Floor Statements

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 402, S.J. Res. 182.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the next vote the Senate will have on a War Powers Resolution, and this will be the eighth such vote. I want to dig into the topic for a minute why this vote is different than the earlier seven. Before I do, let me just kind of dig into the procedural nature of this vote.

War Powers Resolutions, like other Senate legislation, get referred to a committee--in this case, the committee of jurisdiction is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which I am a member.

The committee does not have to take up legislation, and it is often the case--and I have often filed legislation that has never been taken up, not just by SFRC but other committees as well. If there is not a critical mass, it may not be taken up.

In matters of war, the drafters of the War Powers Resolution deemed the topic so important that they created a proceeding by which a single Senator could ask that the committee be discharged from consideration of the bill and the bill be reported out of the committee without a recommendation for actual consideration on the floor.

And so War Powers Resolutions in the instance of hostilities that have not been authorized by Congress, a Senator can file a resolution, a certain number of days elapse, and then we can come to the floor and ask for the committee to be discharged.

We have had seven earlier votes--all unsuccessful--asking that this war, which is now, I believe, on day 81, be--if a committee is not going to take it up, let's at least have the debate on the floor of the Senate that the Constitution intends.

And so the formal vote that we will have later is not a vote on the resolution itself, which says no war in Iran absent a vote of Congress, but it is a vote to discharge that resolution from the committee and allow it to be debated on the Senate floor. That is what we are voting on.

Should a matter that is in committee, that has been held in committee with no action for now 80 days during the midst of a pending war in which 14 American troops have been killed, hundreds have been injured, and we have spent north of $29 billion--if we are not going to have committee action on the bill, can we not take it up on the floor of the Senate and debate it in front of the American public?

So now to my question: Why is this vote different than the vote we had last week? And I would argue there are a couple of reasons that make this vote different and the stakes higher that should suggest a need to finally take this matter up on the Senate floor.

First, we are now well past the 60-day deadline in the War Powers Resolution that, under the view of some, provides a President the ability to unilaterally take the Nation to war without a vote of Congress. I don't read the statute that way, but a number do, and we can have a good-faith disagreement about what the statute means.

But last week was the first time we had a vote after the 60-day deadline. The clock keeps running. We are now, I believe, at day 81. We are well past the statutory time that might give a President an argument that ``I don't need to come to Congress to get a war approved.''

The fact that we are now well past that deadline--a deadline that many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle say should be an important milestone in terms of congressional review--is important.

The second thing that is important is we are in a cease-fire, but kind of a particular cease-fire right now. We are in a cease-fire where there is no active bombing, but there are still hostilities--the blockade of Iranian ports by the United States, the significant closing of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran's military action--action taken against both military ships and commercial ships. We are in a cease-fire, but we have not ended hostilities, but the cease-fire entered a new phase just within the last day or two.

As you know, President Trump indicated that he was within an hour of ordering the restart of the bombing campaign but decided that it would be a good idea to engage in discussion with regional nations about: Could there be a path forward to find a diplomatic end to the war?

And my argument, Mr. President, to you and to all of my colleagues and to the American public is this: If we are in a cease-fire where we are trying to find a diplomatic path forward, rather than precipitously start a bombing campaign again, this is exactly the time where Congress should be having a debate about the rationale for the war, the status of the war, the plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, what a likely diplomatic off-ramp would look like, what the costs of the war are, how much U.S. munitions have been depleted, how much U.S. military facilities have been damaged.

When we are in this cease-fire period trying to find a diplomatic off-ramp, this seems, to me, to be the perfect time for the Senate to have the deliberate discussion about the need for a war that we should have had before the war began on February 28. Let's take advantage of this moment.

One issue in particular that is important right now is that Iran is transmitting to the President of the United States proposals for a diplomatic solution. As all know, Iran presented a proposal to the United States--to President Trump that he immediately dismissed as garbage. Guess what. No one in this body or in the House has been shown what that proposal is. None of us know what was in the proposal that the President dismissed as garbage.

This body contains many Members who have served in the military. This body contains many Members who have been on the committees of jurisdiction--the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, the Intel Committee--not just for years, but in some instances for decades.

I assert that in the Senate and in the House, there are many people who would have some significant expertise about analyzing a proposal from Iran and determining whether or not it had merit.

Maybe it is a hundred percent garbage. Maybe it is a good offer. Maybe it is somewhere in the middle where there are pieces of it that are good but more needs to be done. But thus far, not a single Member of the 535 public servants serving in the House or the Senate know anything about the deal that the President has thrown out, and that is a very important fact.

Do we want to let--we have let one President take us to a war that has

caused the injury and death of American troops, the spiking of gas prices, the spending of $30 billion. We have let him do that on his own. Do we want to also give him the sole ability to review a peace proposal, a diplomacy proposal, an end to the war and to make the decision on his own without any examination by this deliberative legislative body about whether the proposal is something that we can work with?

Are we so willing to let this President tell our sons and daughters: You are going back to war because I have determined that the peace proposal, the diplomacy proposal, is garbage without letting anyone in the article I branch even review it?

I think the fact that there have been peace proposals presented to the President that we have not seen is also something that is extremely important as we contemplate this War Powers Resolution.

Let's have the discussion, including analyzing proposals that have been made, so we can offer our advice to the President about whether diplomacy seems like it is realistic or doable and not have him dismiss deals out of hand without sharing the contents.

And, finally, there is one additional matter that puts this in a different light than last week. It was only last week right before the vote that some of us were informed by the White House that the White House refused to share with Congress the legal rationale for this war. Any administration that takes the Nation to war does so bound to follow the law, and any administration that takes us to war does so on the basis of a legal opinion developed by the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. And that has been the case during all of the administrations that I have served under including President Trump term 2.

The boat strikes that President Trump's administration were carrying out in the Pacific and Caribbean, the military operation in Venezuela-- they were both justified by a legal opinion.

Now, I was disappointed that the President was unwilling to make that legal opinion available to the public, but the White House did allow us--the Members of the Senate and House--to read it in a classified setting so we could at least read what the legal rationale was and reach our own conclusion about whether we thought the legal rationale made sense.

To my knowledge, in my now nearly 13 years in the Senate, this is the first instance of a President taking us into military action and refusing to show the House or Senate the legal opinion. There is a legal opinion that has been drafted to justify this war, but the administration will not let any of us--I thought it might just be me-- they turned down my request to look at the legal opinion--but I have gone to the leadership of the Armed Services Committee and the other key committees, and they haven't seen it either.

