Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I know the Feingold amendment is pending, but I want to speak to the issue of the Faircloth amendment which was offered earlier and which I understand will be resumed and possibly voted on later this afternoon, specifically to my second-degree amendment to the Faircloth amendment. The second degree says that of the $5 billion that would be taken from the stabilization fund--which is, I believe, essentially a fund that allows the Treasury the flexibility to do things like Mexico bailout and the bailouts in Asia, of the $5 billion that Senator Faircloth has suggested we take back into the Treasury to take control over, which I think is a good idea--that $1 billion of that would go towards special education. As many people who have listened to me speak occasionally on this floor know--or some people know because I suspect many don't listen or would rather ignore it--the special education funding accounts of this Government are totally skewed in that when the bill for special education was first passed back in 1976, the Federal Government said it would pick up 40 percent of the costs of the special needs child in the local school districts. Over the years, the Federal Government has failed miserably in fulfilling its obligations, and instead of paying for 40 percent of costs, as of 2 years ago it was down to paying for only 6 percent of the costs of the special needs child. As a result of efforts by a number of Senators, including myself and Senator Lott and the Presiding Officer, we have been able in the last 2 years on the Republican side to significantly increase funding for special education, with no support, by the way, from the administration, to the point where we now have it up to approximately 9.5 percent of the costs of the special education being borne by the Federal Government--still a far cry from the 40 percent. The administration has put forward a budget this year which calls for virtually no increase in special education funds, which is an outrageous position in light of the fact that they are also suggesting we create new programs in the elementary and secondary school level that would cost approximately $12 billion. But they can find no room in their budget for special education for kids who need special education, which is truly inappropriate. What has happened is the special needs child finds himself put in a situation where in local school district after local school district that child is really in an untenable and unfair position relative to other children in the school system. The parents of that child are forced to be put in confrontation with the children and parents who do not have special needs, in different school systems, in a competition for resources, in a competition for resources which should be there if the Federal Government paid its fair share but which are not because the Federal Government does not pay its fair share. This administration, in suggesting $12 billion in new programs outside of special needs funding, is essentially saying we are not only not going to fund the needs of the special education to the level required by the law; we are going to take money which would relieve the pressure on the special education child, which would relieve the pressure on the local school district, we will take that money and create new programs, new mandated programs, new categorical programs where the local school districts will have to do what we say they have to do in Washington in the area of buildings and in the area of class size at the expense of the special needs child, one more time. If this money was put where it was supposed to be under the law, the 40 percent as the Federal Government is supposed to pay for it, if the President's budget funded special education at the level that it was required to be funded under the law, then those new programs, instead of being started in buildings, instead of being started in class size, those dollars would flow to the special education accounts and the local school districts could make the decisions because they would then have their resources freed up as to what type of buildings they wanted, what type of courts they wanted, and the decision process would be controlled where it should be--at the local level, not here in Washington. But that is not the policy of this administration. The policy of this administration is to essentially try to take control over local education, pull it into Washington through these categorical grant programs, and, at the same time, underfund the special needs program, putting the local school districts in the lose-lose position of having to pay the Federal share of special needs and they also have to do what the Federal Government wants it to do in other areas in order to get any Federal money at all--totally inappropriate and extremely prejudicial, especially to the local school districts and the special needs. That is a long explanation, but it is an attempt to lay the groundwork for the purpose of my amendment. If we are going to bring more money back into the Federal Treasury under the control of Congress, which we should--and I think Senator Faircloth's amendment is appropriate in this area--we should not have this, for want of a better word, ``slush fund'' sitting there for the purposes and under the control of the Congress to spend, the $5 billion. If we are going to bring that $5 billion back into the control of the Congress, not only should we bring it back here, but we should spend it on obligations that we know we have, which are on the books and, specifically, special education. So the vote on this Faircloth amendment really becomes fairly simple. To put it in its starkest terms, you can vote for a slush fund that may be used to bail out the Soeharto family, which is worth billions and billions of dollars in Indonesia, or you can vote for the special-ed child back in your hometown and your home State who needs the support of this Government and whom this Government said they were going to support. That is the vote. The choice is simple. I certainly hope that this Senate will come down on the side of special education. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I will go into this amendment in more depth after the Senator from North Carolina has proceeded with the core of discussing his basic amendment. Essentially what this amendment does-- the underlying amendment takes the money from the stabilization fund and puts it toward school construction. Instead of putting it all towards school construction, this amendment puts $1 billion of it towards special education. We as a Government have an obligation to special needs children. I have discussed that on the floor many times. We have made a 40 percent commitment as a Government that, regrettably, is an unfunded mandate that has not been fulfilled. We are only paying 9 percent of the local cost. This would help pick up the 40 percent, move towards that 40 percent, and that is the purpose of this amendment. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from North Carolina. As I understand it, he does not object to this second-degree amendment. I look forward to hearing this discussion of his underlying amendment. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. GREGG. This is an amendment in the second degree.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I have an amendment which I send to the desk which is an amendment in the second degree to the Faircloth amendment which is pending. Is the Faircloth amendment pending?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I believe that these things should be considered in the cost versus benefit analysis.

