Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. It is $95 billion, right under that.

Mr. BYRD. At a minimum, $30 billion.

Mr. BYRD. Astoundingly, the President's budget does not present such a cost. The Senator is exactly right.

Mr. BYRD. The distinguished Senator from Maryland is preeminently correct. There is no estimate of what the war will cost in the President's budget.

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in legislative session.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, since last August, the administration has worked aggressively to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who directly threatens the United States. The President has been unambiguous, and often dangerously blunt, about his passion to use military force to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime. The Bush administration has promoted a vision of Saddam's removal from power quickly, easily, and bloodlessly. Indeed, part of the rationale for support for this war is that America's tremendous military superiority over Iraq will confine a military conflict to a relatively painless contest between the United States' awesome military forces and the relatively weak, conventional military machine of Saddam Hussein. A swift and simple military victory certainly is one possibility, but in our democratic Republic the administration also has a responsibility to inform the American people that much less pleasant scenarios are also possible and even likely. The Congress has a responsibility to explore all possible scenarios with an eye to the eventual costs of this war. We must not just accept the rosy projections so far offered by the administration. Frankly, I have seen little effort by either the administration or the Congress to inform the American taxpayer about the likely costs of this war. In both dollars and human lives, the administration has been ominously quiet about its internal calculations and estimates. What is even worse is that the Congress has barely bothered to ask about them. Earlier this month, the President unveiled his budget for the fiscal year 2004. Even assuming the most primitive and loose definition of the term ``fiscal responsibility,'' that budget request should certainly have included some rough estimate cost for a war with Iraq. Even a range of costs would have been somewhat illuminating. But no cost estimate was included in the budget of the President's. Now let me repeat that. There is no estimate of the cost of the looming war with Iraq in the President's budget--no cost estimate. That is hard to believe, isn't it? But that is the case. The possible war has dominated the airwaves for months, and yet there is no cost estimate in the President's budget. President Bush mentions the looming conflict in nearly every public pronouncement, and yet no cost estimate to fight the war appears in the President's budget--none. Is the administration trying to tell the people of this Nation it is for free? When the Defense Secretary presented the President's defense budget to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and was asked what the administration projected that a war in Iraq would cost, he would only say that such costs are ``not knowable.'' Let us contemplate that answer: ``not knowable.'' Does the Secretary of Defense mean to say that this great Nation does not yet know what its plans include for a war with Iraq? Is that why the costs are ``not knowable''? Does he mean to say that we do not yet know exactly what we are going to try to achieve in Iraq? Is that why the costs are ``not knowable''? Or does he simply mean to indicate that he does not want to divulge the potential costs, therefore to us they are ``not knowable''? One must presume that by now the administration would have made several internal forecasts of the military cost of the war using various scenarios, and that the White House Council of Economic Advisors would have prepared for the President a classified study of the projected economic impact of the war. Reportedly, OMB Director Mitch Daniels has been working on war estimates for months, and yet we are told that these costs are ``not knowable.'' None of this information has been made available to the public, nor, I suspect, is it likely to be released in the near future. This Congress--these two Houses; the people's elected Representatives--has a responsibility to demand that information. The people have a right to know. They are going to suffer the costs. Congress must not accept the answer, ``not knowable.'' The American people, I say, deserve to know. They deserve to know the truth. There was one cost estimate provided by the administration which came from an interview last fall with Larry Lindsey, the President's former economic advisor, who said that a war with Iraq could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion. He went on to opine that that was ``nothing.'' Yet the White House quickly distanced itself from that comment, and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget rebuked that estimate, saying that Lindsey's estimate was ``very, very high.'' The OMB Director suggested that the cost of the war would be closer to $60 billion or $70 billion. The Pentagon recently stretched that estimate to $95 billion. I wonder just what we are to make of these conflicting estimates. How are we to gauge the validity of such widely varying numbers? How are the American people to gauge the validity of such widely varying numbers? Do these figures contemplate other complications? What if casualty estimates grow into the thousands? And they may. What if oil prices skyrocket, sparking inflation and lines at the gas pump and costing the U.S. economy thousands of American jobs? Suppose the Middle East erupts in a tornado of violence, toppling regime after regime in the region. Even a rudimentary list of the possible contingencies shows that costs may grossly exceed what the administration wants the public to believe. The Congressional Budget Office reported last September that the incremental cost of just deploying a force to the Persian Gulf--that is, those costs incurred above those budgeted for routine operations-- could be between $9 billion and $13 billion. Prosecuting a war, according to the CBO, could cost between $6 billion and $9 billion per month. And after hostilities ended, the cost just to return U.S. forces to their home bases could range between $5 billion and $7 billion. Regardless of the swiftness of a military victory--it could be swift, but it might not be--there remains the cost of a postwar occupation of Iraq, which the administration says could last for up to 2 years and could mean another $1 billion to $4 billion, or more, per month during that period. On top of that, the United States might face a humanitarian crisis, including rampant disease and starvation, if Saddam Hussein employs a scorched earth strategy in defending his regime. What about the need for a cleanup of biological and chemical weapons if the Iraqi Republican Guard employs them against U.S. soldiers? Reconstruction and nation-building costs resulting from installing a democratic government in Iraq have to also be thought about. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences projected that the minimum reconstruction and nation-building cost for Iraq could be as high as $30 billion, and that is under the very best of circumstances. Will the administration propose something similar to the Marshall plan for Iraq? The Academy reported that U.S. investments in Western Europe after World War II under the Marshall plan cost a total of $13.3 billion over a 4-year period. That is the equivalent of $450 billion over 4 years if measured as a percentage of GDP in 2002.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. The Budgetary Costs of a War in Iraq

Mr. BYRD. They are indeed. It is amazing.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I am glad to yield.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada for his kind comments and always for the great services he performs for the American people here in this body. Madam President, is the Senate in executive session?

