John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I support this budget resolution. For the last few years, I have not been able to support the budget resolution because it focused on the wrong priorities. I would like to commend Senate Budget Committee Chairman Conrad for crafting a budget resolution that focuses on the right priorities. Today, we have before us a resolution that restores fiscal sanity to the budget process. It recognizes the realities of our current and future financial situation. This resolution eliminates the deficit by 2012 and unlike the Bush administration's budget it does not leave out important costs like the funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and addressing the individual alternative minimum tax, AMT. This budget resolution returns discipline to the budget process. It restores the pay-as-you-go-rule which was essential to reducing the deficit in the 1990s. It includes a provision which requires the reconciliation process to be used for deficit reduction. The reconciliation process was designed to set-up a procedure to expedite the passage of legislation. It was used successfully to reduce the deficit, but in recent years it was used to pass debt-financed tax cuts. Today, we are restoring the reconciliation process to its original purpose--deficit reduction. The priority of the Administration's budget is to make permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts--at the expense of hard working families. This budget puts families first; it puts education first; it puts health care first. It is a resolution we can and should be proud of, particularly because we will be reauthorizing the Higher Education Act and No Child Left Behind this year. Now we know we will have enough money to make a difference with our legislation. This resolution specifically and substantially addresses one of my legislative priorities--providing health insurance to children. In 2005, 361,000 children under the age of 18 were added to the rolls of the uninsured, the first time in almost a decade that the number of children without insurance in this country increased. This brings the total number of uninsured children under the age of 21 to a staggering 11 million. Thankfully, this budget begins to put kids first. Under the resolution, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, S-CHIP, will be funded with an additional $50 billion over the next five years. This will maintain coverage for all currently enrolled children and enable coverage to be expanded to the estimated six million children that are eligible for, but not enrolled in, public health insurance programs. I will continue to work on this issue to ensure that every child in America gets the health care coverage they deserve: Their health and our future depend upon it. This budget resolution includes many deficit-neutral reserve funds which will allow us to address our priorities in a fiscally responsible manner, including a fund for small business health care. Recently, Senator Snowe and I held a hearing on this issue in the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. This hearing provided a blueprint for how we can move forward to provide small business owners the relief they need from rising premium costs while also ensuring that more employees of small firms have access to affordable, meaningful health care coverage. I have introduced legislation that would provide small businesses with refundable tax credits to help with the cost of providing their employees with coverage. I am also working on reinsurance legislation that would help small businesses with catastrophic costs. Small business health care needs to be addressed this year. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue. This budget makes veterans a priority. Our veterans have admirably served their country and should receive the best health care that we can provide them. To follow through on this promise this budget resolution includes a deficit-neutral reserve fund to make sure that veterans receive necessary treatments and services. I offered an amendment which ensures that this reserve fund addresses the needs of low-vision and blinded veterans. More and more of our brave soldiers returning from Iraq are coming home with serious eye injuries, mainly caused by traumatic brain injury. We must do our best to provide vision rehabilitation and screening services to try and save the sight of these veterans. The statistics are staggering: from March 2003 to April 2005, 16 percent of all causalities from Iraq had direct eye injuries. Between Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital they have performed over 1,200 emergency eye surgeries. I am pleased that my amendment passed so that low-vision and blinded veterans will get the services they deserve. I am pleased that this budget resolution puts an end to the myth that tax cuts pay for themselves. During the debate on this budget resolution, many of my colleagues argued that this resolution represents a tax increase. That is wrong. This budget provides a deficit-neutral reserve fund for tax relief. This will give the Finance Committee the opportunity to evaluate the tax cuts and extend them in a revenue neutral manner. This budget addresses the individual AMT for 2007 and 2008. The Administration's budget only addresses this AMT for 2007. The resolution will prevent new taxpayers from being impacted by the AMT for the next 2 years and gives us time to work on a fiscally responsible solution. We need to address the AMT so it no longer punishes families with children that live in high tax States. Without addressing the AMT, there will be a hidden tax increase on the middle class. I urge my colleagues to vote for this fiscally responsible budget resolution that puts families first.