Lindsey Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I think this is a very good topic to be talking about-- the future--because this is an episode that could have destroyed the relationship before it had a chance to mature. What am I concerned about? I am still concerned about the development in Egypt. The Constitution will be written here in the coming months, by the summer. I want to make sure America's voice is heard about who we are. We hope that the Egyptian people embrace tolerance; that the Coptic Christians are going to be welcomed as they have been for centuries in Egypt; that religious minorities will be protected; that women will not be taken back into the darkness; that the Constitution will reflect an Islamic nation that understands the concepts of tolerance and free enterprise. The Muslim Brotherhood will be the leading organization politically. It is up to them to create an environment where the world feels welcome. It is up to them to create an economy, working with their coalition partners. We will be watching. It is not what you say in politics, it is what you do. Apply that to all of us here. I think we are failing our people back in the United States by talking way too much and doing too little. Between now and the summer can really be outcome-determinative for decades in Egypt. I am urging the Egyptian political leadership, the Muslim Brotherhood included, to write a constitution and create an environment where people believe they can come and visit Egypt and do business. Senator McCain is dead-on. There is a lot of money to be made interacting with the Egyptian people, and they are a proud people and smart people, and I want to get our businesses on the ground. I want to help the Egyptian economy develop through the private sector, not just the public. I am the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, working with Senator Leahy, the chairman. We will be continuing to provide economic assistance, but the end game is to create a functioning society we can do business with where we can create jobs in America. The main thing to do in the short term is maintain the military relationship. The reason Egypt did not become Syria when people were rising against the autocratic regime is because the Army stood by the people. The relationship we have had with the Egyptian military over 30 years really paid dividends. Egyptian officers coming to American military academies and schools has been invaluable. As we go forward, maintain that relationship between us and the Egyptian Army, honor the treaty with Israel, make sure you write a constitution worthy of a bright future in Egypt, and to all the political leaders in Egypt: The world is watching, the Arab world is watching, and if you have a narrow agenda, if you have an exclusive agenda, you will be doing your country a disservice. We will be a willing partner but not under any and all circumstances. Maybe we have learned our lesson--that you cannot have partnerships without basic principles. We look forward to working with the Egyptian Parliament and people. They have a chance to change the course of history in the Arab world and the Mideast. Don't lose the opportunity.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I think the Senator from Tennessee picked the best example I can think of simply because the Charleston harbor deepening is probably the No. 1 issue for the State of South Carolina. The Panama Canal is going to be widened and the cargo ships that are going to be on the oceans of the world in the next few years are three times the size of the cargo ships that exist today. Shipping as we know it is going to change. What does that mean? It means harbors such as Savannah and Charleston--just name a harbor on the east coast--are going to have to be deeper to accept these ships. What does it mean for shipping? Ships that would normally deposit their goods in California can now access the east coast. So east coast ports, based on common sense and merit, have to be deepened. If we brought the Energy and Water appropriations bill through the committee and to the floor, it would make us all think about that. Because when I hear the President say we want to double exports in the next 5 years, count me in. It would be thousands of jobs--millions of jobs--created in America. How do we get those products to the customers overseas if our ports are not modernized to adjust to the change in shipping? Then it is a statement that will not bear fruit. Go to Shanghai, go to Hong Kong and other ports, go to Mideast ports, and we are 20 years behind. This is a good example of how, if we took the Energy and Water appropriations bill, among ourselves we could create a national vision to deepen ports to adjust to shipping changes. If we keep continuing to appropriate in the last week of the session in a bill that nobody reads, not only will our fellow citizens think poorly of us, we won't have a vision. So this is a good example of why if we took every appropriations bill, put it through committee and brought it to the floor, we could come up with ways to make smart decisions. I guess what we are talking about is that spending $2 trillion or $3 trillion in a week where only four of five people know what is in the bill is not smart. We all did come here to have our say, and I have a thousand ideas about ports. So, my friend in Arkansas, if the port of Charleston is deepened and other east coast ports are deepened and the cargo containers are three times the volume we have today, what does that mean for the Mississippi River? It means it has to be widened and deepened. Because the cargo we unload on the east coast has to get to the interior of the country. I want to have a vision for interior ports, because one thing could affect the other. And the only way the Senate can make smart decisions is to break the government into 12 parts, as we have been doing for a long time, and get back to doing business in a more traditional fashion. This is a classic example: If we brought the Energy and Water appropriations bill to the floor, people other than me would have a say about what to do, given the change in shipping. And if we don't do it in the normal course of business--if we keep doing this in the last week of the session--we are going to be left behind as a Nation. This is a great example of why we should do appropriations bills in the normal course of business. If we can pull this off in 2012, it will not be a lost year; it will be where we can do some good for the public. So I thank you very much. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, my first thought is that the American people are not very impressed with what we are doing up here. We have a congressional approval rating of about 10 to 15 percent. I think it would help all of us if we could go back home and say: This coming week we are going to be talking about the Department of Education budget; we are going to be talking about Veterans Affairs; we are going to be talking about Energy and Water. We want to be able to tell our mayors and people--county council, city council, our constituents--we are going to be debating how much money we will allocate for different parts of the government, even knowing we are broke. I think that would resonate, I say to the Senator from Tennessee. This whole idea of a volunteer fire department, when we think about it--particularly in the South, and I am sure it is true everywhere-- volunteer fire departments have citizens who have a lot of things to do but feel as though if they work together to protect each others' homes from devastation by fire, that would be a good thing. They are all volunteers. They don't get any money. They lower everybody's insurance premiums by having a volunteer fire department. I think a lot of Members of the Senate feel very frustrated, as does the average person on the street. We want to do better. So we are volunteering our services here to the body so that if we will do things that make sense to the American people, count us in to kind of push the ball up the hill. The good news, I say to my colleague, is our leaderships have committed to this. Without ``followship,'' it doesn't matter what they say. This is going to take discipline in this body. I expect those on the other side of the aisle to take votes they won't like, and I expect those on this side of the aisle to take votes we won't like. But we have to have some discipline about it. We want the bills to get done in an orderly fashion, and we want the Senate to be a Senate. This comes about because Senator Warner spent a lot of time getting us all together. This volunteer fire department idea we have, the Senator from Tennessee and Senator Warner have made this happen. We had several dinners among the people here tonight to try to find a way to get the Senate back to doing business. I am convinced that if we could bring one appropriations bill to the floor, have an honest debate about how much we should spend on that part of the government, have amendments relevant and not relevant but in an orderly fashion, that would be momentum to get the Senate back to being the Senate. That would help us all and it would help the country. I want to tell Senator Reid and Senator McConnell: Don't let this moment pass. We have your back and we want to conduct the Senate in a way that is more traditional than is going on today. I came here to do things. I think everybody who has spoken here tonight is telling the public and telling each other: Enough is enough. This is a lousy way--to appropriate a couple three trillion dollars at the end of the year in a big bill nobody reads. If you think that is a broken system, we agree. We don't like the idea of passing a bill in the last week of the fiscal year--3,000, 4,000 pages, whatever it is-- and nobody knows what is in it, but that is the only way we can run the government if we didn't go back to the normal course of business. So for those who want better government, this will give us better government. If you want to do something constructive, this gives us an opportunity. For those who want to set priorities, this allows you to do it. To the leaders of the Senate: If you will follow through with this, it will pay enormous dividends for the body. And to Senators Alexander, Pryor, and others who have been in the volunteer fire department, I think this is a good moment for the Senate and I am proud to be associated with it, and if it happens, it will be because of what they have done.

