatives, calling for action now. It is a very bad bill, and it impacts directly the issues we are talking about today--wages for working Americans. I am going to talk about that issue and ask our colleagues to give serious thought to the matters I will raise.

With regard to our colleagues who claim they are concerned about poverty among American workers, I ask those Members--Senator Reid and Senator Kennedy--who proposed the immigration bill and tried to rush it through this Senate without any amendments to consider some of the concerns of their own allies, economists and professors, who believe that if passed, it would damage the wages of American workers.

I agree that we have a troubling condition in our country. People have referred to it often as the wage gap, that higher income people seem to be doing well, but there has been a lag in performance among lower income workers. That has caused quite a bit of concern. I am not sure exactly what the economic numbers show on that, but repeatedly, we have been told often from our Democratic colleagues--but not so much lately--that there is a growing gap in income. Why is this occurring? I wish to share some thoughts about it because I believe it is important.

Let me mention this: I don't want the American worker to have a $7.25-an-hour job; I want them to have a $15-an-hour job, a $30-an-hour job. That is what we want in an economy that is growing and prosperous. We want a full-employment economy where people can choose jobs that fulfill their highest aspirations and pay them a good wage, with good retirement and good health care, and we are creating a growing economy that nurtures that. But for some reason, the wages in some job markets have not kept up as well as they should.

I will read from a number of experts on this matter and ask my colleagues to think about it, not what I say but what the experts say. I am looking at a Washington Post article from Jonathan Weisman, March 31, dealing with this precise issue of minimum wage and immigration. It is titled ``Immigration Divides Allies, Guest Worker Plan Sets Democratic Supports Against Organized Labor.'' It starts off saying this:

A growing body of economic research contends that the

recent surge of foreign workers has depressed wages for low-

skilled workers, especially for high school dropouts, and has

even begun displacing native-born workers.

Then the article quotes Professor George Borjas, an economist at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has written a definitive book on immigration, ``Heaven's Door.'' He says:

What immigration really does is redistribute wealth away

from workers toward employers.

I did mention my good friend Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy has been a champion for civil rights, and a champion for helping us fight poverty, and he cares about this issue very deeply. He sincerely does. But I suggest he is not always perfectly correct on how to fix it. We can have a legitimate debate about how to improve the wages of working Americans, and that is what we need to be talking about.

The article says:

Kennedy, the Senate's liberal lion and an unflagging ally

of organized labor, says the [immigration] legislation he co-

wrote would help all low-wage workers by applying minimum-

wage laws and other . . . protections.

The AFL-CIO disagrees. According to John Sweeney, the AFL-CIO President:

Guest-worker programs cast [American] workers into a

perennial second-class status and unfairly put their fates

into their employers' hands, creating a situation ripe for

exploitation. . . .

He goes on:

``They encourage employers to turn good jobs into temporary

jobs at reduced wages and diminished working conditions and

contribute to the growing class of workers laboring in

poverty.''

That was Mr. Sweeney. Mr. Weisman, the staff writer for the Washington Post, then quotes Professor Borjas:

But some of those macroeconomic gains have come at the

expense of low-wage workers, especially the 10 percent of the

labor force that dropped out of high school. In recent years,

competition from low-skilled immigrant workers has reduced

the wages of high school dropouts by as much as 8 percent,

Borjas said.

How about another professor, Andrew Sum, director of Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. The article says quotes him:

Looking at annual earnings, the percentage losses are in

the double digits, said Andrew Sum, director of Northeastern

University's Center for Labor Market Studies, because jobs

that once provided year-round employment are increasingly

becoming temporary.

A Northeastern University study found that nearly 86

percent----

Listen to this, I say to my colleagues, this is important for us.

A Northeastern study found that nearly 86 percent of all

newly employed workers hired from 2000 to 2005 were

immigrants. For men, the statistics were more stark. In that

time, the labor market for men rose by 2.66 million while

2.77 million foreign-born men found work.

Listen to that: The Northeastern study found that foreign-born workers filled all of the new jobs created for men between 2000 and 2005, plus some other jobs.

In other words, Sum said, immigrants have begun replacing

native-born male workers.

In the immigration bill floor debate, if we not forced the Democratic side to allow us to have some amendments and reduce some of the incredible increases in immigration under the bill as presented, it would have been shocking what the immigration bill would have done to the jobs and wages of American workers. Even after successful amendments that cut the numbers of low-skilled workers allowed to come in the future, the Senate bill will still, over 20 years, virtually triple the number of people coming into our country legally, not counting those who will continue to come illegally. That will undoubtedly impact our economy. That is why the House of Representatives needs to examine this bill very carefully before we go to conference.

How about this one? Professor Sum is quoted again in the Post article: ``Young guys are being displaced by immigrants,'' he said. ``Some of my good liberal friends take issue, but if you're a young worker under 25, poorly educated, probably African American, the higher the share of new immigrants in your community, the worse your employment prospects are becoming.''

How about Carol Swain, a law professor and political scientist at Vanderbilt University? She is also quoted in the Post article:

``What they're doing is increasing the pool of people

eligible to compete for the very limited resources that are

available for the people at the bottom. . . .The obligation

of the nation should be for the people who have been here for

decades.''

How about the famous economics professor Robert Samuelson? He wrote an article in May in the Washington Post titled ``Still Dodging Immigration's Truths.'' He quotes approvingly

from the testimony before our Judiciary Committee of Barry Chiswick, University of Illinois, an immigration scholar, most respected, who said the presence of immigrants in the labor market:

Increases competition for low-skilled jobs, reducing the

earnings of low-skilled native-born workers. Because of their

low earnings, low-skilled immigrants also tend to pay less in

taxes than they receive in public benefits. . . . Hardly

anyone is discussing these issues candidly. We can be a

lawful society and a welcoming society simultaneously [as

President Bush has said] but we cannot be a welcoming society

for limitless numbers . . . without seriously compromising

our own future.

Part of the future he is talking about, is the future of the American worker. Samuelson goes on to say, and I quote the line from Professor Samuelson's article: ``Competition among them [low-skilled workers] depresses wages.'' He is talking about the additional flow of illegal immigrants into our country, or legal immigrants, for that matter. Increasing competition for the American worker by increasing the number of immigrant workers available in the labor market will depress the wages for the American worker.

In another article, Professor Samuelson, says this. He notes that illegal immigrants already here represent only about 4.9 percent of the labor force, and in no major occupation are immigrants a majority. They are 36 percent of insulation workers, 28 percent of drywall installers, and 20 percent of cooks who are drawn here by wage differences, not labor shortages. He writes about how most new illegal immigrants get work by accepting wages below the prevailing rates. What would happen, he asks, if new, illegal immigration stopped and wasn't replaced by guest workers? Well, some employers would raise wages to attract U.S. workers.

I thank the Chair. He goes on to say: Facing greater labor costs, some would find ways to minimize costs. But he goes on to ask this question, and let me quote Professor Samuelson:

What is wrong with higher wages for the poorest workers?

From 1994 to 2004, the wages of high school dropouts rose

only 2.3 percent after inflation, compared with 11.9 percent

for college graduates. The number of native high school

dropouts with jobs declined by 1.3 million from 2000 to 2005.

Some lost jobs to immigrants. Unemployment remains high for

some groups; 9.3 percent for African Americans.

I know that is true in my State. Although we have a great unemployment rate in Alabama--under 4 percent--we still have a far too high rate among the African-American community. And 12.7 percent for white teenagers, he notes. He says this: Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of unskilled Americans; the only question is how much. One estimate, he said, was 10 percent.

