Lindsey Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. In conclusion, this has drawn bipartisan support in the past, 89 to 1. I expect it will do the same now. There is a lot of division in the Nation over the war and many other issues, but we have come together along the lines that for America to be secure, we have to control who comes into our country. This amendment will provide funds that are missing today to allow us to secure both borders and deal with our employment problems. It is a good first step, but it is only a first step. I appreciate all my colleagues rallying around the idea. One last comment to the chairman. I don't know if people have been watching a PBS show called ``The War.'' It is a documentary by Ken Burns. I have been riveted every night watching the story of World War II told through the eyes of those who lived it from four communities across the country--I believe Sacramento, CA, a small town in Minnesota, Mobile, AL, and Waterbury, CT. The documentary has been trying to explain to my generation and others what it was like to live and fight during World War II. One of the people showcased in that documentary was Senator Inouye. I wanted to say for the record that I have never been more proud to call him my friend, and I would hope every American, particularly young Americans, will get a chance to see this documentary about World War II and what that generation went through to secure our freedom. There is much to be learned from his sacrifice. I end this debate about the challenges of my time, of our time regarding border security, to let America know that there was a time in the past where this country rallied together, pushed the ball up the hill, and secured victory against some very vicious enemies. I hope we can recapture that spirit. This amendment is offered in the spirit of trying to bring the country together to secure our Nation from a broken immigration system. But to Senator Inouye, he has my undying respect and gratitude for his service to our Nation. And for all those who fought in that war and served here at home and made the outcome possible, well done.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Senator for his question. That is correct. They can be. It is our intent that the money in this amendment is not specifically for the southern border but should be used to improve staffing and technology deployment on the entire border, including the Canadian border. It can be used for those purposes. I know the Senator has been very insistent that these funds be allocated to all of our border security needs, including our northern border, and they will be. I appreciate his efforts to make that a reality.

Mr. GRAHAM. I certainly will. I want to get to the point on both borders, but I will yield to my friend Senator Tester.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like 5 minutes, if that is possible, to speak against the Feingold-Reid amendment.

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

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this amendment I have offered would appropriate $3 billion in emergency spending for border security operations. It is virtually the same amendment we had on the DHS appropriations bill. The amendment will allow purchases to be made for unmanned aerial vehicles, ground sensors, and vehicle barriers. It provides funding for the construction of 700 miles of fencing. It would establish operational control over all of our borders. It provides funding to obtain more bed space to detain immigrants for overstaying their visas, and it provides funding for States and localities that undergo training to assist the Federal Government in enforcing immigration law. There has been a veto threat on the DHS bill. I am hoping that this amendment, which passed 89 to 1--a similar version of it on the DHS appropriations bill--will find its way on this legislation, which I hope will get signed into law by the President. With that, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like to send to the desk.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, before my colleague from Oregon leaves, I don't think there is anybody in this body who is more respected than Senator Gordon Smith. He is a very sincere, thoughtful guy who tries to personalize issues that affect people throughout this country. I know he is motivated by all the right reasons, but somebody needs to talk about the politics. This legislation has been placed on the Defense authorization bill in the past. It never made it out of conference because we knew, with the makeup of the conference, the amendment would fall. Given the makeup of this conference, the amendment will be part of the bill and it is going to be vetoed. That is the politics. Whether one agrees with President Bush, he said he is going to veto this bill, and if I were him, I would as Commander in Chief. I would not buy into this way of legislating. Another reason for this amendment, if you think there is a gap in military law that without this kind of amendment the military is not going to prosecute people who act on their prejudices, you are wrong. If someone in uniform commits a crime against a civilian or another person in uniform, I don't care why they did it; if they beat somebody up, hurt somebody, they are going to get prosecuted. That is the way the military law works. We are not doing the military a favor by passing this legislation because there is no problem in the military in terms of how justice is administered. Whatever motivates you to hurt