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, as the ranking member on the Committee on Appropriations, I thank my friend, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Ted Stevens, and I also thank House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young as well as the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative David Obey, for their hard work in bringing H.J. Res. 2, a joint resolution making consolidated appropriations for fiscal year 2003, to the floor. I thank all of the conferees on both sides of the aisle and in both Houses for their hard work on this legislation. I join with my chairman in paying our respects to and thanking our staff people, on both sides of the aisle, who have worked long hours for long weeks and for long months on this bill. We are now over 4 months into the fiscal year and the domestic agencies of our Government have had to operate under eight continuing resolutions. Unfortunately, the House of Representatives has not passed a regular appropriations bill since July--since July of last year. That is over 29 weeks without sending a regular appropriations bill to the Senate for consideration. I have been in these premises for more than 50 years. I have never seen such a performance in this half century in which I served in this body and the other body. I have never seen such a dismal performance. When Democrats were in the majority in the Senate, we produced 13 responsible bipartisan bills. I owed, always owed and sought to give due credit to my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Alaska, because he was always so helpful, so cooperative, always so courteous in his treatment toward me and I have always recognized that and always sought to assign due credit, proper credit to him and to his colleagues on that side of the aisle. The President's budget for fiscal year 2003 was seriously deficient in a number of critical domestic programs such as homeland security, education, veterans medical care, highway construction, and Amtrak. In the bills that were approved in the Senate Appropriations Committee by unanimous votes last summer--the votes of every Republican and Democrat, all 29, 15 Democrats at that time and 14 Republicans, all 29 votes voted unanimously--we added about $11 billion or about 3 percent to the President's request to respond to these shortfalls. Regrettably, the conference agreement that the House and Senate Republican leadership bring before us this evening cuts back domestic spending by nearly $8 billion, with cuts in homeland security, land conservation programs, Head Start, State and local law enforcement, water infrastructure grants, mass transit, the National Park Service, embassy security, and many other programs. I am particularly troubled about the cuts in homeland security programs, given the increased threat level under which we are all now living. My colleagues, the security of this Nation is on thin ice. This administration has held back support for critical investments in homeland security, in police officers, in firefighters, in border, airport, and seaport security. As a result of this White House's intransigence, America is woefully unprepared to prevent or respond to another terrorist attack. In this conference report, spending for our Nation's first responders has been cut by $1.6 billion from the levels approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee last summer. Funding has also been cut for border security by $182 million, embassy security by $42 million, and for hiring COPS on the beat by $130 million, enough to hire 1,360 police officers and other personnel. The American people should know that if there is a chemical or biological attack in their neighborhood, the odds are that the police, the firemen, the medical personnel who will respond may not have either the equipment or the training necessary to help when that help is needed most. For example, the National Fire Protection Association and FEMA estimate that only 13 percent of the fire departments around the country have fire personnel with the specialized training and equipment to handle chemical or biological attacks. Why is America so vulnerable? Because this White House is hoping to protect the American people on a shoestring homeland security budget, held together with duct tape. Since September 11, 2001, the President, with great fanfare, has signed legislation to authorize improvements in security at our airports, security at our ports, and on our borders. The President also announced a plan for State and local governments to vaccinate 10 million first responders for a potential smallpox attack. But the President has not funded that effort, nor has he requested money for it in his budget. Time after time after time, the administration has talked about homeland security, but time after time after time the administration has failed to invest in homeland security. Add it up. Add it up. The President turned his back to $2.5 billion in emergency homeland security funds last August. This past fall the President forced $1.5 billion in cuts to homeland security initiatives in the appropriations bills that unanimously passed the Senate Appropriations Committee last July. Just last month the administration opposed two homeland security funding amendments which I offered on this floor, one for $5 billion, another for $3 billion, and the administration labeled these funds as ``extraneous.'' Those are billions of dollars in homeland security protections that could be at work right now. Those are billions of dollars that could be in place today for new police and firefighter training, for expanded border security, for vaccines against smallpox. Those are billions of dollars that could be helping to protect American lives today. But time after time after time after time, this administration said no, calling those homeland security funds ``extraneous'' and ``wasteful.'' Now, when the President signs the omnibus bill, the administration will proclaim with great fanfare that it held a hard line on Federal spending. I hope that the White House hard line will not result in Americans becoming hard targets for terrorists. No longer can we nickel-and-dime our first responders. These firemen and police officers and emergency medical teams simply cannot do the job we expect them to do, and that the American people expect them to do, without enough financial support from the Federal Government. We should not accept the alarming deficiencies in our seaport security--an area that many experts have identified as perhaps the Nation's single greatest vulnerability. We should not accept the fact that first responders and local doctors and nurses do not have sufficient training and equipment to handle wide-ranging threats involving madmen who may have gotten their hands on weapons of mass destruction. With these looming gaps, what is the administration's great homeland security plan? What will protect the American people? Will it be duct tape, plastic sheeting, and a new federal bureaucracy? We did not create a new Department of Homeland Security just to be told to buy duct