We discussed these issues in the Judiciary Committee. We had one hearing on it. We had a number of professors, including Professor Freeman, the Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard. He said these things about the jobs and wages of American workers:

One of the concerns when immigrants come in is they may

take jobs from some Americans and drive down the wages of

some Americans and obviously, if there are a large number of

immigrants coming in, if they are coming in at a bad economic

time, that is very likely to happen.

Professor Chiswick, University of Illinois at Chicago said the following:

The large increase in low-skilled immigration has had the

effect of decreasing the wages and employment opportunities

of low-skilled workers who are currently resident in the

United States.

He said this:

Over the past two decades, the real earnings of high-

skilled workers has risen substantially. The real earnings of

low-skilled workers have either stagnated or decreased.

These economists are telling us what other people will not. We are being told by the business community that there is this incredible shortage out there--they can't find workers so they have to have foreign workers--but now we know the earnings of low-skilled workers have stagnated and decreased. Why? If a business wants to find more workers, they will usually increase wages, not decrease them.

He goes on to say--my time is about up, but I have quite a number of others.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I would note we wrestled before Y2K as to how many high-skilled foreign workers the U.S. needed to let in for that period--you and I both discussed that in the Judiciary Committee and whether it would adversely impact the wages of high-skilled American workers. I would say that the current rate of immigration, legal and illegal--and I believe there is a growing consensus that supports this view--has depressed the wages of low- skilled American workers. I would ask the Senator if he would dispute the fact that the immigration bill he introduced would have greatly increased the number of immigrants into the country and wouldn't that have further adversely impacted the wages of low-skilled American workers?

Mr. President, I do have some remarks, and I would deliver those after the others have finished their time tonight if it is not too late, and I would just share a few thoughts at this time.

We have been given a great heritage in our country. We have been given a Nation that is the greatest Nation in the world at this time. We have the finest military the world has ever known. We have a great democracy where we have full and vigorous debate.

I was here when we debated the question of whether or not to issue that ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, and we knew then if he didn't accept it, if he didn't allow the inspectors in and if he didn't renounce weapons of mass destruction, we would be going to war, and that was the vote and we knew it and everybody discussed it. It went on for months. People say it was quick. It went on for months.

I will tell you what I said about why we went. I looked back at my remarks. It was not based on primarily weapons of mass destruction. We were dealing with Iraq for years. We had a war with them in 1991, and we defeated them and sent their Army going back to Baghdad. In effect, Saddam Hussein sued for peace and he made a series of promises to keep us from following and destroying his Army completely and invading his country and removing him from power, and he made those commitments, and he did not follow them.

There were a number of U.N. resolutions that he was in violation of. He rejected the international community, and an embargo had been placed on Iraq. The United States was attempting to enforce that embargo. Saddam Hussein was consistently working to get around that embargo. We were flying in no-fly zones and enforcing no-fly zones over Iraq. He was shooting at our airplanes on a daily basis, almost. We were dropping bombs on Saddam Hussein on a regular basis, dropping bombs from our aircraft.

So the question was, as The Economist magazine said, are we going to quit our efforts, are we going to issue an ultimatum and be prepared to go to war if they do not? Their editorial said, the London-based Economist magazine said, our vote is for war. That was that London journal's opinion.

That is the way I felt about it. Iraq was a rogue nation that had tremendous amounts of oil, it had a dictator prepared to use weapons of mass destruction, use weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and he was determined to break the embargo, determined to be able to sell his oil on the world market, not for his own people's good but to build up his military power, just like he did when he invaded Kuwait, and be the preeminent Nebakanezer of the Middle East. That was his goal. It remained his goal. It probably still is as long as he takes a breath.

So we gave him that ultimatum, and with the support of large numbers of nations in the world--I believe some 60 supported us, including nations like the United Kingdom and Australia and others--he refused to comply and we commenced our military action. This Nation made a decision to remove him from power and we voted on it as a Senate, and we sent our soldiers in harm's way. We did not do that lightly. No great Nation which expects to be respected will send its soldiers into harm's way with a half-hearted commitment to them.

When I talk to those soldiers, as I did recently at the 231st birthday of the United States Army over at the Jefferson Memorial, and I talked to those soldiers and we were discussing these kinds of deadlines and policies and directives to set forth plans as to how the war should be conducted, one of them said to me, Senator, let me tell you what we want. We want to win. And I have talked to families who lost loved ones in Iraq, and they tell me every time--it is amazing--my son was doing what he believed in, what he wanted to do.

I submit we owe them the responsibility to be faithful to them and not to dishonor their sacrifice by cutting and running when it is not time to do so. I believe that very, very sincerely.

So I would just say to my colleagues, I can see how we have differences of opinion, and I understand that. I remember the debate and I remember the vote I cast and I knew it was very serious. No Nation that desires its own self-respect or the respect of other nations can be flippant about those kinds of matters. When you make a commitment, you stay the course.

Iraq has formed a new government completely now. They have a parliament. They have elected all their ministers. They have their interior and defense ministers in place. They are determined to continue to grow and strengthen their Army and their security forces.

I believe they still need American help to get over that hump and be successful. We should not disregard the advice of our military leaders and set an artificial date, not connected to military and political reality in Iraq, for leaving Iraq. I think that would be the very wrong thing to do. And nothing could be more corrosive to our self-confidence as a Nation or to our own military than to prematurely give up on the opportunity we have to create a good and stable government in Iraq.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I say to the chairman, 20 to 30 minutes.

Mr. President, before the chairman leaves, I want to tell him how much I appreciated his analysis and summary of where we are. He noted that we may have had as many as a million or more people at one time or another investing their very lives in a successful operation of this country, and we have just gotten a government up and they have just elected a Defense Minister a few weeks ago and an Interior Minister.

Based on the long chairmanship and leadership of the Senator from Virginia in the Senate and as former Secretary of the Navy, let me ask the Senator again: Does he think that we would be creating grave risks that are not necessary by a precipitous withdrawal at this time?

I remember when we were there just a few months ago.

Before this permanent government was in place, and I remember you and Senator Levin, along with Senator Salazar and others-- --

Yes. And I remember you telling the leader of Iraq at that time that they were being challenged and they had to step up and assume responsibility.

It is not as if they haven't been told that. And they assured us at that time that they understood that, and they felt that responsibility deeply. Is that the impression you got?

Mr. President, I have one more question I want to ask my colleague. I remember--I personally have a vivid recollection of being in a meeting, our delegation was, just a few months ago in Baghdad, with the Sunni leader. Do you remember the insecurity he felt about whether our Nation would remain in Iraq? He made a commitment to join with this Government, and some of his Sunni people didn't agree with that. He realized that a precipitous withdrawal which he had heard something about in the media could jeopardize the ability of that country to hold together, and maybe even jeopardize his own life because he had stepped up and invested himself in trying to create a good and decent democratic government. Do you remember that discussion?

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator for his comments and his leadership. It has been a privilege to be a part of this debate. I listened to this debate that has gone on tonight, this discussion between he and the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, who is most eloquent. But I would just say to Senator Warner that your remarks tonight are worthy of the valor and the courage and the fidelity of the troops we have sent forth into harm's way, and I am honored to serve with you on the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. President, looking at the resolution that Senator Kerry has proposed, I would just make a couple of summary comments. No. 1, he has a date in which the vast majority of our troops, virtually all combat forces, under this amendment would be out by next summer, whether or not that is the right thing militarily. At the same time, he proposes that we have some sort of regional conference, and that this regional conference would meet somewhere while we are pulling out troops. And it is going to meet and decide what is going to happen in Iraq. I would just say that is not the way the world works.

