Floor Statements

I will be supporting their bill. I will gladly support the bill. I am not pleased with every aspect of it, but let me respond to my good friend from Massachusetts.

You are tired, you are frustrated, you are upset about a provision in the bill that you don't like and think the country is going down the wrong road. You have every right to be upset. You have every right to vote no and to argue to bring the bill down.

Do you know what a lot of people on our side are tired of? The President changing the law whenever he would like. Taking ObamaCare and changing it unilaterally to fit the political needs of the President and his party, by Executive action, turning the ObamaCare statute upside down.

Do you know what people on my side are tired of? A President who feels like he is more of a King than a President. Unilaterally reaching out and conferring legal status on 4 million to 5 million people without coming to the Congress because he is frustrated.

I have been working on immigration since 2006. I will put my frustration up against yours, Mr. President, but democracy is democracy. You can be frustrated all you like, but there are rules to play by that keep us all safe.

So there are people on my side who want me to bring this bill down because they have had enough. They have had enough of President Obama going it on his own, taking the laws that we pass, ignoring some, rewriting others, and the Executive action is the straw that broke the camel's back. It is one thing to defer prosecution on people in terms of your discretion, it is another thing to reach out to 4 to 5 million people and say: You now have a legal status, without going through the Congress. That should scare every Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, and vegetarian.

So people on my side--and we will hear from some of them, saying that this is an outrage and we should shut the government down and defund all the parts of the government that would be used to implement this illegal executive amnesty. I understand where they are coming from, and I understood a year ago when people in my party said ObamaCare is bad for the country, we need to stop it, and I am willing to shut the entire government down or at least that part of the government that depends on funding of ObamaCare, because I am upset with this law. I have been on the side of listening to this on my side and understanding the frustrations but always rejecting that temptation because we do have a country to run.

As much as I am upset about the Executive action, I am not going to heed the call of not passing this bill because I am mad because within this bill we have money to fight ISIL, and God knows we need to fight them. In this bill we have money to contain and fight Ebola, and God knows we need to do that. In this bill we have infrastructure improvements that God knows are long overdue.

So to my good friend from Massachusetts, there is something in here you don't like? Welcome to democracy. You have absolutely the same right as people over here on my side to blow up the whole place, but I hope most of us will listen to your concerns and not follow your lead.

And listen to what the Senator from Massachusetts said when the shoe was on the other foot, when people on my side were willing to take it all down because they were mad. I was one of a handful who said no. I would like to repeal and replace ObamaCare, but I don't believe defunding the government is going to make the President repeal his signature issue, and we don't have enough votes to override a veto. It takes a long time to say that, and the people I was responding to were mad and emotional because they thought they were wronged. I understood they were mad. I understood they were emotional. But I thought I had a duty beyond just worrying about me.

If you follow the lead of the Senator from Massachusetts and bring this bill down and do a CR--which is the worst possible way to run the government--I will tell you what will come your way. It is what came our way. People are not going to believe you are mature enough to run the place. Seventy percent of the Democrats in the House voted against this bill, and three out of four Republicans voted to get it over here--a level of maturity and judgment I haven't seen in my party in quite a while. Speaker Boehner and your team: Well done.

To the Democrats, I am sure on MSNBC and on the liberal version of talk radio you are a hero and you will have your moment with that crowd. I can promise you this: There are people on our side who are having their moment on other channels. But almost one-third of the Democratic Party resisted that temptation, and I know how they feel. Some of them will get a primary. I had six primary opponents. I am glad I did not follow the lead of people who were trying to get me to shut down the government because I felt I was wronged. That is not the way to run a country.

So here is what the Senator said: For this rightwing minority, hostage taking is all they have left--a last gasp for those who can not cope with the realities of our democracy. The time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the reality of our democracy to get out of the way.

Those were good words then, and you should read them now and apply them to yourself.

What you are offering, there are plenty of people on our side who would serve it up too. What you are offering is to take one part of a complicated bill and try to convince people throughout the country that some horrible wrong is being done and the rest of us who want to get on with governing are the problem.

My advice: Don't follow her lead. She is the problem. There are people on my side who are the problem.

We will address the Executive amnesty action in a responsible way next year, attack it on every front, but we will not deny our troops the money they need to fight the war to protect us all. We will not deny those who are working to contain Ebola and doing heroic things the money they need to protect us all. We will not deny the infrastructure improvements that have long been overdue.

So to my Democratic colleagues, welcome to my world. It may seem tempting to go the road of least resistance, but you will regret it. It hurt our party, and it will hurt yours. If you do what is best for the country, over time it will work out for you.

To my colleagues on this side, remember last year? Did we learn anything? I hope so. I will make a prediction. To the voices on my side that say ``Burn it down, blow it up, start all over again'' because they are mad at President Obama's Executive amnesty and the voices coming from the Democratic side, mainly through the Senator from Massachusetts, saying ``Blow it up because we have done something for Wall Street we shouldn't have done,'' I think most of us will put this in context. Most of us will understand there are things in this bill we don't like, but we do have an overriding duty to our country to govern.

I hope that next year we can do our appropriations process in the normal course of business, that we don't find ourselves in these messes. But all I can say about democracy is that it is messy, it is emotional, it requires give and take, it requires some people not to follow the hottest person in the room, and there will always be somebody running hot.

And something else about democracy: As bad as it is, I can't think of a better idea. I have seen the other way of doing business in the Mideast and throughout the world. I certainly don't want any part of that.

So tonight, tomorrow, or whenever that day comes--and to my Democratic colleagues who have put this bill together with my Republican colleagues on appropriations, I applaud you. I will vote for your effort and for the product you created, knowing it is not perfect. To the people on my side who want us to tear this down because you are mad at President Obama, that is not the way to do business. To the people on the other side who want to have the same result for a different reason, don't follow their lead.

Tributes to Departing Senators

Mr. President, I will now speak very briefly about my retiring colleagues and then turn it over to the Senator from Florida. I promise I will be brief.

Everybody will face retirement, voluntarily or involuntarily. There will be a last vote to cast and a last speech to make. Only God knows when that day comes because we are all just one car wreck away from ending our careers.

To the retiring Members, I have had the pleasure of serving with you, and I know you all. You did what you thought was best for our country and your State, and what more could anyone ask? My good friend Mark Pryor, who tried to find common ground at a time when it is hard to find. Mary Landrieu, who is--Mary would drill under the Capitol if she thought it would help American energy independence. We have good friends on the other side, and I will miss you, and I wish you well. But I would like very briefly to speak about four.

Saxby Chambliss

Saxby Chambliss and Julianne and the Chambliss family have become my family. If you are lucky in politics, you will make a few friends. I have been very lucky, and I have made lifelong friends with the Chambliss family, not just Saxby.

Saxby represents the best in being a Senator. He looks the part, and he acts the part. And I would say to the people of Georgia that he worked very hard on your behalf. He protected our country against terrorism. He helped the farmer. He did everything he knew how to do to serve the people of Georgia, and I will miss my friend.

Mike Johanns

Mike Johanns--he introduced me to Bono. I said: Who is Bono? I don't follow that music that much, but I actually did know Bono.

Mike introduced me to Africa. He was the Secretary of Agriculture for the Bush administration, and he had a passion for the developing world, particularly Africa. And through Mike I got to know The One Foundation and the Gates Foundation. Through Mike and Stephanie I have been to Africa many times, and you represent the best in our country. You are absolutely wonderful people. You will be missed. And my way to repay you is to stay involved in the developing world.

Tom Coburn

To Tom Coburn, when I grow up, I want to be like Tom. I don't see that happening anytime soon, me growing up. Tom Coburn has been at this for 20 years. We came in together. He was one of the first people I met in the freshman class of 1995--the 1994 Contract with America class. He was full of ideas and determination from the first day I met him until the very last day he leaves.

I cannot tell you, Tom, how proud I am to call you my friend. You and Carolyn have become dear friends, and you, my friend, have changed this body for the better. You had an awesome staff, and you will be missed, but what you contributed to the Senate will last long after I am gone, and we will all be the better.