tape and plastic. When it comes to fighting overseas, this Administration's attitude is to spare no expense. In fact, the Vice President interceded personally over the weekend to include billions of new dollars for Defense Department efforts in this omnibus bill. That is all well and good. But when it comes to fighting the war here at home, this administration relies on duct tape and plastic. We are in new and dangerous times. No threat can be ignored. The men and women who send us here demand that we protect them. The fathers and mothers who send their children to school each morning expect us to invest their hard-earned dollars to keep their little ones safe. That is a solemn duty. It is a basic and sacred duty. When the people ask for our best efforts to protect them from madmen, we must not respond with duct tape. Chairman Stevens and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Young did all they could to produce an omnibus bill that meets the needs of the American people within the low spending level imposed by the administration. I believe that the most damaging result of the 2003 appropriations process for the Nation and for our States would be for our domestic agencies to be forced to operate under a continuing resolution for the entire fiscal year. Such a full year continuing resolution would reduce domestic spending by up to another $14 billion below the levels in the omnibus. Chairman Stevens of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Chairman Bill Young of the House Appropriations Committee, and Mr. Obey, my counterpart on the House side, did everything they could to avoid operating their Government on a continuing resolution that would go to the end of the fiscal year. Therefore, I am going to support passage of this legislation. However, I must raise a concern about how this legislation was produced. Over the past several weeks, the Appropriations Committee has worked to craft a conference report to include the eleven spending bills for fiscal year 2003 that were not concluded during the 107th Congress. The Appropriations Committee takes great pride in the bipartisan approach we have maintained over the years to produce bills to fund this nation's necessary programs. The bipartisan spirit of this Committee enables us to carefully balance the needs of all Americans and to successfully craft bills that, with few exceptions, are signed into law. We all recognize the unusual circumstances surrounding passage of most of the fiscal year 2003 appropriations bills. Still, I am pleased to report that the general rule of bipartisan cooperation among the members and staff of this Committee has continued to prevail and, thereby, we have before us now a conference report that strives to provide fair treatment for all Senators, at least in terms of the regular 2003 appropriations provisions. However, notwithstanding the bipartisanship exhibited at the subcommittee level, there have been some serious problems encountered in the formulation of the conference agreement on the omnibus appropriations legislation. Today's headline in The Washington Post reads, ``GOP Wraps Up Spending Package.'' There is some truth to that statement. Behind closed doors, the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees met and settled on a number of the big issues. Vice President Cheney provided the administration's views. At these partisan meetings, decisions were made on such issues as the overall top line total of the omnibus appropriations legislation, the size of the across-the-board cut, the matter of environmental riders and the substance of the $3.1 billion drought package, along with the offsets from the previously enacted farm bill that were included at the insistence of the White House. These farm bill offsets because necessary when the White House refused to raise the top line by $3.1 billion to accommodate the mandatory spending in the drought package. More specifically, Division N of omnibus legislation includes a title to provide disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers due to drought and related conditions. This item was included in the bill passed by the Senate in January. However, when this bill went to conference, this item was not made part of the normal bipartisan conference process. In fact, no appropriations subcommittee was even involved in the conference negotiation on disaster assistance. Rather, it seems, the entire negotiation was conducted by the majority authorization committees, and no discussions with minority appropriations or authorization committee staff ever occurred until the final product was presented to the Appropriations Committee just as the finishing touches to the overall omnibus appropriations legislation were being made. In summary, with no Democrats in the room, the House and Senate Republican leadership designed a program that assessed the $3.1 billion offset against a farm program which one of our colleagues had labored for 5 years to get enacted. The House and Senate Republican leadership chose to cut domestic programs by nearly $8 billion from the bi- partisan bills approved by the Appropriations Committee last summer. There also was no discussion of the decision to include an arbitrary across-the-board cut on domestic programs. The package was approved by the House and Senate Republican leadership and given to the Appropriations Committees to be laid into the omnibus legislation. The conferees never met to approve the final conference report. This is no way to develop legislation. When minority Senators are excluded from discussions, it has the effect of disenfranchising the millions of American citizens who are represented by those Senators like myself. There is not much we can do about this problem now. We are faced with the alternative of operating on a continuing resolution for the rest of the year--which I don't want to do, which Chairman Stevens, Chairman Young, and Mr. Obey have labored valiantly to avoid--which would have the effect of reducing domestic spending by up to another $14 billion below the levels in the omnibus legislation. It is my hope that in the future there will be a resumption of full bipartisan cooperation for all items that are included in any appropriations bill. If members want to add items to an appropriations bill that are the product of an authorization committee, that committee must adhere to the bipartisan standards of the Appropriations Committee. If they choose not to do so, I strongly suggest that they find a legislative vehicle other than an appropriations bill on which to attach their measure. Again, I thank the truly distinguished chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Mr. Stevens, for his cooperation, for his many courtesies towards me and towards my colleagues on this side of the aisle, and for his friendship and the friendship of all members of the Appropriations Committee on both sides of the aisle. I also thank the staff of the committee. I cannot find the words to adequately express my deep appreciation to the staff people on this committee. They work hard. They work long hours. They work long weeks. They work weekends and are away from their families. And they labor under very difficult conditions in order to help to bring to the chairman and the ranking member of the full committee a measure which can then be brought to the floor and voted on. These staff people performed admirably under tight deadlines, especially during the last 6 weeks. I look forward to working with my colleague, Mr. Stevens, on the fiscal year 2004 appropriations process which will begin very soon. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished friend for his comments. And I thank him always for his statecraft, for his handiwork in the development of legislation on the floor, and for his courage and ability to stand up for what he believes.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the language of diplomacy is imbued with courtesy and discretion. Diplomats the world over can be counted on to choose each word of every public statement with precision, for an ill- received demarche could turn allies into adversaries or cooperation into confrontation. Like most professions, diplomacy has its own lexicon. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in 1969, ``There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception: when an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.'' And when we hear a seasoned envoy refer to a ``frank and open discussion,'' we know that he is actually talking about a knock-down, drag-out fight behind closed doors. While negotiation can steer great powers away from a course that would lead to war, we can usually count on public statements about diplomacy to be underwhelming--not overwhelming but underwhelming. There have been exceptional times when bold statements have energized world opinion. When President Reagan stood on the Berlin Wall in 1987 and proclaimed, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,'' he spoke to millions of Germans who longed to be freed from oppression. While I would not go so far as to credit a single phrase with hastening the fall of the Eastern Bloc, certainly President Reagan's statement reflected the resolve of the West to oppose communism. There have also been a fair number of bold statements to the world that have backfired. For example, Nikita Khrushchev squandered whatever credit he might have gained through a goodwill tour of the United States in 1959, when he visited the United Nations the next year. The Soviet Premier famously exclaimed to the West, ``We will bury you,'' while slamming his shoe on the table in front of him. This ill- advised outburst was a vivid depiction of an irrational and out-of- control superpower. Fortunately, the United States has a tradition in foreign policy of being slow to anger. We have nurtured a reputation of being rational and deliberate. I doubt that Americans would have much tolerance for a president who used the United Nations as a forum for testing the construction of his footwear on the nearest table. It would be a great departure for the United States to use its foreign policy organs as a means to spread divisive rhetoric. Unfortunately, the tone of our foreign policy in recent months has been in a steady decline. To some of our allies, the United States, through its words and its actions on the crisis in Iraq, is beginning to look more like a rogue superpower than the leader of the free world. Many newspapers in European capitals criticize U.S. policy toward Iraq. Moderate Muslim nations, such as Jordan and Turkey, are growing progressively suspicious of American motives in the war against terrorism. An increasing number of people in Arab countries are coalescing around an outright hatred of the United States. Let us remember that President Bush came to office promising to change the tone in Washington. I wonder if the current tone of American foreign policy is what he had in mind? One source of alarm is the tone of the National Security Strategy released by the White House in September 2002. In broad strokes, the strategy argues that the United States should use its overwhelming military power to engage in preemptive strikes to prevent others from ever developing the means to threaten our country. The strategy notes a preference for working with allies to keep the peace, but underscores the willingness of the United States to act unilaterally. The content and the tone of these important pronouncements in the National Security Strategy sparked outcry, in the United States and around the world. The report gave critics plenty of ammunition to make their case that the United States is a 400 pound gorilla that will stop at nothing to get its way. Our strategy leaves much of the world the impression that Americans agree with the quotation of the late Chinese leader, Zhou Enlai, which turned the axiom uttered by the military strategist Carl von Clausewitz on his head: ``All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.'' There are many examples of provocative rhetoric that have escalated the stakes of our standoff with Iraq. In his 2002 State of the Union Address, the President coined an ``Axis of Evil,'' comprised of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. In October 2002, the White House press secretary suggested that regime change in Iraq could be accomplished with ``the cost of one bullet.'' On December 30, 2002, President Bush said that Saddam's ``day of reckoning is coming.'' The next day, he chided a reporter who asked about the prospect of war in Iraq by saying, ``I'm the person who gets to decide, not you.'' The President's coarse words did nothing to ease criticism of American unilateralism. Several members of the President's national security team warned Iraq in January 2003 that ``time is running out'' for Iraq, and that such time was measured in weeks, not months. On Sunday talk show interviews on January 29, the White House Chief of Staff refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in a war against Iraq. On February 6, President Bush ominously declared that ``the game is over.'' With each of these statements, the chances of war appeared to grow. To be fair, the President and his advisors have repeatedly stated a preference for the peaceful disarmament of Iraq. But as I speak right now, many Americans believe that war is inevitable. Through words and through action, the United States appears to be on a collision course with war in the Persian Gulf. Stating a preference for a peaceful solution is not enough to alter the heading of our great ship of state. If our rhetoric toward Iraq is not alarming enough, the last weeks have seen an appalling increase in criticism of our allies and the United Nations. On September 12, 2002, President Bush delivered a strong and effective speech that urged the United Nations to take action to disarm Iraq. The President said: ``All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations [faces] a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?'' The President threw down the gauntlet, and the United Nations acted. Inspectors have returned to Iraq, and they are doing their job. The inspectors have asked for more time, but the President has now challenged the U.N. to authorize the use of force, or again face irrelevance. And so, the world is now wondering, which is the greater threat to the relevance of the U.N.: a rogue nation that flaunts the will of the international community; or a permanent member of the Security Council that views the institution as useless unless the institution submits to its will? This hand has been overplayed. More threats of U.N. irrelevance will only portray the United States as a bully superpower. European allies who do not share our view on the crisis in Iraq have recently been in the cross hairs for verbal bombardment. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has lumped Germany in with Libya and Cuba as the principal opponents of war in Iraq. He also characterized Germany and France as being ``Old Europe,'' as if their economic and political power does not matter as compared to the number of Eastern countries that comprise New Europe. Richard Perle, a senior advisor to the Department of Defense, has also had choice words about our European allies. In October 2002, Mr. Perle recommended that German Chancellor Schroeder resign in order to improve relations between our two countries. On January 30, Mr. Perle followed up this charge by saying: ``Germany has become irrelevant. And it is not easy for a German chancellor to lead his country into irrelevance.'' Spreading his criticism around, Mr. Perle stated that ``France is no longer the ally that it once was.'' So far as I can tell from press reports, Mr. Perle, who is the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, has not been admonished for his inflammatory statements. Such vindictive criticism of our European allies has had repercussions. According to a new poll, published in the Financial Times Deutchland on February 10, 57 percent of Germans agree with the statement, ``The United States is a nation of warmongers.'' And now we find ourselves in a pointless stalemate with our NATO partners over military assistance to Turkey. If we had been more temperate in our rhetoric, perhaps we could have worked through the anti-American tone of the recent elections in Germany. Instead, we find ourselves escalating a war of words against two great European powers, who were powers--and who were great powers--before ours became a republic. And so, Mr. President, how we communicate our foreign policy makes a difference. We expect North Korea or Iraq to use inflammatory propaganda to speak to the world, but we are a more dignified nation. There are ways for our country to indicate resolve without resorting to bellicosity. The subtext to nearly every new White House statement on Iraq is that the United States has run out of patience. The administration is signaling its willingness to use an extreme amount of military force against Iraq when many still question the need to do so, when many in our own country still question the need to do so, when some in this Senate still question the need to do so at this time. We need to change our tone. Impetuous rhetoric has added fuel to the crisis with Iraq and strained our alliances. Before committing our Nation to war with Iraq and the years of occupation that will surely follow, we should repair the damage to our relations with our allies. I urge the President, and the administration, to change the tone of our foreign policy--to turn away from threatening Iraq with war, to turn away from insulting our friends and allies, to turn away from threatening the United Nations with irrelevance. Our rhetoric has gone awry, our rhetoric has gone over the top, from giving an indication of our strength to giving an indication of our recklessness. I have learned from 50 years in Congress that it is unwise to insult one's adversaries, for tomorrow you may be in need of an ally. I have found in my 56 years in politics that today's opponent may be tomorrow's friend. There will come the day when we will seek the assistance of those same European allies with which we are now feuding. But serious rifts are threatening our close relationship with some of the great powers--the truly great powers of history--some of the great powers of Western Europe. The Secretary of State said yesterday that NATO is at risk of breaking up. Mr. President, it is time that we pause. It is time that we take a look at ourselves. It is time to put our bluster and swagger away for the time being. I urge the President to calm his rhetoric, repair our alliances, and slow down in the charge to war. Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, may I say to the distinguished Senator from Arkansas, my favorite Supreme Court Justice was John Marshall. It is not a very hard question to answer.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. The Senator is preeminently correct. His mention of William Manchester reminds me of that great book, ``The Glory and the Dream'' by William Manchester who wrote about the Great Depression. In fact, Herbert Hoover was the first President to have a telephone on his desk in the White House. ``The Glory and the Dream.'' Yes, we have had time to prepare. In many respects, we have failed. Our committee on which the distinguished Senator from Illinois sits conducted hearings and requested that the Homeland Security Director, former Gov. Tom Ridge, appear before the Appropriations Committee to testify concerning the needs of homeland security in this country. Did he come? He probably would have come but his boss, the President, said, no, he shall not come. So we conducted 5 days of hearings on homeland security in those early months of 2002. As a result, we brought to the floor legislation based on the testimony that had been adduced from witnesses from all over this country--mayors, Governors, and first responders. This legislation, to a large extent, was pretty much sneered at--it is hard to respond in any other way--by the administration. Based on the testimony of those witnesses, we tried time and again to bring to the Senate and pass legislation that would provide for the needs of those local responders, the people at the local level, in the effort to prevent terrorist attacks and in the effort to deal with terrorist attacks once they occurred. We got no help from this administration. Did the people out there know it? Some of us attempted to tell the American people about these efforts, but the press has not picked up on it very well. Communities are being left with less than adequate police and fire protection. Other essential services are also shortstaffed. The mood of the Nation is grim, is the only way I know how to put it. The economy is stumbling. Economic growth is worse than it has been in 50 years. Fuel prices are rising and may soon spike higher. This administration, now in power for a little over 2 years, must be judged on its record. I believe that record is dismal. In that scant 2 years, this administration has squandered a large projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion. How much is that? That is $5,600 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born. Let me say that again. In