Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. That is right.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I say to my leader, if he will yield again, I think we have set a record in committee. In a day and a half, we had a comprehensive, 5-year farm bill passed--in a day and a half. I don't think that has ever been done.

Mr. HARKIN. Months.

Mr. HARKIN. That is right.

Mr. HARKIN. I hope we can overcome that because, as the leader said, we had great agreement in committee. He is right. We worked weeks and weeks and weeks in meetings with people in getting it all together, and in a day and a half we got it through on a unanimous vote--not one dissenting vote. So we have a good bill.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, would the leader yield just one more time?

Mr. HARKIN. I would like to ask the minority leader if during this time we are trying to work out a set number of amendments, we know there are two or three amendments that are absolutely going to be offered. One is the one we are on right now. Then there is another one with I think Senators Lugar and Lautenberg. I am just wondering if we could get time agreements on those.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, how much time do I have?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, despite the many positive attributes of Judge Mukasey, I cannot support his nomination for Attorney General. The next Attorney General must be more than a capable steward of the Department of Justice. I have heard a lot about that, that he can run it well. Given this administration's disdain for the rule of law, it is imperative the next Attorney General be a strong and independent voice for a return to the very basic principle that we are a government of laws and not of the King--the President. Regrettably, I do not believe Judge Mukasey will be that voice. Over the last 6 years, this administration, supported by faulty legal opinions from the Justice Department, has claimed it can ignore acts of Congress. The President has argued that, despite the fact that since 1978 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been the law of the land, he, the President--he has the authority, he says, despite the law, to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrant or judicial review. He, the President, believes--the President, the King--he can seize American citizens on American soil, indefinitely detain them without charges, without providing the accused access to counsel, without judicial review. He--the President, the King--believes he can utilize interrogation techniques long considered immoral, ineffective, and illegal, regardless of the laws and treaties Congress has approved. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, however, ``[a] state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens.'' At a time when we sorely need an Attorney General who will stand up for the rule of law, Judge Mukasey has expressed a troubling view of unchecked Executive power. For example, Judge Mukasey asserted that the President can violate congressional statutes where the President claims broad authority to ``defend the Nation.'' That is a loophole big enough to drive anything through. Judge Mukasey refused to answer whether he believes American citizens, detained by the President, have the right to habeas corpus, a right that goes back to 1215; the Magna Carta, articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta. You go read it. It says the King can't pick you up and throw you in jail and hold you there unless it is supported by evidence and testimony from your peers. That is the right of habeas corpus, enshrined, article I, section 9 of our Constitution. Mukasey refused to answer whether he believes American citizens have the right to habeas corpus when they are detained by the President. Similar to many of my colleagues--the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Colorado talked about this--I am deeply troubled by the judge's failure to assert that waterboarding is illegal, a process that simulates death by real drowning. Everybody is focused on waterboarding. Sadly, he also refused to answer that other terrible practices which this administration has used are illegal. These include electrical shocks, beatings, the use of dogs, forcing prisoners to stand naked, induced hypothermia. Judge Mukasey doesn't know--he doesn't know whether these are illegal. Imagine that. Let there be no misunderstanding. Whether waterboarding is illegal is not a difficult question. This Senate has repeatedly stated it, going back at least to the ratification of the Geneva Convention in 1955, that torture is a violation of our highest values and simply not permitted. In 2005, we adopted the McCain amendment, 90 to 9, 90 votes to 9. The amendment stated that cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment of detainees was prohibited. Last year, the Military Commission Act expressly made clear that the President is bound by the prohibitions against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners. Yet Judge Mukasey says he doesn't know. He can't determine whether waterboarding is illegal because he has not seen the evidence. He has not seen the classified material. You don't need classified material. You don't need any classified material on this. RADM John Hutson, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, testified that, ``other than, perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, waterboarding is the most iconic example of torture in history.'' He added, ``[I]t has been repudiated for centuries.'' Going back to the Spanish Inquisition and including World War II, the U.S. military has brought charges against those who practice this technique. In adopting the Military Commission Act, many Senators made clear that interrogation techniques such as waterboarding are illegal and constitute ``grave breaches'' of the Geneva Conventions. Given this law, given the history, it is disappointing that an esteemed judge, with the highest reputation in our legal community, would not unequivocally state that, of course, waterboarding is both torture and it is illegal. It wasn't a difficult question. It is a question any serious candidate for Attorney General should answer. Because he could not answer it, he is not qualified to be Attorney General. Are we going to have another Attorney General who is going to kowtow to the King--the President--I am sorry, I get those terms kind of confused when I am talking about Bush. I don't know whether he is King or President. According to the last Attorney General, he was King. Maybe this one believes the same thing. He can do whatever he wants to. But even in 1215, the King of England was held to the standard of habeas corpus. I guess we want to turn the clock back to before the Magna Carta. I am also troubled by Judge Mukasey's refusal to commit to recommend to the President that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay be closed. He said, ``There are substantial problems with Guantanamo, both problems of reality and problems of perceptions.'' If he believes that, why wouldn't he join with Secretary of Defense Gates and former Secretary of State Colin Powell in recommending that it be closed? I have a petition, signed by more than 1,000 people from around the United States, urging that our next Attorney General be committed to closing down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Congressional Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, issues such as torture and Guantanamo Bay, I have to admit, are somewhat personal to me. It was 20-some years ago--I am sorry, 37 years ago, now that I think about it, 1970--when I was a congressional staffer on the House side, for a committee that went to Vietnam to investigate our involvement in the war in Vietnam. During that trip over, through a series of circumstances and because of the bravery of a couple of young people, I was able, with two Congressmen--Congressman ``Gus'' Hawkins from California and Congressman Bill Anderson from Tennessee--to uncover the infamous tiger cages on Con Son Island off the coast of Vietnam. What did we find there? Inhuman, degrading, terrible conditions, where the Vietnamese had imprisoned civilians--students, human rights activists, along with North Vietnamese POWs--being tortured almost on a daily basis. It would take me more time than I have this evening to be able to describe to you the horrors we saw when we broke into this prison. It was all done with the full knowledge and consent and supervision of the U.S. Government. That is proven. That is on the record. It is on the record. I saw the damage that it did, what that did to us. We were always saying to the North Vietnamese: Treat our prisoners according to the Geneva Conventions, when our colleague John McCain was there, and others. Yet we were doing the same thing in Vietnam. If you want to go into the court of world opinion, you better go in with clean hands; the court of equity. What we are doing now in Guantanamo covers all that up. It does damage to our reputation. It makes us like them. The one thing we proved in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy stood on the floor of this Senate--one thing we proved then is we did not have to be like the Communists to beat them. We don't have to be like the terrorists to beat them. The more we are like them the more likely we are to lose. We need an Attorney General of the United States who has the guts to stand before the committee and say he is going to tell the King that the King is wrong, and this Attorney General nominee will not do that. Oh, he may run a good department. Oh, he may do all the right things. But we need an Attorney General to tell this King he is wrong and that the rule of law will apply and the rule of law says we will not torture. We will not treat people with inhumane treatment. We will abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will not be like our enemies. That will send a stronger signal to the world than anything else we could do. For those reasons I, in good conscience, cannot in any way support this nominee for Attorney General. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, for the benefit of all Senators, we are now back on the farm bill. The farm bill was laid down 2 days ago, on Tuesday. We have asked the other side if they want to offer amendments, but we have seen no amendments. We have one amendment pending. The Grassley-Dorgan or Dorgan-Grassley--I don't know which came first on it--amendment is pending. But we have heard from the leader on the other side that they want to offer amendments. We are here. We are on the farm bill. We have asked for amendments, and in the intervening 48 hours, or 2 days since we laid the bill down, I have not seen one amendment from the other side that has been proffered to be taken up. So here we sit. We are trying to get a handle on how many amendments there will be, trying to reach some agreement, as we always do, to have a package of amendments that we could go to today and tomorrow, spill over into next week, and then reach some agreement, as we always do around here, on how many amendments on their side, on this side, reach an agreement, get a time limit set up on these amendments, and then get to a finish on the farm bill I hope sometime next week before we leave for Thanksgiving. I know there is some other business the majority and minority leaders probably want to conduct next week, but we have to get this farm bill done. It is a good bill. I remind my fellow Senators and others who may be watching that this farm bill passed the committee unanimously. There was not one vote against it. It is a bipartisan bill. I think regionally it is a balanced bill, for all the regions of the country. I think it addresses the real needs of our farmers and ranchers, as well as the other titles of the farm bill that are encompassed in the farm bill. Energy--we have put a lot, again, into promoting biofuels and bioenergy. In conservation, there are big increases for conservation all over this country. In research, we have money for continuing a strong, robust research program. In nutrition, we have met our obligations to the neediest in our society, providing substantial increases in the Food Stamp Program in terms of the benefits and indexing them for inflation, making sure we have more money for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, for our food banks around the country. In all the different areas that are covered by the farm bill, I think we have met our obligations to move ahead. We have done so in a very fiscally responsible manner. This farm bill meets all the pay-go requirements we instituted here in the Senate earlier this year--that we would not increase the deficit but that we would pay for things by finding offsets in other areas. The Finance Committee met, and the Finance Committee came up with some loophole closing, some tax collections. I daresay there is not any increase in taxes; it is simply going after taxes that are already owed but are not being collected. I commend both Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley and all the members of the Finance Committee for their help. With their help, we were able to put in a disaster program for the farm bill, a new disaster payment program--much better than what we have ever had in the past, I would add. Also, we were able to get some funding for some conservation programs and some of the energy programs. This has been a very bipartisan approach on this bill by committee, I would say, between the Agriculture Committee and the Finance Committee. We are out here on the floor, and I think we can move ahead in good faith by agreeing upon whatever amendments we can agree on on both sides. These are negotiations that take place in every bill in which I have ever been involved. They took place on the last one I was the manager on here, the appropriations bill on Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor. But you can't negotiate if you do not have anything to negotiate on. I say again to my friends on the other side of the aisle, if there are amendments, if we bring them forth we can discuss them, and maybe we can reach some agreement on a package of amendments that we can then get to and start disposing of, one way or the other. That is where we are. I see my friend and ranking member, Senator Chambliss, is on the floor. I thank him for all of his good work on the committee. We have worked hard on this bill, and I think we have a good bill, one that, as I said earlier, I could basically support without amendments. I assume there will be amendments--some I may support, some I may not; some Senator Chambliss may support, and some he may not support. But that is the way we do things around here. Then we will go to conference and work it out. I am just hopeful we can get some amendments proffered here and brought over so we can look at them. I say the same thing on our side too. I have heard of amendments other than the Dorgan and Grassley amendment, and I say if we have Members who have amendments they want to offer on the farm bill, they or their staffs ought to bring them to us as soon as possible so we can take a look at them, see if they are relevant to the farm bill. If they are relevant to the farm bill--I say this very clearly and forthrightly--every amendment that is basically relevant to this farm bill will be considered and disposed of one way or the other. That is really what we have to focus on, amendments that are relative to the farm bill. Again, I hope Senators on both sides would, if they have amendments, bring them forth so we can put a package together and we can get to it. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dave White, a detailee from USDA to the Committee on Agriculture, and Alexandra Torres, an intern for the committee, be granted the privilege of the floor for any debate and votes on H.R. 2419.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as I understand the order, we now have 1 hour; is that correct? Am I correct we have 1 hour divided up in 15- minute blocks?