Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is that by unanimous consent, we have a vote scheduled at 2 o'clock.

Mr. DORGAN. I know of no opposition to the amendment I have offered. Are there those on the minority side seeking to use time against the amendment?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Conrad be recognized for 4 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have sent a second-degree amendment to the desk to the Landrieu amendment. My second degree will not strike her amendment. As a matter of fact, it will add at the end of her amendment the provisions of an amendment I had offered on Defense authorization. I am to chair the Democratic Policy Committee luncheon in a few minutes so I am not able to speak at length about this amendment. I intend to do that at some later point. I wish to mention what Senator Landrieu has described in her first- degree amendment, the interest in having as our major policy goal here with respect to the fight against terrorism, the destruction of and elimination of the leadership of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden. My amendment is one I had offered, as I said, to the Defense authorization bill, previously. It is an amendment that requires a quarterly classified report to be offered to the Congress that would tell us what is being done to bring to justice the leadership of al-Qaida. The reason for offering that is quite simple. A week ago, we had a new National Intelligence Estimate, an NIE, given to the Congress in classified and unclassified form; an NIE that was reported to the American people. The reports were not particularly surprising but in some ways stunning. The report says the greatest terrorist threat to our homeland, in this country--the greatest terrorist threat to our homeland is al-Qaida and its leadership. It also says al-Qaida and its leadership is in a secure hideaway or safe harbor. I ask the question for which there is no answer: Why, nearly 6 years after 9/11/2001, in which Osama bin Laden boasted about engineering the murder of thousands of innocent Americans--why, after 6 years, is there a safe harbor or secure hideaway anywhere on this planet for the leadership of al-Qaida and for Osama bin Laden? That, in my judgment, is a failure. We have a lot of briefings in this Congress; some of them classified, top secret briefings. There are no briefings that I am aware of on what is being done or what has not been done to bring to justice, to apprehend, and eliminate the leadership of al- Qaida. Those briefings do not exist. One of the reasons that perhaps we have not seen progress in bringing to justice and eliminating the leadership of al-Qaida is the President himself said: I don't think much about that. I don't think much, don't care much about Osama bin Laden. If you believe the intelligence estimates, they are today planning additional attacks against this country. Yesterday, we woke up to the news that there are apparently dry runs, they think--our intelligence people think there are dry runs being made in our airports with various things packed in luggage by terrorists who want to do potential attacks later. We hear all these reports and the question remains: Why is it the leadership of the organization that poses the greatest terrorist threat to this country has a secure hideaway somewhere or a safe haven somewhere? There ought not be a square inch of ground on this planet that is safe for those who murdered Americans on 9/11, for those who pose the greatest threat to this country. That is intolerable. The Defense authorization bill will come back to the floor of the Senate, I guess. This amendment I have offered is in that piece of legislation. But to make certain this amendment becomes law and gets to the desk of the President for signature, I have offered it to this appropriations bill. I understand it fits better on Defense authorization. My hope is that is where it will wind up on the President's desk. It seems to me we went through agonizing debates and passionate debates on the floor of the Senate about the war in Iraq. I respect everybody's opinion on those issues. But while we have soldiers who got up this morning and strapped on body armor and got in humvees and then went and knocked door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war, where Shias are killing Sunnis and Sunnis are killing Shias and Shias and Sunnis are both killing Americans--while that happened this morning in the middle of a civil war, we have the greatest terrorist threat to this country apparently in a safe harbor or secure hideaway. That ought not exist. First things first. Let's fight the terrorists first and defeat the terrorists first. That ought to be the first and most important priority and responsibility. If they are the greatest threat to this country, let's eliminate that threat. That ought to be the goal of this country. That is why I offer this amendment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this amendment has two parts to it. No. 1, it increases the reward for the elimination of the al-Qaida leadership and Osama bin Laden, and, No. 2, it required a quarterly classified report to be made to the Congress, every quarter, from this administration and from any administration, to say what they are doing, to tell us what they have been doing to try to apprehend and bring to justice and eliminate the leadership of the greatest terrorist threat to this country. Is it too much to ask that we ought to be informed?

Mr. DORGAN. We ought to understand what is being done or what is not being done. I think the American people have a reason to ask the question: Why, nearly 6 years later, do we now read--and I have read it on a number of occasions in unclassified versions of classified reports that say--there is a secure hideaway for Osama bin Laden and the leadership of al-Qaida? There is a secure hideaway. There is safe haven. Now, why should any place on this Earth be secure or safe for those who would attack this country?

