Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Well, the Senator is talking about mothers now.

Mr. BYRD

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 I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to each Senator for that purpose.

Mr. BYRD. I don't like to yield 10 seconds. I yield the Senator an additional minute. Does this Senator wish additional time?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for this quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BYRD. I yield my time remaining.

Mr. BYRD. Do I have 5 minutes remaining?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time does the distinguished Senator wish me to yield to him?

Mr. BYRD. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. BYRD

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I do not expect to speak overly long. I think I should be able to complete my statement in 20 minutes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed out of order for as much time as I may consume.

Mr. BYRD. Is there an order permitting Senators to speak during morning business?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation at the moment?

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, by request of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar Order No. 543, H.R. 2121.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Biden-Helms amendment at the desk be agreed to, the committee amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed, and the amendment to the title be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record at the appropriate place as if read.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I thank all Members.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, yesterday, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I asked a question of the Secretary of Defense. I referred to a Newsweek article that will appear in the September 23, 2002, edition. That article reads as follows. It is not overly lengthy. I shall read it. Beginning on page 35 of Newsweek, here is what the article says: America helped make a monster. What to do with him--and what happens after he is gone--has haunted us for a quarter century. The article is written by Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas. It reads as follows: The last time Donald Rumsfeld saw Saddam Hussein, he gave him a cordial handshake. The date was almost 20 years ago, Dec. 20, 1983; an official Iraqi television crew recorded the historic moment. The once and future Defense secretary, at the time a private citizen, had been sent by President Ronald Reagan to Baghdad as a special envoy. Saddam Hussein, armed with a pistol on his hip, seemed ``vigorous and confident,'' according to a now declassified State Department cable obtained by Newsweek. Rumsfeld ``conveyed the President's greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad,'' wrote the notetaker. Then the two men got down to business, talking about the need to improve relations between their two countries. Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time, America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan administration feared that the Iranian revolutionaries who had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and its vital oilfields. On the--theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support Iraq in a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next five years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic aid and covert supplies of munitions. Rumsfeld is not the first American diplomat to wish for the demise of a former ally. After all, before the cold war, the Soviet Union was America's partner against Hitler in World War II. In the real world, as the saying goes, nations have no permanent friends, just permanent interests. Nonetheless, Rumsfeld's long-ago interlude with Saddam is a reminder that today's friend can be tomorrow's mortal threat. As President George W. Bush and his war cabinet ponder Saddam's successor's regime, they would do well to contemplate how and why the last three presidents allowed the Butcher of Baghdad to stay in power so long. The history of America's relations with Saddam is one of the sorrier tales in American foreign policy. Time and again, America turned a blind eye to Saddam's predations, saw him as the lesser evil or flinched at the chance to unseat him. No single policymaker or administration deserves blame for creating, or at least tolerating, a monster; many of their decisions seemed reasonable at the time. Even so, there are moments in this clumsy dance with the Devil that make one cringe. It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s, America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build biological weapons. Let me read that again: It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s, America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build biological weapons. But it happened. America's past stumbles, while embarrassing, are not an argument for inaction in the future. Saddam probably is the ``grave and gathering danger'' described by President Bush in his speech to the United Nations last week. It may also be true that ``whoever replaces Saddam is not going to be worse,'' as a senior administration official put it to Newsweek. But the story of how America helped create a Frankenstein monster it now wishes to strangle is sobering. It illustrates the power of wishful thinking, as well as the iron law of unintended consequences. America did not put Saddam in power. He emerged after two decades of turmoil in the '60s and '70s, as various strongmen tried to gain control of a nation that had been concocted by British imperialists in the 1920s out of three distinct and rival factions, the Sunnis, Shiites and the Kurds. But during the cold war, America competed with the Soviets for Saddam's attention and welcomed his war with the religious fanatics of Iran. Having cozied up to Saddam, Washington found it hard to break away--even after going to war with him in 1991. Through years of both tacit and overt support, the West helped create the Saddam of today, giving him time to build deadly arsenals and dominate his people. Successive administrations always worried that if Saddam fell, chaos would follow, rippling through the region and possibly igniting another Middle East war. At times it seemed that Washington was transfixed by Saddam. The Bush administration wants to finally break the spell. If the administration's true believers are right, Baghdad, after Saddam falls will look something like Paris after the Germans fled in August 1944. American troops will be cheered as liberators, and democracy will spread forth and push Middle Eastern despotism back into the shadows. Yet if the gloomy predictions of the administration's many critics come true, the Arab street, inflamed by Yankee imperialism, will rise up and replace the shaky but friendly autocrats in the region with Islamic fanatics. While the Middle East is unlikely to become a democratic nirvana, the worst-case scenarios, always a staple of the press, are probably also wrong or exaggerated. Assuming that a cornered and doomed Saddam does not kill thousands of Americans in some kind of horrific Gotterdammerung--a scary possibility, one that deeply worries administration officials--the greatest risk of his fall is that one strongman may simply be replaced by another. Saddam's successor may not be a paranoid sadist. But there is no assurance that he will be America's friend or forswear the development of weapons of mass destruction. American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath-- Get that. American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath ever since he became the country's de facto ruler in the early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the title of president in 1979 was to videotape a session of his party's congress, during which he personally ordered several members executed on the spot. Let me repeat that: American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath ever since he became the country's de facto ruler in the early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the title of president in 1979 was to videotape-- Videotape-- a session of his party's congress, during which he personally ordered several members executed on the spot. The message, carefully conveyed to the Arab press, was not that these men were executed for plotting against Saddam, but rather for thinking about plotting against him. From the beginning, U.S. officials worried about Saddam's taste for nasty weaponry; indeed, at their meeting in 1983, Rumsfeld warned that Saddam's use of chemical weapons might ``inhibit'' American assistance. But top officials in the Reagan administration saw Saddam as a useful surrogate. By going to war with Iran, he could bleed the radical mullahs who had seized control of Iran from the pro-American shah. Some Reagan officials even saw Saddam as another Anwar Sadat, capable of making Iraq into a modern secular state, just as Sadat had tried to lift up Egypt before his assassination in 1981. But Saddam had to be rescued first. The war against Iran was going badly by 1982. Iran's ``human wave attacks'' threatened to overrun Saddam's armies. Washington decided to give Iraq a helping hand. After Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1983, U.S. intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator with satellite photos showing Iranian deployments. Official documents suggest that America may also have secretly arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be shipped to Iraq in a swap deal--American tanks to Egypt, Egyptian tanks to Iraq. Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics, the Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a wide variety of ``dual use'' equipment and materials from American suppliers. According to confidential Commerce Department export-control documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam's Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials; television cameras for ``video surveillance applications''; chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments of ``bacteria/fungi/protozoa'' to the IAEC. According to former officials, the bacterial cultures could be used to make biological weapons, including anthrax. The State Department also approved the shipment of 1.5 million atropine injectors, for use against the effects of chemical weapons, but the Pentagon blocked the sale. The helicopters, some American officials later surmised, were used to spray poison gas on the Kurds. The United States almost certainly knew from its own satellite imagery that Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. When Saddam bombed Kurdish rebels and civilians with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX in 1988, the Reagan administration first blamed Iran, before acknowledging, under pressure from congressional Democrats, that the culprits were Saddam's own forces. There was only token official protest at the time. Saddam's men were unfazed. An Iraqi audiotape, later captured by the Kurds, records Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (known as Ali Chemical) talking to his fellow officers about gassing the Kurds. ``Who is going to say anything?'' he asks. ``The international community? F----k them!'' The United States was much more concerned with protecting Iraqi oil from attacks by Iran as it was shipped through the Persian Gulf. In 1987, an Iraqi Exocet missile hit an American destroyer, the USS Stark, in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 crewmen. Incredibly, the United States excused Iraq for making an unintentional mistake and instead used the incident to accuse Iran of escalating the war in the gulf. The American tilt to Iraq became more pronounced. U.S. commandos began blowing up Iranian oil platforms and attacking Iranian patrol boats. In 1988, an American warship in the gulf accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing 290 civilians. Within a few weeks, Iran, exhausted and fearing American intervention, gave up its war with Iraq. Saddam was feeling cocky. With the support of the West, he had defeated the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran. America favored him as a regional pillar; European and American corporations were vying for contracts with Iraq. He was visited by congressional delegations led by Sens. Bob Dole of Kansas and Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who were eager to promote American farm and business interests. But Saddam's megalomania was on the rise, and he overplayed his hand. In 1990, a U.S. Customs sting operation snared several Iraqi agents who were trying to buy electronic equipment used to make triggers for nuclear bombs. Not long after, Saddam gained the world's attention by threatening ``to burn Israel to the ground.'' At the Pentagon, analysts began to warn that Saddam was a growing menace, especially after he tried to buy some American-made high-tech furnaces useful for making nuclear-bomb parts. Yet other officials in Congress and in the Bush administration continued to see him as a useful, if distasteful, regional strongman. The State Department was equivocating with Saddam right up to the moment he invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Mr. President, I referred to this Newsweek article yesterday at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Specifically, during the hearing, I asked Secretary Rumsfeld: Mr. Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war? Are we in fact now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sewn? The Secretary quickly and flatly denied any knowledge but said he would review Pentagon records. I suggest that the administration speed up that review. My concerns and the concerns of others have grown. A letter from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, which I shall submit for the Record, shows very clearly that the United States is, in fact, preparing to reap what it has sewn. A letter written in 1995 by former CDC Director David Satcher to former Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr., points out that the U.S. Government provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly diseases. According to the letter from Dr. Satcher to former Senator Donald Riegle, many of the materials were hand carried by an Iraqi scientist to Iraq after he had spent 3 months training in the CDC laboratory. The Armed Services Committee is requesting information from the Departments of Commerce, State, and Defense on the history of the United States, providing the building blocks for weapons of mass destruction to Iraq. I recommend that the Department of Health and Human Services also be included in that request. The American people do not need obfuscation and denial. The American people need the truth. The American people need to know whether the United States is in large part responsible for the very Iraqi weapons of mass destruction which the administration now seeks to destroy. We may very well have created the monster that we seek to eliminate. The Senate deserves to know the whole story. The American people deserve answers to the whole story. Also yesterday, in the same 6 minutes that I was given in which to ask questions--which was extended by virtue of the kindness of the distinguished Senator from Georgia, Mr. Max Cleland, and other members of the committee, so it was perhaps 9 or 10 minutes--there was another interesting question that I asked. Let me read a portion of that transcript from the Armed Services Committee: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings. Mr. Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown? Rumsfeld: Certainly not to my knowledge. I have no knowledge of United States companies or government being involved in assisting Iraq develop chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. There is another excerpt from that question and answer period in which Secretary Rumsfeld and I engaged: Byrd: Now, the Washington Post reported this morning [yesterday] that the United States is stepping away from efforts to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. Are we not sending exactly the wrong signal to the world, at exactly the wrong time? Doesn't this damage our credibility in the international community at the very time that we are seeking their support to neutralize the threat of Iraq's biological weapons program? If we supplied, as the Newsweek article said, if we supplied the building blocks for germ and chemical warfare to this madman in the first place, this psychopath, how do we look to the world to be backing away from this effort to control it at this point? That question speaks for itself. I ask