Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it's difficult to imagine a subject that is more obscure and more arcane than the federal procurement process. At times, it seems as though an impenetrable fog hangs over government contractors, clouding the process by which taxpayer funds are awarded and spent. Nowhere is the issue of federal procurement more clouded, more obscured from public scrutiny than in the Defense Department. What little information makes it into the mainstream media usually reinforces the worst cliches about government waste. The stories are familiar. We have all heard them. They are a grotesque litany of negligence and greed. We read that the Pentagon has awarded billions of dollars to a contractor to produce a new supersonic stealth fighter. Twenty aircraft come off the production line and hundreds more are planned--only then do we find out that nobody has tested the new fighter to see if it actually works. We read of how a contractor has charged the Federal Government for products and services never provided, and then of how the government must engage in lengthy, costly efforts to get the taxpayers' money back. And then there is the over-billing. We read about Defense Department officials who must wrestle with contractors over inflated pricing of spare parts. A disputed bill for airplane parts in 1999 includes: $2,522 for a 4\1/2\-inch metal sleeve, $744 for a washer, $714 for a rivet, and $5,217 for a 1-inch metal bracket. Whatever the excuses--and I am sure there are legions of them--it is unfathomable to me that, year after year, administration after administration, our Government continues to endure the waste of billions and billions of taxpayer dollars on incompetent and negligent defense contractors who continually fail to deliver products and services on time and at a cost commensurate with what they promised. Even with our troops overseas in Iraq--where, in too many cases, some of their most basic needs for armor and food are going unaddressed--the Defense Department continues to tolerate enormous waste from its contractors. Not enough questions asked, not enough accountability required. In March, the new inspector general of the U.S.-led authority in Iraq, with colossal understatement, identified ``improper procedures and limited competition'' as ``issues of concern'' with regard to contractors in Iraq. The Inspector General reported only 20 percent of the 1,500 contracts awarded last fiscal year--about $2 billion of the $10 billion in taxpayer funds awarded to defense contractors in Iraq--has been awarded through full and open competition. The Inspector General noted that the Defense Contract Audit Agency has issued more than 187 audit reports related to nearly $7 billion in reconstruction work. These audits have found $133 million in questionable costs and $307 million in unsupported costs and have led to $176.5 million in suspended billings. The Inspector General reported that the Defense Criminal Investigative Service has opened four bribery and corruption cases, four theft cases, two false claims cases, three weapons recovery cases, four counterfeit cases, and one conflict of interest case. The Inspector General's report is the tip of an enormous and largely hidden iceberg. The Defense Department's contract oversight system is a sloppy, incomprehensible mess, and it has left the Defense Department with the unfortunate reputation of ignoring contractor rip-offs. Procurement managers must be held accountable. Agency heads must be held accountable. Contracting officers must be held accountable. And, yet, they are not. The abuse and waste of the taxpayers' dollars is somehow allowed to continue. The problem is attributable, in part, to the draconian staff cuts in the federal acquisition workforce. These are the civil servants who analyze proposed prices on bids, who keep tabs on cost overruns, who commit contractual fine print to memory so they can make sure requirements and standards are met. Since 1989, the number of these civil servants has been cut in half--one of the most dramatic reductions in the entire federal workforce since the end of the cold war. Meanwhile, as procurement and contract oversight staffs have been shrinking, Defense's contracting activity has soared. It is now routine for the Pentagon to award multi-billion dollar contracts for logistics support for an entire weapon system or a host of support services for U.S. troops deployed in an overseas operation. These are the contracts the American public reads about most in the newspapers, where companies are alleged to have overcharged the taxpayers for fuel and meals supplied to U.S. troops in Iraq. The Pentagon's Inspector General has rightly urged more vigilance by Defense auditors. But the Defense Department hasn't the staff or the resources to do it. Understaffed auditing agencies must pick and choose where to focus their resources. Likewise, the Congress remains woefully unprepared to oversee how taxpayer funds are being spent on defense contracts in Iraq and elsewhere. Congressional committees, along with the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the Inspector Generals' offices, and the Justice Department, do catch abuses, but not all of them. All of this makes it increasingly tempting for companies to inflate their prices and to hide the real costs behind impenetrable contractual jargon. Contractors have no incentive to contain costs. The more a contractor bills, the more money the contractor makes. This is the dark side of acquisition. For all of the benefits and contributions provided by defense contractors--and there have been many contributions over the years--the lack of oversight makes it impossible for any Member of Congress to vote for additional defense dollars and honestly tell their constituents that those taxpayer funds will be well spent. Every acquisition dollar frittered away on negligent contractors is one less taxpayer dollar available to support our troops. It is one more dollar that will be taken from our domestic needs here at home. The American people should demand more from their Congress. They should demand better from their President. We are asking men and women to make the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and around the world. The food that nourishes them and the armor that shields them should not provide a blank check for avarice and imprudence. I intend to offer an amendment that would require the Secretary of Defense to increase the size of the Pentagon's acquisition workforce. Under my amendment, the Secretary of Defense would be allowed to waive this required increase, but only if the Secretary can certify to the Congress that such an increase in the workforce would not yield sufficient savings to offset the cost of the additional personnel. I recognize that the scope of the problems with the Pentagon's procurement system is larger than this amendment. Gross waste, negligent oversight, and rampant abuse are embedded deep within our federal procurement system. The procurement abuses that have been widely reported in Iraq--the allegations of favoritism, the lack of oversight, the fraudulent charges, the rampant waste--are common to other departments and agencies of the federal government. Recently, far too much of the contracting debate has focused on individual agencies or individual contracts being negotiated by the administration. Many of them are important, but we also need to look at the bigger picture of what is wrong with the overall procurement process. What is needed are comprehensive hearings by the Committees with jurisdiction, primarily the Senate Governmental Affairs and the Armed Services Committees, to identify the most serious problems and to make recommendations to fix them. Extensive hearings are needed not only to educate the Congress, but also the American public about the waste in the procurement system and the statutory changes needed to address them. Comprehensive legislation should be reported to the full Senate, which should take the time necessary to debate the bill and to consider amendments. It will require an enormous effort. It will require skilled legislators with an adroit understanding of the issues. At the end of the day, the procurement system should be transparent and open to public scrutiny and understanding it. In the meantime, I offer my amendment to help the administration better oversee the defense contractors it employs. Each year, the Congress appropriates billions of taxpayer dollars to federal agencies to pay federal contractors with little means of ever fully accounting for how those funds are spent. Staff must be properly trained. Resources must be provided. Contractors must be held accountable to make sure they do their job right. This is a common sense approach to a problem that has been ignored for far too long. I urge the adoption of my amendment.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this coming Sunday is Mother's Day. In kindergartens across the Nation, small hands are being pressed against pink construction paper hearts, creating a somewhat smudgy record of loving hand prints for posterity. Those same small hands will clutch a crayon tightly in order to scribe in wobbly letters the heartfelt sentiments so beloved by Mothers--the three best words on earth: I love you. Older children's efforts to honor their mothers may be more sophisticated, but the sentiment remains the same: I love you, Mother. Or Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma, or Maw. The name may show some variation across the country, but the title remains a cherished one. The flowers, too, may show some variation, from the short-stemmed fistful of buttercups wilting in a sweaty young palm to the artistry of the floral arranger with the world's bounty of blossoms at his or her fingertips. And these days, the cards may range from time-honored construction paper classics through sweet and witty store-boughts, to animated e- mail extravaganzas. Whatever the display laid at the mother's feet this Sunday, the old adage remains true: It is the thought that counts. Mothers, who so often put their children and husband first, and themselves always last, will surely be touched by the love reflected in the efforts to make her day a special one. From a plate of cold toast and runny home-cooked eggs to an elaborate Sunday restaurant brunch, the meal will taste the same to a mother on Mother's Day. It will taste of love. It was just such a love that brought about the first Mother's Day, and the depth of the sentiment was and is such that this holiday continues to resonate among families today. The first Mother's Day proclamation, I am proud to note, was issued by the Governor of West Virginia in 1910, but by 1911 every State had its own observances. Such is the depth of sentiment for mothers across the Nation that fueled the spread of Mother's Day observances like wildfires across the parched West. The Mother's Day International Association was incorporated on December 12, 1912, for the purpose of furthering the observance of Mother's Day. By May 1913, the House of Representatives had adopted a resolution requesting that the President and other Federal Government officials wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. The following year, on May 8, 1914, the Congress adopted a joint resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day and urging the U.S. Flag to be flown on Government buildings and private homes on that day ``as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.'' President Woodrow Wilson issued the first proclamation making Mother's Day an official national holiday. What inspired this outpouring of devotion and array of public displays of affection? A single West Virginia mother, Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis, is