Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask the Chair to let me know when there is 2 minutes left.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this amendment is a very simple amendment. It recognizes that we have had a dramatic increase in child poverty in recent years. I think the most dramatic recent exposure to that was Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when the veil was taken off the United States of America and we saw so many of those families who were unable to leave New Orleans and leave the areas along the gulf because they were too poor and they suffered so many consequences that we are reminded about the growth of poverty among children in recent years. This amendment does a very simple thing. It says for every joint tax return where the income is more than $1 million, there will be a 1- percent surcharge on that income. It will go into a dedicated fund. There will be a board appointed by the Members of Congress, and they will make recommendations to the President about how those resources will be expended. The best estimate now is that we could have close to $3 billion to $4 billion raised in the first year. It will rise over the next 5 to 7 years up to $5 billion. This is dedicated to reduce the poverty of children in this country. This chart shows what happened in the period of 2000 to 2004--13 million children are living in poverty. There has been a growth of 1.4 million children since 2000. We know that in the United States at the present time one in six children lives in poverty. This isn't just general, across the country; it is reflected with different groups having a higher percentage. We find, for example, that children are much more likely to live in poverty than adults or the elderly. If we look at who is living in poverty in the United States: seniors, 9.8 percent; adults 18 to 65, 11.3 percent; and for children, it is the highest at 17.8 percent. If you look at who is affected by this to the greatest extent, the national average being 17.8 percent, the highest is minority children. The national average is 17.8 percent. If you are looking at Latinos, it is 28 percent. If you are looking at African Americans, it is 33 percent. Let us look at this chart where the United States has one of the highest child poverty rate in the industrialized world. This red line is the indicator of where the United States is in relationship to Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Scandinavia, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands--all the way down the line. This chart is an indication of where we have the highest poverty rates generally, and the highest child poverty rates. It should not be an enormous surprise that individuals have the highest child poverty rate down in New Orleans and along that gulf area. Those are the areas which have the highest percentage rate. They were high before and now breathtakingly high. If we look across the country, this chart shows children living in poverty in every State. The States in blue have the highest concentration of poverty. This is a real reflection of our national priorities. Are we as a country going to be indignant? Are we going to be sufficiently concerned or outraged about this that we are prepared to do something? I must say that in the most recent Appropriations Committee conference report, we find that we have basically failed to deal with these issues, both from an educational point of view and a health point of view. We see reductions in terms of the Head Start Program, title I programs, and programs that help and assist disabled children. We are finding reductions as well in other health programs. This is a way for us to be able to say that in the situation we are talking about, those at the highest end of the economic ladder, those individuals who have more than $1 million are going to pay a tax. Say they are going to pay a tax of $100,000; that is a 1-percent addition. This is just 1 percent. This is $101,000. With that kind of increase on those who are the most privileged individuals in our country, the wealthiest individuals, they ought to be as concerned as all Americans are by this staggering situation of child poverty in this country. We are not going in the right direction, as these charts indicate. We are going in the wrong direction. If someone gets up and says, ``Senator, we are going in the right direction, why do we need this'', every economic indicator shows these facts and these statistics are getting worse and worse every single year. They are not going to be altered or changed by what we are doing here in these budget considerations. Investment in these children in and of itself isn't going to be the complete answer, but, nonetheless, providing the help and assistance in a very targeted way to try to deal with child poverty, it seems to me, is an important reflection about what we ought to be about here in the Senate. I certainly think it has a higher priority than many of the other priorities that are included in this legislation, which is going to provide some very generous tax reduction for some of the most privileged people in our country and in our society. That is basically the issue. Finally, this is a basically moral issue. There is no great nation that can ignore this challenge. It is a defining issue in terms of what this country is about. It is a defining issue about what the values are for us as a people in this Nation. I think so many of the great Judeo-Christian religions and other religions talk about the importance of feeding the hungry and clothing the poor and seeing to the needs of the least of those among us. This amendment is a targeted amendment and provides just that kind of help and assistance which is so important for this country. I hope the Senate will accept what I call the Child Poverty Elimination Fund--as I mentioned, with a board to oversee the fund and design the Child Poverty Elimination Plan. It is a downpayment, a realistic first step toward achieving the goal of lifting children out of poverty. In the 1960s, President Johnson talked about the ``War on Poverty'' that we are still fighting, but we are fighting and falling further and further behind. Clearly, we have made progress over the past four decades, through Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, and other measures we have enacted. The poverty rate for all Americans reached a low of 11 percent in 1973, compared to 19 percent in later years. We continued that battle through the Reagan administration with the enactment of LIHEAP in 1981 and welfare reform in 1996. But, sadly, in the most recent years, we have been falling farther and farther behind. I am not going to take the time, because I don't have it here, to talk about the growth of hunger in this country in recent years, and particularly the problem of growth of hunger among children. A 5-year-old named Connor from Massachusetts is one example of what is happening to the vulnerable people in our society. Some days, Connor pretends to be a ``Power Ranger'' fighting intergalactic evils, and other days he is fighting hunger, pretending to be a superhero, taking a lot of energy. And sometimes Connor doesn't feel like playing. That is when his hunger pangs become his worst enemy. It is shameless that in the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, nearly one in five children goes to bed hungry every night. Now because of Hurricane Katrina, the silent slavery of poverty is not so silent anymore. The devastation caused by the storm suddenly focused the Nation's attention on the immense hardships low-income Americans face each day. We saw the desperate plight of innocent children who were born poor and forced to bear the impossible burden of poverty. In fact, the child poverty rate, as I mentioned, in the States hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina was all above the national average. In Louisiana, 29 percent of children live in poverty, 30 percent of children in Mississippi live in poverty, and 23 percent in Alabama. Hurricane Katrina highlighted the struggle of the poor, but every State in this country is home to children and families who live in poverty. Children in the United States are more likely to live in poverty than any other age group. This particular amendment indicates what our priorities are. Poverty is an education issue because poor children often lack the basic nutrition vital to healthy brain development. They have difficulty focusing their attention and concentrating in school. As a result, they often drop out. Some end up in trouble with the law, even in prison. Poverty is a civil rights issue because minorities are disproportionately poor: 33 percent of African-American children, 28 percent of Latino children live in poverty, triple the rate of white children. How can we possibly keep turning our back on these children? We should all feel a greater, not a lesser, responsibility to them. Where is our compassionate conservatism? Do they understand when Jesus said ``suffer the little children to come unto me,'' he didn't mean ``let the little children suffer.'' Don't they believe that children are included when he said: Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brother, you have done it unto me. We know how to lift children out of poverty in this wealthy land of ours. All it requires is the will to do it and the leadership to make it happen. The words of Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral never rang more true: We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worse crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ``Tomorrow.'' His name is ``Today.'' It is time for Congress to bring true hope, honest opportunity, genuine fairness to children mired in poverty in communities in all parts of our country. This amendment will put us back on the right track. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY. All right.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask if the minority would yield 5 minutes?