Floor Statements

Mr. President, earlier this month James T. Vaughn, a long-time State Senator who was a legend in Delaware, passed away, and I want to pay tribute to him.

Jim spent a lifetime in public service, enlisting in the Marine Corps during World War II; serving as a Delaware State Police trooper for two decades and as the State Corrections Commissioner; and entering our State Senate 27 years ago.

His seniority put him in powerful positions either as the chairman or member of the committees that oversaw budgets, revenues, taxation, judiciary, and corrections matters. In other words, he had his hand in everything, and most recently that meant establishing a veterans' home at Milford.

Jim had this tough image, always set in his way, and always an honest man, who scrutinized every matter and paid incredible attention to the taxpayers' dollars. Throughout his career no one worked harder for the people of Delaware than Jim Vaughan.

His constituents were his No. 1 priority, and last year when he became ill and was unable to campaign during his re-election, the voters still handily put him in office, recognizing a lifetime of responsiveness to their needs. It set a standard we can all admire.

Like this Senator, Jim was a lifetime Yankees fan. And he had a special place in his heart for Little League baseball. Babe Ruth once said:

I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between

the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a

bat.

Babe Ruth would have appreciated Jim. For four decades he volunteered with the Smyrna-Clayton Little League, a group he originally helped organize. He served as its director, treasurer, equipment manager, and grass cutter--in fact, his wife Sylvia would joke that he loved to cut the grass there, but not at the family home in Clayton.

A few times I had the high honor of throwing the first pitch to start the season, and today the Smyrna-Clayton Little League Park is named for Jim.

The people of Delaware will miss Jim, and I extend my prayers and thoughts to his loving family.

Madam President, I thank the Chair for the nice comment. I will be necessarily brief here.

By depriving major cities around the country of COPS funds, the Vitter amendment undercuts the efforts of law enforcement and contributes to the growing crime rate in three ways.

First, it takes much needed funds away from State and local law enforcement agencies that are now struggling to protect their communities against a rising tide of crime. The FBI's Uniform Crime Report statistics indicate that

for a second year in a row, crime is increasing. In the first 6 months of 2006, murders rose by 1.8 percent and violent crime by 1.9 percent. In 2005, the Police Executive Research Forum found that many of the same cities to which the Vitter amendment would deny COPS funding have recently experienced double-digit increases in murder and violent crime, and the COPS Program has proven to be effective in fighting crime. As a recent Brookings Institute study shows, for every $1.4 billion spent on COPS, society saves between $6 and 12 billion. That is their report.

In 2005, the General Accounting Office report found between 1993 and 2001 the COPS Program contributed to a steady decrease in the crime rates.

This amendment is going to have a very chilling effect on victims and witnesses in the immigrant community, who would otherwise report crimes.

Finally, the amendment would reverse successful Federal crime policies that recognize that State and local law enforcement know what is best in their community to drive down the crime rate. It would disregard the judgment of 70 law enforcement jurisdictions that found immigration status confidentiality policies are an effective part of community-oriented policing in their States, counties, and cities.

To vote for the Vitter amendment, to stay with the Vitter amendment, is to vote, I believe, against effective law enforcement. A vote for the amendment is a vote against safer communities, and I believe a vote for this amendment would perpetuate the rise in crime rates all across the country.

I understand there is a tabling motion that is going to take place. I may be mistaken. But vote against the Vitter amendment or vote to table it.

I thank Senator Mikulski for the incredible job she has been doing on this, and for the additional funding for the COPS bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I say to the managers, I am going to ask to introduce an amendment. I am not going to ask for it to be considered now. I only want to lay it down.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside to call up amendments Nos. 3167 and 3142 and ask for their immediate consideration.

One I think will be worked out and the other one I wish to talk with the Chair about whether I would ask for a vote. I may ask for a vote.

My friend is accommodating my schedule. I am going to allow us to move on rather than come back after he speaks. That is all. It is an accommodation of my schedule; nothing beyond that.

I assume unanimous consent will be asked to move off that amendment and back on to the business of the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendments Nos. 3167 and 3142 and ask for their immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senators Graham, Casey, and Sanders as cosponsors of amendment No. 3142.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their courtesy.

Mr. President amendment No. 3142 is very simple. It provides the $23.6 billion in funding needed to replace every Army up-armored HMMWV in Iraq with a mine resistant ambush protected, or MRAP, vehicle.

It is exactly the same thing we did on the authorization bill that was passed Monday night.

Our commanders in the field tell us that MRAPs will reduce casualties by 67 to 80 percent.

The lead commander on the ground in Iraq, LTG Ray Odierno told us months ago that he wanted to replace each of the Army's approximately 18,000 up-armored HMMWVs in Iraq with an MRAP.

Instead of adjusting the requirement immediately, the Pentagon has taken its time to study this issue. They originally agreed that the Army should get 380 MRAPs. That was in December 2006.

Then, in March of this year, they agreed to 2,500.

In August, they added a few more and agreed to 2,726 for the Army.

This month, they have agreed that the general needs a little over half of what he asked for--10,000. Slowly they are getting there.

We have seen this movie before with the body armor and with the up- armored HMMWVs. Until Congress insisted that the better protection be fielded to all those in Iraq, it was not.

So, today, we are insisting that the Army get all of the 18,000 MRAPs the commanders in the field have asked for.

To be honest, I cannot understand why it is taking so long to agree to replace them all. It makes no sense. We know how effective these vehicles can be.

Just last week, General Pace, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Appropriations Committee that MRAPs have been tested at Aberdeen with 300 pounds of explosives below them and they survived.

Are we only supposed to care about the tactical advice of our commanders in the field when it is cheap?

I don't think that is what the American people or our military men and women expect from us.

I know some will say that it is not possible to build a total of 23,000 MRAPs in 12 to 15 months. Why not? Why not?

This is basically a modified truck. With real leadership and a national level commitment, America can certainly make this happen. I believe in the ``can-do'' spirit and deep patriotism of our businesses. MRAP manufacturers want to make the 23,000 vehicles needed to save the lives of our men and women on the front line.

But I also know that we have to do our part. In Congress, the best thing we can do to make sure it happens is to fully fund every vehicle needed upfront.

Contractors and subcontractors can only expand their capacity if we are clear on what we need and that we will fully fund it.

This amendment allows us to do that.

It also ensures that any delays in dealing with the overall wartime supplemental funding bill do not cause the production lines that are only now getting up to speed to shut down.

Once we provide the full funding, American businesses must step up and get it done and the Pentagon must manage the program aggressively and attentively and the President must make it clear that this is a national priority.

But we have no chance of making all of the needed vehicles, as quickly as possible, if we fund the program bit by bit, in fits and starts. We must do our part.

Once again, I ask my colleagues to weigh their options.

Do we do our best to save American lives, knowing that the only downside is the possible need to reprogram funding at the end of the year? Or do we care more about some unknown total wartime funding limit than those lives?

We have an obligation to provide the best possible protection to each and every military man and woman while they are in the line of fire. If these vehicles can reduce American casualties by two-thirds or more, how can we do anything else? I agree with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, GEN James Conway when he said, ``Anything less is immoral.''

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. President, what is the pending business?

May I make an inquiry to the Senator from Arizona, is his amendment going to require a vote?

I thank the Senator very much. I would like to take advantage of that offer. President Talabani is in the Foreign Relations Committee at the moment. It would accommodate nicely my schedule.

Amendment No. 3142

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Biden amendment on MRAPs be called back up. It was the pending business until it was laid aside.

Mr. President, I say to my good friends, Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens, there are no two more seasoned or devoted Senators to protecting the military and our fighting men and women. I know my amendment with regard to so-called MRAPs, mine-resistant vehicles, is an inconvenience, and I am not being facetious when I say that. I know that my friend--and I don't have a closer friend in the Senate than Senator Inouye--supports the essence of what I am proposing, but there has been an attempt, understandably, to have all amendments that could be related in any way to Iraq placed on the supplemental. This amendment will be placed on the supplemental. But the truth is, we are not likely to get to the supplemental until January.

I know one of the Democratic leaders, Senator Durbin, is in the Chamber. He may know better than I if that is accurate, but that is my understanding. In this place, you have to have, as they say, a horse to ride. You have to have a vehicle to be able to attach something important that you support so that it will get some consideration.

The amendment I am proposing today is one that calls for a significant increase in the production of mine-resistant vehicles. I know I sound like a broken record to many of my colleagues since I started raising it last spring. This amendment is very simple, and it is costly. It provides the $23.6 billion needed to replace every Army up-armored HMMWV vehicle in Iraq with a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, so-called MRAPs.

It is exactly the same thing we did on the authorization bill that passed Monday night. Our commanders in the field told us as recently as 2 weeks ago--I met with some of those commanders, Marine commanders in Ramadi, and took a ride in a new mine-resistant vehicle. I also sat in an up-armored HMMWVs--so the Marines, from the two-star general to the sergeant who drove various vehicles, could make a point to me about how different they are.

They showed me a photograph of a roadside bomb having struck one of the new vehicles--that is a Cougar, which is one size of the up-armored mine-resistant vehicles and it showed where on, I believe, August 28, in that same city, a roadside bomb had exploded, 250 pounds of explosives. And it literally blew this vehicle, which is many times the weight of the largest SUV any American drives in this country--I don't know the exact weight, but it is close to 38,000 pounds fully loaded-- it blew it so high up in the air that it literally brought down the telephone wires. The wheels got caught in the telephone wires. A standard telephone pole, I don't know, are they 20, 25 feet, maybe more, maybe less? It blew the vehicle so high into the air it literally brought down the telephone wires. And when it hit, the vehicle, probably in an area the circumference of this Chamber, the pieces were spread all around the landscape. The engine would have been over by the Republican cloakroom, the drivetrain would have been over by the exit door on the Democratic side back toward the marble room, the axle would be sitting up by the Democratic cloakroom, and right in the middle of the Senate floor would be the cabin of the vehicle.

There were seven soldiers in that vehicle. Had that been an up- armored HMMWV, everyone would be dead. Not one of those soldiers died. Not one. They suffered severe concussions, four of them, but that was the worst of their injuries. And one of those young sergeants, as the brass went through showing me this and I got into vehicles and we drove and so on and so forth--we are now inside Ramadi--as I am getting out and leaving, one of those young soldiers was exuberant. First, he saluted me and said: Sir, as Senator Reed, a West Point graduate, is accustomed to having been done to him in the old days and even now--and then he became emotional in his thanks for that vehicle, thanking us for insisting on building them. It is truly a lifesaving vehicle.

