Floor Statements

Mr. President, for the Committee on Foreign Relations I report favorably the following nomination list which was printed in the Record on the date indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that this nomination lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. President, for nearly 35 years I've been working on this floor to address the all too real public health and safety issues associated with drug and alcohol addiction. Stiff prosecution of trafficking and possession of illegal drugs is important; but just as critical is an intense focus on prevention and treatment. To this end, if we are to be successful in this fight, we--you, me, all of us--must understand that addiction is a neurobiological disease, not a lifestyle choice. The frank and constructive approach to help those struggling with the disease of addiction, and to protect society from the crime and violence that sometimes accompany drug trafficking and use, is through treatment. We must continually work hard to resist the counterproductive social stigma that too often brands addicts and thereby encourages them to slip into seclusion rather than seek treatment. As such, we must begin to change the nature of public discourse about addiction by more appropriately naming our own research institutes to reflect this reality: Addition is a preventable and treatable disease.

Today, I rise to introduce legislation recognizing this reality that addiction is a disease and not a chronic, stigmatizing life-sentence. The Recognizing Addiction as a Disease Act of 2007 changes the names of two institutes at the National Institutes of Health: the National Institute on Drug Abuse will become the National Institute on Diseases of Addiction, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism will become the National Institute on Alcohol Disorders and Health.

These name changes accomplish two important objectives. First, they remove the pejorative term ``abuse'' from the institutes' names and properly help to distance that notion from the disease of addiction. Second, the new names more clearly link the concepts of addiction and disease, a connection that scientific study clearly supports. Identifying addiction as a neurobiological disease will diminish the social stigma, discrimination, and the personal shame that is often a barrier to seeking treatment, and it will further a common understanding of diseases of addiction.

The 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that addiction affects 23.2 million Americans in our country, of whom only about 10 percent are receiving the treatment they need. Many are deterred from seeking such treatment because of the social stigma associated with admitting to a drug or alcohol dependency. This bill is a small but important step towards remedying this problem, fighting drug use, and successfully treating addiction.

Addiction is now understood to be a disease because scientific research has shown that alcohol and other drugs can change the brain's structure and function. Advances in brain imaging science now make it possible to see inside an addict's brain and pinpoint the parts of the brain affected by drugs or alcohol. These insights will enable the development of new approaches to prevention and treatment. In fact, we now have data indicating that excessive alcohol use and alcohol dependence (alcoholism) are not separate diagnostic categories, but exist along a single continuum of alcohol-disorders associated with increased frequency of a harmful drinking pattern.

Today's introduction of this legislation is timely. Two weeks ago HBO premiered an important new documentary movie, Addiction, which presents an encouraging look at addiction as a treatable disease and the film chronicles the major scientific advances that have helped us better understand and treat addiction. The Institutes collaborated with HBO to create this eye-opening documentary that seeks to help Americans understand addiction. HBO's Addiction Project will acquaint viewers with available evidence-based medical and behavioral treatments. This is especially important for disorders like addiction that for many years were treated outside the medical mainstream. From emergency rooms to living rooms to research laboratories, the documentary follows the trail of an illness that affects one in four families in the United States.

The facts surrounding addiction are self-evident. With nearly 1 in 10 Americans over the age of 12 suffering from some form of substance dependency, addiction takes an emotional, psychological, and social toll on the country. The economic costs of substance dependency and addiction alone are estimated to exceed a half trillion dollars annually in the United States due to health care expenditures, lost productivity, and crime.

I am proud to say that my friends and very distinguished colleagues Senators Kennedy and Enzi, chairman and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, respectively, are cosponsors of this important bill.

Today, the Recognizing Addiction as a Disease Act of 2007 takes a small but important stride towards helping those struggling with diseases of addiction.

Mr. President, for nearly 35 years I've been working on this floor to address the all too real public health and safety issues associated with drug and alcohol addiction. Stiff prosecution of trafficking and possession of illegal drugs is important; but just as critical is an intense focus on prevention and treatment. To this end, if we are to be successful in this fight, we--you, me, all of us--must understand that addiction is a neurobiological disease, not a lifestyle choice. The frank and constructive approach to help those struggling with the disease of addiction, and to protect society from the crime and violence that sometimes accompany drug trafficking and use, is through treatment. We must continually work hard to resist the counterproductive social stigma that too often brands addicts and thereby encourages them to slip into seclusion rather than seek treatment. As such, we must begin to change the nature of public discourse about addiction by more appropriately naming our own research institutes to reflect this reality: Addition is a preventable and treatable disease.

Today, I rise to introduce legislation recognizing this reality that addiction is a disease and not a chronic, stigmatizing life-sentence. The Recognizing Addiction as a Disease Act of 2007 changes the names of two institutes at the National Institutes of Health: the National Institute on Drug Abuse will become the National Institute on Diseases of Addiction, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism will become the National Institute on Alcohol Disorders and Health.

These name changes accomplish two important objectives. First, they remove the pejorative term ``abuse'' from the institutes' names and properly help to distance that notion from the disease of addiction. Second, the new names more clearly link the concepts of addiction and disease, a connection that scientific study clearly supports. Identifying addiction as a neurobiological disease will diminish the social stigma, discrimination, and the personal shame that is often a barrier to seeking treatment, and it will further a common understanding of diseases of addiction.

The 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that addiction affects 23.2 million Americans in our country, of whom only about 10 percent are receiving the treatment they need. Many are deterred from seeking such treatment because of the social stigma associated with admitting to a drug or alcohol dependency. This bill is a small but important step towards remedying this problem, fighting drug use, and successfully treating addiction.

Addiction is now understood to be a disease because scientific research has shown that alcohol and other drugs can change the brain's structure and function. Advances in brain imaging science now make it possible to see inside an addict's brain and pinpoint the parts of the brain affected by drugs or alcohol. These insights will enable the development of new approaches to prevention and treatment. In fact, we now have data indicating that excessive alcohol use and alcohol dependence (alcoholism) are not separate diagnostic categories, but exist along a single continuum of alcohol-disorders associated with increased frequency of a harmful drinking pattern.

Today's introduction of this legislation is timely. Two weeks ago HBO premiered an important new documentary movie, Addiction, which presents an encouraging look at addiction as a treatable disease and the film chronicles the major scientific advances that have helped us better understand and treat addiction. The Institutes collaborated with HBO to create this eye-opening documentary that seeks to help Americans understand addiction. HBO's Addiction Project will acquaint viewers with available evidence-based medical and behavioral treatments. This is especially important for disorders like addiction that for many years were treated outside the medical mainstream. From emergency rooms to living rooms to research laboratories, the documentary follows the trail of an illness that affects one in four families in the United States.

The facts surrounding addiction are self-evident. With nearly 1 in 10 Americans over the age of 12 suffering from some form of substance dependency, addiction takes an emotional, psychological, and social toll on the country. The economic costs of substance dependency and addiction alone are estimated to exceed a half trillion dollars annually in the United States due to health care expenditures, lost productivity, and crime.

I am proud to say that my friends and very distinguished colleagues Senators Kennedy and Enzi, chairman and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, respectively, are cosponsors of this important bill.

Today, the Recognizing Addiction as a Disease Act of 2007 takes a small but important stride towards helping those struggling with diseases of addiction.

Mr. President, once again we are debating additional wartime funding for Iraq. Once again, we are trying to mitigate the damage caused by the President's utterly failed Iraq policy and the failure to properly plan for and manage the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's fall. I have spoken many times about how damaging this lack of planning has been to our efforts in Iraq and to our standing in the world.

For the past 2 months, the spotlight has shone on another administration failure in this war: the shameful conditions our wounded soldiers face as outpatients navigating the military health system when they return from Iraq or Afghanistan. This is another example of gross mismanagement and a strained system. As such, I will offer amendment No. 766 to improve the care that members of the Armed Forces and veterans receive at Walter Reed and other military medical facilities.

The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that some of the reasons for concern at Walter Reed do not occur in the future. As the living conditions for outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center indicate, moving to private contracts for maintenance can cause problems. After a private contract was awarded for maintenance and upkeep of buildings on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a maintenance crew of approximately 300 was whittled down to 50 by the time the contract went into effect. Many of the terrible living conditions found in Building 18 were a direct result of delays in building repair and maintenance because of a shortage in manpower. To prevent this situation from occurring again, this amendment calls for public-private competitions of maintenance services at military medical complexes to stop while our country is engaged in military conflicts. It also calls for a Government Accountability Office review of contracting-out decisions for basic maintenance work at military facilities.

Other problems discovered at Walter Reed are directly attributable to shortages resulting from pressures to cut budgets for military medical services. These cuts cannot be tolerated at a time when military medical services are needed to treat servicemembers who have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. As such, this amendment would require medical command budgets to be equal to or exceed the prior year amount while the Nation is involved in a major military conflict or war.

Another issue that the conditions at Walter Reed brought up is whether or not the facility should be closed as the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended. The Commission recommended building new, modern facilities at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda and at Fort Belvoir to improve the overall quality of care and access to care in this region. Military leaders have indicated that the planned closure has limited their ability to attract needed professionals to jobs at Walter Reed and there have been concerns raised whether adequate housing for the families of the wounded has been properly planned. To deal with that, this amendment requires the Department of Defense to submit to Congress within one year a detailed plan that includes an evaluation of the following: the desirability of being able to guarantee professional jobs for 2 years or more following the closure; detailed construction plans for the new facilities and for new family housing; and the costs and benefits of building all of the needed medical treatment, rehabilitation, and housing before a single unit is moved.