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, on Thursday, March 15, 2007, I proudly joined Senator Kennedy as a cosponsor of the Healthy Families Act. This legislation will provide full-time employees with up to 7 paid sick days a year so that they can take care of their own medical needs or the medical needs of family members. Part-time employees would receive a pro-rata amount of paid sick leave. All employers--public and private--with at least 15 employees would be covered by the Healthy Families Act. Today, 57 million workers in the United States do not have paid sick days. Thus, when faced with either a personal or family medical issue, they are forced to choose between caring for themselves or their loved ones and going to work to keep food on the table and a paycheck in the mail. This is not acceptable. People get sick every day. They should have the right to get medical treatment without jeopardizing their jobs or harming the people around them. The Healthy Families Act would guarantee them that right. According to Harvard University's Global Working Families Project, 139 nations provide some sort of paid sick days; 177 of those nations guarantee at least a week of annual sick pay. The United States, however, has no such guarantee--the federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides only unpaid sick leave for serious personal or family illnesses. This lack of paid sick leave puts our Nation's workforce, both present and future, at risk. As ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I am extremely conscious of the regulatory burden that our businesses face--particularly our small businesses. I believe that government should avoid weighing down small businesses with unnecessary regulations. However, the more I have examined this issue, the more obvious it becomes that this legislation benefits both employees and employers. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that healthy employees are the key to a productive and vibrant economy. Healthy employees are more productive and often more efficient. But, without paid sick days, many employees will go to work rather than take time off to get regular preventative medical checkups or to recover from an attacking illness or to care for a sick child. Thus, they will get sick more often, and their illnesses will spread. Employees who opt to come to work when sick can make their condition worse or even spread their illness to coworkers. For a business, it is far more costly to cope with a depleted staff or to search for a replacement when an employee is suffering from an extended illness than it is to provide just 7 sick days. Providing employees with a small number of paid sick days is a simple and commonsense fix that will save businesses time and money. In addition, I have heard that small businesses often complain that they want to offer this benefit but are unable to and need a level playing field. This legislation would offer them just that. Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will take a look at the Healthy Families Act and will join me in cosponsoring it.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Dr. Muhammad Yunus. For those who don't already know, Dr. Yunus is a modest man of great ideas, now revered around the world, as the father of microcredit and the founder of the Grameen Bank. His concept of microcredit has helped thousands of people work their way out of poverty. For his work to beat global poverty, I am very proud to join my colleagues, Senators Durbin and Bennett, in introducing a bill to honor Dr. Yunus with a Congressional Gold Medal. When I look at the success of Dr. Yunus's idea and the microenterprise programs it has inspired over the past 30 years, one thing that amazes me the most is that it all began with a loan of 27 U.S. dollars. The beauty of microcredit is that such a small amount of money can have such tremendous and lasting effects to foster entrepreneurship among those who would not qualify for typical bank loans. By offering loans at competitive interest rates, or no interest, Dr. Yunus's Grameen Bank has been able to give individuals suffering from poverty the power to determine their own futures. Last year, Dr. Yunus and his Grameen Bank were honored with a Nobel Peace Prize for his economic imagination. Dr. Yunus's innovation and entrepreneurship are certainly commendable and worthy of such an honor, as well as the distinction of a Congressional Gold Medal. In accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Yunus challenged the world to think of an entrepreneur as not only being motivated by profit, but also by ``doing good to people and the world.'' The effectiveness of microcredit programs is evident by the success stories they have inspired all around the world. As chairman of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, I have seen first hand the power of microcredit in this country, through the SBA's--Small Business Administration's--microloan programs. In