Mr. DORGAN. As I said, I have to chair the Democratic policy committee luncheon in just a moment. I wanted to make a comment on the amendments that have been offered, and perhaps after the policy committee luncheon, if these issues are still pending, I will be able to comment. Senator Vitter has offered an amendment dealing with prescription drugs. Senator Cochran has second-degreed that amendment, as I understand it. I believe we ought to have access to lower priced prescription drugs, FDA-approved prescription drugs. Lower priced prescription drugs exist in virtually every other country of the world. Why should the American consumer not have the capability to acquire them under our current rules? I would say that we already have a circumstance where we are allowed about a 90-day supply of drugs, if someone walks across the border or drives across and comes back with a personal use, 90-day supply. Very few Americans live close enough to the border to be able to do that. But we have an amendment that is a broad bipartisan amendment; 30-some Members of the Senate have worked on it, cosponsored it. This will not be the legislation in which we consider that amendment, I do not expect. The amendment that Senator Vitter has offered, as second-degreed by Senator Cochran, would simply restate current rules; that is, currently what is allowed. It would simply restate current rules, which I assume offends no one but accomplishes nothing as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to use the remaining time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is that we have a 2 o'clock vote on this amendment. This amendment is one Senator Conrad and I had offered on the Defense authorization bill. That bill, as you know, is no longer on the floor of the Senate. So we offer it now to this legislation. Just as my colleague from Louisiana has previously offered an amendment with respect to the objective and the priority of eliminating the leadership of al-Qaida, this amendment we offered about 2 weeks ago would do two things: increase the reward for Osama bin Laden and the leaders of al-Qaida; No. 2, and most important, it would require quarterly top-secret classified briefings to this Congress every quarter about what is or is not being done to bring to justice, to capture, or kill the leadership of al-Qaida. Why do we want to do this? It has been nearly 6 years since thousands of Americans were murdered--innocent Americans murdered by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. They boasted about engineering the murder of innocent Americans. Here is what last week's National Intelligence Estimate says: Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the homeland. That doesn't need much interpretation. The most serious threat to our homeland is al-Qaida. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in the Pakistan federally administered tribal areas, operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Does anybody in this country believe there ought to be a safe haven on this planet for those who boasted about murdering thousands of innocent Americans? Does anybody believe there ought to be secure hideaways or a safe haven for the leadership of al-Qaida that, today, in the mountains somewhere, are planning attacks against this country? Why, after 6 years, are we not successful in bringing to justice and limiting the leadership of al-Qaida? It is not as if we don't know all of this. This is in June: Al-Qaida regroups in new sanctuary on the Pakistan border. While the U.S. presses on in its war against insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, bin Laden's group is recruiting, regrouping, and rebuilding in a new sanctuary. . . . This is from the New York Times in February: Terror officials see al-Qaida chiefs regaining power. Senior leaders from al-Qaida are operating from Pakistan near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials. How much more do we need to understand? We have soldiers in Iraq going door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war, where Sunni and Shia are killing each other and Sunni and Shia are both killing American soldiers. In the middle of a civil war, we have soldiers going door to door in Baghdad and, in the meantime, we have al-Qaida building training camps in a secure hideaway between Pakistan and Afghanistan. And today, this afternoon, they are planning additional attacks against our country. That is unbelievable to me. Mr. President, in August 2001, the Presidential daily briefing given to this President said the following: Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S. That was the title. Nearly 6 years later, we now have intelligence assessments with this title: Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West. That is what I call failure. We must succeed. That is why we ask with this amendment for quarterly classified top-secret briefings to this Congress to tell us what they are doing or what they are not doing to bring to justice and to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaida. It is unbelievable to me that Osama bin Laden, who boasted of attacking this country, now apparently is in a secure hideaway or a safe haven. Nowhere on this small planet should there be somewhere safe for the leader of the organization or the leadership of the organization that launched the attack on this country in 2001. It is unbelievable to me that we are in this situation. Now, the President said this when asked about it: I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It is not that important and it is not our priority. Those are the words of President Bush. Let me read the words of the National Intelligence Estimate of last week that came out from this administration: Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the homeland. Maybe we ought to modify that statement of the President because it ought to be our priority. That is what this amendment is about. It should have been our priority 4 years ago, 5 years ago. It ought to be our priority today. I know of no more important priority for this country than dealing with the leadership of al-Qaida and eliminating the greatest political threat and the most serious terrorist threat to our homeland. That is what our amendment does. I hope the Senate will once again agree to this amendment and establish this as a preeminent priority for this country. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my understanding no time remains and we will go to a vote immediately; is that correct?