Another major problem and source of frustration for injured soldiers is the length of time it takes to receive a disability determination. In order to hasten the disability determination process, we need to ensure that the Department of Defense has information systems capable of communicating with those in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA has been a leader in implementing electronic medical record keeping, but we have to improve the capability of the Department of Defense to send electronic medical records to the VA to speed up the disability determination process. Making the disability determination system more efficient can reduce the stress on the soldiers and their families going through the determination process.

Caseworkers are also critical. They schedule appointments and make sure wounded servicemembers get the rehabilitative and follow-up care they need. As more and more soldiers and marines come home wounded, many military caseworkers are overwhelmed. To improve the care given to servicemembers, this amendment requires a minimum ratio of case managers to patients of 1 to 20, that case managers have contact with recovering servicemembers at least once a week, and that case managers be properly trained on the military's disability and discharge systems so they can better assist patients with their paperwork.

Currently, many combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have service-related mental health issues like posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, TBI. Many have labeled TBI the ``signature injury'' of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. It is estimated that as many as 10 percent of those serving or who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have brain injuries. That would mean about 150,000 of the 1.5 million soldiers who have served in Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom have suffered a brain injury. In many cases, these injuries are not diagnosed because there is not an external wound. Depending on the severity of these injuries, returning soldiers can require immediate treatment or not have symptoms show up until several years later. This amendment calls for every returning soldier to be screened for TBI. While the VA has announced plans to do this, it needs to happen in active-duty military medical facilities too. In addition, the amendment calls for a study on the advisability of treating TBI as a presumptive condition in every service's disability evaluation system, as well as the VA disability evaluation system.

We often hear about the 25,000 soldiers and marines who have been wounded in these wars--but that figure grossly underestimates the demand that the VA health care system faces. Since our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, more than 1.5 million soldiers have been deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations. Of these, 630,000 are now veterans and, according to the Department of Defense, more than 205,000 have already received medical treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs. A recent Harvard study on the long-term costs of treating these new veterans estimates that by 2012 more than 643,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will be using the VA system, an almost three-fold increase of what the system faces now. With a significant backlog of claims currently existing, the system is in desperate need of an upgrade. To address this concern, my amendment directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit to Congress a plan for the long-term care needs for veterans for the next 50 years.

In addition to this amendment that I offer today, I am happy to have also joined with my colleagues Senators Obama and McCaskill and offered an amendment based on the Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act. My amendment complements the Obama and McCaskill amendment to improve the care our wounded soldiers receive at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military medical facilities. I believe both amendments will make medical care better for our military personnel and veterans. I also commend the Appropriations Committee for already providing approximately $3.1 billion in funding above the President's request for health programs in the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Providing $1.3 billion for defense health programs and $1.767 billion for veterans' health programs is a great step to fix some of the problems we currently face.

It is our highest obligation to heal the hundreds of thousands of brave men and women who will bear the physical and emotional scars of these wars for the rest of their lives. While President Bush and his administration may have failed to plan adequately to ensure that these soldiers and veterans receive the care that they deserve, we in Congress must act now to improve this situation.

Mr. President, I send amendment No. 529 to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this amendment reinstates the COPS Program. I remind everyone, when the COPS Program was functioning, violent crime in America reduced 8.5 percent a year for 7 years in a row.

Mr. President, throughout the 1990s, we funded the COPS Program at roughly $1.2 billion, and it drove down crime. Now crime is rising again. In every one of our States it is up. Violent crime is up across the board. The Police Investigative Research Forum released a report which found that murders were up 10.6 percent in 2004.

The COPS Program in the crime bill worked, and the Government Accounting Office found a statistical link between the COPS grants and a reduction in crime. The Brookings Institution reported the COPS Program is one of the most cost-effective programs we have ever had in this country. Local officials urgently need this support.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added as cosponsors: Lieberman, Clinton, Salazar, Obama, Kohl, Harkin, Boxer, Kerry, Whitehouse, Dorgan, Dodd, Schumer, and all Democrats on this side.

Mr. President, I am happy to join the esteemed Congressman from New York, Rep. Steve Israel, and submit a resolution today to declare May 2007 as ``National Autoimmune Diseases Awareness Month.''

The purpose of the resolution is to raise awareness of autoimmune diseases and the need for aggressive research to learn the root causes of autoimmune diseases, as well as the best diagnostic methods and treatments for people with autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases are chronic, disabling diseases in which underlying defects in the immune system lead the body to attack its own organs and tissues. Autoimmune diseases can affect any part of the body-blood, blood vessels, muscles, nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, endocrine glands, and multiple-organ systems--and can be life- threatening.

Researchers have identified over 80 different autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, juvenile diabetes, Crohn's disease, scleroderma, polymyositis, lupus, Sjogren's disease and Graves' disease, and suspect at least 40 additional diseases of having an autoimmune basis. The National Institutes of Health estimates that autoimmune diseases afflict more than 23 million people in the United States. Seventy five percent of the people affected with autoimmune diseases are women, and the prevalence of autoimmune diseases is rising. However, the family of autoimmune diseases is under-recognized, and this poses a major health care challenge to the United States.

Diagnostic tests for autoimmune diseases are not standardized, which makes autoimmune diseases very difficult to diagnose. Because autoimmune diseases are difficult to diagnose, treatment is often delayed, resulting in irreparable organ damage and unnecessary suffering.

There is a significant need for more collaboration and cross- fertilization of

basic autoimmune research, with a particular focus on the etiology of all autoimmune-related diseases in order to increase understanding of the root causes of these diseases rather than treating the symptoms after the disease has had its destructive effect.

As such, I am submitting this resolution to designate May 2007 as ``National Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month'' to help educate the public about autoimmune diseases and the need for research funding, accurate diagnosis, and effective treatments.

Madam President, there are many statements in the resolution by the Senator from New Hampshire that are true. It is a true statement that the President has the power to ``deploy troops and direct military campaigns during wartime.'' But that presupposes that a war has been properly authorized by Congress because that power exists only in wartime, or in certain emergency circumstances. The President does not, however, have the power under the Constitution to initiate a war.

It is literally true that Congress has the power of the purse, and in that capacity has the moral responsibility to adequately support the troops in the field, once we are at war. This administration has failed in that responsibility in not equipping our soldiers in Iraq with adequate armor, in not having an adequate plan to stabilize Iraq after the initial invasion, and in not caring for our soldiers properly when they return home.

But this resolution is not balanced. It does not set forth a statement about Congress's powers under the Constitution to authorize the use of force under article I. Nor does it say anything about the authority of Congress to change the mission of U.S. forces, once a war has commenced. This silence about Congress's power might be interpreted to suggest that the President's powers as Commander in Chief to initiate war are unlimited, and that Congress's sole responsibility is to fund a war that the President initiates. That is not what the Constitution says, and I cannot vote for anything that might be so read.

Because the Gregg resolution lacks balance, I cannot vote for it. I will vote instead for the resolution by Senator Murray, which presents a more complete statement about the allocation of powers under the Constitution.

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

Mr. President, what I wish to do at this moment is address one of the arguments I have heard many of my colleagues make over the past 2 days of this debate. The argument I have heard when I was on the floor yesterday, and again I have heard it today, is that the joint resolution we are debating is an effort to micromanage the war by focusing the mission of U.S. Armed Forces on training Iraqis, denying terrorists a safe haven in Iraq, and force protection.

If you listen to my colleagues who oppose this, you hear them recount that as if somehow that is exceeding the power of the people to speak, through their Congress, as to what role American military forces are permitted to play. Many of my colleagues on the other side go on to argue we are somehow overstepping our constitutional boundaries in defining the purpose for which U.S. forces can be used in Iraq.

Well, that argument, I respectfully suggest, is dead wrong. Defining the overall mission of U.S. troops is entirely within the power of the Congress under the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, not doing so would be an abdication of our fundamental duty under the Constitution, which clearly manifests war power in the hands of the Congress.

Now let me give you a few illustrations, if I may. In 2002, when we voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq, we defined the purpose. We defined the purpose for which the President was permitted to use American forces against Iraq. It was to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, and, further, to enforce all relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

During the course of the negotiations on that resolution, in which I was deeply involved, Congress made it clear, at least on this side--as one of the several people speaking for the Democrats at the time in the Senate--we specifically and clearly rejected the Bush administration's initial proposal for using force in Iraq. President Bush sought what I believe to be, and the majority of the Senate eventually did, an overly broad authority to use force: to restore international peace and security in the region.

I read that at the time as a grant of authority to the President that far exceeded what arguably was necessary at all in Iraq. The function of our military force was not to restore international peace and security in the region. We struck that and said: The use

of force is to defend the national security of the United States against a continuing threat from Iraq, not the region; not the region.

After the President's attempted overreach here, we narrowed the geographic scope of the authority the Congress, under the Constitution, was willing to grant the President, and we narrowed the purpose for which he was allowed to use force. We did two things. We not only said, Mr. President, this is not about the region. You can only use force, if necessary, dealing with Iraq being a threat to the United States.

I remind everybody what we were being told at the time. We were being told by the Vice President that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program. Simply not true. It was not true when he stated it. Our intelligence community not only said he did not reconstitute the nuclear program, it said he had no nuclear program. That is not what we were told.