my home State of Massachusetts, Thondup and Dolma Tsering, two Tibetan refugees in the United States, were able to start their own restaurant in 2005, with assistance from the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center and financing from the Western Massachusetts Enterprise Fund. Through financing and support, otherwise not available to them from the banking community, they are now the successful owners of Lhasa Cafe in Northampton. As small business owners, the Tserings are socially responsible and support local farmers and their community. From Dr. Yunus's first microloans to 42 entrepreneurs in Bangladesh in 1976, the concept of microcredit has come a long way. Here in the United States, where SBA has had a similar program since 1992, more than $328 million in microloans have been made to deserving entrepreneurs. I have long been a supporter of funding microloan programs, which offer current and potential small business owners the opportunity to achieve financial independence, financial security, and dignity through work. Sometimes they use it to work their way out of poverty, but sometimes they use it to patch together income when they need more money, lose a job, want to buy a house or car, or maybe pay for college or send a child to college. These entrepreneurs create jobs, provide services and products to our communities, and generate tax revenue to benefit the economy. Funding microloan programs not only makes economic sense; it makes social sense as well. In spite of growing support for microloan programs, and in spite of the return on investment to our economy, microenterprise does not get the support in this country that it does in other countries. In 2005, the administration provided approximately $211 million for the development of foreign microenterprise programs through the Agency for International Development, USAID. In fiscal year 2006, we are told that the administration provided more than $54 million for microloans in Iraq: The efforts of the U.S. government in its assistance to Iraq have been broad based. . . For example, over $54 million in micro-loans have been disbursed, resulting in 26,700 loans in twelve cities, and the program is set to expand to even more areas. Also, a Loan Guarantee Corporation is currently being established to encourage private banks to make loans to small businesses.--Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, May 9, 2006. And for fiscal year 2007, we are told that the administration is requesting supplemental funding for Iraq that includes at least $160 million for microloans. We will help local leaders improve their capacity to govern and deliver public services. Our economic efforts will be more targeted on specific local needs with proven records of success, like micro-credit programs. And we will engage with leading private sector enterprises and other local businesses, including the more promising state-owned firms, to break the obstacles to growth.--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the administration's plan for Iraq, January 11, 2007. At the same time, the President has proposed for fiscal years 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 eliminating all funding for the SBA's microloan programs. Today I not only honor and recognize the genius of Dr. Yunus, but also call attention to President Bush's lack of support for U.S. microloans and call on the administration to reverse its policy. If we can support microloans in Baghdad, we should support microloans in Boston, and every other city that's home to a would-be entrepreneur. I am honored to add my name in support of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, and I am gratified to see the support he has received among my colleagues. But I also implore my colleagues to pay tribute to American entrepreneurs and to fund the SBA's microloan program. We must honor Dr. Yunus's ingenuity with more than words; we must honor him with our actions.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Dr. Muhammad Yunus. For those who don't already know, Dr. Yunus is a modest man of great ideas, now revered around the world, as the father of microcredit and the founder of the Grameen Bank. His concept of microcredit has helped thousands of people work their way out of poverty. For his work to beat global poverty, I am very proud to join my colleagues, Senators Durbin and Bennett, in introducing a bill to honor Dr. Yunus with a Congressional Gold Medal. When I look at the success of Dr. Yunus's idea and the microenterprise programs it has inspired over the past 30 years, one thing that amazes me the most is that it all began with a loan of 27 U.S. dollars. The beauty of microcredit is that such a small amount of money can have such tremendous and lasting effects to foster entrepreneurship among those who would not qualify for typical bank loans. By offering loans at competitive interest rates, or no interest, Dr. Yunus's Grameen Bank has been able to give individuals suffering from poverty the power to determine their own futures. Last year, Dr. Yunus and his Grameen Bank were honored with a Nobel Peace Prize for his economic imagination. Dr. Yunus's innovation and entrepreneurship are certainly commendable and worthy of such an honor, as well as the distinction of a Congressional Gold Medal. In accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Yunus challenged