Does anybody here think if we get a group of nations in that region to gather somewhere and meet and talk about Iraq, while we pull out troops, and violence escalates, that they are just going to pass a resolution, and somehow these terrorists, these Baathists are going to stop their fighting? Does anybody think that? I wish it were so.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just get the nations in that region to go off somewhere and have a conference in Rome or London or Paris and have a vote about Iraq and the war would all end and there would be peace and we could just take our soldiers out and these other nations who are concerned about it, and if things get bad in that country of Iraq, they are just going to send their troops in and fix it? We really have to be more clear in our thinking about these issues.

That is not going to happen. That is fantasy land, let me say, with all seriousness. I wish we could do that. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could. Would it were so, they would just step up, the other nations in the region, and take over and fix this problem for us. And wouldn't it be nice if we could just have some sort of conference in Iraq and bring in the hostile parties and sit them down at a table and just reach an agreement? Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that? I wish it were so. I wish the enemy we faced was not the kind of enemy that when their new top leader captures two American soldiers, he personally brags about brutalizing them as he kills them. Wouldn't it be nice if the enemy we faced were more principled than that? Wouldn't it be better?

But I am afraid the reality is different. I am afraid the reality is that we are facing a radical terrorist enemy that knows it can't win a war conventionally, knows it can't win a vote of the people so therefore they have settled upon an asymmetric method of warfare to utilize whatever destructive capacity they can generate, even the suicide of women and children to carry out their diabolical ends, and they are going to continue that. Mr. President, it is the kind of threat that we are just going to have to face, and we are going to have to strengthen this Iraqi Government.

I heard it said that we can never be involved in a civil war. Well, we were there and we talked about whether there was a civil war, and I think those of us who understand in terms of the United States of America what a civil war is, that is not a civil war in Iraq. But there is a high level of violence, a higher level of violence than we cannot accept and the Iraqi people cannot accept. We know that. It is not quite the same thing as a civil war. But that conflict can be brought under control. I believe we are on the verge of bringing it under control, but it will not be easy.

Some say we haven't done anything like this before. Well, how about Bosnia? Wasn't that a brutal sectarian war that we had to send forces into? What about Kosovo? Wasn't that basically a civil war that we sent our troops into? It hasn't been settled perfectly today, but both of those countries are having some stability. They don't have strong governments, frankly. I have been somewhat disappointed in how Kosovo's Government has come together, but at least it is a peaceful country and operating in a fairly decent way. So to say that we can't help make a difference when there is sectarian violence by the utilization of American forces, I think, is wrong. We have done it before, and we can do it again.

I would say to my colleague, the Senator from Massachusetts, he has just had a litany of criticisms of the conduct of this war. I wonder what he would have said were he in the Senate during the Civil War. With all the problems and the years that went by, and General Lee with smaller forces defeated repeatedly the larger forces, what would the Senator from Massachusetts be saying about that? Would he be saying: We need to pull back our troops? And what about World War II and all of the problems we had, and World War I for example? Senator Warner just gave me on the trip I referred to recently a book about World War I, and I just completed it. We lost 18,000 people killed in 1 day at the Battle of Meuse, Argonne, in World War I--18,000 in 1 day.

I have talked to Alabama families who lost children in Iraq. We have lost 2,500 in Iraq in the time that we have been there, and that is a grim number. Every one of those losses represents the best kind of people this country can produce, and my heart breaks for those families. But the cost of freedom has always been high, and our interests in fighting a war on terrorism is high, and we have to be smart about it. We have to be careful about it. We have to have a debate in this country, and that is all right. But I would say again that I was very proud of this Senate when we voted a few days ago on the original Kerry amendment to have the troops out by the end of this year, and it was voted down 93 to 6. Presumably, he may have accumulated some more votes now for moving the date to 6 months later, but I suspect he will not have a whole lot of votes for that because it is just not good policy.

We have a country that has only really formed on a permanent basis in the last few weeks. The Prime Minister was elected just a couple of months ago. His last Cabinet members were just recently selected. They were voted on by the Parliament, elected by the people. Millions of Iraqis have gone out and voted three times now.

So this Government, the real Government, not a transitional or interim government, but the real Government, fully elected by the people, has only been in office a few weeks. And the enemy knows that if this Government is successful, their message of violence and hatred, extremism, oppression of women, they know those visions, those ideas they have that they want to impose on the people will be lost, and they don't want that to happen. And they are doing everything they possibly can to win the war in Iraq.

The Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police are taking far more casualties now than the Americans are. They are out front in many provinces in Iraq. They are conducting military operations on a regular basis by themselves. Sometimes we go together; sometimes we have embedded Americans with the Iraqi forces. They are stepping up. But they are not ready yet. Their military is not there yet. It is not as fully equipped and it is not as fully trained. They don't have the confidence and the chain of command, their logistics are not where we would like them to be compared to a modern American Army. And they can be vulnerable to these kinds of terrorist attacks by which small groups of the military can be overrun or attacked and it can destabilize that country right now.

So I think the best course is to listen to our military leaders as we decide how and whether to conduct our military operations there.

I remember being with GEN John Abizaid, commander for CENTCOM, the combatant commander for this region of the world. He has been involved in this closely. He speaks Arabic. He grew up for a number of years in the Middle East. He understands this area. He has been a student of it. He is a brilliant general. He told me on an airplane back when people were saying: We need to send in more troops--he said: No, we don't need--in his opinion--he said: We don't need to send in more troops. We need to train up the Iraqi forces so we can reduce our presence.

I say that to you, Mr. President, because I want the American people to know that the combatant commander, the one who is giving the advice to President Bush, does not believe in excessively maintaining forces in Iraq. He understands that it would be better if we could reduce them.

But he also understands the challenges that exist in Iraq today.

That is why his recommendation is that we not have a resolution like this. And General Casey likewise, it is his recommendation that we not have a resolution like this.

I thought about the idea that somehow we can have, as one Senator said, an accelerated redeployment, or really a date for withdrawal, under Senator Kerry's amendment. Will this pullout, cut-and-run mentality, help us and help the Iraqis defeat al-Qaida? Really? If we pull out right now, will that help the Iraqis defeat the al-Qaida forces? Will it help reduce sectarian violence?

I wish it were so. I wish we could pull right out and they would all be nice and we wouldn't have any more fighting.

Would it help reduce the criminality in the country? Would it help strengthen and provide confidence to those members of the new Iraqi Government? Or would it increase their nervousness, would it increase their insecurity, at a time when we need to get that government off to a good start and, as Senator Warner said, send their roots into the soil for stability?

Would it help establish the police force if we just pulled out? A lot of

Iraqis are signing up every day to be policemen. They have become targets of the terrorists on a regular basis. But I think they are provided confidence and comfort to know the American military is there to support them. Right now I do not believe there is enough strength in the Iraqi military, in the context of the Iraqi people, to survive a precipitous withdrawal. I think it could destabilize them. Maybe not, but I think there is a real likelihood of it.

I just would say we ought to think carefully about what our generals have told us.