at the heart of this story. Mrs. Jarvis was a minister's daughter. She taught Sunday school in the Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, WV, for many years, while raising her children and caring for her neighbors in the difficult years following the Civil War. Mrs. Jarvis's daughter, born in 1864 and also named Anna, was a devoted child. She remained close to her family and especially to her mother. Miss Jarvis graduated from the Female Seminary in Wheeling, WV, and taught in Grafton before moving with her family to Philadelphia, PA. When her mother died in Philadelphia in 1905, Miss Jarvis was deeply affected. She felt that children often neglected to appreciate their mothers enough while their mothers are still alive. With the help of her friends, in 1907 she initiated a letter-writing campaign urging influential ministers, businessmen and congressmen to declare a national Mother's Day, hoping to increase respect for parents and strengthen family bonds. And such was the power of her message that her grassroots campaign took off, resulting in the national display of familial love that we will see this Sunday. At that first Mother's Day observance in Grafton, Miss Jarvis supplied carnations to the church because they were her mother's favorite flower. White carnations were chosen because they represented sweetness, purity, and endurance of a mother's love. Over the years, red carnations have become the symbol of a living mother. White carnations now signify that, like Miss Jarvis's mother at the time of the first Mother's Day, one's mother has died. Though not many people wear flowers these days, Mother's Day is a bonanza for the floral industry, just as it is for restaurants, the phone companies, greeting card companies, and jewelers. It is said that more long distance calls are made on Mother's Day than on any other single day of the year. Though Miss Jarvis might decry some of the more commercial aspects of today's Mother's Day celebrations, I think that she, too, would be pleased that through her efforts, so many people do make the effort to pay their respects and show their affection for their mothers. We have so much to thank our mothers for, when we consider the enormous expenditure of time and effort that it takes to raise a child properly. Aside from the sometimes grueling routine that many mothers face every day just to stay abreast of regular family maintenance, there are the hours she cheerfully spends ensuring that homework is done, that chores are performed, that piano lessons or sports practices or dance classes are attended, or that cookies are baked and presents wrapped. There are also the loving times that a mother spends with her children: washing hair, reading bedtime stories, saying prayers, comforting away bad dreams, kissing away hurts, encouraging dreams. It is a wonder that mothers find the time to do any of the other creative things they do, from sewing to scrap-booking, painting to pottery, reading to writing the letters that help to knit families together. My own dear mother died when I was just a baby. I cannot recall the touch of her hand on my cheek, or the sound of her voice saying ``I love you.'' But her angel face still smiles at me from an old photograph, and in her smile I can see the love that she still bears for me as she waits. No mother ever truly leaves you. Anna Jarvis knew that to be true when she conceived the notion of a national Mother's Day. She would not have us regret failing to show our love and appreciation to our mothers while we can. I offer my thanks to all mothers on this Mother's Day. To my own mother, I say thank you for giving me life, and for thinking of me and my future even as your own short life was coming to a close. And to the great love of my life, Erma, the mother of my beautiful daughters, I say thank you. Thank you for mothering me even as you mothered our children. Your talent at your chosen career, and your devotion to it, continue to show themselves in the generations of our lovely and loving grandchildren and great grandchildren. If Miss Jarvis had not beaten me to it, my wife Erma certainly has provided ample inspiration for a national Mother's Day. I close with the words of one of my favorite poems, one that I come back to each Mother's Day. It is called ``Rock Me To Sleep,'' and it was written by Elizabeth Akers Allen (1823-1911). Rock Me To Sleep Backward, turn backward, O time, in your flight, Make me a child again just for to-night! Mother, come back from the echoless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; Over my slumbers your loving watch keep: Rock me to sleep, Mother--rock me to sleep! Backward, flow backward, oh, tide of the years! I am so weary of toil and of tears-- Toil without recompense, tears all in vain-- Take them, and give me my childhood again! I have grown weary of dust and decay-- Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away; Weary of sowing for others to reap; Rock me to sleep, Mother--rock me to sleep! Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, Mother, O Mother, my heart calls for you! Many a summer the grass has grown green, Blossomed and faded, our faces between: Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain, Long I to-night for your presence again. Come from the silence so long and so deep: Rock me to sleep, Mother--rock me to sleep! Over my heart, in the days that are flown, No love like mother-love ever has shone; No other worship abides and endures-- Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours: None like a mother can charm away pain From the sick soul and the world-weary brain. Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep; Rock me to sleep, Mother--rock me to sleep! Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold, Fall on your shoulders again as of old; Let it drop over my forehead to-night, Shading my faint eyes away from the light; For with its sunny-edged shadows once more Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore; Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep; Rock me to sleep, Mother--rock me to sleep! Mother, dear Mother, the years have been long Since I last listened your lullaby song: Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem Womanhood's years have been only a dream. Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace, With your light lashes just sweeping my face, Never hereafter to wake or to weep; Rock me to sleep, Mother--rock me to sleep!

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it is appropriate on a trade bill such as the one now pending before the Senate, that we, at long last, engage in a debate about the standard of living for American workers. The establishment of the 40-hour work week and a worker's right to overtime pay in 1938, fulfilled President Franklin Roosevelt's promise to workers to end starvation wages and intolerable working hours. That same year, President Roosevelt called it ``the most far- reaching, far-sighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted here or in any other country.'' It is unsettling to watch, 55 years later, as a successor to President Roosevelt seeks to limit the scope of that far-reaching legislation. President Bush's overtime rule promotes a thoroughly un-American notion of fair compensation for some, but not for all. Through its overtime rule, the Bush administration has sought to dictate who will receive overtime pay and who will not. It has sought to dictate whose extra work will be recognized and valued and whose will not. While guaranteeing overtime pay for some workers, the Bush administration rule would take it away from registered nurses, nursery school teachers, cooks and chefs, and employees of the financial services industries. It would take overtime away from insurance claims adjusters; sales representatives; and computer network, Internet, and data base administrators. It would take overtime pay away from so- called ``team leaders'' in factories, refineries and chemical plants; from employees who perform administrative, management or professional work; from television, radio and newspaper journalists. The President cannot explain why some workers should be entitled to overtime pay and others should not. The Labor Secretary cannot explain why. I doubt that anyone can explain why. This rule threatens the overtime pay of millions of workers earning more than $24,000 per year. I hope that workers listening, even if they do not receive overtime pay, won't be fooled into believing that this issue does not apply to them. If workers are suddenly no longer eligible for overtime, what's to stop their bosses from working them 60 hours per week? Or 70? Or 80? We are told by some that the economy is improving, and workers are strong enough to endure the loss of their overtime pay. Whether we call it an economic recovery or the worst job market since Herbert Hoover; it makes no difference. The fact is that millions of workers have lost their jobs or have seen their friends or members of their families lose their jobs. They have had their work days scaled back from a full work week to half- days, to half-weeks. They have had to accept cuts in their health care benefits and pension benefits to keep their employer out of bankruptcy. These workers have little patience for election-year hyperbole that prosperity has returned, that wages are adequate. Workers read about an alarming trade deficit and the outsourcing of jobs overseas, and they wonder if their job will be next. They see their health care premiums rising, their savings being depleted, the specter of unemployment on the horizon, and want to know why their government cannot do more about it. Workers wonder if their President understands these fears. Time and time again, this administration has shown that it does not. Little by little, the Bush administration is chipping away at the rights and protections due American workers. It has blocked action on the minimum wage. It has blocked an extension of unemployment benefits. It has furthered the erosion of pension and health care benefits. It has curtailed the safety and health protections won by the labor movement in the 20th Century. This is not the record of an administration that understands the plight of American workers. To the contrary, this is an administration that has demonstrated a callous--almost smug--disregard for their plight. This is an administration that has abandoned the very American ideal of inspiring other nations to improve working conditions and to lift their working class. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by temporary employment gains which depend on the wasteful exploitation of resources and which cannot last. Workers should not be satisfied with present conditions. One worker need not sacrifice his overtime pay to guarantee it to another. One worker need not forgo his retirement security or health care security to provide it to another. In one of his renowned fireside chats to the Nation, President Roosevelt told workers: ``Do not let any calamity-howling executive . . . who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls . . . tell you . . . that [a minimum wage] is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.'' President Roosevelt's message to workers is unmistakable. Don't let any business lobby, any elected representative, any President, tell you that a fair wage for your labor is too much to ask. After 52 years of public service in Washington, serving in 26 Congresses and with eleven presidents, I am still convinced that the American people retain a sincere respect for the promise that extra work should yield extra benefits. Overtime is a means for workers to secure for their children a chance at a better life, to ensure for themselves a secure retirement. It is an essential part of our social economy. It has the overwhelming support of the American people in every walk of life, and the Senate would do workers a disservice by allowing to stand the Labor Department's thoroughly egregious misinterpretation of Franklin Roosevelt's promise to them.