the world to think of an entrepreneur as not only being motivated by profit, but also by ``doing good to people and the world.'' The effectiveness of microcredit programs is evident by the success stories they have inspired all around the world. As chairman of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, I have seen first hand the power of microcredit in this country, through the SBA's--Small Business Administration's--microloan programs. In my home State of Massachusetts, Thondup and Dolma Tsering, two Tibetan refugees in the United States, were able to start their own restaurant in 2005, with assistance from the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center and financing from the Western Massachusetts Enterprise Fund. Through financing and support, otherwise not available to them from the banking community, they are now the successful owners of Lhasa Cafe in Northampton. As small business owners, the Tserings are socially responsible and support local farmers and their community. From Dr. Yunus's first microloans to 42 entrepreneurs in Bangladesh in 1976, the concept of microcredit has come a long way. Here in the United States, where SBA has had a similar program since 1992, more than $328 million in microloans have been made to deserving entrepreneurs. I have long been a supporter of funding microloan programs, which offer current and potential small business owners the opportunity to achieve financial independence, financial security, and dignity through work. Sometimes they use it to work their way out of poverty, but sometimes they use it to patch together income when they need more money, lose a job, want to buy a house or car, or maybe pay for college or send a child to college. These entrepreneurs create jobs, provide services and products to our communities, and generate tax revenue to benefit the economy. Funding microloan programs not only makes economic sense; it makes social sense as well. In spite of growing support for microloan programs, and in spite of the return on investment to our economy, microenterprise does not get the support in this country that it does in other countries. In 2005, the administration provided approximately $211 million for the development of foreign microenterprise programs through the Agency for International Development, USAID. In fiscal year 2006, we are told that the administration provided more than $54 million for microloans in Iraq: The efforts of the U.S. government in its assistance to Iraq have been broad based. . . For example, over $54 million in micro-loans have been disbursed, resulting in 26,700 loans in twelve cities, and the program is set to expand to even more areas. Also, a Loan Guarantee Corporation is currently being established to encourage private banks to make loans to small businesses.--Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, May 9, 2006. And for fiscal year 2007, we are told that the administration is requesting supplemental funding for Iraq that includes at least $160 million for microloans. We will help local leaders improve their capacity to govern and deliver public services. Our economic efforts will be more targeted on specific local needs with proven records of success, like micro-credit programs. And we will engage with leading private sector enterprises and other local businesses, including the more promising state-owned firms, to break the obstacles to growth.--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the administration's plan for Iraq, January 11, 2007. At the same time, the President has proposed for fiscal years 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 eliminating all funding for the SBA's microloan programs. Today I not only honor and recognize the genius of Dr. Yunus, but also call attention to President Bush's lack of support for U.S. microloans and call on the administration to reverse its policy. If we can support microloans in Baghdad, we should support microloans in Boston, and every other city that's home to a would-be entrepreneur. I am honored to add my name in support of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, and I am gratified to see the support he has received among my colleagues. But I also implore my colleagues to pay tribute to American entrepreneurs and to fund the SBA's microloan program. We must honor Dr. Yunus's ingenuity with more than words; we must honor him with our actions.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the time be controlled by this side of the aisle, that I be permitted to speak for 8 minutes, that the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama, be permitted to speak for 8 minutes, and then we will see how much time we have remaining.