Carl Levin

The last person is Carl Levin. If I had to describe to somebody from a foreign country what a good Senator was like, I would pick Carl. Carl understands the details of the government--very studious. He was the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and ran it very evenhandedly. He had a disposition that I don't know how he held on to in these fractious times, but he was a gentleman.

I can promise you, working with Carl Levin, we both resisted the temptation to go down some very dangerous roads on this detainee contentious issue. All I can tell the men and women in uniform and the people of Michigan is that you never had a better friend.

To all of you, Godspeed. I wish you nothing but the best.

I am fortunate enough to go into my third term. To my colleagues, as we go into the next Congress, let's try to do better. I know we can. And if we do, all boats will rise.

I yield the floor.

I join in the objection with Senator Inhofe. I appreciate what Senators Inhofe and Levin have done over the last couple of years, working in a bipartisan fashion, to make sure we deal with a problem in the military that is a problem in society, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and to set a zero-tolerance policy, but at the same time keep the military in a position to defend this country.

What can we say about our military? We heard Senator Gillibrand's view. My view is that this is the finest military in the world--great people. But within that construct, you have people doing things that are criminal, wrong. But is it any different in the military than it is anywhere else?

My argument is this is a societal problem, and in the military it is a problem that is being addressed in, I think, a very aggressive fashion. Contrary to what the Senator from New York offers the Senate, I like where we are headed.

In March, we rejected her approach. Her approach was to fire every commander and replace the commander with a bunch of military lawyers to make decisions not just about sexual assault but about aspects of military life far beyond that.

I know the Presiding Officer has been a military commander, and barracks theft is a very big deal in the military. When you are in the military and you find out someone has stolen from another member of the unit, and you are all living together on top of each other, side by side, that is a very big deal, and the commander responsible for that unit needs to make sure something happens fairly.

The last matter I will ever agree to is the following: Sir, or ma'am--this is the first sergeant going to the commander--last night we think there may have been a rape in the barracks, and the commander says, well, that is no longer my problem, send that over to the lawyers. What a terrible thing to do to a military unit. The commander needs more accountability, not less. The commander is the person whom we choose to send people to war.

It is odd, to me, that we will give the commanders of the American military the power of life-and-death decisions, but somehow they are so morally corrupt or incapable of rendering justice in a situation such as this.

All I can say is that I respect the passion of the people who are behind this to a point, but you are going too far. Members on the other side of the aisle have been threatened with money being cut off if they vote against this idea. This is no longer about reforming a system, this is a political cause going out of control.

In my view, the good thing about the Armed Services Committee is that we have always been able, for the most part, to work out problems that affect our military.

And I say to Senator Levin, through the Chair, above all others, I appreciate my colleague's maturity and leadership to make sure we get the right answer. The right answer is to purge the military of the heinous crime of sexual assault, sexual harassment, clean up this mess, but do not destroy the structure that makes it the finest military on the planet, and we are well on our way.

Senator Gillibrand's bill last year did not make it through the Senate, but another bill did. Senator Ayotte, Senator McCaskill, Senator Fischer, along with the chairman, and others, came up with a reform package that I think was passed unanimously last March.

What do we now know from the recent report? You would have to have such a bias about your view to believe that this report doesn't show progress. By any objective measurement, the reforms we have been working on in a bipartisan fashion are beginning to bear fruit.

I will give an example of some of those reforms. Every victim of a sexual assault or of sexual harassment allegations in the military is to be assigned an individual lawyer--a judge advocate--to represent their interests.

I don't know about other States, but in South Carolina, we are miles away from that. The goal of the Senators that I have just mentioned, and myself, is to make sure that the military is the most victim- friendly legal system in America, but a person can still get a fair trial. That should be the goal of all of us, to ensure that every victim has a lawyer.

I have been a judge advocate for 32 years now. I have thought long and hard of the times that I have known a lawyer in the legal community recommend to the commander: Go forward on a sexual assault case, and the commander says no. There is literally a handful, or less, that I can think of. However, I do know that there are a lot more cases where the lawyer says: Sir, or ma'am, we don't think we have enough here to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, and the commander will say: Go for it anyway. I want to make sure we air this out. That is the most common use of a commander's discretion vis-a-vis their lawyer.

But to those who are worried about making sure the commanders and lawyers understand where we are coming from, we made a wholesale change of how they report and dispose of these cases. If a judge advocate recommends to the military commander in question to go forward and the commander says no, that commander's decision to say no is reviewed by the Secretary of the Service. In my case, it is the Secretary of the Air Force. If an Air Force commander is given legal advice by their JAG, informing us that we have a good case in the area of sexual assault, and the commander says no, it goes all the way up to the Secretary of the Air Force. As anybody who has ever been in the military knows, that is a very big deal. That is the ultimate sign that we expect people to treat these allegations seriously.

If the JAG and the commander say no to the prosecution, it goes to the next step in the chain of command. What did this report say--and I will let Senator Levin detail some of the results. The big takeaway is that more people are coming forward, which is a good thing. More people are telling us they feel better able to come forward because the system is more understanding. The lawyer who has been provided to the victim has been received very well.

The number of reports, restricted reports--where a victim says, I am going to tell you about what happened to me, but I don't want to go through the process of prosecuting somebody because I don't want to go through that process myself--that are now unrestricted has gone up fairly dramatically, meaning that the victim believes there will be somebody there helping them through the system.

Retaliation is a problem all over society. I don't know of any law in South Carolina that makes it a specific crime in the eyes of the victim to retaliate against bringing an allegation forward.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it is a crime to retaliate against someone making an assault complaint. The retaliation portion of the report--where 62 percent felt retaliation--mostly came from peer, lower level members of the unit, not the commander.

Here is what I would say: Once the commander goes forward and gives his blessing to the allegation, retaliation is going to be less likely because it was the commander who made the decision in that unit and not a far-off lawyer.

I will now turn this over to Senators Inhofe and Levin.

There are so many more reforms that are paying dividends. So many of them have not even started yet.

I have to say we are on the right track. Let's give this a chance. We are taking this seriously. The military is responding in a positive fashion and now is not the time to retreat from these reforms. I do believe what we have done today will help us tomorrow, and our goal is common--to eliminate the scourge of sexual assault and sexual harassment, but keep the military command structure the way it is because it is necessary to hold our commanders more accountable.

I will end with this thought. There is no problem in the military that can be solved without commander buy-in. That is the role of the commander. To everybody who wonders about what is going on in the military legal community, this colonel who feels put upon--if I am the head of the subcommittee--will get a chance to come to our committee with Senator Gillibrand and

myself, if I am there, to give an accounting of what they think went wrong with the system and how they were treated, and the Air Force will be required to respond.

Every judge advocate of every branch of the service opposes the Gillibrand approach. Every commander and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff oppose what Senator Gillibrand is proposing, for very good reason. Give these reforms a chance.

To all of those who worked on this, congratulations. We are moving in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.

I yield the floor.

Thank you very much. I have been a military lawyer for over 30 years. That has been one of the highlights of my life--to serve in the Air Force. During the debate about these

techniques, I was very proud of the fact that every military lawyer came out on the side that the techniques in question were not who we are and what we want to be.

We are one of the leading voices of the Geneva Convention. We have stood by the Geneva Convention since its inception. I am convinced that the techniques in question violate the Geneva Convention. I am also convinced that they were motivated by fear, fear of another attack. Put yourself in the shoes of the people responsible for defending the country right after 9/11. We had been hit. We had been hit hard. Everybody thought something else was coming.

As we rounded these guys up, there was a sense of urgency and a commitment to never let it happen again that generated this program.

Who knew what, when? I do not know. All I can tell you is the people involved believed they were trying to defend the country and what they were doing was necessary. Did they get some good information? Probably so. Has it been a net loser for us as a country? Absolutely so. All I can say is the techniques in question were motivated by fear of another attack, and people at the time thought this was the best way to defend the Nation. I accept that on their part.

But as a nation, I hope we have learned the following: In this ideological struggle, good versus evil, we need to choose good. There is no shortage of people who will cut your head off. The techniques in question are nowhere near what the enemies of this Nation and radical Islam would do to people under their control. There is no comparison.