someone or to take the law in your own hands or act on your prejudices, you are going to be dealt with because we cannot have good order and discipline in the military when people can hurt someone based on their individual prejudice because the whole unit falls apart. This is nothing the military needs. They are going to take care of violence in the ranks based on the law they already have. I can assure my colleagues that no one in the military gets a pass because of the status of their victim. If you engage in violent conduct, inappropriate behavior, illegal behavior, the law is going to come down on your head because we need good order and discipline. The politics of this amendment is that this bill will get vetoed. The President is not going to agree to this social legislation on the Defense authorization bill, and we have to take responsibility for that action. Whether one agrees with him or not, we are going to put in jeopardy items the military does need. They don't need a hate crimes bill to make it an effective fighting force. We already have disciplinary tools to discipline people. They need pay raises and MRAP protection, and this bill provides those items. Members of this body have different views about hate crimes legislation. We can argue those differences any time, anywhere, on any other piece of legislation. It can be brought up as a freestanding bill. But to put it on this bill is going to put in jeopardy items our men and women who are in combat and being shot at need. When I go to Iraq, I don't have a lot of people coming up to me saying we need to pass a hate crimes bill. They do need better body armor. They do need pay raises. They do need better MRAPs. I think this is a very poor use of the legislative process knowing the end game. The end game is, we are going to hijack the Defense authorization bill by legislation not needed in the military, that is contentious, and that has an opportunity to be debated somewhere else. I hope reason prevails eventually. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for 5 minutes in morning business.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to add my voice to what Senator Kyl has echoed. There are two votes today--I hope sometime today--and one is about whether we should adopt a resolution designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. I think that would be a pretty easy vote for most of us, given the evidence out there about their involvement in international terrorism, particularly the Quds Force, which is sort of a subsidiary, regarding our troop presence in Iraq. The question, I guess, we need to ask ourselves is: Why would the Iranian Government, through the Quds Force and other organizations, be sponsoring militia groups that are trying to kill Americans in Iraq? There is a purpose for everything. I know why we are there. From my point of view, we are there to try to stabilize a country in a post- Saddam Hussein era that would allow the three groups to live tolerantly together and be an ally in the war on terror, be a place to check Iran, and deny al-Qaida a safe haven, and it could be a model for future Mideast expansion of representative government and the democratic process. What would Iran be up to? My belief is the reason the Iranian regime is so hellbent on making sure the Iraqi experiment in tolerance fails in representative government--from a theocracy point of view, from the Iranian Government's point of view, the biggest nightmare for them would be a representative government in Iraq on their border. So they are not going to give that to the Iraqi people without a fight. They certainly are not going to give it to us without a fight. We need to realize we are in a proxy war with Iran over the outcome of Iraq. For those who have determined this is a civil war only in Iraq, that the outcome is about who runs Iraq, I think you misunderstand the role Iran is playing. Iran is trying to shape Iraq in a way not to be a threat to the theocracy in Iran. They are trying to shape Iraq in a way that would be detrimental to our long-term national security interests. They are trying to be able to say to the world they stood up to America and drove us out. They are trying to expand their influence by defeating us in Iraq and in trying to destabilize their representative form of government, which would, again, be a nightmare. So this resolution designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is well founded based on the evidence that is being gathered against this organization. There is more to come. I have had a chance to be over in Iraq a couple times now looking at some cases involving Iranian involvement with the killing and kidnapping of American soldiers. So there is more evidence to come about Iran's involvement in trying to kill Americans and destabilize this representative government in Iraq. Now, the second resolution is: What role should we play in dictating the outcome of this representative experiment in government in Iraq? I have great respect for Senator Biden. I think it is ill advised for us in the Senate to be adopting a resolution basically dictating or trying to give our sense of what should happen in Iraq because that destroys the whole underpinning of what we are trying to do. The idea that the three groups can live separate and apart from each other without regional consequences is unfounded. The Shias, who wish a theocracy for Iraq, could never achieve that goal without pushback from their Sunni Arab neighbors. The Kurds, who wish to have an independent