unanimous consent that the following material be printed in the Record at the close of my remarks: The partial transcript from the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on September 19; the article from the Washington Post of yesterday, titled ``U.S. Drops Bid to Strengthen Germ Warfare Accord''; the Newsweek article, which I have alluded to already; a letter dated January 6, 1994, requesting information from the Centers for Disease Control and a response to the Honorable Donald W. Riegle, Jr., U.S. Senator, dated June 21, 1995, from David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., Director; a U.S. Senate Hearing Report 103-900, dealing with U.S. exports of biological materials to Iraq to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs which has oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act, and keeping in mind that the U.S. Department of Commerce approves licenses by that Department for exports; including also the U.S. Senate hearing report in that matter. Included in the approved sales are such items as Bacillus Anthracis, anthrax, Clostridium Botulinum, Histoplasma Capsulatum, which causes a disease superficially resembling tuberculosis that may cause pneumonia; Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria which can cause chronic fatigue, and so on; Clostridium Perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. I believe that completes the list.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Now, Mr. President, let me call attention to an editorial in today's Charleston, WV, Gazette, titled, ``Bush, Cheney won't stop.'' And I read therefrom: Although Iraq agreed to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors, President Bush and Vice President Cheney still are clamoring for U.S. military action to topple dictator Saddam Hussein. The White House continues its mantra-- Now listen. This is the Charleston, WV, Gazette. The White House continues its mantra that war is necessary because Saddam is ``evil'' and he's secretly making weapons of mass destruction. But this justification may be a smoke screen. Are you listening? Are you listening, the people out there throughout this great land? Are you listening? . . . this justification may be a smoke screen. Some observers say the administration's hidden motive is to gain control of Iraq's oil. In a front-page Sunday report subtitled ``U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool,'' The Washington Post said America's oil industry--to which Bush and Cheney are closely tied--eagerly wants a ``regime change'' in Iraq so U.S. firms can begin drilling into Iraq's vast, 112- billion-barrel reserve. So the Charleston Gazette of today calls attention to the Washington Post article which I have already read and have included in the Record, the Washington Post article of last Sunday. Continuing with the Gazette editorial: The White House supports the London-based Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization of exiled Iraqi groups seeking to remove Saddam. INC [Iraqi National Congress] leader Ahmed Chalabi told the Post [the Washington Post] that, when a new regime is installed in Baghdad, ``American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil.'' The Washington [Post] quoted former CIA Director James Woolsey:-- And I have also referred to his remarks. But let me continue with the Charleston Gazette editorial: Amazing! In referring to what Mr. Woolsey was saying, the Gazette said: Amazing. This implies that Bush's war urge isn't about ``evil'' or weapons. It's about oil. ``It's about oil.'' Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker said the White House war demands are ``tainted with the sickening smell of gasoline.'' Now, that was the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That is a Georgia paper that is known and read nationwide and internationally. Let me read what that column said again: Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker said the White House war demands are ``tainted with the sickening smell of gasoline.'' Further reading from the Charleston Gazette of today: ``If the Bush administration invades Iraq,'' she wrote-- Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker-- ``future scholars will look back on this period and name the period for what it was: the Petroleum Wars. . . . What but oil could possibly explain the Bush administration's stubborn insistence on attacking Saddam Hussein, who had no connection to the atrocities of Sept. 11?'' Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., has taken the lead in questioning President Bush's warplans. We hope that he and colleagues in Congress try to learn whether the White House war cry is designed to serve America's oil industry. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Gazette editorial in its entirety be printed in the Record at the close of my remarks today.