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I yield myself my 15 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I urge all Senators to support the Labor- Health and Human Services appropriations conference report. The Senate version of this bill passed, as we all know, a couple weeks ago. We had 75 votes in favor of it. We would have had 80 votes if all Senators had been here. So it was a strong bipartisan endorsement of a bill that reflected priorities on both sides of the aisle. I am here today to say I am pleased the conference report we are considering is even stronger than the bill the Senate approved 2 weeks ago. Much has been added to the bill. I thought what I might do, for the benefit of other Senators, is sort of run through the priorities in this bill and what our appropriations bill does compared to the President's budget. I think it will give everyone a good idea of how strong this bill is, why we garnered so much support in the first place and why I hope we will garner even more support with the conference report. Right now, the conference report invests about $8.2 billion more than last year in education, health, and labor programs. The President's budget cut $3.5 billion--cut $3.5 billion--from these programs. I will run through those now, and I will give you a good idea what those are. Let's take home energy assistance. This is the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. At a time when we have record high energy prices, the conference report boosts it by $250 million. The President's budget cut the LIHEAP program by $379 million. It is a clear contrast between the President's budget and where we are. Student aid. Since this covers education, what we did is have the biggest increase ever in support for Pell grants for kids who are at the lowest rung on the economic ladder who need these grants in order to even go to college. So what we did in our bill is we boosted the maximum award to $4,925. The President's budget limited it to $4,550, which is far short of the amount needed to even begin to pay for higher tuition. Strengthening the poor. Now, here again, in the conference report, we have provided $2.4 billion in the block grants for the Social Services Block Grant Program and the Community Services Block Grant Program. These are the things that go for housing for the poor. It goes for things such as Head Start Programs, all that helps to shore up our social services system and also community systems--as I said, whether it is housing, homeless aid, things such as that for the country. We have provided $2.4 billion for that. The President's budget cut both of these. In fact, it cut the community services block grants to zero. They absolutely zeroed it out. Then they cut the social services block grants by about a third. So when you add them together, he cut them both by about 50 percent--at a time when we have more poor people in this country than we had in the last several years, when, again, the cost of housing is up, all the other things are up for poor people to pay. Yet he wants to cut it by 50 percent. Unconscionable. Well, we met our obligations. We put in $2.4 billion for that. The next one is medical research. Now, again, this Senate has been on record time and time again supporting healthy, good increases for the National Institutes of Health for the research needed for overcoming Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and for the research that is being done at the National Cancer Institute and all the basic research that is funded that goes out to all our colleges and universities and other entities around the country. We made such great progress in breaking the genetic code. We are making such great progress in understanding a lot of the illnesses. We are on the threshold with stem cell research and others of entering into a whole new era of uncovering the causes and the therapeutic treatments and cures for a lot of these illnesses. So we are right on that threshold. The President's budget cut the National Institutes of Health by $279 million--actually cut it. Our conference report has added $1.1 billion for the National Institutes of Health. Actually, it is slightly more than what we had in the Senate when we passed the bill a couple weeks ago. On special education, this Congress, about 40 years ago, said we were going to provide up to 40 percent of the difference in the cost of educating kids with disabilities when they were mainstreamed in our schools. We wanted to put behind us the dark history of the segregation and isolation of kids with disabilities who were taken away from their homes, taken away from their neighborhoods, and sent away across the State to schools for the deaf, schools for the blind or maybe a lot of times were not even given an education. So about 40 years ago, this Congress decided we were going to meet our constitutional requirements and make sure kids with disabilities had equal and appropriate education. But in doing so, we were going to help the States by providing up to 40 percent of the additional costs of special education. Well, the high mark has been about 18 percent. That was about 3 or 4 years ago, if I am not mistaken--3 or 4 years ago. Since then, we have gone backward. We are now down, under the Bush budget, to 16 percent. So we are going in the wrong direction. So what President Bush's budget did is slashed $291 million for special education. What we have done is add $509 million to State grants to help our beleaguered property