The amendment submitted by Senator Kerry, I think, goes too far. I do not believe a conference, a meeting in any capital city anywhere in the world is going to settle the conflict in Iraq. I do not believe pulling our troops out is going to reduce the threats in Iraq. I believe what we have to do is do what General Abizaid and General Casey have told us; let's maintain our presence, let's draw it down as rapidly as we can, but let's do it consistent with the raising up of a legitimate military and police force in that country. And let's do what we can to strengthen and create credibility in the Iraqi Government.

You should never tell your enemy what your plan is. You should never give him a guaranteed plan of withdrawal or any other plan that you are going to execute, particularly when you are dealing with an asymmetric enemy like these terrorists.

Clausewitz warned of this type of war planning and making your intentions known. He said this ``the essence of the defense''--think what these terrorists are about. They are defending their dream of a terrorist-dominated state.

Clausewitz says:

The essence of the defense is waiting: waiting until the

attacker clarifies his own intentions; waiting until the

balance of forces shifts; waiting for any improvement in the

defender's situation, whether from the culminating process

described above, from outside intervention, from mobilization

of his own resources, or from some chance development. Time

is almost always on the side of the defender.

Our Nation is on the offensive in the war against terror and we have been blessed that, since 9/11, we have not had another attack on our homeland. Who would have thought that possible? Certainly people were afraid to get on an airplane for weeks afterwards. They wouldn't go to shopping malls. We have been blessed to have gone this far without another attack.

The terrorists are using every desperate act they can to break the will of the Iraqis and our U.S. forces and our U.S. political system. This would undercut the foundation of our military efforts. So victory must be tied to results and victory is what we must have--not an amendment calling for redeployment measured in days or hours.

President Bush has established a strategy for a victory in Iraq that is condition-based, not based on arbitrarily selected dates.

Why not December 31? Why not April 1? Why not July 4? It is not a way to make a strategy in a military situation. The President's strategy focuses, rather, on the accomplishment of specific objectives.

President Bush has said:

Victory will come when the terrorists and the Saddamists

can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraq

security forces can provide for the safety of their own

citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to

plot new attacks on our Nation.

The President knows Iraq must stand up and do its part. In his most recent visit to Iraq the President urged the Iraqis to ``seize the moment and we, the United States, will help them succeed. When America gives a commitment, America keeps its word.''

He said:

If the United States of America leaves before this Iraqi

government can defend itself and sustain itself and govern

itself, it will be a major blow to the war on terror.

I certainly would agree with that, as Senator Warner has so eloquently stated.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained why a time-phased plan for redeployment is wrong. He said:

Once you start doing that, then you are stuck with a number

and a date and it just doesn't do any good. The decision to

withdraw is based [must be based] on conditions on the

ground.

Some supporting this amendment and others who are calling for this exit strategy of time-phased withdrawals stake their claim on past experiences in other conflicts. This global war on terror is different. The enemy here has not surrendered. He does not wear a uniform. He is not sequestered in a country bounded by borders. He has not signed a peace accord and he has not given up his arms.

He, unlike Vietnam, is sworn to attack this country if he is successful and emboldened and gets his hands on the wealth of the Iraqi oil. Will our country be safe? Will they stay in Iraq and not continue to attack us, as they have, if the terrorists take over their country? He fights in an asymmetric fashion unlike any we fought before, and we cannot put our people and our allies at risk by shirking our responsibilities in any way that will undermine the opportunity that we have to have a victory and a stable government in Iraq.

Our generals on the ground understand this and have offered their perspectives on what impact this type of time-phased redeployment would have on the Iraqi situation. I know we have had people here who have served. Senator Warner has served in World War II and Korea. Senator Kerry served in Vietnam. But what about General Abizaid, Commander of the U.S. Central Command? He has given his life to the service of the military and in that region of the world. He has overall responsibility for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and he recently spoke to Prime Minister Maliki and said:

The Iraqi people don't want to go back to the 6th century.

The Afghanis don't want to live under the rule they

experienced under the Taliban. They don't want bin Laden to

win. There is clear preference expressed by the people in

both Iraq and Afghanistan to vote. The fact that they voted

is their way of reaching out to the future.

General Abizaid warns of leaving the region without proper conditions on the ground with respect to the terrorists in that all they, the terrorists. He says:

All they do is destroy and kill and try to grab headlines.

They believe by doing that they can gain time and eventually

the coalition will leave. And when we leave there will be

states vulnerable to their ideology.

General George Casey--he is the commander of all our forces in Iraq-- recently said this:

I think as long as the Iraqi security forces continue to

progress and as long as this national unity government

continues to operate that way and move the country forward, I

think we are going to be able to see continued gradual

reductions of coalition forces over the coming months and

into the next year.

That is his prediction. Somehow I have the vision of, out in the country, the dogs we used to have. You would get in the car and drive down the road and the dog would chase after the car, thinking somehow, I guess, that it made the car run off, that the car was afraid of it. I think sometimes some in this body are afraid we are actually going to be able to draw down troops in the next year or so. They think if they can just pass a resolution mandating it, then they can claim credit for it.

General Casey's comments do mention the force reduction, but he ties the reduction to the status of the development of the Iraqi security forces and the national unity government's success.

This amendment, the Kerry amendment, calls on the President to begin a deployment, beginning in 2006, in stark contrast to the best judgment of the most senior United States commanders in Iraq. Who should we listen to? General Abizaid and General Casey, I submit.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, whom we met in Iraq a few weeks ago, said the formation of the government, with crucial involvement from Saddam's once dominant fellow Sunnis is a great sign of progress. He states:

I believe that with the political changes taking place--the

emphasis on unity and reconciliation, with effective

ministers . . . that conditions are likely to move in the

right direction that would allow adjustment in terms of the

size, composition and mission of our forces.

In closing, I would like to highlight the recent comments by the man entrusted with advising Prime Minister Maliki on the national security of the new Iraqi democracy and what his items are concerning a time- phased reduction in U.S. forces.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the recently approved Iraq minister for national security, expressed his concerns in the Washington Post. I believe it was today or yesterday. He stated:

There has been much talk about a withdrawal of U.S. and

coalition troops from Iraq, but no defined timeline has yet

been set. There is, however, an unofficial roadmap to foreign

troop reductions that will eventually lead to total

withdrawal of U.S. troops. This roadmap is based, not just on

a series of dates but, more important, on the achievement of

a set of objectives for restoring security in Iraq.

I want to conclude by saying how proud I am of our military. I was pleased that the original Kerry amendment was voted down 93 to 6. I think by moving that date forward 6 months, the vote is not going to change very much.

I know Senator Levin has offered an amendment. I will just say this about it. I serve with Senator Levin on the Armed Services Committee. I am sure he is trying to reach some sort of compromise, some sort of unifying amendment for the Democratic side. I am really sort of disappointed at it, because I don't think, if adopted, it will serve any purpose and could cause much mischief and be misinterpreted.

I urge my colleagues to vote against both amendments, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to make some remarks today about Alabama's State champion and national finalist in the ``We the People'' competition. Vestavia Hills High School placed fourth in the national We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution national finals, held in Washington, DC. This impressive competition, headed by the Center for Civic Education, engaged young people in the fundamental ideals and values of American constitutional government.