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I call attention to an article in the Washington Post of September 15, Sunday, the final edition. I shall read excerpts therefrom. The headline: ``In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue; U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool.'' The article is by Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway, Washington Post staff writers. I will proceed now with reading the first three paragraphs: A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition. Although senior Bush administration officials say they have not begun to focus on the issues involving oil and Iraq, American and foreign oil companies have already begun maneuvering for a stake in the country's huge proven reserves of 112 billion barrels of crude oil, the largest in the world outside Saudi Arabia. The importance of Iraq's oil has made it potentially one of the administration's biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council and Western allies for President Bush's call for tough international action against Hussein. All five permanent members of the Security Council--the United States, Britain, France, Russian and China--have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad. ``It's pretty straightforward,'' said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. ``France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them.'' But he added: ``If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.'' Indeed, the mere prospect of a new Iraqi government has fanned concerns by non-American oil companies that they will be excluded by the United States, which almost certainly would be the dominant foreign power in Iraq in the aftermath of Hussein's fall. Are you listening? Out there in America, are you listening? Let me say that again, with reference to former CIA Director R. James Woolsey: But he added: ``If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.'' Indeed, the mere prospect of a new Iraqi government has fanned concerns by non-American oil companies that they will be excluded by the United States-- Hear that-- which almost certainly would be the dominant foreign power in Iraq in the aftermath of Hussein's fall. Are we paying attention? Representatives of many foreign oil concerns have been meeting with leaders of the Iraqi opposition to make their case for a future stake and to sound them out about their intentions. Since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, companies from more than a dozen nations, including France, Russia, China, India, Italy, Vietnam and Algeria, have either reached or sought to reach agreements in principle to develop Iraqi oil fields, refurbish existing facilities or explore undeveloped tracts. Most of the deals are on hold until the lifting of U.N. sanctions. But Iraqi opposition officials made clear in interviews last week that they will not be bound by any of the deals. It is a lengthy article, Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record at the close of my remarks.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed for an additional 15 minutes over and above the order that has been entered.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, that concludes the business of the Senate for today. Thereupon, the Senate, at 3:38 p.m., adjourned until Monday, September 23, 2002, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Florida for his perspicacious remarks. He has not been asleep. He has been ill with a temporary ailment, but he is back on the mend. He is ready to go. I also thank my friend for his expression of support for my amendment. That amendment will be voted on next Tuesday. It will be voted up or down. Senators will have an opportunity to go on record, if they support that amendment, an opportunity to support the creation of a Department of Homeland Defense. In voting for my amendment, they will have an opportunity to say that we are not going to hand this whole package of homeland security as it is envisioned in the House or Senate bill. I refer to the Senate bill as the Lieberman bill. Once the Senate passes on the homeland security bill, then the Senate bill would go to the conference. The conference report eventually would come back to both Houses, and the Senate will not have an opportunity on the conference report to amend. All the Senate will be able to do is vote up or down on the conference report. Under the House bill or under the Lieberman bill, the overall time certainly under the Lieberman bill, the overall period for the ``fleshing out'' of this Department of Homeland Security, this fleshing out by moving various and sundry agencies and offices into the several directorates that are established by the Lieberman bill, and the five directorates that are mentioned in my amendment thereto, that fleshing out would occur under the Lieberman bill over a period of 13 months. But in passing the Lieberman bill, and it is light-years ahead of the House bill, it is a better bill than the House bill, but it can be improved. That is what I am attempting to do with my amendment. Under the Lieberman bill, over a period of 13 months, Congress will be putting itself on the sidelines. The Senate will be saying: OK, Mr. President, it is all yours. You have 13 months. Congress is going fishing. You have it. It is all yours. Now, nothing would please this President more than to have such a blank check handed to him. The Lieberman bill, in that respect, is a Tonkin Gulf resolution on homeland security. Congress will be removing itself to the sidelines for those 13 months, and the President and this administration--think about that carefully--with its penchant for secrecy, its penchant for operating out of the White House, having no limitations, will have full authority to move agencies and 170,000 employees into this new department, with Congress relegating itself to the sidelines. The hand of Congress ought to be there. Congress ought to conduct its constitutional responsibility of oversight in seeing that these agencies are put into the various directorates in an orderly way throughout the 13 months. The Lieberman committee and its counterpart in the House under my amendment would be front and center throughout the 13 months. That committee would still be in the driver's seat, and