The comparison is between who we are and what we want to be. In that regard, we made a mistake. No one is going to jail because they should not, because the laws in question--the laws that existed at the time of this program--were, to be generous, vague.

I spent about a year of my life with Senator McCain working with the Bush administration and colleagues on the Democratic side to come up with the Detainee Treatment Act which clearly puts people on notice of what you can and cannot do. Going forward we fixed this problem. How do I know it is a problem? I travel. I go to the Mideast a lot. I go all over the world. It was a problem for us. Whether we like it or not, we are seen as the good guys. I like it.

Sometimes good people make mistakes. We have corrected the problem. We have interrogation techniques now that I think can protect the Nation and are within our values. The one thing I want to stress to my colleagues is that this is a war of an ideological nature. There will be no capital to conquer. We are not going to take Tokyo. We are not going to take Berlin. There is no air force to shoot down; there is no navy to sink. You are fighting a radical extreme ideology that is motivated by hate. In their world, if you do not agree with their religion, you are no longer a human being.

The only way we can possibly defeat this ideology is to offer something better. The good news for us is that we stand for something better. We stand for due process. We stand for humane treatment. We stand for the ability to have a say when you are accused of something. Our enemies stand for none of that. That is their greatest weakness. Our greatest strength is to offer a better way.

When you go to Anbar Province and you go to other places in the Mideast that have experienced life under ISIS--ISIL--and Al Qaeda, the reaction has almost been universal: We do not like this. When America comes over the hill, and they see that flag, they know help is on the way.

To the CIA officers who serve in the shadows, who intermingle with the most notorious in the world, who are always away from home never knowing if you are going back: Thank you. There is a debate about whether this report is accurate line by line. I do not know. Is this the definitive answer to the program's problems? I do not know, but I do know the program hurt our country.

Those days are behind us. The good guys air their dirty laundry. I wished we had waited because the world is in such a volatile shape right now. I do fear this report will be used by our enemies. But I guess there is no good time to do things like this.

So to those who helped prepare the report, I understand where you are coming from. To those on my side who believe that we have gone too far, I understand that too. But this has always been easy for me. I have been too associated with the subject matter for too long. Every time our Nation cuts a corner, and every time we act out of fear and abandon who we are, we always regret it. That has happened forever. This is a step toward righting a wrong. To our enemies: Take no comfort from the fact that we have changed our program. We are committed to your demise. We are committed to your incarceration and killing you on the battlefield, if necessary.

To our friends, because we choose a different path, do not mistake that for weakness. What we are doing today is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of the ultimate strength--that you can self correct, that you can reevaluate and you can do some soul searching, and you can come out with a better product. The tools available to our intelligence community today over time will yield better results, more reliable results. The example we are setting will, over time, change the world.

To defeat radical Islam you have to show separation. Today is a commitment to show separation. The techniques they employ to impose their will have been used for thousands of years. They are always, over time, rejected. The values we stand for--tolerance, humane treatment of everyone; whether you agree with them or not--have also stood the test of time. Over time, we will win, and they will lose. Today is about making that time period shorter. The sooner America can reattach itself to who she is, the worse off the enemy will be.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I will be asking a unanimous consent request to bring up S. 2650, the Corker-Graham-McCain-Ayotte-Rubio legislation. Senator Murphy, I think, is going to speak here in a second, but if I may do two things: I wish to reserve 20 minutes of time to be divided between myself, Senator Corker, and Senator Rubio to speak about the topic. But I would now like to make a unanimous consent request.

I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the two leaders, but no later than November 24, 2014, the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2650, that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration, the bill be read a third time, and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage of the bill with no intervening action or debate. Further, if passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague very much for speaking in a way so we can all have time on the issue.

No. 1, about the chilling messages, this is a chilling message from the Supreme Leader of Iran about 3 days ago: Nine questions about the elimination of Israel. In this tweet--and I will read some of it later--the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader in Iran, talks about how to annihilate the State of Israel during the negotiations.

Also, recently an IAEA inspector was talking about elements of the Iranian nuclear program that have been hidden that would make it larger than we all suspect.

What are we trying to do? I would like to bring the Iranian nuclear program to an end through peaceful means, and by an end, I mean the following: I would welcome a deal that would allow the Iranians to produce peaceful nuclear power but without the capability of turning that program into a weapons program.

I fear that we are on the road to a North Korean outcome, where the international community gave a rogue regime a small nuclear program to be monitored by the United Nations--and the rest is history regarding North Korea.

I have asked several times to the administration: Tell me the safeguards that exist in these negotiations with Iran that did not exist in North Korea, and I have yet to get an answer.

It is pretty openly known that the administration and the P5+1 have conceded a right to enrich uranium as part of any deal with Iran. To that I say: Of all the nations on Earth, given their behavior, name one country that you would put in the category ahead of Iran when it comes to denying them the ability to have a centrifuge that one day could be used to make a weapon. The idea of giving an enrichment capability to the Iranians, given 30 years of lying, deceit, American blood on their hands, and recent tweets about annihilating Israel to me is insane.

So all we are asking is that any deal negotiated between the P5+1 come to this body for a discussion and a vote. Senator Corker is the primary author of this legislation.

Here is what I can tell the world: Nobody wants any more war. But we do not want to allow the Iranians, given their behavior, the capability one day to develop a nuclear weapon, and that is exactly what they have been trying to do. They have lied about their program. They have been deceptive about their program. They have blood on their hands when it comes to killing Americans in Iraq. They are one of the largest state sponsors of terrorism in the world.

The idea that we would give them an enrichment capability just astounds me. We are telling our allies--South Korea, and the UAE: If you want a nuclear program, fine--don't enrich the uranium.

There are 15 nations in the world that have nuclear programs without an enrichment capability. To concede one to the Iranians is the ultimate act of throwing the Mideast into further chaos, because the Sunni Arabs, the mortal enemy of the Shia Persians, will want a capability of their own of like kind or greater. The worst possible outcome is to give a regime this dangerous the capability or the potential to one day make a bomb. One centrifuge in the hands of people with this mentality is one too many.

To the Iranian people, my beef is not with you. My beef is with your leaders who have taken the world down a dark path.

This legislation is pretty simple. Bring the deal to the Senate. We will have a right to file a motion of disapproval. We will have a vote, we will have a debate, and if it is a good deal, it will be approved. If it is a bad deal, we will stop it.

I cannot imagine the Senate and the House sitting on the sidelines and ignoring something this important.

To Senator Corker, who will soon be the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, this was his original idea. We have tried to perfect it, but what I really believe is what he tried to do months ago to make sure the Congress would have a check and balance over any deal with the Iranians was smart. It would enhance the administration's hand when it comes to negotiating because they would have to tell the Iranians, it is not just us you have to please, you have to go before the representatives of the American people. That would lead to a better outcome. If it truly is a North Korea in the making, we will have a chance to stop it.

President Obama wants a deal too badly, in my view; but at the end of the day, let's wait and see what happens. I just want to let the Iranians and the administration know beforehand, we will not sit on the sidelines and watch you go it alone. This is one decision the President will make that the Congress has to be read in on and have a say about. This is not the time to let President Obama go it alone. The stakes are too high for Israel, for the United States, for the world at large.

What do I fear the most? I fear that over time we will give the Iranian ayatollahs the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. Name one technology they developed that they haven't shared with terrorists. And it will surely come our way.

To our friends in Israel: No Israeli mother can ever go to sleep at night thinking her children are safe and the future of that country is secure if the Iranians have a nuclear capability. When the ayatollahs say openly they wish to destroy the State of Israel, to annihilate the State of Israel, I believe they mean it. When the Jewish people say never again, they speak based on past experience.

Of all the scenarios in the world that could throw this world into a chaotic situation beyond what you see today, it would be to allow the ayatollahs a nuclear weapon. The Sunni Arabs will have one of their own. Israel will never know a minute's peace, and I fear that it would come our way.

I would like to now yield to Senator Corker who can explain the details of the legislation, why we are asking this to be taken up before the end of negotiations.