Now, our commanders in the field tell us these Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicles are going to reduce casualties by 67 to 80 percent. That is the range, 67 to 80 percent. Put it another way, had they been riding around in these vehicles since we knew they were needed, we would have over a thousand fewer dead and over 10,000 fewer seriously wounded, literally, because over 70 percent of all the deaths and casualties are caused by IEDs, or roadside bombs. When I found out about how good these vehicles are last year in Iraq and then again in testimony the beginning of this calendar year, and then when a whistleblower came to me telling me commanders in the field had asked for these in February of 2005, I was dumbfounded as to why we weren't building them. With the great help of everyone on this floor, I think the vote was 97 to 0, we accelerated production by adding $1.5 billion to last year's wartime funding bill.

The lead commander on the ground in Iraq is Lieutenant General Odierno, and he told us 6 months ago that he wanted to replace the Army's approximately 18,000 up-armored HMMWVs with these new Mine Resistant vehicles. Instead of adjusting the requirement immediately, the Pentagon has taken time to study the issue. They originally agreed the Army should get 380--380--of these vehicles. That was in December of 2006. Then, in March of this year, after the Commandant of the Marine Corps said it was his highest moral priority to get his folks in 3,700 of these vehicles, they agreed to increase the number to 2,500 for the Army. In August, they added a few more and agreed to 2,726 for the Army. This month, they agreed that the general needs a little over half of what he asked for--10,000 of these vehicles.

Slowly we are getting there. But we have seen this movie before, Mr. President, with the body armor, with the up-armored HMMWVs. Until the Congress insisted that the better protection be fielded for all of those troops in Iraq, it was not. The catalyst came from here. We insisted. Remember just several years ago how many kids we were sending into battle without the proper body armor and how many National Guard units we were sending over who were not adequately equipped and how initially the military was threatening to discipline young women and men who were taking sheets of metal to put on the vehicles they drove on convoys ferrying equipment from the gulf all the way up into Baghdad? They were putting these sheets of steel on the sides of their doors and the bottom. They were threatened with being disciplined.

We have very short memories here. Very short memories. But in the meantime, a lot of people die. Some would have died inevitably, but a lot--a lot--would not have. So today we are insisting the Army get all of the 18,000 MRAPs the commanders in the field have asked for.

Now, to be honest, I can't understand why it is taking so long to agree to replace all these vehicles. It makes no sense. We know how effective these vehicles are. We surely can't be making an economic argument. Surely there is no one here who is going to say we can't afford to protect these troops with the technology we know--we know--we know--will protect these troops. Surely no one is going to make that argument.

Last week, General Pace, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Appropriations Committee that MRAPs have been tested in Aberdeen with 300 pounds of explosives below them--300 pounds--and they survive. Are we only supposed to care about the tactical judgement of the commanders in the field when it is cheap? I don't think that is what the American people think we are doing for our military. Our military men and women have a right to expect a lot more from us.

I know some say it is not possible to build a total of 23,000 MRAPs in 12 to 15 months. Why not? Why not? Imagine President Roosevelt, in the middle of World War II--and this war has lasted longer than World War II--having said: You know, we need to get X number more fighter aircraft over in theater. We need to have more landing craft for D-Day. But you know what. The present system just won't be able to build them all. We just can't do it. Can you imagine that being said? Can you fathom that being said?

I don't get it. I don't get it. Are we saying that we cannot mobilize, through the President of the United States and the weight of the United States Congress, the construction of vehicles that we know will save lives; that we know will reduce critical injuries? You are as dead in Baghdad as you were on Normandy Beach. You are as dead in Baghdad as you were on Normandy Beach. And the pain of the family of that fallen angel is not one bit different than the heroism we celebrate today in the Ken Burns documentary series on the Greatest Generation from World War II. There is no difference. There is no distinction. The pain is as searing. So I ask you all a question: Can you imagine during that war the Congress and the President saying: I don't think we can get this done?

Mr. President, this is basically a modified truck. With real leadership and a national level commitment, America can certainly make this happen. I believe that the can-do spirit and deep patriotism of our business men and women is as profound as it was back in the year 1942 or 1945. MRAP manufacturers want to make the 23,000 vehicles needed to save the lives of our men and women on the frontline. But we have to do our part.

In Congress, the best thing we can do to make sure it happens is to fully fund every vehicle needed up front. Contractors and subcontractors can only expand their capacity if we are clear on what we need and what we are prepared to fund. This amendment allows us to do that. It also ensures that any delays in dealing with the overall wartime supplemental funding bill do not cause the production lines that are only now getting up to speed to shut down. Said another way, we are finally getting these production lines up and running. There are five companies, some relatively small, that, based on contracts, have gone out and hired 200, 500, 1,000 more people. They have expanded their facilities to build these vehicles alone. But they can only expand to the degree to which they know they have a contract.

We funded these MRAPs in the last supplemental and the Continuing Resolution to the point that we are not going to be able to build any more of them by the time March comes along if we do not have money in this bill. We are not going to be able to build any more. If we wait until the supplemental to let these contracts, we will have a hiatus of 2 to 4 to 6 months where they shut down these lines. These are not mom- and-pop operations, but they are also not General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, or any other major automobile manufacturer. So this is about how many more months in delay getting these vehicles are we going to cause by not putting all of the funding in this appropriations bill. My amendment provides all of the funding needed. That is what my amendment will do.

It also ensures that any delays in dealing with the overall wartime supplemental funding bill will not cause production to shut down. Once we provide the full funding, American business must step up and get the job done, the Pentagon must manage the program aggressively and attentively, and the President is going to have to make it clear this is a national priority. But we have no chance of making all these needed vehicles as quickly as possible if we fund that program bit by bit, in fits and starts.

Once again, I ask my colleagues to weigh their options. Do we do our best to save American lives, knowing the only downside is the possible need to reprogram funding at the end of the year; or do we care more about the unknown total wartime funding limit than we care about these lives? I know every one of my colleagues would do anything in their power to increase the possibility that we reduce casualties. Well, here is the way to do it.

It seems to me that certain things are a matter of sacred honor and exceed anything having to do with budgets. We can argue the national interest is better protected and our physical security is better protected by building X, Y, or Z weapon system, and we can argue whether our failing to build it is going to affect the lives of the American people. That is a very fundamentally different issue than knowing you have something, that if you physically place an American soldier in that vehicle, you will increase by 60 to 80 percent the chance of that man or woman living, and yet not doing it. That is a different deal. This is not your ordinary appropriations program. It is a little bit like the ultimate body armor.

Would anybody here, if we knew that by spending X dollars more we could increase the life expectancy of every soldier by providing the right body armor in the theater, would we not do it, no matter what it cost? Well, this is a form of body armor, a form of body armor that we know, if it is possessed, is going to reduce the cause of over 70 percent of the casualties in theater. If these vehicles can reduce American casualties by two-thirds or more, I don't know how we can do anything else.

I agree with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, GEN James Conway, when he said: ``Anything less is immoral.'' Let me say it again: ``Anything less is immoral.''

So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays on this vote when the appropriate time comes. I ask for them now, so that we know when the amendment is called up we get a vote.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield? I may be able to step away from this if--I think I heard my friend correctly. Did I hear him say that if in fact it is not clear that we are going to be able to prevent this gap in the shutdown of the line, that by November the Senator is saying the committee would have a continuing resolution that included the specific money?

Then, if I understand this correctly, I think my friend and the Senator from Alaska are doing exactly what I asked for. My only worry is that, A, we make a commitment to the total of 23,000 in the supplemental, a commitment that would get us to 23,000; and, B, we do not have to wait until January. Because if that is the case, these small operations will have needed a 3- to 6-month lead time, once they get a contract, to keep the line going. But what I hear my friend saying is that we would, in November, if it didn't look like the supplemental was going to happen, we in November would fill that gap so there would not be a shutdown in these lines. Is that what my friend is saying?

That is good enough for me. I am happy to withdraw the amendment. I have never known the Senator from Hawaii or the Senator from Alaska, when they gave their word, to do anything--do anything but that. The supplemental we are going to revisit in January, that has the additional money to get us to 23,000. What my friend is saying here is that $11.48 billion would be in any continuing resolution if we did not get to that?

It is $11.5 billion.

Amendment No. 3142 Withdrawn

Mr. President, I would obviously prefer that it be put here. But I tell you, if there has ever been appropriate use of the expression someone's word is ``as good as gold,'' it is about my friend from Hawaii. I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. President, today I am submitting a resolution designating October 19, 2007, as ``National Mammography Day.'' This is the 15th

straight year I have introduced such legislation, and I am proud to say that on each occasion the Senate has shown its support for the fight against breast cancer by approving the resolution.

Each year, as I prepare to introduce this resolution, I review the latest information from the American Cancer Society about breast cancer. For the year 2007, it is estimated that nearly 178,480 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and 40,460 women will die of this disease.

The first several times I introduced this resolution, I commented on how gloomy the statistics surrounding breast cancer were. While too many of our loved ones still die from breast cancer each year, there are some numbers these days that give us hope in our persistent struggle to defeat this disease. As I mentioned last year, the trend over time is that the number of deaths from breast cancer is actually stable or falling from year to year. According to the American Cancer Society, the death rate from breast cancer in women has decreased since 1990: between 1975-1990, the death rate increased by 0.4 percent; between 1990-2004, the death rate decreased by 2.2 percent annually.

This decline in the breast cancer mortality rate has been attributed to both improvements in breast cancer treatment as well as early detection from mammograms and other screening methods. New digital techniques make the process of mammography much more rapid and precise than before. In addition, early detection of breast cancer continues to result in extremely favorable outcomes: 98 percent of women with localized breast cancer will survive 5 years or longer. Government programs will provide free mammograms to those who can't afford them, as well as Medicaid eligibility for treatment if breast cancer is diagnosed. Information about treatment of breast cancer with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy has exploded, reflecting enormous research advances in this disease. With all of these advances in research, screening and treatment, a diagnosis of breast cancer is not a death sentence--all of us encounter long-term survivors of breast cancer almost daily, whether we realize it or not.

Recently, there has been discussion among scientists regarding the best and most appropriate screening tool for breast cancer--traditional mammography or more advanced technology like magnetic resonance imaging, MRI. In addition, newspapers have been filled with discussions over whether the scientific evidence actually supports the conclusion that periodic screening mammography saves lives. For those of us who are neither physicians nor scientists in this highly technical area, we look to the experts. The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force all continue to recommend periodic screening mammography.