Mr. GREGG. That is also my understanding.

Mr. GREGG. That is my understanding.

Mr. GREGG. Yes, that is my understanding.

Mr. GREGG. No we are not.

Mr. GREGG. That is correct.

Mr. GREGG. That is correct.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I noted today that the President, speaking before his labor union leadership in Las Vegas, attacked the Republican budget and Members of the Republican Senate who voted for that budget, I being one, for underfunding his initiatives in education. I believe that deserves a response because it is a duplicitous statement, to be kind. Let's talk about what has actually happened here. The President sent us a budget. It was a budget which was supposed to follow the agreements which we had reached last year under the 5-year budget agreement which reaches a balanced budget. But because new funds have been identified, according to the President, as a result of the tobacco settlement, he decided to change that. Prior to sending us a budget, the President for days went out on the trail and proposed new program after new program after new program--140 I think is the number, $140 billion worth of new programs. Some of that was money on top of old programs, but the majority of it was on new programs, and all of it was outside the original budget agreement, and so he has sent us his budget which proposes all this new programming. Now, what did the members of the Republican Budget Committee do, and what did the Republican membership of this Senate do in passing the budget out of committee last night? We did two things. One, we said we reached an agreement last year so let's stick with that agreement. Let's continue to work towards balancing this budget. That happens to be a priority. In that context, we funded child care initiatives, new child care initiatives to the tune of $5 billion, bringing the total child care initiatives in this Congress being funded to somewhere in the vicinity of $74 billion. At the same time, we funded an expansion in NIH research activities, over $15 billion over the next 5 years, a huge expansion, a 40 percent increase in NIH funding. We also said that if there is a tobacco settlement, the proper place to put that money is in the Medicare accounts. Why? Because as we have learned, Medicare is the most threatened major Government program that we have today. We know that Medicare goes broke in the year 2005, 2007, somewhere in that range. It is essential that we fund that program so that senior citizens will have insurance. What is one of the main drivers of the cost of Medicare? Tobacco smoking. In fact, a recent study--I think it was done at Harvard-- concluded that it cost $24 billion a year in Medicare costs in order to address the issue of tobacco. And so it is appropriate that any tobacco settlement money should go to the Medicare accounts. And that is what we decided to do. We also did something else, and this is on what I wanted to focus. We decided that the Congress should live up to its obligations in education to the special-needs children. Back in 1975, the Congress passed a law called the IDEA, 94-142, which said that children with special needs should have adequate education, and should be able to do it in the least restrictive environment. It was a good bill. It was an excellent law. As a result of that law, many children who had been shuttled off out of the local school systems, who had been put, unfortunately, in back rooms with teachers who had no experience and no skills to work with them, many children who simply because of their physical disability or their emotional problems were basically treated as pariahs within their school systems, were brought into the light and were given good educations. It has been an extremely successful undertaking. But at the time that we passed that law we said to local school districts, listen, we know this is going to be very expensive. We as a Congress know we are asking you to do something that is very expensive, so we as a Congress will pay 40 percent of the cost of the education of that special-needs child. Congress, acting as Congress unfortunately does so often, and the Presidency, acting also in concert, have not fulfilled their obligation to pay 40 percent. No. In fact, as of 2 years ago, the Federal share that was being paid was down to 6 percent of the cost of the education of the special-needs child. So what had happened in the school systems? In local school systems across this country, special-needs children and their parents were being pitted against the parents and children who did not have need for the resources of those special-needs children. What you had, I know very well, in school systems in New Hampshire was that over 20 percent of the local school dollars were going to support the special-needs child, and they still are. It was not unusual to cost $10,000 a year just for transportation of a special-needs child. Sometimes it would cost $30,000-$40,000 a year for the education of the child. And this was a situation where the special-needs child was not asking for something outrageous. They were asking for their rights under the law. Unfortunately, in asking for those rights, they were finding themselves pitted against the parents of the other children in the school system and the local taxpayers. Why was that? Well, because the Federal Government was not paying its fair share of the cost of that education. And the practical effect of that was that when the Federal Government failed to pay the 40 percent it was supposed to pay and was only paying 6 percent, the difference