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, if the Senator will yield, here is the good news: It wouldn't take much to exceed expectations. But I want to say to the west coast Senators that their ports need to be modernized too. They need transportation hubs around their ports. The whole infrastructure regarding export opportunities in this country has deteriorated because of a lack of vision. Wal-Mart is a pretty good model of how business works. They get thousands of millions of products a day out to stores all over the country. They do it in a business fashion: FedEx--Federal Express--UPS. The Federal Government is stuck in the 1950s and we need to change that. I think the appropriations process is the right vehicle to do it.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing John E. Frampton on the occasion of his retirement as director of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, SCDNR. John has dedicated the past 35 years to advancing and improving the State of South Carolina's natural resources and quality of life. He has been a tireless advocate of wildlife preservation in South Carolina and across the United States. As director of SCDNR, he served as the chief administrator for natural resources in the State and was responsible for management and supervision of the agency's five divisions. Leading with passion, determination, and humility, John has worked to protect and promote South Carolina's natural resources at every level around the State. John joined SCDNR in 1974 as an assistant district biologist. Prior to his appointment as director, he served as a regional wildlife biologist, chief of wildlife, and assistant director for development and national affairs. On April 2, 2003, Mr. Frampton was selected as the agency's director by the SCDNR Board. John is an active member of multiple regional, national, and international wildlife organizations and served as a past president of both the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Because of his dedicated leadership and commitment to conservation, John was appointed to the National Marine Protected Area Federal Advisory Committee by the Secretary of Commerce and appointed to the prestigious Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council by the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture in 2010. John's well-deserved acknowledgments and recognitions highlight the impact he has had on the conservation community at the State and national level. John has received numerous honors and awards over his career, including the International Canvasback Award from the North American Waterfowl Management Plan Committee, the Clarence W. Watson Award from the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trades', SHOT, Business Person of the Year Award, the Henry S. Mosby Award from the National Wild Turkey Federation, the Captain David Hart Award by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and the Seth Gordon Award by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Additionally, John is recognized for initiating South Carolina's Ashepoo, Combahee, and South Edisto, ACE, Basin Project in 1988 and continues to serve on the ACE Basin Task Force. He is an invaluable asset to the conservation community and as a leader has set an example for future SCDNR directors to follow. Born in Summerville, SC, John holds a bachelor of science degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston. He later received a master of arts in teaching degree in biology from the Citadel and a master of science degree in wildlife biology from Clemson University. He is a certified wildlife biologist through the Wildlife Society. I ask that the Senate join me in celebrating John Frampton's lifelong dedication to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the State of South Carolina, and our Nation. I wish John the very best in his future endeavors.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this colloquy. As cochairman of the Guard Caucus, which obviously has the Air National Guard Component, Senator Leahy has been a real pleasure to work with. The bottom line is, this effort to downsize the Air Force falls incredibly heavy on the Air National Guard. There will be 3,000 Active- Duty members lost regarding the plan he just mentioned, 5,000 coming from the Air National Guard. The airframes to be eliminated in the plans Senator Leahy just mentioned fall disproportionately on the Air National Guard. In just a moment, we are going to talk about the bang for your buck in terms of the Reserve component called the Air National Guard, and we are going to challenge the Congress and the Department of Defense to reconsider this because, quite frankly, it makes no military or fiscal sense.