Mr. DORGAN. What is the Senator's request?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. I visited earlier with my colleague from Louisiana. I think this is an awfully good amendment. It establishes a priority which should have been established long ago. As you know, the President, when asked about Osama bin Laden, at one point said, I don't care about Osama bin Laden. I don't care about Osama bin Laden. Now we have the National Intelligence Estimate that says the greatest terrorist threat to this country is the leadership of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. If that is the case, it ought to be job one to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaida. Eliminating the greatest terrorist threat to our country ought to be the most important goal. That is what the Senator states in her amendment. I spoke yesterday about this issue at some length, describing the kind of Byzantine position we are in with everyone telling us that here is the great threat to our country. Yet, on the other hand, we are going door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war with our soldiers while there is what is called a safe harbor or secure haven apparently in Pakistan or Afghanistan or somewhere on the border. My point is there ought not be a square inch of safety anywhere, no safe harbor, no secure hideaway anywhere on this planet for the leadership of al-Qaida. I think this is a good amendment. I intend to offer the amendment that I offered on the Defense authorization bill as well tomorrow. It was passed unanimously and my hope is it will be accepted unanimously. Senator Conrad offered it, but the Defense authorization bill was pulled. I intend to offer that amendment tomorrow, but my hope is the Senate will approve the amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana because I think it advances this country's interest in defeating terrorism, and that is a very important goal.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. That threat may come from those who might try to board airplanes.

Mr. DORGAN. That is addressed by the issue of aviation security. That threat may come from someone nailing themselves into a container with food and telephones and a heater----

Mr. DORGAN. As we heard happened before, and was shipped into a port in this country in the middle of a container ship with a weapon of mass destruction or some other device by which they can attack this country. That is why this legislation of this Appropriations subcommittee contains port security. That is why there is an urgency about all of these issues.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield further.

Mr. DORGAN. The President of the United States, in August 2001, received this Presidential daily briefing with this title: ``Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.'' My point is, in July 2007, nearly 6 years later, July 2007, the intelligence assessment from the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center says this: ``Al-Qaida better positioned to strike in the West.'' Nearly 6 years later, those who attacked our country and murdered thousands of innocent Americans, we are told by those who provide the intelligence for this country that they are in a better position now to attack this country in its homeland.