was having to be picked up at the local school district level. That meant that the money which the local school district may have wanted to spend on some other activity of education was being allocated to pay for the special-needs child. Now, what happened here was that the special-needs child was being unfairly and inappropriately put in a position of conflict with other children in the school system. The special-needs parents at school meetings across the country were finding themselves confronted by other parents who were upset that they did not have adequate resources because resources were going to assist the special-needs child. Why? Because the Federal Government was not paying its share of the burden of the special-needs child's education. Instead of paying the 40 percent which we said we would pay, we were down to 6 percent. So the Republican Senate, as the first act of taking control of this body, made the first bill which we put on the agenda a statement that we were going to try to put an end to this unfunded mandate activity, that we were going to try to right the situation, so that special-needs children would not be put in this intolerable position and their parents would not be put in this intolerable position, and so we would give relief to the local taxpayer, and so the Federal Government would live up to its obligations under the IDEA bill. That was S. 1. That was how high a priority we put on it here in the Senate as Republicans. We not only said it in the Senate and said it in the S. 1 bill--we did it. In the first year we controlled the legislative process in this body under the leadership of Senator Lott, with my support and the support of a lot of other people, we increased funding in the special-needs accounts, in the special-ed accounts, by $780 million. In the second year that we controlled the appropriating process, we increased funding in the special-ed accounts by $690 million. These were dramatic increases in those accounts, but nowhere near the increases that are necessary to reach the 40 percent. As a result of those initiatives, we now have funding for special education up to about 9.5 percent of the cost. It is a long way from 40 percent but a significant increase over the 6 percent where we started. That is a long explanation that gets to the point of what the President has said yesterday and why what he said is so disingenuous. How much money do you think this administration put into the special- education accounts in its budget that it sent up here? Remember, they put $12 billion into new education programs, new school construction, after-school programs, and more teachers for smaller classroom size. How much money of that $140 billion of new program and new initiative did they put into the special-needs program? the special-ed program? Mr. President, $35 million--not billion, $35 million. Essentially zero, when you look at it in the context of the overall budget requirements. They essentially said that, as a matter of policy, this administration does not care what happens in the special-needs account. It does not care what happens to the special-needs child. Rather, they would like to start new programs that will create new political sound bites, that will pay off new, different political constituencies that happen to support them. But as far as special-needs kids are concerned--zippo, for them. The practical effect of this is what is really insidious, because the $12 billion that they use to create new programs, new education programs, which basically pay off the teachers unions, gives them some sort of new initiative to talk about. Class size and building schools are two initiatives which the federal government actually has no role in, which have always been a local school responsibility. What more a local school responsibility and local school decision and discretion than what buildings a school has and how big their classes are? The administration took the two initiatives where there is no Federal role and they fund it with $12 billion. But in an area where there is a Federal role, where the Federal Government has said it has a 40 percent obligation, they put absolutely no money. How are they able to do this expansion of these education initiatives in the area of classroom size and in the area of building buildings? The way they were able to do it--and this is, as I mentioned, what is truly inappropriate about their proposal--the way they were able to do it was they essentially robbed the money from special-needs kids. If they had taken the $12 billion of new initiatives--which are political in nature, in my opinion--and put it into the special-needs program for the kids who need it, they would have come very close to reaching the 40 percent which would be the funding levels that the Federal Government had committed to relative to special needs. So they are essentially saying not only that they are not going to help special-education kids, but that they are going to take from special-education kids for the purpose of funding their initiatives instead of funding the special-education obligations which are already on the books. And the effect of doing this is as follows. Essentially, what they are saying is that we are going to create new categorical programs which require States and local school systems to do what we want them to do here in Washington. Essentially they are saying you, the local school district, in order to get the money which you are owed by the Federal Government, you are going to have to spend it the way we--somebody down at the Department of