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, 9 months ago, 13 Senators cast their vote for a 1-year deadline for redeployment of most U.S. troops from Iraq. Our country has been waiting impatiently for Washington to find the right way forward for Iraq and the right policy for our troops. It seemed then, when those 13 votes were cast, as it does now, that was the only way to help Iraq and the Middle East to emerge from a nightmarish war that has delivered chaos where it sought order, fear where it promised freedom, and open-ended escalation where the President promised us mission accomplished. This is a war which has cost us dearly in just about every possible measure of American interest and power. Today, Democrats stand nearly united behind a strategy for success, a strategy for success that includes a deadline needed to force the Iraqis to stand up for Iraq. A lot has changed in the last 9 months, but I am more convinced than ever that a combination of serious, sustained diplomacy, real diplomacy, leveraged by a 1-year deadline for the redeployment of U.S. troops, is the best way to achieve our goal of stability in Iraq and security in the region. I listened to administration spokespeople in the last few days as they went on television blasting the Democratic proposal. It is interesting how they continue their habit of just setting up a straw man, putting something out there that has nothing to do with the reality of the program, and then knocking it down. They are fond of saying: a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be just terrible to our interests in the region. Let's make it clear. A 1-year date from now, with discretion to the President to leave troops there to finish the training, with discretion to the President to leave troops there to chase al-Qaida, with discretion to the President to leave troops there to protect American facilities and forces, with the ability to have an over-the-horizon presence--a 1-year deadline from today, which would be entering the 6th year of this war, is not a precipitous withdrawal of any kind whatsoever. In fact, there are many people in the country who think that is not soon enough. The fact is, this administration wants to sow fear in Americans, so they choose to debate something that is not the proposal of those of us who have put this proposal forward. What we propose to do is change the strategy of our mission so we can achieve success. What we have seen is that this open-endedness you just kind of say we need to do this and we need to do that and we want the Iraqis to stand up and we want the police to do better and Prime Minister Maliki said he is going to deliver--none of that delivers anything. The Iraqi politicians know that as long as there is no deadline, they can take as long as they want to work out whatever power struggles and differences they have. So they are using the presence of American forces as cover for their own goals, for their own desires, until we in the United States say to them: Hey, folks, get serious. Our young people are prepared--obviously, because we have been doing it for 4 years--to put their lives on the line in order to help you have democracy, but you have to grab that democracy, you have to make decisions, and you have to go in and police your neighborhoods. The only way you are going to change that is by being responsible and demanding something. It provides the President the discretion to be able to complete the training. What else, after 5 years, would we want to be in Iraq for besides finishing the training and standing up the Iraqi forces and chasing al-Qaida and fighting the legitimate war on terror? This 1-year deadline is sound policy. It is based on the Iraq Study Group's goal of redeploying U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the first quarter of 2008. It is consistent with the timeframe for transferring control to the Iraqis that was set forth by General Casey and the schedule agreed upon by the Iraqi Government itself. Even the President has said, under his new strategy, responsibility for security would be transferred to Iraqis before the end of this year. If the President is telling us that responsibility for security can be transferred to the Iraqis by the end of this year, don't we have a right to hold the President accountable for that goal? Don't we have a right to hold the Iraqis accountable for that goal? If the goal is to transfer security to them by the end of this year, how can you resist the notion that you are going to leave troops there to complete the training, chase al-Qaida, protect American forces, but bring the bulk of our combat forces home so they, indeed, will be standing up for their own security? The President has said it. The Iraq Study Group has said it. The generals have said it. Now it is time for the Senate to put it on record as part of our effort to support this objective. It is long since time for the Iraqis to assume responsibility for their country. We need this deadline to leverage the Iraqis into making the hard compromises that are necessary. I might add, no young soldier from the United States or Great Britain ought to be dying so that Iraqi politicians can get more time to squabble, more time to try to strike a better deal for themselves. We ought to be working overtime in order to bring about a compromise that is ultimately the only solution to what is happening in Iraq today. Even now, we keep hearing the Iraqis are close to a deal on sharing oil revenues. But we still have not seen the final agreement ratified. Without a real deadline to force a deal, there is no telling how long it will take. But we do know that as long as there is no deadline, the Iraqis will believe they can take as long as they want. We also know American soldiers and Iraqi civilians will continue to die and be maimed while those politicians continue to use the presence of American forces as a cover for their other objectives. We saw that again last weekend, when Iraq's neighbors and key players from the international community finally got together at a