Mr. GRAHAM. The Senator is absolutely right. When we look at the utilization of the Guard and Reserve since 9/11, it has been at World War II levels. When we go into the combat theater, we can't tell the difference between Guard, Reserve or Active-Duty member, which is a testament to all three. But when we look at what the Air Force is doing--and I think it is proper to consider the other services--the Marine Corps is making no reduction to their Reserves. The Army is making very small cuts in the Guard and Reserves and substantial cuts to the Active Forces. The Army and Marine Corps plans support the new strategic concept of reversibility; that is, the part of the Department of Defense strategic guidance. We cannot be sure what contingencies might arise, and we cannot afford to make cuts that will leave us incapable of responding when necessary. Secretary Flournoy, during her last speech to the Defense for Policy, stated that ``the Guard and the Reserves will play an extremely important role'' in the reversibility concept because they give the military built-in adaptability and resourcefulness. This reversibility concept is what we are doing to reduce the defense infrastructure. If it were ever reversed or had to be reversed because of some contingency, we want to make sure that is possible. The Guard and Reserve is the most capable force to maintain and, in terms of the concept of reversibility, is our best bang for the buck. So the Air Force is taking a different approach than the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to their Reserve component, particularly their Air National Guard. I think Senator Leahy and I are going to make sure that decision is examined in-depth.