taxpayers in New Jersey and Iowa and all across this country, to help them meet the educational needs of our kids with disabilities. So we met our obligations there. The President did not. On Social Security, we now know people are waiting as much as 15 months to get their cases heard. There is a backlog of several hundred thousand right now. If we do not add the necessary personnel, people are not going to get it, and maybe some of them will die in the meantime. I don't know. People keep getting more and more backlogged and get frustrated by this system. They should not have to do that. People paid in all their lives to Social Security. They ought to get their cases heard in a timely manner. So what we did is we added enough to cut down on the delays. The President's budget would not do that. On community health centers, again, the President, when he became President, said he wanted to have a community health center in every poor area in the country. I applauded loudly for that. I thought at least here is something the President and we could agree on. Well, what does the President's budget do? There is no increase at all for community health centers, not a dime. So we put in $225 million more to increase funding new community health centers in some of our poorer areas of this country. So we met our obligation there, also, in terms of meeting health care needs of people who do not have anywhere else to go. The Head Start Program, which has proven its worth clear back to the Great Society. It is one of the Great Society programs. The President's budget cut Head Start by $100 million--cut it by $100 million--leaving thousands of kids behind. In our conference report, we have increased it by $153 million--not nearly what we need to meet the needs of all the kids who want to get into Head Start, but at least under our tight budget requirements, we were able to increase it substantially. So we met our obligations there in Head Start. So these are some parts of the budget I want Senators to know about. There is a lot of other stuff, too, but these items kind of highlight the difference between where we are in this conference report and where the President's budget is. Again, I thank Senator Specter for the close working relationship we have had. This has been a bipartisan effort from the beginning to right now. Again, that is why I urge all Senators to support this conference report. Now, the President said he is going to veto it because he said our bill had too much social spending. I would like to ask him to define what he means by ``social spending.'' The way he said it was almost like we were funding ice cream socials or something like that in this bill. Again, this is out of bounds, out of touch. It shows how isolated President Bush has become. Every additional dime we have put in goes to bedrock, essential programs and services this Congress and this President and other Presidents have always supported. It is interesting that in the last 5, 6 years, the President has not vetoed any appropriations bills. When the Republicans were in charge, the President did not veto an appropriations bill, even though they were over what his budget requests were. Lo and behold, the Democrats, because of the last election, now control the House and the Senate, and the President said he is going to veto every one of them, except Defense, I guess, maybe Military Construction-VA. All the other ones he is going to veto. He is going to veto the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill because it has ``too much social spending.'' Yet he signed all the other bills before this year. I find that more than passing strange that the President, this year, says he is going to veto it. Well, it all adds up to politics. Evidently, the President and his advisers think somehow they are going to get some kind of political gain--some kind of political gain--by vetoing our bill for Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor. Well, I do not know what kind of calculus goes into that, but it is bad calculus. It is bad calculus if the President thinks he might make some political gain by cutting Head Start Programs or by cutting special education or by cutting funding for the National Institutes of Health because it is over his budget, it is ``too much.'' Well, he never said that before. He never said that before to any Republican appropriations bill that passed in the last 5 years. I guess only because the Democrats are in charge he wants to veto it. I would say to the President: This is not a Democratic bill. Yes, we may be in charge because of the election last year, but I still point out that this bill passed the Senate with 75 votes. As I said earlier, there were five missing who would have voted for it. It would have been 80 to 20. You cannot get much more bipartisan than that. It is not a Democratic bill. Senator Specter and I and other people worked very hard on this bill. So I do not see where the President comes across in saying he is going to veto it. I think the President is so isolated, so out of touch that someone said: Well, this is over your budget, so you have to veto it. And he said: OK. Fine, I will do it. Well, again, the other thing is, when the President sent down his first veto message on this bill, he said he was going to veto it because of two things. He was going to veto it because we had included a provision dealing with stem cell research, which