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the American people know about the strong and honorable character of the American soldier. Over the last 228 years, the United States Army has rightly earned the reputation of a professional fighting force that is courageous in battle and benevolent in peace. The United States Army has had centuries to earn the respect of the American people. The White House expected our military to earn the trust of the Iraqi people in only months. Despite the outstanding service of countless thousands of our troops, the shameful and disgusting abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers is a tragedy that must be corrected immediately. The photographic evidence that Iraqi prisoners have been humiliated, abused, and mistreated is absolutely shocking. One can hardly ponder the technicalities of the Geneva Conventions when the most basic rules of human decency have been violated. The disgust expressed by many Americans has been amplified a thousand times by outraged Muslims around the world. How long might it be before Osama bin Laden uses these incidents to whip up anti-American sentiment in other corners of the world? After the bloodiest month of the occupation of Iraq, this is news our Nation can ill afford. It is not clear at this point who should be held to account for this stain upon the reputation of our armed forces. No one has stepped forward to take responsibility for the conditions in Iraqi prisons. Instead, fingers are being pointed in every direction. Soldiers are blaming superior officers, and generals are blaming subordinates. Others blame our intelligence services, which blame contractors, who blame others still. Some military leaders claim that this is an isolated incident, others make ominous claims about patterns of abuses. With whom does this buck stop? The Armed Services Committee today had a closed-door briefing from three Army Generals. No civilian official of the Department of Defense appeared at the briefing, nor did any member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I did not attend that briefing. Secret, closed door meetings on a subject of such enormous import smack of damage control and cover- up--and that is the last impression the Senate should be conveying. We must ensure that Congress accedes to no ground rules in its investigations that could further taint this deplorable situation. The time for public hearings on prisons run by the U.S. Armed Forces is now. We must leave no room for charges that investigations are being glossed over, pushed aside, sat on, or ignored. I have written to the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee to urge them to call public hearings with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers. The Armed Services Committee should also seek testimony from outside experts on the laws of war and humanitarian affairs, such as the International Committee for the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, and scholars of international law. These hearings should take place as soon as possible, and examine all detention facilities run by the U.S. military, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners was covered for months until it was reported by the news media. Congress has no time to spare to find out what went wrong and what is still wrong, and take action to prevent further abuse of prisoners in our charge.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, a year ago the President of the United States harkened back to his days as an aviator for the Texas Air National Guard to deliver a dramatic made-for-television speech. Eager to experience the thrill of a carrier landing, the President donned a flight suit, strapped into a jet, and rocketed off into the wild blue yonder for a 30-mile journey. This flight of fancy concluded with the dramatic landing of that speeding plane onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln--so named for the stoic leader who guided our country through one of its most troubled times. Such was the scene on May 1, 2003, under the warming rays of the California sun. The President delivered to the sailors on that ship a welcome and long overdue message: He commended the men and women on their outstanding service to our country during the trials of the war in Iraq, and welcomed them back to the United States of America. While the President delivered those words of appreciation, every television viewer in the country--and, indeed, the world--could see in the background a banner with the words ``Mission Accomplished''-- ``Mission Accomplished''--superimposed upon the Stars and Stripes. In contrast to the simple humility of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, President Bush's speech was designed from the outset to be remembered right up until November 2, 2004. The President announced unequivocally that ``major combat operations in Iraq have ended,'' and that ``in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.'' Now, 1 year later, combat deaths are more than five times that of a year ago when our President celebrated ``mission accomplished.'' Since that time, Iraq has become a veritable shooting gallery. This April has been the bloodiest month of the entire war, with more than 120 Americans killed. Young lives cut short in pointless conflict, and all the President can say is that it ``has been a tough couple of weeks''-- a tough couple of weeks, indeed. Plans have obviously gone tragically awry. But the President has, so far, only managed to mutter that we must ``stay the course.'' But what course is there to keep when our ship of state is being tossed like a dinghy in a storm of Middle East politics? If the course is to end in the liberation of Iraq and bring a definitive end to the war against Saddam Hussein, one must conclude, mission not accomplished, Mr. President. The White House argues time and again that Iraq is the ``central front'' on the war on terrorism. But instead of keeping murderous al- Qaida terrorists on the run, the invasion of Iraq has stoked the fires of terrorism against the United States and our allies. Najaf is smoldering. Fallujah is burning. And there is no exit in sight. What has been accomplished, Mr. President? Al-Qaida has morphed into a hydra-headed beast, no longer dependent on Osama bin Laden. The administration has flippantly claimed that it is better to tie down terrorists in Iraq than to battle them in our homeland. Mr. President, with hundreds of thousands of American troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and a worldwide campaign of terrorism gathering steam, who is tying down whom? Indeed, our attack on Iraq has given Islamic militants a common cause and has fertilized the field for new recruits. The failures by the United States to secure the peace in Iraq has virtually guaranteed al- Qaida a fertile field of new recruits ready to sacrifice their lives to fight the American infidels. These extremists openly call for ``jihad,'' swear allegiance to bin Laden, and refer to the September 11 murderers as the ``magnificent 19.'' According to intelligence sources, hundreds of young Muslims are answering recruitment calls with a resounding ``yes.'' Amidst all this, the American people are asking themselves one central question: Have we been made more safe by the President's war in Iraq? Do we sleep more soundly in our beds now that Saddam Hussein has been captured? Or, instead, are we starting to fully comprehend and regret the fury which has been unleashed by the unprovoked attack on Iraq? Deaths and casualties of Iraqi citizens are in the thousands--their blood is on our hands--but an actual number cannot be obtained. Is it any wonder that Iraqis see us, not as liberators, but as crusaders and conquerors? A growing number of Iraqis see us as we would see foreign troops on the streets of Chicago or New York or Washington, or any small town in America. Surely one can understand the hatred brewing in Iraq in the hearts of the men and women and children--the boys and girls--in Iraq when we see the agony--the agony--of an Iraqi family that has lost a loved one due to an errant bomb or bullet. One year after President Bush proclaimed the conclusion of major combat operations in Iraq, is the world any safer from terrorism? Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists of all stripes. The Middle East seethes in deepening violence and the culture of revenge. Our war on terror appears to many as a war against Islam. A one-sided policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict drives both sides away from the peace table, and hundreds of millions more to hatred of our country. No, the world is not safer. One year after the ``mission accomplished'' speech, is America safer? We have not secured our homeland from terrifying threats of destruction. This President has sown divisions in our longstanding alliances. He has squandered our treasure in Iraq and put us deep in debt. Our brave soldiers are pinned down in Iraq while our enemies see the invincible American armor as penetrable by the sword of urban guerrilla warfare. No, America is not safer. One year ago, the President announced an end to major combat operations in Iraq. And yet our troops are having their deployments extended in Iraq while our lines are stretched thin everywhere else. Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars are being poured into Iraq. Seven hundred and twenty-two American lives have been lost before today. And we hear that 8 to 10 additional lives have been lost today. Unknown thousands of Iraqis are dead. Claims of WMD and death-dealing drones are discredited. And bin Laden is still on the loose. I stand behind no one in supporting our troops through the dangers they face every day. I grieve along with the families that have lost loved ones. The failures of post-war Iraq lay squarely on the Bush administration for recklessly sending this country--sending our men and women--to war, a war that should not have been fought, a war in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and for the wrong reasons. Mission accomplished? The mission in Iraq, as laid out by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, has failed. Even more disturbing, the disdain for international law, and the military bombast of this cocky, reckless administration have tarnished the beacon of hope and freedom which the United states of America once offered to the world. How long will America continue to pay the price in blood and treasure of this President's war? How long must the best of our Nation's military men and women be taken from their homes to fight this unnecessary war in Iraq? How long must our National Guardsmen be taken from their communities to fight and to die in the hot sands of Iraq? How long must the mothers and the fathers see their sons and daughters die in a faraway land because of President Bush's doctrine of preemptive attack? How long must little children across our great land go to sleep at night crying for a daddy or a mother far away who may never come back home? President Bush typified the Happy Warrior when he strutted across the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln a year ago this coming Saturday. He was in his glory that day. But on this May 1, we will remember the widows and the orphans who have been made by his fateful decision to attack Iraq. We will be aware of the tears that have been shed for his glory. How long? How long? How long?

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I thank the distinguished Senator.

Mr. BYRD. It is.