Are we really willing to go to war on the basis of a legal opinion that the administration is unwilling to even show to us who are Members of the U.S. Senate? I mean, it sort of raises the question: What are they hiding? If they feel confident about their legal rationale or about the factual assertions they would make in the legal rationale, they would be willing to show it to us--as they have with respect to other military actions as recently as the attack of Venezuela to depose the Maduro government.

So I would argue that one important feature of this motion at this time to discharge the committee would be it would force the administration to come forward and finally show us the legal rationale upon which they base this, in my view, illegal and unwise war.

So those are at least four or five reasons why this vote this week to discharge this matter from the committee and finally bring it to the floor of the Senate is different than any of the seven votes we have had before. We are well beyond day 60. We are in this fragile cease- fire. That is the perfect time to have a discussion before we start up the war again.

The President is receiving peace and diplomatic proposals that he is throwing into the trash can without sharing them with us. We might have some ideas about the merit and validity of those proposals, and we ought to be able to decide whether they have merit enough that that is the path we should take instead of sending our sons and daughters back into harm's way by reengaging in the bombing campaign.

Finally, if the administration is unwilling to share with us the legal rationale for the war, that should be a flashing red light to every Member of this body.

So, Mr. President, within a short period of time, I will come to the floor and make the motion, and we will have this vote on an eighth motion to discharge. It is my hope that it is successful and we finally move to having a debate about this most consequential war in full view of the American public.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, pursuant to 50 U.S.C. 1546a and in accordance with section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 185.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the Prince William County Crisis Receiving Center Complex.

The crisis receiving center complex, CRC, and colocated community services outpatient and community-based programs opened in October 2025. The CRC supports adults and youth who are experiencing behavioral health crises and helps to reduce reliance on inpatient psychiatric hospitalization.

Referred to as the model for mental health services, the CRC is operated by Connections Health Solutions under contract with Prince William Community Services. The center utilizes a 23-hour observation model and includes an on-site crisis stabilization unit for individuals--adults and youth--requiring more intensive, short-term care. This colocation of crisis, outpatient, and community-based services in one location offers capabilities which support people when intervention is most vital, including collaboration around connections for ongoing service needs, medical assessments, withdrawal management, and the ability to safely serve individuals under temporary detention orders. It operates 24/7, every day of the year, providing responsive care and interventions.

The CRC was designed with the purpose of helping people in crisis in their most difficult and vulnerable moments and to guide them toward healing; and it is working. According to the CRC, since the complex opened, emergency department wait times in the region have decreased by 66 percent; police officer hours spent on mental health calls decreased by 900 hours after the first month; out of area transport for temporary detention orders decreased from 43 percent to 8 percent; and State hospital admissions from Prince William County have declined significantly.

I am grateful for the vision of the board of county supervisors in Prince William County. I am also grateful for those who work in the CRC and provide timely, compassionate, evidence-based behavioral health support to people in mental health crisis. I applaud their dedication to the health and well-being of their fellow Virginians.

Mr. President, I first ask unanimous consent that my legislative fellow Patrick McCormick be granted floor privileges for duration of his legislative fellowship with my office.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President. I rise today to recognize May 11 to May 17, 2026, as National Salvation Army Week.

Founded in 1865, the Salvation Army has been unfailingly committed to serving those in need without discrimination. For more than 150 years, the Salvation Army has provided essential social services, including disaster relief, food assistance, shelter, rehabilitation programs, and youth development initiatives in local communities across the United States.

The Salvation Army serves more than 27 million Americans annually, offering compassion, hope, and support to the most vulnerable populations, including individuals experiencing homelessness, veterans, seniors, human trafficking survivors, and those recovering from addiction. Across the Nation, the Salvation Army operates shelters, food pantries, job training programs, and emergency disaster relief efforts that strengthen communities and improve lives.

The Salvation Army continues to be a trusted partner at the local, State, and Federal levels, providing critical services that address poverty, hunger, and natural disasters. Volunteers, donors, and officers of the Salvation Army exemplify the spirit of service, working tirelessly to provide relief and opportunity for those in need--and should be recognized and commended for their commitment to the betterment of others.

I am grateful for the work that the Salvation Army accomplishes every day and applaud its dedication to social service.

Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague and strongly support his resolution that will be voted on tomorrow, and I have taken the floor often on this topic and don't need to repeat things I have said before. But today, I guess what I want to say is basically this: The American public does not like being lied to by its government. Of course we don't but particularly on matters of war.

I am old enough to remember two tragic circumstances where the American public was lied to by their civilian leadership about war-- many lies were told by successive administrations, beginning with the Eisenhower administration and through Kennedy and Johnson in particular, about the Vietnam war--and how tragic it was when Americans realized that much of what they had been told that led, first, the United States to take over the French colonial project in Southeast Asia and then to engage in war--much of what they had been told was false.

When you are losing your sons and daughters--56,000 U.S. deaths in the Vietnam war--and then you find that the civilian leadership has been lying to you while troops have been serving honorably, it is incredibly embittering in a State like Virginia where there are so many military equities but to every State.

We were lied to about the war in Iraq. We were told that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. That was not

true. We were told that Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons and had weapons of mass destruction they would use against the United States. That was not true. But those were put on the table before a vote in Congress to engage in a war that most now agree 25 years later was a massive, massive mistake.

So I come from a State that lost a lot of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam, and I join my colleague today to support his resolution because I believe the United States is not being told the truth about the situation in Iran.

First, the administration worked very, very hard up until essentially a week or so ago to avoid any public hearings about the war in either the House or the Senate, in the committees that have jurisdiction over important matters. I mean, not to have a public hearing about a war?

Right now--and I am going to go into this in an Armed Services Committee hearing later in the week--the administration is not even willing to share the legal rationale, the opinion developed by the Office of Legal Counsel at the State Department. They are not even willing to share that rationale with Members of the U.S. Senate. They won't share it with members of the Intel Committee. They won't share it with members of the Armed Services Committee. They won't share it with members of the Foreign Relations Committee. They won't even share the legal rationale. What are they afraid of? That raises some natural suspicion.

In at least two instances, I believe the administration is not being truthful with the American public about this war. One was the assertion of a whole different series of rationales, but one of the rationales that seems to now be the one that they rely on is, well, of course the war is needed to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. No, it isn't. We had stopped Iran from getting a nuclear weapon by a diplomatic deal that Donald Trump chose to tear up, as my colleague just mentioned. That had stopped Iran's nuclear program.