Members of this remarkable team from Vestavia Hills included Grace Anthony, Georgiy Bolshinskiy, Barrett Bowdre, Courtney Bragg, Jeannette Dooley, Daniel Driscoll, Claire Foster, Sarah Graffeo, Lauren Howard, Sarah McKibben, Patrick Mulligan, John Nicholson, Tiffany Parrish, Hanna Perry, John Phillips, Joseph Siegelman, Mary Kendal Spires, William Edward Stevenson, Emily Unnasch, Amy Watson, Ryan Woodford, and Ansley Zarra.

I congratulate Amy Maddox, the teacher who led this fine team. Teachers shape the future, and I appreciate Ms. Maddox's investment in these students. As a former educator and the father of three children, I have a great admiration for educators, and I am grateful that educators like Ms. Maddox are making a difference.

I thank U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre for her involvement and support of the Vestavia Hills High School team. Judge Bowdre is a person of great intellectual and academic ability who understands and reveres our Constitution. I am very proud that she has given of her talents to this worthy project.

I thank Janice Cowin, the executive director of the Alabama Center for Law and Civic Education.

I applaud the efforts of students, teachers, and community leaders who made this accomplishment possible. Vestavia Hills High School is an exceptional school and has represented Alabama well. I encourage these students to continue pursuing a deep understanding of the Constitution and our Government. It is important that we raise up quality leaders who will serve our country in years to come.

Mr. President, I have been to Guantanamo twice, and I have seen the work of our military personnel, the good morale they have under difficult conditions, their determination to provide every decent and right request and treatment to the prisoners who are there. I have seen areas where they are detained, the religious freedom that they give them, including a Koran and prayer rugs and things that they have requested, the exercise that they obtain. It is, I believe, in all respects a very fine prison that treats people in a decent way.

But as the Senator from South Carolina noted, these individuals are prisoners of war, and prisoners of war are not given trials. In the history of the United States of America, we do not give prisoners of war trials. They are detained until the conflict is over.

What about those who have gone beyond just being a combatant against the United States but have become an unlawful combatant, violating all the rules of warfare and are therefore apprehended and detained? Should they be given more rights than a properly uniformed and properly lawful combatant is given who is detained by an enemy? I think not. I would suggest these are matters that are within the parameters of the U.S. military to handle. They have no desire to maintain a single prisoner any longer than they have to. They have released several hundred already, and 15 of those have been rearrested on the battlefield where they are presumably attempting to fight the United States of America and our soldiers and our allies around the world.

So I would say to my colleagues, these are not academic questions. They are matters of real life and death and must be carefully thought through. Under the circumstances we are now dealing with regarding prisoners in Guantanamo, we don't need to micro-manage the military. I would agree with Senator Bingaman that his amendment at first glance says that they must be charged with a crime, filed in an appropriate Federal district court of the United States or a military tribunal or an international criminal tribunal or repatriated to the country of origin or some other country. That is a mandate. The amendment goes on to say: But with respect to those who are not so charged, the Department of Defense must submit a report saying why they haven't been charged and when they will be handled in this matter. So I think in conflict, as Senator Graham has detailed, it goes to the historic manner by which any nation, and in particular the United States, handles prisoners of war.

Again, I have seen the conduct at Guantanamo. I think it is an appropriate facility considering the danger that these individuals pose. It is an appropriate location. It makes it very difficult for them to break free and kill other people. The Department of Defense actually is continuing to improve it. They give the prisoners first- rate meals, first-rate medical care. Until the three suicides we saw recently, not a single prisoner had died in Guantanamo of any kind of causes, natural or otherwise.

So I believe this amendment is not necessary. I think it would have the effect of restricting the power of the executive branch to carry out this war on terrorism and manage the military's treatment of prisoners. The Department of Defense wants to get rid of them. They have tried to repatriate numbers of them. But some of them are just dangerous and must be detained.

I would ask, how would a prosecutor prove a case? Some would say we will just give them a trial. What if they were captured in the mountains of Afghanistan and maybe the soldier who captured them was later killed, or maybe he was reassigned to Korea or some other place? It is not so easy to have trials of prisoners of war, and that is why it has never been done and why I think the amendment, which is carefully drafted and attempts to avoid some of the worst criticisms that might be made of it, is, nevertheless, a step too far, and I believe we should reject it.

I just want to point out a number of things that are important about how careful our military is, unlike what happens when American military prisoners are captured, apparently, as we saw today, the horror of being captured, tortured and killed by the al-Qaida forces in Iraq, who are just brutal in their treatment of American prisoners. We give the prisoners at Guantanamo a combatant status review tribunal--a tribunal consisting of three people, the Department of Defense Combatant Status Review Tribunal process pursuant to a Supreme Court plurality opinion in Hamdi. Hamdi dealt with due process for American citizens. The process created was applied to all foreign nationals detained at Guantanamo and went beyond the process referred to by the Supreme Court of the United States. It went beyond that.

The Combatant Status Review Tribunal provides a venue for detainees to personally challenge their status as enemy combatants. They were given that opportunity. As of January 22, 2005, the Department of Defense had completed 558 CSRTs. Of the 558 hearings that were conducted, the enemy combatant status of 520 detainees was confirmed, and 38 detainees were found to be no longer meeting the criteria to be designated as enemy combatants.

The Administrative Review Board is another process the Department of Defense has implemented. This administrative review process makes an annual assessment of whether there is continued reason to believe that the enemy combatant poses a threat to the United States or its allies, or whether there are factors bearing upon the need or the continued detention, including the enemy combatant's intelligence value, in the global war on terror. That is what this board does every year for every prisoner.

Based on this assessment, the Administrative Review Board can recommend that individuals should be released or should be transferred with conditions or should continue to be detained. Allowing detained enemy fighters to be heard and potentially released or transferred while hostilities are ongoing, as they are this very minute in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a historic and unprecedented step. We have never done that before in war.

The first year, the Administrative Review Board resulted in 330 continue-to-detain decisions, 119 transfer decisions, and 14 release decisions. So these are not rubber stamps. The Department of Defense is attempting to move people out, to transfer them, or release the people they can justify releasing. But remember, 15 of those former prisoners at Guantanamo, who have been released, have later been detained and captured on the battlefield seeking to fight America.

The second year of the Administrative Review Board process, in this annual process, resulted thus far in 12 continue-to-detain decisions, 6 transfer decisions, and no release decisions. That is as of June 20 of this year.

So the Department of Defense has created a system that goes beyond what this Nation has ever utilized in time of war to deal with an attempt to release persons who have been captured as prisoners of war fighting the United States of America. They didn't do that for German prisoners. They didn't do it for Japanese prisoners. They didn't do it for North Korean prisoners. They didn't do it for Vietnamese prisoners. These are unprecedented steps. I think it is more than is required, but it is a generous step for the United States to take, and I certainly support that.

Mr. President, as of May of 2006, 287 detainees have departed Guantanamo,

192 have been released, 95 have been transferred to other governments, including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, and Uganda. We would like to release them all, if we could.

But the President of the United States took an oath to protect the people of the United States from attack by enemies. If he releases prisoners who we believe will have any reasonable basis to continue to attempt to kill American citizens or American soldiers, he is derelict in his duty. This is not some game he is playing. This is not some academic process that the generals who are supervising this are involved in or the Administrative Review Board members or the Combatant Status Review Tribunals are dealing with. They can't make a mistake. If they make a mistake, somebody could die.

I know the operations at Guantanamo have raised complaints from some of our allies, specifically a complaint from one British official. I am so proud of the support the British government and population has shown to the United States, but I have to tell you, I don't know what the man expected us to do. Did he want us to release all 500 of them? Is that what he would want? Is that what the other people on our editorial boards like to write about? We should just release them? Well, maybe Great Britain would like to take them. Maybe the United Kingdom would like to take them and house them in their jails. Would they really? Would they release them? Would they want to release them on their subways or on their buses or on their trains in London?

