Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I, at this time, reclaim my time and thank the chairman for his answer. Let me tell you, none of us have seen this bill that is a total new draft of the measure until just a few minutes ago, and we are absolutely stunned that this bill adds new burdens to the already overburdened process of collecting against foreign targets. This bill says it can only apply to communications between foreign persons without a court order. You can't tell if it is a communication between foreign persons when you target a foreign source because you don't know with whom that person is communicating. That is why there are so many burdens now on the FISA Court. The DNI has said explicitly--he has told us that he opposes the Rockefeller-Levin bill. The DNI has stated that the bill that Senator McConnell and I offered, S. 1927, which we filed on Wednesday night, is the bill that he supports. Any one of my colleagues who wants to, I invite them to step out this northeast door and talk directly with Admiral McConnell because I think it is extremely important that you find out what his position truly is. Let me be clear: The bill that was introduced by Senator McConnell and me was the bill that Admiral McConnell had modified after having comments to which he listened from several Democratic chairmen on Tuesday evening. He added the provisions for court review--they are court reviews within 120 days, 4 months--that would be adapted to the new requirements in FISA that did not exist before that will take some time to get together. And it also included a provision that there would be, in addition to that--that there would be the DNI who would be one of the people making the certifications--two things that were requested. There is one other modification that I will ask unanimous consent to make, or offer an amendment to make, when we prepare to debate on the bills, and that is to include a 6-month sunset so we will have the opportunity to review this bill. With that, I will have more to say about that later, but the DNI explicitly will tell anybody who steps outside that he does not support this bill. It is in the bill, excuse me. I thank the distinguished majority leader. But with that, I will yield the floor and allow other Members to communicate.

Mr. BOND. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Virginia.

Mr. BOND. Will the distinguished Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BOND. Very quickly. Does the distinguished majority leader know that Admiral McConnell is here because three of his members specifically asked that he come over and comment on these bills, and at their request we invited him to come here to respond to their questions?

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, we all know and acknowledge that al-Qaida and other related terrorist groups are determined to strike at the U.S. homeland. But a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would only serve to fuel that determination and, as a result, surrender Iraq to al- Qaida, which would directly threaten the security of the United States and its allies. Yesterday, we had a visit from Henry Kissinger who warned us that such a precipitous withdrawal would be revisiting the nightmare of Vietnam, where our withdrawal there created genocide among those who had supported us and other innocent Southeast Asians. This time, however, al-Qaida would follow us back to America. Al-Qaida would use Iraq as a safe haven, as it once had in Afghanistan. Only this time with oil revenues, in addition to a safe haven, it would be well positioned and financed to launch further enhanced attacks against the United States. Yet we continue to hear from the other side calls for withdrawal, despite preliminary reports of progress resulting from the surge, as my colleague from Georgia has so eloquently explained. We continue to hear calls for timelines that would embolden the morale of our enemies and dissuade the populace from cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi forces, and the latest and most recent development in the string of defeatism has come from the House majority whip. This past Monday in the Washington Post, he stated that a strongly positive report on progress in Iraq by General Petraeus would likely split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war. Now it appears some in the Democratic Party leadership are so invested in retreat and defeat politically that despite whatever the news is coming out of Iraq and regardless of the consequences, they are committed to defeat. Why, I ask, is the majority focused not on our national security but on scoring political points? I guess we should pull out, cede victory for the terrorists in Iraq, in order to keep the Democrats united for the general elections in 2008. What we, the Iraqi people, and all freedom-loving nations face is a fundamental threat from barbaric cowards misrepresenting the true nature of peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists of mufsidoon, as they should be called, are condemned evildoers distorting the Koran. They are not jihadists. Jihad is pursuing a moral superiority. These people who commit these acts are not insurgents or jihadists. The clearer we define the true enemy, the easier it will be to defeat them. What we have seen for some time now is encouraging signs this has, in fact, happened, coupled with the surge that is showing progress. Sunni sheiks in Al Anbar have been working with us to take back their neighborhoods and villages, fed up with the mufsidoon al-Qaida committing atrocities. My colleague referred to the Sunday New York Times article. Two men who are strong opponents of the war in Iraq said, referring to al-Qaida and other Salafist groups, as well as Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army: These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last 6 months, Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best- known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than 6 months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best. Today, the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor. I observed the same when my CODEL visited Iraq in early May. The authors said ``there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least until 2008.'' So if two of the war's harshest, most longstanding critics admit we are making a difference, why can't the Democrats give victory a chance? Why can't they give millions of Iraqis a chance at freedom? Why can't they acknowledge the progress being made? Pollack and O'Hanlon said that the soldiers and marines know they have a superb commander in General Petraeus. . . . they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference. It is time my colleagues in the other party who claim to support the troops actually do so in both words and deeds. Ignoring the progress being made by our troops because it does not suit the political ends of some Democratic leaders is an egregious outrage. Advocating for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a rallying cry for al-Qaida and other mufsidoon all over the world. What are we to say to the millions of Iraqis who have sided with us in taking back their country, only to see them slaughtered systematically after we leave the job before it is finished? Our words should inspire our troops and those who are working with us. Rest assured our soldiers and marines are listening. A recent speech by Marine Corps Commandant Conway underscores the point: I sat this week and listened to a United States Senator who criticized the U.S. effort in Iraq as being involved in an Iraqi civil war while ignoring the real fight against terrorism that was taking place in Afghanistan. With due respect to the Senator, I would offer that he is wrong on two counts. The fact is that there is no civil war taking place in Iraq by any reasonable metric. There is certainly sectarian strife, but even that is on the declining scale over the past six months. Ironically, this strife was brought about and inflamed by the very terrorists some claim do not exist in Iraq. The sectarian strife is a tactic aimed at creating chaos with little risk to the instigator while it ties down coalition forces. Yet, Mr. President, the retreat-and-defeat crowd, despite encouraging signs the surge is working, despite the fact this new strategy has only been in place fully for just a couple of months, and despite the fact that the Democrats have failed to offer any constructive alternatives, other than the ones that would cede defeat, continue to push down that line. It is a huge disappointment to me, to others, to those who support our troops and the efforts to protect our homeland from the al-Qaida attacks that would surely follow a precipitous withdrawal. It is a huge disappointment that this debate is not about how we can achieve victory but how quickly we can declare defeat. This has become a political debate. The focus of our national security has been sidetracked. As I have said time and time again, we should debate legislation which provides our troops with a clear path to victory, a victory which, sadly, many in this body are ready to award to al-Qaida and mufsidoon all over the world without ever having given the surge a chance.