That deal was a comprehensive deal that took months, even years, to negotiate. It contained some provisions that were time-limited--5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years--but it contained two provisions that were permanent. The first was on page 1 of the deal: that Iran will not seek to purchase or acquire or develop nuclear weapons. That was a permanent pledge by Iran. The second part of the deal that was permanent was Iran agreed to permanent inspections by the IAEA, including inspections according to an additional protocol that had been developed by the nations of the world after North Korea had cheated on a nuclear program earlier.

Those were permanent pledges by Iran to not pursue nuclear weapons and to allow intrusive inspections, and President Trump decided, over the objection of his Secretaries of State and Defense, to tear up the deal. So when President Trump says now: Well, we have to wage war; we have to subject our troops to being killed and being injured and billions of dollars of costs and Americans and people all over the world paying more for gas to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon-- that is a lie. Diplomacy had stopped them until President Trump tore it up.

To make matters worse, President Trump, with the United States, following a 12-day war of Israel against Iran to destroy their nuclear capacity, took additional action that the White House said had destroyed Iran's nuclear program.

So if we had controlled it first by diplomacy and then a year ago added on a war waged by Israel against Iran to obliterate the nuclear program, there was not a nuclear program that justified this war. There was no threat of any action anytime soon by Iran to develop nuclear weapons that justified this war.

I don't like to use this phrase. I don't use this phrase a lot: The White House has lied to the American public, and every time they say this war is justified to stop Iran's nuclear program, they are telling the American public a lie.

The second lie they are telling--and I will just say this and then hand it back to my colleague--is a different kind of a lie. If you state a set of facts that are true but you don't state the full set of facts, you are telling a lie. And I have heard President Trump and I have heard Secretary Hegseth say many times: We need to stop Iran because they have been a thorn in our side since 1979. They have been a thorn in our side for the last 47 years.

Our decision makers are acting as if the U.S.-Iran history started in 1979 when the Iranian people toppled their government and then, yes, in the aftermath of that toppling, started to say ``Death to America,'' ``Death to Israel.'' They act like that is the only history. My colleagues will recount Iranian misbehavior--taking over our Embassy, in violation of international law; funding proxies to attack the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and other locations; funding proxies that attack U.S. troops who are in the region in or near Iran-- my colleagues will cite that information, and they will cite it accurately. And Iran has done a series of horrible things to their own people, to American positions, to other nations in the region. But my colleagues always ignore, the President always ignores, and Secretary Hegseth always ignores that history didn't start in 1979.

If you want to understand the history of this relationship between the United States and Iran, you have to go back to World War II when we were allies. There was a pivotal conference in the middle of World War II in Tehran in 1943 where the allies--the United States, the Soviet Union at the time, and Britain--guaranteed to Iran its sovereignty and its independence and its borders, and the Iranian people loved the United States, and we were allies.

Then in 1953, during the Eisenhower administration, the United States made a catastrophic mistake. There is a recent book by Scott Anderson called ``King of Kings'' that lays this out in clear and unmistakable detail. The United States decided we would topple the democratic Government of Iran. In 1953, the United States, through the CIA, engineered a coup. We toppled the democratic government. We installed the Shah, a dictator. We funded the secret police of the Shah, who tortured, exiled, imprisoned, and killed thousands of Iranians. And the United States basically put this puppet government--a dictator--over the Iranian people from 1953 until they finally tired of it, and they cast that government off in 1979.

Guess what. Twenty-six years of the United States funding a dictatorship killing and torturing Iranians led the new Government of Iran to be--drumroll--anti-United States. We turned Iranians from friends into enemies. We didn't have to do that, but we did it.

Secretary Hegseth and the President never mention that. They don't mention that after Iran overtook our Embassy, we funded Iraq to wage war on Iran. We gave Iraq funds. We gave Iraq intel. And in a 7- or 8- year war, Iraq--we funded Saddam Hussein to wage war against Iran. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians were killed, and they knew the United States was partially responsible for it.

In the late 1980s, a U.S. Navy vessel, the Vincennes, shot down an Iranian commercial aircraft, killing 290 civilians. It took us years to admit that we did it, but we eventually admitted that.

The United States invaded Iran's next-door neighbors to the east and west to topple their governments--Afghanistan and Iraq--and Iran believed: Well, you toppled our government in 1953. You are probably preparing to do it again.

In this recent war on Iran, we have wiped out their leadership, we have killed civilians, and we bombed a school, killing schoolgirls. Now, we all know that the United States does not intentionally decide to target schools. That is not what we do intentionally. But to an Iranian who watched the United States intentionally topple their government in 1953, intentionally participate in an assassination campaign against their leaders, shoot down a civilian aircraft in the late 1980s, intentionally fund Iraq to wage war against Iran--an Iranian will look at U.S. actions and say: Wait a minute. This is part of a pattern. We were friends until you decided to topple our government in 1953.

The point I am making about this is that if you are not willing to be honest about the history and acknowledge not

only Iranian misbehavior--which continues to this day. They just executed somebody in Iran--a student--in a gross violation of human rights. So you have to acknowledge that the Iranian regime has conducted all kinds of bad activities. But if you are not willing to acknowledge the role the United States has played in turning this nation that was a nation of allies into enemies, then you are going to get the policy wrong. You will get the policy wrong if you don't acknowledge the truth.

What is that truth? as I finish. The truth is, if more war between the United States and Iran would bring a solution to any of these problems, then we would have found the answer at some point between 1953 and now. We have had a back-and-forth going between the United States and Iran since 1953, and it has not produced peace, it has not produced stability, and it has not produced anything for the good of the Iranian people or the American people, frankly. For us to think now that, you know what, more war, just a little more war would be the right thing to do to bring a better resolution to this painful 75-year chapter--it shows a profound ignorance of our history and a just shocking level of naivety.

So that is why I have joined with my colleagues every week to look this Senate in the eye and say: As a deliberative body with constitutional powers and an oath that we have taken to provide a check against an Executive--particularly on matters of war--we can't let this go under the radar screen, classified hearings only. We have to be as loud and consistent as can be to say that more war between the United States and Iran is not an answer to anything. It hasn't been an answer to anything since 1953, and it is not an answer to anything now. That is why I support this resolution.