Mr. GRAHAM. Senator Leahy is right. When we look at our Constitution itself, it talks about a militia. When we look at the history of the country, it is the citizen soldier who got this whole concept called America started. We do need a standing Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. But when we are looking at the budget problems we face and the fiscal concerns we have as a nation and we want to restructure the military, I will be talking in just a minute about why we should be looking for a greater role from the Guard and Reserve just from economics. But when it comes to military capability, I think we have the best of both worlds now: a very efficient, quite frankly, cheaper force to maintain with very similar, if not like, capabilities. We don't want to let that concept be eroded by a plan that I think doesn't appreciate the role of the militia and doesn't appreciate the cost-benefit analysis from a robust Reserve component.

Mr. GRAHAM. I look forward to working with Senator Leahy and others to bring about what he indicated to make it a reality. The bottom line of this whole discussion is that the Cold War is over. We are very proud of our standing military, our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard--they do a terrific job, the standing military. The militia component has been the heart and soul of this country since its founding and in a post-Cold War war on terrorism environment where you have to call on resources that the Guard and Reserve have that are unique--like civil affairs. When you are going into Afghanistan and Iraq, it is one thing to clear the village; you have to hold the village. You have to hold it. Agricultural specialists come from the Guard and Reserve, people from Vermont and South Carolina who have skills in their day job, who can do more in the war effort than dropping a bomb. As we look at the threats we face, I think we need to understand the Reserve component is more valuable than ever. We are not defending the Fulda Gap against a massive Soviet Union tank invasion. We have to be nimble, we have to deploy quickly. The Reserve component, particularly the Air National Guard, has a great return on investment and, like any other part of the military, can be reformed. But this proposal doesn't reform it; it in many ways neuters the Air National Guard and at a time when that makes no sense. We will continue this endeavor, and I look forward to working with Senator Leahy and others to create a rational approach to the Reserve and Guard.

Mr. GRAHAM. What I am about to provide to the body, I think we need to absorb and be aware of. This study that Senator Leahy is talking about, an analysis of the effectiveness and cost, is an ongoing endeavor. I would like to know more about what the study yields before we make what I think are pretty Draconian cuts in the Air National Guard. But this is what we know before the study. This information is already in: According to an Air Guard briefing, the Air National Guard, operating under today's deployment constraints, is still 53 percent of the cost of an equivalent Active-Duty major command. The Air National Guard costs $2.25 billion less annually than a similarly sized Active Air Force command. That is $6.2 million a day in savings. After 20 years of service, our average enlisted airman costs nearly $80,000 a year in total compensation. On the other hand, an identical Air National Guard enlisted airman costs about $10,000 a year, about an 85-percent savings. Over a 20-year career, an Air National Guard airman will save the country about $1 million compared to an active-duty airman. At 22 years, an active-duty pilot will cost about $150,000 in compensation. On the other hand, an Air National Guard pilot at 22 years costs the taxpayers about $30,000 in total compensation. Over a 26-year career, an Air National Guard pilot will save the country nearly $2 million compared to an active-duty pilot. Active-duty pilots retire on average with 22 years of service. Air National Guard pilots retire with an average of 26 years of experience, giving the country a greater level of experience and ability for those final 4 years, at a much lower cost. These cost figures do not even account for other life cycle and infrastructure savings that a Reserve component-first model would yield. These are stunning numbers without the study to fully be accomplished. We are going to do our best, I say to Senator Leahy, to tell the story of capability and cost.

Mr. GRAHAM

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

Mr. GRAHAM. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business.