So we gave him authority, I remind everyone, to negotiate at the United Nations, to keep the pressure of the world on Iraq, to bring back the U.N. people, to determine what nuclear program or weapons of mass destruction he had, to get the inspectors back in, and to negotiate to do that, because at the time the argument taking place in the world was, was the U.S. embargo, was the world embargo, were the U.N. inspectors causing pain for innocent Iraqis?

Do you remember how many times we heard the argument that the reason why there was not enough medicine, the reason why children were dying, the reason why they did not have enough food, was because of this awful thing the United States was leading, the embargo on Iraq, the Food for Oil Program?

So to put this in context so everybody remembers, there were a lot of us on the floor willing to give deference to the President, who we thought was responsible in the exercise of power at the time, because he appeared responsible immediately after 9/11; he proceeded correctly relative to al-Qaida and the Taliban. He did not go off willy-nilly and start bombing people. He built the case. He sent his envoys all over the world. He made a compelling case for the right for us to invade Afghanistan. He even went so far as to worry about whether the Arab street would rise up if we attacked Muslims in Afghanistan. He engaged in public diplomacy. He did a fine job.

That was the context in which we gave him this power. But even then, as much as he had done well relative to Afghanistan at the time, we quite frankly did not trust him or any President to have this broad reach of authority which he asked for, which was to maintain peace, international peace and security in the region.

So we cut back the authority we gave him to negotiate at the U.N. Remember what he tried to do. He came and made the argument: There has to be a demonstration that all of the Nation support him in that we must keep pressure on Saddam. All Democrats and Republicans support him. That was the argument made to us. He did not come up here and make the argument to the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee: We need to be able to attack. He argued we needed to be able to give him the moral authority to go to the United Nations and keep the pressure on, because the French were wavering, the Europeans were wavering, some Arab countries were wavering. And then as time went on, he built this argument about they reconstituted their nuclear weapons and the like. But even then we did not give him the authority he asked for.

Why am I dwelling on this? Well, we made a clear judgment as a Senate and as a House, as a Congress, that he did not have the geographic scope for the extended purpose he wanted. We said: Here is your writ, Mr. President. Here is the region you are allowed to, if need be, use force--in this constrained area called Iraq. Because you are telling us, Mr. President, it is a threat to the United States of America, not a threat to the region, it is a threat to the United States of America. So you have the authority to deal with that, if necessary.

Secondly, even within Iraq, you can only use the force to enforce all relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. If memory serves me, there were 16, including resolutions relating to weapons of mass destruction.

So that was the rationale. We severely limited the authority he wanted because we thought it was an overreach. Now we know there were no weapons of mass destruction. Now we know--I will speak and say what I believe--hopefully the Intelligence Committee will show--not only did we have bad intelligence, but the good intelligence we had was misused by the administration, in my opinion. We will find out whether that turns out to be true.

In 2002, when we offered the authorization to use force, we defined the purpose. So I ask those who argue that we are now overstepping our bounds with this resolution, did we overstep our bounds in 2002 when we authorized the use of force against Iraq, when we limited what the President wanted to do? If, in fact, we do not have the constitutional authority today to limit what the President wants to do, how did we have the authority to do it in 2002? As I said, what is the rationale for the continued authority under the 2002 resolution? There are no weapons of mass destruction. All the U.N. resolutions are in compliance. And nobody argues the Iraqi Government is a threat to the United States of America. Are they going to invade us?

To those who have a problem with the mission we defined in this joint resolution before the Senate, I also say, listen to Prime Minister Tony Blair in announcing last month the redeployment of British forces from Iraq. Last month the mission the British Government assigned to those Brits who will remain in Iraq is precisely what we prescribed in our resolution. The new mission of the British forces in Iraq is the following: to transfer responsibility to the Iraqis; to train and support Iraqi forces; to help secure the border and supply routes; and to conduct operations against extremist groups, i.e., Al-Qaida. It is not to fight in the Iraqi civil war. It is not to be in the lead role in security operations in Basra, where they had authority, or in Baghdad, where they did not. In short, with the exception of denying terrorists sanctuary and training of Iraqis, the British forces are moving from the driver's seat to the backseat. This resolution proposes that very transition for our forces in Iraq.

So I ask again, rhetorically, does the Vice President think Prime Minister Blair's announcement of a ``redeployment,'' as the Vice President said, ``validates the al-Qaida strategy''? That is what he is accusing the Congress of. That is what he accuses me and Carl Levin of when we came up with this idea, that is now a leadership amendment; we are validating al-Qaida's strategy.

Are the British validating al-Qaida's strategy? Is he saying Tony Blair is validating Osama bin Laden? It is ridiculous. It is a ridiculous argument. It flies in the face of the facts. It comes down to this: Do we want American troops fighting an Iraqi civil war? Is that what we want these troops for? Is that why we sent them? Do you think, when we voted back in 2002, if we knew there were no weapons of mass destruction, if Saddam were gone, if they were in compliance with other U.N. resolutions, but if there were a raging civil war, do you think we would have voted on the floor of this body to send 150,000, 160,000, 170,000, 180,000 American troops to Iraq to help them settle their civil war? What do you think? I don't think so. We might have sent troops to Jordan. We might have done what we are trying now in Amman and the emirates. We might have beefed up Turkey. We might have accepted to go after al-Qaida sites. But I doubt very much we would vote now to get in the midst of a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian violence, which is what it is. If you want American troops fighting a civil war in Iraq, if you want that, then vote against this resolution, do not vote for it. Do not vote for it.

You say that is not fair; we are not engaged in fighting in a civil war. Has anybody asked themselves the rhetorical question: Why is it that Sadr, who has been responsible for killing a lot of Americans, and his Mahdi army, which has been responsible for killing a lot of Americans, why is it that the Shia-led Mahdi army, particularly in Sadr City, has taken off their uniforms, hidden their weapons, and as of yesterday--I have not checked today--there were rumors that Sadr is no longer in Iraq?

Maybe he is back now. We do not know for sure where he is. Why is it that they took down the blockade? Is it because all of a sudden they turned peace loving?

I respectfully suggest, because inadvertently the 17,500 troops we are surging into the middle of Baghdad, we are surging them into 20- some neighborhoods that are Sunni.

They are bad guys, these former Saddamists, these former Baathists-- this insurgency--who were referred to until recently by the Secretary of Defense as ``a bunch of dead enders.'' I respectfully suggest the reason all of a sudden the Shia in Sadr City are lying low is because they are very happy the United States is doing their job for them, killing their enemy, killing the bad guys who are Sunnis. Does anybody think if we succeed in that mission that all of a sudden we are not going to see all those weapons come out of hiding in Sadr City? Does anybody think that all of a sudden it is going to be safe for Americans in that region? Does anybody think the uniforms aren't going to come back on and the roadblocks aren't going to go back up? These folks aren't dumb. It is not our purpose, but the effect is, we are engaged in this civil war.

The question is, What is the plan to responsibly end our participation in this war without leaving behind chaos, without having traded a dictator for chaos, without having left behind a cycle of self-sustaining sectarian violence that metastasizes in the fragmentation of Iraq and metastasizes in the region--Turkey, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia? What is the answer?

So far, I don't hear a plan. Notice, by the way, now the surge is really getting bumped up, as some of us predicted on this floor when he announced the surge and predicted in our committee, 17,000 people to 22,500, whatever the actual number was initially. Now they are saying they are going to need 30,000 people for the surge. Why? Because it is like squeezing a water balloon. The bad guys have left this area in part, and they have now gone to the province directly outside of Baghdad.

General Keane is a very bright fellow, an honest guy, a former four- star general, who testified before our committee. He came up with the original plan about surging. He said: In order for this to work, you are going to have to surge well beyond Baghdad. You are going to have to go into Anbar Province and beyond. He predicted what would happen.

They said: No, we are only talking about 22,500 troops.

What is the purpose of the surge? The purpose of the surge, we are told--in a humanitarian sense, it makes a lot of sense, except for the humanitarian interest of our troops--is to bring order to Baghdad, stop the killing and the chaos. Why? Because when that happens and they have--I think the phrase used is ``breathing room''--when they have that breathing room, what is going to happen? Then they can negotiate. Then they will sit down and negotiate an agreement among themselves. Has anybody asked the question, What will be the basis of that negotiation? What is the idea? What is the element? What is the political solution?

The President continues to insist on a well-intended but fundamentally flawed strategy. The flawed strategy is, it is possible to have a strong central democratic government. Before we went to war, I believed, and so stated, that there is not going to be a democracy there in any of our lifetimes, including the Presiding Officer, who is considerably younger than most of us. It is not going to happen. It is possible that we could leave behind a country secure within its borders, loosely federated, not a threat to its neighbor and not a haven for terror, but that is as good as it is going to get.

At least one and probably both of my colleagues in the Chamber were here during the Balkan crisis in Bosnia. What does history teach us and what does recent experience teach us? Wherever there is a cycle of self-sustaining genocide, self-sustaining sectarian violence, when in modern history has it ended other than any one of four ways:

One, a victor. They wipe out the other two sides or three sides or one side, and one of the ethnic groups prevails militarily on the battlefield.

Two, occupation by an outside force--the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire, the British Empire.