We should not be at war without a vote of Congress. Even if there were such a vote--I would vote against it, but if it were to pass this body and be signed by the President, I would then drop my complaint that the war is illegal. I would say it is unwise, but I would be outvoted, as I am often on events, and thus it wouldn't be illegal.

It is an illegal war. It is an unwise war that demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the deep, tragic history between the United States and Iran. And for that, to my colleague from Oregon, I strongly support your resolution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Mr. Richard Ritter, a true patriot who has dedicated more than 55 years of service to this country, first as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force and later as a civil servant and Senior Executive Service leader with the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and the Missile Defense Agency.

A native of New York City, Mr. Ritter graduated from Manhattan College with a degree in electrical engineering, earned a master of science from New York University, and entered Active Duty in 1971 as an engineering officer. Over a distinguished 27-year Air Force career, he served in a range of critical roles, including systems engineering, telecommunications leadership in Germany, and strategic analysis of command, control, and reconnaissance systems.

In 1990, Mr. Ritter was assigned to the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, later the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, where he led theater missile defense systems integration and battle management, command, control, and communications efforts across the Department of Defense and with allied partners. Following his military service, he continued this work as a civilian, serving in senior engineering and leadership roles responsible for system integration, interoperability, and architecture development for the Nation's missile defense programs.

At the Missile Defense Agency, Mr. Ritter served as deputy program manager and later program director for Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications, C2BMC, where his leadership was instrumental in establishing a global, integrated network supporting the Missile Defense System. There, he helped build a system that integrates data from sensors across 19 time zones and in orbit, providing real-time situational awareness and coordination to combatant commanders. His direction to deliver enhanced command-and-control capabilities and critical system updates directly increased weapon system effectiveness and contributed to the operational success of the Missile Defense System, helping to strengthen the protection of the United States and its allies.

Mr. Ritter also played a key role in deploying forward-based radar systems and missile defense capabilities across Europe, the Indo- Pacific, and the Middle East, strengthening coordination with allies and expanding the reach of U.S. missile defense. His work advanced space-based sensing, communications, and tracking capabilities and supported the development of integrated, multi-domain missile defense architectures that remain vital to our national security.

Mr. Ritter's leadership and technical expertise have left an indelible mark on the Missile Defense Agency and on the Nation's defense. As he prepares for a well-earned retirement, I thank him for his commitment, perseverance, and dedication to the United States of America. I wish him the very best in the years ahead.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on a War Powers Resolution that will be called up for a vote in the 5 o'clock hour, I believe, and I expect a number of other colleagues might take the floor. This is a resolution that I filed together with Senators Gallego and Schiff, and it is like other resolutions that I have filed in recent weeks to challenge the President's authority to take the United States to war without a vote of Congress.

In this instance, this resolution deals with the country of Cuba. The United States has had a long, long history with Cuba that I needn't recount here, but suffice it to say, as a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, I have never heard the suggestion that Cuba poses an imminent security threat to the United States, and I think it is an accepted fact that there is currently no war authorization passed by Congress that would authorize military actions against Cuba.

And so using the privileged provision of the War Powers Resolution, I have filed this, together with my colleagues, to say we should not be at war--we should not be engaged in hostilities with Cuba unless there is a congressional debate and vote.

My argument is that, under the terms of the resolution, we are already engaged in hostilities with Cuba because we are using American force--primarily the Coast Guard but other assets as well--to engage in a very devastating economic blockade of the nation. If anyone were doing to the United States what we are doing to Cuba, we would definitely consider it an act of war.

Let me describe what United States actions with respect to Cuba now mean to Cuban citizens. The blockade which went into effect and is using United States assets to block energy from being delivered to the island--because it does not have its own energy sources--has led to severe humanitarian crises across Cuba. Between January and March, nearly 100,000 scheduled surgical procedures were not carried out in hospitals in the country due to power limitations--power limitations brought on by the fuel blockade. More than 11,000 of these procedures were procedures that had been scheduled for children.

Hospitals in Cuba are facing a particularly severe shortage of fuel since Cuban hospitals are run by the Cuban Government and President Trump has focused on curtailing shipments of energy destined for governmental use, and that governmental use includes hospitals and other healthcare providers. There has been significant press reporting about the humanitarian impact of this energy blockade upon the healthcare sector and medical shortages in Cuba.

In addition to the canceling of hospital procedures, the shortage of energy and particularly the blocking of energy to the Cuban Government has meant the cutoff of running water in many urban areas because the water supply systems in Cuba rely upon electric pumps. More than a third of the Cuban population does not currently have access to clean water. Eighty-seven percent of the national water system's pumps rely on grid electricity to function. Trash has piled up because of lack of gas to run garbage trucks, and doctors say preventable deaths are rising as equipment fails, including the refrigeration that is necessary to maintain certain medications at appropriately low temperatures.

In Cuba, daily power cuts in urban and rural areas have been lasting between 12 and 20 hours and, in some cases, exceeding 48 to 72 hours. Cuba has experienced multiple national blackouts in the months of March and April. Cuba is a nation that is very rural, and these cuts fall particularly heavily upon rural Cuba.

In late March, the United States Coast Guard did allow a single Russian oil tanker carrying about 730,000 barrels of oil to pass through the blockade, providing Cuba with a few weeks of fuel. But in a country where the average monthly wage is about $15, gas is now nearly $40 a gallon. If you can find it, you probably can't afford it.

The blockade of energy also affects food prices. They have risen more than 13 percent. Restrictions in rural electrical supply are projected to cause a 40-percent reduction in short-cycle crop yields--crops like vegetables, beans, and potatoes. Cold chain disruption has led to significant rates of spoilage for perishable foods.

These are the kinds of things that happen when the United States decides, for no reason other than a desire to change the Cuban regime, that we will impose an energy blockade upon them. And again, if another country was doing this to the United States and causing the cancellation of medical procedures, especially for kids; the blackouts; the shutting down of municipality water supplies; and other significant challenges in the United States, we would consider it a hostility and even an act of war.

It is interesting that there has not yet been a clear justification for what the United States is doing to Cuba other than a desire to change its regime. There is no argument that they have nuclear weapons or a ballistic missile program. There is no argument that they pose an imminent threat to the United States.

Now, could we stand here and debate at some length and find some significant bipartisan support for the notion that the Cuban regime is a gross violator of human rights? I think we could. It has been a source of sadness that as the United States took some steps toward normalization of Cuba, that did not lead the Cuban Government to necessarily open up human rights or freedoms for its population. So, sure, we could have a debate about what we thought about the Cuban regime, but a desire to change the regime of another nation is not a sufficient reason for the United States to threaten and carry out military action that is devastating to the population.