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the minority leader because he has brought to the attention of this body a measure of critical importance. Right now, we are missing a very significant portion of the signals and intelligence we could capture on al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations threatening to do harm to the United States. The reason is because the existing Federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act doesn't fit in with today's technology. The Director of National Intelligence has asked us--begged us--to make these changes. He submitted a proposal to the Intelligence Committee in April, and then he came before our committee in May. He came and briefed as many Members of the Senate who wanted to show up last month, and 42 members did, and they understood the importance. In my tenure as a member of the Intelligence Committee, I have spent a considerable amount of time looking at issues regarding FISA modernization. Since I became vice chairman, I have worked closely with Chairman Rockefeller to ensure that our oversight of this measure and this program has been comprehensive. We have held numerous hearings. Most of us have gone out and watched how the protections are implemented and where the information is collected at the NSA. The DNI's proposal came up to us, and in April he warned that the current text of FISA is causing significant intelligence gaps during a period of increased threat. We all know that the threat of al-Qaida is severe now. We cannot afford to go home, to leave this place, and not take off the artificial barriers that prevent NSA from keeping our country safe. The DNI has now provided us with a bare-bones FISA modernization proposal. It doesn't deal with all of the problems we in the Intelligence Committee must deal with later on in this session. We must do it. Last night, we had a proposal delivered by Senator Rockefeller that did not come from the members of the Intelligence Committee. It was a counterproposal to provide what he argued was a temporary legislative fix to FISA. Unfortunately, the counterproposal will not close these significant intelligence gaps that the DNI has told us about. Instead, it requires the Government to get a FISA order when a foreign target communicates with a significant number of persons and calls into the United States. That, to me, is going in the wrong direction. We don't need to stop and get a court order to protect the privacy of a terrorist who is making lots of calls into the United States. That is moving in the wrong direction. Our enemies are not naive. They understand our laws sometimes better than we do. They would realize that all they had to do, if they wanted to cover their tracks while a lengthy FISA court application procedure was done, is make a whole lot of calls to people in the United States to trigger the requirement. It would be an unnecessary and enormous burden on the intelligence assets and operators. We don't want people who play an essential role in fighting terrorism to spend the bulk of their time processing stacks of FISA applications on foreign targets. We want them to do the intelligence work to keep our country safe. Well, as a result of the proposal made by Senator Rockefeller, and others, the DNI was able to accommodate a number of these proposals and adopted their proposal for FISA court review of the procedures. They put a 6-month sunset on it. They added the DNI, Director of National Intelligence, to the authorizing process for acquisition of foreign intelligence. This is what is before us. The minority leader has presented it. I am proud to be a cosponsor. The debate is about whether targeting foreigners overseas should require a FISA order. That was never the intent of the FISA legislation. It was intended solely to protect the fourth amendment rights of persons inside the United States--not foreign targets. FISA needs to be modernized. Technology has changed. It is now no longer covered. The DNI's approach takes into account the changing technology and has adopted the reasonable suggestions made in the proposal made by Senator Rockefeller, and others. Congress needs to act on this legislation, please, before we get out of town. Don't leave town leaving the NSA deaf to significant terrorist information that might save our country from attack. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I object.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I would comment that in the process of working out votes, the minority leader has offered to the majority leader to schedule votes on this and other amendments at an appropriate time. There is no need to do the all-night gig. It may make grand Hollywood theater, but it doesn't necessarily move forward what is an extremely important bill. This is a bill that not only authorizes our war fighters, it provides additional resources. It provides them a badly needed 3-plus percent pay increase. We traditionally move these bills forward because, when we are fighting a war, we need to support the troops. But these amendments are designed to substitute the judgment of 535 generals in this wonderful air-conditioned Capitol for the judgment of the generals and the commanders in the field who every day go out and fight that battle to maintain peace, restore peace and security in the area, and to protect our home front. The Iraqis have said they don't want us there permanently. I think we all agree we don't want to be there permanently. But they also said we need to continue to train their troops. We need to make sure they maintain security in the area. They are not ready to do that now. Sunni sheiks in Al Anbar Province, which I was pleased to visit 2 months ago, are working with our forces and they are making great progress. They have been sending in their young Sunni men to be trained as Iraqi police and Iraqi Army. They need training. They are not ready yet. They are being very successful because our American marines are embedded with them. With them, they have taken Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar, which was totally under the control of al-Qaida a few months ago, and made it a safe place not only for Americans but for everyday Iraqis to walk the streets, to do their business, to get back to a normal life. I am here today as the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to talk about an important report issued today. Today, the Director of National Intelligence released key findings that could be made public on the National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, on the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland. That report outlined a number of key findings of which I think our colleagues and all Americans should be aware. First, today's intelligence report found that carrying the battle to al-Qaida, gaining worldwide cooperation in the war on terror, has set them back. They have made our country and other free countries safer because al-Qaida and its related radical Islamist groups are no longer able to have the free rein they had prior to our attacks to clean them out of Afghanistan and to keep them out of Iraq. In fact, our efforts have prevented al-Qaida from attacking the United States since the September 11, 2001, attacks, and they have disrupted a number of terrorist plots outlined in the classified portion of the report, designed to take effect in the United States of America. One of the good parts about it is that the terrorist groups are now telling each other the United States is a harder target. That makes them less likely to attack here. That is great news. It means the hard work of our men and women in the military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement in the United States, are doing their job--and they are succeeding. While America is safer, there are still threats around the world, and we have to remain vigilant in fighting terrorists at home and abroad. The intelligence report notes that al-Qaida leadership continues to plan attacks. They have a relative safe haven in the northwest area of Pakistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA. They are increasing their capabilities from that area to launch attacks on the United States. It is important to point out that these findings do not mean, as some erroneously reported last week, that al-Qaida is as strong as it was before the September 11 attacks, or even nearly as strong. It does mean that America must always be prepared for attacks on our homeland and continue to take appropriate offensive and defensive counterterrorism activities. Unfortunately, the intelligence report, the NIE, also finds that international cooperation against terrorism may wane as September 11 becomes a distant memory. That ought to be a real concern to all of us. I hope my colleagues take note because this should serve as a warning to all of us, a warning for Congress, and the American people to remain vigilant and committed to the war on terror. Our responsibility in Congress is to continue to give law enforcement and the intelligence community the tools they need to track, interrogate, capture or kill and prosecute terrorists, such as the PATRIOT Act and the modernization of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--very important; Also, the 9/11 Commission recommendations on changing congressional oversight to make it effective in dealing with the new challenges put on the intelligence community today. Knowing full well that the retreat-and-defeat crowd does not have the votes, I see the majority has opted for political gains and political theater. With apologies to our dedicated floor staff and the many wonderful men and women who keep this place operating, you are going to be operating all night long, around the clock, for a political show, not to achieve anything significant in terms of helping win the war. Foremost, the biggest losers from all this grandstanding are our fighting men and women who are risking their lives on the line in Iraq, carrying out their mission and the mission they believe they are carrying out successfully. The majority has a political game plan. But, sadly, it is not about how to achieve victory, it is a plan blindly fixated on trying to embarrass the President, trying to figure out a way they can win votes for November 2008. It offers no help for the creation of stability and freedom in Iraq and thus continued safety for ourselves. Our commanders and fighting men and women, while this debate is underway, are actually trying to achieve victory. But they have been listening to us and they have questions. They send questions to us saying: Why are you not going to give General Petraeus's plan, which he said he would report on in September, an opportunity to demonstrate it can work? Why have you no patience? We, who are sitting in the air- conditioned Halls of Congress while they are out in 130-plus degree heat risking their lives. They are willing to wait. But they are watching and listening to the cut-and-run arguments. So are our allies, Sunnis, such as the Sunni sheiks in Al Anbar Province