Mr. GRAHAM. Please let me know when 5 minutes elapses. I will try to keep my comments short.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the topic I wish to address is the CLASS Act repeal being taken up by the House. I understand the HHS Secretary has indicated that from her point of view the CLASS Act will not work, and this is music to my ears. During the Obama health care debate, one of the revenue raisers was the CLASS Act wherein the Federal Government would be in the long-term health care insurance business and, supposedly, would collect premiums over a decade that would allow something like $80 billion in revenue that would help pay for Obama health care. However, eventually we would have to honor the payments due to the people on the program. Senator Conrad from North Dakota called the CLASS Act a Ponzi scheme of the first order because what we would be doing under the program is collecting premiums for an insurance product and using the money to help pay for Obama health care. So when people are ready to get the services they have paid for, there would be no money in the program to pay them because it was used to offset Obama health care costs. It is just not a practical idea. The costs would explode over time. There would be adverse selection. So it was an ill-conceived idea. The House is going to repeal it. The HHS Secretary said they would not implement the program. I hope the Senate will allow repeal so we can take it off the table and it is a reason for the Congress to revisit the Affordable Health Care Act, Obama health care, because one of the components of the legislation relied upon the revenue to be collected by the CLASS Act to offset the cost of Obama health care, trying to make it deficit neutral. That is no longer a viable option. The money to be collected by the CLASS Act is never going to happen. So that money cannot be used to make the legislation deficit neutral. This is a chance for the Senate, working with the House, to repeal the program. I think it would be wise for us all to sit down and try to reevaluate what does this mean in terms of the viability of the Affordable Health Care Act because the assumptions made by the CLASS Act are never going to come true. I have been working with Senator Thune for a very long time to keep this program from coming about. I would like to say this is a bipartisan moment, where we have stopped a program that would have a devastating effect long term on the country's finances and would do very little to improve health care. I wish to, one, congratulate the HHS Secretary for understanding this program is unsound. I would like to make sure it is repealed, and I think Congress should be the body to do that. But this is good news for the taxpayer. It is good news for the country as a whole that we are not going to allow a program to be created that is unsustainable, that is going to add to the debt and do very little to take care of our health care needs. It was a Ponzi scheme. It is a Ponzi scheme that needs to be buried politically, as soon as possible. I look forward to taking up the House-passed legislation. I hope we can get bipartisan support in the Senate to make sure what HHS Secretary Sebelius said never happens, that the CLASS Act never becomes reality because it is an unsound, unwise, poorly constructed program, and this is a chance for the Senate to come together and do something about it with our House colleagues. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I am pleased to.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire who has been a great leader on this issue. Let me just tell my colleagues what drives my thinking. I think we are at war--I don't think it, I believe it. I hope my colleagues believe it too, and I know America is part of the battlefield because the enemy would like to destroy our country. If we capture an al-Qaida operative overseas, does anybody in this body suggest that we should give them a lawyer or read them their rights? In World War II, if we had captured a Nazi soldier overseas and started saying they had the right to remain silent and we would give them a lawyer, even though Miranda didn't exist at the time, people would have run us out of town. So if we believe we can kill an American citizen who has joined al- Qaida--the Awlaki case, where the President of the United States made an executive decision under the rule of the law, not through a court decision, to target an American citizen who had aligned themselves with the enemy--then if we can kill them, which is pretty indefinite, why can't we capture and hold them? Now, that would be the dumbest thing in the history of the world for a nation to say: We all acknowledge the executive branch's power to target an American citizen who has aligned themselves with the enemy. We can kill them overseas, we can capture them overseas, we can interrogate them about what they know about future attacks, but when they get here we have to treat them as a common criminal. I think what we share, I say to the Senator from New Hampshire, is that we think al-Qaida operatives, citizens or not, are not common criminals. We think they are crazy people, warriors, bent on our destruction, who would blow themselves up just as quickly as they would blow you up, and they don't care if they blow themselves up. The only reason the Christmas Day Bomber didn't kill a bunch of people is because his shoe didn't go off. The only reason the Times Square Bomber didn't kill a bunch of people is because the bomb didn't go off. If you are an American citizen and you want to help al-Qaida kill Americans and destroy your own country, here is what is coming your way. If you happen to be listening to this debate, please understand the law as it is today and as it is going to be after this bill is passed: We are at war. The