Kurdish state in the north, are going to run right into the teeth of Turkey. The Sunnis, who wish for the good old days of Saddam where they ran the country--that is never going to happen. The region is not going to allow that to happen. So at the end of the day, I believe the effort to reconcile Iraq in central Baghdad will be successful not by a sense-of-the-Senate resolution but by a desire and sense of the people of Iraq. The one thing I have learned from my last visit is that local reconciliation in Iraq is proliferating because people are very much tired of the killing. They are war weary. There is a suicide bomber wave going on right now against reconciliation efforts in Diyala Province, where 21 people were killed who were meeting to reconcile that province. So al-Qaida is alive and well in Iraq. They are greatly diminished, but they show up where reconciliation is being discussed. The reason they show up where reconciliation is being discussed is because their big nightmare is to have Iraq come together and a woman to have a say about her children and Sunnis and Shias and Kurds living in peace and rejecting their extremist view of the Koran. So the players in Iran and al-Qaida are very much pushing back hard. The question for this country is, Will we stand up to them and push back equally hard and stand by the moderate forces in Iraq, imperfect as they may be? So I hope one amendment is adopted, designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. I hope the other amendment, trying to give our sense of what to do in Iraq from the Senate's point of view, fails and we allow the Iraqi people to work out their problems with our help but insist they get on with it. So with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this has been a very spirited and meaningful debate. The amendment that has been offered by two people I respect greatly. I do not question their motives about loving our country anymore than I do. They are trying to find out what is best for Iraq and a very difficult situation. We have an honest disagreement. I think it has been a very healthy debate of reaching the same goal; that is, a successful outcome in Iraq. But make no mistake about it, from my point of view, the reason I oppose this resolution, it is a change in military strategy. Senator Reed talked about similarities between what General Petraeus said and what this resolution would do. There are some similarities, but it is a fundamental change in military strategy. After General Petraeus testified, is that wise for us to do that? Is it wise for the Congress to basically take operational control of this war from General Petraeus? Because that is what this resolution would do, it restructures our forces in a way he did not recommend. It would be a very overt rejection of General Petraeus's leadership, his strategy, his vision, and his recommendations. I think we need to understand that would be the consequence of passing this resolution. It would be saying, respectfully, no to General Petraeus and yes to the Congress in terms of how to run a war. I think that is not wise. It is the de facto return to the old strategy. For 3\1/2\ years, we had the strategy on the ground in Iraq that did not produce results that were beneficial. I am a military lawyer, and I have no expertise about how to invade a country or manage a population once the invasion is over. But I can tell you this based on common sense and 3\1/2\ years of experience. The old strategy was not working. The first trip to Baghdad after the fall of the capital, you were able to move around, it was a bit chaotic, but you were able to go downtown and do some things you have a hard time even doing today. But by the third trip to Baghdad after the fall, we were in a security environment, almost in a tank. So it was clear to me, training the Iraqi troops, having a small military footprint, was not achieving the security we needed for reconciliation. And the few ``dead-enders'' were the most resilient people in the world. If the insurgency was in its last throes, it was a deep throe. Every time I asked the people coming back who were running the old strategy and testifying to Congress, what is the general number of insurgents, about 5,000 hard-core insurgents. It is the most resilient 5,000 in the world. They were able, certainly, to do a lot of havoc. Thank goodness we changed strategies. Senators Levin and Reed and others have been arguing for a very long time to change course and change strategies. The President heard that call. He sat down with military leaders and put a new commander in the field. We have, in fact, changed strategies. What did we do? We went a different way. Instead of withdrawing troops and doing more of the same, we added troops. As Senator Inhofe said, it is the best thing we have done. These additional 30,000 combat troops being interjected into the battlefield have paid off in security gains we have never seen before. Hats off to the surge. To those who are part of the surge, those who have been in Iraq for a very long time, I acknowledge and respect your success because the success has been undeniable. The challenges are also undeniable. But without the surge, there would have been no turnaround in Anbar. The people in Anbar had had enough of al-Qaida. We can't take credit for that. Al-Qaida overplayed its hand, and we had additional combat power in place to take advantage of a population that was ready to make a choice, a choice for the good. Their rejection of al-Qaida is not national political reconciliation, it