As for mammography versus MRI's, in 2007 an expert panel convened by the American Cancer Society released new recommendations for the use of MRI for women at increased risk for breast cancer. Essentially, the Society recommended annual screening using MRI in addition to mammography for women at high lifetime risk, 20 to 25 percent or greater of developing breast cancer. Women with moderately increased risk of developing the disease, 15 to 20 percent lifetime risk, should discuss the option of adding an MRI to their annual mammogram with their physician. Women that do not fall into the high-risk or moderate- risk categories for developing breast cancer have no need to supplement their mammogram with an MRI.

I know that some women don't have annual mammograms because of either fear or forgetfulness. It is only human nature for some women to avoid mammograms because they are afraid of what the test will reveal. To those who are fearful, I would say that if you have periodic routine mammograms, and the latest one comes out positive, even before you have any symptoms or have found a lump on self-examination, you have reason to be optimistic, not pessimistic. Such early-detected breast cancers are highly treatable.

Then there is forgetfulness. I certainly understand how difficult it is to remember to do something that only comes around once each year. I would suggest that this is where National Mammography Day comes in. On that day, let's make sure that each woman we know picks a specific date on which to get a mammogram each year, a date that she won't forget: a child's birthday, an anniversary, perhaps even the day her taxes are due. On National Mammography Day, let's ask our loved ones: pick one of these dates, fix it in your mind along with a picture of your child, your wedding, or another symbol of that date, and promise yourself to get a mammogram on that date every year. Once you pick a date, call your health care provider and make an appointment. If you have access to the internet, go the American Cancer Society's website and sign up for the mammogram reminder service--they'll send you an e-mail to remind you about the date you picked. Do it for yourself and for the others that love you and want you to be part of their lives for as long as possible.

And to those women who are reluctant to have a mammogram, once again I say let National Mammography Day serve as a reminder to discuss this question each year with your physician. New scientific studies that are published and new mammography techniques that are developed may affect your decision on this matter from one year to the next. I encourage you to keep an open mind and not to feel that a decision at one point in time commits you irrevocably to a particular course of action for the indefinite future.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in the ongoing fight against breast cancer by cosponsoring and voting for this resolution to designate October 19, 2007, as ``National Mammography Day''.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to join my colleague, Senator Murray, in introducing legislation--the Facilitating Outstanding Classrooms Using Size Reduction (FOCUS) Act of 2007--that will provide $2 billion in funding to help, States and school districts hire 100,000 new teachers to reduce class size, particularly in the early grades.

When a teacher is responsible for a classroom of 25, 30, or more students, how can we expect each student to receive enough time and attention? One pillar of our education system should be small classes. The body of research around class size has consistently shown that smaller classes improve student performance, including reading and mathematics, in the early grades as well as in subsequent years when students are placed in larger classes. Research also shows that at the end of fifth grade, students who were in small classes in first through third grades were about half a school year ahead of students from larger classes in all core subjects--reading, language arts, math, and science. Additionally, studies have found that students from small classes earn better grades in high school, take more advanced courses, and are more likely to take college-entrance exams. They are also more likely to graduate from high school than students in larger classes.

Small classes also enable teachers to teach better. Any teacher will tell you that small classes make a difference. Small classes allow teachers to spend more time on instruction, get to know their students better, spend less time on discipline problems, and better identify students who need individually tailored assistance. The difference between teaching large classes and teaching small classes is substantial, and the pedagogy required for each differs.

I have stood with Senator Murray on previous legislation to reduce class size in our Nation's schools, and I am proud to stand with her again today in support of a class size reduction bill. The bill we offer today strengthens our earlier efforts to reduce class size. First--the FOCUS Act would provide a dedicated funding stream for class size reduction. The No Child Left Behind Act incorporated the Class Size Reduction Program into title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Murray-Biden FOCUS Act would create a separate funding stream in title V for the class size reduction initiative-- ensuring that efforts to reduce class size would not have to compete

for funding with a broad array of other teacher and administrator professional development and training funds.

Another provision that has been added are instructions that States and schools districts allocate their funding in a manner that creates a continuum of small classes for students as they progress from kindergarten to third grade and beyond. Research has shown that the benefits of attending small classes are the greatest for students in kindergarten through third grade, with further benefits accruing to those students for each additional year spent in small classes. The ultimate goal is that a student in the kindergarten grade matriculates through first, second, and third grades--each with an average class size of 18 students or less.

The bill also establishes a Web-based National Clearinghouse on Class Size that would provide research, best practices, and resources for small classroom instruction. This information needs to be broadly available and easily accessible to the education community as well as the public.

Additionally, the legislation requires an independent evaluation to be conducted to determine the impact and effectiveness of the initiative and the National Center for Education Statistics to report on average class size data. It is imperative that we understand, objectively, how these funds are spent, and what outcomes are achieved.

Mr. President, the ultimate success of our education system depends on teachers. Ask any teacher if it matters whether they are teaching a class of 18 students or 25 students and you will get the same answer every time: absolutely. Smaller classes will provide teachers with the resources they need to create the opportunities for learning that our students deserve.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to join my colleague, Senator Murray, in introducing legislation--the Facilitating Outstanding Classrooms Using Size Reduction (FOCUS) Act of 2007--that will provide $2 billion in funding to help, States and school districts hire 100,000 new teachers to reduce class size, particularly in the early grades.

When a teacher is responsible for a classroom of 25, 30, or more students, how can we expect each student to receive enough time and attention? One pillar of our education system should be small classes. The body of research around class size has consistently shown that smaller classes improve student performance, including reading and mathematics, in the early grades as well as in subsequent years when students are placed in larger classes. Research also shows that at the end of fifth grade, students who were in small classes in first through third grades were about half a school year ahead of students from larger classes in all core subjects--reading, language arts, math, and science. Additionally, studies have found that students from small classes earn better grades in high school, take more advanced courses, and are more likely to take college-entrance exams. They are also more likely to graduate from high school than students in larger classes.

Small classes also enable teachers to teach better. Any teacher will tell you that small classes make a difference. Small classes allow teachers to spend more time on instruction, get to know their students better, spend less time on discipline problems, and better identify students who need individually tailored assistance. The difference between teaching large classes and teaching small classes is substantial, and the pedagogy required for each differs.

I have stood with Senator Murray on previous legislation to reduce class size in our Nation's schools, and I am proud to stand with her again today in support of a class size reduction bill. The bill we offer today strengthens our earlier efforts to reduce class size. First--the FOCUS Act would provide a dedicated funding stream for class size reduction. The No Child Left Behind Act incorporated the Class Size Reduction Program into title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Murray-Biden FOCUS Act would create a separate funding stream in title V for the class size reduction initiative-- ensuring that efforts to reduce class size would not have to compete

for funding with a broad array of other teacher and administrator professional development and training funds.

Another provision that has been added are instructions that States and schools districts allocate their funding in a manner that creates a continuum of small classes for students as they progress from kindergarten to third grade and beyond. Research has shown that the benefits of attending small classes are the greatest for students in kindergarten through third grade, with further benefits accruing to those students for each additional year spent in small classes. The ultimate goal is that a student in the kindergarten grade matriculates through first, second, and third grades--each with an average class size of 18 students or less.

The bill also establishes a Web-based National Clearinghouse on Class Size that would provide research, best practices, and resources for small classroom instruction. This information needs to be broadly available and easily accessible to the education community as well as the public.

Additionally, the legislation requires an independent evaluation to be conducted to determine the impact and effectiveness of the initiative and the National Center for Education Statistics to report on average class size data. It is imperative that we understand, objectively, how these funds are spent, and what outcomes are achieved.

Mr. President, the ultimate success of our education system depends on teachers. Ask any teacher if it matters whether they are teaching a class of 18 students or 25 students and you will get the same answer every time: absolutely. Smaller classes will provide teachers with the resources they need to create the opportunities for learning that our students deserve.

Mr. President, I rise today to the offer the Procedural Fairness for September 11 Victims Act, a simple bill that ensures procedural fairness for the parties to litigation arising out of the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

When we passed the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund of 2001, we established a Federal cause of action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as the exclusive remedy for damages arising out of the September 11 attacks. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure effectively limit service of a subpoena by a party to an action under the Victims Compensation Fund to within 100 miles of the Southern District of New York. Litigating a Federal cause of action under the Victims Compensation Fund is likely to involve the testimony and the production of documents by a substantial number of witnesses who may not reside within 100 miles of the

Southern District of New York. Neither the Victims Compensation fund statute nor the Federal rules, however, currently provide an effective means for securing such testimony or documents.

The Procedural Fairness for September 11 Victims Act addresses this oversight by allowing parties to Victims Compensation Fund actions to subpoena witnesses and documents from anywhere in the U.S. The court retains its authority to quash or modify any such subpoena if it is unduly burdensome to the witness subpoenaed.

Justice requires that the parties to cases arising under the Victims Compensation Fund have access to all the testimony and documents relevant to their claims, regardless of where in the U.S. the witnesses or documents are located. By granting the parties to such cases nationwide subpoena authority, administered by the Federal court, this act ensures that they do. As the bipartisan cosponsorship of the act attests, ensuring procedural fairness in these cases bearing on the terrible attacks of September 11 is not a Democratic issue or Republican issue, it is an American issue. I strongly encourages my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to join me and the other cosponsors of this important bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to the offer the Procedural Fairness for September 11 Victims Act, a simple bill that ensures procedural fairness for the parties to litigation arising out of the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

When we passed the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund of 2001, we established a Federal cause of action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as the exclusive remedy for damages arising out of the September 11 attacks. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure effectively limit service of a subpoena by a party to an action under the Victims Compensation Fund to within 100 miles of the Southern District of New York. Litigating a Federal cause of action under the Victims Compensation Fund is likely to involve the testimony and the production of documents by a substantial number of witnesses who may not reside within 100 miles of the

Southern District of New York. Neither the Victims Compensation fund statute nor the Federal rules, however, currently provide an effective means for securing such testimony or documents.

The Procedural Fairness for September 11 Victims Act addresses this oversight by allowing parties to Victims Compensation Fund actions to subpoena witnesses and documents from anywhere in the U.S. The court retains its authority to quash or modify any such subpoena if it is unduly burdensome to the witness subpoenaed.

Justice requires that the parties to cases arising under the Victims Compensation Fund have access to all the testimony and documents relevant to their claims, regardless of where in the U.S. the witnesses or documents are located. By granting the parties to such cases nationwide subpoena authority, administered by the Federal court, this act ensures that they do. As the bipartisan cosponsorship of the act attests, ensuring procedural fairness in these cases bearing on the terrible attacks of September 11 is not a Democratic issue or Republican issue, it is an American issue. I strongly encourages my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to join me and the other cosponsors of this important bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today the Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing to review the Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Agreement Relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the Convention (Treaty Doc. 103-39). The Committee heard testimony from representatives of the executive branch.