Mr. BYRD. Absolutely.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, on Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004, this Nation lost a fine soldier, a good man, a loving father and husband, and a faithful Christian when SGM Michael Boyd Stack of C Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group Airborne, was killed in an ambush in Iraq. SGM Stack is 1 of more than 700 men and women who have given their lives in this conflict and 1 of the more than 100 who were killed in the month of April alone. Each is mourned. Each is honored. Each is sorely missed. These men and women knew the meaning of duty, honor, and courage. They and their comrades in arms still serving are most emphatically not the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot whom Thomas Paine warned against, who shrink from the service of their country in times of crisis. SGM Stack and his fallen comrades wore the uniform of the United States proudly and bravely. When told to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, they saluted and prepared to go. They said their farewells to their loving and fearful families and set off. From spare bivouacs, they patrolled dusty streets and lonely highways. They faced rocket- propelled grenades, improvised landmines, sniper fire, and ambush. They looked out for one another with humor and grace and caring. They gave their very best. In the end, they gave their all. Soldier, rest! Thy warfare oer, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking. So said Sir Walter Scott in the Lady of the Lake. These fallen heroes made the ultimate sacrifice, bravely and unshirking. When all is said and done, all policy laid aside, out there at the sharp end of the spear, these men and women did what good soldiers do. They stood shoulder to shoulder and did not flinch. In the heat of battle, in the threat of danger, in the face of death, they did not flinch. SGM Stack had faced such dangers before. His 27-year Army career spanned the cold war, the first Gulf war, and the conflict in the Balkans. His experience and his cool head in tense situations made him a valued member of his company and his battalion. He volunteered for Airborne School and service in the 82d Airborne Division upon his enlistment in 1977. He joined the Special Forces in 1988, serving 16 years with the 3d, 5th, and 10th Special Forces Groups, and as an instructor in the 1st Special Warfare Training Group. Much of what he did will never be made public, but he earned the unqualified respect and admiration of his fellow soldiers. The high standard of professionalism, ability, teamwork, and fairness that SGM Stack exemplified and taught to new generations of Green Berets will be his legacy to the Army, as well as in the Armed Forces of other nations that he helped to train. Even as a young platoon sergeant, he was known as ``No Slack Billy Jack Stack,'' in recognition of the high standards he expected, and required, of the men he led. He cared deeply for his men and died among them, manning a .50-caliber machine gun in the heat of battle, keeping them safe and striving, as always, to achieve the mission goals. SGM Stack was a professional soldier, hard-eyed and competent, the very picture of a happy warrior, who might have inspired these words by the poet William Wordsworth: Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: Whose high endeavors are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright: Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain; In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower: Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives: Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired; And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw. In and out of uniform, SGM Stack set high standards for himself. He earned his college degree while serving in the Army. He was active in his church. He kept a Holy Bible in his desk at work, by his chair at home, and in the pocket of his battle dress uniform. He had the quiet confidence of a man who keeps the Lord close to his heart. Before leaving on his final patrol, SGM Stack asked the unit chaplain to say a prayer over his men. He kept his family close as well. He went home to lunch most days. He lavished love on his young children and took great pride in the accomplishments of his older children. In his wife, Suzanne, he had a soulmate with whom he was planning a long and happy retirement, a retirement which never came. He relished quiet hours spent with family and friends, and he took justified pride in his cooking abilities at such times. He was slow to anger and quick to forgive. He left behind him a full measure of That best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. SGM Stack is survived by his wife, Victoria Suzanne Stack; his children Milissa, Virginia, Jillian, David, and William; step-son Bryan, and grandchildren Jakob, Tylor, and Jesse. His father, Cecil, and mother, Antoinette Stack, also mourn him, as do his brother, Cecil Stack, Jr., and sisters Tammy, Kimberly, and Christina. Military service was a tradition in the Stack family that stretches across generations. SGM Stack's father, brother, and nephew all serve or served in the Army. SGM Stack's father-in-law retired from the Air Force. The Nation owes a deep debt of gratitude to such families, who have answered the call to arms so often and so willingly in our history. Today, as SGM Michael Stack is laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery, joining the quiet ranks of fallen heroes there, no words can truly comfort hearts that loved him and that are grieving. But at this Easter season, especially, we are reminded that death is not the end, but only a parting for a little while. Michael's faith gave him comfort as he stepped in front of danger; may that same faith sustain his family that they will surely be together again. Once again, I reach for the words of William Wordsworth, from his Ode, Intimations of Immortality: Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. I offer the thanks of a grateful Nation to SGM Stack, who served his country in the Army, who served his country with great honor and distinction. To his family, I offer my sincere condolence for their loss. I pray that the Lord gives them strength to bear this sad burden until, in the fullness of time, they are all united again. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD

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

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, our country is facing record budget and trade deficits. We are in a war of our President's choosing that is not, to put it mildly, going as well as had been expected. Millions of Americans are without health care and millions more worry about the security of their jobs. These are troubled times and many issues clamor for the attention of the Senate. Yet what is the response of the Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body? Are we debating strategies to quell the violence in Iraq and bring our soldiers home? No. Are we considering plans to shore up Social Security and Medicare? No. Is the Senate deliberating on how to make America's workforce more competitive? No. Is the Senate grappling with reauthorizing welfare reform or the highway bill? No. This great deliberative body which was forged by the Founding Fathers in the Great Compromise of July 16, 1787, has become a factory that manufactures sound-bite votes that make great fodder for 30-second political ads but which do very little to address the many challenges facing this country. If this continues, I fear that the Senate will be little more than an insignificant arm of the political parties, and we may as well lower the flag that flies over this Capitol and wave the white flag of surrender in its place. Have we lost the will to legislate? Is the current leadership afraid to allow the Senate to work its will? The Republican leadership seems to feel that their slim majority gives them a blank check to impose their exclusive agenda. Let me be clear. It does not. The Senate, by its very existence, embodies a core tenet in American democracy; namely, the principle that the minority--the minority, the Democrats as of now, the minority--has rights. The Republican leadership is fast making the committee process a thing of the past. Furthermore, the leadership has done everything in its power to prevent Democratic Senators from getting votes on their amendments. The United States is faced with a trade deficit that has mushroomed to an all-time high for the third year in a row. Adding to that unfortunate situation, in August 2002, the World Trade Organization authorized the European Union to impose up to $4 billion in trade sanctions against the United States if provisions of the Tax Code were not repealed. How about that? The distinguish Republican leader brought up the Foreign Sales Corporation legislation to address this situation only after the sanctions were in place. After votes on only two amendments, the majority wanted to shut down the amendment process--shut it down. Many reasons were given, but the truth is that they did not want to vote on an amendment dealing with overtime rules for American workers. Yes, the American workers. While American companies are losing their competitive edge, the ``my way or the highway'' approach of the leadership has delayed a final resolution on this bill. In the past, cloture was a rarely used procedural tool. When I came to this Senate, it was rarely used--only once in a while. Not so today. Cloture is routinely filed in an attempt to limit nongermane amendments. Instead of the phrase, ``another day, another dollar,'' the Senate operates in an atmosphere of ``another week, another cloture vote.'' Last November, we had three cloture votes in one day. What great hopes the leadership must have had for the first two votes to schedule three in a row. How can such a move be seen as anything more than political scorekeeping? This Senate has spent an extraordinary amount of time and energy and effort on President Bush's judicial nominees. In fact, last November the Senate set aside the VA-HUD appropriations bill to hold an overnight marathon stunt--something to watch indeed, something to watch. What a sham. The majority actually set aside substantive legislation to conduct a circus--a circus--on the floor of the Senate. The VA-HUD appropriations bill was never completed. Instead, it was rolled into the Omnibus appropriations bill, as has become the unfortunate custom in recent years. We have had 17 cloture votes on 6 controversial and problematic nominees. The response of the Republican leadership and the administration has not been to address the fundamental underlying concerns raised by various Senators. Oh, no, no negotiation. Instead, they choose the course of holding cloture vote after cloture vote and then bash Democratic Senators as obstructionist. And just for good measure, the President, who has had 96 percent of his judges confirmed, moved two of these divisive nominees on to the bench in recess appointments. Now, I do not pretend that the conflict over judicial nominees began in this Senate or with the President, but I will state that this Senate leadership and this President have worked in concert to further politicize the process by which we select members of the judiciary. And it is not just with judicial nominees that the Republican leadership is doing the White House's bidding. The Republican leadership is controlled by this White House--controlled by this White House. Rather than have a legislative branch which crafts a bill and then sends it to the President to sign or veto, this Republican leadership in the Senate and in the House has allowed this President to control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. During the conference on the Omnibus appropriations bill, the Republican majority allowed