We can't afford the first to happen because that would have a devastating impact on the region because everybody knows the Sunni states will get more involved. If it goes the other way, the Shia states will be involved in Iran beyond what they are now. That is not a real option. We are not an occupying force. It is not in our DNA. We are not an empire.

The third option historically is a dictator, a strongman. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony--us going to Iraq to take down Saddam and restoring a strong man, which, I respectfully suggest, we should consider might happen because eventually we are going to leave and the dysfunctional circumstances in Iraq are as likely to produce a strong military leader to take over as anything else, although there is no individual in sight right now. That is not an option available to us.

What is the fourth historical option? Federation, a federal system, a weak central government within the defined borders of a country that, in fact, gives the warring sectarian parties some control over the fabric of their daily lives, their local police force for their public safety, rules relating to marriage, education. That is the only other option which has ever worked. It doesn't work perfectly.

What does recent history tell us? Like many here, I was deeply involved in our Balkan policy. As my friend from Kansas may remember, I, to use the vernacular, beat President Clinton up and about the head to use force in the Balkans. I argued, after encountering Milosevic 2 years before he acted in his office--when he asked me what I thought of him, I said: I think you are a damn war criminal, and I am going to spend my career seeing you tried as one. I came back and wrote report after report, after close to a dozen visits. I saw what was happening in Brcko, in Tuzla, in Sarajevo, in Srebenica, more sectarian violence in the Balkans from Vlad the Impaler to Milosevic than ever occurred in what is now called Iraq.

So how did we end it? We ended it after they killed several hundred thousand people, mostly women and children. We ended it after we gathered all the neighbors, including Russia, a pro-Serbian force, France, all the nations in the region. We gathered in a room. We brought in the parties who were warring, including Milosevic, Tudjman, Croats, and other leaders representing the Bosniaks. What did we do? We then called the Dayton Peace Accords. What did we do there? We gave much more autonomy to each of those groups than ever was envisioned by what I am proposing.

We set up a thing called the Republic of Serbia in Bosnia with its own President. We had a Bosnian President and we had a Croatian President. For over 10 years, as my friend from Oklahoma can attest, who knows more about force structure than most of us know, there have been over 20,000 on average NATO forces there. To the best of my knowledge, none has been killed in anger with a shot fired.

What is going on in Bosnia today? Was everyone who was ethnically cleansed able to come back to their neighborhoods? No. A lot have. Is there still injustice? Yes. Is genocide continuing? No. What are they doing now? They are debating amending their Constitution to become part of Europe so they can join the EU down the road. We don't have to go very far for an example.

Let me ask the rhetorical question again: Can anybody name me a time, without empire, dictator or expiring, that self-sustaining sectarian violence within the borders of a country has resulted in a central federal control that is democratic? With all due respect to the President, arguably his dream at the outset made sense. That is why I called 3 years ago for 60,000 to 100,000 additional American forces. That is why I called for the need for at least 5,000 to 6,000 paramilitary police to be sent, because I believed--and I wrote at the time--if the genie ever gets out of the bottle, if we don't establish order quickly, there is no possibility of stopping a vicious civil war.

Senator Hagel and I got smuggled across the Turkish border before the war began, and went up to Arbil and met with the Brazani and Talabani clans to discuss with them whether

they would actually be with us if force was used. They had us each speak before the Kurdish Parliament, and they had already written a constitution that was the minimum they would, in fact, insist upon which allowed for significant Kurdish autonomy. They wanted a federal system.

A year ago January, my distinguished colleague from South Carolina and I went to Iraq for what was my sixth time. I have been there since. I don't know how many times it was. We went around and proudly put our fingers in the ink well, demonstrating that this was a free election. We came back and spoke to the President. We were debriefed by the President and his war cabinet. The President said it was a great democratic effort. I presumed to suggest it wasn't a democratic effort, it was a free election. It was a sectarian election. It turns out 92 percent of the vote cast was a sectarian vote. Kurds voted for Kurds. Shia voted for Shia. Sunni voted for Sunni. That is not democracy. Elections do not a democracy make. They are a necessary and ultimate condition to democracy. Democracy is about giving up things, about compromise.

I will never forget what Senator Graham, who has a great facility for words, said as I was trying to explain to the President about the militias--not that he did not know there were militias. After we got finished, the President turned to Senator Graham and Senator Graham said, with a bit of humor: Mr. President, it is kind of like when the recount was taking place in Florida, if the Republicans had their own army and the Democrats had their own army. That is the better analogy.

The genie was out of the bottle, and the genie came roaring out of the bottle when that shrine in the Shia area was devastated and ripped off the Earth.

Let me conclude by saying, it comes down to a simple proposition: Why do we want our troops in Iraq? Is it to fight a civil war or is it to provide a circumstance whereby we do the only thing that can help our interest, to prevent al-Qaida from occupying territory, to train the Iraqi forces, and to protect our troops. To do that we need a lot fewer troops.

Do we want to end this war responsibly? If we do, I respectfully suggest we vote for this resolution. If you prefer the President's plan, which offers no end in sight, I respectfully suggest you should vote against it. But, ultimately, there are a lot of proposals put forward, including the President's, and you have to ask yourself the rhetorical question, I believe: After it is implemented, then what? Then what?

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, our troops don't lose wars; bad policy and bad leadership lose wars. We should have the courage to stand up and tell the administration they have had a God-awful policy. They put our troops in a position that, in fact, has made it virtually impossible for them to succeed at the outset. They deserve a policy, a plan, but there is no plan.

We went to war with too few troops, we went to war unnecessarily, and we went to war with men and women who were ill-equipped, and they are coming home ill-served. It is about time we have the courage to stand up and say to the President: Mr. President, you have not only put us in harm's way, you have harmed us. You have no policy, Mr. President.

I am so tired of hearing on this floor about courage. Let's have the courage to tell the administration to stop this ridiculous policy they have.

We are taking sides in a civil war. I was there in Srebrenica. I was in Tuzla. I was in Sarajevo. I was in Brcko in the Balkans. How did we solve that? We solved that with a policy of separating the parties.

This is a cycle of self-sustaining sectarian violence that 20,000, 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 Americans will not be able to stop. This is ridiculous. There is no plan. I ask the President and everyone else who comes forward with a plan, whether it is capping or surging or whatever they have: Will it answer the two-word test: Then what? Then what? Then what? What happens after we surge these women and men?

And by the way, he said General Petraeus is one who believes. He may be the only one who believes this is a good idea. Virtually no one else thinks it is a good idea. Look, in this story about the Constitution, we gave the President specific authority, which is our responsibility. It was to take down Saddam, if need be, it was to get rid of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, and it was to get compliance with the U.N. resolution. Every one of those have been met. Saddam is dead, there were no weapons, and Iraq is in compliance with the U.N.

So if one wants to be literal about it, his mission no longer has the force of law. Everyone I have spoken with, including from the Biden- Gelb plan straight through to the Iraq Study Group, says: Look, use our troops wisely; use them wisely. What are their missions? We have the right and obligation constitutionally, and we should have the courage constitutionally, to exercise our responsibility to say: Why are our troops there?

Did anybody on this floor, did anybody count on the utter incompetence of this administration when they were getting the authority they were getting? Absolute incompetence. I stood on this floor 3 years ago saying we need another 100,000 troops before the sectarian violence became self-sustaining and warned, as others did, that once it did, all the king's horses and all the king's men could not hold that country together.

So what is our objective here? Our objective is to leave Iraq relatively stable within its own borders, not a threat to its neighbors and not a haven for terror.

What is the President and my friend from Arizona and others insisting on? What can never be: a central government that is a democracy that is going to be fair to the rest of its citizens. It is not possible, mark my words.

So as long as the President keeps us on this ridiculous path, taking us off a cliff, I ask my colleagues: Does anybody think they are going to be able to sustain keeping American forces in Iraq at 160,000 for another year and a half? What do you think? What do you think is going to happen in Tennessee, in Delaware, in Illinois? Are we going to break this man's and woman's Army? What are we going to do here? How many times do we have to ask those 175,000 marines to rotate, three, four, five, six, seven times?

And what is the President's political solution? I love this. Everyone says there is no military solution, only a political solution. Name me one person who has come up with a political solution--one--other than me and Les Gelb.

There is a political solution. It is what history teaches us. When there is self-sustaining sectarian violence, there is only one of four possibilities:

They either, one, expire, kill one another off; two, you impose a dictator; three, you have an empire; or, four, you have a Federal system.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

Mr. President, I am tired of hearing about courage. The only courage being evidenced in this country is by those folks out on the battlefields getting shot at, getting killed. Why are they there? Let's get on with this. This is the only rational way to move.

All this malarkey about cutting off funds--this is about the mission.

Mr. President, you are leading us off a cliff. Stop.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have spoken to the manager of the bill, and I am--with his permission and their permission--going to speak. But as soon as they are ready to reclaim the floor, to close this down, I am prepared to stop at that point, or before.

Mr. President, I know there is not a lot of time, but the amendment that is at the desk, No. 383, that I have--I ask it be called up and be considered.

This is all about rail safety. The Federal Government currently has no say on where 90-ton rail tankers, filled with chlorine or other hazardous chemicals, are shipped around the Nation. The Naval Research Laboratory, at my request, some months ago, issued a report. The context of my inquiry with them was: What would happen if one of these 90-ton chlorine gas tanker cars exploded--for example, where a terrorist put C-2 underneath there in a populated area and blew it up?

