Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2370, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I wish to make a brief comment on the legislation. I congratulate my colleague, Senator McConnell, for leading on this amendment as the primary sponsor of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006. Although all our colleagues have had the opportunity to review and express their support for this act, very briefly, I would like to at least comment on a couple of things that it does that are very important to the United States and our international relations. The bill itself states that it shall be U.S. policy ``to support a peaceful, two-state solution to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in accordance with the Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. . . .'' It also promotes democracy and the cessation of terrorism and incitement in institutions and territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority and urges members of the international community to avoid contact with and refrain from financially supporting the terrorist organization Hamas until it agrees to recognize Israel, renounce violence, disarm, and accept prior agreements, including the roadmap. This is a very important piece of legislation, one that has been led by Senator McConnell. I know he has made several comments and has comments in the Record on this important bill.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5603 which was received from the House.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 520, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, June 23, 2006, at 1 p.m. to hold a closed briefing on State Department/Defense Department Cooperation Overseas.

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

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5403, the Safe and Timely Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this bill, H.R. 5403, the adoption bill, is a bill that is aimed at improving protection for children. It holds States accountable for the safe and timely placement of children across State lines. I am gratified we have passed this bill today to help our children who are in foster care. Finding permanent and loving homes for foster care children is the first order of a compassionate society. Far too often, these children bounce from one temporary situation to another and then to another, never finding a permanent loving family. The bill we passed just a few moments ago speeds their placement by making interstate placements easier, particularly with extended family. I, in particular, commend the former majority leader of the House, Tom DeLay, for his passionate crusade for at-risk children. A foster parent himself, Tom has worked tirelessly on adoption and foster care issues during his long service in the House of Representatives. It is a fitting tribute to Tom DeLay's service that the House passed this bill on his last day in office. And I am gratified we just passed it a few moments ago.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, on Monday, the Senate will begin consideration of the flag resolution. There will be no votes during Monday's session, but Senators are encouraged to come to the floor to speak. The next rollcall vote will occur on Tuesday, and Members should plan their schedules accordingly.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 2 p.m. on Monday, June 26. I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business until 4 p.m., with the time equally divided between the leaders or their designees. I further ask that at 4 p.m., the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the flag antidesecration resolution, as under the previous order.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 3:45 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to stacked votes in relation to the following amendments to the Defense authorization bill: Chambliss No. 4261, Sessions No. 4471, as modified. I further ask that there be no amendments to the amendments in order prior to the votes and that after the first vote, all rollcall votes be 10 minutes in length; further that there be 2 minutes equally divided between each vote after the first.

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I thank both managers for a superb debate and discussion over the course of the last several days--and really the last several weeks--as we have focused on an issue that is no more important to the American people than the safety and security of the American people. We can take great pride in what our Nation and our military men and women have accomplished in Iraq. We thank them. We thank their families for their commitment and for their dedication. But we did not go into Iraq in pursuit of oil or riches or some other national advantage. We went as a volunteer--as a nation willing to enforce the mandates of the you U.N. Security Council when others were content to allow Saddam Hussein to defy those mandates. Some critics accused us at the time of ``unilateralism,'' but in fact we acted to vindicate multilateralism--most importantly, the authority of the Security Council and the credibility of many resolutions it adopted with respect to Iraq between 1991 and 2003. We went into Iraq to end a cruel dictatorship and free a people that was no less deserving of freedom than any other. As a result of our efforts, the dictatorship has ended, and the people of Iraq are now embarked on a grand democratic project, seeking to build a pluralistic, multiethnic, multireligious democracy in the heart of the Arab world. This is a project without precedent in the Arab world. And because it is so novel, it has come under assault from religious fundamentalists, Sunni and Shiite extremists, and others whose narrow agendas are threatened by the prospect of democracy in that part of the world. We have made an enormous investment in the success of this project. It would be foolish to squander that investment just as we are seeing success. Last year, millions of Iraqis--half of them women--defied the threats of the terrorists and streamed to the polls in three national elections. Iraq's Sunni population participated in greater numbers each time. On June 8--just a couple of weeks ago--the new democratically elected Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki named the last three Cabinet members, the Ministers of Defense, Interior, and Security, thereby completing formation of his unity government. That same day, the death of the foremost terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was announced in Baghdad. That was huge progress. We made a commitment to the new government of Prime Minister Maliki, and it would be impossible to imagine a worse time than now, just 2 weeks after that government was fully formed and its most ferocious enemy eliminated, to turn our backs on it. None of us know for sure exactly how the democratic reform in Iraq will turn out, as we stay committed, but we do know it will fail if it is abandoned prematurely by the United States. Withdrawal is not an option. Surrender is not a solution. Every Senator must make his own decision and live with his own conscience, but this Senator will not be responsible for condemning the 26 million people of Iraq to decades more of violence and repression--not when there is a democratic alternative before us that is so manifestly committed to creating the kind of pluralistic society that until now has been absent from the Arab world. Another reason we went into Iraq was because we were convinced that Saddam Hussein was continuing his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction--chemical weapons that he had developed and used before. And the events of 9/11 had taught us that there is no greater threat to us today than that posed by state sponsors of terrorism--such as Iraq under Saddam Hussein--working to acquire such weapons. After the war, of course, there emerged a big debate over whether Saddam Hussein really was working on weapons of mass destruction in 2003. But there is no debate that there was a strong international consensus prior to 2003 that Saddam Hussein must be pursuing weapons of mass destruction. This was the view not only of the Bush administration, but also of the Clinton administration, as well as the opinion of most other governments around the world. It made sense for two reasons. First, Saddam Hussein had a long track record of not only seeking, but also of using, chemical weapons. He had used chemical weapons against his own people in the 1980s. And at the end of the first Persian Gulf war in 1991 he was found to have an advanced nuclear weapons program--a program that may have only been 1 to 2 years away from producing a nuclear weapon. Second, Saddam Hussein was acting like a man who had something to hide; he was obstructing the U.N.'s weapons inspectors and repeatedly defying U.S. disarmament mandates. No one can explain why Saddam acted this way if he in fact had no weapons of mass destruction programs to hide. And it is certainly true that if Saddam Hussein were still in power today, Iraq would remain on the list with Iran and North Korea of countries that we fear will develop weapons of mass destruction and pass them to terrorists. Because Saddam Hussein has been removed from power, Iraq is no longer on that list. But we must remember that many of Saddam's weapons scientist--those who produced the chemical weapons he used against the Kurds in the 1980s and who came close to producing nuclear weapons in the early 1990s--are still in Iraq. However, in a democratic Iraq these scientists pose no threat because a democratic Iraq would never seek to revive Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. If we were to cut and run from Iraq, and risk letting the terrorists take power, we would again have to fear that these scientists, and what remains of Saddam's weapons infrastructure, would once again be put to work producing weapons that in the hands of international terrorists could destroy our cities and decimate our population. Again, every Senator must live with his own conscience, but this Senator does not want to be complicit in a decision that could reverse the success we've achieved since 9/11 in keeping terrorism from our shores and weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. The amendments before us are intentionally misleading. They are written in soft language and wrapped in reassuring concepts. They don't sue such terms as ``retreat'' or ``withdrawal,'' but instead call for ``redeployment'' of our Armed Forces from Iraq. They don't say that the withdrawal should take place on an artificial timetable and be concluded by an arbitrary date. Instead, they say that the ``redeployment'' should take place under a ``schedule,'' that the ``schedule'' should be ``planned,'' that the ``plan'' should be ``coordinated'' with the Government of Iraq, and that the Congress should be ``consulted'' at every stage. None of this artful language, however, can conceal what is really proposed and what really at stake. The proponents of these amendments want us to tell the new Government of Iraq that we're leaving--no matter what the implications for the future of their country; no matter how much they plead with us to stay; no matter how great the risk that the investment that we and they have made to date in building a new Iraq will be squandered and turned to naught. The amendments may differ in some of the details--how long we'll wait until we actually leave, how emphatically we tell the Iraqi people we really care about them as we walk out the door, but the bottom line is the same. The amendments tell us to set a deadline and leave by the deadline. This would be a dangerous policy, a reckless policy, and a shameful policy. The time to leave Iraq is when we have achieved our objectives. If we knew our objectives were unachievable then these amendments might make sense. But our objectives are achievable and we are achieving them. The brave men and women of our Armed Forces are fighting daily to win victory in Iraq, and it would dishonor them, to say nothing of their fallen comrades, to cut and run at a time as promising as now. The spirit of these amendments is the spirit of defeatism and surrender. This is not the spirit that made America the great Nation it is today, and I trust that when we vote we will send the message that there is no room for defeatism in the United States.