conference in Baghdad. The conference was a welcome development. We have been calling for it for several years. It was long overdue. But nothing tangible came out of it because, of course, no preparations and no diplomacy had been carried out leading up to it in order to get something substantive to come out of it. That is precisely why a deadline is so critical and essential, to force everyone to focus on the urgent need to reach a political solution. The debate--this debate, a debate the Senate needs to have--offers a very clear choice, a choice between a new way forward and the old way that has taken us backward. I might add, yesterday we saw a little more of that old way as the rhetoric escalated. The Vice President said yesterday, ``When Members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines, and other arbitrary measures, they are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out.'' First of all, there is nothing arbitrary about a date for next year. The Iraq Study Group put it forward, the President said security responsibility could be transferred by the end of this year, and the generals put it forward. But more importantly, the Vice President of the United States must be the last person in America who believes the enemy is waiting or watching the clock. It is Iraqi politicians who are watching the clock. They are the ones who are delaying and squabbling. The enemy is busy doing what the enemy has been doing. Moreover, the Vice President lumps things together in the word ``enemy'' here in a very strange way. Yes, the enemy is al-Qaida, and we are focused on al-Qaida. But the fact is that this war in Iraq is fundamentally a civil war now. It is a struggle between Sunni and Shia, and the last I knew, they are Iraqis and they are not our enemy. They are fighting amongst each other for the power and the future of Iraq. With each day, this administration becomes more detached from the realities. I believe if you look at the figures, this is not a temporary surge. This weekend, we learned that the President's escalation is going to involve nearly 5,000 more troops than the 21,500 that was initially announced and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total could eventually reach 48,000 additional troops total. The original cost estimate was about $5.6 billion but the CBO tell us the final amount could reach nearly five times that much. And it looks more and more like the troop increase could last well into next year. We also see that most people understand that when the Vice President talks about undermining the troops, there is not one of us here who is not outraged by what has happened to the troops with respect to the lack of adequate armor, the lack of adequate humvees, the lack of adequate support, numbers of personnel and planning, and, most importantly, the treatment of those soldiers when they have come home-- a VA budget that is inadequate, a disability system that is dysfunctional, and obviously the treatment we saw recently at Walter Reed. The Vice President needs to focus on how you really support the troops. The way you really support the troops is to get the policy in Iraq right. We have a policy for success. They have had a 4-year policy of failure that has made Iran stronger, North Korea stronger, Hamas stronger, Hezbollah stronger, weakened our relations in the region, and has certainly not served the interests of our national security. It is time for the Senate to do what this administration has stubbornly refused to do to recognize that we should honor lives lost with lives saved. That starts by putting aside the hollow rhetoric and straw men that have undermined a real debate for far too long and support a strategy that preserves our core interests in Iraq, in the region, and throughout the world. That is how we support the troops. Mr. President, we can do better. This resolution we have submitted is a way to do better. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until the hour of 11:15 in order to accommodate folks on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, Missouri's own Harry Truman once said: A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who has been dead for 10 years. Somehow, another son of Missouri, Senator Tom Eagleton, managed to be both a keen master of government and a statesman in his own lifetime, as well as a dear friend of many in this Chamber. On this past Sunday, Tom passed away at age 77. Tom Eagleton was a man who radiated wit, warmth, and a brand of intellectual and moral seriousness that commanded respect, even as he won the affection of all those around him. A Senator and a statesman, a humanitarian and a humorist, Tom left his indelible mark on the issues that mattered most to him. His proudest accomplishment in a superb career in public life, and in the Senate particularly, was an amendment to cut off funds for America's disastrous bombing of Cambodia. He was also a principal author of the Senate's War Powers Resolution, which sought to dramatically limit the President's ability to commit forces abroad without the consent of Congress. Ever true to his principles, Tom voted against the version that was reported by the conference committee, which he believed the executive would ultimately exploit as a 60-day blank check to use armed force. Over President Nixon's veto, and without Senator Eagleton's vote, the bill was passed. As