On Thursday, October 4, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in SD-419, the Committee will conduct another hearing on the Convention on the Law of the Sea. Witnesses from outside the government will present testimony. Interested parties who have not been invited to testify may submit written testimony until the close of business on October 5, 2007 by sending it electronically to [email protected] or by faxing it to the Committee's Executive Clerk, Gail Coppage, at (202) 228-3612.

Mr. President, I yield back my time.

Constitutional Review Commission

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Michigan for his suggestions. I believe that federalism and the creation of federal regions would be in the best interest of the Iraqi people and holds great promise for a political settlement among the Iraqi political leadership. I know that my friend is particularly concerned about the opposition of the Sunni community to the constitution. I agree with him that, at, the time of

adoption of the constitution, the Sunnis were opposed to many aspects of it including those provisions relating to federalism among others. But in my last visit to Iraq, my conversations with key Sunni leaders reveals a sea change in thinking. There is a growing recognition by the Sunni leadership that Sunnis will not get a fair shake if they are at the mercy of a strong central government controlled by their rivals in the Islamist Shiacamp. One key leader told me that he now understands that federalism is the best option for the Sunnis. Nonetheless, it is not my intention to forego the possibility that the Iraqi Constitutional Review Commission may recommend changes to their constitution nor that the United States should seek to impose a settlement on the Iraqis. I would note, however, at in the last draft proposed by the commission on May 23, 2007, none of the proposed changes would revoke any of the provisions of the constitution which permit the creation of federal regions. However, in deference to the Senator's concerns, I have amended the language to account for the possibility of the issue of regions being reopened by the Iraqis.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I will oppose the Kyl-Lieberman amendment for one simple reason: this administration cannot be trusted.

I am very concerned about the evidence that suggests that Iran is engaged in destabilizing activities inside Iraq. I believe that many of the steps the Senators from Connecticut and Arizona suggest be taken to end this activity can be taken today. We can and we should move to act against Iranian forces inside Iraq. We can and we should use economic pressure against those who aid and abet attacks on our forces and against Iraqis. The administration already has the authority to do these things and it should be doing them.

Arguably, if we had a different President who abided by the meaning and intent of laws we pass, I might support this amendment. I fear, however, that this President might use the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity as a pretext to use force against Iran as he sees fit. While this may sound far-fetched to some, my colleagues should examine the record in two particular instances.

First, is the misuse of the authority that we granted the President in 2002 to back our diplomacy with the threat of force. My colleagues will remember that, at the time, we voted to give the President a strong hand to play at the U.N. to get the world to speak with one voice to Saddam: let the inspectors back in and disarm or be disarmed. We thought that would make war less likely.

But in the 5 months between our vote and the invasion of Iraq, the ideologues took over. The President went to war unnecessarily, without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work, without a real coalition, without enough troops, without the right equipment, and without a plan to secure the peace.

The second example is the administration's twisting of our vote on the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 as an endorsement of military action against Iraq. Let me quote the Vice President from November 2005:

Permit me to burden you with a bit more history: In August

of 1998, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution urging

President Clinton take `appropriate action' to compel Saddam

to come into compliance with his obligations to the Security

Council. Not a single senator voted no. Two months later, in

October of '98--again, without a single dissenting vote in

the United States Senate--the Congress passed the Iraq

Liberation Act. It explicitly adopted as American policy

supporting efforts to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from

power and promoting an Iraqi democracy in its place. And just

two months after signing the Iraq Liberation law, President

Clinton ordered that Iraq be bombed in an effort to destroy

facilities that he believed were connected to Saddam's

weapons of mass destruction programs.

The Vice President made this argument despite this explicit section of the Iraq Liberation Act: ``Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces.''

These examples are relevant to the debate today.

The Authorization for the Use of Military Force approved in September 2001 would appear to limit the scope of authority it contains to the terrorists who conducted or aided the attacks of 9/11, or harbored them. But the President and his lawyers have frequently argued for a broad reading of this law,

and believe they are fighting a ``global'' war on terrorism. In letters to Congress under the war powers resolution, the President has stated that he will ``direct additional measures as necessary'' in the exercise of self-defense and ``to protect U.S. citizens and interests'' as part of this global war.

I do not think the suggestion that the President designate an arm of the government of Iran as a ``terrorist'' entity provides any authority to do anything. After all, it is a nonbinding measure. But this administration already has an unduly broad view of the scope of executive power, particularly in time of war. I do not want to give the President and his lawyers any argument that Congress has somehow authorized military actions. The lesson of the last several years is that we must be cautious about acting impulsively on legislation which can be misconstrued, and misused to justify actions that Congress did not contemplate.

With a different President who had a different track record, I could vote to support this amendment. But given this President's actions and misuse of authority, I cannot support the amendment.

Mr. President, I am happy to do that. I see the former distinguished ranking member of the Armed Services Committee is on the floor. Let me say at the outset how much I appreciate both him and the chairman of the committee for making some very constructive suggestions as to how to amend my amendment.

At the appropriate time, I will call up the amendment and move for its modification. But I want to, at the outset, tell the Senator from Virginia how much I appreciate his leadership. The truth is, he and I had a fairly extensive colloquy on the floor last week on this amendment. True to his word, the Senator said he was going to take a look at this amendment, he was seriously interested in it, and he wanted to look at it. As is always the case with the Senator from Virginia, he kept his word. He not only kept his word, but he improved what Senator Brownback and I and Senator Boxer and others had come forward with. Again, at the appropriate time, I will move to amend Biden-Brownback along those lines.

But, as I understood it, there was the possibility that if we had gotten the unanimous consent agreement, there would be 15 minutes on a side. I know a number of people want to speak. I had an opportunity to speak on this amendment at length last week.

My distinguished colleague from California, who I must say--and I am sure my colleagues will fully appreciate this--we would not have gotten to this point were it not for the Senator from California. Her embrace of this approach well over a year ago, quite frankly, legitimized this in a way on my side of the aisle that no one else, quite frankly, could have done.

The fact that it has such, at this point--and, God willing, as my grandfather would say, and the ``crick'' not rising--hopefully, when we vote, it will bear out what I am about to say. This has genuine bipartisan support but not merely bipartisan support. This has genuine support that crosses ideological divides as narrow or as wide as they are in this body. I think that is a very hopeful sign for the emergence of a policy in Iraq that would give us some real opportunity.

With the Chair's permission and my colleagues' permission, I would like to yield the floor to my colleague from California, if she would like to speak to this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, before I do that, I would like to ask the Senator from Massachusetts----

Mr. President, I will not bring up the amendment or amend it now, but because time is of the essence for a lot of our colleagues, I wish to speak to what the changes are that were recommended by Senator Warner and others.

But before the Senator from Massachusetts leaves the floor, I wish to say to him--and I hope it will not in any way cause him any difficulty--he and I have been close friends for over 30 years, and I want him to know, and I want my colleagues to know, that much of what this amendment we are hopefully going to vote on is about is what the Senator and I have talked about for the last 4 years and that he has led on, including the international piece.

As a matter of fact, he led on it from a different perspective, as a candidate, as well. So I wish to tell him how grateful I am for his joining in this amendment. Quite frankly, it is a big deal that he is, and it adds not only credibility to the amendment in terms of our colleagues, but it adds, quite frankly, an international credibility to it because an awful lot of people around the world look to my colleague for his insights into what we do about the most critical issue facing American foreign policy today.

The truth is, in order for us to regain the kind of leadership in the world that I would argue we are lacking, we have to settle Iraq, and we cannot do it on our own. There is a need for the international community. Even if this answer is the perfect answer, it cannot be made in America any longer.

So I wish to thank my colleague and acknowledge that I have learned from him, and I wish to thank him for--and I know we use the phrase very blithely around here--his leadership. But I mean that. I wish to thank him for his leadership. He has been absolutely totally consistent on this point from before the time we actually used force in Iraq until today. So I want the record to reflect that.

Mr. President, while we are waiting to determine whether we are going to be able to proceed on the amendment, I think the concerns raised by several of my friends have been incorporated in

the changes that have been made. I am not moving to amend it now, but I am going to tell my colleagues what the Biden-Brownback amendment will be.

In the findings clauses, finding No. (3) has been added, and it is to reflect the concern raised by the distinguished Senator from Arizona, Senator Kyl--and I suspect others, but Senator Kyl is the one who raised this with us, in that he wanted to make it clear--

We incorporated the exact language I was originally given, with the advice of my colleague from Virginia, and it says:

A central focus of al-Qaida in Iraq has been to turn

sectarian division in Iraq into sectarian violence through a

concentrated series of attacks, the most significant being

the destruction of the Golden Dome.

So that is one change, one addition we made. A second change we made was at the request, I believe, and I would stand corrected, of both the chairman and the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, which was deleting a word. It says:

Iraq must reach a comprehensive and sustainable political

settlement in order--

No, that is not true. I am getting the wrong section. I will ask my staff what the second change is, and I will go to the third change. The reason I can't find the change is because we took out the word, and I am trying to recall where we took the word out.

The third thing we changed is the provision in the original resolution to incorporate the strongly held view of the chairman of the Armed Services Committee that we not be forcing upon Iraq anything that is inconsistent with their wishes. The paragraph originally read:

The United States should actively support a political

settlement in Iraq based upon the final provisions of the

Constitution of Iraq that create a federal system of

government and allow for certain federal regions consistent

with the wishes of the Iraqi people and their elected

leaders.

And then, I believe at the request or suggestion of the distinguished ranking member from Virginia, the actual last paragraph of the resolution, paragraph 5, says:

Nothing in this act should be construed in any way to infringe on the sovereign rights of the Nation of Iraq.

Again, both my colleagues can explain their motivation better than I, but the central point that is attempted to be achieved is to make it clear that neither Senator Brownback nor I, nor any of the cosponsors, believe we should be imposing a political solution on the Iraqi people. It is sort of self-evident to me that you cannot impose a political solution. A political solution has to be arrived at by the competing parties. I would argue, as I think my colleagues in the Armed Services Committee would agree now, that what we are doing is consistent with Iraq's Constitution and consistent with the ability of the Iraqis to further amend their Constitution to come to a different conclusion.

I will be delighted to yield to the Senator from Virginia.

I am sorry. I am so used to the Senator being chairman.