What made me think of it was, you may remember almost 2 years ago now, out in North Dakota, one of these tankers leaked, and the end result was a number of adjoining towns, small towns, had to be evacuated because it was so deadly.

So I asked the question of the Naval Research Center. As you know, some of our best scientists in the world are there. I asked: What would happen? What would happen if a 90-ton tanker containing chlorine were to be blown up in a major metropolitan area?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the report submitted to me be printed in the Record.

Let me summarize the report.

The answer was ``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half an hour.'' Let me say that again. One of these tankers filled with chlorine gas--and there are hundreds, up and down the road, going through major metropolitan areas, from Los Angeles to New York and everywhere in between--what would happen if a terrorist were to explode one of those in a major metropolitan area? The answer was: ``over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half an hour.''

Said another way: What happens if one of these is blown up in a freight yard in Philadelphia, PA, right along the Schuylkill River, 10 blocks, 15 blocks from City Hall, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University--a very populated area? Within one-half hour, 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed.

How long would it take to evacuate that area? Imagine evacuating downtown New York City, Baltimore, Miami, Seattle--you name the city.

So what is the problem? Well, the problem is--and we have seen in recent reports--insurgents in Iraq are using chlorine in their attacks on civilians. There is little doubt terrorists who are targeting us here at home are paying attention. In these roadside bombs, they are-- thank God they have not gotten it down very well yet--but they are injecting chlorine into that carnage they cause because they know the consequence of the dissemination of the highly toxic substance in a populated area.

Nevertheless, we continue to allow these 90-ton--that is a standard: 90-ton--rail tanks containing chlorine and other hazardous chemicals to roll unprotected through the hearts of our largest cities in high- threat areas. We know the rail industry has adamantly opposed any attempt to allow local officials, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and security people, to reroute these tankers.

Now, again, look where this tanker is sitting, as shown in this picture. Do these buildings look familiar to you? This is an actual photograph of a 90-ton chlorine gas tanker car sitting in the direct view--if you look over the top of it, you can see the Hart Building, you can see the Dirksen Building, and you can see the U.S. Capitol.

By the way, I know my friend, the Presiding Officer, a former board member of Amtrak, a guy who has fought very hard to protect Amtrak--we take the train almost every day together back and forth to and from Delaware--I say to my colleagues, go on down to the station this afternoon and follow us down whenever we finish and get on the train. If it is not an Acela, stand in the back car of an Amfleet train. You can look out the back window. Watch as we pull out of the station. Tell me how many cops you see. Tell me how many cameras you see. Tell me how much protection exists there.

Look at this tanker car, shown in this picture, sitting right out there--in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of everywhere.

So, folks, the idea we do not even have as an option the ability of our security people and the mayors and local

officials to suggest these tankers bypass their cities so, God forbid, if something happens, they are not as high a prize of a target--by the way, the less sensational damage able to be done, the less likelihood it will be picked as a target.

Because someone could legitimately argue: Biden, you are taking this out of the route--and we have other maps showing the routes of the various alternative routes that could be used to avoid the major cities. Now, they could say: You are going to be going through more rural areas. Yes, serious damage could be done in rural areas, but the prize for the terrorist is much lower. The likelihood of them concluding that instead of coming down from, for example, Newark, NJ, all the way down into Augusta--you can, in fact, reroute these on Norfolk Southern, which goes through much less populated areas.

People legitimately say: Aren't you putting those folks at risk? No matter where these cars are, we are at risk. But again, where is the likely target? Where are terrorists going to risk their lives to be able to go in and do damage? They will do it where the most people are.

So I know the rail industry, as I said, is adamantly opposed to amendment No. 306, and is likely opposed to the updated version we will vote on today. But in the face of such risks, I do not know how we can let their opposition determine whether we go forward.

This amendment is very limited. It simply states the Secretary of Homeland Security, not the rail industry--the rail industry is not the bad guy--should determine the most secure routes for the shipments of the most dangerous chemicals, and that ownership of the track is not to be considered in making this risk-based determination; meaning, if you have something going down on a CSX track that is owned by CSX, they should be able to use and be diverted to a Norfolk Southern track. I could give you examples all across the country, as the Presiding Officer knows.

Again, all I am saying is, let the Department of Homeland Security determine whether the most dangerous chemicals are able to be diverted around the most populated areas in our country. And do not--do not--in fact, use as an impediment the idea the track upon which it is being carried is not owned by the company whose car is on that track.

That is all we are doing, Mr. President. The amendment would apply to only .36 percent--less than a third of a percent--of all the shipments that occur on our rail system. It only applies to through-shipments; it does not apply to the destination city. Some of this stuff goes into large populations, where that is the end point. It doesn't say it cannot go there, but it does say we should reduce the probability of catastrophic damage by allowing them to be rerouted, if that is the judgment of the Department of Homeland Security.

A similar amendment was passed by voice vote in the House Homeland Security Committee today. Not one Republican or Democrat spoke in opposition to this measure. This amendment will ensure that the Senate is on the right side of the issue as well.

Mr. President, I was asked by my colleague from Connecticut, one of the two managers, that he be added as a cosponsor. I ask unanimous consent his name be added.

Mr. President, I understand that a man with whom I hardly disagree, Senator Inouye, has reservations. I hope he will reconsider those reservations. Again, all we are doing is letting the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with local officials, make the judgment whether the risk is so high that it warrants it being rerouted. Of all the cargo on all of the tracks in America, we are talking about .36 of 1 percent, all that is transported on rail. So we are not asking much. The downside of us being mistaken is significant.

I close by quoting from the rail industry's letter opposing this amendment. They say:

Rerouting would not eliminate the risk, but instead shift

it from one population to another.

That is true, but this amendment says the Department of Homeland Security, not the rail industry, should determine how to weigh and respond to this known potentially catastrophic risk. What did we just debate last week on the floor? The allocation of resources for Homeland Security should be going toward the danger lines. There is nothing that is risk free--nothing. It is a little like my friend from Delaware and I have heard so much every time we come up with rail security legislation. We are told we cannot secure every mile of track. That is true, we can't, but there is a big difference with a terrorist taking a single train off a track somewhere in rural America and a terrorist taking a train at 140 miles an hour into the most visited area in Washington, DC, Union Station, at a high speed.

There is a difference between blowing up a tunnel underneath the Chesapeake Bay or the Hudson River and blowing up a tunnel in the middle of some rural area. Terrorists pick targets for the greatest effect. So the idea that we would not reroute--if the Department of Homeland Security determined it made sense--a series of chlorine gas tankers from a major metropolitan area to a more rural area seems to me to be such a silly argument to make.

The idea is, how do we reduce the risk for the most people of the United States of America? Again, I will end where I began. When this was called to my attention some years ago, I went to the Naval Research Laboratory and I asked them--and I have included this in my statement-- to tell me what would happen--and, again, it doesn't take much for terrorists to figure out a way to puncture a hole in the bottom or the side of one of these tanks by use of explosives or other devices. The answer was that if that were to occur in a highly populated area, ``over 100,000 could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half hour.''

Imagine how many people we get to evacuate reasonably so that there is essentially no one left in a half hour. If the gun goes off right now, how long does it take downtown Manhattan or downtown Washington, DC, or Capitol Hill to evacuate people so they are not around? If you don't evacuate--to say it another way--within a half hour, a whole lot more than 100,000 people will be seriously injured or will die.

I know the Senator from Connecticut supports this amendment. I don't know what the view of our colleague from Maine is. I hope they understand how limited this amendment is, how consequential it is. I hope my colleagues, when it comes time to vote, will vote in favor of this amendment.

I thank the Chair and I thank the managers. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Maine. She may have misunderstood two aspects of the amendment. One, it doesn't mandatorily require rerouting at all. It says the Department of Homeland Security can reroute, if they determine it should be rerouted.

No. 2, the freight industry, where they made the judgment on how much further in distance it would travel if, in fact, you were to reroute, factored in only that it had to be rerouted on their own tracks. So the idea being that they would not be able to--this happens all the time, where other tracks are used; for example, the Chesapeake using Norfolk Southern track.

No. 3, the Chamber of Commerce is opposed because it costs more money. A lot of these things cost more money. Will it cost more money to be able to reroute up to one-third of 1 percent of the freight on rail? Yes. But I ask the rhetorical question: What will it cost if one of these tankers goes off in a populated area? What will the cost then be to the very businesses that are most concerned about it?

Fourth, this doesn't affect destination. If the chlorine gas tanker car is going to a water treatment facility, it still goes to that facility. Nothing changes. What we could have changed is what we did in Delaware, not use chlorine. There are other means by which water can be purified. We have done it in our home State. That is what you should do. But that doesn't stop this car, or any other car, from going to such a facility.

Let me emphasize again that there is no prohibition on end point distribution. If the car is designed to go to a facility in the center of a city, it goes to the center of the city. There is nothing you can do about that. That is very different than--I am making up these numbers for illustration--you may have one of these tankers going in once a month versus 50 going through the same city in a month or 100 in a month. This is all about percentages. You play the percentages. Again, it is true, rerouting may render cities in North Dakota--well, they would not be rerouted in North Dakota, but I referenced the small towns. There was a chlorine gas tanker car going across the top of the Nation and, thank God, what happened was it went off in a rural part of the world. You were able to evacuate the three cities and nobody died. Had that same thing occurred in the middle of Chicago, you would not be able to evacuate the city. We would not have had time.