that scant 2 years--I am talking about the last 2 years--of this administration's record, this administration has squandered a large projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion over the next decade and taken us to projected deficits as far as the human eye can see. This administration's domestic policy has put many of our States, including my own, in a dire financial condition, underfunding scores of essential programs for the people, the people out there who are watching through those electronic lenses. This administration has fostered policies that have slowed economic growth. This administration has ignored urgent matters such as the crisis in health care for our elderly. This administration has been slow to provide adequate funding for homeland security. The distinguished Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, and I have been talking about that. This administration has been reluctant to better protect our long and porous borders to the north and to the south, and to the east and to the west, where the great oceans form the borders. In foreign policy, this administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden. In fact, yesterday we heard from him again marshaling his forces and urging them to kill, kill, kill. This administration has split traditional alliances, possibly crippling for all time international order, crippling entities such as the United Nations and NATO. This administration has called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as being a well-intentioned peacemaking, peace loving, peacekeeping nation. This administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy on its head. It has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labeling, and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders and which will have consequences for years to come, calling heads of state pygmies, labeling whole countries as evil--as though we are not evil, as though there is no country that is not evil--denigrating powerful European allies as irrelevant. These types of crude insensitivities can do our great Nation no good. We may have massive military might, and we have, but remember we have had massive military might before. How many millions of men marched to the drums of war only 60 years ago? Thirteen million American men under arms, was it? Millions. While we may have massive military might today, we cannot fight a global war on terrorism alone. We need the cooperation and the friendship of our time-honored allies, as well as the newer found friends whom we can attract with our wealth. Our awesome military machine will do us little good if we suffer another devastating attack on our homeland which severely damages this economy. Our military manpower is already stretched thin, and they are taking them from our States every day. Yesterday, I talked to the Senate about the vacancies, about the empty seats at the dinner tables in the homes of many West Virginians, because of the National Guard and Reserve departures every day from the State of West Virginia. Yes, there they come. They are law enforcement officers. They are State troopers. They are road builders. They are doctors. They are teachers. They are Sunday school teachers. These are the men and women who keep the lights burning when the snows fall and darkness comes. But on whom will we depend when these men and women are gone to foreign lands to fight a war if a war faces us here at home, a different kind of war. Our awesome military machine will do us little good if we suffer another devastating attack on our homeland which severely damages our economy. As I say, our military forces are already being stretched thin and we will need the augmenting support of those nations that can supply troop strength, not just sign letters cheering us on. The war in Afghanistan has cost us $37 billion so far. Yes, we bombed those caves. We ran them into the holes, but they could not hide. We ran them out of the holes, and we ran behind them to get them. But there is evidence that terrorism may already be starting to regain its hold in that region. We have not found Bin Laden, and unless we secure the peace in Afghanistan, the dark dens of terrorism may yet again flourish in that remote and devastated land. Pakistan, as well, is at risk of destabilizing forces. This administration has not finished the first war against terrorism, and yet it is eager to embark on another conflict with perils much greater than those in Afghanistan. Is our attention span that short? Have we not learned that after winning the war, one must also secure the peace? Yet we hear little, precious little, about the aftermath of war in Iraq. In the absence of plans, speculation abroad is rife. Will we seize Iraq's oil fields, becoming an occupying power which controls the price and supply of that nation's oil for the foreseeable future? There are some who think so. To whom do we propose to hand the reins of power in Iraq after Saddam Hussein? Will our war inflame the Muslim world, resulting in devastating attacks on Israel? Will Israel retaliate with its own very potent nuclear arsenal? What are we about to unleash here? The genie is getting out of the bottle. Can it ever be put back? Will the Jordanian and Saudi Arabian Governments be toppled by radicals, bolstered by Iran, which has much closer ties to terrorism than Iraq? Could a disruption of the world's oil supply lead to a worldwide recession? Has our senselessly bellicose language and our callous disregard for the interests and opinions of other nations increased the global race to join the nuclear club and make proliferation an even more lucrative practice for nations which need the income? In only the space of 2 short years, this reckless and arrogant administration has initiated policies which may reap disastrous consequences for years. We have heard it asked, Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago? The question can be shortened: Are we better off than we were 2 years ago? One can understand the anger and the shock of any President after the savage attacks of September 11. One can appreciate the frustration of having only a shadow to chase and an amorphous, fleeting enemy on which it is nearly impossible to exact retribution. But to turn one's frustration and anger into the kind of extremely destabilizing and dangerous foreign policy debacle that the world is currently witnessing is inexcusable from any administration charged with the awesome power and responsibility of guiding the destiny of the greatest superpower on the planet. Frankly, many of the pronouncements made by this administration are outrageous. There is no other word. Yet this Chamber is hauntingly silent--silent. What would John Langdon of New Hampshire say about that? What would Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire say about that? What would Rufus King and Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts say? What would Alexander Hamilton, who signed the Constitution, from the State of New York, say about the silence in this Chamber? What would Dr. Samuel Johnson of Connecticut say