A week from Monday the deadline comes to an end. I want everybody at the negotiating table to know this deal is so important to the United States and the world that the Congress needs to have a say. Barack Obama should not be able to make any deal with the Iranians that is binding unless the Congress approves, and the Iranians should never be allowed to have a nuclear capability, period, that could be turned into a weapon.

With that, I yield to Senator Corker.

Do we have time remaining?

I will be very quick.

I will vote for the continuing resolution because I do not want to shut the government down. I agree with Senator McCain that this is not the right process, but we are where we are. I think the issue people are focusing on about the continuing resolution is the changing of the training of the Free Syrian Army from title 50, a covert program, to title 10, the Department of Defense, where it will be out in the open.

The reason I support the appropriation and the change in title 10--I think this is a long-overdue effort on our part to build up Syrian forces that can confront both Assad and ISIL, enemies of the United States.

To my colleagues who worry about the people we train and the arms we give falling into the wrong hands, I would say that there is nothing we can do in this area without some risk. But when you tell me there are no Syrians that you believe exist who would fight against Assad and ISIL, I do not believe you quite understand what is going on in Syria. I would say that the vast majority of Syrians have two things in common: They want to overthrow Assad and they want to get ISIL out of their country.

ISIL is mostly non-Syrians. They came from the vacuum created by a lack of security. When Hezbollah and Russia doubled down to protect Assad, who was just about knocked out several years ago, the Free Syrian Army was abandoned by us and the rest of the world and ISIL was able to fill in that vacuum. These are foreign fighters.

So to my colleagues who talk about how they worry, I worry too. I worry about doing nothing. I worry about finding an excuse not to do anything. It bothered me when Republicans embraced the position of President Obama just a few weeks ago that it was a fantasy to train the Syrians to fight for Syria. I do not think it is a fantasy to train Syrians to fight for Syria because they want to. This whole revolution against Assad was not to overthrow him and replace Assad with ISIL.

The people who think the average Syrian wants to be dominated by ISIL instead of Assad, really, I do not think they appreciate what is going on in Syria. That is selling the Syrian people short.

Having said that, the limitations of what the Free Syrian Army can do at this point are real, but training as many as possible makes sense to me. My goal is to keep the war over there so it does not come here. From an American point of view, I think it would be a huge mistake not to provide training and resources to those people in the region--in Syria--to do the fighting because we have common enemies.

Those who say this is too risky, what is your alternative? If we do nothing, ISIL will continue to grow and the threat to our homeland will continue to increase.

It is long past time to blunt the momentum of this vicious terrorist organization. A Free Syrian Army component makes perfect sense to me. Whatever risk is associated with that concept is well worth it at this point.

When we talk about Iraq, I hope the Iraqi Government can reconstitute itself. Their military is in shambles. The Kurds are hanging on in the north with our help. But to dislodge ISIL from Iraq and take back Fallujah and Mosul and other cities, as General Dempsey indicated, would be a very difficult military endeavor. From my point of view, the last thing America wants to do is take ISIL on in Iraq and Syria and fail.

If you do believe that it is about our homeland and that it is not just about the Mideast, allowing ISIL to defeat any force we throw at it makes them larger and more lethal over time. So the worst possible outcome is to form a coalition in Syria of Arab countries and they are defeated by ISIL because we do not provide them the capabilities they lack.

President Obama's insistence of no boots on the ground is the Achilles' heel to his strategy. This is a military strategy, I believe, designed around political promises. This is not the military strategy you would create to destroy or devastate ISIL. President Bush made many mistakes in Iraq, but to his credit he changed the strategy in a fashion that allowed us to succeed.

One thing I have learned over the past 13 years, you can have a lot of troops doing the wrong thing and it will not matter. When you leave no troops behind, that is a mistake. And if you have too few troops doing the right thing, it will not matter.

The President is right about this. We don't need to reinvade Iraq or Syria. We don't need the 82nd Airborne to go in with 100,000 troops behind it, but we do need to provide capacity to the Iraqis and any future coalition to deal with Syria that is lacking in that part of the world.

Like it or not the American military is second to none. The special forces capability we have can really be decisive in this fight. To every American, this is not only about them over there, this is about us here.

The better and the sooner that ISIL is defeated, the more decisive ISIL is defeated, and the sooner that day comes about, the safer we are at home.

I urge the President to not take options off the table.

I am voting for this change in strategy regarding the Free Syrian Army because I think it is long overdue. When the President does the right thing, I want to be his partner. Mr. President, if you will come up with a strategy to destroy and defeat ISIL that makes sense, I will be your best ally and try to help you on this side of the aisle. This is a first step in the right direction, but when you play out this strategy, which you are trying to do, I think it will not work unless you embrace American assistance in a greater level to the Iraqi military and to any coalition you could create in Syria.

The last thing I want this body to understand, this is the last best chance we will have to put ISIL back in a box so they can't wreak havoc in the Mideast and grow in strength. The stronger they are over there, the more endangered we are over here.

It is in our interests to help our Arab allies and our Iraqi allies destroy ISIL. It is not just about those people over there. Lines of defenses in the war on terror make perfect sense to me.

The best way to keep this fight off our shores is to engage the people who will help us carry the fight to the common enemy. ISIL is not only an enemy of Islam, it is an enemy of mankind, and failing to defeat these people will resonate here very quickly.

We have a chance. Let's take advantage of it. There is nothing we can do in a war on terror without risk, but now we are fighting an Army, not an organization. If we defeat ISIS, the war is not over. This is a generational struggle. But if you do defeat ISIL, as a turning point in our favor--if they survive our best attempt to defeat them--God help us all.

I yield back.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the contributions of Combined Joint Interagency Task Force, CJIATF, 435. On October 1, 2014, CJIATF 435 will conclude a 5-year mission in Afghanistan to conduct U.S. law of armed conflict detainee operations while successfully training, advising, and assisting the Afghan National Army and Afghan justice sector to develop and improve the investigation, prosecution, and detention of insurgent and terror- related threats.

CJIATF 435's team included Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force servicemembers, Department of Defense civilians, contractors, and coalition members. The team developed a strong collaborative relationship with highly capable partners in the Afghan National Army Military Police Guard Command, the National Directorate of Security, the Attorney General's Office, and the Supreme Court. They also partnered with U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Justice.

On September 18, 2009, CJIATF 435 was established originally as Joint Task Force 435, JTF 435, to assume command, control, oversight and responsibility for all U.S. detainee operations in Afghanistan and coordinate with other partners to promote the rule of law and use of biometrics in Afghanistan. Through its subordinate command, the Rule of Law Field Force-Afghanistan, CJIATF 435 partnered with the Office of the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan for Rule of Law and Law Enforcement. With the addition of combined and interagency partners, JTF 435 officially became CJIATF 435 on September 1, 2010.

CJIATF 435 justice advisors from the Rule of Law Field Force- Afghanistan and the Joint Legal Center, trained, advised, and assisted Afghan prosecutors, judges, and investigators, which enabled the justice system to try over 7,000 cases with a 75 percent conviction rate, resulting in more than 3,000 insurgents held accountable for their crimes. The Joint Legal Center also responded to over 12,000 requests for information from Afghan courts. The National Directorate of Security Agents provided information for investigations to assist in convictions.

CJIATF 435 instituted the first of its kind Afghan Training Team program that provided opportunities for expert Afghan criminal investigators, forensic experts, and prosecutors to share their professional expertise with provincial investigators and prosecutors. The program trained more than 400 students in a multitude of Evidence Based Operations procedures.

The CJIATF 435 Intelligence Directorate, the Theater Intelligence Group, conducted more than 30,000 interviews and produced thousands of reports in support of Afghan investigation, prosecution, and detention operations. Outstanding intelligence collection consisting of over 30,000 interrogations generating more than 5,500 intelligence information reports, resulting in over 2,000 source directed requirements, made legal victories possible and contributed valuable information to the war fighting effort. The Theater Intelligence Group expertly partnered with Afghan law enforcement investigators to train and assist them in conducting interviews and investigations of complex terror organizations.