So, yes, it is true. Are you going to put a different population at risk? Yes, about one-tenth, one-twentieth, one one-hundredth or one one-thousandth of the population, depending on where it is rerouted. So it is a little bit like saying: Why do we spend so much money worrying about the Sears Tower? It is there, it is big, and it is a target. Is it possible that a terrorist would go into a building that is two stories and blow it up? Yes. Can they fly an aircraft into a rural town grain elevator? Yes. But that is not what we are worried about. They are not likely to do that. They are likely to fly a plane, plant a bomb, do something devastating where the most people are.

So I find it to be a totally disingenuous argument. This is about the bottom line. I measure the bottom line--as I suspect all of us would if we thought about it--in human life.

The bottom line, in terms of the dollars, the impact that would occur in a catastrophic circumstance is if there is a town of 1,000 people and a town of 6 million people, there is a phenomenal difference whether that chlorine gas tanker car gets exploded.

Let me summarize. It is indicated by the Department of Homeland Security again that an explosion of a rail tanker carrying chlorine would kill 17,500 individuals, require the hospitalization of another 100,000--and only then if we evacuate within a half an hour. We can evacuate a city of 1,000 people in half an hour. We cannot evacuate a city of 4 million people in half an hour. So it matters.

If this rail tanker goes off in New York City, my friend from New York is going to be on the floor again pointing out the catastrophic impact. If it goes off in rural Delaware, it will be a tragedy for me and my constituency, but there will be a significant magnitude of difference.

So everything we do in terms of allocation of resources goes in this place to deal with protecting the most people who can be protected: The shipment originates or the point of destination is in the high-threat corridor; no practical alternative routes exist. If they don't exist, it doesn't get rerouted. Rerouting would not increase the likelihood of an attack. It would decrease the likelihood of an attack because people attack targets that have the maximum impact. This would not increase the total number of cars on the track. It would allow the potential for homeland security to reroute them away from the places that would do the most damage.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, she is correct, but it only requires the Secretary to do it if he or she concludes that there is a safer way to reroute the shipment. If the conclusion made by the Secretary is that in a high-risk corridor the rerouting would not result in an increased safety margin for the shipment, then he or she need not reroute it. But it is correct, the presumption is, in a high- risk corridor we reroute if it is not a point of destination or origin but only if the determination by the Secretary is that the shipment, in fact, would be safer to be rerouted. It is on page 4 of the amendment. It is section 2, subparagraph E, ``Transportation and Storage of High Hazard Materials through High Threat Corridor'' areas. It says:

In General.--The standards for the Secretary to grant

exceptions under section

(d)(4) shall require a finding by the Secretary that--

(A) the shipment originates or the point of destination is

in the high threat corridor;

(B) there is no practical alternative route;

(C) there is an unanticipated, temporary emergency that

threatens the lives of persons or property in the high threat

corridor;

(D) there would be no harm to persons or property beyond

the owners or operator of the railroad in the event of a

successful terrorist attack on shipment; or

(E) rerouting would increase the likelihood of a terrorist

attack on the shipment.

The bottom line is that it should be left to the discretion of the Secretary to decide not to reroute rather than the privately owned railroad. I thank the Senator for her clarification.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, pursuant to the requirements of paragraph 2 of Senate rule XXVI, I ask to have printed in the Record the rules of the Committee on Foreign Relations for the 110th Congress adopted by the committee on March 6, 2007.

Mr. President, I send to the desk two amendments. I am only going to speak to one, but I would like to send both to the desk so I have them offered. One is an amendment relating to funding of the homeland security effort, and the other is one relating to

the ability for cities and States to reroute hazardous waste around their major metropolitan areas.

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

Mr. President, with regard to the first amendment, No. 383, which I am not going to take time to speak to today, is an amendment that allows cities and States to reroute hazardous material around their cities. In a nutshell, and I know no one knows this better than the Chair, and I mean that sincerely, these are 90-ton chlorine gas tank cars that go rolling through Newark on their way down through the corridor into my State and across my State.

I once asked, not too long ago, the Naval Research Institute to give me an analysis of what would happen if one of those were to blow up in a metropolitan area. They said that 100,000 people would die--100,000 people would die. Yet this administration has opposed and we have not committed to allowing cities to reroute this hazardous material around their major metropolitan areas.

That is one amendment which I will come back to at another time.

At this moment I want to now speak to an amendment that is much broader, Amendment No. 384.

We often say that September 11 changed everything. Well, it changed everything except it didn't change our behavior. It changed everything except

when we look at the budget of this administration in the last 6 years, or 4 years since then, and if we look at our tax policy since then, we look at what hasn't changed.

My dad used to have an expression, Mr. President. You probably heard me say it before: Show me your budget, I will tell you what you value.

Tax cut after tax cut, overwhelmingly tilted to those who were at the highest end of the tax bracket, is what this outfit has valued. The truth is, we seem not to value protecting our cities, our homeland. The truth is, as the Presiding Officer knows better than anyone, living on the east coast in a State such as mine, only much larger, you know what the costs of the 9/11 Commission recommendations are. You know how few dollars we have spent implementing the recommendations. Literally from your home county, you could see the buildings collapse, the World Trade Center towers collapse. Thousands of people from your State were significantly affected, many were killed.

We all ripped out our hair about how this was so terrible; we were going to not let this happen again. We went out there and took a real good look at what needed to be done when the 9/11 Commission came along. Precious little was done. Yet during the same period of time we made sure to help people earning more than a million dollars a year. I am not picking on them. I am happy. I hope my grandkids make over a million dollars a year. I hope everybody in America can. I have no problem with anybody making hundreds of millions of dollars.

One of the things we forget on the Senate floor is that those folks are just as patriotic as poor folks. Those folks are just as patriotic as middle-class folks. They didn't ask for these massive tax cuts. They are prepared to give some of them back in order to make the country more safe, but we don't ask anything of them. So what happens? Just for this year, for households making more than $1 million a year, to put this in perspective, they are going to get a tax cut of $45 million. If you look at it from 2008 to 2017, that aggregate tax cut, if you are at an income where you make more than a million dollars a year, is going to be $739 billion. Households with incomes of that magnitude obviously take a big chunk of what are the fiscal priorities of this Nation.

We just had a long discussion here about the grant programs and how we allocate funding to the various States. We debated that. But it is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic unless there is actual money dedicated to provide for these needs. What we have not done is we have not ensured a funding source. We have not provided the money needed to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

I say to my colleagues that we have money to fund these programs. When I raised this last year and I talked about how much money was needed, as my friend from New Jersey has, they said: Oh, we can't afford it.

Give me have a break. We can't afford it? We can afford over $700 billion in tax cuts for people making over $1 million a year, and we can't afford it? I will point out that it comes to about a $50 billion price tag over 5 years to implement all the 9/11 Commission Report. Can't afford it?

Let me point out that the Congressional Budget Office recently released a study indicating H.R. 1, the House counterpart to this bill, will cost $21 billion, but the Senate bill we have here only costs $17 billion. There are a few comprehensive estimates of what all the 9/ 11 recommendations would cost, but I did what you did, I say to the Presiding Officer, and what others did--I went to a bunch of very smart people. I have been involved in this, as you have, from day one. We went in and costed it out, what it would cost for the main recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The truth is, we are easily able to fund it. It is a lot more than that; it is $50 billion over 5 years, roughly.

In addition we are not prepared in terms of homeland security relating to local cops, sheriffs--local police. If there is going to be somebody who is trying to put sarin gas into a complex in your State or mine, it is not going to be some brave special forces soldier in fatigues wearing night-vision goggles who is going to figure this thing out; it is going to be a local cop riding behind the arena and seeing someone getting out of a dumpster. If we are going to break up these rings, it is going to be intelligence, but also it will be a local cop walking a beat in Newark, NJ, or Wilmington, DE--or Newark, DE. ``By the way, those three apartments that have been vacant for the last 7 years, there are lights on in the window.''

What have we done? We slashed spending for local law enforcement. We slashed it $2.1 billion a year since this President has become President.

Show me your budget, I will tell you what you value. It is a little bit like taking care of veterans. Show me your budget, I will tell you what you value.

In addition, the study by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that 75 percent of the cities in America do not have interoperable communications--75 percent. This is a disgrace. What do we need? We had Hurricane Katrina, we had 9/11--what else do we need to demonstrate that it is useful to have a local cop be able to speak to the National Guard that is called in, to be able to have somebody in the command center who can talk to everybody? Yet 75 percent of the cities do not have interoperable communications capability--one of the strongest recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission.

As I said, while there is not a comprehensive assessment, I have spent a lot of time talking to experts and found that roughly for an additional $10.3 billion a year, we can implement all of the 9/11 recommendations--all of them, including provisions in this title--and do other commonsense things we know will make us more safe, such as reinvesting in local police.

The bottom line is this: If we simply commit to taking back a small fraction of the cuts for those making over $1 million a year, we can pay for all the security upgrades we need. Here is how it would work. My amendment simply puts the Senate on record calling for the Finance Committee to report legislation to provide $53 billion in funding for homeland security to be placed in the homeland security trust fund. It is called a Homeland Security and Neighborhood Safety Trust Fund. From this trust fund, we require that spending be dedicated toward initiatives and grant programs authorized in this legislation, including the Urban Area Security Initiative, the State Homeland Security Grant Program, emergency management performance grants, and rail and transit security grants. It would reinstate the COPS Program, the FIRE Act grants, SAFER grants, and the Justice Assistance grants, which provide essential support to State and local police, allowing them to coordinate with the Federal Government. It would be funding enhancements in interoperable communications, improve port security, including working toward 100 percent scanning of cargo containers, and upgrade and better prepare the Nation's public health sector to respond to acts of bioterrorism and nuclear terrorism.