So given that regime change should not be a reason for war unless it is debated upon and embraced by Congress--and if we were going to say the regime change of a bad regime is a reason for the United States to go to war, we would have an awful lot of countries in the world where we would be debating about going to war. But given that there isn't an imminent threat to the United States from Cuba, I am glad to join with my colleagues and call up this War Powers Resolution.

We just heard a powerful speech from King Charles III. We took the break to walk down to the House to hear the speech, and it was a powerful one. And one of the lines in the speech that got a lot of applause on all sides of the aisle--and I even noticed members of the President's own Cabinet standing to applaud a line--was his assertion that part of the origin of the American Declaration of Independence and the American independence project was to form a government whereby the legislature would have the power, as the article I branch, to stand up against overreaches by an Executive.

An overreaching Executive, even in matters of war, is not something that is new to the United States. It is not something that is partisan. Executives of both parties, Whigs and Federalists, before there were Democrats and Republicans, often attempted to overreach. But what the Framers put into

the Constitution and that constitutional command as expressed in the statute that allows a Member of Congress to offer a war powers resolution is that when there are efforts by an Executive to go too far, then it is up to Congress to stand up and provide a check against any overreach.

Abraham Lincoln, as a Congressperson, wrote a letter to his law partner grappling with this very issue, and he said the Framers of the Constitution were very focused on reducing what he called ``Kingly oppressions.'' And he said the most Kingly of all oppressions is the tendency of Executives to distract or impoverish their populations by taking them to war. And so, for that reason, we vested the question of war with the legislature.

And so given that there are underway hostilities against Cuba that are causing significant humanitarian crises among children and others, innocent civilians in Cuba, and given that there has been no congressional authorization of these hostilities, I ask my colleagues to do what we were just urged to do by King Charles III and, in the best tradition of American Government, stand for the proposition that the legislature should provide a check against an overreaching Executive.

Please vote in the affirmative on my resolution that we should not be engaged in hostilities or war with Cuba absent a congressional debate and vote.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am about to make a motion with respect to the War Powers Resolution, but I understand there will be a point of order offered that is not debatable. So I just want to say that my understanding is that the point of order will suggest that what is currently being engaged in, in Cuba, is not hostilities.

The War Powers Resolution clearly contemplates a resolution being within the contemplation of the body of hostilities that are ongoing or are imminent because Congress wanted an ability for Congress to stop a war before it started, and that was contemplated in the War Powers Resolution.

I would also point out that the United States is using force to block energy from going to Cuba, and that has led to the cancelation of 100,000 surgeries in hospitals, including 11,000 for children. It has led to massive power blackouts. It has led to the unavailability of clean water because water systems depend upon electric pumps.

My argument would be, if anyone were doing that to the United States and affecting our citizens in that way, we would certainly view that as hostilities that we would want to do everything we could to stop.

With that, Mr. President, pursuant to section 1013 of the Department of State Authorization Act for fiscal years 1984 and 1985--that is 50 U.S.C., section 1546(a)--and in accordance with section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 124.

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

Mr. President, I rise to support my colleague Senator Baldwin's War Powers Resolution. I have spoken on all of these resolutions now going back to the very beginning of the war. I will not be long. I thank my colleague for bringing this forward.

In just the news of today, one aspect of the war is the increasing fuel costs and its effect on the global economy. There have been three news items just in the last 3 hours.

First, Lufthansa Airlines is canceling thousands of flights because of increased fuel costs.

Second, the American airline Spirit Airlines is on the verge of bankruptcy, with the U.S. Government considering the need to bail out Spirit Airlines.

Finally, there has been an announcement within the last couple of hours by United Airlines--one of our largest carriers--that they believe they may have to increase airfares by up to 20 percent for some significant time into the future to recoup the costs of additional aviation fuel.

If you just think back to February 27, it seems like a long time ago now because so much has happened. Less than 2 months ago, oil prices were normal, the Strait of Hormuz was open, and commerce was happening. Then President Trump made the decision--without a rationale, without a plan, without consulting with allies, without consulting or seeking a vote of Congress--to enter the Nation into yet another war in the Middle East.

The entire world is suffering, but the suffering that matters the most to me is the suffering of Americans--the 13 families who have lost loved ones in an unnecessary war and the hundreds of our military members who have been injured and their lives forever altered going forward.

I want to say this to my colleagues: You made a really good point. This is a critical moment. We are in a cease-fire. It is actually easier to stop something when you are in a cease-fire.

If we could vote yes on this resolution and get it to the House, it could have the effect of extending the cease-fire so that we don't start bombing again.

We know the President has been going back and forth. He came within a few hours last night of ending the cease-fire, of calling for a renewing of the bombing that has killed civilians and that has dramatically damaged civilian infrastructure in Iran. Yet, at the very last minute, as he is prone to do, he changed his mind and said the cease-fire should be extended. I salute that.

For whatever the reason or however he is going to describe it, extending the cease-fire is the right thing to do because all of this gets harder when bombs start falling again. The regime's backbone gets stiffer and stiffer. Their desire to retaliate grows stronger and stronger. The chaos in the region escalates the threat to American troops. It escalates. This all gets harder if bombs start falling again.

So while we are in the moment of a cease-fire that is fragile and that may not be counted upon to last for very long, if we could pass Senator Baldwin's resolution, we would send the strong message that Congress wants the pause. We want the pause. We don't want this war to pick up again unless or until we have the debate and the vote that the Constitution requires. That would be the right thing to have happen. That would be respecting our troops.

I will conclude and just say this: After nearly 14 years on the Armed Services Committee representing one of the most military States in the country and thinking as a military dad ``What is it that we owe our troops?'' we owe our troops the resources that they need.

My colleagues and I on both sides of the aisle every year pass the Defense authorizing bill. It is the only bill that we have passed every year for 63, 64 years in a row. This is something for which, in a bipartisan way, we join together to make sure that our troops have the resources they need. That is the first thing we owe them.

The second thing we owe our troops is respect, and that is why so many of us on both sides of the aisle go out of our way, as we are traveling around our States, to spend time with our military families and to thank those who serve. When we have the opportunity during recess, we travel around the world to see our troops in harm's way. We look them in the eye and thank them for the sacrifices they make.