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I listened to my friend from Iowa. This is the fact: We have one of the highest child poverty rates in the industrial world. I am not saying this afternoon how to do it. The Senator from Iowa can have good ideas. The Senator from Tennessee can have good ideas. The fact of the matter is, we are not doing it now. There is significant and dramatic growth of child poverty in the United States. I am saying let's do something about it. Give us the opportunity to do it this afternoon. That is the point I make.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this is a very simple amendment but an amendment of enormous importance and consequence for the children of this Nation. If you look at this chart that shows virtually all the industrial nations of the world, we have the highest instance of child poverty of all industrial nations in the world. This amendment I offer adds a 1-percent surtax on millionaires who pay their contributions in terms of the Internal Revenue Service. It is just a 1-percent add-on. It pays into a fund to fight child poverty, a designated fund that will eventually be decided by the leadership and by the President of the United States. This is a moral issue. It is a children's issue. It is a value issue. And this is something that can make an enormous difference to the children of this country. Here in the richest country in the world, we allow children to suffer, without money, without a home, without food. No great nation can ignore this challenge. The images of Katrina proved that. We can lift children out of poverty, all it requires is the will to do it and the leadership to make it happen. In the powerful word of the gospel, ``To whom much is given, much is required.'' I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, yesterday Vice President Cheney said elected officials had access to the intelligence and were free to draw their own conclusions. They arrived at the same judgment about Iraq's capabilities and intentions made by this administration and by the previous administration. What world is the Vice President living in? No one seriously believes what the Vice President is saying. Once again, he is deliberately deceiving the American people. It is a calculated, partisan, political ploy. President Bush and the Vice President have begun a new campaign of distortion and manipulation because the polls show that Americans have lost trust in the President and believe he manipulated intelligence before the war. The President and Vice President have abandoned any pretense of leading this country and have gone back on to the campaign trail. But the country won't have it this time. Not only can the President and Vice President not find weapons of mass destruction, they cannot find the truth either. The administration broke the essential bond of trust that has to exist between the White House and the American people. They have to be able to trust that we will be told the truth, especially on the important issues of war and peace. The Congress did not have access to the intelligence the President and the Vice President had. It is plain wrong. The administration's drumbeat for war began in the summer of 2002, but it did not provide an intelligence estimate--the collective wisdom of the intelligence community--to back up its claims about al-Qaida and nuclear weapons and the immediate threats until Democrats on the Intelligence Committee demanded it. Even then, the administration did not provide the intelligence estimate until October 1, 2002--2 days before the debate began on the resolution authorizing war. The vote on the resolution occurred 1 week later, on October 11. Beyond the NIE, the suggestion that the Members of Congress have access to the same classified material as the President is preposterous. The President receives a Presidential daily brief and a briefing every morning with top intelligence officials. The White House has access to memos with intelligence information that the Congress never sees. Even when we ask for this information, they do not provide it. It is abundantly clear that the administration is engaged in nothing more than a devious attempt to obscure the facts and take the focus off the real reason we went to war in Iraq. No matter what the Vice President says, 150,000 American troops are bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq because the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence to justify a war America never should have fought. They misled us on al-Qaida. They misled us on aluminum tubes, materials from Africa, and nuclear weapons. What was said before by the administration does matter. The President's words matter, and so do the Vice President's, and so do the Secretary of State's, and so do the Secretary of Defense's, and the other high officials in the administration, and they did not square with the facts. The Intelligence Committee agreed to investigate the clear discrepancies, and it is important they get to the bottom of this and find out how and why this President took America to war in Iraq. Americans are dying. Already more than 2,000 have been killed, and more than 15,000 have been wounded. The American people deserve the truth. It is time for the President to stop passing the buck and for him to be held accountable. It is time for a change in this country. Something has to give. A tarnished White House and damaged Presidency is pulling America backwards. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today the Senate has passed legislation that can help transform our health care system and save lives. The Wired for Health Care Quality Act will improve the use of lifesaving health information technology in hospitals and doctors' offices across the country. In so doing, we will improve the quality of care, lower administrative costs, and reduce medical errors. This legislation is being considered by the Senate because of the leadership and commitment of the chairman of our Health Committee, Senator Enzi. He made health information technology a priority for our committee, and he has guided this legislation to the Senate floor. Successful legislation takes creative thinking and hard work--and Senator Enzi has supplied an abundance of both to this measure. I also thank our partners in this legislation, Senator Frist and Senator Clinton. As a surgeon, Senator Frist knows firsthand the importance of making sure that doctors have the information they need to provide the best possible care for patients--and that they get that information in time for it to be of value. It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, doctors are asked to treat patients in life or death situations without knowing their medical histories or even the medications they are taking--but that happens every hour of every day in hospitals and emergency rooms around the country. Senator Frist has been tireless in his commitment to correcting this unacceptable situation. Senator Clinton has done an excellent job as well. She has championed better studies of the comparative effectiveness of medications, she is dedicated to improving the quality of care for every patient, and this legislation owes much to her ability and commitment. This legislation is urgently needed, because we live in a new era of medical miracles and rapid changes in medicine. Modern electronics have given doctors implantable pacemakers to save patients from sudden cardiac failure. The sequencing of the human genome offers extraordinary opportunities for new cures and better treatments. But there is another medical miracle to add to the list. Modern information technology can transform health care as profoundly as any of these discoveries. We have a moral responsibility to make the miracles of modern medicine available to every American--but we have failed to meet that responsibility. Costs are crushing our health care system. Premiums are going through the roof. The ranks of the uninsured grow every day. Families are forced to choose between paying the cost of health care or paying for food, rent, and college tuition. That is not the American dream. Information technology alone can't solve these problems, but it can help substantially. Electronic medical records. Software to warn if a treatment could harm a patient. Computer prescribing. These and many other applications of information technology can save lives and dramatically reduce costs. Despite the wonders of modern medicine, too many patients today are harmed by preventable mishaps. They waste hours and face new risk when tests must be duplicated, because a crucial record is locked in another archive. Too many doctors only guess at the right course of treatment, because they don't know a patient's medical history. Millions of patients are needlessly put at risk, and billions of dollars are wasted. When so many Americans are already struggling to afford health care for their families, it is profoundly wrong to squander more than half a trillion dollars each year on administrative expenses. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that better use of information technology will save $140 billion every year. Such savings would produce a technology dividend worth over $700 on the cost of an average family's insurance policy. That is like getting 1 month free every year. Other nations are already using this extraordinary technology to cut costs and save lives--but America lags behind. We can't continue to allow the high cost of health care to price American goods and services out of the global marketplace. The need to invest in this technology is urgent. In the words of Secretary Leavitt, ``Every day that we delay, lives are lost.'' The time to act is now. The bill before us will improve care, save lives and make health care more affordable for every American. The need to reduce medical errors is especially urgent. It is already 6 years since the Institute of Medicine reported that medical errors cause 98,000 deaths every year. According to the National Patient Safety Foundation, 42 percent of Americans have been affected by a medical error, either personally or through a friend or relative. One out of every three of those affected said that the error had a permanent negative effect on the patient's health. The exact figures may be the subject of debate, but it is undeniable that preventable deaths occur in our health care system all too often. For even one patient to die needlessly in our health care system ought to be unacceptable. Our response should be broad based. New technology, new ideas, aud new ways of practicing medicine all have a role in improving the quality of care and saving lives. We no longer expect airline pilots to navigate by looking at the stars or local landmarks. Engineers no longer rely on slide rules to design strong buildings. In virtually every field except medicine, professionals use computers to expand their skills. Yet in medicine, we expect doctors to keep in their heads the possible interactions of the dozens of medications that a patient may be receiving. Under these circumstances, the wonder is not that errors occur, but that they don't occur even more frequently. The evidence that information technology can save lives is undeniable. In terms of drug safety alone, a recent analysis by the RAND Corporation estimates that by using computerized data, the nation could prevent 2.2 million adverse drug events, and 1 million additional days in the hospital. What we have today, in the words of the Institute of Medicine, is a ``quality chasm.'' Doctors repeat tests that have already been performed. Residents take medical histories that have already been taken. Patients show up for doctor's appointments that are essentially a waste of time because the tests have been performed but the results have not yet been delivered. Information technology can help close this gap by improving the coordination of care, providing guidance on the best methods of care and reminding busy physicians when it's time to schedule preventive screenings. The Veterans Administration is a national leader in using IT to improve quality, and patients get better preventive services there than almost any other patient group in America gets, especially in areas such as proper cholesterol screening, eye exams for diabetic patients, and proper immunization against pneumonia. Electronic medical records improve the quality of care, and can also improve our ability to monitor drug safety, detect outbreaks of disease before they become epidemics and decide which treatments are most effective for patients. Electronic medical records can be critical in a natural disaster. The devastation of Hurricane Katrina was compounded because most hospitals kept their records on paper. As a result, medical histories of tens of thousands of hurricane survivors were irretrievably lost. It would be inexcusable if we didn't make the investments needed for the nation to benefit from these innovations. Information technology doesn't simply improve the quality of care--it reduces costs as well. According to the Institute of Medicine, each prescription error that is prevented saves $4,000 in additional care. This isn't just a theory. Since 1996, when the Veterans Administration began investing significantly in information technology, its costs per patient have actually decreased by 7 percent while private sector costs per patient have increased by 62 percent. Excessive administrative costs are weighing down our health care system. We are spending over $500 billion a year on such costs--nearly 33 cents out of every health care dollar. These already high costs are also growing 50 percent faster than other health costs. It can cost as much as $20 to process a single insurance claim using antiquated paper records--and nearly half the 18 billion insurance claims in America are still settled in this old-fashioned way every year. We know that paper- based records are prone to error. About one in four health insurance claims is initially rejected because of errors. By contrast, in the financial industry, only 1 in 10,000 ATM transactions has an error. Despite clear evidence that health IT saves lives and cuts costs, its use is still scandalously low. Our health care system should be the envy of the world, but nations from Australia to Scandinavia are outpacing us in this technology. In Sweden and Holland, nine out of ten primary care physicians use electronic medical records. In Britain, Austria, Finland and many other nations, it is over half. But in the United States, less than a quarter of all doctors use electronic medical records. Obviously, there are significant barriers to the adoption of health information technology that Congress should also address. Many providers don't have the financial ability to absorb the costs of buying the equipment, making the transition to computer systems, and training staff. It costs a physician's office $30,000 and significant aggravation to install the system. The savings from its use tend to come over the longer term, while the costs are immediate, which is a major financial barrier to hospitals, physicians, and nursing homes already drowning in red ink. Providers get savings over the long run, but the largest share of the savings goes to payers, not providers. If a diabetic is kept out of the hospital by better management of his condition as the result of information technology, that's a loss of revenue to the hospital. This bipartisan legislation will help overcome these barriers. It requires the development of standards on interoperability and other technical measures for health information technology, and it establishes a public-private consultation to develop those standards. But standards without Federal resources are not enough to achieve the goal of a modern health care system that we all share. That is why the legislation includes financial assistance to hard pressed providers to meet the technical standards. It provides this assistance in three ways in recognizing the fact that different health care providers and different communities will have different needs. It authorizes direct grants to needy providers. It authorizes financial assistance to establish regional networks. And it creates an innovative Federal- State, public-private partnership to modernize health care by enabling states to fund low interest loans to help health professionals in financial need to acquire the technology to improve the quality and efficiency of health care. Getting the right hardware and software into the hands of doctors is only half the battle. It is also essential to see that doctors have access to the knowledge necessary to make the technology a success. The legislation establishes a Best Practices Center where technology users can learn from the experience of others who have established such networks. It sets up a Help line at the Department of Health and Human Services to answer technical questions and help meet technical requirements. To assist doctors in sorting through the confusing array of options for this technology, the legislation establishes a certification program, so that providers can quickly determine whether particular systems meet the applicable technical standards. There are many Senate colleagues who deserve great credit for their thoughtful contributions to this legislation and for their leadership in getting to this moment. Again, I commend the chairman of our Health Committee, Senator Enzi, for his impressive leadership on this issue. It has been a privilege to work closely with him and his staff since the beginning of this year and to deal with this priority. The pending legislation combines the bill that Chairman Enzi and I introduced and the bill that Senator Frist and Senator Clinton introduced. We have also had broad input from many other committee members, and we have produced a better bill because of it. Senator Dodd was a leader on the issue in the last Congress as well, and our bill includes many of his ideas, especially on making sure that standards are widely available. Senator Ensign made sure that best practices are front and center in implementing this technology. Our subcommittee chairman, Senator Burr, has a strong interest in using information technology to improve our ability to respond to bioterrorist attacks or other disease emergencies, when lost hours can mean countless lost lives. Senator Reed of Rhode Island had the innovative idea of including a 1-800 number to help providers on technical questions. Senator Harkin contributed important proposals to use the technology to improve the treatment of chronic diseases. Senator Reid of Nevada has shown impressive leadership in making sure technology improves the lives of American families, and I thank him for his strong support. Senator Snowe and Senator Stabenow have a major commitment to effective funding for this technology, and I look forward to working with them on this issue in the days to come. I also commend Senator Snowe for her strong commitment to protecting the privacy of electronic medical data. I also commend Steve Northrup and Katy Barr of Senator Enzi's staff, Andrea Palm of Senator Clinton's staff, Liz Hall of Senator Frist's staff, and my own health staff, for their effective work on this issue for so many months. I thank these and all our Senate colleagues who contributed to the legislation we consider today. I look forward to working with all of you and with our colleagues in the House to see this needed measure signed into law as soon as possible.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the distinguished chairman of our Health Committee for his impressive leadership on the issue of health information technology. Health information technology can revolutionize health care, with lasting benefits in areas from improving quality to better detection of bioterrorist attacks and epidemics. I also commend my colleagues, Senator Stabenow and Senator Snowe, for their commitment to seeing that we provide adequate financial support for doctors and hospitals to use health information technology systems. I will work closely with them, and with our chairman and our colleagues on the health committee, to see that we build on the legislation under consideration today in order to assist health care providers to meet the cost of acquiring health IT. Senator Snowe and Senator Stabenow have made a major contribution to our debate, and I look forward to working with them on additional proposals on this important issue in the very near future.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator will withhold, my friend is ready to go and make his presentation. After that presentation, if I could then have a chance perhaps to talk about the importance of this legislation, the history and development of it, that would be agreeable with me.