Education or somebody at the National Education Association labor union--want you to spend it. You are not going to be able to make that decision at the local level. You are going to have to do what we tell you that you have to do here in Washington. Had they, on the other hand, taken that money and put it into the special-needs program, put it towards the special-education student, then they would have freed up money at the local level. Then they would have given the local communities the flexibility to say how they wanted to spend their local dollars. But, by not giving the local communities those dollars for special education, by, rather, setting up these categorical programs, they ratchet down the Federal control of the local school systems. They are saying we are going to hit you with a double whammy, local school system. First, we are not going to fund your special-ed program so you have to take from your local tax base to do that, which doesn't allow you the flexibility to use your local taxes on the educational activities you want. If you want to build a building, you cannot do it under your own terms. If you want to add a science program, you cannot do it. If you want to add some sort of foreign language program, you cannot do it--because the dollars to do that are going to have to be spent to pay the Federal cost of special education. But if you want to get more money from the Federal Government, you have to do exactly what we want you to do in the area of class size and in the area of building buildings. It is, to say the least, a rather insidious approach to trying to take control over the local school systems. And it is a cynical approach, because the loser in this is the special-needs child, because the special-needs child is still left out there in the cold, to have to fight with the local school district in order to get the adequate funding to take care of his or her needs which should have been paid for by the Federal Government. I think I was just delivered a chart which maybe makes this point a little more precisely. Let me read it first. If you look at current funding for IDEA State grants, it is $3.8 billion. The funding that would bring the Federal Government to its promised 40 percent is $16 billion. The President's proposed funding for 5 years for educational programs which are not IDEA related is $12.34 billion. So, you can see fairly clearly from this chart what I have just pointed out, which is that if the President and his people were willing to fund the obligations of the special-needs children that are on the books instead of trying to create new programs which take more control over the local school systems, limits the flexibility of the local school systems, underfunds the special-needs children--if they were willing to live up to the obligation which they had made as a commitment under Federal law, funding 40 percent, a lot of the pressure would be taken off the local school systems and they would have the monies necessary to pay for special-needs kids and they would also have the flexibility to do whatever they wanted with the additional money that would be freed up from the local tax base. So we come back to this budget and the fact that the President claims that his education initiatives were not properly addressed and the Republican budget doesn't adequately address education. The Republican budget does not take the President's approach. We put $2.5 billion of additional money into the IDEA program. No, we do not fund all the new initiatives that the President wants because we believe we should fund the initiatives that are on the books first. We believe we should take the special-needs child out from under the cloud of the Federal Government not fulfilling its obligations, free up the local taxpayer and the local school board so it has the money to make the decisions that are needed to be made at the local level rather than have the Federal Government not fund the special-needs programs but create new categorical programs which try to take control over the local school system. So, the President, as I mentioned earlier, is at the least, to be kind, being disingenuous, inconsistent, and in this instance specifically not fulfilling the obligation of the Federal Government to the special-needs child. So I am perfectly happy, as we move forward on the debate on this budget, to put the Republican budget on education up against the Democratic budget on education--up against the President's proposals on education. I come to this floor as someone who headed up a school for special- needs children and who recognizes, on a personal level, how important it is that we give these kids full and adequate education. I come to this floor speaking on behalf of Republicans on the Budget Committee who say we will make our stand, we will be happy to make our stand on fulfilling our obligation to the special-needs child, and we will be happy to debate with any member of the minority party who wants to come forward with the President's proposal and claim that new initiatives-- which will take more control over the local school systems, which are basically sops to various political groups who support them, and which do absolutely nothing to fulfill our obligation to the special-needs child--take priority, take priority over the law as it has already passed that said we would pay 40 percent of the cost of those children but, more important, over the fact that we have, for too long, left these kids in the lurch and put them in the intolerable position of having to compete for resources to which they, under the law, have a right. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I make the point of order a quorum is not present.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to commend the United States Women's Ice Hockey Team for its outstanding gold medal achievement during the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. A proud America witnessed the outstanding teamwork and determination exhibited by the team in going undefeated and winning the gold medal in the inaugural women's Olympic ice hockey competition. New Hampshire is especially proud of three young women from our state who contributed to the success of the U.S. team: Tara Mounsey of Concord, Katie King of Salem, and Tricia Dunn of Derry. Just nine years ago, the U.S. women's ice hockey program did not even exist. Now, U.S. women's ice hockey is the best in the world, and the team's youngest player, Angela Ruggiero, is off to college with an Olympic gold medal and some memories to cherish for a lifetime. Leading up to Olympic competition, everyone knew Canada was the favorite, having a slight edge in winning seven of thirteen previous meetings between the U.S. and Canada. As the record shows, however, the United States was not far behind and was underrated by the international competition. A thrilling comeback in the first game of the round robin grabbed the nation's attention and showed that this team could overcome adversity and win against a powerful team from Canada, by scoring six goals in the last ten minutes to prevail 7-4. The team just didn't quit although they were down 4-1 with only ten minutes to play. Much like forward Katie King who refused to quit after she was rejected from the U.S. national team during sophomore year in college three years ago and much like defensive player Tara Mounsey, who refused to hang up her skates after she sprained her knee just two weeks before the Olympics. This team persevered and worked hard until it was successful. These young women represent America's commitment to hard work and self-sacrifice, and they inspired us with their performance both on and off the ice. After coming back to defeat Canada, the U.S. team's confidence swelled and they swept away the opposition, beating Japan twice, China 5-0, Sweden 7-1, Finland 4-2, and Canada 3-1 in the gold medal game. Team star Tara Mounsey has just celebrated her 20th birthday and her New Hampshire teammates Katie King and Tricia Dunn have all joined in the festivities surrounding their Olympic victory, including a celebration at the Statehouse in Concord. As a United States Senator from New Hampshire, I wanted to pay tribute to the U.S. Women's Ice Hockey Team and give special mention to three ladies from New Hampshire who made us so proud of them at the Olympics. I congratulate all of the members of the 1998 United States Women's Olympic Ice Hockey Team: Goaltenders Sara DeCosta and Sarah Tueting; Defensive players: Tara Mounsey, Angela Ruggiero, Colleen Coyne, Sue Merz, Vicki Movessian, and Chris Bailey; Forwards Lisa Brown-Miller, Karen Bye, Laurie Baker, Sandra Whyte, A.J. Mleczko, Jenny Schmidgall, Shelley Looney, Alana Blahoski, Katie King, Team Captain Cammi Granato, Gretchen Ulion, and Tricia Dunn; Head Coach Ben Smith, Assistant Coach Tom Mutch and Team Leader Amie Hilles. Ladies and coaches, we salute you and wish you well in your future endeavors.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 5 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, the administration comes in for a fair amount of criticism from our side of the aisle, and I think most of it is well directed. So when they do something that is positive and which is, in my opinion, proper policy, it should also be acknowledged. The administration's decision today, the White House decision, the decision of the President, as presented by the President's people at Treasury, Deputy Secretary Summers, to put in place a moratorium, or send up legislation to put in place a moratorium on any tax relative to transactions over the Internet which States might try to assess is the absolute right decision. I know that the Governors of the different States were in Washington this week, and that they made one of their priorities the ability to assess a tax on transactions which occur over the Internet. That is wrong. The Internet is obviously the last Wild West of American and world entrepreneurship. It is an explosive technology of which, as we all know, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. I can't think of any quicker way to retard that explosion of technology, creativity, entrepreneurship, and the prosperity which will arise from it, than to create a hodgepodge of taxation across this country assessed against the Internet by each State. I can't think of anything that would have a more chilling effect on the capacity of people using the Internet to participate in transactions involving commercial sales than if they were subjected to a tax policy which would vary from border to border, and probably within States from community to community. This would definitely undermine the condition in which the Internet has become one of the more effective ways that this Nation markets its products, not only within the United States but internationally. It would also undermine our capacity as a Nation to speak to other countries in this world which might be considering putting a tax on the Internet or Internet transactions, which would create a waterfall effect as other nations tried to join into it. It would be truly not only a bad example, it would end up