this White House to assert itself and put in provisions that had been rejected by one or both Houses. Specifically, the provision to allow increased concentration of media ownership had been rejected by both the House and the Senate. However, it was included in the bill at the behest of the White House. Shameful. Yes, shameful. The House and the Senate were both on record as opposing overtime regulations proposed by the Bush administration. Nevertheless, at the urging of the Bush White House, language to block implementation of these regulations was dropped from the conference report--dropped from the conference report. Another example of allowing the Bush White House to dictate the legislation produced by the Congress is the highway bill. Here is a bill that is important to every State and every person in the Union. Every Senator's State will benefit from this bill. The transportation bills passed the House and the Senate by wide bipartisan majorities, majorities that could easily override a veto. Yet we are stalled because the Bush White House is demanding that the cost of the highway bill be significantly lower than what was passed by both Houses of Congress. This White House, under the Bush administration, has threatened a veto if the cost of the bill is over its chosen number. What is meant by ``its''? Under the White House's chosen number. Big daddy down at the White House, big daddy. And what is the reaction of the Senate leadership to such an outrageous, outrageous, outrageous demand? Did the Senate stand its ground? No. The White House offers a disapproving nod and the Senate leaders scurry like mice, taking the offensive proposal off the table. It was not always like this. There was a time when the Senate was an independent body, not the errand boy of the White House. It was not always like that. It was not always that the executive branch effectively dictated what provisions the Congress included in conference reports. No, this is not how the Senate is supposed to work. The Senate is like a broken bone today. Left untreated, we risk that this body will be permanently weakened, never again able to do the work and bear the load for which it was designed. I say that we must set the Senate back on course and allow it to knit back together. The current path is reckless, unsustainable, and unwise. The record of this Senate is abysmal. Time after time, on issues such as medical malpractice, asbestos reform, and many others, the Republican leadership has abandoned the committee process of the Senate to bring partisan, divisive bills to the floor to make a political statement and to score political points with supporters. One might dismiss the polarization of this body as a product of the Senate being so closely divided. But this leadership has allowed external forces--most notably pressure from the White House--to seep into the dealings of the Senate. Is the leadership unaware that the Constitution has separate articles for the legislative and the executive branches? This is the Constitution. I hold it in my hand. It has separate titles for the executive and the legislative branches, does it not, Mr. McCain, my friend from Arizona? Separate titles. What branch does it mention first? Not the executive branch. No, not the executive branch. No, it mentions first the people's branch and then the executive branch and then the judicial branch. What has become of civility in this branch? That is a great question. One could spend a day talking about that. What has become of civility, old-fashioned civility? What has become of comity? What has become of comity in this branch? It used to be unheard of for Senate leaders to seek an active role against each other in campaigns. That time has apparently gone. Has honor gone, too? Who cares about honor when a Senate seat might be gained? When did party labels become more important than honor and the power of ideas? Gone are the days in which there was genuine debate. Gone are the days when Senators listened to the give and take of the discussion to learn about an issue. And sadly, many of the votes that we take have a predetermined outcome. Yet they are brought to the floor--and this goes for both sides of the aisle--to try to get Senators on record as voting for and against such-and-such. Bills are brought to the floor. Amendments are offered to create a public record that can be touted or attacked come campaign season. In all this sound bite and fury, the losers are the people, the people out there who are watching through those electronic lenses. They are the losers. The losers are the people whom we represent, the people who send us to this body to act in their best interests, not to squabble and point fingers like petulant children. That is where all of these shenanigans play out, in front of the American people--people who need affordable health care or help putting their children through college, people who are afraid that their jobs will be sent overseas or that they will lose the pay and the benefits they have worked hard to secure, people on Medicare, people on Social Security, people who worry about whether Medicare and Social Security will be there when it is time for them to retire, people who have sent their sons and daughters to fight in the hot sands of the Middle East halfway around the world and who are afraid that their sons and daughters may not come home. I have served in this Chamber for more than four decades. Times have changed. The world has changed. But our responsibilities and our duties, may I say to the distinguished Senator from Oregon, Mr. Smith-- who always is so nice to his colleagues, always has a smile. I like him. He is always a gentleman. What better can be said about one? Our responsibilities and our duties as Senators have not changed, may I say to my friend, Mr. Smith. Long after the campaign of this November or the campaigns of many Novembers to come, each Senator in this body will look back at the content of his or her career and judge whether they made our country a better place. The people send us here to do a job. They do not send us here to play with their lives or their children's lives or to score political points. It is difficult in this world of instant gratification to think beyond the moment, to think beyond the immediate, but we should all pause for a moment and reflect on the Senate. The Senate is an institution that relies on precedent. What kind of precedent is being set here? In my many years in this body, I have spent approximately two-thirds of my time in the majority and one-third in the minority. The majority is better, by the way. I would say to the Republican leadership that it is unlikely that they will always be in the majority. There will come a time when they may appreciate once again the rights afforded to the minority. We all need to spend a little time thinking about how it may feel once again to be in the other guy's shoes, and about what our silly, silly, little selfish games are doing to the soul of this Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon, as I have already indicated, is a gentleman. I think--in fact I know--that if all Senators accorded to their fellow Senators and fellow men and women the graciousness that he accords us, not only the Senate but the Nation would be a better place in which to live. I like him. I like him for what he is, for what he appears to be. As I said earlier, he is a gentleman. There seems to be, as I have found, something bigger and better than a political party. His political party does not seem to be the end-all, not the beginning of everything. He seems to be something even bigger and better than his political party. I appreciate that, I commend him for that, and I wish in many ways that I could be the man that he is. I remember those lines, ``You are a better man than I am, Gunga Din.'' The Senator from Oregon sets a fine example. I thank him for that. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

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

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it is the poet T.S. Eliot who reminds us, as if we needed to be reminded, that ``April is the cruelest month.'' How prescient his words ring this April 2004, as we reflect upon the deepening crisis and the steadily mounting death toll in Iraq. This April, this month in which millions of Americans marked the holiest season of the Judeo-Christian calendar, has been an unholy nightmare for American military forces and American policy in Iraq. April 2004, 11 months after the President proclaimed the end of major combat operations in Iraq, has proved to be the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since the onset of the war more than a year ago. Major combat operations may have ended--let me repeat that: major combat operations may have ended--as President Bush asserted nearly 1 year ago, but major combat casualties have not. The ``Mission Accomplished'' banner under which President Bush spoke so confidently on May 1, 2003, has come back to haunt us and to taunt us many times over. In the weeks and months leading up to the war, Americans were assured by President Bush and his cadre of top advisers--most particularly Vice President Richard Cheney--that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq, our path to victory strewn with cheers and flowers. Those flowers, it now appears, are less like rose petals tossed at the feet of liberators and more like Eliot's mournful April lilacs--``Lilacs out of the deadland, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.'' April--April--has indeed become the cruelest month. Memory and desire cannot supplant reality in Iraq. More than 100 American military personnel have been killed in Iraq so far this month, the highest number of deaths in a single month since the beginning of the war. In all, more than 700 American military members have died in Iraq since the beginning of combat. Today, more than 1 year after the fall of Baghdad, America's military forces are being greeted in too many quarters of Iraq, not with flowers--not with flowers, not with flowers--but with gunfire, not with cheers but with jeers, nor as liberators but as occupiers--occupiers--oppressors. In the harsh glare of hindsight, it is now clear that the President's preconceived notions of the war and the aftermath of the war in Iraq were profoundly flawed. Even the President's Secretary of Defense--one of the supreme architects of the war in Iraq--has been forced to admit that the battle has not gone according to the plan, that the level of casualties, continuing so long after the fall of Baghdad, was neither anticipated nor planned for before the invasion. And yet President Bush refuses to admit any flaws in his grand strategy to invade Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein without giving adequate consideration to the potential perils awaiting America in the seething streets and towns of post-war Iraq. Despite the fact that debate over the war in Iraq rages worldwide, despite the fact that the American occupation is reeling from unexpected opposition from the very people it was intended to liberate, still the President is hard pressed under questioning to come up with any mistakes that he might have made in dealing with Iraq. What a sad, sad commentary. In his press conference last week, President Bush acknowledged ``tough weeks'' in Iraq, but he clung to his oft-repeated assertion that Iraq is mostly stable, and shrugged off the violence of recent weeks as the work of a small faction of fanatical ``thugs'' and terrorists bent on imposing their will over the popular will of Iraq. In this assessment, I hope and pray that the President is right. For the sake of America's military families, for the sake of the mothers and fathers, for the sake of the wives and children who have had to bear the burden of the increased violence in Iraq, I hope the President is right. I