about the silence in this Chamber? What would William Paterson or William Livingston or David Brearley or Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, the signers of the Constitution, have to say about the silence in this Senate which they created? What would Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, James Wilson, Robert Morris, of Pennsylvania, have to say? What would Thomas FitzSimons or Gouverneur Morris, who signed the Constitution on behalf of the State of Pennsylvania, have to say about the silence that rings and reverberates from these walls today, the silence with respect to the war on which we are about to enter? What would they have to say? What would their comments be? Gunning Bedford, George Read of Delaware, Daniel Carroll, Dan of St. Thomas Jenifer of Maryland. These and more. What would these signers of the Constitution have to say about this Senate which they created when they note the silence, that is deafening, that emanates from that Chamber on the great subject, the great issue of war and peace? Nothing. Nothing is being said except by a few souls. Yet this Chamber is hauntingly silent--hauntingly silent on what is possibly the eve of horrific infliction of death and destruction on the population of the nation of Iraq. Think about that. Oh, I know Saddam Hussein is the person who is primarily responsible. But how about us? How about ourselves? Yes, there are going to be old men dying. There will be women dying. There will be children, little boys and girls dying if this war goes forward in Iraq. And American men and women will die, too. Iraq has a population, I might add, of which over 50 percent is under age 15. Over 50 percent of the population in Iraq is under age 15. What is said about that? This Chamber is silent--silent. When it is possibly only days before we send thousands of our own citizens to face unimagined horrors of chemical and biological warfare, this Chamber is silent. The rafters should ring. The press galleries should be filled. Senators should be at their seats listening to questions being asked about this war, questions to which the American people out there have a right to expect answers. The American people are longing for information and they are not getting it. This Chamber is silent. On the eve of what could possibly be a vicious terrorist attack in retaliation for our attack on Iraq, it is business as usual here in the Senate, and business as usual means it is pretty quiet. There is not much going on in the Senate. Business as usual. Oh, I know it may be scare talk to talk about what may happen in the event of a terrorist attack. But when the Twin Towers fell, it wasn't scare talk. When hundreds of local firefighters and police officers, law enforcement officers died as the walls of the Twin Towers came tumbling down, it wasn't scare talk. It wasn't scare talk. We are truly sleepwalking through history. In my heart of hearts I pray that this great Nation and its good and trusting citizens are not in for a rudest of awakenings. To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. But I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50 percent children is in the highest moral traditions of our country. This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is now to find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps--just perhaps--there is still a way, if we allow more time. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum--I withdraw that suggestion.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the very able and distinguished Senator from Illinois who is a graduate of the other body where I believe he served on the Appropriations Committee. He serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee. I need only respond in a brief way at this point to the incisive question which the distinguished Senator has asked. I refer him to the Congressional Record upon several occasions last year when I said to the Senate that I was bringing to the floor, or said to the Appropriations Committee, that I was bringing an amendment up dealing with homeland security, and I shall do that again, hopefully before this week is over. Let me say briefly in response to the able Senator, time and time again the Senator has worked with me and with every other Senator on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Republicans and Democrats alike, to report measures from the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously that provided moneys for homeland security. I remember our providing $2.5 billion--$2.5 billion--for homeland security. We designated it in the committee as an emergency item, and all that remained to be done--all that remained to be done--in order to have that $2.5 billion immediately flow to the policemen, the law enforcement officers, the firefighters, the health emergency personnel all over this country, all that needed to be done was for the President of the United States to attach his signature and likewise designate that $2.5 billion as an emergency. How little to ask. But how much it would have meant to the first responders in the many towns and cities and rural communities in Illinois, in North Carolina, in West Virginia, and cities and hamlets all over this country if the President had but condescended in that moment to sign his name on that item, making it an emergency item. The law requires that for an item to be declared an emergency item, both the Congress and the President have to designate the item as an emergency. Congress did its part, and, in that case, that involved $2.5 billion. The President literally gave the back of his hand to that effort on the part of the elected representatives of the American people in this Chamber and on that committee. He gave the back of his hand to that effort on the part of Congress to provide $2.5 billion for the local responders and people in the health laboratories all over this country, for border security, airport security, port security, and all of the many facets that are involved in homeland security. He turned his back on that effort. Then last year, I believe in November of this past year when we had the omnibus appropriations bill before the Senate, I offered an amendment, a $5 billion amendment, an amendment making $5 billion available for homeland security. Did the administration support that amendment? No, the administration fought it, and the amendment went down in flames, as it were, on the floor of the Senate on virtually a party-line vote. That $5 billion would have gone a long way, would have been out there today when we have this orange alert scaring the American people--I am not saying it is not appropriate to have an orange alert, but we have seen alert after alert after alert, and in spite of the alerts that have been so often set forth in this country by the administration's own people, the administration, the President, have turned their backs on these efforts of the Senate Appropriations Committee by unanimous votes, including the Republicans on the committee, to provide ample moneys for homeland defense. Again, having lost the $5 billion, I came back with an amendment providing for $3 billion. We slimmed down--you can go to the store and get the Slim Fast at the Giant. I go to the store and do the shopping for my wife. She does not need Slim Fast, but I sometimes get Slim Fast. Well, we slimmed fast that $5 billion and brought it down to $3 billion, thinking we would pick up some votes with the administration's support. Did we get any more votes? No, the administration was against the $3 billion, and today they are telling us all, we better be on watch day and night.