being an incredibly bad policy for our Nation as a world leader in the area of technology. So the White House has chosen the right course here. I recognize that for years many of the Governors have sought the ability to tax interstate sales which occur through the mails. The Bellas Hess case has been the law of the land, which says that is not something that States can do and that the catalog companies that are based around the Nation, when they sell through the catalogs, are not subject in many instances to the sales taxes of the local States. I happen to think that is also the correct policy, but I recognize that many of the Governors do not. However, if they have a grievance with the issue that addresses the sales through catalogs, then that issue should be separated and settled independent of the Internet, and that issue should be settled first before we move into the Internet. They should not use taxation of transactions over the Internet as an attempt to leverage the issue of taxing catalog sales across the country, and that is basically what the goal of the Governors was here. They obviously cared about the Internet tax policy, but they were more interested in trying to get the catalog sale issue, which is a much bigger item right now--maybe not in the future, but right now--for these States. But in trying to do that, the Governors have, unfortunately--and speaking as a former Governor, I say that with genuine regret--pursued a policy which is wrong. Added taxes are not a good idea in most instances anyway, but added taxes which would be assessed across this country in all sorts of different varieties against the Internet transactions would undermine, as I mentioned, one of the great entrepreneurial issues, certainly in the latter half of this century and potentially as we go into the next century, for the beginning of the next century. I congratulate the White House for its decision to send up to the Congress a moratorium on any taxes which might be assessed by States against the Internet. I will strongly support that moratorium. I look forward to prompt action on it. I yield back my time and make a point of order a quorum is not present.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we as a nation are obviously wrestling with the issue of how to address the events presently occurring in the Middle East, specifically as they relate to Iraq. The Congress has considered taking up a resolution, which has been passed around and reviewed by many of us, but for a variety of reasons it does not appear that we are going to take such a resolution up during this week, and since we are adjourning, we will not be taking it up next week either. So I did want to make a few comments on this issue, because it is clearly the question of most significance that faces our country at this time. I do not believe that we can address the question of how we deal with a dictator such as Saddam Hussein in isolation. We have to look at the question in the context of the other nations which surround Iraq and in the context of the history which has led us to this point. This is especially true when we deal with Iraq--or any nation in that region of the world--because the history of that region is so convoluted and involves so many crosscurrents, it being, quite literally, the crossing point of thousands of years, of generations of individuals, of numerous cultures both East and West, Bagdad specifically being the center, for literally centuries, of commerce from the east to the west and from the north to the south. As a result, it was a place where many cultures merged. Therefore, when we as a nation, a new nation in the context of dealing with the Middle East, set ourselves down in the center of that part of the world, I think we have to be aware of the variety of forces which come to bear as a result of the historical events and prejudices and attitudes and cultures and religions that confront us there. I am not sure that we have been, really, in dealing with this issue. For example, let's begin at the outer reaches of the question from a territorial or geographic perception. Let's look at Russia. Clearly our capacity to deal with Iraq requires our capacity to encourage support amongst other nations for our position. We have had fairly limited success in that. In fact, you might almost call this administration's approach to alliance relative to Iraq as the English-speaking approach, because, as far as I can tell, it appears to be only English-speaking countries who are supporting this administration's present policies in an open manner. There are a few of the gulf states that have supported us, which is something we should not underestimate. But as a practical matter, I have noted with a great deal of sadness, actually, that the White House was taking great pride in the fact that yesterday it had been joined by Australia in support of its position. That's what they were heralding. We greatly appreciate Australia's support and admire them as a nation. But I think we also recognize that in the issue of the Middle East, it is not Australia that is important; it is nations such as Russia and our former Arab allies. I say former Arab allies because it appears that that is no longer the case--such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who are critical, and Turkey. But in the area of Russia, for example, this administration appears to think that they can go to the Soviets--to Russia, my mistake--and demand that Russia follow our policies in Iraq and insist on their support on Iraq, but at the same time this