Mr. KENNEDY. That is fine. I thank the Senator from Montana for his typical courteousness, and I welcome the opportunity to hear the Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. KENNEDY. As I understand it, it has been the request of our leaders we give notification to our colleagues when we are likely to have a vote. It is agreeable with the Senator from Hawaii that we have this vote just prior to the time we have the final passage. I certainly yield to my friend and colleague.

Mr. KENNEDY. I know we will be voting soon. This is a reflection of a legislative process working and working well. We have been fortunate in our committee with Senator Enzi, at the beginning of this whole process, examining the pension issues which have not been dealt with seriously since 1994, at the time of the GATT agreements. So much has changed since then. We had an openness and a process that has worked through the Committee on Finance in a similar kind of way, Republicans and Democrats working alike. And now, in a short period of time, we are going to pass legislation this evening that is going to give millions and millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of companies a real sense of hope about their retirement future. I certainly hope the House of Representatives recognizes the strong bipartisan support we have had for this proposal and follow a similar path. Finally, we know that workers have enormous insecurity today. They are concerned about the increased costs of gasoline, their health care costs, their job security, the education security of their children, and the security of their retirement. This legislation is focused on retirement security. We all believe in a strong Social Security Program and we all believe in savings. But we all know those savings are down and Social Security is going to need focus and attention over the next years. This legislation is the backbone to providing help and assistance and assurances to workers about the safety of their retirement programs. It provides innovative and creative ways to deal with the challenges women have presented in terms of the workplace, a much greater sense of equity, much greater protection and information for workers so they can make the appropriate decisions, help and assistance so the good companies can meet their responsibilities to their workers. We are very much in debt to all of those on our committees--the Senator has mentioned them--and Senators Mikulski, Harkin, and Bingaman on the HELP Committee, and our Republican colleagues. I again thank our chairman of this committee. It is a very important piece of legislation that will make a big difference. I thank him and I thank the chairman of the Committee on Finance, Senator Grassley, and my friend, Senator Baucus, as well. We have been able to work together. It is difficult enough around here to get people in your own party to agree on something, I find, and then to get both parties to agree and then two committees to agree on something is remarkable. All Members understood the importance to American families in this country. They are being challenged about their retirement security. It brought out the best in the membership. I strongly support this legislation. I thank my chairman for all he has done. To review quickly, this requires the companies to fund all of their pensions. It gives the workers timely and accurate information on the pension plan. It protects older workers in cash balance plan conversions. That is enormously important. It gives independent investment advice so workers can have information to make solid judgments. It guards against the exploitations we have seen in too many instances, where the CEO's have looked after themselves and failed to look after workers. And it does provide the retirement security for widows and former spouses, which is enormously important. Senator Snowe, myself, and others have been working on that issue for years. This is a balanced, well-formulated program that is addressed to meet the needs. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I yield such time as I might use. At the outset, I thank our Senate leadership, Senator Frist and Senator Reid, for arranging the Senate schedule so we would have an opportunity to consider this extremely important legislation. I thank my colleague and friend, my chairman, Senator Enzi, for his commitment to getting good legislation passed at a very important time in the entire history of the evolution of the pension system in our country. This is a very important piece of legislation. His diligence, attention to detail, and persuasiveness has permitted the Senate to move this legislation forward in a timely way. I am very grateful to him for all of his good leadership. I thank our friends on the Committee on Finance, Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley. We have worked together at other times on the pension legislation. We did work closely together over a year ago and received the overwhelming support of the Senate in a bipartisan way. We worked very closely with the members of the Committee on Finance. As a result of both committees working, we have a stronger legislation. This is a bipartisan effort in a very important area of public policy. I am grateful to all who brought the Senate to where we are at this time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, the retirement security of millions of hard-working Americans is at risk. Millions of our fellow citizens have worked hard all of their lives, played by the rules. They have been dedicated and loyal workers only to find their promised pensions disappear when they retire. They worked faithfully, assuming their retirements would be their golden years. But then suddenly it all disappears. The pension plan is in financial trouble and their retirement dreams are being wiped away. This is exactly what has happened to millions of loyal American workers. In the past 5 years, 700 pension plans have gone into crisis, and millions of workers have lost $8 billion in pension benefits that they had been promised. It is a crisis. We see it with our airline workers. We see it with our workers in manufacturing industries. We see it with our construction workers and sales clerks at the store and so many of our neighbors. It is a crisis, and this bill responds to it by saving their pensions. Large numbers of Americans are increasingly concerned about their retirement security and rightfully so. Each leg of the three-legged stool of retirement--private pensions, private savings, and Social Security--is in jeopardy. Many Americans find they are unable to save anything toward their retirement. In fact, the personal savings rate has now fallen below zero. Americans are spending more than they earn. It is no wonder when wages are stagnant and costs are soaring for basic necessities such as energy, housing, health care, and education. The Bush administration continues to propose to privatize Social Security, which would put the reliability of future benefits in that landmark and highly successful program in jeopardy. Many workers have no private pension at all. Only half of American private sector workers have a pension through their job. And 2.7 million fewer private sector workers have a pension today than in 2000. Listen to that: 2.7 million fewer private sector workers have a pension today than in 2000. Most workers who do have a pension today have only a 401(k) account as their pension, but many have nothing saved in these accounts. Even those who are saving do not have enough to live on in retirement. More than half of the workers approaching retirement have less than $43,000 in their 401(k), and workers who rely on these accounts face the constant risk of investments that perform poorly. These problems make pensions with defined benefits more critical than ever because they are secure. They provide a known monthly benefit for life. They are ensured by the Federal Government. But they are becoming much rarer today, as businesses shift away from them. In the early 1980s, almost 40 percent of American workers were covered by secure pensions. Today, that number is only 20 percent. Yet, while workers' pensions are being cut, executives' pensions are increasingly generous. A recent study found that 25 percent of the CEOs of 500 large companies had been promised retirement benefits of more than $1 million a year. Why should Ken Lay of Enron or Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom walk away with millions of dollars in guaranteed pensions after driving their employees' pensions into the ground? On this chart, we see this rather dramatic decline in terms of what is happening to workers, particularly in defined benefit programs. We find that the CEOs are being well taken care of. Here is Ken Lay. Enron required the employees to invest in the company stock and then lied to the workers, lied about the state of the company's finances. As stock prices plunged on the news of the corporate mismanagement, employees were blocked from selling their stock. This is an area we have dealt