who are risking everything if we run and leave because they have taken on al-Qaida. They don't want to live under al-Qaida. The neighbors of Iraq who are gradually realizing they have a role in helping Iraq be stable are seeing us falter and hesitate. Do you know who else is listening? Al-Qaida and the violent terrorists with whom we are at war, and I suspect they are absolutely revelling in what they are hearing. I imagine they loved hearing our majority leader saying the war has been lost. That is not a great message for our troops but one that certainly brings cheer to the hearts of al-Qaida. They call for troop withdrawal deadlines. They say the cost of war is too high. The constant barrage of negative news without the balanced report on the progress our troops are making--we need only listen to the words of the terrorists themselves who have identified Iraq as the central front on the war on terrorism. Osama bin Laden, in his audio message to what he hoped were his fellow Muslims in December of 2004, said: The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate. Our own servicemembers such as 1LT Pete Hegseth, an Iraqi war veteran and director of the Vets for Freedom recently, knows the importance of achieving victory. He said, as one who has been on the frontlines: Iraq today is the front line of a global Jihad being waged against America and its allies. Both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have said so. But despite this enormous effort, the retreat-and-defeat crowd still wants to micromanage this war 8,000 miles away from the fight and set timetables and troop movements and ultimately to engineer a defeat brought on by retreat. These actions most egregiously send mixed messages to our enemies all across the globe that our Nation is fractured, weak, and does not have the will to see it through. This same message can discourage allies and the millions of Iraqis who are risking their lives for a chance at freedom by supporting us. For not only is the safety and security of our Nation and allies at stake but so, too, is our credibility. Critics of us have frequently claimed the war has damaged the U.S. image and credibility throughout the world. Yet the retreat-and-defeat crowd ignores the irreparable harm that would be done here were we to leave this mission unfinished. If you think our image and reputation has plummeted, wait and watch it nosedive if we were to leave Iraq before finishing the job. Think about what would happen to the millions of Iraqi citizens and leaders who took a stand against terrorism, who committed to take a stand with us to rebuild their country and fight against the forces of radical Islam and terrorism. What are we to say to the millions of Iraqis who trusted America and believed we would stay until the mission was complete, only to see them slaughtered by terrorists as a result of our abandoning them before they were able to stand on their own. I mentioned on this floor before, what did we say to the thousands of South Vietnamese or millions of Cambodians who put their trust in America and were slaughtered after we abandoned them? History has taught us that when America abandons its commitments to spreading liberty and freedom, we are not the only ones who suffer. Hundreds of thousands may well suffer, but it will come back to harm us and haunt us in our homeland--not only our credibility. In January of this year, before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the leaders--the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA Director, the Defense Intelligence Agency Director--testified in public session. They said if we pulled out on a political timetable, chaos would ensue. What would happen? No. 1, there would be a tremendous increase in slaughter among Sunni and Shia in Iraq. No. 2, al-Qaida would be able to establish a safe haven, a platform where they could get the oil revenues they needed to fund their efforts and significantly increase the threat to our United States of America and possibly even to foment a regionwide civil war, as other nations would come in to the rescue of their coreligionists in Iraq. To ignore these considerations and questions simply because they are perceived to be more politically palatable than continuing the vital mission that our troops are fighting is shortsighted at best and dangerous at worst. Those who are attempting to end the war precipitously because they are vested politically in defeat do not want to talk about the fact that the war in Iraq will do anything but end-- in fact would only grow more dangerous--if we leave our enemies in Iraq, unlike in Vietnam, the victors. The victors would follow us home. The North Vietnamese did not follow us home after we lost in Vietnam. Al-Qaida will follow us home if we allow them to achieve victory over us in Iraq. We have seen in recent weeks, since the implementation of General Petraeus's plan, movement has begun in the right direction. When I returned from Iraq in May, I observed, even at that point, some initial signs that the planning and working was moving in the right direction. Sunni sheiks in Anbar are now fighting al-Qaida; more than 50 joint U.S.-Iraq stations have been established in Baghdad, conducting regular patrols, resulting in increased security and actionable intelligence. Muqtada al-Sadr has felt the heat. His followers, while perhaps have demonstrated against American troops, are not contesting them. They and Jaysh al-Mahdi, the Shia militant group, has stood down. The Iraqi Army and police forces are increasingly fighting on their own, with their size and capability growing. July 16, the Wall Street Journal carried an article by Omar Fadhil. He said the surge is working, fully operational for barely a month. He defines the two most dangerous enemies in Iraq we face in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr's militia and al-Qaida, and he says: Sadr's militias have moved the main battlefield south to cities like Samwah, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah where there's no American surge of troops, and from which many Iraqi troops were recalled to serve in Baghdad. But over there, too, the Iraqi security forces and local administrations did not show the weakness that Sadr was hoping to see. As a result, Sadr's representatives have been forced to accept ``truces.'' This may make things sound as if Sadr has the upper hand, that he can force a truce on the state. But, the fact this is missing from news reports is that, with each new eruption of clashes, Sadr's position becomes weaker as tribes and local administrations join forces to confront his outlaw militias. And regarding al-Qaida, he writes that they, al-Qaida, have not been any luckier than Sadr, and the tide began to turn even before the surge was announced. The change came from the most unlikely city and unlikely people, Ramadi and its Sunni tribes. He goes on to say: In Baghdad the results have been just as spectacular so far. The district where al-Qaida claimed to have established it Islamic emirate is losing big now, and at the hands of its former allies who have turned on al-Qaida and are slowly reaching out to government. MG Rick Lynch, 3rd Infantry Division Commander, provided a telling example in yesterday's New York Times. In the village of Al Taqa, about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, Lynch said women and children were taping plastic pipes on streetlamps to warn Iraqi security forces of roadside bombs. He also stated that locals have exposed al-Qaida hideouts, helped troops locate 170 large caches of arms, and guaranteed organized armed neighborhood controls could keep safety. While I would agree that there is no guarantee of victory, and we have a long way to go, we certainly need to make every effort to achieve it. The war in Iraq is far more important on a front that is far larger than that battlefield. It is the global battlefield. That is why we are fighting in Iraq, to keep our country safe, to make sure al-Qaida does not get the upper hand, to make sure our troops, who are carrying out their mission to stop al-Qaida, can do so in Iraq rather than hand them the victory which will embolden them, which will allow them significant resources from the oil-rich Iraqi sands and give them the courage to expand recruiting and attack our country. We cannot allow cut-and-run amendments to be added to a vital authorization bill to support our American troops. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I appreciate the chance to talk about the amendment before us and some of the other amendments. These amendments generally are intended to change our military policies, our presence in Iraq, and essentially to begin, one way or the other, a politically staged withdrawal from Iraq. We are talking about how we are concerned about and support the troops. Do you know what I hear from the troops? I have been there, I have talked to them, and I have heard from them at home. The one thing they say is: We are over here risking our lives. We are fighting a mission which we believe is succeeding. We are making progress. The last thing we want is Congress to declare a military end or take over the management of the war from our commanders. Time after time, they have told me: We have made too many contributions and sacrifices to walk away now and see all we have done go for naught. I will talk about going for naught later on. But the point is that, yes, America has made contributions, large-dollar sums of contributions. But families who have lost loved ones, who have had them maimed, and their comrades-in-arms know the sacrifices these men and women have made. The one thing they implore us to do is not to see these sacrifices be made in vain. Well, we have seen a lot of negative stories. The media has more than adequately covered those. So people are concerned about what is going on in Iraq. We ought to be concerned. But we are not hearing the stories about what is positive, about the successes of this new strategy, the Petraeus strategy. I was in Ramadi and Al Anbar 2 months ago and traveling elsewhere, and I found some amazing things. The new counterinsurgency strategy, with the