administration proposes an expansion of NATO. You have to recognize, if you were a Russian leader, you would find a certain irony in a request that was coupled in that terminology. Because, of course, an expansion of NATO, especially to Poland, is an expression that can only be viewed in Russia with some concern and possibly viewed by some as an outright threat. NATO expansion is represented to us here in the United States as simply: Well, let's ask these three nice nations in Eastern Europe to join us in our alliance. But, of course, NATO is a security issue. It is an alliance made for the purposes of defending nations from threat, military threat. It is not an economic group, as everybody has noted for many years. As a practical matter, the capacity to expand NATO means that you are essentially saying to these nations that they are joining, for the purposes of their own national security, against some threat. What is the threat in Eastern Europe? Of course, the threat in Eastern Europe has always been either Russia or Germany. Since Germany is a member of NATO and is not a threat, clearly an expansion of NATO is addressing the threat from Russia. Therefore, when we ask Poland especially to join us in NATO, we are saying to Poland that we are giving you security against Russia, and clearly we are implying, certainly indirectly if not directly, that Russia may be the threat. So you can understand that Russia might view a push to expand NATO at the same time as we are asking them to support us in Iraq as being inconsistent and a bit ironic. And it reflects, unfortunately, I think, this administration's failure to understand the linkage--and linkage is the right term--between working with a nation like Russia and our capacity to do things in the Middle East and moving forward with the NATO expansion at the exact same time. Yet, if you were to listen to the leadership of this administration, they will tell you that there is no relationship, they have no overlap on those two issues. Of course that is not true, and that is one of the reasons we are having problems with Russia. It is equally a reason that we are having problems with our former Arab allies. Just yesterday or the day before yesterday--I lose track of the calendar here when we go to Egypt--but the Arab League met in Cairo, and they endorsed the French and Russian proposal, which was essentially a restatement, to a marginal degree, of the Iraqi proposal, as a league. The Arab League endorsed that as a league. Why would they do that? Because the Arab League essentially is dominated by Egypt, which has been our ally and which certainly, in many ways, is a friend of our Nation. I am a great admirer of the Egyptian people. They have certainly worked hard as a nation to try to bring about a constructive result, or progress in the Middle East in their relationship to Israel ever since President Sadat and through the present leadership in Egypt. You wonder why the Arab League would openly endorse the French and Russian program? Essentially, they do it because of the situation that presently exists in Israel and Palestine, the fact that the peace process is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Yet, if you were again to listen to this administration, as the Senator in the chair has pointed out in a number of conferences that we have had, this administration's attitude is that there is no relationship between the peace process in Israel and Palestine and the question of Iraq. Of course, there is. They are intimately related. In fact, if we were able to make progress or to get back on line the process of peace between Israel and Palestine, we would probably relieve dramatically the tension in that part of the world and it would inevitably lead to having support from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the key allies, on the issue of how we address Iraq. So the failure of this administration to understand, again, the linkage between those two issues is a failure of fundamental proportions in their capacity to address the Iraq issue. The third area that this also reflects is the issue of Turkey. Turkey is not discussed a great deal in our Nation and it should be discussed more because Turkey is a unique and special nation in relationship to ourselves. Throughout the cold war, Turkey was essentially the front line. It was a nation which did not really ask for much, yet gave us its alliance and its assistance. We have truly, as a nation, and this administration, as an administration, has truly treated Turkey poorly. This goes to the issue of Cyprus and it goes to the issue of Greece. Yet if you were to ask this administration, what is the relationship between the Turkish-Greek issue and the Cyprus issue and the capacity to deal with Saddam Hussein, they would say that there is none, that there is no relationship there. That is maybe why they have abandoned the effort to bring to resolution that very critical issue of international importance. Yet we find today that Turkey, again, is hesitant to allow us to use its bases in order to address the Iraq issue. So, three major elements of the capacity to address the Iraq issue in a coordinated and effective way are tied to a variety of different historical and geographic and national and international confrontations, which this administration either, No. 1, doesn't appreciate or, No. 2, is actively ignoring. As a result, our capacity as a country to unite a coalition which can effectively address Saddam Hussein has been undermined. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 10 minutes?