CJIATF 435 managed the theater biometrics database which enrolled thousands of individuals associated with the insurgency into the database and prevented them from entering coalition bases. The biometrics enabled watchlist was critical to force protection and led to the capture, targeting, and tactical questioning of hundreds of possible threats. These biometric enrollments also linked many insurgents to a host of crimes against the coalition and the Afghan people.

During the transition of detention operations to Afghan custody and control, CJIATF 435 ensured the Afghan Military Police Guard Command provided secure and humane care, custody, and control of over 3,500 detainees. CJIATF 435 provided hands-on training, mentorship, and oversight to facilitate the complete transfer of detainee operations to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, GIRoA. Their tireless efforts set the conditions of GIRoA's largest detention facility to conduct independent operations in full compliance with international standards of humane care and detainee treatment.

As CJIATF 435 approached the end of mission, it established a rule of law development team to continue mentoring the Afghan prosecutors, judges, investigators and military police in the investigation, prosecution, and detention of national security threats. Through the tireless efforts of the men and women of CJIATF 435, the Afghans are well poised to effectively operate the National Security Justice Center at Parwan which will protect the Afghan people and coalition forces while strengthening the rule of law in Afghanistan.

Commending the combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 on a job well-done for supporting the Government of Afghanistan as it built self-sustaining detention capacity and rule of law institutions compliant with Afghan and international law, I ask that the Senate join me in acknowledging the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice of CJIATF 435 for promoting the values of democracy.

Thank you. If I may, this is the anniversary of 9/11. Thirteen years ago on this date our country was attacked by radical Islamists who don't want your car, they don't want your bank account, they don't want your television. They are not criminals. They want to destroy your way of life. And the sooner we come to grips with the fact that there are people like this still out there, the better off we will be.

It is hard for the average American to understand why people think this way. I can't explain it. I have been to the Mideast more times than I can count, and I promise you there are plenty of devout Muslims who worship according to the Muslim faith, the Islamic faith, who would have plenty of places for me and you to reside in this world without fear. There are plenty of people--the vast majority of people of that faith we could live with in peace. But there is a strain called radical Islam that would kill every moderate Muslim, kill every Christian, destroy the State of Israel, and would kill as many of us as they could if somebody doesn't stop them.

Thirteen years ago close to 3,000 Americans were killed in the attacks on our country by the bin Laden group. The only reason it was close to 3,000 and not 3 million is because they couldn't get the weapons to kill 3 million of us. If they could, they would.

So what do we do? We have to keep them away from those weapons. We have to keep the war over there so it doesn't come back here. And we need allies. I am here to tell you that contrary to what I hear in my own party, most people in Syria have two things in common: They don't like Assad and they sure don't like ISIL. If you don't believe that about Syria, you really don't know much about Syria.

This whole enterprise in Syria started when people demanded to be free from the dictator. Our lack of attention in not responding to the needs of those Syrians who would have defeated Assad and lived in peace with us has cost us greatly.

Three years ago Senator McCain said: It is in our national security interest to side with the Free Syrian Army to get rid of Assad because he is the guy who helped kill Americans during the Iraq war. He is the guy who is cozy with Iran.

We had them on the ropes. The Free Syrian Army was about to beat Assad, and then in came 3,000 to 5,000 Hezbollah fighters--Iranian- inspired militia from Lebanon--and the Russians doubled down, we withdrew our support, and the army eventually collapsed. That happened simultaneously with a decision by President Obama--President Obama's decision to withdraw all of our troops from Iraq. We disengaged from Iraq. We had no presence there, and the rest is history.

About the speech last night, what bothered me the most was the way it started. The President tried to tell us that as a nation we are safer today than we have ever been. Do you believe that? I don't. There are more terrorist organizations with more money, more capability, and more weapons to attack our homeland than existed before 9/11. We are not safer than we were before 9/11, and that is an unfortunate fact.

The President also said this operation against ISIL will be like other CT--counterterrorism--operations over the last 5 or 6 years. No, it will not. This is not a small group of people running around with AK-47s; this is a full-blown army. They were going to defeat the Kurdish Peshmerga--a pretty tough fighting group--if we hadn't intervened. To underestimate how hard this will be will bite us.

Mr. President, please square. Be honest with the American people about what we face. Somebody has to beat this army. This is not a small group of terrorists. They have howitzers, they have tanks, and they are flush with money. They are getting fighters from all over the world. But they can and will be defeated, and they must be defeated.

To the family members who remember this as the day their lives were turned upside down, you will always be in my thoughts and prayers, like everybody else in the country. This is a day for most of us to remember with sadness, and it is a hurtful day, but if it were one of your family members who lost their life that day, it would be the day your life was turned upside down.

There are four other Americans who died on September 11 whom I won't forget--Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty. They died 2 years ago in Benghazi. I am not going to forget them or their families, and we are going to get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi. That is my commitment to you.

How do we move forward?

Mr. President, if you need my blessing to destroy ISIL, you have it. If you need to follow them to the gates of hell, I will send you a note--go for it. If you need Congress to authorize your actions, let me know. You say you don't. I agree with you, but if it makes us stronger for this body to vote in support of your plan to destroy ISIL, I will give you my vote. But here is what I expect in return: your full commitment to me.

I am tired of half measures. I am tired of misleading the American people about what we face. There is no way in hell we are going to beat these guys without an American ground component in Iraq and Syria. There is not a force in the Mideast that can take these guys on and win without substantial American help. We don't need the 82nd Airborne, but we are going to need thousands of troops over time on the ground holding the hands of the Arab armies that are going to do the fighting along with the Syrians to make sure we will win.

One thing I can promise the American people: If we take ISIL on and lose, we will unlock the gates of hell, and hell will come our way.

This is the last best chance to get this right, Mr. President. You made plenty of mistakes, and so have I, and so has Senator McCain.

And Senator McCain, nobody is going to apologize to you. I think they should, but they are not. I am not looking for anybody to apologize. We have all made mistakes. This is the time to do some soul-searching as a nation. You and I can do some soul-searching.

Those who have not seen the threat for what it is, all I ask of you is to be willing to embrace reality.

All I am asking of President Obama is to do what President Bush did: Change your tactics and your strategy because it is not working.

Senator McCain and I went to the White House during the Bush years, and we told President Bush: This is not a few dead-enders, Mr. President. It is not working in Iraq. You don't have enough troops. And if we don't change course, you are going to lose the country.

To his credit, he went from training and advising the Iraqi Army to a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy, taking the fight to the enemy in the surge led by GEN David Petraeus, and it did work. That was an admission by President Bush that he had gotten it wrong and he had to change course.

Every President and every Senator makes mistakes. History judges you not by the mistakes you make but by what you learn from them.

Here is what I ask of the President: Quit caveating everything. Look the enemy in the eye and say, ``We will destroy you'' and stop. Look the American people in the eye and say, ``We have to win. We will win. And I will do what is necessary to win.'' Come to the Congress and say, ``We are in this together.''

The American military is tired, but they are not too tired to defend this country. If you had a bunch of them in front of you and you asked them to follow you--``Would you go to Iraq and Syria to fight ISIL?''-- they would say ``Send me tomorrow'' because they know what these people will do to the rest of us. Why do they serve over and over again? Why do they go to Iraq three and four times, Afghanistan three and four times? They have seen the enemy up close. They know what comes our way if we lose.

So this is the day to reflect as a nation. I am so sorry that 13 years after 9/11 we are having to deal with greater threats than before 9/11. Fifty years from now, long after I am gone, there is going to be an American soldier somewhere in Africa or the Middle East helping indigenous populations fight radical Islam. But over time, just as sure as I am standing here, radical Islam will fall because--here is the truth--what they are selling, most people don't want to buy. They don't have the capacity yet by themselves to stand and stare these people down.

As to Americans who are frustrated with the pace of democracy in the Mideast and who believe those people can't do this, all I ask you to do is to pick up an American history book. Within the first 100 years of our country, we were at war with Canada and Mexico. Within the first 100 years of our country, we were at war with ourselves, and it started in my State.

This is not easy. It is not easy to this day. To expect people who have lived under brutal dictatorships and had their society divided and destroyed for decades to get to where we are in 12 or 13 years is unrealistic.