he was opposed to and because it was over his budget. Well, both Senator Specter and I agreed in the beginning--even though we both feel very strongly about overcoming the President's dictates on stopping funding for stem cell research--even though we feel strongly about that, we were willing to go halfway to meet the President. We said: OK, we will take the stem cell portion out of here. So we would like to meet you halfway. Well, what we heard from the White House was: That is not enough. It has to be all his way, all the President's way. Well, that is not the way we do things around here. We compromise. The art of democratic rule is to make our compromises. So I figured, if we gave up on our stem cell, then he might give up a little bit on his. But that is not the way the President sees it. It has to be all his way or no way. Again, we do not do business like that around here. As I said, we have a farm bill on the floor this year that I am also chairing, and it is not all I want, it is not all anybody wants. In the farm bill, we have to make our compromises and agreements to get the job done. But this President is unwilling--unwilling--to compromise, unwilling to sit down with us and hammer out some kind of a reasonable compromise. So we are left with only one course of action. We have to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities as appropriators to fund the Government, to fund that which Senators and Congresspeople think are priorities and, yes, that the administration also thinks are priorities. So our constitutional obligation is to work these things out and get the best bill we can that people agree upon. As I said, with 75 votes, you can't get much better than that. So I guess we are left with only one course of action: Pass our bill and get it to the President, and I guess he will veto it. It doesn't make sense to me. It makes no sense for the President to veto this bill. As I said, I can't figure out what he--and then to veto it without saying: Let's sit down and work and maybe we can get some agreement. That has not happened. So, again, we are left with only one course of action: Pass the bill, the conference report. I hope Senators will support it as strongly, if not more strongly, than they supported the original bill that passed in the Senate. Finally, let me say this: Even with this conference report, we have met all of our pay-go requirements. This bill does not add a single dime to the deficit of this country--not a dime. But by cutting a little bit here and adding there to certain priorities, we were able to get a bill that we basically all agree upon. Would I have liked to have had more in NIH? You bet I would. Would I have liked to have had more in the Head Start Program? Yes, I would have. Would I have liked to have had more for special education? Yes. The President wanted less than that, so we tried to meet him halfway. Yet the President says no, he wants it all his way. So I hope Senators will support this conference report on Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor overwhelmingly, send it to the President, and hopefully he will change his mind. Hopefully, between now and then, he will think: Well, you know, maybe I should sign it, after all. Hope springs eternal. We will just have to wait and see. If he signs it, God bless him. That is good. We will be done with it, and we will move on to next year. If he vetoes it, well, we will just have to come back and hopefully, with the 75 or 80 votes we have had for it, we will override the veto. It is just not a good way to do things, and it causes the kind of confrontation and it causes the kind of bad things happening in Washington that the people of this country want us to end. They want us to work things out and move things along. We have done it here in the Senate. We have done it in the House with Republicans and Democrats. Now it is up to the President to also sit down and negotiate in good faith. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to waive the point of order and ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business, with the time coming from the majority leader's time.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to strongly condemn General Musharraf's declaration of martial law in Pakistan, his decision to suspend that country's constitution, and his brutal suppression of freedom and democracy and human rights. Since Saturday, General Musharraf of Pakistan has ordered the police and military to arrest thousands of lawyers, human rights activists, and political workers. At this very moment, as we dither in Washington, Musharraf's thugs--thugs--are cracking down on democracy advocates across that country. Lawyers in coats and ties are being viciously beaten in the streets and thrown into jail. One out of four lawyers in Pakistan has been arrested since Saturday--one out of every four. In Lahore, police are being given cash bonuses for beating and arresting lawyers. Any of us who have watched television have seen the scenes of lawyers being picked up by plainclothes policemen, pushed into vans, and the plainclothes thugs beating them on the heads and backs as they pushed them into vans. This is especially sad and ironic inasmuch as the founder of Pakistan, the much revered Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was himself a lawyer trained at Lincoln's Inn in London. Since 9/11, the United States has given