hope that Iraq achieves stability and security soon. For while Iraq and the world may indeed be better off with Saddam Hussein behind bars, alas--alas--I do not believe that an Iraq in turmoil is either a boon to the Middle East or an asset to the security of the United States. Instead of reflecting candidly on the current challenges in Iraq, President Bush would prefer to focus on his grandiose, grandiloquent vision for reforming the Middle East. In this he speaks in ideological, almost messianic, cadences as he paints a picture of Iraq as a central front not just in the war on terror but also in a battle of Biblical proportions pitting ``good'' against ``evil.'' President Bush is a man of absolutes. Either we stay the course in Iraq or we cut and run. Those are the two choices: stay the course or cut and run. Either we fight terrorists on the streets of Iraq or we fight them on the streets of New York or Washington, DC. Either we support President Bush's policies absolutely or we give aid and comfort to the enemy. Those are the two choices. Do you believe it? I don't. No, no, no, a thousand times no. Either-or propositions like those invoked by the President to describe the war in Iraq are nothing more than politically inspired slogans like last year's ill-advised ``Mission Accomplished'' banner, designed to whip up emotions while masking the complexity of national security considerations. Fighting in the streets of Iraq has not prevented terrorists from striking in Saudi Arabia or Bali or Madrid. Are you with me? And there is no guarantee--none--that it will prevent them from striking again in the United States. Just this week, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge disclosed the formation of a Federal task force to respond to heightened threats that al-Qaida will strike again in the United States, sometime before the November election. Significant events, including the dedication of the World War II Memorial in Washington and the political conventions in New York and Boston, are among those viewed as prime targets for a new al-Qaida offensive. This is the sobering reality. Osama bin Laden remains at large, and his minions appear to be multiplying, not diminishing. That is sobering. That ought to curl your hair. If anything, the war in Iraq has served as a rallying cry for anti- American and antidemocratic extremists in the Middle East and beyond. Sadly, given the distraction from the war on terror that the war in Iraq has proved itself to be, the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, when and if it comes, is likely to be an anticlimactic footnote to a widening and ever more deadly surge in independent national terrorism. Mark my words. Despite the often invoked and patently misleading conclusion drawn by the Bush administration, cutting and running is not the only alternative to staying the course in Iraq, especially when that course is fraught with disaster. Altering a flawed and dangerous course of action, seeking meaningful support from the international community, is another alternative, one that this President is loathe to acknowledge but evidently more than willing to embrace in the face of the calamity that has befallen his own roadmap for Iraq. For months, I and others have implored the President to return to the United Nations and to seek a greater role for the U.N. in the occupation, administration, and reconstruction of Iraq. Hear me. Hear me. Long before the war, we begged--didn't we? Yes--we begged the President to seek the support of the United Nations Security Council before invading Iraq. Were our pleas heeded? No. Our pleas fell upon deaf ears. This administration was confident that it could go it alone. And it said so, did it not? Yes. It said: If you don't do it, we will. This administration was confident it could go it alone with only a threadbare coalition of the willing to paper over its unilateral action. How hollow that confidence now rings. In the face of disaster, in the face of mounting doubts among members of the coalition, the President has now been forced to seek shelter--Help me, Cassius, or I sink--under the wings of the United Nations. The Iraqis have rejected every plan for transition of power put forward by the President's Coalition Provisional Authority. Our only hope left is that they will embrace a plan put forward by the United Nations, the very body the United States spurned when the President chose to invade Iraq without the support of the U.N. Security Council. Irony scarcely begins to describe the current state of affairs. The fact is, while espousing hard-line rhetoric and ironclad resolve, this administration has ducked and bobbed and weaved at every opportunity. In the administration's ever-shifting explanation for the war in Iraq, the face of our enemy has ricocheted over the past 12 months from Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guard to disgruntled Baathist dead-enders to foreign terrorists taking advantage of the unrest in Iraq to pursue their agenda of jihad to today's vague assortment of thugs and fanatics opposed to democracy for Iraq. We hear the refrain. We hear the refrain: Stay the course. Stay the course. Stay the course. Well, exactly what course is it we are supposed to be staying in Iraq? Is it to furnish more boys as cannon fodder? What is meant by stay the course? Is it to furnish more of our young men and women as cannon fodder to die in the streets of Iraq? Is that what is meant when we hear the refrain: We shall stay the course, we must stay the course? The President failed to explain what that is supposed to mean to the American people at his press conference. How did we get from protecting the United States from the threat of weapons of mass destruction to the vague notion of fighting extremists opposed to democracy in Iraq? The President failed to explain that fact as well. Where were those extremists before the invasion? Why is it that they are emerging in force only now, a full year after the fall of Baghdad? Could it be that this administration has created America's own worst nightmare because of its colossal arrogance, its clumsy mistakes, and its painful misjudgments on virtually every aspect of the war in Iraq? These are not the questions of an unpatriotic or reckless opposition. Where are the voices today in this Senate? It is not unpatriotic to ask questions. It is not unpatriotic to voice opposition to the policies of this administration. These are not questions intended to demoralize America or to hearten our enemies. Rather, these are the questions that a free and open society--the kind of society that the President envisions for Iraq--is expected to pose of its leaders. These are the kind of questions that a democratic nation's leader is beholden to answer. Dogmatic admonitions and grandiose allusions will not suffice. In a democratic society, the people demand and the people deserve the simple and unvarnished truth. So do the people's representatives in Government. They, too, demand, they are entitled to, and they deserve the simple and unvarnished truth. Congress also demands and deserves the simple and unvarnished truth from the executive branch. This is a coequal branch of Government, Mr. Bush. As a coequal branch of Government, as the body in which the Constitution vests the power of the purse, Congress requires the truth from the President, from the executive branch, from the Pentagon, from the Defense Department, from the State Department, from the White House. This is what makes recent allegations in Bob Woodward's new book regarding the redirection of appropriated funds into clandestine appropriations for the war on Iraq so disturbing, and the American people ought to be disturbed. The American people ought to ask questions, and their representatives in this body ought to ask questions. If the President, as alleged in this book, made the decision to wage war against Iraq and secretly spent appropriated funds to prepare for that war without prior consultation with Congress, then the letter of the law, the intent of the law, the spirit of the law, and the constitutional power of the purse have been subverted This would be not only a very grave breach of trust on the part of the executive branch, on the part of the administration, but also a very grave abuse of power. Mr. President, I hope with all my heart that Iraq will emerge from the current chaos to become a free and democratic nation. I hope with all my heart that the sacrifices that America's military forces have endured in Iraq will be validated by reality, and not justified merely on the basis of wishful thinking. The path forward is not yet clear, but this I know: President Bush led America into a preemptive war that was neither dictated by circumstances nor driven by events. President Bush led America into a war of choice, a war that might well have been avoided with patience and prudence. Would that we could read that ``April is the cruelest month'' without reflecting on the cruel and terrible toll that the war on Iraq has taken on America's men and women in uniform in Iraq during this bloody and sorrowful month of April. It is said in the King James version of the Holy Bible that of those to whom much is given, much is required. Mr. President, much is required of this administration and this President with regard to Iraq. The American people expect answers, the American people expect a judicious strategy, and the American people expect a well-thought-out military and diplomatic campaign. On all fronts, the American people have been let down. A President who wages war and manages the aftermath of war by the seat of his pants is not what the American people either expect or deserve. I fear that is what they are seeing in Iraq. This President, having blundered into this war in Iraq, does not have much time left to get the stabilization of Iraq right. We have spent our blood and treasure in Iraq, and it is now time--past time--to aggressively explore ways in which the burden on Americans can be mitigated. It is time to abandon the go-it-alone attitude, the go-it- alone, cocky, arrogant attitude established by this President. It is time--long past time--for the President to admit to mistakes made, to forsake his divisive either/or rhetoric, and to seek a way out of the deepening morass of Iraq with the full partnership of the United Nations, the region, and the international community. President Bush needs to drop all pretensions that the war in Iraq and the battle for stability are going according to plan. Only by accepting the fact that a bold new direction is needed to untangle the mess in Iraq can this President extricate the United States from what is fast becoming a quagmire. It is time for the President to set aside his pride and to convene an international summit on the future of Iraq, composed of representatives of the Iraqi people, their Arab neighbors, NATO, and the United Nations. Then and only then will the Iraqi people be in a position to chart their own future with the help of the international community. Then and only then will the United States be able to relinquish ownership of the tiger that it now holds by the tail. America must alter its course in Iraq to deal with the volatile vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. America must be prepared to fight terrorism wherever it rears its ugly head and not be lulled into the false belief that attacking terrorists overseas will stop them from attacking America on its homefront. Above all, Americans must never be cowed into believing that questions are somehow ``unpatriotic'' or that Presidents, even wartime Presidents, are ever above answering them. And finally, Americans must remember that in this country there are no kings. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is the order before the Senate?

Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent that I may speak out of order.