Mr. DORGAN. Let me say it in a different way, concluding in the same manner. I am not, with this, describing one person, one organization, one philosophy at fault. I am saying there is something wrong with respect to what I think is a failure here, that is a significant failure, part of which I hope and believe can be remedied by the bill that has been put together by Senator Byrd and Senator Cochran, dealing with homeland security. It has been almost 6 years since the terrorists attacked this country on 9/11/2001. After almost 6 years and two wars in two countries and well over half a trillion dollars spent at home and abroad, the deaths of thousands in our military and the wounding of tens of thousands in our military, after all that period of time, we are told there is a sanctuary, a safe haven, a safe harbor for the leaders of the greatest threat to this country, the leaders of al-Qaida. My point is, there ought not be anywhere safe on the face of this planet. If the greatest threat to our country exists in the leadership of this organization that is rebuilding training camps and terrorist training camps, then we have done something wrong. We must, as the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Mississippi suggested in this bill, we must rebuild our capabilities to defend ourselves against an attack on our homeland. But even as we do that, we must rededicate ourselves as a country to save the first and most important job, the first and most important effort, to go after and eliminate the terrorist threat. I mean, it gets back to the debate we have had with--I respect other people's views on this, but we are going door to door in Baghdad with our soldiers in the middle of sectarian violence or a civil war when, in fact, the greatest threat to our country is in the hills somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan, building training camps and having the greatest capacity to attack our homeland because they have regenerated their strength. In my judgment, that is a failure. So we have to rededicate ourselves on two points. No. 1, I believe we have to find a way to extract ourselves from the civil war in Iraq. Yes, we need to continue to do several things in force protection for our forces, training the Iraqi security and Iraqi police and Iraqi soldiers for Iraq's security, and also taking on the areas in Iraq where al-Qaida does exist. But what is principally happening in Iraq is not about al-Qaida and terrorism, what is principally happening in Iraq is about sectarian violence and a civil war. My point is, we ought to see if we cannot make sure that we will change the policies in this country and begin to start fighting terrorists first. That ought to be the priority. If the terrorists, al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and their leadership, represent the greatest threat to this country, then why is that not the process by which we fight terrorists first? Instead, we are bogged down going door to door in Baghdad. Well, here is what we have. We have a piece of legislation on the floor of the Senate now that deals with homeland security. We want homeland security, we want it to succeed. We want to be safe and secure with the ways to do that. One is to do what we have done and try to strengthen our ports, strengthen aviation, strengthen our borders. The legislation that has been brought to us today does all of that and more. This has money for mass transit security. Well, that is critically important. We know the danger and the potential danger to our subway systems, as we have seen in London with terrorist attacks. Port security. We have had discussions on the floor of this Senate that go on and on and on, but we have these ships that come into our ports with giant containers. We are going to spend, I think in the appropriations bill on defense, we are going to spend $10 to $11 billion to try to provide an electronic catcher's mitt for intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. So if we can create a catcher's mitt of some type, or hit a bullet with a bullet when an ICBM is coming in with a nuclear warhead, we are going to spend $10 to $11 billion to try to solve that problem. The more likely attack with a nuclear weapon is a ship, a container ship, pulling up to a port at 3 to 4 miles an hour, pulling up at the dock of one of America's major cities with a container right smack in the middle of the ship containing a weapon of mass destruction. That is the most likely threat against this country. We are not spending $10 or $11 billion to deal with that. I went to a seaport once. In fact, I went to a seaport in Seattle, WA, because I do not know much about seaports. I come from a State that is not boundaried by water. So I wished to see what security was like at the seaport. One of the things I remember from that visit was they had opened a container. Now, they do not open very many. I believe we have something akin to 11 million containers come into this country on container ships, 11 million containers. I believe it is somewhere around 3 to 5 percent are inspected, and 97 or 95 percent are not inspected. They opened the container. It was a refrigerated container. I was kind of curious. So I looked at the back of it. There it was, 100-pound bags of broccoli from Poland. I said: Well, I see now this is a giant container full of frozen broccoli from Poland. I can see now that because you opened the door in the back and you have cut open a couple of bags. I said, what is the middle of this container? I see what is in the back. What is deep in the middle of this container? Well, we do not know that. We assume it is frozen broccoli. We pulled some bags out to make sure there was broccoli in this container. But the fact is, they did not check that, they could not check it. So millions of containers come in and they are not checked. Now we have what amounts to kind of a CAT-scan device for big trucks and containers, very expensive, but it is kind of like a CAT scan for your body; you run it past the container and you can see right through the container and see what is in it. It is very expensive, very difficult to get done on 11 million containers. The same is true for air cargo. We have a Herculean task to protect this country against those who are perfectly willing to kill themselves, as long as they can kill many innocent people. This is a very difficult proposition. So again, I say to the chairman and ranking member on the subcommittee, I think they have done a terrific job. I deeply appreciate their work. I share the comments of my colleague, Senator Murray from Washington, about it, with respect to border protection and the Coast Guard and all those issues they have had to deal with, without unlimited money. The fact is, we have some limited funding.