Here is the hope for me. There is good news. There is plenty of will throughout the world to stand up to radical Islam. Our goal is to provide capacity to that will. Sometimes it will be with American soldiers; sometimes it will be clean drinking water; a small health care clinic that you wouldn't send your child to for 5 minutes that will save lives in Africa; a small schoolhouse where a young girl can get an education. If we are not willing to do these things over there, they will come here.

Absolutely.

I remember getting a phone call from then-Secretary Clinton asking me and Senator McCain and Senator Levin to go to Iraq and see if we could intervene and help the Iraqis make a decision about a residual force because we thought it was in our interest.

President Obama has always looked at this issue as fulfilling a campaign promise. He got the answer he wanted, which was zero. The military told him we needed some people, but he really was intent on ending the war in Iraq.

Here is the problem: Without a residual force, we have lost everything we fought for. When we met with Barzani, Allawi, and Malaki, I was convinced they were willing to accept an American follow- on force; we just had to put it on the table in a way that it mattered.

When we were talking to Malaki, they said: Senator Graham, how many troops are we talking about?

I turned to General Austin and our then-Ambassador Jeffrey and said: How many?

He said: We are still working on that.

We went from 18,000 recommended by General Austin--the last time I got a number from the White House, it was below 3,000. This cascading downward from 18,000 to below 3,000 was not because the Iraqis said it was too many; it was because the White House couldn't pick a number because they didn't want to stay. It is about as accurate to say the Iraqis didn't want us to stay as it is to say the President never called ISIS a JV team. The President did, but he is trying to rewrite that statement because it looks pretty naive.

Look forward. Let's beat on the Republicans for a minute. The Republican Party--the party of Ronald Reagan--embraced sequestration. For those who don't know what I am talking about, it is a budget proposal that will gut our military over the next decade. We have the smallest Army since 1940, the smallest Navy since 1950, and the smallest Air Force in modern history. Republicans embraced that concept.

If we want to defeat ISIL, we better change sequestration because we are about to gut the military at the time we need it most. There is plenty of blame to go around here.

Here is the key for me: We as a nation have one last chance to get this right.

I will make the same offer to President Obama that I made to President Bush: If you come up with a strategy that makes sense and you are understanding and learning from your mistakes, as I try to learn from mine, I will be there with you.

There was not much help coming from our friends on the other side when Iraq was bad. Bush got absolutely no support when his mistakes came back to haunt him. I will not make that mistake.

The mistakes President Obama has made are real, and they have to be corrected. If the President will correct them, I will stand with him no matter what the polls show about troops on the ground. And I know how the President stands with South Carolinians--not very well. It is not about the President; it is not about this Senator; it is about us.

So on this September 11 anniversary, I make an offer to my Commander in Chief, Barack Obama: If you will destroy ISIL and mean it, you will have an ally in Senator McCain and Senator Graham.

I yield.

Mr. President, how much time do we have?

Mr. President, I just want to be recognized for the 3 minutes.

Mr. President, one, I want to thank my colleague, Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, of the Joint Economic Committee, for making the case on why the Ex-Im Bank is a good government program essential to creating jobs in America from export sales.

Boeing is in South Carolina; they are in Washington. Senator Cantwell has been a champion of this issue as long as I have been around. Now that Boeing is making 787s in South Carolina, I will just put this on the table: 8 out of 10 787s made in South Carolina are Ex-Im financed. We are competing in the wide-body market with countries such as France; China will be getting in this market. Every competitor of Boeing--GE makes gas turbines in Greenville. Most of those are sold in the Mideast through Ex-Im financing. Every competitor of these two large companies in South Carolina has an Ex-Im Bank.

So to my colleagues in the House, I think I am a pretty conservative guy, but I am also practical. Why in the world would we shut our bank down when China is growing their bank? The Chinese would support closing the Ex-Im Bank in America; so would the French; so would the Canadians; so would the British. If you really want to give the American economy a kick in the wrong place, shut our bank down and allow the other countries that compete with us to keep theirs open.

There is plenty of waste in the government. So we pick one program that is small in number, in terms of actual volume that makes money for the Treasury and creates hundreds of thousands of job opportunities. This is smart conservatism? This is what conservatism has come to be, that you take a program--that allows American companies to compete in the international market, that makes money for the American taxpayer-- and you shut it down just to prove to people you are ideologically pure? That is not conservatism. That is crazy, and we are not going to let it happen.

To my Democratic friends, we should have reauthorized this a long time ago in a process befitting the Senate. There is well over half of my conference ready to vote for reforms on the Ex-Im Bank, but we are not doing anything in this body, and you are not going to pick our amendments. So there is plenty of blame to go around.

I hope we are smart enough as a House and a Senate to get this right, not to shut down the Ex-Im Bank that makes money for the taxpayer, creates thousands of American jobs, for some ideological reason disconnected with reality.

China would love this. France would love this. When it comes to my State, it would be devastating to the small businesses that benefit from Ex-Im financing. If you can close their banks down, count me in, we will close ours. But I will be damned if we are going to close ours when they have theirs up and running to put people out of work in my State and all over this country when you are talking about the best- paying jobs in America.

I look forward to a further discussion on this topic.

Mr. President, the time is blurred now. Yesterday, or early this morning, a very bad occurrence happened to the people of Israel. During a cease-fire which they agreed to, an Israeli unit apparently was attacked by a Hamas suicide bomber. After that attack there was a charge against the unit in question, and apparently a soldier has been kidnapped and taken to the tunnels.

It is so appropriate that today, of all days, the Senate speaks in one voice.

I cannot thank Senator Reid enough for making this happen. Senator McConnell has worked to make sure it got cleared on our side, and it finally has.

They are running out of Iron Dome missiles to protect themselves. To whom do they turn? To us.

Mr. President, $225 million is a lot of money, but it is a rounding error in the budget.

It is not only the missiles that matter; it is the message that goes with the missiles: We are with you. Here are the missiles. Use them to defend yourself. We will stand with you on the battlefield. We will stand with you in the court of public opinion, and we are going to push back against the United Nations, which is becoming more and more anti- Israeli. As dysfunctional as the Congress has been, this is one of our finer moments.

We are about to leave here soon with a lot of work undone, but let it be said that we did have the foresight and the ability and, quite frankly, the moral decency to end on a positive note.

You can say a lot about this Congress--and much criticism is deserved--but here is what you cannot say: We left Israel in the lurch. In a bipartisan manner we were there when they needed us the most.

To our friends in Israel: Stay as long as you need to stay. Do whatever you need to do.

To our friends in Palestine: We grieve when children are killed. There is no more innocent person on the planet than a child.

To the Palestinian people: Reject Hamas and seek peace. We are not your

enemy. We stand to help you, but you have to reject a terrorist organization that has the coldest and darkest of hearts, that would kill every Israeli child and put your children at risk. Reject this hateful ideology while you still can.

To our friends in Israel: There is more to come when it comes to standing by your side.

I thank both leaders of the Senate for rising to the occasion.

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

Mr. President, I intend to speak on a couple matters in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. President, a couple things.

This is a very dark day for our friends in Israel. Apparently, earlier this morning, about an hour and a half after the agreed-upon cease-fire, an Israeli column of soldiers who were trying to decommission a terrorist tunnel, consistent with the terms of the cease-fire, were attacked by a suicide bomber that resulted in some Israeli casualties. That column also was hit by antitank missiles, and a group of Palestinian Hamas fighters engaged the column, resulting in the capture of one Israeli soldier.

For lack of a better way of explaining this, there was a cease-fire. Israel was acting consistent with the terms of the cease-fire, and this was a planned military operation to take advantage of the cease-fire. In the law of war this would be a great breach. At the end of the day Israel is a victim of a group of people called Hamas that lie, cheat, have everything in their being that most of us should condemn.

So what has the Senate done? This could be a very good day for the U.S.-Israeli relationship. To my Democratic and Republican colleagues in the Senate, you have risen to the occasion. I thank the majority leader Senator Reid and the minority leader Senator McConnell for bringing up Iron Dome funding. I thank all of my colleagues for allowing the funding to go forward. Senator Coburn was trying to find an offset. He is being consistent in trying to bring our fiscal house in order. He is a very principled man, but he understood the urgency of the matter in Israel and withdrew his objection last night.