Mr. GREGG. Most critical, of course, to this is the issue of how we deal with Iran and the fact that, once again, this administration has failed to reflect effectively on the policy dealing with that nation. Iran, as we recognize, has been dominated by a fundamentalist leadership which has viewed its purpose as promoting an aggressive religious philosophy internationally. It has viewed the United States as its enemy in this undertaking. But this fundamentalism cannot survive forever. It is much like when we confronted the Communist leadership after World War II and President Truman and President Eisenhower recognized that, through the process of constructive containment, we would be able to bring down that system of government because it would fall of its own weight because at some point, after a certain period of years, the fundamental flaws of that system and that philosophy would simply undermine it and decay it from within. And that is true also of the fundamentalist movement in Iran. The Muslim religion is an extremely powerful and great religion, and it is a religion that is based on some very wonderful precepts. But the fundamentalism that captured a certain element of the Muslim believers is, as it is practiced in Iran, inherently self-destructive. If we are able to contain Iran but at the same time encourage within Iran the more moderate elements, we will, over a period of time, see, I believe, a collapse of the fundamentalist energy from within and a rising of a state which will be responsible. But this administration has passed over a series of opportunities to promote that option, which has been unfortunate. If you are going to contain Iraq, then you must understand that in the process of containing Iraq, you must neutralize Iran as a threat to the region. Because if you were to eliminate Iraq as a force within their region, you would create a vacuum into which a fundamentalist Iran would step and be a threat to its neighbors of even greater proportions--greater proportions--than Iraq is. So, reflecting adequately on how we deal with Iran, and approaching Iran as part of the solution to how we deal with Iraq, is critical, critical to the capacity to take on the Iraqi issue. Yet this administration, in my opinion, has once again left the ball on the side of the field when it comes to understanding or pursuing that course of action. So, where does that leave us? Unfortunately, where it leaves us is with a 19th century dictator who has 20th century weapons of mass destruction, in Saddam Hussein, an individual who lives by a code which is horrific to the sensibilities of a civilized world. It is a code that follows in the course of people like Adolph Hitler and Mussolini and others, who sought to promote themselves in the name of some cause which was really just superficial to their own megalomania. But our capacity to address Hussein and to be able to deal with the situation in Iraq is fundamentally undermined by our inability, one, to focus on the situation with an international alliance and, two, to have the capacity, because we do not have an international alliance, to take action which will end up being definitive. So we find ourselves with this administration stating that we are building up an arms capability to make an attack on Iraq without an alliance supporting it with a stated objective that nobody understands, because Secretary Cohen has said that a military attack will not replace Saddam Hussein, and the President said it is not our goal to replace Saddam Hussein. Secretary Cohen has stated that a military attack will not eliminate the weapons of mass destruction, and we know that to be the case. So what is the result of the military attack? There is no clear understanding as to what it is. It will not be that Saddam Hussein is replaced. It will not be that the weapons of mass destruction are eliminated. It will not be that the alliance we had in the gulf war of 1991 are being reinstated. I have no idea what the conclusion of a military attack would be. I think the unintended consequences of it will be dramatic. Some may be positive. We may successfully eliminate some weaponry that might otherwise be used against our neighbors. Some may be horrific. We may find that Saddam Hussein uses his weaponry in some other theater or some other place. It may even be here in the United States. But those are unintended consequences, because there appears to be no intended consequences. Literally, there are no intended consequences. If the intended consequence is not to replace him and the intended consequence is not to destroy the weapons, what is the intended consequence of military action? I don't know what it is. Therefore, before we go forward with a resolution in this body--and I understand that we are not going to do that this week--before we go forward with a resolution in this body, I believe we have to bring some definition to the purpose of the process. I believe, first, we have to recognize and we have to retouch our allies and our friends and people who should be our allies and our friends. We have to go back to Russia and understand their concerns. We have to go back to Turkey and understand their concerns. We have to go back to Egypt and understand their concerns. We have to go to Israel and talk about the need to get the peace process started again and to return to the concepts of Rabin as versus the concepts of Netanyahu. More important, we, as a nation, have to know what is our purpose and what is our goal. I believe our purpose and goal should be, first, to create a united approach on this to bring into the effort an alliance which is broader and more substantive than what we presently have, something more than an English-speaking alliance. Second, it must be to remove Saddam Hussein and his government. We should have as our stated goal and purpose of any military action that we intend to have a democratic government in Iraq. And, third, it should be that the weapons of mass destruction are destroyed; not that they will survive, but that they are destroyed. These should be our goals, and I hope as we move down the road to considering the issue of what we do in Iraq and before we move forward with military action that we at least get some clarity of the process, hopefully along the lines I stated. I appreciate the patience of the Chair, and I especially appreciate the patience of the Senator from Iowa. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning business. I seek recognition.