cooperation of the Sunni sheiks who are now working with our military, has really essentially driven al-Qaida out of Ramadi, and they are driving them out of the Al Anbar Province. Make no mistake, when we heard ``civil war, civil war,'' the people over there--the marines, the soldiers--know they are fighting for and looking for al- Qaida. Al-Qaida is the driving force that is keeping it stirred up, and they are on the mission to search and destroy al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is there big time. But we have been hearing lots of arguments now in favor of--and they are heartfelt arguments and people believe them--it is time for retreat; it is time to cut back; it is time to withdraw. The cost of lives and treasure is too high. The war has not been properly managed. The war cannot be won. Over the last several weeks on break, when I was traveling, I had the opportunity to read ``Team of Rivals'' about Abraham Lincoln and the conduct of the Civil War. Over a century and a half ago, many of these same arguments were offered abundantly as reasons for President Lincoln to accept defeat of the Civil War, and they are now being made for President Bush to accept defeat in Iraq. As noted in historian Shelby Foote's ``The Civil War: A Narrative,'' Members of Congress playing general urged the troops to abandon the cause. That great Ohio Representative Clement Vallandigham, leader of the Copperhead Democrats, campaigned for office by calling upon soldiers to desert. He declared the South was invincible. As noted in passages in ``The Civil War,'' in late 1862, ``Senate Republicans caucused and, with only a single dissenting vote, demanded that Lincoln dismiss Secretary of State Seward'' because they thought he was responsible for the conduct of the war. Republican Leader Thurlow Weed observed that ``the people are wild for peace. . . . Lincoln's election is an impossibility.'' They were after him in full force. I don't need to elaborate on the enormity of the Civil War, and I don't need to explain what would have happened had Lincoln relented to those politically popular sentiments at the time. Lincoln chose to fight a bloody and unpopular war because he believed the enemy had to be defeated. Despite being reviled for staying the course, President Lincoln did stay the course. Unfortunately, too many of my colleagues today don't seem to be willing to see this one through. Here we are again, barely weeks into the full implementation of General Petraeus's surge, and the naysayers continue to argue for defeat. It was only a few months ago this body had been calling for and looking for a new strategy, which I believed we must have, which changed the unsuccessful strategy we had, which argued for the Baker- Hamilton report, which said in essence you have to have a new strategy, you cannot precipitously withdraw. We came forward and General Petraeus drafted a counterinsurgency strategy. That is what he told us he was going to do, supported by the surge. Now people want to pull the rug out from under him. He said at least give him until September to see if this new counterinsurgency strategy works. They are bringing in American soldiers and marines to go in with Iraqi security forces, Iraqi Army, Iraqi police, embedded with them in command centers, barracks; they stay there, live among the people they are protecting, and they have cleaned out the areas. They have cleaned out Ramadi. Two months ago, four Members of Congress walked through downtown Ramadi, which had been an al-Qaida command center. Al-Qaida has been driven out, but naysayers continue to argue for defeat. Now, there may be some short-term political benefits for those calling for withdrawal. There is popular sentiment for it. Some people honestly believe that. But let me quote 1LT Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war veteran and director of Vets for Freedom: Iraq today is the front line of global jihad being waged against America and its allies. Both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have said so. He is correct. Our intelligence services said so. They warned us in January in an open intelligence hearing that if we withdrew on a political timetable and took our troops out without making sure that the Iraqi security forces were adequate, there would be chaos. There would be chaos and greatly increased killings among Sunni and Shia. Al- Qaida would be able to establish a safe haven in which to launch recruitment, training, command and control, and weapons of mass destruction development. The violence and chaos in Iraq would likely bring in coreligionists from other countries of the region as they went in to protect their fellow religionists. We could have a regionwide civil war, Shia versus Sunni. That is what will happen if we withdraw. Most of us concede there was poor management and costly mistakes were made in the post-invasion phase in Iraq. But they are not compelling reasons for why we should retreat and, like all mistakes, we should learn from them and not go back and commit them again by drawing down forces to the point where we don't have adequate troops to work with the Iraqi security forces. Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson recently pointed out that those who are calling for retreat are not learning from previous mistakes but repeating them. Gerson writes: History seems to be settling on some criticisms of the early conduct of the Iraq war. On the theory that America could liberate and leave . . . force levels were reduced too early . . . security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqis before they were ready, and planning for future challenges was unrealistic. And now Democrats running for President have thought deeply and produced their own Iraq policy: They want to cut force levels too early and transfer responsibility to Iraqis before they are ready, and they offer no plan to deal with the chaos that would result six months down the road. In essential outline, they have chosen to duplicate the early mistakes of an administration they hold in contempt. I agree with Gerson, we should not make those mistakes. We must fulfill the mission that over 3,600 brave men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice for. To quote a Missouri guardsman, COL Bob Leeker, who just returned from commanding the 507th Air Expeditionary Group in Iraq: I only hope that the American people will give us the time. The American people must understand that this is not only about Iraq, it is a fight against Muslim fanaticism, Muslim extremists. If we pull out in the near term, or at the wrong time, there will be an incredible amount of blood running throughout Iraq, and the blood and sweat that I and my brethren in arms have already given will be for nought. These are compelling words. They ought not to be taken lightly. Not only is the security and safety of our Nation and allies at stake, but so too is our credibility. Critics frequently claim the war has damaged the United States image and credibility throughout the world. Yet these same critics ignore what irreparable harm would be done were we to leave this mission unfilled. If you think our mission has made our image and reputation plummet, wait and watch it nosedive after we leave Iraq before finishing the job. Think about the millions of Iraqi citizens and leaders who have taken a stand against terrorism, who have committed to work with us, to rebuild their country, to fight against the forces of radical Islamists and terrorists. What are we to say to the millions of Iraqis who trusted Americans and believed we would stay until the mission was completed? We would, regrettably, see them slaughtered by terrorists as a result of our abandoning them before they were able to stand on their own. What did we say to the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese or millions of Cambodians who trusted America and were slaughtered after Congress dictated that we abandon them? History has taught us when American abandons its commitment to spreading liberty and freedom, we are not the only ones who suffer. Rest assured, it will come back to harm us in our own homeland. Just as our intelligence community has warned and terrorist leaders have stated, Iraq will become a base and safe haven from which to plan and launch future attacks. Let me be clear, the enemy in Iraq consists of murderous, barbaric terrorists. They are not ``insurgents'' or ``jihadists.'' Let's get terms straight because we fall into the trap of taking their terms. Jihad in the Muslim religion is the individual journey to moral improvement. It has been misrepresented to be a philosophy that permits encouraging the killing of innocents, the slaughter of fellow Muslims, the slaughter of women and children. The real Arabic term for that is hirabah. The people who commit it are not insurgents or jihadists, but mufsidoon. These people are condemned to live with Satan because they have committed blasphemy. These are the people we are fighting. It is not a civil war. They are the people who violate the tenets of Islam. They try to hijack it, try to claim the Islamic banner; but they are not practicing the religion of the Prophet Mohammed. Well, there is another reason these people want to sanitize the description we use of them. Calling them insurgents implies they have the support of the local population. But the local population is being victimized, killed, evicted from their homes, or beheaded by the so- called insurgents. That is why the Sunni sheikhs in al-Anbar are working with us. They have lived under al-Qaida. They want an end to the terror. That is why they are helping us to identify who they are, where the weapons caches are, and where the IEDs are hidden. They are sending in young Sunnis to sign up. They want to be free of the terrorists. Precipitous withdrawal would be a rallying cry for terrorists and al- Qaida around the world. It would invite further aggression and attacks from the barbarians. It would be a total loss of freedom, liberty, and peace, and would be a victory for totalitarianism, terrorism, and treachery. In a recent book by J. Michael Waller, a scholar at the Institute of World