Three prisoners just committed suicide last week at Guantanamo, and amazingly, we had newspapers in this great Nation that purport to be wise and thoughtful pandering to those seeking to close Guantanamo by suggesting that they are somehow killing themselves because they are depressed.

One of these was an active member of the Taliban forces who fought against the United States. One was a recognized leader in al-Qaida-- they are from Yemen and Saudi Arabia and other places. I believe two were from Saudi Arabia and one was from Yemen. Do we want to release prisoners like these?

They hanged themselves. I suggest, with all sincerity, that these three prisoners did not commit suicide together, the same day, because they got depressed over mistreatment. Most of them have gained weight and have been well treated, well fed, and given superb medical care. That is not why they committed suicide. They committed suicide as a continuation of their commitment to jihad and to prepare to commit suicide to further jihad.

If they had a bomb with which they could have blown themselves up and others, Americans or other people, they would have done that. They absolutely would have done that. But because they were in our custody and couldn't get hold of a bomb and wrap it around their body and kill men, women and children on buses or trains or something like that. The only thing they could do was kill themselves in hopes they would have editorials around the world, editorials in New York City and Washington, DC, have Senators and Congressmen on the floor of the House and the Senate saying how badly we are treating these prisoners of war, these unlawful combatants, and suggesting they all ought to be turned loose and how this is America's fault.

The fact that these three prisoners, clearly terrorists, committed suicide the same day is absolute proof that they were threats to innocent people and to the United States of America. It is proof that they had that threat capability. If they had been released, do you think they would have just gone nicely back home to work a job in Yemen or work on a pipeline in Saudi Arabia? No, they are committed jihadists. They are terrorists. That is why they were in Guantanamo. I am glad they hadn't been released like some of the others and I am glad that those like them are still being detained there. They are not entitled to trial.

I don't know what we will do with Guantanamo. The President said he would like to close it. I guess it would make some people happy around the world. Maybe they would get off his back. But somebody has to do something with them. I will tell you one thing, we can't release them all. Do we release them any better if they are brought back to the United States? Do we release them any better if we take them over to London or Madrid? I submit not. We have them in a safe place. They are being well taken care of. We have invested a lot of the taxpayers' money in making that facility at Guantanamo a good facility, a safe facility. I don't know why we would want to move them, other than just to make people feel better and stop fussing.

But we are going to continue to apprehend people. When we went out after the bombing of Zarqawi and did these raids in 17 different spots and they arrested quite a number of people, what are they going to do with them? Turn them loose?

When I was in Iraq recently, I heard about two brothers who were known bomb makers. Can you imagine someone a greater target of the United States military than a skilled bomb maker who is making bombs that kill American soldiers on a regular basis? They caught them and they thought they had enough proof. But the military decided they didn't. Or the court or somebody did, and they turned them loose.

I am telling you, those military personnel and the civilians that worked with them to help build that case and to identify these bombers were really heartbroken. It was very painful for them to have to release somebody whom they believed had been responsible for killing innocent civilians in Iraq and American soldiers. But we didn't have enough proof, apparently, and we let them go.

We don't need to keep pushing the military, pushing that you have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt like you have to before you can lock up an American citizen--let's not put that kind of burden on our military.

I think this Guantanamo matter is greatly overblown. We fail to realize just how dangerous some of the prisoners are. Hopefully, we can sift through them and find some more who are not dangerous and they can be released. Hopefully, we can send them back to foreign countries. But you know, when you send them back to a foreign country, things don't always work out right. You turn around and 6 months later, 2 years later, they are released. Or sometimes we have Members of the Senate who have made speeches and complained because, if we send them back to their home countries, the home countries realize they are terrorists, maybe even applied those tactics against their country, and they mistreat them. Now we are blamed for some treatment by a foreign government where we sent these prisoners.

We were aggressive in interviewing prisoners at the outset of opening Guantanamo. We had a very good briefing last time I was there where the people said they really reduced the intensity of interrogations. In the weeks and days following September 11 when we thought and had every reason to believe that there were cells probably operating all over this country, the military and our intelligence people were aggressive in asking questions of them and pursuing interrogations. They did not torture them. I do not believe there has been a single allegation that has been substantiated of any torture at Guantanamo. But people took it farther and said the military was too harsh with these prisoners. So for a whole lot of reasons we don't pursue those tactics as strongly today.

The standards are very lax in that regard--or strong in the sense that prisoners are not stressed and not abused in any way as they are being interrogated. In fact, just the opposite is the case. Occasionally, it is odd, after time goes by, somebody begins to talk. Some people never talk.

I appreciate the interest of my colleagues in wanting to run the cleanest prison system we possibly can, to comply with the highest ideals of the United States. I believe if they went there and examined what was going on they would conclude, with me, that the prisoners are being treated well, that they are being given every help and dietary and religious values that they need. We should continue to do that.

Sometime in the future we will have to wrestle with how we are going to handle them and maybe we can continue to repatriate them to the countries of origin. Maybe some actually

ought to be tried and executed. Others simply need to be detained until the war is over. That is just the way it is, and that is the way it has always been.

Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate the eloquent remarks of my colleague and his sharing of insight into Nuremberg and a number of thoughts that he shared with us about the rule of law, which I think is very important.

I note that at Nuremberg they tried and executed quite a number of people who conducted their war unfairly, in an unlawful way and went beyond being prisoners of war. They were, in fact, tried for crimes that they had committed.

I also say to my colleague with great sincerity that we are respecting the rule of law. These individuals that are caught and held at Guantanamo, some may qualify as a prisoner of war, many do not. They are what I have called--others used enemy combatants--unlawful combatants because they were carrying out combat in an unlawful way. They did not carry arms openly. They did not wear a uniform. They moved surreptitiously. They killed randomly women, children--actions that deny them the status of a lawful combatant and a prisoner of war. They are then held, if nothing else, certainly with legal protection because the Geneva Conventions cover people who are lawful combatants, who wage war for legitimate nations in a legitimate way.

Mr. President, I certainly respect the Senator's thoughts about that. I must follow up a little bit.

First, what happened at Nuremberg happened after the war was over.

We held German prisoners in the northern campus of the University of Alabama where I lived when I was in law school. They had German prisoners there during World War II.

But what I want to try to reassure my colleague about is that we do have a proper procedure that is ongoing. For example, we have defined these as combatants. We give them a combatant status review tribunal when they come in. They are reviewed in that fashion. They have a three-judge panel. They actually go beyond the requirements that the U.S. Supreme Court said in the Hamdi case.

In addition to that, they created an Administrative Review Board that, on an annual basis, must make an assessment of whether there is continued reason to believe that the enemy combatant poses a threat to the United States or its allies, or whether there are other factors bearing upon the need for the kind of detention, including its enemy combatant intelligence value in the gulf war on terrorism.

For example, in the first year of those Administrative Review Board hearings, there were 330 decisions to continue to detain the prisoners, 119 decisions to transfer them to other jurisdictions, other countries perhaps, or possibly other countries, and 14 release decisions. This second year, to date, the review board had 12 findings of continued to detain, 6 transfers, and no release decisions.