I ask all my colleagues in earshot of my voice, go to the largest cities in your States and go to the emergency rooms in your hospitals. Ask how many times they have to close down their hospitals. They send out to all the ambulance drivers in the entire region that would be serviced by them a statement saying: We can't take any more today. What in God's name are we doing to prepare these hospitals and infrastructure for a terrorist attack?

We also have to upgrade and develop new scanning technology to detect dangerous substances. That is what this money would be allowed to be used for.

When I introduced this legislation last year and got a vote, I explained how I would allocate the $10.3 billion. I put $1 billion in here for interoperability, I put in $1 billion to promote 100 percent cargo container scanning, $500 million to bolster the public health infrastructure, and $100 million to improve government-wide information sharing. In order to leave what should be left--I took out these specific allocations in order to give to my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee and the Homeland Security Committee more discretion on how to spend the additional money in the outyears. I withheld the specifics. It is just an order to the relevant committees to come up with how to spend that money.

Any way you slice it, this will leave the most fortunate among us still very fortunate but will take, from over $736 billion, $52 billion. No one in this Chamber can tell me that there is anyone out there who is going to say that is not fair. No one can tell me that will have a scintilla of a negative impact on the economy. No one can argue, I respectfully suggest--and I invite them to do it--that, in fact, these things are not needed, what I am talking about here. These were all talked about by various Senators.

The numbers are clear. Those who need the least help are getting the most from the current tax cuts, and those fortunate Americans are twice blessed. They are blessed by our efforts in this bill, and they are blessed by the fact that they are doing very well through their own hard work.

I have said before, of the many opportunities squandered since 9/11, the most tragic opportunity squandered by this administration is the failure to call our country together, to give all of us a part to play in response to the new threats we face, not just middle-class folks who are sending their husbands, wives, sons, and daughters to Iraq and Afghanistan to try to protect us.

But despite the rhetoric that calls upon the proud recollections of our national purpose in conflicts such as World War II and the Cold War, on this floor there has been an incredible vacuum of leadership. Those Presidents asked something of the American people. What has been asked except forfeit commitments to health care, education, and energy security? And where does that burden fall? It falls on working women and men.

Let me just say as my time begins to expire that I know those who are very well off. I know they are willing to do this. I had an opportunity to speak to a group of 50 people advertised to me as among the most wealthy people in the nation. It was a group of investors. I spoke before them, and I said to them that this is what I wanted to do. I said: Does anybody in here disagree with that? It was advertised to me that a significant portion of these people were actually billionaires. When I raised that question, there was silence in the room, and finally one guy honestly put his hand up.

He said: I am not too sure I am. I am not too sure you won't go out and waste the money.

I said: Will you support it if I come forward and do what I did in the crime bill I wrote years ago, I drafted years ago--set up a trust fund, and the money we take from this tax cut to get this $50 billion- plus will be put into a trust fund, and it can only be used for homeland security and neighborhood safety? Would you support it then?

I got an ovation, literally an ovation, mostly a standing ovation, I say to you, Mr. President, from these extremely wealthy people. The wealthy are ready to commit just as the middle class and poor are.

Mr. President, I end where I began. As my dad used to say, don't tell me what you value, show me your budget. Don't anyone on this floor presume to tell me, in the years I have spent here, that this country cannot afford to spend, over the next 5 years, $10.2 billion a year to make this Nation safer. Please don't anyone suggest that it is not possible to pay for this when, in fact, you have a tax policy that is so out of whack that even the people who are benefiting the most from it are willing to contribute to our national security. If we ask the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers in each of our towns and cities to send their children, their husbands and wives to protect us abroad, we sure in the devil can ask the people making over $1 million a year--a total tax break of over $736 billion over the next several years--to contribute $10.2 billion a year out of that tax cut. I am confident they are ready. They just need to be asked.

I hope, when the appropriate time comes, my colleagues will favorably consider my amendment.

I yield the floor.

Amendments Nos. 316 and 342

Mr. President, I rise today to submit a Senate resolution designating March 8, 2007, as International Women's Day. Since 1911, International Women's Day has provided a chance for people all over the world to pause and observe the remarkable steps that women have made in their fight for equality and recommit themselves to dosing lingering gender disparities. I am particularly pleased that I am joined by a tremendous group of women who are original co-sponsors of today's measure, Senators Boxer, Cantwell, Clinton, Feinstein, Klobuchar, Landrieu, Mikulski, Murray and Stabenow. These nine senators are living testament to the progress and promise of women's achievements. They are trailblazers and role models to whom we owe a great deal of gratitude.

Besides the steady increase in the number of women senators, I need only look down the hallway to see another sign of extraordinary progress in 2007--the first ever woman Speaker of House, Representative Nancy Pelosi. Similar electoral accomplishments can be found in other countries. For instance, Michelle Bachelet became the first female President of Chile and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became first female President in Liberia in the history of Africa. In 2005, Angela Merkel became the first female Chancellor of Germany.

Of course, participation in the political process is but one marker of women's empowerment and equal footing. Access to education, economic security, employment nondiscrimination, eradication of poverty, equality before the law, access to HIV/AIDS prevention and other health care services, and freedom from gender-based violence, including human trafficking--these are all critical benchmarks of women's progress.

An essential component to achieving gender equality is ending violence against women--an issue about which I care deeply. The time is now to concentrate our energies on efforts to end domestic and sexual violence abroad.

Last year Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, an accomplishment that shows real consensus and momentum to end gender- based violence and heal America's families. The United Nations and the World Health Organizations have released ground-breaking studies on the prevalence and impact of domestic violence globally. Finally, international service organizations are finding that their efforts to help women in the field, be it opening the school doors to girls or getting HIV/AIDS medicine to young women, are ultimately ineffectual if we do not help these same women escape from violent homes.

Furthermore, gender-based violence is pervasive in conflicts around the globe. In Darfur, women are systematically raped as a weapon of war. In Afghanistan, Safia Ama Jan, became the first female assassinated since the fall of the Taliban. Just last week, two Iraqi women accused the Iraqi national security forces of gang-raping them in Baghdad headquarters. This year's theme for International Women's Day is ``Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women and Girls''--a fitting mandate for all of us.

I am working on legislative measures to fight the global epidemic of gender-based violence. In addition, International Women's Day is also a perfect opportunity for the Administration to review its position and support ratification of the International Women's Rights Treaty (formally known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)). I whole heartedly support this human rights treaty that brings together in one document women's economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights and is an important tool for women rights advocates around the globe.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Ending the systemic discrimination of women is not just a woman's issue, it is not just the responsibility of heads of state or Nobel Peace Prize winners, it is everyone's moral responsibility. You cannot build peace and you cannot build democracy when half of the population is not free. And no country can reach its full potential when women are not allowed to fully contribute. Spreading democracy must mean empowering women, ending domestic and sexual violence and holding abusers fully accountable. I urge my colleagues to join our Resolution to Commemorate International Women's Day on March 8th and thank advocates everywhere who work day in and day out I to improve women's lives.

Madam President, do I have 5 minutes?

Madam President, today, the Senate has an opportunity--and a responsibility--to begin to end the escalation of the war in Iraq and to start us toward a new strategy for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind.

Our responsibility is to debate and vote on the resolution passed by the House of Representatives that says that Congress disapproves of the President's plan to deploy more than 20,000 additional American combat troops to Iraq.

The question before us today is whether a miniority of Senators will even allow the debate to start. That is what we are about to vote on.

To my colleagues who are thinking about trying to block debate, let me say this: Iraq dominates our national life. It is on the minds of tens of millions of Americans. It shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of our men and woman in uniform and their families.

That the Senate would not even debate, much less vote on, the single most urgent issue of our time, would be a total failure of our responsibility.

We have a duty to debate and vote on the President's plan. We have a duty to debate and vote on our overall strategy in Iraq. We have to demonstrate the courage of our convictions.

Last month, Secretary of State Rice presented the President's plan for Iraq to the Foreign Relations Committee. Its main feature is to send more American troops into Baghdad, in the middle of a sectarian civil war.

The reaction on the committee, from Republicans and Democrats alike, ranged from skepticism to profound skepticism to outright opposition. And that pretty much reflects the reaction across the country.

Every Senator should be given a chance to vote whether he or she approves or disagrees with the President's plan to send more troops into the middle of a civil war.

The debate I hope that we will have is as important as the vote.

I predict the American people will hear very few of our colleagues stand up and support the President's plan to send more troops into the middle of a civil war. Listen to those voices.

Some minimize the significance of a nonbinding resolution. If it is so meaningless, why did the White House and the President's political supporters mobilize so much energy against it? Why is a minority of Senators trying to prevent the Senate from talking about it?

Opposing the surge is only a first step. We need a radical change in course in Iraq.

If the President won't act, Congress must.

But Congress must act responsibly. We must resist the temptation to push for changes that sound good but produce bad results.