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I know in a few moments we will be voting. I did want to come to the floor and speak strongly in support of the Sessions missile defense amendment. More than 23 years have passed since President Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative--the idea that our Nation should develop the ability to protect itself against the threat of missile attack by being able to shoot down incoming missiles. President Reagan's idea has been very controversial ever since it was announced. For some reason there has always been a very substantial school of thought, especially on the other side of the aisle, that we are better off being defenseless against missile attack; that instead of being able to shoot down incoming missiles, we should rely instead exclusively on the threat that we will strike back after someone else attacks us first. This policy of intentional vulnerability--of intentionally exposing our cities and our people to the threat of missile attack--has never made sense to me or to the American people. But that hasn't stopped repeated efforts over the years by opponents of missile defense to reduce or even eliminate funding for research, development, and deployment of missile defenses. Fortunately, Republican administrations and Republican Congresses over the last 23 years have fought to continue our national investment in missile defense. Thanks to our efforts, our Nation today has a number of missile defense systems and components in place, including a total of 11 ground-based midcourse interceptors fielded in Alaska and California, and more are on the way. This system is working today to defend the American people. As Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Flory testified 3 months ago before a House committee: The United States today has all of the pieces in place needed to intercept an incoming long-range ballistic missile: ground based interceptors in Alaska and California; a network of ground, sea, and space-based sensors; a command and control network; and most importantly, trained servicemen and women ready to operate the system. Our ballistic missile defense system today is primarily oriented toward continued development and testing. But we are confident that it could intercept a long-range ballistic missile if called upon to do so. The existence of this system, rudimentary though it may be, is a great source of comfort to the American people, especially as we confront the threat that North Korea may test fire an ICBM eastward across the Pacific Ocean any day now. No less an expert than Dr. William J. Perry, President Clinton's Secretary of Defense, has seen the risk of such a test launch by North Korea as sufficiently threatening to America to justify a preemptive U.S. attack on the North Korean ICBM while it is still sitting on its launch pad. Secretary Perry, in his op-ed in today's Washington Post, acknowledges that attacking the North Korean ICBM on the ground in North Korea would be a high-risk action that could lead to war between the United States and North Korea. I certainly want to avoid a war with North Korea if at all possible. At the same time, I cannot disagree with Secretary Perry that North Korea's missile program poses a great threat to our Nation that we cannot ignore. It was precisely to avoid having to choose between preemptive war and defenselessness that our Nation has been pursuing missile defense for the last 23 years. Senator Session's amendment underscores and increases our Nation's commitment to missile defense by increasing the funding for it in this bill by $45 million. It is a worthy amendment that builds on the commitment that many of us have demonstrated over the years to missile defense. I understand that the distinguished ranking member, Senator Levin, has expressed his support for the amendment, which I welcome--not only because I value his support, but also because, it renews my faith in the power of redemption. I know we will be voting shortly, but I urge strong support of the Sessions amendment. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that following the stacked votes that begin shortly in relation to the Defense authorization bill, the Senate proceed to executive session and to immediate votes on the following nominations: No. 704, Andrew Guilford, U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California; No. 714, Frank D. Whitney, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina. I ask unanimous consent that prior to each vote it be in order for the Senators from California and the Senators from North Carolina to speak for up to 3 minutes each or to submit statements for the Record prior to the votes; provided further, that following those votes, the Senate proceed to the consideration of No. 715, the nomination be confirmed, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. FRIST. That is correct.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will turn to the chairman and the ranking member to comment on what they expect over the course of the afternoon, but the two unanimous-consent requests that we just did means that we will have a series of two or three rollcall votes and one by voice. And then after that, I will turn to the chairman and ranking member as to what we might expect in terms of completion of the bill.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, that is my understanding. Is that the understanding of the ranking member?

Mr. FRIST. Things are sounding better and better.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning we will be resuming debate on a couple of pending amendments to the Defense authorization bill. Under the agreement, we will have 60 minutes of debate and closing remarks in relation to the Levin amendment and the Kerry amendment related to Iraq. Following that 60 minutes, the two leaders will have up to 30 minutes total for final remarks. After those statements, we will proceed to three rollcall votes. The first vote will be on the Levin amendment, to be followed by the Kerry amendment, to be followed by a vote on cloture on the bill. If cloture is invoked, the two managers will then be in a better position to indicate how much work remains on the Defense bill. It is our intent to continue to work toward final passage, and therefore Senators should expect votes throughout the day and into the evening. I will have an update for Members early this afternoon after we conclude the votes and I consult with the Democratic leader and the bill managers.