At least there is a procedure. In response to criticisms in the Congress, around the word, in response to the Supreme Court decision, they have taken it carefully because the military is proud of its standards. The military wants to do this right. But they have a responsibility not to release those who should not be released as they continue to pose a threat to the security of our Nation.

I thank the Senator.

I believe care has been taken to comply with the Supreme Court cases. The Department of Defense has gotten the system in a way that has a combatant status review tribunal and an administrative review board, and there have been multiple hearings. The Department is giving these prisoners--whether they are prisoners of war, lawful or unlawful combatants who are being detained--the rights to which they are entitled. I really do believe they have.

That is the only concern I have about the perception that might be out there, even around the world, that we are acting outside the rule of law. I do not believe that is so.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that John Rowe, a legislative intern in Senator Grassley's office, have floor privileges from now until the Senate adjourns at the end of the week.

Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on June 20, 2006, by the President of the United States:

Protocol III to 1949 Geneva Convention and an Amendment and Protocol to 1980 Conventional Weapons Convention (Treaty Document No. 109-10).

I further ask that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred, with accompanying papers, to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 517 which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 518 submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 21. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the Journal of the proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate resume consideration of S. 2766, the Defense authorization bill, as under the previous order.

Mr. President, tomorrow the Senate will resume consideration of the Defense authorization bill. Under an agreement that was reached earlier, we will continue to debate minimum wage for an hour and a half and then have votes on the Kennedy and Enzi amendments at approximately 11 a.m. Following the votes, Senator Levin will be recognized to offer his amendment regarding Iraq, with 5 hours of debate, to be followed by Senator Kerry offering an amendment regarding Iraq.

This evening, cloture was filed on the bill. The filing deadline for first-degree amendments is 1 p.m. tomorrow. Senators can expect the cloture vote to occur on Thursday morning.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. President, I would like to share a few thoughts about the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee, which I chair, which deals with space, missile defense, satellites, and many of the other high-tech systems on which our Defense Department relies. But I just want to respond to my colleague, Senator Durbin. I don't think he actually meant to say that our soldiers are coming home broken in body and spirit, but he came close. That is not what I am hearing. Go out to Walter Reed. They may have broken bodies and broken bones, but they are not broken in spirit.

The night before last, I attended a wonderful ceremony of the 231st birthday of the U.S. Army. I was talking with soldiers there. We were talking about the war and the politics of the Capitol. They are aware of what is going on. I told them that I thought the Congress would not vote for any immediate withdrawal, and indeed we voted yesterday 93 to 6 against any kind of withdrawal requirement for this year. That vote, represents a strong bipartisan consensus of the Senate. One of those soldiers said: I will tell you what we want, Senator; ``We want to win.'' We want to win this war. That is what the American people want, that is what the soldiers who have gone there and sacrificed want, and that is what they believe in. The soldiers who have been there believe in what they have done. They have been courageous in performing their mission.

It is difficult for me and for them to understand this idea that we can support the soldiers but not support the mission we sent them on, sent them by a three-fourths vote of this Senate. A majority of Democrats and Republicans voted for this war, and we are going to stay the course, we are going to help our military succeed, and we are going to help them win.

The point I pick up more and more as I talk with these soldiers, what I am hearing from them, is they are afraid we are going to mess it up. They believe they are winning. They believe they are doing their job. They believe they will be successful. And they are really worried that this Congress will be the one that will lose its nerve and not stand with them after they put their lives on the line for this country.

I believe this is a big deal, and that success in Iraq is important for our Nation. I visited that region recently. I talked to the leaders of Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. What would it mean for us if we had a disastrous event in Iraq where the terrorists take over that country? What would it mean to their neighbors? What would it mean to the region? All nations of good will know we must succeed.

Iraq is stepping up. There are now 260,000 Iraqi soldiers and security personnel in uniform and reaching higher and higher levels of performance. They are doing a much better job every day. They will soon be at 350,000 by the end of this year. They are being better equipped and better trained, and I believe we are doing a much smarter job of imbedding our soldiers with the Iraqi units so we can call in air support, we can provide mentoring, we can provide advice, we can call on other kinds of support, if they need it, to be effective.

A majority of the raids and actions that are taking place in Iraq are taking place by the Iraqis. Iraqi soldiers are taking more casualties than American soldiers. We are not babysitting them. This image of millions casting their ballots for a freely elected government of Iraq is not a bad image for us to remember. We need to remember that, and it is important for us, let me note first and foremost, that this Nation not allow the terrorists to win in Iraq.

We are going to be successful. But I realize the American people are concerned. They don't like to see violence and continued death. They don't like to see our soldiers at risk. I certainly understand that; neither do I.

I have been an admirer of General Abizaid, CENTCOM commander, and his team of generals because General Abizaid has always resisted the temptation to see how many troops we can put in Iraq. He said that is not the way to win this war. We need the right number of troops, and we need to begin to draw them down as soon as it is appropriate to draw them down and lift up the Iraqi Army. That is what we need to do.

Some want to have the President set forth a detailed plan so they can criticize it, basically. How will some sort of formalized plan help our soldiers be effective in the battle? It just tells your enemy what you are going to be doing. More importantly, a detailed plan is not going to be permanent. It will have to change because the enemy changes. As soon as you shut off one avenue of enemy success, they take another one and you have to respond to that. That is the history of warfare. That is the way wars have always been fought: you constantly adjust and constantly alter your efforts to be successful toward your ultimate goal of victory. That is what our military is doing.

Trying to demand a date from our military to withdraw or trying to demand from them a plan of what they are going to do 5 months from now fails to understand and recognize the nature of this conflict, and this conflict more than most conflicts because we face an asymmetrical enemy, a nontraditional enemy, who knows it cannot stand and fight our military successfully, so it devises devious and sneaky ways to pit one religion against another, to attack American soldiers, to attack the local police, all designed to crumble the Government of Iraq. But it hasn't happened. Iraqis are still signing up and becoming policemen. Iraqis are still signing up and the army is growing. The Government of Iraq has elected, for the first time, their permanent leadership.

Prime Minister Maliki is in office. His whole Cabinet now has been established. The two key Cabinet positions on which they spent extra time, Defense and Interior, have now been established, confirmed and voted by the 275 member Parliament. So they have their government now, fully elected, a permanent government, just like any other nation in the world. There is no interim government now.

I believe they are going to be successful, and I tell you, it is going to be important for the United States that they are. We have invested a lot; our soldiers have invested a lot. They are proud of what they are doing. They are not broken in spirit. They want to be successful and win.

I have some numbers I will share with my colleagues and those around the country who might be listening. In this conflict, the Army has had the largest number of people serving in Iraq, yet their enlistment rate through May of this year was 104.3 percent. They have exceeded their enlistment goals for this year. They have exceeded their reenlistment goals. The Army for a few months did miss their goals, and some critics said it was a broken Army and predicted disaster. The Army said: No, we are not broken, and we are going to meet our goals. For 13 consecutive months, the Army has met its goals. The highest retention reenlistment rates come from the units that have just come back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Staff Sergeant Barr, who was at Walter Reed, was injured by an explosive device. He was punctured by as many as 100 different pieces of shrapnel. He was told he would have difficulty walking and would probably never run again. He said he was going to run again, and he was going back to Iraq with the unit that he came with. And he worked at it and he worked at it and he ran. He eventually went back to Iraq and served again. That is the kind of spirit that we have. That is the kind of spirit that you see in our Army.