General Musharraf and Pakistan more than $10 billion in aid, supposedly to crack down on the terrorists, the Taliban, and al-Qaida in their sanctuaries in Pakistan. Instead, General Musharraf is cracking down on lawyers, political opponents, and human rights activists or anyone who dares to stand in his way of total power in Pakistan. Pakistan's Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, is under house arrest, and the widely admired chair of the Human Rights Commission, Asma Jahangir, with whom I have met twice when I was in Pakistan--on two of the occasions I have been in Pakistan, I met with Asma Jahangir. She is a wonderful, lovely woman fighting for human rights for people in Pakistan. Her house has been declared a ``subjail'' by the Government. What crimes have these people committed? They are guilty only of speaking out against General Musharraf's claim of absolute, unchecked power. These are truly the actions of a desperate man. Obviously, General Musharraf is worried that the supreme court would rule in favor of those opposing his latest attempt to hold on to the Presidency and to remain a general in charge of the military at the same time. This is a blatant violation of international human rights standards enshrined in Pakistan's own constitution. General Musharraf has also cracked down on the independent media, shutting down all private television channels and radio stations. What has been the reaction from our President and Secretary of State to this brazen violation of human rights and the democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people? President Bush has said he is ``deeply disturbed.'' He has pointedly refrained from saying anything or condemning General Musharraf's actions. I guess what set me off today was Negroponte. Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte told Congress on Wednesday that President Pervez Musharraf is an `` `indispensable' ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. . . .'' I am sorry, Mr. Negroponte, Mr. Musharraf is not an indispensable ally. The Pakistani people are an indispensable ally in our fight against terrorism. What a double standard. Look at how the administration responded when Myanmar's military regime cracked down on prodemocracy protesters in September. Oh, my gosh, we condemned them to the high heavens--rightfully so. Now here is General Musharraf doing the same thing in Pakistan and barely a peep from this administration. And then we have Negroponte, who has shown his colors in the past by calling dictators in Latin America in the past, now coming out saying Musharraf is indispensable. What does that say to the Pakistani people? What a double standard. No wonder the United States is held in such low esteem around the world today when we have President Bush and Mr. Negroponte taking after the brutal dictators in Myanmar, but, oh, not General Musharraf. This is a profound mistake. This is the time to stand with the Pakistani people and not with the dictator who is dismantling their democracy. This is the time for the President to announce that he is suspending all U.S. aid to Pakistan except for humanitarian assistance directly related to the health, education, and human needs of the Pakistani people. As of yesterday, President Bush has not even placed a call to General Musharraf. He should do so immediately. He should demand that the general immediately return the country to constitutional rule, restore freedom of the press, and unconditionally release the lawyers, human rights activists, and opposition leaders who have been arrested since Saturday, and he should inform General Musharraf that the United States is suspending all assistance to Pakistan, except for humanitarian aid, until such action is taken. The world's greatest democracy, the United States, cannot turn a blind eye to the tragedy unfolding in Pakistan today. The time to act is now, and if the President will not act, I am prepared to work with my colleagues in Congress to suspend all assistance, except humanitarian aid, to Pakistan and to do it as soon as possible. As I said, since 9/11, we have provided more than $10 billion in aid to Pakistan. The overwhelming amount of this went to the military to boost its capacity to fight terrorism. But, unfortunately, the Pentagon and OMB have very little transparency or oversight of just how that money is being used or has been used. In fiscal year 2007, Pakistan received an average of $83 million a month at a time when Musharraf had negotiated a so-called peace arrangement with tribal leaders and was not even conducting counterterrorism operations in tribal areas. I think it is time for our GAO to look into where this money went, and I will be working with my colleagues on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee to ensure that Congress is provided an accounting of all these expenditures. There are too many rumors, too many stories being told around Pakistan that a lot of this money has found its way into the pockets of high-ranking people surrounding General Musharraf. Now I am told that some of our military money is being spent by Pakistan on Harpoon missiles. These are antiship missiles used in naval warfare. Why in the world do they need these missiles? Is al-Qaida operating major surface warships? Hardly. While this administration and Mr. Negroponte say that Musharraf has been a partner in the war on terror, the evidence