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, the chairman of the subcommittee is the Honorable Senator Byrd from West Virginia, and the ranking member, of course, is Senator Cochran from Mississippi. Let me say to both of them, if they do not mind my saying it, at a time when there is all this discussion in the newspapers about nobody gets along, things have deteriorated in the Senate, the fact is, I think the evidence exists all across this Senate Chamber, it exists certainly with the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, and Senator Cochran, that they not only get along, they work together. They have put together a terrific piece of legislation. That is called cooperation. There is a lot of it in this Chamber, particularly on the Appropriations Committee, which makes me proud because I think that is the way the Senate ought to work. Now, if you will permit me, however, if the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Mississippi will accommodate me for one additional moment while I say wonderful things about their work, I do wish to make a cautionary comment about FEMA because we are funding FEMA to the tune of $6.89 billion in this legislation. I am a big fan of FEMA--used to be a big fan of FEMA, I should say. I am not anymore. I hope and pray that maybe it gets its act together. It does not appear to me it is quite there yet. But in my State, we evacuated, 10 years ago, an entire city, the largest mass evacuation since the Civil War, when Grand Forks was flooded and then had a fire in the middle of the flood, and a city of nearly 50,000 people was evacuated because of the floods in the Red River Valley. We had FEMA show up. Unbelievable, James Lee Witt and FEMA, they knew what they were doing. They were outstanding. Everybody believed they helped that community come back together and fight that flood and deal with the consequences and come roaring back. Ten years later, that is a great success story. FEMA, regrettably, has, in my judgment, been part of the problem rather than part of the solution. We have natural disasters that occur in this country. Hurricane Katrina comes to mind. FEMA obviously was a disgrace with respect to--at least many in FEMA were disgraceful in the way they responded to that. I wish to tell the chairman and the ranking member of one example I discovered out of many examples. I wish to tell you about it because as we fund FEMA--and we must; we do not have a choice. When natural disasters strike, we have to have the funding to go to those folks, whether it is a hurricane or a flood or drought, we have to go to those people and say: You are not alone. This country is with you. This country wants to help you. But I wish to tell you a story about what happened to FEMA, as I conclude. I was on the phone one day to a guy named Paul Mullinax. Paul Mullinax had a refrigerated truck in Florida. He was one of those truckers who responded when FEMA wanted to send ice down to the victims in the gulf. When Katrina hit and you had the evacuations and the dislocations and all that trouble, they needed ice. Paul Mullinax was a trucker with a refrigerated truck. So he contacted FEMA, as did thousands of others. He went to New York. He was told go to New York to pick up ice. So he went to New York to pick up some ice. He was told: Take it to Missouri. When he got to Missouri, he was told: Take it to Mississippi. When he got to Mississippi, he sat there on the tarmac of an old military installation, along with over 100 other truckers. Here is a picture of Paul. This is actually Paul's route right here. New York to Missouri to Alabama, and then, here is a photo of Paul. He sat at a military installation in front of his truck for about 12 days. Then he was told: I want you to take the ice back to Massachusetts. So ice, destined for the victims of Katrina, was picked up in New York, taken to Missouri, and then in this case Arkansas--excuse me, Alabama-- and then it was offloaded in Massachusetts. The reason I tell you that story right now is because that story ended last week. That ice--and by the way, it cost $15,000 for the taxpayers to pay Paul Mullinax to pick up New York ice to take to the victims of Katrina, to go to Missouri, to Alabama and finally be told, after sitting there for 12 days, to go drive it to Massachusetts to offload it--that ice has now been stored for 2 years and this week was discarded by FEMA because they felt maybe after 2 years the ice was contaminated. So the taxpayers took a bath. The storage of that ice was around $20 million. The taxpayers took a bath. The victims never got the ice they needed. People such as Paul Mullinax, this guy here, said, after driving his truck all that distance: I got paid, but this was wrong for the American taxpayers. Somebody ought to answer for it. I have spent 2 years trying to figure out who gave the orders on ice transport in FEMA. And you, by God, cannot find the answer. You cannot find the answer. I know many of the top people in FEMA were cronies, had nothing to do or no experience at all with dealing with disasters and emergency preparedness, who did not know anything about it. So the result was a complete breakdown. This is just one example. In some ways I regret taking time during this debate, but when else? We are going to give FEMA $6.9 billion. I want FEMA to work. I want us to be proud of FEMA. I don't want political cronies running it. I don't want someone like Paul Mullinax who hauls ice for victims to scratch his head and say: What on Earth has happened? Where has common sense gone? How is it I am told to pick up ice in New York and deliver to it Massachusetts, when it is supposed to be helping victims in Mississippi and Louisiana? As we fund FEMA, I hope we will also do a lot of oversight in the authorizing committees because there is something fundamentally wrong. We all know that, and we need to fix it.

Mr. DORGAN. Having said all that and given the requisite compliments to everyone on the floor--compliments I sincerely mean in this case-- about a bill I believe is urgent, I hope we can move ahead. If there are amendments to the bill, I hope people will come and offer them, that they will allow us to vote on them, that we won't have delay, and in the next couple of days we will demonstrate with this first appropriations bill that we can pass appropriations bills. We can do that because we will cooperate to get them done.

Mr. DORGAN. If we come to the floor in the next couple days and see delay on Homeland Security, I am going to be one disappointed person.

Mr. DORGAN. Of all the bills, we ought to be saying: Let's lock arms and do this in a reasonable time; let's do this with the leadership of Senator Byrd and Senator Cochran.

Mr. DORGAN. I yield the floor.