authorization to use military force passed by the Congress right after the attacks against this Nation designates al-Qaida as a military threat, not a common criminal threat, so we apply the law of war. There are two legal systems at play: domestic criminal law that well serves us as a nation to deal with crime--even the worst person, the worst child abuser gets a lawyer and is presumed innocent. Believe it or not, war criminals get lawyers and are presumed innocent. I am proud of both systems, but the law enforcement model doesn't allow us to hold someone for a period of time to gather intelligence. Under the law enforcement model, once we capture someone, we have to start reading them their rights and providing them with a lawyer. Under the law of war model, we can hold someone who is part of the enemy force and gather intelligence. This is not the first war where American citizens have sided with the enemy. In the In re Quirin case, a World War II case where American citizens aided Nazi saboteurs, here is what the Court said: There is no bar to the Nation holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant. That has been the law for decades. So if it made sense to hold an American citizen who was helping the Nazis under military authority because they were helping a military enemy of the Nation to gather intelligence, why in the world wouldn't it make sense to hold somebody who has joined with al-Qaida to gather intelligence about the next attack? Let me give an example of what we may face. Homegrown terrorism is on the rise. The Internet is out there. It is a good thing and a bad thing. But the idea of people getting radicalized and turning against their own country is a growing threat. So the likelihood in the future of someone getting radicalized--an American citizen here at home going to Pakistan, getting educated in one of these extremist madrassas, coming back home, getting off the plane at Dulles Airport, coming down to the Mall and starting to shoot American citizens and tourists alike--is very real. What this legislation does is it says from the Congress's point of view we recognize the person who is aligned with al-Qaida is not a common criminal, that we expressly authorize the indefinite detention of someone who has joined al-Qaida operations. Why is that important? Don't you think most Americans, I say to the Senator, would be offended if after the person who went on a rampage in the Capital to kill American citizens, to kill people in America, was captured, we could not question them about: Is there somebody else coming? We would have to say: You have the right to remain silent. Here is your lawyer. What we should do with that person who went to Pakistan and got radicalized and wants to come back and kill us all is hold them in military custody, as we have done in every other war, and find out all we can about future attacks and what they know. Because we are not fighting a crime; we are fighting a war. That has been the law, according to the Supreme Court, for decades, and all we are doing in Congress is saying, statutorily: We recognize the authority of this President and every other President to hold an enemy combatant for intelligence-gathering purposes indefinitely, whether they are captured at home or abroad, because that only makes logical sense. The idea of criminalizing the war and not being able to gather intelligence will put our country at risk. Let me say this about the system: No one can be held as an enemy combatant under the law we have constructed without having their day in Federal court. So do not worry about going to a tea party or a moveon.org rally or an Occupy Wall Street rally and somebody holding you as a political prisoner under this law. The only people who can be held under military custody for an indefinite period are ones who have been found to have associated with al-Qaida in an overt way, and the government has to prove that to a Federal judge. If the Federal judge does not believe the government has made their case, the person is released. If the Federal judge says to the U.S. Government: You have convinced me that the person in front of me is cooperating and has joined al-Qaida and is overtly engaged in hostilities against the United States. I hereby authorize to you to hold that person to gather intelligence, how long can you hold them? As long as it takes to make us safe. Here is what the law does. Every year, the person being held as an enemy combatant has an annual review process where the experts in our government look at the threat this person possesses, whether we have more intelligence to be attained, and there is a legal process to review ongoing detention. Here is what some of my colleagues would say: Wait a minute. You cannot do that. We are going to say, as a Member of Congress, that at an artificial date you have to let that person go or try them? A lot of these cases will be based on intelligence that may not go to an article III court. We may have to compromise our national security. We can prove to a judge they are a member of al-Qaida, but we are not going to take them to the criminal court because that is not in our national security interest. The key fact is, no one is held as an enemy combatant without judicial review. Once you are determined to be an enemy combatant, then we are going to apply the law of war, as we have for 200 years. The law of war says: No nation has to let an enemy prisoner go or prosecute them--because we are not fighting a crime; we are fighting a war. If you are an al-Qaida operative, you could get killed, even if you are an American citizen, by assisting the enemy at home or abroad. So do not join al-Qaida because you could lose your life. If you do get captured, you can be held indefinitely under the law of war because you have committed an act of war.