Politics, he defined terrorism as: A form of political and psychological warfare; it is protracted, high intensity propaganda aimed more at the hearts of the public and the minds of decisionmakers and not at the physical victims. By Waller's definition and what I have heard from some people in this body and the media, the terrorists are certainly hitting their targets. Our words should inspire our troops and the millions of Iraqi citizens who actually trust that Americans will not embrace defeat and leave them. Instead, the words of the retreat-and-defeat crowd inspire al-Qaida and the murderous terrorists attempting to ignite sectarian strife. Now is not the time to pull out when we are seeing encouraging signs in places where the surge has been implemented. Al-Anbar Province shows tremendous signs of progress. Even the New York Times' Michael Gordon reported last Friday how young American soldiers are executing General Petraeus's new strategy on the ground, and how they are fighting and defeating al-Qaida. Here is a quote from Frederick Kagan, a resident scholar at AEI: Al-Qaida's operations in Baghdad--its bombings, kidnappings, resupply activities, movement of foreign fighters, and financing--depend on its ability to move people and goods around the rural outskirts of the capital as well as in the city. Petraeus and Odierno, therefore, are conducting simultaneous operations in many places in the Baghdad belt: Fallujah and Baquba, Mahmudiya, Arab Jabour, Salman Pak, the southern shores of Lake Tharthar, Karma, Tarmiya, and so on. By attacking all of these bases at once, coalition forces will gravely complicate the enemy's movement from place to place, as well as his ability to establish new bases and safe havens. At the same time, U.S. and Iraqi forces have already disrupted al-Qaida's major bases and are working to prevent the enemy from taking refuge in the city. U.S. forces are also aggressively targeting Shia death squad leaders and helping Iraqi forces operating against the Shia militias. Why has this Senate chosen to debate timelines, restrictions, and retreat despite encouraging signs that the surge is working, despite the fact that this new strategy has only been in place fully for barely a month, and despite the fact that those who want to withdraw and retreat have failed to offer any constructive alternatives on how they would deal with a chaos that would ensue from their retreat? It is a huge disappointment that this debate is not about how we can achieve victory, but how quickly can we cede defeat. This has become a political debate and the focus of our national security has been sidetracked. We should not pass legislation that provides our enemy a clear path to victory--a victory which, sadly, many in this body are ready to award al-Qaida, without ever having given the surge a fighting chance. The surge is indeed the best hope we have for establishing safety and stability in the area, which will allow the Iraqi security forces to take over and give the Iraqi Government the space to develop a workable government that can rule their country. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I say to the leader, I am going to make about 5 minutes of remarks on it. I have not heard from many other people. I think we could move things along without taking an hour. I do not know if any of my colleagues on the floor wish to speak, but 20 minutes equally divided would--

Mr. BOND. To the distinguished ranking member of the committee, I would gratefully appreciate 5 minutes.

Mr. BOND. I thank Senator Specter and the majority leader for giving me this time. Mr. President, my part of the division of this amendment, simply stated, will cut the path to citizenship for illegal aliens. I think most people will recognize that citizenship is the most precious gift America can provide. There are many of us who believe it should not serve as a reward to those who broke the law to enter or remain in this country. The path to citizenship is at the heart of the amnesty criticism of this bill, which we are hearing very loudly in my State and across the Nation. I believe cutting this path cuts out the most severe complaint against this bill. I supported the Vitter amendment to strike the entire amnesty proposal for 12 million illegal aliens in the country, and that amendment was rejected. Perhaps it was too broad. So my division of the current amendment targets the most controversial aspect of the proposal: the award of citizenship to those 12 million illegal aliens who essentially will stay here--maybe take a 1-day trip--enjoy the benefits of residence, and then can become citizens without having to go through the process everyone else seeking to become a citizen has to go through, which is applying in their home country, and waiting for their time to arrive. Whatever we end up doing for those 12 million illegal aliens, it does not, in my view, require the further step of granting citizenship. Those 12 million illegal aliens came to this country to work--to work--without expectation of becoming citizens. We ought to understand that. They came here to work, not to become citizens. Now, more legal aliens will come to this country on a temporary basis to work without the expectation of citizenship. There is no need to grant these people the gift of citizenship when they came here to meet their economic needs. The bill, as we know, puts the 12 million illegal immigrants who comply with its terms on the path to citizenship. Illegal immigrants who pay a fine and pass a security check, learn English, touch back to their home country, and show employment can become legalized under the new Z visa program. After 8 years, formerly illegal immigrants, now legalized with Z visas, may apply for legalized permanent residence, otherwise known as a green card. As most of us already know, under existing law, once you have had a green card for a certain number of years, you can apply for and receive citizenship. My division simply will cut off that path, automatically invoked once a green card is bestowed, by preventing those formerly illegal immigrants with Z visas from obtaining green card status and therefore citizenship. Specifically, my portion of the amendment would strike the contents of section 602 on earned adjustment for Z status aliens, replacing it with a prohibition on issuing an immigrant visa to Z nonimmigrants, which is currently in the bill, and a prohibition on adjusting a Z nonimmigrant to legalized permanent residency, or so-called green card holders. This proposal of mine would not change any of the bill's requirements to obtain and keep a Z visa, such as a clean criminal record, progressively better English competency, or continued employment. Nor does my proposal change any of the rights afforded to Z visa holders, including work, residency, and travel. Z visa holders would remain in that status as long as they chose. Alternatively--and this is an alternative--Z visa holders could abandon their status, return to their home country and, if they choose, pursue legalized permanent residency and citizenship from outside the country, as any other foreign citizen could. As I discussed above, I do personally support granting the rights I enumerated for Z visa holders. I supported the Vitter amendment to strip all the Z program provisions. But the Senate had its vote on all of those provisions and we lost. This amendment is the next best thing. Our immigration system is broken and must be fixed. I support a strong emphasis on border security and enforcing the immigration laws, but we should not hold border security hostage to amnesty. I voted before and will continue to vote to appropriate more money for funding for border fencing, detention facilities, and border agents. I urge my fellow Senators to support those ways to strengthen and protect our country and our security, but reject rewarding illegal immigrants with undeserved citizenship. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, my colleague from Massachusetts made a very powerful statement on behalf of those who came here, but he kind of forgot an important distinction. There are those who come here legally and those who come here illegally. We are talking about the illegals. With the argument so forcefully and persuasively made by my colleague from Massachusetts, if you took that argument to its end result, then there should not be immigration laws. We should not have a process for going for citizenship because anybody who wanted to come in could. We have changed those laws. We have provided laws, and the people we are talking about have come here illegally to work. If they wanted to become citizens, there is a process. If they join the military, I strongly believe they should become citizens. But if they come illegally just to work, then they have not earned citizenship like all of the others do, like my ancestors and the ancestors of almost every Member of this body. We are all immigrants, but we did not come here illegally and expect to get citizenship. Therefore, Mr. President, I strongly urge my colleagues, if you believe there is a difference between people who come legally and people who come illegally, to support the Bond division or proposal, vote against the motion to table.