is different. Recently, Musharraf entered into a peace agreement with Baitullah Mehsud, a well-known Taliban supporter and sympathizer who operates in south Waziristan. This is the tribal area bordering Afghanistan where it is thought that maybe Osama bin Laden is hiding out. General Musharraf agreed to withdraw all Pakistani troops from the area and release 25 Taliban militants. Additionally, Mr. Mehsud would not even agree to stop dispatching fighters to Afghanistan, where suicide bombings against American and NATO forces have dramatically increased this year. Just yesterday, there was a horrific Taliban bombing in northern Afghanistan, with dozens of people killed, including at least six members of the Afghan Parliament. I ask: Why is General Musharraf making deals with the sponsor of attacks such as this? Is General Musharraf helping or hurting our fight against militant Islamic extremists in Pakistan? He makes an agreement with a known Taliban supporter, but he won't make any agreements with lawyers and human rights activists in Pakistan. It is time for the Bush administration to make our efforts in Pakistan more effective. We need a real partner in this fight, not General Musharraf. He has severely undercut his ability to effectively fight terrorism. It is time to understand that only a government that is supported by its people will actually have the ability to crack down on extremists who seek to hurt and harm American interests. The people of Pakistan have spoken out. They do not want Musharraf, but he is not listening. He is a dictator, and he is going to stay there, and he is going to trash the Constitution, he is going to jail lawyers and human rights activists and members of the supreme court. Just remember, Musharraf came to power in a coup d'etat in 1999, ousting the democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He assumed the title of chief executive. Later, he assumed the office of President of Pakistan, all the while remaining commander in chief of the military. Now he is seizing absolute power. I have come to the floor many times in the last 13 years to speak about America's relationship with Pakistan, to praise Pakistan and the Pakistani people as a steadfast ally going back for more than half a century. I have been to Pakistan many times. Make no mistake, I am a friend of the people of Pakistan. I admire them greatly. They have been great, strong friends of the United States for over 50 years. In the fight against communism and in every war we have ever conducted, they have helped us out. But at this time, I must speak out about the grave injustices being inflicted on the Pakistani people by General Musharraf in his grab for absolute power. In the months and years ahead, the people of Pakistan will be asking: Who stood with us against General Musharraf's attempt to destroy democracy and seize absolute power? That is why it is so important that we in Congress, and the President as well, make it clear that we stand with the Pakistani people and Pakistani democracy and the rule of law and we reject Musharraf's power grab. Robert H. Clampitt Foundation Children's PressLine

Mr. HARKIN. Thank you to the senior Senator from Louisiana for speaking so eloquently about the benefit that her State will get from funding in this bill. I understand there has been some confusion about the intent of this funding. I want to assure my friend from Louisiana that I will communicate to the Department of Education that the intent of this funding is to help children in New Orleans.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Will the leader yield for a question?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the leader for his statement. I just want to make sure everyone understands what just happened. As I understand it, the majority leader propounded a unanimous consent request that all amendments to be offered to the farm bill be relevant to the farm bill; is that not correct?

Mr. HARKIN. There was objection on the other side. Why would there be an objection to that? We have a farm bill, and we have worked hard. The leader is right. We reached a bipartisan agreement. I daresay none of us like every little bit in the farm bill, but that is the art of compromise. You compromise on these sorts of things and you move them ahead. I don't know, for the life of me, why there would be an objection to saying that all amendments should be relevant to the farm bill. Let's move the farm bill. I hope people in farm country are watching this. I hope agribusiness is seeing this. I hope people know what is at stake in this farm bill for rural America for specialty crops, for our dairy farmers, for rural development, and I might add the nutrition programs, food stamp recipients, things that we have done good work on in this bill, to provide an underpinning of nutrition and support for some of the least among us. We have done good work in that area. Now it is held up because some people want to offer nonrelevant amendments. For the life of me--and this is my seventh farm bill, counting my time in the House, and my second as chairman--I don't understand why we cannot have a bill. Yes, open it to amendments on the farm bill. If people have amendments on the bill and want to change this, add this, or subtract that, fine. But why should we now debate, as I said, the war? Can the leader think of any reason we should not just stick to the farm bill?