As I understand, the distinguished ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar, suggested that instead of `` . . . Iraqis to reach such a settlement is a primary cause of increasing violence in Iraq,'' he wished the word ``increasing'' be struck from the language. It now reads: `` . . . settlement is the primary cause of violence in Iraq.''

So we have struck that. To the best of my knowledge, I say to my friend from Virginia, I think we have accommodated all the changes that were suggested.

Mr. President, I see the chairman has risen. Does he wish to speak?

That is correct.

Mr. President, I understand. The Senator is correct; I was under a misimpression.

As I understand it, for our colleagues here--and I say to my colleague from Michigan, the chairman, I understand it would accommodate other Senators if we were to set a time certain to vote tomorrow morning on this amendment and, I guess, I don't know, the Lieberman amendment--Lieberman/Kyl. I don't know that. But if it is at all possible, I know it should not be a consideration of the Senate and obviously whatever the Senate's will I would abide by it, but it would be very helpful to me as a practical matter--there are these pesky little Presidential debates that intervene and there is one tomorrow in New Hampshire. If it accommodates the body I would be delighted to do it this evening, but if we could consider doing it at 10 o'clock in the morning, it would be very much appreciated by the Senator from Delaware--if that is possible.

Mr. President, in the coming days there will be more funerals in Lebanon for fresh victims of despicable terror attacks. On Wednesday, September 19, 2007, Lebanese member of Parliament Antoine Ghanem and at least six others were killed in a massive car bomb attack in the suburbs of Beirut.

Tragically, this is an all-too-frequent occurrence for the people of Lebanon. The wave began with the February 14, 2005, assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others. On the 1-month anniversary of Prime Minister Hariri's assassination, something remarkable happened--hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Martyr's Square in downtown Beirut--spontaneously giving birth to the March 14 movement and the Cedar Revolution. Just 6 weeks after the March 14 movement began, the thousands of Syrian military forces that had occupied Lebanon for nearly three decades were out of the country.

But although the military occupation of Lebanon ended in 2005, Lebanon has remained under siege, as Wednesday's events remind us. Six Lebanese parliamentarians have now been killed in 2\1/2\ years. These six, and other prominent Lebanese figures who were also killed during the same period, shared one important attribute--they were outspoken critics of the Syrian domination of Lebanon.

Senator Lugar, Senator Sununu and I are introducing a sense of the Senate resolution condemning the despicable assassination of Antoine Ghanem and urging that the international community continue its support for the government and people of Lebanon.

To the families of victims of Wednesday's attack and to the people of Lebanon, the Senate offers its deepest condolences for your losses. Wednesday's attack seeks to undermine the international tribunal set up earlier this

year to try the killers of Prime Minister Hariri and other Lebanese victims of political violence. So we call on the Bush administration to redouble its support for the tribunal and to work to ensure that Wednesday's crime is included in its jurisdiction.

These attacks on Lebanon must stop. This resolution expresses bipartisan support for holding accountable any state sponsor or official implicated in the string of political assassinations beginning in February 2005. To many an observer it is no accident that this assassination occurred as we approach the critical period during which Lebanon will choose its next president. Many informed voices, both in and out of Lebanon, are pointing to Damascus. So to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, know that we in Washington are watching events in Lebanon very carefully. Lebanon must be free to choose its next president without intimidation or violence.

Lebanon's enemies must understand that they face a united international front. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France, and the broader European Union all have lead roles to play. So does the United States. So we call upon the international community to intensify the efforts to support the people and fragile democratic institutions of Lebanon.

I yield the floor.

I know this is unusual. Mr. President, if we could start that at

10 and we didn't drag it, it would be better.

OK. That is not a very senatorial response, but OK.

Mr. President, before I send an amendment to the desk, I do not want to in any way disagree with anything that was said but expand on it slightly. There is a Biden-Brownback amendment. Senator Brownback is a major sponsor of this amendment, and I will yield to him in a moment because he has a difficult scheduling dilemma. I will let him go first. I also want to make it clear that Senators Boxer, Kerry, Specter, probably Hutchison, and others are going to want to speak to this amendment.

I am assuming that on Monday this will still be the pending business and that we will be able to continue to discuss and debate this issue, so Senators have time. This is an important weekend in the Jewish faith, so a lot of people are not here. But I assume, notwithstanding the fact that we are going to vote shortly after we convene on Tuesday morning, that we will have an opportunity to speak to this on Monday as well.

Now, today I will offer an amendment to the Defense authorization bill concerning U.S. policy in Iraq. As I said, I am joined by a bipartisan group of colleagues, including Senators Brownback, Boxer, Specter, Kerry, and, I believe, Senator Hutchison. Our amendment says it should be the policy of the United States to support a political settlement in Iraq based on the principles of federalism. I have much more to say about this. Again, I thank my friend from Kansas who has been a major proponent of this approach for some time. We joined forces together months ago. He has a very tight schedule, so he will speak first. I see Senator Hutchison standing also.

Possibly, Senator Brownback would let the Senator from Texas proceed for 2 minutes now.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2997.

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

Mr. President, I yield to my friend from Kansas, Senator Brownback.

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

Mr. President, as my friend from Kansas leaves, let me just thank him for his leadership here and his insight. I think he and I would agree that this is forming critical mass. Every once in a while in American politics, on a major issue, there is an idea that transcends both sides of this aisle and transcends from the experts to the average people because there is a commonsense ingredient to it as well as a deeper insightful notion of how that part of the world works. This is one of those issues.

I just wanted to say I am honored to be joined by Senator Brownback in this effort because he and I both have other agendas in terms of our political careers, but I think we both agree getting this right is more important than who is President of the United States of America. This is about life and death and about whether we are going to have a generation of difficulty for America in that part of the world or whether we are going to be able to ultimately leave and not leave chaos behind.

So I thank my friend for doing what I am sure was not an easy thing to do as a Presidential candidate on the Republican side--to join with a Democrat to move what at the time we moved it was still a very controversial idea.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, Senator Lugar be recognized for up to 30 minutes and that Senator Kennedy then be recognized to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, to alert my colleagues, I will take somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes to speak on this issue this morning, and I will speak on it again prior to our finally voting on it on Tuesday.

Look, as I said, I have been a Senator since I was 29 years old. I have been here for seven Presidents, and I have observed that sometimes, on issues relating to national crises, whether it be domestic or foreign, events conspire to generate the kind of support for an idea that when it was first offered had few adherents. I think we are approaching that now.

The amendment Senators Brownback, Boxer, Specter, Kerry, and I, as well as Senator Hutchison and others have says that U.S. policy should support a political settlement in Iraq based on the principles of federalism. Look, for all the division in Washington and across the country over the policy in Iraq, one thing just about everyone accepts, literally--left, right, center, the President, the Congress, the American people, and the so-called experts--is that there is no military solution in Iraq. Let me say that again. There is no military solution in Iraq.

I, along with Senator McCain--in fact, shortly after the war began-- said that I thought it was foolish to start this war. But once we started it, I thought: My Lord, we should have more American forces there. I argued for up to 100,000 more American forces in the first year so things would not get out of hand. I argued we needed 5,900 Gendarme paramilitary police from the international community. The Europeans were prepared to participate to literally restore order--make sure people didn't run the traffic lights or break into museums or engage in thuggery and robbery and crimes of ordinary violence, having nothing to do with sectarian divides. But we have passed that point.

To paraphrase General Petraeus, although he doesn't seem to be as adherent to his original comment, and he was paraphrasing someone else--I believe it was 3 or 4 years ago when we were in Iraq with him, and I am looking over my shoulder at my staff generally; at the time I think it was 3 years ago--he said, and I am paraphrasing, there comes a point in every liberation where it becomes an occupation. There comes a point in every liberation effort where it becomes an occupation. And we have reached that point. We reached that point 3 years ago. I argued we reached that point when we went in.

We had one brief, brief moment where, having mistakenly moved when we did, in my view, had we acted more responsibly instead of out of the arrogance and hubris that existed, we might, we might have been able to change the dynamic drastically. But that has long passed. That has long passed.

I guess the point I want to make, again, and the end result of all I am saying here is you will not find a single person who thinks that a military solution will work alone. So what we are all about here today is what everybody says: OK, there has to be a political solution, but literally, I say to you, Mr. President, up to this moment no one on the floor of the Senate has offered a political solution. I mean, it is really fundamental. There is nobody who has said: We all acknowledge there is no military solution. And by the way, I am not claiming I am the only one. I have many cosponsors. We have a lot of people now saying: OK, we acknowledge there is a need for a political solution, embedded in the notion I have been pushing for a couple of years now and in detail for the last year and a half or so with Les Gelb.

I have to recognize Les Gelb, a former administration official in a Democratic administration, in the Carter administration, the president emeritus of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, an incredibly respected voice in American foreign policy, and thought of as a genuine scholar. Les and I started off not in full agreement of what that political solution was, but we were all on the same page. The end result of all this is that the underlying premise of Les Gelb and Joe Biden in generating this was that the political solution we are proposing, which is what the Iraqi Constitution essentially calls for-- and it is not partition--is federalism.

Well, guess what. It is not going to happen spontaneously. The Iraqis aren't going to spontaneously decide in the midst of what is now a civil war and sectarian strife that they know how to do it on their own.

So getting back to the political question, everyone says there is a need for a political solution. But that begs the question, So what is your political solution?

The critics, and there is legitimate criticism of the Biden-Gelb plan, but the critics have come along and said: I don't like your plan, Biden. My response has been from the outset: If you don't like mine, what is yours? Think about it. Think about, as you consider whether the Biden-Brownback plan, which is essentially taking Biden-Gelb and putting it into an amendment to the Defense authorization bill--think about what it says. We say this is our political solution. This is what we think is the way out.

So as I began this debate, my invitation to my colleagues was: I get it. You may not like all parts of it. You may not like it. You may think it is mostly correct. You may be able to legitimately point out there are weaknesses in it; things may or may not happen. I can't guarantee an outcome to this. But I would like you to think about it. If you don't like Biden's proposal, what is your idea?

Up to now, a lot of us have had what we voted on just a moment ago. It started off as the Biden-Hagel-Levin amendment back in January and February. I agree with it totally. It is now Levin-Reed. I think it is a good amendment. It is essentially the same one we voted on twice before. I was the author of it, along with my friend from Michigan, the leader of the Armed Services Committee. But the truth is, it is not a political solution. It is an important tactic to reach the point we all want to reach.

And what is that? When you cut through all of this, what is it the American people, what is it all my colleagues, all 100 of us, want? No one wants to keep American forces there, with almost 3,800 dead, close to 28,000 wounded, roughly 14,000 severely wounded and who are going to require medical attention and care the rest of their lives. No one in here wants that. If we could wave a wand, there is not a single Member, from the most conservative to the most liberal in this body, who wouldn't take every troop out if they could, tomorrow. We don't want our kids going. I don't want my son going, my daughter going. I don't want my grandkids going, either.