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I rise today to express my strong opposition to H.R. 800, the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act or card-check bill. As Americans, we cast secret ballots when we vote for the President, Congress, Governors, mayors, and city council members. Yet this bill would take away that essential right within the workplace. It reminds me of the story from my home country, Audrain County, Missouri, often called the ``heart of little Dixie'' in Missouri, because it was settled by Democrats. The folklore has it that in the 1864 election, when President Lincoln was running for reelection and everybody had to stand up on the courthouse steps and announce for whom they were voting, one brave or foolhardy soul got up and said he wanted to cast a vote for Abraham Lincoln. To show you how kind and generous and hospitable the people of Audrain County were, they gave him a full 24 hours to get out of town. While I cannot document that story with the names of the specific individuals involved, that is an example of why a secret ballot is important. A secret ballot allows people to exercise a free choice without fear of coercion from either side, either management or fellow workers who support management or fellow workers who support a union and union organizers. Rather than enhancing and enabling secret ballots within the workplace, this bill would eliminate that choice. Under the so-called card-check bill, an employer would no longer carry the right to demand a secret ballot election in order to certify a union as the employee's bargaining unit. The reauthorization of the National Labor Relations Act of 1947, the original benchmark for secret ballot union elections, was enacted to safeguard the rights of workers and the companies they worked for, to promote collective bargaining, and to restrain certain private sector labor and management practices, which could pose a threat to the general welfare of workers, to business, and to our Nation's economy. Now, as we all know, NLRA allows for an exception to the rule of a secret ballot election. If an employer is willing to accept union authorization cards that have been signed from a majority of the employees represented, the organized union becomes the bargaining unit for that specific group of workers. Therefore, as you see under existing law, there are exceptions which allow for authorization cards to be accepted. But to remove completely the ability of workers to have a confidential and private vote on whether they choose to become a part of a union is utterly objectionable and goes against all of the principles we hold so dear in this democracy. I feel that this ill-advised legislation will replace a federally supervised secret ballot election process with a system that would open the door for harassment, intimidation, coercion, forgery, and fraud. If enacted, this bill would permit union organizers to gain signatures from workers wherever they feel free to do so. Therefore, as a result, a worker could see an organizer choose to show up at the place where he or she eats, at their residence, or at a family outing just to obtain a signature for representation. Might I say also my constituents, who are small businesses, who know their employees on a first-name basis, are violently opposed to this kind of working operation. The small businesses are the dynamic engine that keeps this economy growing. They are creating the jobs, they are the ones that grow. If they thought they could have a union imposed upon them by card check, without going through a secret ballot, it would kill the ability of those small businesses to grow and hire more workers. In fiscal year 2005, the National Labor Relations Board conducted 2,745 elections. It is interesting to note that 1,504 secret ballot elections were won by organized labor. Therefore, the total percentage of elections won by labor unions was 55 percent. In 2004, organized unions won 51 percent out of 2,826 total elections conducted that year. During the Clinton administration in 1994, organized labor won only 44 percent of the total secret ballot elections. According to a polling report conducted in January of this year, out of the many individuals who were asked whether they would prefer an authorization card over secret ballot, 89 percent of those polled overwhelmingly chose the secret ballot. As you see from the numbers, employees who have a real free choice of confidentially deciding whether to become part of the union have freely been able to employ their given right for union representation if they choose. In the last few years, under the secret ballot election, a majority of workers have decided to join a union. If a majority of prospective union employees does not wish to join, then they have a right, by secret ballot, to decline. If labor unions are continuously increasing their election win margin each fiscal year, why prefer to use a system that threatens the protective rights of the confidential vote for each employee? Why not leave the ultimate decision to the employees where support for the secret ballot continues to remain strong? The answer to that question may be in the fact that while secret ballot elections recently produced a victory of 55 percent in 2005, it does not match the success of a 90-percent win rate that the card-check system produces. Many small businesses back home in Missouri have come to me and expressed concern with this bill, from machinists to mechanics to food distributors, and many other small companies. They have all voiced their resistance, distrust, and strong opposition to this bill. We must understand that over 93 percent of our Nation's businesses have fewer than 100 employees. This bill would place a heavy burden on the livelihood of these small businesses, since they are the least likely to have experience in labor negotiations or have experienced legal counsel to represent them. They have to work on a first-name basis with their employees. They know what their challenges are. They know who they are, and they are in the best position to be able to help their workers. But they don't want to have the threat of a nonsecret ballot imposing a union on them. Passage of the bill will mean that unions could unfairly target considerably smaller businesses, more than before, given that the amount of resources necessary to organize a business would be significantly less. Prohibiting a secret ballot for the purposes of assisting organized labor with efforts to bolster membership is not the remedy needed to ensure every worker's right to a safe, confidential, union election, where their God-given rights to a secret ballot, which we hold dear in the United States, would be denied. I urge my colleagues not to permit this bill to go forward. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be permitted to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, as a Member of the Senate who has traveled every year to Southeast Asia and met frequently with government leaders from that region when they visited the United States, I believe America has great interests in that region, and that we need to pay more attention here in Washington, DC and across the Nation, to our allies and partners in Southeast Asia. This region, economically, politically, strategically important, it is our 5th largest in total volume trading partner. Serving as a cornerstone to SE Asia and the lynchpin to its stability, prosperity and security lie in Indonesia. When I have asked leaders from all over Southeast Asia how they are doing, they always include a reference to Indonesia. Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country and as a democracy, that makes it the largest Muslim democracy as well. On the darker side, it is also a key country in what many in the intelligence community, and I agree, is the second front in the war on terror that we confront. It is home to the Islamist terrorist group, Jemah Islamiya, which next to al-Qaeda, is one of the greatest threats to American security and peace in the world. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been executing an ambitious agenda for anti-corruption, political and economic reform. He represents Indonesia's best hope for continuing down a path towards stability, prosperity, pluralism, democracy and security. Such a path is not only in our own economic interests, but is also essential to control the terrorist threat and the reach of al-Qaeada and Jemah Islamiah in Southeast Asia. Since the fall of President Suharto, the Indonesian people have elected three new presidents, impeached one, and experienced several peaceful transfers of power. They have held direct elections of a president. They have amended their constitution in order to be more democratic and transparent. They have given the judicial branch independent administrative and financial authority. They continue to reform their military in accordance with democratic, civilian- controlled principles. They have recently provided a battalion to support the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon; and Indonesia was recently cited by Freedom House as Southeast Asia's only truly ``free'' nation. But despite all the progress being made, we in Congress seem to continue to look for every transgression to put our relationship on hold and move it backwards. The truth is that as a country, Indonesia has made truly remarkable progress in a very short period of time. As such, they deserve continued support and engagement, not restrictions and retractions. We should recognize the accomplishments of the Indonesian people and encourage them in their pursuit of a successful transformation to a democratic nation. This is why I, along with my distinguished colleague Senator Inouye, am proud to introduce a resolution recognizing Indonesia's accomplishments and the increasingly mutually beneficial relationship between Indonesia and the U.S. As an archipelago of over 200 million people, if Indonesia were superimposed over the top of the United States, it would span from Florida to Alaska. The size of Indonesia and the fact that they have 17,000 islands at low water, 13,000 at high tide, presents a tremendous challenge in defending its borders and dealing with potential terrorist activities on its distant islands or remote jungles. The Indonesian armed forces are a necessary partner in this battle. When Jemah Islamiah bombed the Bali nightclub in 2002, killing 202 people, Indonesia's military, policing and intelligence capabilities were in poor condition. Of late however, Indonesia's security forces have ``gained the upper hand,'' according to the Economist, June 16th, 2007 with the capture and arrest of some of Jemah Islamiah's top commanders. Leadimg the fight against terror is Indonesia's new police unit 88, which was set up with the help of American and Australian Security forces. Among the terrorists captured was Abu Dujana, one of Indonesia's most wanted terrorists. Dujana apparently took over as military leader of JI when their former leader and bomb maker, Azahari Husin, was in 2005 killed and had earned