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, to contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experience. On this February day, as this Nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war. My wife says to me at night: Do you think we ought to get some of those large bottles, the large jugs, and fill them with water? She says: Go up to the attic and see if we don't have two or three there. I believe we have two or three there. And so I went up to the attic last evening and came back to report to her that, no, we didn't have any large jugs of water, but we had some small ones, perhaps some gallon jugs filled with water. And she talked about buying up a few things, groceries and canned goods to put away. I would suspect that kind of conversation is going on in many towns across this great, broad land of ours. And yet this Chamber is for the most part ominously, dreadfully silent. You can hear a pin drop. Listen. You can hear a pin drop. There is no debate. There is no discussion. There is no attempt to lay out for the Nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. What would Gunning Bedford of Delaware think about it? What would John Dickinson of Delaware think about it? What would George Read think about it? What would they say? We stand passively mute in the Senate today, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of some of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion concerning the prudence or the imprudence of engaging in this particular war. I can imagine hearing the walls of this Chamber ring just before the great war between the States, a war that tore this Nation asunder and out of which the great State of West Virginia was born. But today we hear nothing, almost nothing, by way of debate. This is no small conflagration that we contemplate. It is not going to be a video game. It may last a day or 6 days. God created Earth, and man, the stars, the planets, and the Moon in 6 days. This war may last 6 days. It may last 6 weeks. It could last longer. This is no small conflagration that we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No, this coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world. This Nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way, at an unfortunate time--the doctrine of preemption, no small matter--the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but which may be threatening in the future. The idea that the United States may attack a sovereign government because of a dislike for a particular regime is a radical, new twist on the traditional idea of self-defense. It appears to be in contravention of international law and the U.N. Charter. And it is being tested at a time of worldwide terrorism, making many countries around the globe wonder if they will soon be on our hit list, or some other nation's hit list. High-level administration figures recently refused to take nuclear weapons off the table when discussing a possible attack on Iraq. What could be more destabilizing? What could be more world shattering? What could be more future shattering? What could be more unwise than this kind of uncertainty, particularly in a world where globalism has tied the vital economic and security interests of so many nations so closely together? There are huge cracks emerging in our time-honored alliances. One wonders what is going to happen, and about what is happening to the United Nations. One should pause to reflect on what is happening there at the United Nations, formed 54 years ago. And we say: If you are not with us, you are against us. That is a pretty hard rule to lay down to the United Nations. If you are not with us, you are against us. If you don't see it our way, take the highway. We say to Germany and we say to France--both of whom have been around longer than we--if you don't see it our way, we will just brush you to the side. Do we fail to think about a possible moment down the road, a bit further on, when we may wish to have Germany and France working with us and thinking with us, standing with us, because there is a larger specter, at least in my mind, looming behind the specter of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. There looms a larger specter, that of North Korea, which has one or two nuclear weapons now, and others within reach within a few weeks. So there are huge cracks, I say, emerging in our time-honored alliances, and U.S. intentions are suddenly subject to damaging worldwide speculation. Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11, 2001. Here at home, people are warned of imminent terrorist attacks, with little guidance as to when or where such attacks might occur. Family members are being called to active duty, with no idea of the duration of their stay away from their hearthside, away from their homes, away from their loved ones, with no idea of the duration of their stay or what horrors they may have to face, perhaps in the near future. Communities are being left with less than adequate police and fire protection, while we are being told that a terrorist attack may be imminent. What about those communities like little Sophia, WV?

Mr. BYRD. Yes, I am happy to yield.

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, this past Saturday my longtime, good friend, and former staff member, Joe Meadows, passed away. Joe Meadows was a dedicated, hard-working, conscientious, sincere, and loyal individual. As the mail clerk in my office in the Hart Building, he managed the mailroom for me. He did his job effectively and efficiently. And everyone else on the staff liked him. One couldn't help but like Joe Meadows. From time to time, when I went into his section of the office, I would find Joe Meadows with a handful of papers, letters, correspondence, and files in one hand. And with his glasses down over his nose, he would look up over his glasses. He was a wonderful man. He rarely talked about it, this quiet, soft- spoken, hard-working, unassuming man. He was also one of the best country fiddle players in the United States. He was a bluegrass musician, born in a small coal town in southern West Virginia, on the last day of 1934. Joe never learned to read a note of music. Does the distinguished Senator from New York have memories concerning the year 1934?

Mr. BYRD. Yes. Will the Congressional Record please note that there was laughter.

Mr. BYRD. Would the reporter kindly note there was laughter again in the Congressional Record. We have to make that Congressional Record come alive.

Mr. BYRD. Well, the Senator, I take it, was not around in 1934?

Mr. BYRD. Yes.