is not embracing democracy. But it is good news because you have Sunni Arabs rejecting the al-Qaida agenda, and that is great news. This resolution not only is a rejection of General Petraeus's strategy, his vision for how to be successful, it has an impractical effect. The rules of engagement one would have to draft around implementing this strategy are almost impossible from my point of view. Just to train and fight al-Qaida, how do you do that, when you have all kinds of enemies running around Iraq, including Iran, including sectarian violence? The idea that we are going to change missions and adopt this resolution as a new mission and have such a limited military ability is unwise and impractical. It is a dangerous precedent for the Congress to set to withdraw from a military commander who has been successful the power to implement a strategy that has proven to be successful. The basic premise of the resolution is, if we change strategies, reject General Petraeus and go to the old strategy, which is, in essence, what we would be doing, it would bring about better reconciliation. My fundamental belief is that we will never have political reconciliation until we have better security. The new strategy, the surge, has brought about better security than we have ever had before in Iraq. Even though it is still a very dangerous place, there is no evidence to suggest that reconciliation would be enhanced by rejecting Petraeus and adopting the Congress's plan for Iraq. Quite the opposite. I think all of the evidence we have before us is that a smaller military footprint, when you are training and fighting behind walls, empowers the enemy. If we adopted this resolution, the security gains we have achieved would be lost. We would be abandoning people who have come forward to help us. We wouldn't have the military power to seize the momentum that has been gained from the surge. We would actually roll back the momentum that has been gained. We would put people at risk who have come forward to help us. For example, 12,000 people have joined the police force in Anbar in 2007. In 2006, only 1,000 people joined the police in Anbar. There is local reconciliation going on. There is a realization by the Iraqi people that now is the time to step forward. Their politicians are lagging behind the local population, but it will not be long before Baghdad understands that they have to reconcile their country through the political process. They will only do that with better security. When you reach across the aisle in America, you can pay a heavy price in terms of your political future. When you reach across the aisle in Baghdad, your family can be killed. Better security will breed more political reconciliation, not less. To abandon this strategy now, to substitute the Congress's judgment for General Petraeus's judgment, is ill-advised and unwarranted. Quite frankly, General Petraeus and the troops serving under him deserve our support and our respect, and they have earned the ability to carry on their mission. They have earned, based on success on the battlefield, the right to move forward as they deem to be militarily sound. The Congress is at 11 percent. Part of the reason we are at 11 percent is that we don't seem to be able to come together and solve hard problems. Why do we believe we have a better insight into how to win this war than a battlefield commander who has produced results never known before? I don't think we do. I will end this debate in a respectful manner. We have the same goal, and that is to bring about political reconciliation and success in Iraq. Unfortunately, this goes backwards at a time when we need to go forward. (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I don't believe Senator McConnell is coming.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 5 minutes to speak in opposition to the Feingold amendment.

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

Mr. GRAHAM. No objection.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the choice for the Congress is whether or not we retreat from a policy that appears to be working by adopting this amendment which would redeploy troops in a fashion very inconsistent with what we are doing on the ground. What we are doing now is a long overdue change in strategy. We have more forces than we have ever had before, and they are very much needed. The one thing I can say without any doubt is the old strategy, before the surge, was not producing the results we were hoping for in terms of security and political reconciliation. After about the third trip to Baghdad, it was obvious to me the game plan we had in place after the fall of Baghdad was not working. I was told time and time again, we have enough troops, the insurgency is in its last throes, and there are a few dead-enders. Well, that was the furthest thing from the truth. The truth is the security environment in Iraq got completely out of hand, al-Qaida flourished under the old strategy, they were able to thrive in parts of Anbar, and it was evolving into complete chaos. Thank God we had the ability and the willingness as a nation, through our Commander in Chief and through this Congress, to appoint a new general with a new idea. The idea that he is employing now is long overdue. More troops have provided better security, and they have been able to accomplish this by partnering with the Iraqi Army in a new way. The old strategy, which we are trying to go back to with this amendment, had us in a training role. We were living behind walls, training