Mr. GRAHAM. This idea of civil liberties and the American way of life--if we do not fight for it, we are going to lose it. We are under siege and we are under attack. So let's fight back within our values. This bill allows us to fight back, and I am very proud of the product. I thank Senator Levin for being such a good leader for the Nation at a time when we need good leaders. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM. The Senator is correct. But here is what we are doing. Here is what Lindsey Graham is doing, and Carl Levin, and an overwhelming number of the Members of this body are about to do. We are about to pass a defense authorization bill that increases military pay, that has a lot of great things. But we are about to say as a Congress: We believe we are at war, and we reject the idea--the Libertarian idea; who are great Americans--that if you get to America somehow, it is no longer a war. I think the Libertarians agree that if you catch an al-Qaida operative, including an American citizen, overseas, we do not have to read them their rights, and we do not have to give them a lawyer. But somehow, the perverse logic is, if they make it to America to attack us, whether they are a citizen or not, somehow they get a special deal. All of us who are voting for this bill say that is crazy; we are at war. For no other war has that been the case. If you would have suggested in 1942 that the American citizen helping the Nazis commit sabotage against the United States had a special status and could not be treated in the fashion of a military threat to the country, they would have run you out of town. So we are 10 years out from the attacks of 9/11, and here is what we are rejecting: We are rejecting the criminalization of the war, but we are doing it in a smart way. We are not telling the executive branch they have to go into a law-of-war detention system. We are just saying that is available to them. We are not telling the executive branch they have to try people in military commissions. We are just saying to them that is available for noncitizens. What we are telling the executive branch is that we believe we are at war, and that narrow group of people--thank God it is a narrow group--who join al-Qaida do not have special privileges when it comes to destroying our homeland; that if they make it to America, the closer they get to us, the more tools we should have available to protect ourselves. So we are on record--at least I am and I think the body as a whole. Senator Levin has been terrific. The administration has been great to work with. Finally, after 10 years, the Congress of the United States, through this legislation, is going to make the simple statement, simple proposition that under the law of war, you can be held as an enemy combatant indefinitely to protect this Nation. Because when you join al-Qaida--the enemy of us all--we are not worried about whether we are going to prosecute you right away. We are worried about what you know about the next attack coming. Let me tell you why we need this flexibility. The Christmas Day Bomber--the bomb did not go off, thank God; it was just luck--was read his Miranda rights within 45 minutes. Five weeks later, his parents convinced him to cooperate. What we are suggesting is there is another way that has been used in other wars, that the U.S. intelligence community, law enforcement community, and military have an option available to them. We could grab this person who has just tried to blow up an airplane over Detroit--American citizen or not--and we can hold them without telling them they have a right to a lawyer and reading them their Miranda rights. Because we are trying to find out is another airplane coming and what do they know about the enemy and what were they up to and where did they train. If we take that option off the table, we will have diminished our national security. We will have overturned what every other time of war has been about. We would be the first Congress in the history of the country to reject the idea that we can hold someone who is collaborating with the enemy under the law of war. Let's reverse this. This is the first time in history people have said on the floor of the Senate: We reject the Supreme Court holdings that allow the American Government to hold someone as an enemy combatant when they have joined the enemy forces at home or abroad. So those of us who are voting for this, we are saying we accept the proposition that if you join al-Qaida, you can be killed, you can be captured, you can be interrogated. I am willing to accept the heat for making that decision. Because if we cannot kill them and we cannot capture them and we cannot interrogate them, we have made a huge mistake because these people hate us. They hate who we are. They hate what we stand for. They would kill us all if they could. They are out there, and some of them are among us who have the title of ``American citizen.'' But let me tell you about that title. Not only does it have rights, it has responsibilities. Our courts have said there is nothing in our law or our Constitution that prevents us from holding one of our own when they join the enemy. Because when they join the enemy, they have not committed a crime; they have turned on the rest of us, and they should accept the consequences of being at war with America. Being at war with America is something they should fear, and if they do not fear being at war with America, we have made a huge mistake. I believe in due process. No one is going to prison without a Federal judge's oversight. No one stays in prison indefinitely without an annual review. But, my God, we are not going to arbitrarily say: You have to go. You have to be let go because of the passage of time and we are not going to criminalize this war--because it is a war. As sure as I am standing here talking today, we are going to be wrong once. We have to be right every time, I say to the Senator. We have been lucky, and our men and women in uniform and our intelligence community and our FBI agents are doing a wonderful job. They are working night and day to protect us. The threats are growing. They are not lessening. There will come a day, I am sad to say, when we are going to get hit again. But when that day comes, we are going to make sure we have the tools to deal with it in terms of what it is: an act of war. We are going to have the tools available to this country to rein in the consequences because we are going to have the tools available to find out where is the next attack coming from. We are not going to criminalize the war. We are going to fight it within our values. We are going to provide robust due process. But we are going to acknowledge as a body in Congress that our Chief Executive and those men and women in uniform, law enforcement agents, CIA agents--that they have our blessing to do their job, and we are going to acknowledge that they have the tools available in this war that were available to other like people in other wars. Ladies and gentlemen, if there was ever a war where it was important to know what the enemy was up to and hit them before they hit us, it is this war. They could care less about losing their lives. The only way we will be safe is to gather intelligence, and we cannot gather intelligence, in my view, by locking down America to ``Dragnet'' standards. This is not a TV show. This is a real-world event that changes as I speak. To Senator Levin, to Senator Ayotte, and to all those who have tried to create a compromise to enjoy bipartisan support--to the administration--thank you all. To the critics, some of your criticism has been unfounded. But you have the right to be a critic. You live in the State called ``Live Free or Die.'' Let me remind everybody, being a critic and being able to speak your mind sometimes means people have to die. What I am----