To our friends in Israel, the Senate has acted in a unanimous fashion, bipartisan in nature, to appropriate $225 million to resupply the missiles that you need to defend yourself under the Iron Dome Program. With the missiles comes a message. The message is we are with you. Take as long us you need. Go where you need to go to deal with this terrorist threat called Hamas.

To the Palestinian people, we are not your enemy. We hope one day you will reject Hamas and try to find a peaceful solution to your problems with your Israeli neighbors, and we stand ready to help in that regard.

The Palestinian Authority and Israel have a good working relationship when it comes to the West Bank. Hamas has been in charge of Gaza for several years now, and this cycle of violence repeats itself. You will have a cease-fire. You will have a lull in the violence. One year later you will fight Hamas again. They have fired over 15,000 rockets into Israel. In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza, giving land for peace. The land was given, the peace has been unattainable.

So the real root of the problem is Hamas. There is no moral equivalency here. Hamas is trying to kill every Israeli possible. They are firing missiles by the thousands indiscriminately into Israel. They could care less where they land. Thank God for the Iron Dome. The most heinous of all is they have put their own people in harm's way as human shields. As Israel tries to tell people to withdraw from an area because it is coming under attack, Hamas says: Ignore the leaflets. You go to that area.

There is a video where a hospital was occupied by Hamas fighters. Israel gave 2 days' notice to evacuate the hospital. When the hospital was destroyed militarily because it became a command center for Hamas, secondary explosions went on for quite a while. It was also an ammo dump.

So Hamas uses mosques, hospitals, apartment complexes. We found two instances of Hamas rockets being stored in U.N. schools. They are violating every known tenet of the law of war. They are using their own people as human shields in an unprecedented strategic manner.

As to the United Nations, you are about to run afoul of the Congress. The Human Rights Commission issued a resolution that had one sentence condemning the attacks on Israeli civilians. It never mentioned the word ``Hamas.'' It basically accused Israel of being a war criminal.

It passed 27 to 1. We were the lone vote objecting to the resolution, which was so out of sync with reality, and several major nations abstained.

The United Nations is becoming more anti-Israeli as I speak. Anti- Semitism is spreading throughout the world, but let it be said that the Senate in a bipartisan fashion will have no part of this. The United Nations is a force that could be used for the good or it could be a force to make problems worse.

I consider myself, as a Republican, an internationalist. I believe in foreign assistance. I believe in helping people. I believe in leading the world, not having the world run us over. Ronald Reagan is a great role model from my point of view. He said: America makes history. That is our destiny. We shape history; we are not overrun by it. That does not mean we have to become the world's policeman or act as the Lone Ranger. It does mean we have to stay involved in the world. That is my point of view. But it is very hard to maintain that point of view when the United Nations, I believe, is being hijacked in such a fashion.

To the United Nations leadership: You are about to run afoul of the Congress, who wants to be part of the body that wants to shape the world for the better. By your constant condemning of Israel in a disproportionate manner to what is going on, on the ground in Gaza, beware of where you are taking this. To the Human Rights Commission: You have become a joke in the eyes of Congress.

The second thing I hope we can do is pass a resolution that was authored by myself and Senator Menendez this morning. It is cleared on the Republican side. I think we are about there on the Democratic side.

So what have we done? Tactically, the Senate has acted in a fashion to resupply missiles to the Iron Dome Program that is literally under siege. Strategically, we have a partnership agreement pending before the Senate that reaffirms our relationship for years to come as a signal to Israel: Strategically, we will be your partner as far as the eye can see.

So that is pending before the Senate, and I hope we can clear it today. Today, of all days, would be a great time for us to make decisions that reinforce the military capability of the Israelis to defend themselves, recommit ourselves to a strategic partnership.

And the third thing we could do is lend our moral voices as a nation by condemning the attack of Hamas against the Israeli defense forces and the capturing of a soldier.

This resolution thoroughly points out the cease-fire breach by Hamas, the preplanned attack on the Israeli column during the cease-fire, the capturing of a soldier. We are condemning this activity as a breach of international law, and we are urging that Hamas return the IDF soldier.

This resolution would give the moral voice of our Nation and the Senate to the cause Israel faces. So if we could, in a dysfunctional Congress--and we deserve a lot of criticism, both parties are to blame--but if we could end the day speaking as one on something that is very important, the survival of our friends in Israel--not being anti- Palestinian but being pro-Israel and pro-peace and being anti-Hamas--I just wish and hope and pray the Palestinian people will reject Hamas and turn in a new direction because in that direction you will find peace and you will find America as a partner.

So let it be said the Senate, in the most turbulent political times, found its way when it came to supporting our friends in Israel by appropriating money to help their military which is under siege, by passing a strategic partnership agreement that reaffirms the relationship, and by lending our voice to what happened today in condemning, in no uncertain terms, the vicious attack and the breach of the cease-fire by Hamas.

If we could do those three things today, it would be the right message, it would send the right message at the right time, and it would solidify this relationship that is so important because the enemies of Israel are our enemies also. Radical Islam has the same desire to kill us and destroy our way of life as they do Israel. At the end of the day we have to understand our fates are tied together.

Mr. President, the second issue I would like to talk about is my colleagues in the House are trying to find their way to pass legislation regarding the crisis on the border. They tried yesterday. They failed. They are back at it again.

I thank Speaker Boehner, from the Republican point of view, for not leaving town until we have a solution in a Republican-controlled House. It has been hard to find. It is an emotional issue. It is a difficult issue on many levels. The human suffering of the children--everybody is moved by that, as we should be. But we cannot incentivize these three countries in question to keep sending their children here, putting their children at risk, and overrunning our systems. That is not the way to deal with our neighbor.

So the House hopefully will pass legislation reforming the 2008 law that needs to be reformed to make children from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, that region subject to the same laws as if you came from Mexico, and they are putting money aside to deal with the deportation problem and the humanitarian crisis.

If they can pass a solution to this problem, I am urging the majority leader of the Senate to bring us back in because we should not be gone for 5 weeks with something this important left unresolved. You may not agree with the House, but let's take up their proposal, amend it, vote on it, vote it up or vote it down, take the prior Democratic proposal, allow amendments to be had on both sides of the aisle, and see if we can find common ground on dealing with the border.

The President at one time embraced changes in the 2008 law. That has to be done or we will never solve the problem.

I do not mind spending money in a humanitarian fashion as long as we are spending money to solve the problem, not perpetuate it. So if the House can find its way in offering a solution to the border crisis, I am urging my Democratic colleagues who control this body to act. Let's not be gone for 5 weeks. Bring us all back. See if we can find a solution among ourselves in the Senate, talk to our colleagues in the House and solve the problem.

It is within our power to do so. I know we can get there. I know there are at least five or six Democrats who understand throwing money at the problem without changing the 2008 law gets you nowhere. There are plenty of people on our side who understand a humanitarian crisis does exist. Let's marry these forces and see if we can come up with a bipartisan compromise in the Senate.

The only way you can do that is to be allowed to offer amendments and debate. I cannot think of a problem more dramatic facing the Nation right now in terms of a crisis than what is happening on our border: 50,000 unaccompanied children, the spike in people coming from Central America after President Obama unilaterally gave amnesty to children already here. No matter how well intentioned, it has created the belief in that part of the world that if you make it to America you can stay.

We want you to understand there is a legal way to get to America. Just do not show up on the doorstep and ask to be taken in. That is not a way for our Nation to have to deal with people wanting to come to this Nation. So I hope we will not be gone for 5 weeks with this problem unaddressed.

If the House can get its act together and pass a solution to the problem, it would be incumbent, in my view, upon the Senate to reconvene, deal with the House proposal, come up with one of our own, and engage the House to solve this problem. Five weeks is a very long time to be away from a problem this important.