every 4 months there would be another shift of agencies and directorates, every 4 months, until it is completed, over a 13-month period. All the while, Mr. Lieberman's committee would take the policies and the recommendations of the Secretary of Homeland Security, look at them, debate them in the committee, amend them, and report the legislation to the Senate, and then the Senate would take the legislation, report it from the Lieberman committee, and debate it, amend it, send it to the President. I have said we could have expedited procedure. I am not a Senator who likes expedited procedure, but in this situation I would be willing to have expedited procedures to see that the bill doesn't fall through the cracks in the committee, and that it is not filibustered or delayed in the Senate. That is my prescription, my amendment for order: a phased filling out of the department by agencies and offices, under continuing congressional oversight, avoiding the chaos that will otherwise occur just by handing this whole thing over to the President and the administration--hook, line, and sinker. Just mark my words. I am seeking to improve the Lieberman bill. I am not adversarial to the Lieberman bill. But if we don't adopt my amendment, or something like it, there is going to be chaos, and instead of having a measure that will promote the security of our homeland and its people, we will be taking our eyes off the terrorists, off homeland security. The federal agencies are out there, working now to provide homeland security. The passage of the Lieberman bill is not necessary in order to get these people out there guarding the ports of entry--the rivers and seaports and airports and the southern and northern borders. They are already out there working now, every day. The FBI, just a few days ago, in the State of New York, located a cell and arrested six persons. Did the FBI have to wait on this homeland security bill? There is no great outcry out there in the country; there is no great clamor for a homeland security bill. When I go to West Virginia, people don't come up to me and say: Senator, let's get that homeland security bill passed. When are you going to pass that bill? There is no great clamor out there. As a matter of fact, it is hard to get anyone to listen to a discussion of the subject. I have been on this Senate floor time and time again, asking to be heard. Listen. Hear me. Why, the Members of the Senate aren't that greatly interested in this bill. Facing us in less than 2 months is a big election. All of a sudden this administration, which as late as the middle of August has been saying that there were ``no plans on the President's desk'' to go to war with Iraq. I asked the Secretary of State that question in a committee hearing: oh, there is ``no plan. The President doesn't have any plan on his desk.'' I asked the Secretary of Defense. Oh, the President has no plans. The President himself has been quoted time and time again saying he has no plans; ``there is no plan on my desk.'' All of a sudden, bam, the administration wants to go to war with Iraq. It wasn't too long ago, I can remember the Secretary's public spokesman and Ari Fleischer and some others in the administration, saying: ``Why have a Department of Homeland Defense? We don't need one.'' That wasn't long ago. But all of a sudden, all of a sudden the President was dropping in the polls and the domestic situation was such that the administration was appearing to be much like the Emperor who had no clothes. All of a sudden, bam, all of this war talk--the war fervor, the drums of war, the bugles of war, the clouds of war--this war hysteria has blown in like a hurricane. And what has that done to the President's polls? Seventy percent. Don't tell me that things suddenly went wrong. I sat in on some of the secret briefings and nobody from the administration in those secret briefings has been able to answer the question: Why now? Why all of a sudden, when the administration was saying back just in August the President has no plans? Let's not have all of this angst about war. All of a sudden this country is going to war. And the President is saying, I'll do this if the U.N. doesn't do it. Now, all of a sudden, is the Administration talking about the domestic situation in this country? Are they talking about the stock market? Are they talking about the weakness of the economy? Are they talking about the jobs that are being lost? Are they talking about the decrease in housing starts in this country? No. No. The war clouds are there. All of a sudden this administration sends up a resolution to Congress that is a nonstarter, to give this President the authority that he is asking for. Not by this Constitution will I give my vote on that resolution. That resolution is going to take some work. But all of a sudden? Why is it? Is it politics? The Constitution is apparently irrelevant to people in this administration. What is wanted here by the administration is for Congress, in connection with war, to do the same as they want Congress to do in homeland security--hand over the whole authority and say: Take it, Mr. President. It's all yours for the next 13 months. Congress is going fishing. We are not going to be in the mix. Congress relegates itself to the sidelines. How foolish can we be as Members of the Senate to tuck our tails between our legs and just quit and say: ``You can have it all, Mr. President. Do anything you want to do with homeland security.'' Well, not by my vote. I thank the distinguished Senator for his remarks. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.