with, I think, quite effectively in our reforms. And 11,000 employees lost $1 billion in retirement savings during that period of time. We have the example of the WorldCom CEO. Bernie Ebbers was given a $1.5 million-a-year pension. He was later convicted of accounting fraud. Thirty percent of the employees' 401(k) money was invested in the company stock. When WorldCom stock plunged in value, 93,000 workers and retirees with WorldCom 401(k) accounts lost hundreds of millions of dollars in their retirement savings. These are issues that are enormously important. I think when we were getting started, in terms of the debate on pension reform, most Americans were wondering what the Congress was going to do about these issues. They were less aware of the fact that the defined benefit programs have been gradually in decline, the kind of pension program that provides the best kind of security to American workers. And they were not familiar with other factors: the drop in the savings accounts, the fact that so many of the 401(k)s have been buffeted around by the stock market and have not been enough to provide for a secure income. But they are increasingly aware now. I think as the debate took place earlier this spring about the solvency of Social Security, people have focused on the solvency of Social Security and have also thought about their retirement. When they think about their retirement, obviously, they are concerned about their pensions. But we have also seen that workers have lost dramatically over the period of these past several years. In the last 5 years, workers have lost $8 billion. That is $8 billion workers have lost in the last 5 years. For those pensions, workers give up an increase in their pay, they give up maybe a reduction in the amount of hours they have to work, they give up other kinds of benefits. That is in order to put something aside in terms of pensions they are allegedly going to be guaranteed at the time they finish working for their company. And still, we have seen that amount of money--$8 billion--that has been relied on by American workers effectively wiped out and disappeared. That is why the legislation we have is so important. When a major pension plan fails, it places a strain on the entire system. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which ensures these pension plans, has moved from a surplus in 2001 to a deficit of $23 billion today. Our pension insurance system protects the retirement earnings of over 43 million Americans, and we must do what it takes to see that it is there for the years to come. These are serious problems that require immediate action by Congress. The pending bill adopts a broad approach, with stronger rules for funding, expanded disclosure, so workers are going to know the stability and the financial security they have with their pension. It includes other new protections for American workers: It strengthens the existing pension plans by requiring companies to fund their pensions that workers have earned. It takes steps to prevent future pension failures and recognizes that workers who are increasingly in charge of investing their own retirement savings need additional help--two very important points. There is going to be the help and assistance, through the PBGC, to help companies, as they are looking at sort of more financial difficulty, to make sure these pensions are going to be safe and secure. A front-end warning system built into this legislation with flexibility for negotiations--that is very important. And information that is going to be made available to workers about their own retirement--that is enormously important. The reforms in this bill allow troubled pension plans the leeway they need to get back on their feet. The current rules would require companies to pay large amounts into their troubled pension plans right away. That is unrealistic and could force many companies to drop their pension plans altogether. That would hurt workers. Our reforms allow companies to save their troubled plans by increasing payments gradually over a longer period of time. We provide a realistic payment schedule but strengthen the current rules for single-employer pension plans over time by requiring companies to fund 100 percent of their pension promises to workers. These workers have earned their pensions over a lifetime of hard work, foregoing raises and other benefits. Yet current law allows many companies to lag behind in paying for them. Our legislation solves this problem by requiring companies to pay more into their pensions in a fair and predictable way. Our legislation also recognizes the power of public disclosure and the urgent need for more effective oversight of pension plans. Under current law, workers receive little financial information about their pensions, and what they do receive is often years out of date. They have earned these pensions, and they deserve to know whether these funds are there to pay them. That is very important and one of the most important changes to the current system: giving the notification to workers. Our bill ensures that workers and retirees receive up-to-date information each year. The bill also provides incentives to keep pensions financially healthy by tying executive compensation to pension health. Executives should not be able to feather their own retirement nests while workers lose their nest eggs. Our legislation prohibits corporate executives from putting company funds into their own retirement trusts when the pensions of rank-and-file workers are underfunded. That is very important. It should be obvious. Justice demands it. But we will make sure that it is implemented. Recent headlines show that many companies are using bankruptcy courts to abandon their pension plans. Hundreds of thousands of workers and retirees at companies such as United Airlines, US Airways, Bethlehem Steel, and LTV Steel are now without the pensions they worked so hard to earn. The bill also contains specific provisions to save airline pensions by offering companies a specialized payment program. And I know that has been reviewed earlier in the debate. In addition, our legislation addresses the needs of nearly 10 million workers and retirees who receive pensions through multiemployer plans. These are the workers who clean our office buildings and hotel rooms, sell us our groceries, build our homes and schools and highways and deliver goods across the country. Many of them are in industries where they have to move from job to job and would not be able to earn a pension at all without these multiemployer plans, since their employers, particularly small businesses, could not afford to offer a pension plan of their own. The majority of these plans are in strong financial shape. But the recent economic downturn and weak stock market have put some of these plans in financial difficulties similar to those facing single-employer plans. We owe it to these employees to protect their pensions now, instead of acting only when they are about to fail. Hybrid pension plans, including cash balance plans, have a growing role in our retirement system. They have a number of advantages. They provide secured, guaranteed pensions. They are attractive to younger workers and those such as parents caring for children. But older workers can lose out when their companies switch to these plans because they lose a large portion of the benefits they were promised. Our legislation requires companies that are going to switch to these plans to protect the benefits that workers have already earned. That is enormously important. I want to highlight another very important area and that is the legislation also includes very important provisions from the Women's Pension Protection Act that I introduced with Senator Snowe. Retirement security is essential for all Americans, but too often we fail to meet the needs of women on this basic issue. Women live longer than men, but they continue to earn far less in wages over their lifetimes. They are also much less likely to earn a pension. These factors translate into seriously inadequate retirement income for vast numbers of women. The realities of this injustice are grim. According to the most recent data, only 28 percent of women age 65 and over are receiving private pension income, and for those who do, the average is only $3,800 per year, compared to $8,100 for men. Minority women are in even more desperate straits. Only 20 percent of African-American women and 9 percent of Hispanic women receive a pension. These disparities are a major reason why nearly one in five elderly single women lives in poverty. Our legislation gives them much greater retirement security. Widows will receive more generous survivor benefits. Divorced women will have a greater ability to receive a share of their former husband's pension after divorce. These are long-overdue improvements in the private pension system so retirement savings programs will be more responsive to the realities of women's lives and careers. American workers and their families rightly expect Congress to protect their