But I would argue that an even more important way to respect our troops--even more than the resources we provide and the thanks we offer--is to not use them for missions that are not worth their risking their lives for. Let's not use them for stupid reasons. Let's use them for good reasons--when war is the last resort that must occur in order to protect America. At that point, our troops who have signed up have volunteered for a mission that they know might be dangerous, and yes, we should deploy them in those circumstances. But when we use troops foolishly, as we often have during my lifetime--in Vietnam and in Iraq, where they served bravely, but in a way, they were betrayed by poor civilian decisionmaking--that is the cardinal form of disrespect to our troops.

The way we use them in the right way is by having this kind of a debate about whether a mission is in the national interest before we send them in to risk their lives.

Senator Baldwin's motion at this moment when we are at a cease-fire gives us a chance to step back, have that debate, and have that vote. In full view of the American people, those who want to make the case that this war is worth it should be able to make that case, and those of us who don't believe it is worth it should make that case. Then we would have a vote, and the answer would be in accord with the process set out by the Framers of our Constitution.

If the will of Congress is that we should go to war, I might disagree with it, but I would argue that it was done lawfully, just as our Framers demanded, but if, as I imagine, the full debate and vote in these bodies does not provide sufficient votes to authorize the war, how dare we keep asking our troops to risk their lives for something we are unwilling to vote for.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of my colleague's War Powers Resolution.

I am proud to be a cosponsor with Senator Duckworth, and I am very humbled to be here in the Chamber and listen to her--to listen to her recount her own experience as to her own vow as a Member of this body and to take the very painful lesson that she absorbed when her future was completely altered by her wartime service and put it to a positive use in trying to protect others like her.

Senator Duckworth proves a point that gets proven over and over and over again: that our military serves with distinction and bravery and that they serve with professionalism and excellence. But so often, the issue for them is the quality of the civilian decisions about whether they go to war or not. So often in my lifetime--in Vietnam and Iraq and now in Iran--that brave service was compromised--really, betrayed--by poor civilian decision making and for improper political reasons, rather than a careful assessment of what was in America's best interests.

I have been asking the question since this war began: Have we learned nothing from 25 years of war--unproductive war--in the Middle East?

It is pretty apparent to me, in having asked that question over and over again, that this administration has not.

This administration has not factored in the 14,000-plus deaths in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have not factored in the more than 65,000 American troops and contractors who were injured. They have not factored in the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. They have not factored in the fact that the U.S. military engagements did not produce a safer region. They have not factored in the $8 trillion spent during those 25 years. They have acted as if that history is now wiped away, and we can engage in a war in the Middle East without reflecting upon these lessons that are written in blood and in the precious resources of our Nation.

So I am not going to ask the question again today, ``Have we learned nothing from 25 years of war?'' because I think the answer to that, sadly, is plain.

So let me ask a different question: What have we learned in 45 days of war in Iran? What have we learned?

I would argue that we have learned at least three things: War is costly. An unwise war is deeply unpopular. Those who would make diplomacy impossible

make war inevitable. I think those are the lessons that the last 45 days have taught us.

First, war is costly.

As my colleague laid out, 13 members of our armed services--one who lived in Spotsylvania County, VA, who had purchased a home, who was within a few months of retirement and was wanting to retire to that home with his family--have died. Spouses and kids and parents and friends and brothers and sisters are mourning the losses from this unwise and illegal war.

Hundreds of our troops have been injured, and stories come out about the depth of those injuries and the lack of planning that left them exposed to the attacks that caused them to be injured. While I wish it were otherwise, it is likely that there will be more such stories.

There is also the cost in dollars. We are spending, by some estimates, between $1 billion and $2 billion a day. We are expecting to see the President, sometime soon, send over a new request for a dramatic increase in funding to fund this Iran war.

But let me talk about costs in a different way, just the cost to everyday Americans' pocketbooks.

Today is tax day. Today is tax day. President Trump is the ``taxer in chief.'' Last year, he imposed chaotic tariffs on the world's economy, right before tax day, and those tariffs cost American families a couple of thousand dollars each. With this one-man tariff war that President Trump started without having congressional authority--that was, ultimately, in significant part, struck down as illegal by the Supreme Court in February of this year--last year, right before tax day, President Trump stood up and showed by his actions that he was the ``taxer in chief.''

This year, on tax day, we are seeing Americans pay more for food, pay more for energy, and pay more for building supplies because of the actions of this President--in particular, just the price of gas at the gas pump in Virginia and nationally. The price of gas has gone up $1 a gallon since February 27, just because of President Trump's unilateral decision to take us to war.

Virginians buy 8 million gallons of gas a day. So that is $8 million Virginians are having to shell out of their pockets--that they weren't having to shell out--because Donald Trump started this war.

This is happening in Illinois. It is happening in Connecticut. It is happening in Nebraska. It is happening in every State, and it is happening all over the world. We are reading about economies that are shutting down 1 day a week. We are reading about street protests in allied nations over the cost of petroleum, all driven by this one man's deciding to take us to war.

So the first lesson from the last 45 days: War is costly.

The second lesson is, an unwise war is deeply unpopular. This war is deeply unpopular with the American public.

Most of us took the last 2 weeks of recess to travel around our States. I represent Virginia, which I believe is one of the most pro- military States in the country. I spent significant time in the Hampton Roads area, which is the center of American naval power, where we build ships and subs, and it has the biggest Navy base in the world.

I spent a lot of time with Virginians over the last 2 weeks. This war is unpopular. Virginians are deployed, and they don't know why, and they don't know when they will come home.

The USS Ford carrier, today, passes the record for the longest deployment of a carrier in American modern history. They were supposed to be home with their families before Christmas, and they are still deployed away from their families, with significant maintenance issues reducing the quality of life on that ship.

This war is unpopular. But, of course, it is unpopular. If you go to war without a clear rationale--and the President has floated five or six of them. If you go to war without a clear plan, without apparently anticipating what everyone would have anticipated with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, if you go to war without allies, if you go to war without Congress, the war will be unpopular. With no plan, no rationale, no allies, and no congressional debate, the war will be unpopular.

This was so easy to predict at the beginning. For some reason, the President thought the magic of his own personality could turn a war of choice into something that would be embraced by the American public. The American public is too smart for that.

So an unwise war is deeply unpopular. That is a lesson of the last 45 days.

Then, the last lesson, I believe, is a profound one that we have to acknowledge, and that is this: Those who make diplomacy impossible make war inevitable.