What is recognized underneath all of this is there is a clear understanding that even though most of us on this side of the aisle opposed what the President did and how he did it, there is a recognition that it matters what we leave behind. It matters a whole bunch. It matters for our grandchildren. It matters for our children.

Look, folks, there is an overwhelming desire. I live with a woman I adore. We have been married for 30 years. She is unalterably opposed to this war. She, like every mother, lives in fear that her son, who is a captain in the Army, is going to be sent over, which is probable. So her fervent wish every time I go home is: Joe, get them out of there. Get them out of there. You are chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; get them out of there. Well, the truth is, the vast majority of the people know that getting

out of this is almost as difficult as the problems the President caused by getting us into it.

I know I am speaking colloquially here. I am not speaking in senatorial tones. But this is basic stuff.

My two staff members sitting to my left--and I admire the devil out of them--have accompanied me on eight trips to Iraq. The last time coming home, we were all supposed to get on an aircraft, but only one of them did, a C-130 that was supposed to take us home. Ambassador Crocker asked whether I would fly to Germany with him on his way home. He was coming to testify. He thought it would give us a chance to talk. And so I did. Actually, I flew out of Iraq into Kuwait with him to catch a commercial flight. The C-130 cargo plane I was supposed to get on--we got word there were six fallen angels on that plane. Six fallen angels.

That is what these tough, courageous, brave, hard Marines, Army, Navy, some of whom are there, et cetera, Air Force, call a dead American soldier whose body is coming home. They call them fallen angels.

You see these guys also who you know have been shot at and shot back, injured and injured others--it is such an emotional phase, to hear them talk in hushed tones, to treat every one of those coffins that gets put on board the C-130--every one of which comes through my State in Dover, Delaware--to hear these people, these fighting men and women, treat every single solitary death with the reverence it deserves. The American people would be stunned. They would be proud. They would be sad and they would be concerned. So they put six fallen angels on a plane.

The President of the United States a couple of days later--and I was there 2 weeks ago--a week ago--went on television and told the American people what great military progress we are making. But what he said was: I have no plan to end this war. I have no plan to win this war. I have a plan, as one of the press people said--it is not my line--he said: The American people are using the American forces as a cork in the bottle to keep the venom from spreading out beyond the borders in a regional war.

I am not prepared to use my son and his generation as a cork in a bottle. The American people are not prepared to do that either.

So what do we do? What do we do? Do we cut off funding? Talk about a hollow reed. How do you do that? How do you cut off funding for the 166,000 troops? Even if we ordered everyone home tomorrow, they have to get out of that country. Do you not provide them with the mine- resistant vehicles that can increase their life expectancy, when hit with a roadside bomb, by 80 percent? Do you not provide them with that? Do we cut that off? I don't know how you do that.

Some things are worth losing elections over. I am not going to do that. So what do you do? Do you draw down troops on an orderly basis while you are protecting them? Yes. But where does that get you at the end of the day?

The good news is they are out. There are fewer fallen angels. But the bad news is how many angels will fall in the next 10 years or 15 years, if this war metastasizes into the region. Because, ironically, the President's policy, which is dead wrong, has one truism about it: Chaos in Iraq will have regional consequences. The irony is, it is his policy that is causing the chaos.

Getting back to the point of the amendment, so everybody understands the context in which this is being offered, it is being offered to say: Look, there is a way to do all of this. There is a way to reduce the number of fallen angels. There is a way to reduce the injuries and casualties. There is a way to reduce the number of deaths among the Iraqis. There is a way to keep this war from metastasizing. There is a way that we have, a last chance we have, to leave and not run the risk of having to send my grandson back. My grandson is a toddler.

We have been faced in this body with two false arguments. One is more of the same and it will get better, and the other is leave and hope for the best.

Again, I get back to the central premise to what I have been proposing. There is a need for a political rationale. What is the political rationale supposed to accomplish? It is a way--nothing is going to get better. We must leave, by the way. Come hell or high water, we must leave. But are we going to leave giving the Iraqis a chance that they can end up with a political agreement among themselves? For what purpose is the political agreement? To stop the civil war. That is it in a nutshell. Anybody who denies this is a sectarian war I think is denying reality.

The President--as my mother would say, God love him--keeps talking about al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is a problem. I would argue it is a Bush- fulfilling prophecy, al-Qaida in Iraq. But there is even in the military--as my good friend--and I admire the devil out of him, my friend from Virginia--as he points out, he knows when you go to Iraq, the military refers to al-Qaida of Mesopotamia; al-Qaida in Iraq. They are making a distinction by that, between al-Qaida in Iraq and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, al-Qaida in Pakistan. As I said to the President in one of my trips back, in a debriefing--which my friend knows we do. The President has us down and has his war cabinet and asks us--you know, we give our view.

He was telling me about freedom being on the march. I said: With all due respect, Mr. President, if every single solitary jihadi in the world were killed tomorrow--I said if the Lord Almighty came down and sat at the middle of this table--we were in the Roosevelt Room--and looked at you and said, Mr. President, I guarantee there is not one single al-Qaida person living in the world, Mr. President, you still have a massive war on your hands. You have a massive war on your hands.

I see my friend from Virginia is standing. I will be happy to yield to him.

I will be happy to respond because my friend, as usual, gets to the crux of the issue.

Here is the way I look at it. I will try to break these things out. My friend Senator Lugar, whom I think is the most informed man in the Congress on foreign policy, is used to my colloquial ways of expressing things so he will probably understand me better than most because he had to deal with me for 30 years-plus. I try to devolve this, to use a Washington word, into sort of big chunks. You basically have two options here.

No. 1, do you continue with a policy that was well intended by our Government, the President, the administration, of attempting to establish a strong central democratic government in Baghdad that in fact has the capacity to gain the faith and trust of the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds so that they will entrust to that central government their well-being, in terms of security, in terms of economic growth, and in terms of political reconciliation or do you have to reach a point that I have reached, and reached some time ago, of recognizing that is a bridge too far; that the only way in which you will be able to stop the warring factions from killing each other is essentially give them some breathing room under their federal Constitution which says--I am quoting from their Constitution: The Republic of Iraq is a single, independent, federal state.

What I look back to, I say to my friend from Virginia, is this can't be

built up from the village up. I acknowledge the requirement that the leaders of the Sunnis and the Shia and the Kurds--and there are multiple claimants to that leadership; I know my friend knows that-- those claimants have to conclude their self-interest is better realized in a federal system. The Kurds have clearly recognized that. The Kurds made it clear when Senator Hagel and I got smuggled into Irbil, back before the war began, that they weren't in on any deal that wasn't a federal system giving them pretty significant autonomy.

The Shia have now reached that conclusion themselves, with notable exceptions--Sadr being one of them. But, for example, the Vice President--the Shia Vice President of the, for lack of a phrase I will call the central government the existing government--is totally supportive of what I am proposing and he said so publicly and said so at this conference in Ramadi which I attended a few weeks ago.

The Sunnis up to now have been the odd folks out because they look at it, as my friend clearly knows, and they say: Look, we live in this place called Anbar Province, the majority of us. We don't have much out here but rock and shale. There is not much else out here. All the oil is in the north and all the oil is in the south and if you have regional governments and the oil is controlled by the north and the south, we don't get anything.

But here is what has happened. There is a bit of, as we Catholics say, an epiphany occurring. I will tell my friend in confidence who it is but I don't want to publicly--he is an Iraqi leader who is one of the leading Sunni leaders in the country, who used the following quote with me in the 4 hours we were together in Ramadi.

He said--I am paraphrasing the first part--I initially disagreed with your plan. Now I am quoting.

There has been a struggle I have had between my heart and

my head. My heart has told me up to now that we Sunnis could

play a major role in governing this country again, from the

center. My head tells me that will not happen anytime soon

and our fate lies in a regional system. But we need access to

resources.

He said:

But don't quote me yet, Senator, because I have to work on

my fellow tribal leaders out here, and others.

Look what is happening with the Turks. The Turks initially were absolutely opposed to this. But as they have begun to figure it out, they realize that if we continue on the path we are on, American patience with keeping the cork in the bottle is not going to be sustained for the next 2 years and that when we leave, absent a political settlement, there will be not a splitting of Iraq into three parts, there will be a fracture of Iraq into multiple parts. But guess what they figured out. Kurdistan will become a de facto independent country. They will be able to say in Kurdistan: Hey, we didn't do this. There was nobody to deal with. And they have all of a sudden begun to understand that it is bad enough, from the Turkish standpoint to have a quasi-independent--and it is not even that--region called Kurdistan, within defined borders of a country called Iraq; it is a very different thing to have a quasi-independent Kurdistan, when you have 4 million Kurds sitting in their eastern mountains.

So all of a sudden they are figuring this out. ``Figuring out'' sounds derogatory, and I do not mean it that way. They are looking at their alternatives and saying: OK, a federal system in an Iraq that is united is a whole lot better than a de facto independent state.

The Iranians. The Iranians have a dilemma. The Iranians have at least five major militia forces among the Shia of Iraq. Some they like, some they do not like. As my friend from Indiana knows, you have a group down around Basra, as the British are pulling out, who are organized pretty well.

As the British two-star said to me: They are like Mafia dons waiting for us to leave to see who claims the territory--who actually argued that Basra should be an independent country because they have access to the gulf, they have oil, and they have four provinces they can put together.

Well, guess what. That is not very well regarded by the Badr Brigade, folks, and Sadr is going: Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

So this creates a dilemma. The splintering of Iraq creates a dilemma for even the Iranians who do not want to do us any favors at all. The generic point I am making is, as time has passed, and I will use Bosnia as an example, when we first started off talking about what, in essence, became of the Dayton Peace Accords, you did not have any takers. And it only got to the point where you had the Croats and the Serbs concluding they could not dominate. They could not control Bosnia-Herzegovina.

That is when they all began to think, you know, the blood and treasure that was--exceedingly what has happened, once they got to the point where they realized the gun was not going to get their solution, they became, very reluctantly, but they became much more acclimated to the notion of what the Dayton Peace Accords did.

The bottom line is, asking me that question a year ago, I would not have said to you that internally the leaders among the Shia, the Kurds, and the Sunnis will be more inclined to accept this, but they are because reality has set in. The Kurds have figured out they cannot and do not want to be totally independent because the Turks will take them out.