during the day, and pretty much disengaged from the fight. We are now out from behind those walls, living with the Iraqi troops in joint security stations all over Baghdad and all over the country. We are living, eating, training, and fighting with the Iraqi Army. And General Jones tells us they are getting better. Anbar Province is dramatically different. Six months ago, it was reported by the Marine Corps to have been lost to the enemy called al- Qaida. Well, a couple of things happened that are indeed good news. No. 1, the people who lived in Anbar, who had a taste of al-Qaida life, decided they did not want to live that way. Why? Well, what happened in Anbar Province when al-Qaida was in charge? Awful, terrible, vicious things that really cannot even be talked about on the floor of the Senate. They imposed a way of life on the Anbar Sunnis that did not meet the test of human decency, and the people living in Anbar rejected al-Qaida because they overplayed their hand. The difference between us and our enemy in Iraq, al-Qaida, is pretty obvious. This organization that is tied to bin Laden, but also has Iraqi members, they are the type of people if you don't do what they say, they will take the family out into the street, take a 5-year-old child in the presence of the parents, cover the child in gasoline, and set the child on fire. That is our enemy. That is the enemy of everybody who loves freedom and human decency. That happened in Anbar, and things like that happened time and time again. The agenda that al-Qaida has for the world is a very dark view of the world, particularly for women. And, thank God, it has been rejected by those in Anbar. The surge gave the ability to those living in Anbar to make a choice they never had before. The additional military support provided by the surge came along at a magic moment in time when the people in Anbar were ready to take on al-Qaida. This additional combat capacity cannot be underestimated in terms of how it has changed Iraq. It certainly liberated Anbar from the clutches of al-Qaida. And the fact that Sunni Arabs are willing to turn on al-Qaida and join coalition forces is good news for the world. This amendment would basically undo many of the successes we have had in terms of adding more combat power. Things are getting better around Baghdad. There is still a lot of fighting. Al-Qaida has not been completely vanquished, but they are certainly diminished. Iran is playing hard in Iraq right now. They understand what is going on on the floor of the Senate. Why are the Iranians trying to kill American forces? What is the goal of the Iranian regime when it comes to Iraq? I think the goal is to drive us out. Does Iran want a completely chaotic Iraq? No. Does Iran want a representative government in Iraq? Absolutely not, because the biggest threat to this Iranian theocracy would be a representative government on their border where Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds would live together and elect their own leaders. The biggest threat to Syria, this dictatorship in Syria, would be a representative democracy on their border. So if you are waiting on Iran and Syria to come in and help us form a moderate way of doing business, where people can elect their leaders and accept each other's differences and live together with tolerance, you can forget it because it is a threat to the dictatorships and the theocracies that exist. I think it is in our national security interests to allow General Petraeus to continue a strategy that is bringing about better security than we have ever seen before. Now is not the time to pull back. Now is the time to recommit American forces, and the political, military, and economic power to finish the job that has been started. I think the idea that the war in Iraq is a civil war just misses the boat. The truth is, there are many things going on in Iraq. Some of them are local to Iraq, but many of them have international implications and longstanding national security consequences for this country. Why did the Iranian President say he stood ready to fill any vacuum created in Iraq? Because he would like to expand his power. The question for us is, is it in our national security interest to allow a vacuum to be created? Now, my good friend, Senator Levin, has a view that the more troops we have in Iraq, the longer we stay there with large numbers, the less likely the politicians in Baghdad will reconcile their differences through the political process. I have a totally opposite view. I understand what he is saying, but there is no evidence that less troops will provide quicker reconciliation. The Iraqis are dying three to one compared to our deaths and our injuries. The sacrifices of this country are enormous, but do not forget the Iraqi people are fighting and dying against extremist forces, and they are not indifferent to their fate. The political reconciliation necessary to occur to bring this war to a successful conclusion has not occurred in Baghdad, but it is occurring at the local level. So, in my opinion, it is just a matter of time before the local reconciliation we see in Anbar and other places in Iraq comes to Baghdad. And the best pressure to put on any politician in any place in the world where people vote to elect their politicians is for all people to speak up and put pressure on their elected officials--not for Senator Graham or Senator Levin or Senator Clinton or Senator McCain to tell the Maliki government what to do, but their own people telling them what to do. After being