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

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senate will soon enter a period of recess prior to the Easter holidays. I am a bit like Samuel Adams, I believe it was, who said that he could listen to anyone speak of his religion. I am that way. I can listen to a Methodist, to a Baptist, a Presbyterian, Seventh-Day Adventist, a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest. I have no problem in listening and paying rapt attention to anyone speak of his or her religion. My own religion is the Christian religion. I grew up in a Christian home. I was raised by an aunt and uncle who took me after my mother died during the influenza epidemic in 1918. I was a bit less than 1 year old at that time, my mother having died on Armistice Day 1918. I was brought to West Virginia and grew up in the coal camps of southern West Virginia. At this point I should say that the woman who raised me was a very religious woman. She did not go around wearing religion on her sleeve or claiming to be better than anybody else; she simply was a kindly lady who believed in religion, the old-time religion. She practiced it and many times I used to hear her pray after the old kerosene lamp was out and the rooms were dark. I heard her praying on her knees. I could say that my uncle, Titus Dalton Byrd, was also a God-fearing man who died when he was 82 years of age, a coal miner. He never owed any man a penny when he passed away from this Earthly life. I never heard him utter the Lord's name in vain in all the years that I lived with him. So that is the way it was. They were poor folks. I recently heard someone say--I believe one of the Democratic Presidential candidates--that he was the first in his family to attend college, or some such thing. Well, I am the first in my family to have gone to second grade in school. About the only books that were in my home when I grew up as a child were a Montgomery Ward catalog, perhaps a Sears Roebuck catalog, and the Holy Bible, King James Version. The man who raised me could read the Bible. I do not know how he learned to read, but nevertheless there was a Bible in that home, and here is the Bible on my desk at this moment. Now, why do I have this Bible here? Well, Easter is coming on and I am going to read from chapter 20 of the book of Saint John. I will not make any comment on the Scriptures, except to read very briefly from them. I do not claim to be a minister. I am not a minister, but I am fortunate enough to have the gift of being able to read, and as we approach Easter, I think it appropriate to read into the Record the following excerpts from the book of Saint John, chapter 20: The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Easter Sunday, Mr. President, is the holiest day on the Christian calendar. On that first Easter Sunday, so long ago, a momentous gift was given to the world. It was a promise of life everlasting, of immortality. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It is easy to overlook the magnitude of this great but invisible gift amid all the brightly colored cellophane and foil-covered chocolates, amid the soft nests of translucent plastic grass nestled around sugary jelly beans and luminous dyed eggs. The talents of advertising agencies and merchandisers effect a powerful sleight of hand, drawing our focus away from the moving story of Easter with the dazzle of sugary commercial products that have been divorced from their historical and religious meaning. It is difficult to ponder the end of life and death while surrounded by a quickening Earth under a warm Sun. These lovely spring days are each a small gift, too. In West Virginia, the trees are just in bud, allowing the warmth of the Sun to reach all the way into the shadiest hollows. In Washington, the 92nd annual Cherry Blossom Festival is underway, as the cherry trees along the tidal basin and the Jefferson Memorial create a lovely vista of blossoms. Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Easter. So said Alfred Edward Housman, who was a Shropshire lad. But the promise of rebirth and gift of new life everlasting are the great prize, hard won from the tragedy of betrayal and a torturous, protracted death. Over the span of a week, from His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and the final miracle of the resurrection and ascension on Easter Sunday, an epic unfolds. Christ's pain and suffering, so nobly borne, gave no hint of the miracle to come. On this Easter Sunday, I offer my hopes to our men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the dangerous places in the world. Our hearts, our hopes, and our thoughts are with you, and may the Lord protect you and give you the strength to see you through these difficult times. As William Cowper wrote: It is the Lord who rises with feeling in his wings. When comforts are declining, he grants the soul again a season of clear shining to cheer it after rain. I would like to think as we used to back in my younger days of the words spoken by William Jennings Bryan. The words that come from his proof of immortality: If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold and pulseless heart of the buried acorn and to make it burst forth from its prison walls, will He leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, made in the image of his Creator? If he stoops to give to the rosebush, whose withered blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet assurance of another springtime, will He refuse the words of hope of the sons of men when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and inanimate, tho' changed by the forces of nature into a multitude of forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it has paid a brief visit like a royal guest to this tenement of clay? No. I am sure that He who, notwithstanding His apparent prodigality, created nothing without a purpose, and wasted not a single atom in all His creation, has made provision for a future life in which man's universal longing for immortality will find his realization. I am as sure that we live again as I am sure that we live today. I also enjoy reading from William Jennings Bryan's ``The Prince of Peace,'' reading what he said about the grain of wheat. He said: In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for more than thirty centuries in an Egyptian tomb. As I looked at them, this thought came into my mind: If one of those grains had been planted on the banks of the Nile the year after it grew, and all of its lineal descendents had been planted and replanted from that time until now, its progeny would today be sufficiently numerous to feed the teeming millions of the world. An unbroken chain of life connects the earliest grains of wheat with the grains that we sew and reap. There is in the grain of wheat an invisible something which has the power to discard the body that we see, and from earth and air fashion a new body so much like the old one that we can not tell the one from the other. If this invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I shall not doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a body suited to its new existence when this earthly frame has crumbled into dust. I thought a couple of these reminiscences from William Jennings Bryan and a few passages of the Scriptures might be appropriate on this April afternoon as we close. I finally end with the words of Julian S. Cutler, whose poem, ``Through the Year,'' reminds us the Lord is with us in all the seasons of the year and in all the seasons of our lives. And at Easter, we celebrate God's promise that we may be with Him in life everlasting: God be with you in the Springtime When the violets unfold, And the buttercups and cowslips Fill the fields with yellow gold; In the time of apple blossoms, When the happy bluebirds sing, Filling all the world with gladness-- God be with you in the Spring! God be with you in the Summer, When the sweet June roses blow, When the bobolinks are laughing And the brooks with music flow; When the fields are white with daisies And the days are glad and long-- God be with you in the Summer, Filling all your world with song. God be with you in the Autumn, When the birds and flowers have fled, And along the woodland pathways Leaves are falling, gold and red; When the Summer lies behind you, In the evening of the year-- God be with you in the Autumn, Then to fill your heart with cheer. God be with you in the Winter, When the snow lied deep and white, When the sleeping fields are silent And the stars gleam cold and bright. When the hand and heart are tired With life's long and weary quest-- God be with you Erma, in the Winter, Just to guide you into rest. I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, yesterday, for the third time in this Congress, the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to a one-sided, take-it-or-leave-it medical malpractice bill. Last year, the majority leader tried to bring up a comprehensive bill. The Senate did not invoke cloture. Rather than sit down with the other side to craft a reasonable bill that could be brought up, debated, and amended, the majority leader took the same flawed bill, applied it to only one sector of the health industry, and attempted to bring it up again, just a few weeks ago. At that time, I voted for cloture, not because I agreed with the underlying legislation, but because I had hoped for a legitimate debate, a serious look at the issues that are part of the growing medical malpractice crisis. I recognize that there are serious problems with medical malpractice in this country, and specifically with the availability of OB/GYN services in my home State of West Virginia. I voted to end debate on the motion to proceed to that bill. But, again, cloture was not invoked. After two unsuccessful cloture votes, one would think that, if they truly wanted to pass legislation on this important issue, the Republican leadership would sit down with their Democratic colleagues and negotiate a bill that was less partisan. But there has been no such effort. Instead, the majority continues to add physician groups here and there, trying to rack up more political points. This is not a serious effort to address a real challenge. This series of votes is not designed to advance legislation. Instead, this is choreographed political theater, played for the benefit of core supporters of the Republican party. This is not a successful strategy for advancing legislation, or for solving serious problems facing our Nation, and I can not lend my support to this charade. I do hope that the Senate can reach a consensus on this issue. Doctors and, most importantly, patients need stability in this system and the peace of mind that comes with a reliable, high-quality health care system.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senate today is considering a procedural vote on a motion to recommit the Foreign Sales Corporation/ Extraterritorial Income (FSC/ETI) legislation. This is an effort to bring to the Senate a remodeled bill--one containing popular energy tax incentives--that will make a vote against it less politically palatable. This is much less about enacting good national policies than it is about producing campaign ads. This is less about creating jobs than it is about playing partisan politics. It is certainly less about the very important business of formulating a comprehensive national energy policy than it is about scoring points for the majority's campaign contributors. As the Members of this body know well, bipartisan energy legislation, including a very similar package of energy tax incentives, passed this body twice already--once in April 2002, in the 107th Congress, and again in July 2003, in the first session of this Congress. I support, and have strongly advocated, many of these targeted energy tax provisions. In their totality, these incentives can be a helpful stimulus to get our Nation's energy policy back on track, and the Senate's proposal has had support in numerous industry sectors as well as among consumers. However, it is a rotten carrot that is dangling before us. This is yet another perverse, backdoor attempt to buy off Democratic votes by adding popular provisions to a Senate bill, while simultaneously preventing Democratic Senators from offering their own amendments on the floor and preventing them from protecting their interests during conferences. The majority is preventing Democrats from getting votes on other very important policy matters. There are many things that this Senate must address, including passing these energy tax incentives, but the majority needs to stop playing games with its Democratic colleagues. The Senate deserves better. The Senate finds itself handcuffed by the same authoritarian dictates from the Bush administration that have led to some of the fiercest partisan passions that this body has seen in decades. Gone is the traditional spirit of cooperation. Gone is the belief that the needs of the Nation stand above the ambitions of political party. It is a disheartening turn for this historic Chamber. Despite its campaign-driven rhetoric, this lipservice and corporate coddling have been the sum total of this administration's economic, health care, energy, and so many other policies. From the beginning, the administration's tax cuts have primarily benefited the wealthy. Hope for a bipartisan Medicare prescription drug benefit was high, but all that was left was a prescription for protecting the pharmaceutical industry and a drug benefit that is a sham for America's seniors. Progress on an energy strategy for the country began cooperatively, but quickly dissolved as Democrats were locked out of conference negotiations, their seats filled by special interest lobbyists. If the Republican majority wants to get something done in a closely divided Senate, it can, but it has to work with the other side of the aisle at all stages of the legislative process. That means respecting the committee process, respecting the rights of Senators to offer--and get votes on--amendments on the floor. It means truly including Democrats in conference deliberations, and defending the position of the Senate in conference negotiations--not buckling under pressure from the White House. I believe that, if the majority would do this, we would follow a better, more productive legislative path instead of voting on--and failing to invoke--cloture so often.