I was told by an officer who knew that story that every single soldier in his squad reenlisted. This is the spirit that this Congress needs to strive to be worthy of. This is the kind of professional commitment and courage that inspires us, or should inspire us. We should not be whining around here and trying to find some error that was made somewhere where body armor did not get to a soldier. Body armor is out there protecting soldiers. It is not a problem. To say that there has never been a shortage somewhere or somehow a supply failed to get where it was supposed to, I can't say; but it is not a systemic problem. But to go around and suggest to the citizens of our country that this Congress and the military is not committed to providing body armor to our soldiers is bogus and false and undermines what they are doing. It must be most confusing to our soldiers there.

But I think the vote yesterday should give them confidence that most of this talk is simply politics. Most of it is just complaining and second-guessing, like is done on the floor of the Senate every day. We hear it every day on many issues and debate and criticism is passed of the strength of American Government.

But I would urge my colleagues to think differently about soldiers in conflict, soldiers in harm's way. We need to be careful what we are saying here. It may sound good, it may hurt President Bush, to make this allegation or that allegation, but is it perhaps creating in the eyes of our enemies a belief that we are divided, that we won't stay the course, and that if they just kill enough people, civilians, Americans, Iraqis, that somehow, it will all just fail. Is that the possibility that we are creating? That is why I urge my colleagues to be very careful and watch what you say in terms of attacks on the efforts that our military have so courageously undertaken in Iraq. Things happen in war. Bad things happen. But no military has done a better job of striving for perfection than ours has.

I would also like to respond to charges that this Nation is going to be embarrassed historically because we have tortured people that were captured in this war on terrorism. We talked about Lincoln. Lincoln eliminated the writ of habeas corpus. Roosevelt, as Senator Durbin said, locked people up, Japanese Americans, in a way that was not justified. He basically takes a view, as so many seem to be saying on the left and on the Democratic side, that we have a policy of torture in the United States. That is not so. The President has repeatedly, time and time again, said: We have no policy of torture; we do not torture.

There is a statute in the United States Code passed shortly before I came here that defines and prohibits torture. It does not say you can never put any stress on someone, but it says you can't subject them to torture, and it defines it precisely.

They say, well, what about Abu Ghraib. Let me remind everybody, we learned about Abu Ghraib when the Army general reported what happened in Abu Ghraib. Let me remind people that what happened to those prisoners in Abu Ghraib, so wrong that it was, had nothing to do with interrogation, had nothing to do with any plan of torture. These were not even prisoners who had any intelligence. It was the late graveyard shift and a group of soldiers lost their discipline--lost their discipline under the stress of war--and performed in a way that got them prosecuted and sent to jail by the U.S. military. That was not the policy of the United States of America. We have heard this most complex chain of thoughts and reasoning, this complex chain of reasoning which is almost laughable, and is worthy of the most incredible conspiracy theorists, that somehow President Bush is responsible for what happened in Abu Ghraib.

It is not so. The military responded firmly and aggressively to this terrible wrong. And do you remember the story--I know the Presiding Officer does--of the fine African-American colonel under the stress of attacks on his men in Iraq, he fired a gun near the head of an enemy that had been captured in order to attempt to frighten him and to get intelligence from him. Apparently, he got some intelligence of value that he believed helped protect the lives of his soldiers. But do you know what. He was booted out of the military because we don't tolerate that kind of thing. His actions went beyond what our standards allow, and he was cashiered from the Army. A fine person with a fine career who made a big mistake, and he paid for it because we don't accept that kind of thing.

It is demeaning, it is dishonest, it is wrong to suggest that we have a policy to torture prisoners. With regard to Guantanamo, I know the President said he would like to see it closed. Well, I want to know what he is going to do with those prisoners. I have been there twice. Those soldiers do their jobs under difficult conditions every single day. They are highly professional. They do not allow themselves to be baited into overreacting when these prisoners display the worst kinds of anti-Americanism.

Until just recently, not a single captive had died at Guantanamo. Now we have three suicides. So I suppose that is our fault now, that we had three people commit suicide who were being held down there. These are not bad conditions at all. They are good conditions. They are treated fine. They are given the Koran, given places to worship, given places to exercise, and given all kinds of things that most prisons around the world don't give to the prisoners of their own countries, much less to the people who want to destroy their country.

But what I would say is this: They committed suicide. Those suicides were a political statement. They were their efforts to attack and undermine the United States. Their fervent desire was that Members of this Senate and the House of Representatives would use their deaths to speak on the floor to try to undermine our war against terrorism to make us less successful in the war on terrorism. That is exactly what their goal was. And, I would say this: does anyone in this Chamber doubt that if they had access to a bomb, they would have put that bomb on their body and killed anybody they could have? They would have killed themselves to promote their terrorist agenda. If they had been given the opportunity, wouldn't they have put a bomb on and killed others at the same time?

I say those suicides are an absolute indication that we have in Guantanamo some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world.

Now, I heard an official of our great ally, the United Kingdom, say we ought to close Guantanamo. I wanted to write him and say: Do you want to take these prisoners to the U.K.? Do you want to hold them? And then if you get tired of holding them, are you just going to let them go in London on your subways and on your buses? Then the critics worry that if we turn them back to their home countries and we have a rendition of the prisoners back to their home countries, that we have to guarantee that they are going to be treated wonderfully. So we can't keep them in Guantanamo, we can't--who else wants them? We can't even send them back to their home countries to be held in prison, apparently.

So this reminds me of nuclear waste. Everybody has nuclear waste, but nobody wants to do anything with it, and they use the argument that you can't dispose of nuclear waste to try to block nuclear power. So this is just another attempt to make it more difficult, in my view, for us to be successful in handling these prisoners. They are not being tortured at Guantanamo. It is not the policy of the United States to torture anyone, and they are not being tortured. The few people who violated our high standards have been disciplined and punished.

So let me say this in conclusion, Mr. President. The good news is that we have free debate here, and we get to duke it out and we get to have our say. We just voted yesterday 93 to 6 to declare we have no intention of any precipitous withdrawal from Iraq; that we are going to stand there with our soldiers, and we are going to stand with our allies in Iraq and help them establish a free, decent, democratic government, a government that will be to our national interests to an incredible degree. It will be more valuable than most people can comprehend to us and to the world to have a decent, peaceful Iraq and to defeat the terrorists there who want to take it over and make it their place.

The other good news is that we have had a very successful attack on the CEO of terrorism, Zarqawi, and he has been killed. He clearly was the No. 1 executive officer of terrorism in the world, and that was a big victory.

We also now completed the confirmation of the Defense Minister and the Interior Minister for Iraq, so the entire Cabinet is in place, and an entire government is in place. The Iraqi Army continues to get better, and it continues to grow, and we are beginning to see the possibility that our troops can be withdrawn. If we have to send more troops there, I will listen to the commanders. If they can bring the troops down, that will make me happy. We are going to listen to our commanders and do what it takes and continue this process in a way that leads to--what? Victory. That is what the soldiers we have sent there want, that is what the American people want, and that is what we in this Congress have to do; to figure out how to help our military people go forward and achieve victory. That will be my effort, and I think for the most part that is the bipartisan consensus of this Senate.

Mr. President, again, I finish with a tribute to the professionalism of those in service, to the risk they have incurred; how they have attempted to conduct the violence of war in a way that mitigates civilian casualties and that reflects the highest ideals of the United States of America. I could not be more proud of their service. The conduct of this war on terrorism will be received as the most humane and careful war in history.

I yield the floor.