there eight times, the people in Iraq I meet are more war weary than ever. They are coming together more at the local level than at any other time. Better security is emboldening the Iraqi people to make the hard decisions that will eventually reconcile their country. The idea of terminating this operation now, putting a deadline or a timeline to withdraw will undercut everything we have achieved. The politicians will change their attitude. Instead of looking at how to reconcile their country, they will be looking at how to protect their families when the Americans leave. So I am not for an unending, unlimited commitment of 160,000 troops. I am for keeping an American military presence in Iraq that helps my country--helps our country. We need to look at every decision we make in Iraq now and in the future from the viewpoint of, does it enhance our national security? Is it better to have 160,000 American forces in Iraq now to stabilize a dysfunctional government or is it better to bring them home, knowing the most likely result will be a failed state? A dysfunctional government exists in Iraq and here in Washington. But there is a big difference between a dysfunctional government and a failed state. A dysfunctional government is one that keeps trying but fails to do the hard things. A failed state is a place where no one tries anymore. They go back to the corners of their own country and the regional players begin to take sides and you have absolute chaos. Iran is the biggest winner of a failed state because they will dominate the southern part of Iraq. Another problem of a failed state is that the Kurds will likely go to war with Turkey over an independent movement in the north. If the Sunnis think they are going to win in Iraq and have the good old days of Saddam come back by using force, they are crazy and they are naive. If the Shias think they are going to create a theocracy in Iraq, like Iran, and no one will say anything about it, they misunderstand the region. I am convinced all three groups are better off working together than trying to work apart. I know this: We are better off if they do that. If they break apart and this country becomes a failed state, 160,000 troops for a limited period of time will not be what our country will be faced with in terms of choices. We will have a large American military presence in the Mideast, containing a variety of conflicts that do not exist today because the problems in Iraq will spill over in the region. I believe that is a likely consequence. That is a reasonable consequence of a failed state. I cannot promise that they will go from a dysfunctional government to a stable government, a secure government, one that is an ally on the war on terror with us that would reject al- Qaida and contain Iran. But I believe this: the best shot to bring that about is to continue the mission and the surge as planned out by General Petraeus, to continue the strategy that we have now that has shown results we have never known before. If we pull back now, it will undo all the accomplishments that have come from a lot of sacrifice, a lot of blood, and a lot of treasure. At the end of the day, the Iraqi political leadership has to embrace the hard decisions necessary to pull their country together. They are more likely to do that when they are less worried about their families being killed as they reach across the aisle. It is hard to reach across the aisle here. The Presiding Officer and I have worked on immigration. We know how hard it is. We will keep coming back and bringing up hard issues such as Social Security and immigration until we find a solution. But imagine reaching across the aisle in Iraq where the consequence would be that your family is murdered. The better security we can bring about in terms of Iraq for the judges, the politicians, and the population as a whole, the more likely they are to do the hard things. And I do believe they are ready to do the hard things because they have had a hard life. The Iraqi people are not perfect. I don't think we realized how hard it was to have lived in that country under Saddam Hussein. The fear that if your daughter walked down the street, she might catch the eye of one of Saddam's sons; the way they have had to live under Saddam Hussein is unimaginable, and the chaos that they have experienced from al-Qaida coming there, throwing bombs at different mosques and bringing up old wounds has been very difficult to deal with. But they keep trying. When one police officer is killed, someone else takes their place. When an army person is killed, someone else joins the army. When a judge is assassinated, somebody else comes forward to be a judge. They are trying. And I do believe, if we will continue the strategy employed by General Petraeus, even though political reconciliation is lagging behind security, it will not be much longer until the politicians in Baghdad embrace the hard decisions necessary to bring reconciliation to their country. And I believe that for a couple of reasons. No. 1, their people want it; and, No. 2, they have the opportunity now, through better security, to bring it about. So to my good friend, Senator Levin, I understand exactly his concern. It is a judgment call. I think when you are dealing with extremists, when you are dealing with the Iranian President, the last thing in the world you do is to show weakness. You make sure they understand, al-Qaida and Iran, and any other extremist group, that America is going to do what is necessary to defend her vital interests and that we are going to stand with forces in moderation. My biggest fear, if we begin to withdraw now and redeploy to the old mission, is that all of those who have risked their lives to help us will surely meet the fate of that 5-year-old boy. And that is not in our national interest. That is not the right thing to do. We will come home. But as Senator McCain says, we need to come home with honor. Equally important, we need to come home with a more secure America. I think we are on the road to bringing about withdrawal with honor and a more secure America by having a more stable Iraq. The worst thing to do now is to go back to a strategy that has failed when the one that we have in place is beginning to work. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, while we are awaiting other Senators to arrive, I would like a few minutes to speak against my good friend's amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM. Let's call it a day.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, as to the author of the amendment, no one should ever question his motivation, his patriotism. He has been a firm believer that we should be out of Iraq as soon as possible. Senator Feingold believes our continued presence in Iraq is creating more terrorism in terms of solving the problem; it is creating the problem in a larger sense. I personally disagree. The reason al-Qaida went to Iraq is not because we were in Iraq. They went to Iraq because of what the Iraqi people are trying to do. We are all over the world. They have not followed us to every country we have been in. They have decided to make Iraq a central battlefront in their war against moderation because they fear a successful outcome among the Iraqis. The biggest fear of an al-Qaida member is that a group of Muslims will get together and be tolerant of each others' differences when it comes to religion, and elevate the role of a woman so she can have a say about her children. That is why al-Qaida is in Iraq. The military surge has produced results beyond my expectation. The old strategy clearly was going nowhere. After about my third visit to Iraq, after the fall of Baghdad, I had lost faith in the old strategy and those who were proposing it was working. This new general has come up with a new idea. This is not more of the same with more people. You are getting out behind walls. You are getting out into the community. We are living with the Iraqi Army and police force--very good gains in terms of operational capabilities of the Iraqi Army. We are going to have to start all over with the police. But the surge has allowed a real diminishment of the al-Qaida footprint in Anbar Province. Anytime Sunni Arabs turn on al-Qaida anywhere in the world, that is good news. So the surge has provided us a level of security not known before. It has been al-Qaida's worst nightmare. There is still a long way to go. Senator Feingold's amendment would basically bring the surge to a halt. It would withdraw troops at a very rapid pace. We would be out of Iraq by June of next year. My big fear is, instead of reinforcing reconciliation, it would freeze every effort to reconcile and people would start making political decisions based on what happens to their country when there is no security. The American mistake of the ages was letting Iraq get out of control, not having enough troops. We paid heavily for that mistake. Now we have it turned around. Militarily, politically they are not where they need to be in terms of the Iraqis. But the best way, I believe, to get political reconciliation to happen in Baghdad is to make sure those who are trying to reconcile their country--families--are not killed. So the better the security you can provide, the more likely the reconciliation. One thing is for sure: more troops have helped embolden the Iraqi people in terms of extremists. They are taking on extremists after the surge better than they had ever done before the surge. I think this confidence given to the Iraqi people by a surge of military support has paid dividends. We need political, economic, and military support to continue, not just because of Iraq but because of our own national interest. If I thought it were only about who ran Iraq, I would be willing to leave. It is not about who controls Iraq. It is about whether we can create a stable, functioning government in Iraq that would contain Iran and deny al-Qaida a safe haven. If it were only about sectarian differences and a power struggle for Iraq, it would be a totally different dynamic. To me, Iran is ready to fill a vacuum. If we have a failed state, that is a military, political, and economic problem far worse than the ones we are dealing with now. A failed state is a state that breaks apart, people stop trying to work with each other, and regional players come in and take sides. A dysfunctional government is what we have in Iraq, probably what we have here. A dysfunctional government has hope of getting better because people keep trying. So the way to have a government go from a dysfunctional status to a secure, stable status is to provide security. I want this dysfunctional government to act sooner rather than later, just as you do, I say to the Presiding Officer. The best way to make that happen is to ensure that the politicians involved understand we have a commitment to their cause that will embolden them. The Feingold amendment, no matter how well intentioned, will reenergize an enemy on the mat and make it harder to reconcile Iraq. That is why I urge a ``no'' vote. I yield back.