The President, the Vice President, and his U.N. Representative--even within the last 2 hours, in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--said the war was necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. There is no intelligence that said that Iran was near getting a nuclear weapon. If what President Trump wanted was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, then he committed one of the most egregious blunders in the history of the United States, in his first term, when he tore up a diplomatic deal that did precisely that.

The United States and our European allies and adversaries--China and Russia--engaged in a 20-month negotiation with Iran that led to an agreement. On the first page of the agreement--page 1--Iran reaffirms that it will never seek to purchase or develop any nuclear weapons. We had the agreement with Iran for no nuclear weapons. We had mechanisms of inspection. We had limitations on centrifuges and limitations on the enrichment of plutonium or uranium.

We had a diplomatic deal, and the President tore it up. The deal was working according to our allies. The deal was working according to President Trump's first Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, who urged him to stay in it.

The deal was working, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency that was investigating and inspecting Iranian facilities, but President Trump took a deal that guaranteed no nuclear weapons ever, and he tore it up. The United States doesn't walk away from diplomatic deals; other nations do that. But the President established a dangerous precedent. And many of us said to him at the time: If you tear up a diplomatic deal, you are paving the path to war. It might be soon or it might not be soon, but you are paving a path to war.

If you make diplomacy impossible, you make war inevitable, and that is exactly what Donald Trump has done. Those troops who have died, they have died because Trump tore up a diplomatic deal. The costs that are being experienced by American consumers, we are suffering those costs because Donald Trump tore up a diplomatic deal. The injuries to civilians, to schoolchildren, the injuries to American troops, those are occurring because Donald Trump tore up a diplomatic deal.

We still have a seal that is available right here on the walls of the Senate that has the eagle representing the United States and in each claw it is holding the arrows of war or the laurel branches of peace, and the seal of the United States always has the eagle looking to the laurel branches. We are supposed to prefer diplomacy first.

But Donald Trump has decided that a Department of Defense now needs to be a Department of War, and rules of engagement to protect civilians now can be dismissed and called stupid and things that we don't need to follow.

I hope this body still believes that America should prefer diplomacy first. I hope this body still believes in the United States being a values-based nation, not a bully nation. That is what this vote is about, and that is why I am so proud to join my colleague to support it, and I will continue to be on the floor with my colleagues every week until we stop an illegal and unwise war.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Sanders' resolutions. I will be voting for both of them.

On February 21, 2024, I wrote a public letter to President Biden, and I said: The Hamas attack on Israel is devastating and Israel faces threats from other adversaries in the region and we should help Israel defend its civilians, but we should do so only by providing defensive weapons to Israel and not offensive weapons.

Why defensive weapons?

We have long been a security partner of Israel. Those who follow the relationship understand there are threats to Israeli civilians that are very present because of actors in the region like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; and Iran and Iranian-backed militias and Israeli civilians do face threats that warrant the United States providing defensive support.

But I took the public position more than 2 years ago now that it would be wrong to send offensive weapons to Israel, and that position was based on exactly the same reason, to protect civilians--protect Palestinian civilians, protect Lebanese civilians--to protect civilians. Offensive weapons delivered to Israel in the way they are using them, particularly bombs, are guaranteed to cause mass civilian suffering. That is what has happened in Gaza, and that is what is happening in Lebanon.

Anyone who has paid attention to this region just has to answer this question: Is more civilian death going to get us to the right place?

This is a region that has been replete with the deaths of civilians, and the U.S. taxpayer and this body should not be pouring gasoline or adding tinder to a fire where more and more civilians are in jeopardy.

So, since that public letter to President Biden, I have supported Senator Sanders and other resolutions before. If weapons are offensive in nature, the United States shouldn't be transferring them, and I will support the resolutions for that matter. We need to protect civilians. We don't need to pour gasoline on a fire in the region and accelerate more deaths of civilians.

I have received some outreach about this particular vote from some who say this is a vote to deny all military aid to Israel. That is not what this vote is about. This is about denying particular weapons that are offensive in nature.

Just to give you an order of magnitude, during this term of Congress, the President has noticed 27 different arms transfers to Israel; and with these two joint resolutions of disapproval, we have challenged 6-- 6 of those 27 arms transfers--as being offensive in nature. We have not challenged 21 of the arms transfers that are primarily defensive in nature. There has not been a single Senator who has brought up a challenge to the defensive arms sales because we want to protect civilian lives; but when weapons like this that are offensive in nature are guaranteed to lead to the deaths of civilians, I think it is appropriate to challenge them, and that is why I am going to support these resolutions.

I have also had some say that, if these resolutions succeed, the United States is reducing its support for Israeli defense. That is also not true. The support for Israeli defense is the result of a 10-year memorandum of understanding that has an annual allocation for Israeli defense that has been supplemented by a supplemental bill that was passed by this body in April of 2024. That amount of money, which is an annual allocation, gets drawn down by these transfers.

I would urge my colleagues to support the cessation of offensive weapons transfers. If this bill succeeds, it doesn't reduce support for Israeli defense by a single penny. It just means that Israel should request and the United States should consider transferring defensive weapons to enable Israel to defend its own civilians but not to carry out military action that would harm other civilians.

The principle of ``let's just stop the damage to civilians in the region'' seems to me to be overwhelming. If the deaths of civilians were accomplishing anything, we would have seen that accomplishment long before now. So stopping the transfer of offensive weapons seems to me to be the right thing to do not just for the United States security interests and the safety of our servicemembers in the region, but it is also the right thing to do to promote regional stability and the security of Israel.

For that reason, I will vote for the resolutions, and I appreciate my colleague for introducing them.

Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Murphy's War Powers Resolution, which I am proud to cosponsor.

I came to this body in 2013, and as I have described on multiple occasions on the floor under both Democratic and Republican Presidents, I came with one obsession, and that obsession was that the Nation should not be at war without a vote of Congress.

That obsession was born out of twin experiences--having had a child in the military and then having been Governor of Virginia and watching my Virginia guard members deploy repeatedly into Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of the years that I served in office. I had gone to too many deployments, too many homecomings. I had gone to too many wakes and to too many funerals to simply allow war to be waged on autopilot or at the say-so of any President--Democrat or Republican--no matter what their previous experience in military matters or lack of experience was.

The Founders of the Constitution were wise to decide that committing our kids' lives to war was not a decision that should be made by one person. There are exceptions recognized in the Constitution. A President can take action without Congress. If there is an ongoing attack on the United States, in self-defense, no permission is needed. A President can initiate military action if Congress has previously voted on an authorization that covers it; but other than that, there no shortcut, and there is no E-ZPass lane, and there shouldn't be.