hard-earned pensions. This legislation is an important start to meeting this challenge. Madam President, I note the Senator from Pennsylvania is in the Chamber. I want to quickly review this legislation, again. On this chart is effectively a description--I know the writing is small for those who are watching--but this is really the backbone of this legislation. It requires companies to fund their promises. It helps prevent future pension failures. I have outlined, very briefly, in my comments how that is done--by greater flexibility and negotiation. It gives workers timely and accurate information on pension plan finances. That does not exist today. Well, it exists but not in an efficient or effective manner. Many times it takes months or even years to get that timely information. This legislation will provide it in a timely and accurate way, which is enormously important for workers. It protects the workers and businesses in multiemployer pensions. We have the single pensions, as we mentioned, and now also in the multiemployer pensions they face different issues. But we have strengthened and provided and followed a number of recommendations that were made from the business community and the worker community to strengthen those programs. It protects older workers in cash balance plan conversions. I have outlined the advantages of cash balance plans to younger workers, but to older workers it can work disadvantageously. This legislation provides a very important way of protecting those who have been reliant on existing programs rather than a cash balance plan. That is enormously important. Otherwise there could be some significant injustice. It gives workers access to independent investment advice to avoid the kind of Ken Lay situation where they had the requirement of investing in the corporation and were refused, when the company was going south, the ability to sell employer stock, and the workers took a bath. That was true in my State with Polaroid, a similar kind of situation and a tragic situation that involved abuse of the pension system at a time when a number of the executive branch did exceedingly well. We are giving access to independent investment advice, and workers can make their judgments. These are what we call the Bingaman proposals. They have been worked out in a bipartisan way and have solid support in the Senate. It adopts the post-Enron worker pension protections. It stops corporate executives from lining their pockets when workers' pensions suffer. This is to deal with the issue I mentioned briefly before, where the corporate executives can make out while the workers are losing. It provides greater retirement security for widows and former spouses. This is enormously important because of the injustice with regard to women and the pension system, which is extraordinary. Senator Snowe and I have been working for a number of years to try to address that. I am grateful to our chairman, Mr. Enzi, for reviewing these matters in great detail and including these provisions. This is enormously important. This is an important piece of legislation. It doesn't solve all of the problems, but it will certainly do a great deal in terms of ensuring workers in the future of the security of their pensions. We are very hopeful, with the strong bipartisan support we have been able to develop in the Senate, that we can carry these very important protections for workers, for companies, for women, for the single employer pensions, for multiemployer pensions, through and have them enacted into law. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to mention in particular my colleague and friend on this side of the aisle, Senator Barbara Mikulski, who is ranking member on the Retirement and Aging Subcommittee on the HELP Committee and has attended all of the hearings in the subcommittee and in our full committee and has been a tireless advocate on this issue. I have learned a great deal from her. I am enormously grateful to her for all of her efforts. She has been a great ally. I also thank my friend Tom Harkin. This is one in a range of issues in which he has been involved and about which he cares deeply. He is enormously knowledgeable about it, and he was very committed in terms of the defined benefit programs and how we can strengthen those, concerned about the relationship between the cash balance and the defined benefit programs, whether there is going to be fairness to workers, and he made a great contribution to the development of our legislation. Jeff Bingaman had reforms and worked those out in a bipartisan way. As we are coming into the final moments, I want to make a few comments. This legislation is strongly bipartisan. We don't have final legislation over in the House of Representatives. I hope our colleagues and friends in the House of Representatives would at least take some inspiration from what we have been able to achieve over here working in a bipartisan way under Republican Chairs to come up with a product which is going to move through the Senate at 2:30 or 3 o'clock this afternoon, which will make a major difference in terms of protecting workers and also be sensitive to some of the economic challenges. We have not had a finished product over in the House, and I am concerned it has been rather fractured over there in terms of the nature of the debate and discussion. I hope the leadership over there will take a page from the Enzi and Grassley book about how to work their committees in ways to develop bipartisanship on the committees and also between those committees as it is enormously important. Finally, Mr. President, why this is important: We see that our Social Security bedrock of retirement now is being reviewed; some believe under attack. We have private pensions. Only 50 percent of our workers have pension coverage at work. Only 21 percent have a secure defined benefit. So it is a three-legged stool: Social Security, pensions, and then private savings, and the private savings count, as shown on this chart in terms of the current savings, negative six-tenths of 1 percent of income--a decline in savings. They have virtually dried up. The reason for that is because, as shown by this chart, of the increased costs of gasoline, health insurance, housing, and college. People just cannot afford to save. They have to provide for their families in these areas. And when it comes to the very end of the day it is the squeeze on that pension retirement. Living in the richest country of the world, in our democracy, being able to retire with a sense of dignity is certainly a value all of us hold dear. We are in real danger of losing that very important value. This legislation is a very important downpayment to make sure that value is going to be there for millions of our fellow Americans. I am enormously grateful to the staff: Rohit Kumar with Senator Frist; Bob Greenawalt, Senator Reid; Jon O'Neill, Senator Grassley; Judy Miller, Senator Baucus; Stu Sirkin, Finance Committee; Katherine McGuire, Ilyse Schuman, Greg Dean, Diann Howland, and David Thompson, Senator Enzi; Karla Carpenter, Senator DeWine; Ellen-Marie Whelan and Ben Olinsky, Senator Mikulski; and Michael Myers, Holly Fechner, Portia Wu, and Terri Holloway from my staff. As always they have done a terrific job. I also want to thank particularly Jim Fransen and Stacy Kern from the Senate Legislative Counsel's office, who worked day and night to draft this bill. And thanks also to Carolyn Smith, Patricia McDermott, Nikole Flax, and Allison Wielobob of the Joint Committee on Taxation. I yield the floor, Mr. President. I see my colleagues here, and I understand we are going into morning business. If not, I am glad to yield time to them. Order of Procedure