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. Iraq Madam President, I have watched with heavy heart and mounting dread as the ever precarious battle to bring security to postwar Iraq has taken a desperate turn for the worse in recent days and hours. Along with so many Americans, I have been shaken by the hellish carnage in Fallujah and the violent uprisings in Baghdad and elsewhere. The pictures have been the stuff of nightmares, with bodies charred beyond recognition and dragged through the streets of cheering citizens. And in the face of such daunting images and ominous developments, I have wondered anew at President Bush's stubborn refusal to admit mistakes or express any misgivings over America's unwarranted intervention in Iraq. During the past weekend, the death toll among America's military personnel in Iraq topped 600--including as many as 20 American soldiers killed in one 3-day period of fierce fighting. Think of it. Many of the dead, most, perhaps, were mere youngsters--mere youngsters--just starting out on the great adventure of life. But before they could realize their dreams, they were called into battle by their Commander in Chief, a battle that we now know was predicated on faulty intelligence and wildly exaggerated claims. As I watch events unfold in Iraq, I cannot help but be reminded of another battle, at another place and another time, that hurtled more than 600 soldiers into the maws of death because of a foolish decision on the part of their commander. The occasion was the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1864, during the Crimean war, a battle that was immortalized by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem ``The Charge of the Light Brigade.'' ``Forward, the Light Brigade!'' Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Tennyson got it right--someone had blundered. It is time we faced up to the fact this President and his administration blundered as well when they took the Nation into war with Iraq without compelling reason, without broad international or even regional support, and without a plan for dealing with enormous postwar security and reconstruction challenges posed by Iraq. And it is our soldiers, our men and women, our own 600 and more who are paying the awful price for this administration's blunder. In the runup to the war, this President and his advisors assured the American people we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. Yes, this Vice President, Vice President Cheney, assured the American people we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. For a brief moment, that outcome seemed possible. One year ago this week, on April 9, 2003, the mood in many corners of the Nation was euphoric as Americans witnessed the fall of Baghdad and the jubilant toppling of a massive statue of Saddam Hussein. Less than 4 weeks later, President Bush jetted out to an aircraft carrier parked off the coast of California to cockily declare to the world the end of major combat operations in Iraq. For those with tunnel vision, the view from Iraq looked rosy. Then Baghdad had fallen, Saddam Hussein was on the run, and U.S. military deaths had been kept to a relatively modest number, a total of 138 from the beginning of combat operations through May 1, 2003. But the war in Iraq was not destined to follow the script of some idealized cowboy movie of President Bush's youth, where the good guys ride off into a rose-tinted sunset, all strife settled and all wrongdoing avenged. The war in Iraq is real. And as any soldier can tell you, reality is messy and bloody and scary. Nobody rides off into the sunset for fear the setting sun will blind them to the presence of the enemies around them. So the fighting continues in Iraq. It is going on right now, right this minute, long past the end of major combat operations, and the casualties have continued to mount even now, even this hour, even this minute. As of today, more than 600 military personnel have been killed in Iraq and more than 3,000 wounded. Now after a year of continued strife in Iraq comes word that the commander of forces in the region is seeking options to increase the number of U.S. troops on the ground, if necessary. Surely I am not the only one who hears echoes of Vietnam in this development. I was here in this Chamber when the word went out in those days to send more, send more men. We will be out by Christmas, yes. Surely this administration recognizes that increasing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq will only suck us deeper and deeper and deeper into the maelstrom, into the quicksand of violence that has become the hallmark of that unfortunate, miserable country. Starkly put, at this juncture, more U.S. forces in Iraq equates more U.S. targets in Iraq. Again, Tennyson's words bespeak a cautionary tale for the present: Cannons to the right of them, Cannons to the left of them, Cannons in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. Like Tennyson's Light Brigade, American military personnel have proved their valor, have proved their mettle, have proved their bravery in Iraq. In the face of a relentless and seemingly ubiquitous insurgency, they have performed with great courage and great resolve. They have followed the orders of their Commander in Chief, regardless of the cost. But surely some must wonder why it is American forces that are still shouldering the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of the burden in Iraq, 1 year after the liberation of the country. Where are the Iraqis? Where are they? What has happened to our much- vaunted plans to train and equip the Iraqi police and Iraqi military to relieve the burden on U.S. military personnel? Could it be that our expectations exceeded our ability to develop these forces? Could it be that, once again, the United States underestimated the difficulty of winning the peace in Iraq? Since this war began, America has poured $121 billion into Iraq for the military and for reconstruction. But this money cannot buy security; this money cannot buy peace; and $121 billion later, only 2,324 of the 78,224 Iraqi police are ``fully qualified,'' according to the Pentagon. Nearly 60,000 of those same police officers have had no formal training--none. It is no wonder security has proved to be so elusive. The time has come for a new approach in Iraq. The harsh reality is this: One year after the fall of Baghdad, the United States should not be casting about for a formula to bring additional U.S. troops to Iraq. The United States should instead be working toward an exit strategy. The fact that the President has alienated friend and foe alike by his arrogance in ``going it alone'' in Iraq and has made the task of internationalizing postwar Iraq an enormously difficult burden should not deter our resolve. Pouring more U.S. troops into Iraq is not the path to extricate ourselves from that miserable and unfortunate country. We need the support and endorsement of both the United Nations and Iraq's neighbors to truly internationalize the Iraq occupation and take U.S. soldiers out of the crosshairs of angry Iraqis. From the flood of disturbing dispatches from Iraq, it is clear that many Iraqis, both Sunni and Shiite, are seething under the yoke of the American occupation. The recent violent uprising by followers of a radical Shiite cleric is by far the most troubling development in months and could signal America's worst nightmare--a civil war in Iraq that pits moderate Shiites against radical Shiites. Layered over the persistent insurgency being waged by disgruntled Iraqi Sunnis and radical Islamic operatives, a Shiite civil war could be the event that topples Iraq from instability into utter chaos. As worrisome as these developments are in and of themselves, the fact that they are occurring as the United States hurtles toward a June 30 deadline to turn Iraq over to an interim Iraqi government--a government that has yet to be identified, established, or vetted--adds an element of desperation to the situation. Where should we look for leadership? To this Congress? To this Senate? Should we look here? This Senate, the foundation of the Republic, has been unwilling to take a hard look at the chaos in Iraq. Senators have once again been cowed into silence. Where are Senators on this issue? Where are they? They are of many different opinions, I am sure. Why are they not here to express them? Senators have once again been cowed into silence and support, not because the policy is right, but because the blood of our soldiers and thousands of innocents is on our hands. Questions that ought to be stated loudly in this Chamber are instead whispered in the halls. Those few Senators with courage to stand up and speak out are challenged as unpatriotic and charged with sowing seeds of terrorism. It has been suggested that any who dare to question the President are no better than the terrorists themselves. Such are the suggestions of those who would rather not face the truth. This Republic was founded in part because of the arrogance of a king who expected his subjects to do as they were told, without question, without hesitation. Our forefathers overthrew that tyrant and adopted a system of government where dissent is not only important, it is also mandatory. Questioning flawed leadership is a requirement of this Government. Failing to question, failing to speak out, is failing the legacy of the Founding Fathers. When speaking of Iraq, the President maintains that his resolve is firm, and indeed the stakes for him are enormous. But the stakes are also enormous for the men and women who are serving in Iraq and who are waiting and praying for the day they will be able to return home to their families, their ranks painfully diminished but their mission fulfilled with honor and dignity. The President sent these men and women into Iraq, and it is his responsibility to develop a strategy to extricate them from that troubled country before their losses become intolerable. It is staggeringly clear that the administration did not understand the consequences of invading Iraq a year ago, and it is staggeringly clear that this administration has no effective plan to cope with the aftermath of the war and the functional collapse of Iraq. It is time-- past time--for the President to remedy that omission and to level with the American people about the magnitude of mistakes made and lessons learned. America needs a roadmap out of Iraq, one that is orderly and astute, else more of our men and women in uniform will follow the fate of Tennyson's doomed Light Brigade. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Thank you.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, 17,000 votes ago, I achieved a dream. I stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate and prepared to cast my first vote as a Senator from the Mountain State of West Virginia. Seventeen thousand votes later, I still feel much the same. It is a great honor, a great privilege to serve the people in the Senate. Ours is a glorious country. Its people are wise. They are brave. They are hard-working and fairminded. Once it was possible for a poor young man with no important connections, with no PR firm behind him, with no fundraising apparatus racing at full tilt, to simply go out to the people, carrying his fiddle and having a mind full of poetry, and on the strength of his energy and his convictions, to be elected to the greatest deliberative body the world has ever known. That time is light-years away from today's reality. Too often now in America it is the size of the pocketbook that elects public officials. I regret that change. It keeps people out of public service instead of welcoming them into public service. This Senate is the forum which exists to welcome and to protect the airing of all points of view. Both sides of the aisle need to work together to ensure that the Senate will stay true to its constitutional purpose. We swear an oath before God and man to support and defend this Constitution. Many times I have sworn that oath before God and man to support the Constitution of the United States. I have had a good run in this wonderful institution. And like Majorian, who, when he became Emperor of the Roman Empire in 457 AD said, ``I still glory in the name of Senator.'' My patient and devoted wife Erma, with whom I will celebrate a 67- yearlong partnership 58 days from now, the Lord willing, deserves much of the credit for that good run. I also thank my talented staff for their tireless work and dedication. No man is an island, and I have had the good fortune to have many steadfast friends and supporters over the years. To the people of West Virginia, I owe my everlasting gratitude. They have expressed their faith in me time and time again. I am proud to be their Senator, and I hope to continue to serve for a long while. I thank my colleagues. They have been patient. They have known my shortcomings. I have said things from time to time that I regretted. We are all human. But my colleagues have been considerate of me, and I thank them. Pericles, the brilliant Athenian statesman, gave mankind one of the greatest funeral orations ever made. This address was delivered in 431 BC as a memorial to the first Athenian soldier who fell in the Peloponnesian War. In this address, Pericles said: It is greatness of soul alone that never grows old, nor is it wealth that delights in the latter stage of life as some give out, so much as honor. And so it is honor itself that never grows old. I thank my colleagues for the honor they show today. Finally, but most of all from Chronicles, 29th chapter, verses 11 and 12: Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. (Applause, Senators rising.)

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield quite briefly?