The Shia have figured out, generically, the leadership, that they may have 62 percent of the population or thereabouts and control the political apparatus, but they cannot stop their mosques from being blown up. They cannot physically control the country. And the Sunnis have figured out that they are not going to run the country again in the near term. So it is a little bit like coming face to face with the reality of one circumstance.

As I said at the outset to my friend, a lot of this relates to people arriving at this conclusion, even in Iraq, by default. The Sunnis would much rather dominate the country again. The Shia would much rather keep the Sunnis out, as Maliki in his heart would like to do, but he cannot because he cannot control them.

The Kurds would love to be independent totally but for the fact that they understand it may be their very demise. So reality is sinking in. The larger point, I say to my friend from Virginia is this: The dilemma I hear, and I hear it from my Democratic colleagues, I imagine I will hear it from some of my Republican colleagues, and it is legitimate. They say: Biden, we cannot force a political solution any more than we can force a military solution.

Well, I would argue that it is true we have lost our credibility to be able to do what I believe we could have done 5 years ago or 4 years ago. But that is why part of this amendment calls for internationalizing the political solution.

I know my friend from Indiana believes, whether it is the same objective, that there is an overwhelming necessity to engage major powers in the world, to engage regional powers so that, as he says, there are fora; every single day they are sitting down rubbing shoulders trying to figure out an accommodation.

It cannot be done in the abstract. It cannot be done by President Lugar sitting in the White House dealing with Maliki sitting in Baghdad. It cannot be done by bringing in the regional players in Sharm El Sheikh, with us convening it and thinking that will get it done. It requires something heavier, deeper, more substantial because one of the things that will get people's attention, that will get the attention of the Sunni leaders and Shia leaders and Kurdish leaders, the international community led by the major five powers, is if the Security Council says: Hey, look, we are gathering up the team--Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, et cetera, et cetera--and here is what we think your constitution says, and this is what we are prepared to support.

What that does, that not only has implied sticks, it has significant carrots. Significant carrots. That organizational structure can say: We, from the outset, will be the guarantors that none of the regional powers will conclude they must be involved militarily or in a disruptive fashion because the truth is, what I try to do is think of myself as, OK, I am a real bad guy, Iranian leader who hates the United States.

What benefits me the most? What benefits me the most is occupying 10 of our 12 divisions in Iraq posing no

threat to them, seeing American blood and treasure spilled. But what I do not want to see is America, notwithstanding all of the bravado of Ahmadinejad, that: We will fill the vacuum; we, the Iranians, will fill the vacuum. That is not a vacuum they are looking to fill. If they could fill it, they would. But their ability to fill that vacuum is marginal at best. Their influence is degraded when there is continuing sectarian violence. It diminishes in the context of an international settlement.

So the truth is, it requires the national leadership to agree on a regional solution. A national leadership will be unable, in the lifetime of any one of us on this floor, to agree to a central solution; a unity government from the capital city of Baghdad, having military and police authority over the entire country.

Can anyone imagine the possibility, even the possibility, that you will see a Shia-dominated police force patrolling in Fallujah? As the old joke goes, raise your hand if there is a remote possibility of that.

Already you cannot send into what is now Kurdistan, three governments, you are not even allowed to fly the Iraqi flag without permission. You cannot send the Iraqi Army there without their permission. You cannot send any national police force there without their permission.

So what makes us think there is anything--let me make an analogy for you. When Washington accepted the surrender documents signed by Cornwallis at the end of our Revolutionary War, I say to my friends from Virginia and Massachusetts, what chance do you think there would have been if we had to vote within 6 months on the Constitution that was ratified in Philadelphia?

Do you think Massachusetts and Virginia would be in the same country? I respectfully suggest, from a historical standpoint, you would not be. So what did we do? We did what I am proposing. You essentially set up Articles of Confederation.

You said: We are going to let Massachusetts and Delaware, the first State, Massachusetts, and Delaware and New Jersey and Virginia, have considerable autonomy. There was no President. There was a Continental Congress, a decentralized federal system.

It took us 13 years to get to our Philadelphia moment. Wherein does the arrogance emanate from that we think by putting 160,000 troops in Iraq, we can, over a 4-year period, in a country that was made by the stroke of a diplomat's pen, where France and Britain divided up the spoils of the Ottoman Empire, what makes us think that we can expect them to do something that we were unable to do? So, folks, this is pretty basic stuff. I know everybody knows that. I am beginning to sound like I am lecturing. I do not mean to do that. This is pretty simplistic in a sense; it is not rocket science.

I say to my friend: Ask. Let me give you an example. I will be concrete. It is like pushing an open door. I asked for a meeting, I say to my friend, in the tradition of Senator Lugar when he was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

I asked for a meeting, a private meeting with the Permanent Five of the Security Council, who, as my good friend knows, is: China, Russia, England, France, and the United States.

All five of those Ambassadors, including our own, Khalilzad, agreed to meet with me and two other members of the Foreign Relations Committee privately 5 weeks ago--on Monday I think it was 5 weeks ago. We sat in a conference room overlooking the East River for about an hour and a half.

I asked the question to all five, including our Ambassador. I said: What would you do, gentlemen--one lady; the British Ambassador is a woman. I said: What would you do, gentleman and lady, if the President of the United States asked each of your countries to participate in convening an international conference on Iraq?

One of the Ambassadors--since this was a private meeting I will not name him--said: Senator, I would ask your President: What took you so long to ask?

Then I can refer to the French Ambassador. The French Ambassador pointed out that there is an inevitability of us leaving. And if, in fact, we leave a shattered Iraq, his country is in trouble. Remember, last August we were reading about automobiles being torched from Marseilles to Normandy. Why? Over head scarves. Between 10 and 14 percent of the French population is Muslim. The last thing the French need is a radicalized, cannibalized Iraq. It went on from there.

My point is, the President--I promise you--has not asked. He has not asked. I think my friend from Indiana knows, at least indirectly-- because Ambassador Khalilzad, I believe, spoke to him; he was there with me--there is a consensus among many in the administration to ask, but there is still this overwhelming reluctance that we don't need anybody's help; we can do it. Let me tell you, that is a vanity which is a burden, a significant burden.

There are three things we should be doing immediately. And I know we have a disagreement on this, in my view, redefining the mission of Americans who are there being killed and wounded. We are not going to settle this civil war by remaining on the faultlines. It is not going to happen. Even to totally quell it, you know--as a military expert, I defer to you--we don't have enough troops with the surge. If you have 500,000 troops, you could sit on the faultlines. It wouldn't solve the problem, but you could send it underground. But we don't. I wouldn't even advise it if we did because there is no underlying political rationale.

My point is, redefine the mission. Were I President today, which is a presumptuous thing to say, I would be doing exactly what General Jones recommended. I would be pulling back to the borders. I would be dealing with force protection. I would be focusing on al-Qaida of Mesopotamia. I would be focusing on training Iraqi forces. I would not be focused on going door to door in Sunni or Shia neighborhoods in a city of 6.2 million people. I would not have an American convoy traveling the streets with roadside bombs being blown up.

The second thing we need to do, but it is not required to support this amendment, there is an incentive to the world, to the region, and to the recalcitrant leadership in Baghdad to say: Hey guys, we are drawing down. For the mission I just stated--and I defer to my friend-- you don't need 160,000 troops for the Jones mission, for lack of a better way of phrasing. You need closer to 50,000. Guess what. That is going to get the attention, as my friend Carl Levin has been saying for some time, of the Iraqis. They may have their altar call. I am not counting on it, but they may.

The third thing we should be doing is, if you look at the David Ignatius piece in the Post today, what Senator Lugar and I and others and maybe my friend from Virginia have been talking about for 4 years-- we talked about it before we went in. Who is talking to the tribal chiefs? Who is talking to the local folks? Who is engaging them? What are we finding out now? Just read the Ignatius piece. All of a sudden, it is like, my goodness, maybe we should be talking to these guys. So here is the deal. When you get to this, you say: Look, here is what your Constitution says, and here is what you voted on in your Parliament to implement articles 15, 16, 17 and 18, which allows you to become a region, essentially a state like the United States. Write your own Constitution. It can't supersede the federal one. Allow you to own your local security.

Why is it working in Anbar to the extent it is? It is working because we said: Look, we promise you, tribal leaders, nobody is going to send anyone from Baghdad for you. There ain't going to be any Kurds or Sunnis in here. You set up your own police force. Cut through all the diplomatic jargon. That is what we did. That is it. Guess what. Once we did that, the tribal sheiks whistled and said: Boys, you can join. They had 10,000 people show up

who wanted to be cops or police. Why? Because Sunnis were going to be guarding Sunnis.

So this stuff about political movement is a joke. Not a joke--that is the wrong way to say it. It is a fiction. There is nothing unity about that.

I sat next to Abdul Sattar for 2 hours, the guy who got blown up last Thursday, the tribal sheikh who led the insurrection against al-Qaida Mesopotamia, told me how safe everything was in Ramadi. They land me and my staff and the Senator from Arkansas in a Blackhawk helicopter with two Cobra gunships. We go inside the city. We are told how safe it is. I can walk down the street; that is true. We have a sandstorm. I say: No helicopters coming. Can you drive to Baghdad? No, no, no. It ain't that safe. Then 7 days later I get a call from a reporter from the Washington Post: Senator, didn't you spend a lot of time with the same tribal chief the President was with at the airbase? I said: Yes. In this safe city that he runs, with an American tank sitting in front of his house, with bodyguards, he got blown to smithereens.

The generic point I am making here is the idea that somehow we are going to be able to negotiate these faultlines is beyond our ability. But it is possible, working with Sunni, Shia, Kurd, we may be able to augment their physical security as they make this transition.

What did we do in Dayton? It is not precisely analogous, but it is analogous. There was more sectarian violence from Vlad the Impaler to Milosevic than in 5,000 years of history of what we now call Iraq. That is a fact. That is a historical fact. What did we do? As my friend from Indiana knows, I was deeply involved in pressuring President Clinton from 1993 on to take action in the Balkans. What did we finally do in Dayton in a bipartisan way? We called in Russia, the European powers. We then brought in the Serbs, Milosevic, the Croats, Tudjman--who, as my friend knows, was no box of chocolates--and Izetbegovic. We got them all in one room. We essentially locked the door. We said: Figure it out, folks.

What did they figure out? Separate the parties. Even I was a little concerned about the Republika Srpska within Bosnia. What did we do? We said: Your militia can now become your police force. That is, in essence, what we did. We said to the Croats and the Bosnians, who were Muslims: You have to coexist in this other place. This place called Sarajevo is going to be a capital city, but it ain't going to govern the whole country in the way in which the capital of Washington, DC, has influence over the rest of America.