So this is now the third resolution--and I thank my colleague Senator Murphy for bringing it--to basically ask the question of this body: Have we seen enough? Have we seen enough that we should at least have public hearings about this war? Have we seen enough that we should have a debate about whether this war should be authorized by Congress or not?

We plan on coming back every week and asking the question: Have we seen enough?--until the Senate does what the Senate is supposed to do according to the Founders, to the Framers, of our Constitution.

Since we were here last week, a number of things have happened. The number of casualties has continued to grow. The cost has continued to grow. There was significant reporting yesterday that other nations are encouraging the United States to continue this war. The reporting yesterday was that Saudi Arabia is encouraging the United States to continue this war. The reporting last week was that Israel is encouraging the United States to continue this war. Israel and Saudi Arabia are sovereign nations that have the right to make their own decisions for their own people, but they don't have the right to suggest what is the right course for the United States. We have very different interests--we have very, very different interests than those nations--and we should make the right decision for ourselves after consideration.

The price of oil has continued to significantly increase from last week. When I took the floor last week on Senator Booker's resolution, the price of oil had gone up $0.60 a gallon since before the war began on February 28. Now it has gone up $1.02. Just to convert that into the cost at the pump for Virginians, Virginians buy 8 million gallons of fuel at the pump every day. So, at $1 a gallon, that is $8 million that Virginians are spending for fuel every day that they weren't spending before the war. All indications by those who are experts in this area-- and I do not proclaim expertise in energy--is that the energy shock is likely to continue to drive up costs at the pump for Virginians and Americans for a very long time.

Why did the Framers set it up so that war should be debated before it is initiated?

So that you could ask questions.

What is the rationale for the war?

The President has suggested it was to obliterate a nuclear program that he claimed had been obliterated; to stop a ballistic missile program when the missiles' progress in Iran would have been years before they could have developed a missile that would have reached the United States; to change a regime; to back up Iranian protesters; maybe to control Iranian oil. We would have been able to ask questions about the rationale and get an answer rather than a shifting collection of answers that has been given.

We would have been able to ask questions about: What are your plans to minimize harm to civilians? We have already seen tragedies with respect to harm to civilians.

What are your plans to protect allies who, if Iran is attacked, are likely to face retaliatory attacks from Iran?

Many of our allies were not prepared to face what Iran did because the United States did not consult with them.

Just to use one item in this that would clearly have been a discussion if the administration had done what the Constitution requires and come to Congress: What about the Strait of Hormuz where massive percentages of the world's energy and critical minerals-- fertilizer and other byproducts--come through the Strait? What is the plan for that?

What is the plan to make sure that the Strait is not choked off in a way that hurts everyday American families and the entire global economy?

I mean, this is not an unforeseen problem. The British closed off the Strait of Hormuz in the early 1950s to punish Iran. The Shah of Iran threatened that many times during the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s. As those two nations were fighting, tankers were hit in ways that often shut down the Strait of Hormuz. So the Strait of Hormuz being shut down and then having a massive effect on the global economy was an absolutely known and completely foreseeable consequence of a war in the region.

And yet in the last week, the reporting of this is that either-- either--the White House didn't consider it or the White House was warned by military officials that this could happen and it would hurt the United States and others--a warning that they ignored.

Now, either of those options is bad. If they didn't consider the possibility that history demonstrated was a likelihood, that shows incredibly slipshod planning, and if they considered that possibility because it happened before and dismissed it, that also demonstrates a shocking degree of naivete.

And so we see, just in that one instance, how Virginians are being punished by paying more at the pump because of the closure of those straits. This is an entirely predictable consequence of war that didn't get an airing before the public or before the Senate, who could have asked challenging questions.

Some believe subjecting a war plan to being asked challenging questions is a burden or is a hassle or, you know, it is going to be something that we don't want to do.

No, that is exactly what should happen. Any proposal of this magnitude that is going to risk the lives of our troops should be subjected to the most searing examination that we would do of anything in this body.

And I want to conclude, because there are others who want to speak, but I will just take it back to Virginia. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Virginians are currently deployed on the USS Ford Carrier Strike Group. That was a strike group based in Norfolk that deployed in June.

When it deployed, the normal deployment for a carrier strike group is 7 months. So the expectation of all who deployed was that they would be home by the holidays; they would be home with the family by the holidays. Instead, at the end of last year, the President ordered that the deployment be extended so that the Ford that was positioned in the Middle East could come into the Caribbean or the Pacific to assist in the effort to ultimately invade Venezuela. And so they extended the deployment another 2 months.

And then the Ford was told that it needed to deploy back across the water to provide support for the invasion and the attack of Iran, and so the deployment has been extended further.

The Ford is about to set the record for the longest deployment ever, but this has a cost. The Virginians and others who are deployed with the strike group thought they were going to be home at Christmas, and now it is being extended more and more and more.

And the Ford carrier is suffering significant maintenance challenges that threaten the actual lives of those on board. First, it was threatening quality of life with problems with the toilet systems and other onboard systems on the carrier, which are not hard to predict when you run a carrier at a much greater length than was planned for the original deployment, and these affected basic quality of life and morale.

But it got more serious. Last week, we learned that a fire started at the laundry facilities on the Ford that took 30 hours to put out, and 200 sailors on the Ford suffered smoke inhalation injuries because of that fire.

Now, recently, the Ford has been pulled out of frontline combat support activities and taken back to Crete for repairs. But, again, these sailors aren't coming home anytime soon, and that ship that was supposed to be out there for 7 months is now into the 11 months--well, I guess it would be now coming on 9 months, with more to come.

This is the kind of human cost that happens when you go into a war without a rationale or without a plan. And so what we need is a plan, I believe, to bring this to a close.

We were at war in the Middle East for 25 years, and I have yet to hear a single colleague of mine come and make a speech on the floor to suggest that those 14,000-plus American lives killed or the 65,000-plus Americans injured or the $8 trillion spent--I have yet to hear a single person come here and say that was a chapter in American life that we should be proud of.

We should have learned something from it. The first thing we should have learned is that another war in the Middle East probably makes no sense. But we certainly should have learned that, before we go into one, we have to examine it in significant detail to make sure that we are not sending our sons and daughters into harm's way for no valid reason.

I yield the floor.