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, could I ask for 30 seconds?

Mr. GRAHAM. Absolutely.

Mr. GRAHAM. I will do this in 15 seconds.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Not only would I agree that 1032 and 1031--the compromise language about statement of authority to detain and military detaining as a presumption--has nothing to do with the choice of venue, there are people on my side who are champing at the bit to prohibit civilian courts from being used in al-Qaida-driven cases; is the Senator familiar with that?

Mr. GRAHAM. I say to my good friend from California, you are a patriot. You are here for all of the right reasons. We just have a strong disagreement about where we stand as a nation. Nobody interrupted the Christmas Day Bomber plot. The people on the plane attacked the guy before he could blow it up. There was no FBI agent there. There was no CIA agent there. We are lucky, thank God, the passengers did it. So there is nothing to suggest that our intelligence community does not need as many tools as possible because the guy got through the system. We are lucky as hell the bomb did not go off.

Mr. GRAHAM. Our military has said they do not want that authority. They want to deal with enemy combatants when it comes to military commission trials. But our military CI and FBI have all understood their power to detain for intelligence-gathering purposes is an important power. It is not an exclusive power. So let's talk about today's threat. The likelihood of homegrown terrorism is growing. Does the Senator agree that the homegrown terrorist is becoming a bigger problem?

Mr. GRAHAM. Does the Senator believe America is part of the battlefield in our global war on terror?