As to the August break, contrary to what a lot of people may believe, we do not all go on vacation. We try to take some time for ourselves and our families. But it is a chance to go visit other parts of the world, to get informed on problems that can come here in terms of affecting our national security. Situations over there are going to come here if we do not deal with them responsibly. It is a chance to do things in your State. So people are very busy during August. They try to capture some time for themselves. But at the end of the day, 5 weeks is way too long to be absent from Washington as the crisis on the border gets worse. If the House can find a solution to this problem, I am urging the Democratic-controlled Senate to bring us back, take up their solution, vote it up, vote it down, bring back the Senate bill, allow it to be amended so we can find consensus. Consensus is there if we want to find it.

I appreciate the Presiding Officer's voice on national security. The Presiding Officer has been a stalwart friend of Israel in trying to find a way forward regarding the problems the Ukrainian people face. I hope we can find a solution to our border crisis. But a final thought as to Israel: Today could be a very good day for the U.S.-Israel relationship. It started in the Senate. I hope my House colleagues will pass the Iron Dome legislation that we passed by unanimous consent today. The House needs to get this done so the President can sign this into law.

To my colleagues in the House: Please take up Iron Dome. Let's get this right.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I return the compliment to Senator McConnell from Kentucky, the Republican leader.

I have been here now since 2002. There is no better friend of the State of Israel than Mitch McConnell. He is the former chairman and ranking member of the foreign ops subcommittee on appropriations that deals with aid to the world--particularly Israel--and it was his idea to come to the floor today and have voices speak in support of Israel at a time when they need friends.

Friends are great to have. They are wonderful in good times. They are a necessity in bad times. Israel is going through some pretty bad times and so are the Palestinian people.

I wish to clearly make myself known. I have nothing against the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people to have their own country, to live in peace and prosperity by Israel. But they have to want it more than I do.

The Palestinian people are suffering. Children are being killed, and the most innocent people on the planet are children. It breaks all of our hearts to see them as a casualty of war.

But now is the time to be clear-eyed and focused as to what the problem really is. The problem is very simple in many ways. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the eyes of the U.S. Government. Hamas should be a terrorist organization in the eyes of any decent person in the world.

What did they do? They have as their goal not a two-state solution but a one-state solution--the complete and utter destruction of the State of Israel. If you don't believe me, just check out their own charter. They have as their tactics using their own people and children as human shields to win a propaganda war.

When Israeli children are killed, it breaks Israel's heart. When Palestinian children are killed, it breaks the heart of all decent Palestinians, but Hamas sees it as a victory. They literally try to put women and children in harm's way to marginalize the ability of Israel to defend itself against two things.

The tunnels are something new in this fight. Forty-one tunnels have been discovered that go from the Gaza Strip--some into Israel itself-- and yesterday five Israeli soldiers were killed by an attack that came from Hamas fighters that penetrated Israel through the tunnels.

So Senator McConnell is not only speaking for Republicans when he says the Senate stands firmly behind Israel's right to destroy the terrorist tunnels, but I think that is the body's view and Democrats' as well.

There is a resolution that is bipartisan in nature before the body, and I hope we can pass it before Thursday. In the resolved clause, it says the Senate opposes any efforts to impose a cease-fire that does not allow the Government of Israel to protect its citizens from threats posed by Hamas rockets and tunnels. That, I believe, is the view of the Senate in a bipartisan fashion.

Today, Republicans take the floor to clearly state where we stand in this conflict. We stand with Israel's right to defend itself against a terrorist organization called Hamas. We stand with the Palestinian people's legitimate aspirations to have a better life. But until that day comes, we are going to be firmly in the Israeli camp to defend themselves, because what would we do as a nation if a neighboring nation dug tunnels under our border for the express purpose of kidnapping and killing our citizens. What would America do if one rocket coming from a neighboring nation fired indiscriminately to kill American citizens? We would respond in the most aggressive fashion, and we would have every right to do so.

As the minority leader stated, there is no moral equivalency. Israel tells you they are going to attack. Israel calls before the attack. Israel gives notice about an impending attack. Hamas secretly fires rockets, caring less where they land. Their hope is that it hits a kindergarten. That is their desire. And the only reason they have not been successful is because of the Iron Dome program that has been a collaboration between the United States and Israel for many years.

There has been discussion about appropriating additional dollars for Iron Dome. That discussion needs to turn into a reality. We don't need to marry it with controversial topics. Israel is under siege. We are the best friend of the State of Israel. They need this assistance. Every Republican stands ready to work with every Democrat to pass--in the next 5 minutes--additional money for the Iron Dome program.

In tough times, what is the smart thing and right thing for America to do? The smart thing for America to do is pursue a lasting peace, a peace with meaning, and not repeat the mistakes of the past. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Israel is beyond that moment. America needs to stand by Israel's legitimate right to get to the heart of the problem and not face this threat 6 months or 1 year from now.

The one thing I can tell you that is not a smart thing to do is to give Hamas a bunch of concrete. They are not going to build schools with it; they build tunnels. All the aid the international community has been providing to the Gaza Strip, through the hands of Hamas, has not gone into building hospitals, schools, and the economic improvement of the lives of Palestinians but to create tunnels of war. The tunnels are weapons of war. The thousands and thousands of tons of concrete and iron that have been misappropriated to build these tunnels came from people with a good heart.

How long does it take the international community to wake up to the fact that Hamas has a bad heart--an evil, wicked heart. They could care less about their own people. They want to destroy Israel.

Absolutely.

Senator McConnell is dead on point--land for peace. Give the Palestinians land and in return Israel gets peace. They gave the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, and what have they gotten in return? They got 2,500 rockets in the last 3 weeks and terrorist tunnels.

The idea that leaving an area will lead to peace in the Middle East with the Palestinians has not borne fruit. What to do? No. 1, pass more appropriations for Iron Dome because it is the right and smart thing to do.

No. 2, pass a resolution saying we oppose any cease-fire that does not allow Israel to get to the heart of the problem when it comes to terrorist tunnels and dealing with the rocket threat against their country.

No. 3, push back against the United Nations that has lost its moral way. The Human Rights Commission--which is a subcommittee, for lack of a better term, of the United Nations--passed a resolution 27 to 1 about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza, and I will read the first paragraph:

Deploring the massive Israeli military operations in the

Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,

since 13 June 2014 that have involved disproportionate and

indiscriminate attacks and resulted in grave violations of

the human rights of the Palestinian civilian population,

including through the most recent Israeli military assault

on the occupied Gaza Strip, the latest in a series of

military aggressions by Israel, and through actions of

mass closures, mass arrests and the killing of civilians

in the occupied West Bank.

This resolution is 1,600-and-something words, and it has a half sentence about rockets against Israel and nothing about the tunnels and never mentions Hamas.

The third thing I would like this body to do, through a letter of resolution, is let the United Nations know we condemn this one-sided view of the conflict and that we find the Human Rights Commission report objectionable and, quite frankly, immoral.

The vote was 27 to 1, and we were the only nation that objected to this resolution, which I think should make every decent person in the world feel the shame of the United Nations.

I thank our leader on the Republican side for creating this opportunity and allowing us to speak on this issue, and I thank him for his longstanding support for the State of Israel.

I close with this thought: In times of trouble, try to do the right thing and the smart thing, and they both come together on this issue. The right thing to do is to stand by your friends in Israel; the smart thing to do is to stand by your friends in Israel. The right thing and the smart thing to do is to oppose Hamas, which has a wicked heart, and allow Israel, once and for all, to fix this problem by demilitarizing Gaza and dealing with the tunnels and the rockets.

As Senator McConnell said, Israel has tried cease-fires time and time again without dealing with the military threat they face. Not this time. When Israel says never again, they are referring to the Holocaust. America needs to stand with Israel and Israel should say to Hamas: Never again will we allow a cease-fire that allows you to dig tunnels under our borders to kidnap and kill our citizens, and never again will we allow you to rearm and rain holy terror on our people through thousands of rockets being fired at innocent civilians.

Now is the time for the Senate to say with Israel, never again.

Sad but true.

Absolutely. With that, I will turn over the debate to my good friend, the Senator from New Hampshire, Ms. Ayotte, who has been one of the leaders on our side on foreign policy and is a steadfast ally of our friends in Israel.