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, many Members have serious reservations about the Alito nomination to the Supreme Court. It is obvious that Judge Alito was chosen because the right wing of the Republican Party felt Harriet Miers did not meet their litmus test for Federal judges, a test of right-wing philosophy that was laid out in great detail by the Justice Department itself when Ed Meese was Attorney General in the 1980s. The right wing flexed its muscle and rebelled even when George Bush said, in effect: Trust me--she will be your kind of justice. Well before Judge Alito was nominated, these core supporters of the President were aware of the President's dwindling public support, and knew he would be highly unlikely to cross them again. They were certain that Judge Alito passed their ideological test. They embraced him immediately, then moved in lock step with the White House to support and defend him. The reasons for that immediate endorsement by the right are obvious. On key issues of equal rights, fairness, and access to justice, he has repeatedly found ways to keep people from vindicating their rights, obtaining remedies, and protecting themselves from government invasions of their privacy. He supported a warrantless strip search of a 10-year-old girl, the elimination of black jurors despite a black defendant's objection, the dismissal of a case against an industrial polluter who had 150 water quality violations, the power of a state to intrude in personal medical decisions of women in Pennsylvania, and people who wanted to make machine guns in their homes. On Tuesday, the Reagan Presidential Library made public his 1985 application for a promotion in the Meese Justice Department, in which he pledged his allegiance to the right wing views that Attorney General Meese stood for. In the application, he stated, ``I am and always have been . . . an adherent to'' these views. He traced his views back to Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign, which featured strong opposition to civil rights at a time when the growing national support for such rights had just accomplished the landmark Civil Rights Acts of 1964 banning racial discrimination in public accommodations. As far back as college, he said, his view of constitutional law had been ``motivated in large part by disagreement with the Warren Court decisions,'' particularly the historic decisions supporting basic fairness in the criminal justice system, separation of church and state, and fair districting for legislative elections. In short, for all 20 years of his prior political activity, he had been a dedicated right wing advocate, especially on the major issues that led to the posting of the ``Impeach Earl Warren'' billboards on highways at the time. We have also learned of his failure to recuse himself in a case involving the Vanguard mutual funds, in which he had a personal investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars. A different justification was tried out each time his participation was challenged in recent weeks, even though he had specifically pledged to the Senate Judiciary Committee not to sit on ``any cases involving the Vanguard companies,'' regardless of whether he was technically required to recuse himself. It appears that either the Judge or the White House is desperately running new explanations up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes them. When I saw him yesterday, he dismissed the blunt ideological commitments in his application to the Meese Justice Department as simply part of the job application process, and told me, in essence, that it shouldn't be taken seriously. But now he is applying for a job on the Supreme Court. Should we take his assurances about ignoring ideology as a judge any more seriously now? The American people have a right to better answers about the record of any nominee to the Nation's highest Court. Certainly, in the hearings to come, Senators will learn a great deal more about whether Judge Alito has the basic commitment to core constitutional rights essential to our Nation, and I look forward to those hearings.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his strong leadership. I strongly support the Levin-Biden-Reid amendment on Iraq. Our amendment expresses the clear sense of the Senate that the U.S. military forces should not stay in Iraq indefinitely. Although many disagree with the President about the war, we all honor the service and sacrifice and heroism of our brave men and women in Iraq. Our Armed Forces are serving courageously in Iraq, under enormously difficult circumstances. The policy of our Government must be worthy of their sacrifice. Unfortunately, it is not. The American people know it. An open-ended commitment in Iraq is not in America's interests, and it is not in Iraq's interests, either. Our amendment clearly states that the commitment of our military is not open-ended. The goal of our military should be to establish a legitimate functioning government, not to dictate to it. If we want the new Iraqi government to succeed, we need to give Iraq back to the Iraqi people. We need to let Iraq make its own political decisions without American interference. We need to train the Iraqi security forces, but we also need to reduce our military presence. There is widespread recognition that our overwhelming military presence is inflaming the insurgency. After the election of a permanent Iraqi government, we should begin a substantial and continuing drawdown of U.S. forces. If additional forces are necessary during our drawdown or when our drawdown is completed, they should have the support of the Iraqi people and the United Nations and come from the international community. American troops can participate, but, unlike the current force, it should not consist mostly of Americans or be led by Americans. All nations of the world have an interest in Iraq's stability and territorial integrity. Defenders of President Bush's failed stay-the- course policy pretend that alternatives such as this are a cut-and-run strategy. They are not. Last February, General Abizaid said what makes it hard for the United States is that an overbearing presence or a larger than acceptable footprint in the region works against you. No one accused him of cut and run. Last July, GEN George Casey, commanding general of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, talked about fairly substantial reduction of troops in 2006. No one has accused him of cut and run. Just last month, America's Ambassador to Iraq said it is possible we can adjust our courses, downsizing them in the course of next year. No one has accused him of cut and run. This month, Mel Laird, Secretary of Defense of the Nixon administration, wrote in the current issue of the Journal of Foreign Affairs that our presence is what feeds the insurgency, and our gradual withdrawal would feed the confidence and the ability of average Iraqis to stand up to the insurgency. No one has accused him of cut and run. We need to have an open and honest debate about our future military presence in Iraq. An open-ended commitment of our military forces does not serve America's best interests and does not serve Iraqi's interests, either. Our current misguided policy has turned Iraq into a quagmire with no end in sight. It is urgent for the administration to adopt an honest and effective plan to end the violence and stabilize Iraq so that our soldiers can begin to come home with dignity and honor. Last Friday, President Bush outlined a new bumper-sticker slogan for his misguided policy in Iraq: ``Strategy for Victory.'' But it is still the same failed strategy. He should have called it ``Strategy for Quagmire.'' Our men and women in uniform deserve better, much better from this President. So does the Nation. We can do better. I urge my colleagues to support the Levin-Biden-Reid amendment. I yield back the remainder of my time. Amendments Nos. 1345, 1354, 1468, as Modified; 1500, as Modified; 1518, 1522, as Modified; 1538, 1898, 1902, 2525, 2526, 2527, 2528, 2529, 2530, 2531, 2532, 2533, 2534, 2535, 2536, 2537, 2538, 2539, 2540, 2541, 2542, 2543, 2544, 2545, 2546, 2547, 2548, 2549, 2550, 2551, 2552, 2553, 2554, 2555, 2556, 2557, 2558, 2559, 2560, 2561, 2562, 2563, 2564, 2565, 2566, 2567, 2568, 2569, 2570, 2571, 2572, 2573, 2574, 2575, 2576, 2577, 2578, 2579, en bloc

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I commend my friend from the State of Washington for an excellent statement and comment. She has been a tireless worker in terms of veterans' rights. Listening to her today, reminds us once again about our responsibility to them. I commend her for her excellent presentation. I certainly want to work with her in every possible way to make sure those efforts are achieved for people not only in the State of Washington and Massachusetts but all across the country. Madam President, how much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask the Chair to let me know when 1 minute is remaining.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Earlier this week, Madam President, several of our Republican colleagues came to the Senate and attempted to blame individual Democratic Senators for their errors in judgment about the war in Iraq. It was little more than a devious attempt to obscure the facts and take the focus off the real reason we went to war in Iraq. Madam President, 150,000 American troops are bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq because the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence to justify a war that America never should have fought. The President wrongly and repeatedly insisted that it was too dangerous to ignore the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein and his ties to al-Qaida. If his march to war, President Bush exaggerated the threat to the American people. It was not subtle. It was not nuanced. It was pure, unadulterated fear mongering based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to al-Qaida justified immediate war. The administration officials suggested the threat from Iraq was imminent and went to great lengths to convince the American people that it was. At a roundtable discussion with European journalists last month, Secretary Rumsfeld deviously insisted: I never said imminent threat. In fact, Secretary Rumsfeld told the House Committee on Armed Services on September 18, 2002: . . . some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent--that Saddam Hussein is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. In May of 2003, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether we went to war because we said WMD were a direct and imminent threat to the United States. And Fleischer responded, ``Absolutely.'' What else could National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice have been suggesting other than an imminent threat, extremely imminent threat when she said on September 2, 2002: We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. President Bush himself may not have used the word ``imminent,'' but he carefully chose strong and loaded words about the nature of the threat, words that the intelligence community never used to persuade and prepare the Nation to go to war against Iraq. In the Rose Garden on October 2, 2002, as Congress was preparing to vote on authorizing the war, the President said the Iraqi regime ``is a threat of unique urgency.'' In a speech in Cincinnati on October 7, President Bush specifically invoked the dangers of nuclear devastation: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. At an appearance in New Mexico on October 28, 2002, after Congress had voted to authorize war and a week before the election, President Bush said Iraq is a ``real and dangerous threat.'' At a NATO summit on November 20, 2002, President Bush said Iraq posed a ``unique and urgent threat.'' In Ft. Hood, TX, on January 3, 2003, President Bush called the Iraqi regime ``a grave threat.'' Nuclear weapons. Mushroom cloud. Unique and urgent threat. Real and dangerous threat. Grave threat. These words were the administration's rallying cry to war. But they were not the words of the intelligence community, which never suggested the threat from Saddam was imminent or immediate or urgent. It was Vice President Cheney who first laid out the trumped-up argument for war with Iraq to an unsuspecting public. In a speech on August 26, 2002, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he asserted: . . . We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons . . . Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon. As we now know, the intelligence community was far from certain. Yet the Vice President had been convinced. On September 8, 2002, he was even more emphatic about Saddam. He said: [we] do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build nuclear weapons. The intelligence community was deeply divided about the aluminum tubes, but Vice President Cheney was absolutely certain. One month later, on the eve of the watershed vote by Congress to authorize the war, President Bush said it even more vividly. He said: Iraq has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes . . . which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, you can have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed . . . Saddam would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists. In fact, as we now know, the intelligence community was far from convinced of any such threat. The administration attempted to conceal that fact by classifying the information and the dissents within the intelligence community until after the war, even while making dramatic and excessive public statements about the immediacy of the danger. In October of 2002, the intelligence agencies jointly issued a national intelligence estimate stating that ``most agencies'' believe that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program after inspectors left in 1998 and that if left unchecked, Iraq ``probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.'' The State Department's intelligence bureau, however, said the ``available evidence'' was inadequate to support that judgment. It refused to predict when ``Iraq could acquire a nuclear device or weapon.'' About the claims of purchases of nuclear material from Africa, the State Department's intelligence bureau said that claims of Iraq seeking to purchase nuclear material from Africa were ``highly dubious.'' The CIA sent two memoranda to the White House stressing strong doubts about those claims. But the following January 2003, the President included the claims about Africa in his State of the Union Address and conspicuously cited the British Government as the source of that intelligence. Information about nuclear weapons was not the only intelligence distorted by the administration. On the question of whether Iraq was pursuing a chemical weapons program, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded in September 2002 that: . . . there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has--or will--establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities. That same month, however, Secretary Rumsfeld told the Committee on Armed Services that Saddam has chemical weapons stockpiles. He said, ``We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction,'' that Saddam ``has amassed large clandestine stocks of chemical weapons.'' He said that ``he has stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons'' and that Iraq has ``active chemical, biological and nuclear programs.'' He was wrong on all counts. Yet the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate actually quantified the size of the stockpiles, stating that ``although we have little specific information on Iraq's CW stockpile, Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons and possibly as much as 500 metric tons of CW agents--much of it added in the last year.'' In his address to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell went further, calling the 100 to 500 metric ton stockpile a ``conservative estimate.'' Secretary Rumsfeld made an even more explicit assertion in his interview on ``This Week with George Stephanopoulos'' on March 30, 2003. When asked about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, he said: We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. The administration's case for war based on the linkage between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida was just as misguided. Significantly, here as well, the Intelligence Estimate did not find a cooperative relationship between Saddam and al-Qaida. On the contrary, it stated only that such a relationship might develop in the future if Saddam was ``sufficiently desperate''--in other words, if America went to war. But the estimate placed ``low confidence'' that, even in desperation, Saddam would give weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaida. But President Bush was not deterred. He was relentless in playing to America's fears after the devastating tragedy of 9/11. He drew a clear link--and drew it repeatedly--between al-Qaida and Saddam. On September 25, 2002, at the White House, President Bush flatly declared: You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. In his State of the Union Address in January 2003, President Bush said, ``Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda,'' and that he could provide ``lethal viruses'' to a ``shadowy terrorist network.'' Two weeks later, in his Saturday radio address to the Nation, a month before the war began, President Bush described the ties in detail, saying, ``Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. . . .'' He said: Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document-forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. An Al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad. Who gave the President this information? The NIE? Scooter Libby? Chalabi? In fact, there was no operational link and no clear and persuasive pattern of ties between the Iraq Government and al-Qaida. A 9/11 Commission staff statement in June of 2004 put it plainly: Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report stated clearly that there was no ``operational'' connection between Saddam and al-Qaida. That fact should have been abundantly clear to the President. The Pentagon's favorite Iraqi dissident, Ahmed Chalabi, is actually proud of what happened. ``We are heroes in error,'' Chalabi said in February 2004. ``As far as we're concerned, we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on our swords, if he wants.'' What was said before does matter. The President's words matter. The Vice President's words matter. So do those of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and other high officials in the administration. And they did not square with the facts. The Intelligence Committee agreed to investigate the clear discrepancies, and it is important that they get to the bottom of this and find out how and why President Bush took America to war in Iraq. Americans are dying. Already more than 2,000 have been killed and more than 15,000 have been wounded. The American people deserve the truth. It is time for the President to stop passing the buck and for him to be held accountable. I yield back the remainder of the time.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, could the time be evenly divided? I will not object if he wants to add time but that it be for both sides.