The best next step is to revisit the authorization Congress granted the President in 2002 to use force in Iraq.

We gave the President that power to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein.

The WMD were not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq.

Legislation I'm working on would repeal that authorization and replace it with a much narrower mission statement for our troops in Iraq.

Congress should make clear what the mission of our troops is: to responsibly draw down, while continuing to combat terrorists, train Iraqis and respond to emergencies.

We should make equally clear what their mission is not: to stay in Iraq indefinitely and get mired in a savage civil war.

Coupled with the Biden-Gelb plan that offers the possibility of a political settlement in Iraq, I believe this is the most effective way to start bringing our troops home without leaving a mess behind.

But for today, my message is simple: the American people want us to debate Iraq, the most important issue of our day. They expect it. They demand it.

If we try to hide behind procedure and delaying tactics, the American people will hold us accountable.

They get it. The question is: do we?

Madam President, again, today we have the opportunity to do something we have not done on the floor of the U.S. Senate in the last 4 years; that is, to actually debate Iraq. This is the first opportunity we are going to have to do that. I know a number of people say: This is not binding, so why are we doing it? If it doesn't matter, why is there such an effort to keep us from talking about it, an effort to continue to fight us in being able to do this?

Madam President, I say to my colleagues that if we fail to invoke cloture here, we are not permitted to debate this issue, and I don't know what it says to the American people about what we are all about. I don't know whether anybody has noticed, but the American public is seized with this issue. It is the issue. It is the issue everybody is discussing at the kitchen table. It is the issue every man, woman, husband, wife, mother, and father with someone in the National Guard or in the U.S. military is talking about. It is the issue. The Senate is being silenced on it, even being prevented from debating whether we can talk about making a simple statement that: Mr. President, you are wrong; don't escalate this war.

The truth is, our voices, quite frankly, are as important as our votes. The President will find, if we have a full-blown debate on the floor of the Senate, there are precious few people on this floor who think he is handling this war correctly. Instead of escalating the war, we should be drawing down our forces. I predict the American people hear, as I said, very few of our colleagues talking about what a good idea this is, what the President has in mind. So to echo the comments made by my colleague from New York, if, in fact, we are precluded from even debating the issue of whether we oppose the President's escalation of the war, surely you are going to see more coming to the floor.

I have been working with the Senator from Massachusetts and others on a

piece of legislation that would literally rescind the President's authority--the authority we gave him to go to war in the first place-- and redefine the mission very narrowly.

Look, there is going to be a lot of discussion, whether we debate today or not, on Iraq. There is going to be a lot of discussion about what to do next. It will range from cutting off funding, to capping troops, to a number of other proposals. The truth is, we are being presented with a false choice up to now. We are either told we have to stay the course and escalate the war or the other choice is to bring our troops home and hope for the best.

The truth is that none of this will matter. We are going to have to bring everybody home if they don't get a political solution in Iraq. There is only one: a federal system. Listen to what their Constitution says. Even the National Intelligence Estimate, the estimate of all of the intelligence agencies, says--and I am paraphrasing it--that the Sunnis have to accept regionalism and the Kurds and Shias have to give the Sunnis a bigger piece of the action in order for them to do that.

I point out to everybody, when civil wars begin in other countries, there are only a few things that stop them: One side wins and there is carnage; two, an occupying force stays there indefinitely; or, three, you end up in a situation where they have a federal state.

The President should get about the business of pursuing not a military solution here but a political solution. He should be calling an international conference, getting all of the parties in a room, as we did in Dayton, convincing our allies and the region that the only outcome that has any possibility of surviving is the federal state, as their Constitution calls for.

I conclude by saying that the American people expect--quite frankly, I think they demand--that we start to intelligently debate this subject rather than doing it by way of talk shows and Sunday appearances on TV. We should be debating on this floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, may I get in the queue?

Mr. President, we will hear a lot, today and this week, of phrases such as ``last best chance,'' ``refuse to endorse an alternative plan,'' ``Iraq is a central front of the war on terror.'' Virtually no one subscribes to any of those three points--all of the experts who have given testimony, the Iraqi Study Group, the plans that have been put forward that are real alternatives.

The President has not put forward a plan. He has put forward a tactic, a tactic that most experts, including his own military, think will make a plan for success less likely to be able to be arrived at.

No one in this Senate, at least in this debate, at least from my perspective, is calling for us cutting and running--none of that. I hope we keep our eye focused, our eye on the ball.

The Senate is today taking a first step toward a bipartisan effort to prevent the escalation of a war in Iraq and to adapt a strategy for Iraq for leaving Iraq without leaving behind chaos.

The first step is to debate and vote the resolution offered by Senator Warner and reintroduced by Senator Levin and me as a bill. That says the Senate disagrees with the President's plan to send 17,500 more American troops into the middle of a city of over 6.2 million people in the midst of a civil war, because what we are afraid of is that the Senator from Texas may be right; this may make things so bad that everyone will conclude there is no more chance of succeeding.

We have vital interests in that region. I am afraid this policy, this tactic of the President, is going to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. The question before us today is whether a minority of Senators will even allow a debate to start. That is what this is about. All they have to do--there will be other resolutions brought up; they are able to be brought up--all they have to do is take issue with this. They can stop the debate by getting 41 votes. But they can actually engage in debate and try to defeat the notion, when the message of this resolution is: Mr. President, stop. No more escalation, Mr. President.

Everyone from the Iraq Study Group to the Biden-Gelb plan, to every other plan that has been put out there says the way to get the Iraqis to reach a political solution is to begin to draw

down American forces. No one, including General Petraeus, whom I know fairly well, suggests there is a military answer. A political solution is required. So to my colleagues who are thinking about trying to block the debate, let me say this: Iraq dominates our national life. It is on the minds of tens of millions of Americans. It shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of our men and women in uniform and their families. And that the Senate would not even debate, much less vote, on the single most urgent issue of our time would be a total forfeiture of our responsibility.

We have a duty to debate and to vote on the President's tactic. We have a duty to debate and vote on our overall strategy in Iraq. And we have a duty as Senators to speak out and say where we are.

Three weeks ago, Secretary of State Rice came before the Foreign Relations Committee and presented the President's plan. Its main feature is to send more troops, increase the total number of troops, and send them into Baghdad in the middle of a sectarian war.

The reaction on the committee, from Republicans to Democrats alike, ranged from skepticism, to profound skepticism, to outright opposition. That pretty much reflects the reaction all across the country.

So Senator Hagel joined me and Senator Lugar and Senator Snowe. We sat down and wrote a resolution to give Senators a way to vote what their voices were saying, for we believe the quickest and most effective way to get the President to change course is to demonstrate to him that his policy has little or no support across the board, Democrats and Republicans.

After we introduced the resolution, the distinguished ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, came forward with his resolution. The bottom line of the resolutions is the same: Mr. President, don't send more Americans into the middle of a civil war.

There was one critical difference. As originally written, the Warner resolution left open the possibility of increasing the overall number of troops in Iraq, when in fact the Iraq Study Group and others said we should be declining to get action from the politicians in Iraq.

We believe that would have sent the wrong message. Not ramp up; again, to draw down, redeploy forces remaining in Iraq. And the best way to make that clear to the Iraqi people is to let them know we are not going to be there forever, as the President said. And they must begin to make the hard compromises necessary for a political solution that virtually everyone agrees is necessary to end this war.

So we approached Senator Warner to work out our differences, and I am very pleased to say we succeeded in doing that. The language Senator Warner removed from his resolution removed the possibility that it could be read as calling for a troop increase. With that change, we agreed to support his resolution. And I do.

When I first spoke out against the President's planned surge before the New Year, I made it clear I had one objective: I hoped to build and demonstrate bipartisan opposition to this plan because it was the fastest way to turn the President around. And that is exactly what we have done.

Now we have a real opportunity for the Senate to speak clearly. Every Senator should be given a chance to vote on whether he or she approves or disapproves of the President's tactic to send more troops into the middle of a civil war.

The debate we will have is important, but the debate is as important as the vote. And I hope the American people carefully listen. I predict they will hear very few colleagues stand up and support the President's plan to send more troops into the middle of a civil war. Listen to the voices. Listen to the voices as well as the votes.

Just as important as what we are voting against is what we are voting for. This bill, similar to the Biden-Hagel-Levin-Snowe provision, makes three things clear.

First, Iraq needs a political settlement. Second, the United States has to work with other regional powers. And third, the mission of our forces should be confined to counterterrorism, training, and maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

I will continue, Mr. President.

As I said at the outset, this is the first step, this rejection of the President's increase of more troops into Iraq into the middle of a civil war. But it can set the foundation for everything that follows.

If the President does not listen to the majority of Congress and the majority of the American people, we will have to look for other ways to turn this surge around.

Even if we succeed in this effort, we still need to turn our overall policy around. We need a strategy that can produce a political settlement in Iraq. That is the only way to stop the Shiites and the Sunnis from killing each other and to allow our troops to leave Iraq at an appropriate time without trading a dictator for chaos.

But today my message is simple. The American people want us to debate Iraq, the most important issue of our day. They expect it. They demand it. And if we attempt to hide behind procedure and delaying tactics, I believe the American people will not be very happy. They get it. The question is, Do we?

Are you for or against the President escalating this war in Iraq? I am against it. I believe the majority of Members on both sides are as well. We should vote on that.

I yield the remainder of my time.

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