the dubious honor of being named the most wanted terrorist in the country. And over the last 12 months, the Indonesians have captured or killed 47 terrorists, including several key leaders. The article also went on to say. . . . No large-scale attacks have taken place since 2005. With the help of their Australian and American counterparts, Indonesia's national police have greatly improved their tracking of militants and have rounded up some of JI's top leaders. In the recent past, there have been various forms of restrictions on our relations with the Indonesian military in light of terrible abuses that were committed by the TNI in East Timor. However, our reinstatement of military relations and the restoration of International Military Education & Training or IMET, has resulted in continued positive trends. It is interesting to note that the current President, when he was a military leader, was in the last class of IMET leaders from Indonesia to come to the United States. He, in his own person, demonstrates the appreciation of civilian control. Some in this body and the other body want to impose new restriction to hinder, not help, the productive influence our military can and has had on the TNI. We must expand and continue to improve our relations with the TNI, not restrict and retract. IMET provides for adherence to the Code of Military Justice, civilian of the military, respect for human rights, and proper treatment of population principles that should be instilled in military forces. Further, IMET establishes important relationships and alliances among our military leaders and commanders of friendly foreign forces. It assures they understand how to conduct military or relief operations together. and, it keeps the U.S. engaged in a region where China is increasingly, extending its influence. When I visited the North Western province of Ache, right after the Tsunami, the fact that their military had not trained with us caused us great military operational difficulties. Some in Congress apparently want to reimpose sanctions on IMET participation because of the past and perceived military abuses, but as Walter Lohman, Director of Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation, has said: accountability for past human rights abuses and the proper role of the militia are legitimate. But the United States needs to get to a point where it addresses these concerns with the same respect it affords other democratic partners, like the Europeans or the Japanese Many leaders in that region have told me, privately, they believe U.S. active engagement and association with their countries is essential to stop China from extending hegemony over the region. Whether China is viewed as a threat or an opportunity, they are actively courting their neighbors in SE Asia; They are sending official trade missions, signing trade agreements and investing their large reserves in securing sources of energy and natural resources. Make no mistake about it, they are aggressively building up a military force navy capable of extending beyond the straits of Taiwan. The opportunities and the challenges related to China seeking to extend its influence over Southeast Asia should concern us both economically and militarily. States of Southeast Asia, notably Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, control the important Malacca Straits; Straits through which one quarter of all the shipping in the world passes and one half of the petroleum products carried by ocean- going vessels pass. Beyond those interests, it remains my thesis that we should pay attention to Southeast Asia--particularly Indonesia--as the second front in the war on terrorism. Indondsia represents the best hope for fostering a moderate Islam that recognizes the true peaceful nature of that religion in opposition to the radical terrorist-inspiring versions of Islam. With Southeast Asia and its large Muslim population, we have an opportunity through constructive forms of engagement; to ensure they become a solid foundation for peace, security and economic prosperity in this critical part of the world. Whether it is more peace corps volunteers, education initiatives, leadership exchanges, IMET or sending Navy ships such as the USS Mercy and USS Peleliu on humanitarian missions to the region. We can do it without the need for massive military actions such as those we have undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq to root out the terrorists and in those cases, the governments that harbored them. In other words, more sandals on the ground now, will prevent having to put boots on the ground in future. I urge my colleagues to support countries like Indonesia in their path towards peace, democracy and pluralism, as opposed to restricting and pushing them towards more radical, terrorist-inspiring versions of Islam. I ask or behalf of Senator Inouye and myself that the resolution be sent to the desk and ask that it be referred appropriately. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the articles from the June 16th Economist and from Walter Lohman of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation.

Mr. BOND

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

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of the Bunning coal to liquid fuel amendment. This was an amendment cosponsored and championed by our dear late friend, Senator Craig Thomas. If we could adopt this amendment and pass it into law, I think it would be a fitting tribute to the memory of this very fine servant of the people of Wyoming and of the United States. We have plenty of Members of the Senate who would like to reduce our involvement in the Middle East. Maybe they supported our gulf and Iraq wars; maybe they did not, but they would sure like us to reduce our current involvement, and they certainly would like us not to have to go over there every time there is trouble. Count me in as one of that broader group. There is another group of Senators, and I would be included in those as well, that would like us to improve the environment by reducing greenhouse gases. They support reducing the lifecycle greenhouse gases emitted during the production of fuels. Indeed, we are considering provisions to require biofuels produce 20 percent less lifecycle greenhouse gases during their production. So I ask those Senators--all of you who support reducing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, all of you who support requiring fuels to produce less greenhouse gases--please support the Bunning- Domenici coal to liquid fuel amendment that will do both. Domestically produced fuel made from coal will reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Every barrel of oil we produce from America is a barrel of oil we do not need to import from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq or Venezuela. Every barrel of oil we produce from America will reduce our need by that much to intervene in local Middle Eastern disputes. Domestically produced fuel made from coal will improve the environment. Coal to liquid fuel, with its sequestration of pollutants, will be lower in acid rain-causing sulfur and soot-producing particulate matter. The Bunning amendment will also cut greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline production by mandating 20 percent less lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. No coal to liquid plant will receive a cent of Government money unless it can meet this greenhouse gas reduction requirement. Domestically produced fuel from coal will improve our health. Too many children and elderly suffer from asthma, an acute condition caused by air pollution. Coal to liquid fuel is lower in ozone-causing nitrogen oxides, soot-producing particulate matter, as I mentioned, and toxic emissions from volatile organic compounds. Domestically produced fuel made from coal will improve the performance of our military. Coal to liquid fuel provides significant performance advantages for military jets and aircraft. The Air Force is most interested in signing long-term supply contracts that will enable them to provide a market for the clean coal to liquid fuel which is envisioned in this amendment. CTL fuel burns at a lower temperature, burns cleaner, and performs better at both lower and higher temperatures. That is good for our war fighters who need every advantage they can get. Domestically produced fuel made from coal is good for our existing infrastructure. Coal to liquid fuel can go right into our existing pipelines, gas tanks, and engines without any cause of problems. We will not need new pipelines, new storage or new pumps as with biofuels. Domestically produced fuel made from coal is also good for consumers. Coal to liquids offer long-term supply guarantees without the fear of supply shocks from external forces in other countries. Do you ever wonder why gas prices jump up every time some Middle Eastern radical shoots off a rocket in his neighbor's territory? That would not happen to the fuel we are producing from coal to liquids. Domestically produced fuel made from coal is also good for taxpayers. Coal to liquids offers the ability to lock in long-term price cut guarantees. I think all of us realize that Southwest Airlines used this long-term fuel supply hedging to save billions of dollars and avoid bankruptcy. Other airlines lost millions and fell into bankruptcy paying for high-priced fuel on the spot market. At the same time, Southwest produced profits in part from the savings from their long- term contracts to buy fuel. We can use this same strategy to benefit all Americans with coal to liquids and specifically by supplying that fuel to the Air Force and other Government users. I would hope the other users of fuel would realize the advantage, but we can do something now to start that market and to assure that technology goes into production. So I urge my colleagues to give a hard look to the Bunning-Domenici coal to liquid fuel standard amendment. I would say, I would add Craig Thomas's name to that list as well. Sponsors have trimmed back the amendment to require more modest and realistic amounts of CTL fuel. Sponsors have also included the same 20-percent lifecycle greenhouse gas reduction mandate and a requirement for coal to liquid plants to operate with technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions. We can use the carbon dioxide, so captured, to pump into previously depleted oil wells to generate more production or we can pump it into substructures, geological formations, which will capture and keep that CO2 sequestered. I urge my colleagues to support the Bunning-Domenici amendment. Our future in terms of energy independence, our future in terms of a cleaner environment depends on it. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, recently I returned from Iraq where I visited Tikrit, Baghdad, Bamadi, and Balad with three of my congressional colleagues. We had the opportunity to meet with the commanding officers and troops on each location. On the floor of the Senate I spoke to you about witnessing firsthand some of the progress being made. Since I have seen so little coverage of that progress, I think progress bears repeating. The new plan, the counterinsurgency plan, is showing initial signs of progress. Violence in al-Qaim, Haditha, Hit, Ramadi, and Falluja has dramatically decreased due to local leaders now siding with coalition forces pursuing al-Qaida in Iraq. In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi security forces are clearing and holding some of the most dangerous areas, and sectarian violence has decreased. I was especially impressed with the successes in Ramadi, where only a few months ago some were claiming it lost forever, and al-Qaida said it was going to establish its headquarters there. In April, attacks in Ramadi decreased by 74 percent. All 23 tribal areas in Ramadi are cooperating with U.S. forces to fight al-Qaida militants, 263 weapons caches were discovered in the preceding 3 months, and Iraqis are volunteering by the thousands to join the Army and local police force. I am disappointed this progress has not been widely covered by the media in the United States. In fact, the only TV coverage I have seen was a 60-second clip by Nick Johnson of CNN, who did an excellent job. I see the LA Times had a story, ``Iraqi Tribal Chiefs Forming an Anti- Insurgent Party.'' The frustration at the failure of our media to call the successes what they were is very high. Earlier last week, my office received an e-mail from one of our troops serving in Iraq. He detailed an exciting success story, the establishment of a new joint command precinct for Iraqi police, Iraqi Army and Marines, the first such precinct headquarters to be established in Falluja. His e-mail detailed what a success the operation had been. Almost 200 Iraqis volunteered for police recruitment, hundreds more received outpatient medical care, damage claims were settled, and all present received food and oil rations. And the Iraqis seemed to be very pleased to be cooperating with the United States. But the enemy, being very clever, working to thwart any and all progress, reacted to this success story by sending in some poor suicide bomber. Thanks to aggressive patrolling efforts by Iraqi forces, the bomber was forced to detonate his vest almost half a mile away when he was halted by police. He caused superficial wounds to one Iraqi civilian and killed himself. No one else was injured, no other damage caused. In the aftermath of the incident the precinct signed up an additional 75 recruits for police service. As this American warrior wrote to us: This bomber failed. He failed to kill innocents and he failed to deter the progress of standing up Iraqi police. But to his frustration there was no coverage of this good news story. Indeed, the media, the U.S. media totally misreported the story. A number of media outlets carried these headlines. From the Baltimore Sun, ``Attack on Iraq Police, At Least 20 Dead.'' From the Los Angeles Times, ``Twenty Iraqis Die in Suicide Attacks.'' Our correspondent wrote that he was shocked. He checked it out every way he could, but it appears to have been a false report. The headlines refer to the failed attack but depicted a dramatically different outcome. There has been no apparent retraction, so thousands upon thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands who saw the headline assumed yet another tragic incident occurred in Falluja and just lumped that in with all the other bad news that makes up a grim picture of Iraq. And you see why our men and women fighting over there are frustrated. The following morning our correspondent found himself in another situation. He learned a combined Iraqi Army police and U.S. Marine patrol in Falluja encountered a small band of insurgents at a suicide vehicle factory. The police engaged the enemy, killing four of them, and the Iraqi Army and Marines trapped additional escaping insurgents, killing three more. Two large trucks laden with explosives and rigged to be suicide vehicles were found. This was a best case scenario: enemy killed in his tracks, weapon was discovered before it caused any harm, there were no civilian casualties whatsoever, and U.S. demolition forces blew up the two suicide vehicles. Instead of celebrating this success, the e-mail noted--the writer noted it was disappointing to read a headline, ``Children Killed.'' According to the story, the U.S. tank fired a high-explosive round at insurgents placing an IED in Fallujah yesterday, killing three Iraqi children. The insurgents got away. To anyone watching the news that day, it would seem the war in Iraq is being lost and the terrorists are winning. While there has been significant progress in Iraq, there is no doubt we are losing the war of information. I couldn't have said it better than the young man who wrote my office in frustration, who said: What incredible economy of effort the enemy is afforded when U.S. media is their megaphone. Why spend precious resources on developing your own propaganda machine when you can make your opponent's own news outlets scream your message louder than you ever hoped to do independently. The young man ended his e-mail by saying the incidents he detailed were very important to him and his comrades who were serving in Iraq. Typical of our brave warfighters, the young man stressed that he and his fellow soldiers will continue to fight the fight. He acknowledged there will be mistakes, setbacks, and casualties that the world will hear about, but there will also be successes, victories over enemy combatants, progress, stability, and growth in the new Iraq, but, tragically, it appears no one is going to hear about that in our media since it has been increasingly clear that our media is unwilling or able to report anything except bloody headlines and bad news. The U.S. Government has a responsibility to do a better job of public diplomacy, strategic influence getting our story out. The U.S. military has made a real difference in Iraqi communities. There are examples of good stories, such as the local new precinct joint command headquarters. But somehow we are not doing an adequate job of spreading the news. Let me cite an example from today's Washington Post page A11: ``Tribal Coalition In Anbar Said To Be Crumbling.'' Well, I have missed it, perhaps, if I saw anything in the Washington Post about the coalition. About 23 sheiks in the tribal areas are cooperating with the United States. But when you read the story a little farther, you see the headline is about one Sunni leader who has great concern about another Sunni leader, and calls him a ``traitor.'' Unfortunately, this happens to go on frequently among tribes. When you read farther down in the story, we finally interview General Petraeus. General Petraeus said: I think they have done this for their lives. This is not just a business deal that they have struck; when you oppose al-Qaida, you are putting it all on the line. This is not an economic issue. That was the message from our commander. He did not get the headline. There was another member of the council who said that: The salvation is like one family. There are no problems between us and the members. U.S. military officials said virtually everyone in Anbar belongs to a tribe and that rather than ignore that fact, they were trying to exploit it. There is an overlay of government structure and tribal structure, and the two, when they work well, mesh and, in a sense, complement each other in Anbar. I was able to see an article, a TV story by Ollie North this past Sunday, a war story. He was talking about the good old days in World War II. If there was anything good about the old days in World War II, Hollywood and the media were on the same side as our troops. What a wonderful vestige of the old times. I thought this was a great opportunity to see what had happened in the past. The war of ideas and public opinion is not just critical in Iraq, it is critical in the broad war on terror. As we know from reading the statements of Ayman al-Zawahari, the No. 2 in command, he knows they cannot win the war militarily; they can win it only by influencing public opinion in the United States. Unfortunately, recent congressional action indicates the terrorists may not be far off base. Resolutions to withdraw from Iraq, delaying funding for the troops, telling the Sunni terror cells and the Shia militias that America's political will is wavering--the supporters of these resolutions are sending a message: Hang on, the United States will not have the political will to outlast them. Our men and women in uniform are right to be disheartened that we have not only the media but some Members of Congress who are unduly influenced by our enemy. It is critical that we not fall into this trap set by al-Qaida and the other Islamic terrorists who wish to defeat us. It is about time we realize our brave men and women in Iraq are putting their lives on the line, they are under fire every day. They are fighting a battle and they are making progress in the global war on terror. They need the funds for equipment, which we finally passed to them, but they also deserve our moral support and support in winning the hearts and minds not only of the United States but of the world. I yield the floor, and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.