Guess what. To truncate this, the West has had an average of roughly 20,000 troops there for 10 years. What has been the result? Knock on wood--not one has been killed, not one has been shot dead. The ethnic cleansing has stopped. What are they doing now? Attempting to amend their Constitution to become part of Europe.

I asked my staff to go back. I said: Tell me how the repatriation is going on. People are returning. Of the 2.2 million refugees in Bosnia, internal or external, 1.1 million have returned to their homes. Almost half a million have returned as minority returns, Serbs moving back into predominantly Croat neighborhoods, Croats moving back into predominantly Bosniak or Serb neighborhoods. It is painful. It takes time. But what did we do? We got them all in a room, figuratively speaking.

We have to get them in a room, Senator Lugar. We have to get them in a room. Because let me tell you something, some in the administration privately say to me: Joe, you are right. There is an inevitability to a federal system. The difference between an inevitability and us being the catalyst to bring it about may be years. That is thousands of deaths, maybe tens of thousands, counting Iraqis and American. We don't have that time. And look, I don't want to criticize the President. I don't. God love him, I don't care whether he gets credit or blame at this point. But let me tell you one thing for certain: What Presidential leadership is about is a change in the dynamic of situations that are admittedly out of control. It requires taking risks. Thus far, the only risk we have taken is the lives of our troops. We have taken virtually no diplomatic risks.

I say to my friends, there is a reason why, although what I am proposing here is not ideal, I think there is a reason why so many people--left, right and center--have come to this conclusion. One thing about us Americans is, we have ultimately led the world as a consequence of two traits we possess, in my opinion, that exceed that of any other country. It is not just our military power; it is our idealism coupled with our pragmatism. It gets down to a very pragmatic question: If you don't like Biden et al.'s political solution, what is yours? What is yours?

The world is waiting. They are literally waiting. No one has the capacity, no group of nations has the capacity, absent our active cooperation and engagement, to do anything to better the situation. We do. The potential power is in our hands. But I respectfully suggest that we can't do it by ourselves. We have lost the credibility to do that, rightly or wrongly.

So it takes me to the essence of this amendment. The amendment simply says--and I will not take the time to read it; I know other people wish to speak. I might add, this is the first and only time in the last 3 months I have spoken on the floor. I apologize for the time, but I think it is the single most critical issue we face. I know my friends think that too.

Regardless of your political persuasion, how do you attend to the agenda each of us has, from the right or the left, to deal with the social ills and concerns of America until we end this war? We are going to spend, counting it all, $120 billion a year. How do you deal with that--the Republican approach to dealing with generating economic growth or the Democratic approach? How do you deal with tax structure and tax policy? How do you do this?

Look, it is the ultimate preoccupation, with good reason, of the American people. Again, I know no one more loyal or knowledgable about the U.S. Armed Forces whom I have served with in the Senate than my friend from Virginia. He knows there is only one group of Americans making a sacrifice now--it is the thousands of families, thousands, 166,000 families. It is those families. They are the only ones. But guess what. It is against the Senate rules to refer to the Gallery by pointing to them. But I will refer to previous Galleries. Everyone who sits in this Gallery, they get it. They get it, whether they have a child, son, daughter, husband or wife there.

(Ms. KLOBUCHAR assumed the Chair.)

So folks, I must tell you, I am getting frustrated with all the tactical--not strategic--suggestions that have been made with how to deal with this war. Because if you put together a basic syllogism, the basic premise is what? There is no military solution; only a political solution.

So what yields that political solution? Can I guarantee the Senator from Minnesota, the Presiding Officer, that my solution will work? No. But I can guarantee--I will rest my career on what I am about to say-- that there is no other political solution being proffered that has any--period; not one ``being offered''--and none of the tactical solutions offered will, in fact, solve this problem, none.

I know you are all afraid. I know everybody who is running is afraid to sign onto a specific proposal. ``Afraid'' is the wrong word-- reluctant. Because then you become the target. You become the target. You offer a specific alternative, and it is easy to focus on whether your solution can work. If it is tried and failed, then you made a mistake. As the old saying goes: What do they pay us the big bucks for? Why are we here? Why are we here?

Let's stop pussyfooting around. Either vote for this political solution or offer another one or say you think there is a military solution or say you think it is totally hopeless, there is no resolution. Let's leave and hope for the best. But don't tell me you have a plan if it does not fall in one of those four categories. Don't tell me. That is disingenuous.

So, again, can I guarantee this will work? No. Every single day that goes by, absent an attempt to implement what I am proposing, or something similar to it, without it being attempted, makes it harder. Look, it is not often that Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Les Gelb--I will go down the list--

agree on the same principle about the most fundamental, immediate foreign policy issue facing the United States of America.

I am open--I have no pride of authorship--I am open to amending, tweaking, changing, but I will end where I begin. The central, fundamental, animating principle of this concurrent resolution is: Iraq will not be governed from the center anytime soon, and I am not prepared for my son and his generation to continue to shed their blood in an effort to do that. I will not do that.

As we leave--and we will leave, as my friend from Virginia knows--as we leave, the only honest question that any President or Senator must ask himself or herself is: Do we have any ability to affect what we leave behind? If we do, we have a moral overriding, overarching obligation to the next generation to try to do it.

Because let me tell you something, I am out there, as the old saying goes, on the trail. The easiest thing to say is: I wash my hands, man. Out. It is--let me choose my words correctly--it is not an answer. It is not an answer. It is not an honest answer.

So I ask unanimous consent that recent supporting ideas relating to federalism--whether or not they use the Biden language--be printed in the Record.

I would assert I am confident there are some major players in this administration who agree with the tact I am taking, and I would invite--that is not why he is on the floor, I know--I would invite any advice or suggestions--not at this moment--from my friend from Indiana or my friend from Virginia as to how to deal with this.

But, ladies and gentlemen, it took us--it took us--13 years to get to our Philadelphia moment. It is going to take the Iraqis a lot longer. I do not want to see a regional war in the meantime because every one of us knows, whether we are here 3 years from now, there will not be 133,000 troops in Iraq. That will not be the case no matter who is President. The American people will not stand for it, and we will respond.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank my friend and I appreciate his kind remarks.

Madam President, I also ask unanimous consent that the article in Thursday's Washington Post, dated September 20, by David Ignatius, entitled ``Shaky Allies in Anbar'' be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I yield the floor and thank my colleagues.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2335.

Madam President, I will not call it up at the moment. I withdraw the request.

I do ask unanimous consent that Senators Graham, Casey, Brown, and Sanders be added as cosponsors to amendment No. 2335.

I want to explain briefly what this amendment does. It adds $23.6 billion to allow the Army to replace all of its up-armored HMMWVs with mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, the so-called MRAPs. It also adds a billion dollars to increase the cost of the 8,000 MRAPs we are trying to purchase today. In terms of the specifics of this amendment, the idea is simple. If we can prevent two-thirds or more of our casualties with a vehicle that is basically a modified and armored truck, we have to do all in our power to do it, in my view.

Last, it provides $400 million for better protection against explosively formed penetrators or EFPs. These are those shaped-charges that hit our vehicles from the side and are increasingly deadly.

I want to be straight with my colleagues. This is a very expensive amendment. Twenty-five billion dollars is a lot of money. But compared to saving the lives and limbs of American soldiers and marines, it is cheap.

Our commanders in the field tell us that MRAPs will reduce casualties by 67 to 80 percent.

The lead commander on the ground in Iraq, LTG Ray Odierno, told us months ago that he wanted to replace every Army up-armored HMMWV in Iraq with an MRAP.

Instead of adjusting the requirement immediately, the Pentagon has taken its time to study this issue and just recently they have agreed that the general needs a little over half of what he asked for. 10,000 instead of approximately 18,000.

This makes no sense. Are we only supposed to care about the tactical advice of our commanders in the field when it is cheap?

I don't think that is what the American people or our military men and women expect from us.

More importantly, while we argue about the best strategy for Iraq, we must still protect those under fire. I disagree with the President's strategy in Iraq. I do not believe a strong central government will lead to a stable, self-sufficient Iraq.

I think we need a new strategy that focuses on implementing the Iraqi constitution's call for federalism and re-focuses the mission of American forces on fighting al-Qaida, border protection, and continuing to train the Iraqi forces.

While we disagree on strategy, the fight continues in the alleys of Baghdad and the streets of Diyala Province. American soldiers and marines are targets every day they are there. So every day they are there, we must give them the best protection this nation has.

The American political process is designed to make change and decisionmaking a slow and deliberative process. Those of us who want a change in strategy have three options.

One, we must convince enough colleagues to sustain a veto from the President; or, two, we must convince the American people to elect enough new Senators and House Members willing to sustain a veto. Or, finally, three, we must convince the American people to elect a President willing to change strategies. That is reality. I believe in this system, which means I will not walk away from my duty to try to convince both my colleagues and the American people that there is a better path to stability in Iraq.

It also means that I will not give up on my obligation to our military men and women.

While we take the time necessary to move the political process for change, they face improvised explosive devices, rocket propelled grenades, explosively formed penetrators, sniper fire, and suicide bombers every day. We have an obligation to protect each and every one of them to the best of our ability. I agree with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, GEN James Conway when he said, ``Anything less is immoral.''

In terms of the specifics of this amendment, the idea is very simple. If we can prevent two-thirds or more of our casualties with a vehicle that is basically a modified and armored truck, we must do all in our power to do that.

Will it be a challenge to American industry to build close to 23,000 MRAPs in the next 12 to 15 months? Absolutely. Can they do it? Only if we give them a real chance. If we provide funding up front for all that is needed, we give business the ability to increase capacity to produce. If we give little bits here and there, they and their subcontractors will be limited in their ability to produce these life- saving vehicles. Less will be produced and more Americans will return injured or dead.

I gave a statement on July 19, when I first introduced this amendment, that laid out some of the history of the MRAP program. I won't go into all of that again, but I will reiterate the key choice my colleagues have to make: Do we do our best to save American lives, knowing that the only downside is the possible need to reprogram funding at the end of the year, or do we care more about some unknown topline wartime funding number than those lives?

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I thank the managers of the bill and yield the floor.

Mr. President, on June 27, 2007, the Committee on Foreign Relations ordered reported S. 966, the Passport Backlog Reduction Act of 2007. On July 30, the President signed the bill into law, Public Law 110-50.

At the time the committee filed its report, the cost estimate prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, was not available. It was recently provided to the committee by CBO. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the CBO estimate be printed in the Record.