usual, Tom Eagleton's concerns proved only too prescient. Senator Eagleton was a fierce and passionate critic of the Vietnam war, and he worked tirelessly to end that conflict. In 1971 he made a statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one that I remember. It came about 3 weeks or so after I had been privileged to testify to that committee. He made an argument that resonates as clearly today as it did at the time he made it. He spoke of the need to set a firm date for withdrawal. In an essay he wrote entitled ``Whose Power Is War Power,'' he quoted Justice Story: In a Republic, it should be difficult to make war and easy to make peace. And yet, he said: In Vietnam, war came easy and peace comes hard. His words ring equally true of the war in Iraq, a war he fervently opposed from the outset. For a brief period of time, for the 2 years our careers overlapped in the Senate, I had the privilege of working closely with Tom. He was as decent and as humble as he was passionate. I remember, when I first came to the Senate in 1985, Tom and I were unlikely seatmates, the two most recent additions to the Foreign Relations Committee. He wrote a letter, spontaneously, to Senator Pell, then the committee chair. If there was an opportunity for him to serve as a ranking minority Democrat on a subcommittee, he said: ``I would prefer to forego [it] in favor of Senator Kerry.'' It was a magnanimous gesture that impressed me enormously, and also made a difference to my early involvement in the Foreign Relations Committee. In a place where seniority counts--then a lot more than even today, where prerogatives matter--and sometimes far too much, it was unusual to defer to a freshman Senator as he did. But that was Tom Eagleton. Tom's collegiality didn't stop at the aisle. One of his great friends in the Senate was his junior Senator, his colleague from Missouri, Republican Senator John Danforth. He championed Jack's nomination to become U.N. Ambassador and the two cooperated on countless issues, most recently as ex-Senators, cochairing Missouri's stem cell initiative to protect all forms of stem cell research allowed under Federal law. They were friends for 40 years, and colleagues in the Senate for 10. They showed a spirit of bipartisan cooperation too often missing from today's politics. On so many issues, Tom Eagleton was a trailblazer and a visionary. He helped to write the Clear Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972, foundations of today's environmental protection regime. He was among the few in the Senate to oppose the Reagan tax cuts as he said: ``Once again, once again,'' shouting in his famous baritone, ``largesse to the rich.'' As he left Washington 20 years ago, he sounded an early warning that there was too much money in American politics, and he was a staunch critic of the Iraq war, from its initial walkup to the present. Tom Eagleton blazed other trails as well. In 1956 he became the youngest circuit attorney in the history of St. Louis, a record that still stands. And in 1960, when he ran for Missouri attorney general on the same ticket as another Catholic, John F. Kennedy, he held his ground when anti-Catholic bigots scrawled graffiti over his campaign posters. Tom Eagleton, in all of his career, never lost a Missouri election in his entire life. Tom's pre-Senate career took him from the Navy to the district attorney's office to the lieutenant governorship. I might add, parenthetically, it happens to be the exact same course I followed. He was the youngest Lieutenant Governor in Missouri's history. I empathized personally with his quip that Missouri's No. 2 spot was good for standing at the window and ``watching the Missouri River flow by.'' Tom Eagleton was a quick wit, but he was also a man fully committed to living by his conscience, whether it led him to take conservative positions on social issues or even to censure a colleague from his own side of the aisle after ethical lapses. As the Senate debated ousting a Democratic Senator who had been convicted of bribery and conspiracy, Senator Eagleton was firm. He said, ``We should not perpetrate our own disgrace by asking him to remain.'' He loved justice, and it is fitting that the Federal courthouse in downtown St. Louis now bears his name. In 1968, his commitment to reform led him to challenge a sitting Democratic Senator whose record, many believed, was tarnished by corruption. After the race, his defeated opponent said bitterly: The man who builds a house on public service builds it of straw and on sand. But Tom Eagleton proved that wrong. He retired in 1987 with the love and admiration of millions in his home State of Missouri and across the country. When he announced in 1984 that he would not seek reelection to a fourth term, his statement was full of the same personal humility that had led him to hand over his seniority to a freshman Senator. He declared that ``public offices should not be held in perpetuity'' and added that he had enjoyed ``a full and complete career.'' As his colleague Dale Bumpers of Arkansas said: Tom's goal was never to be carried out of the Senate in a pine box. He chose his career in politics because he considered it the best place from which to promote justice, nobility, freedom and dignity. When Tom announced he would not seek reelection, the Kansas City Star summed up the legacy he was leaving behind: Senator Thomas F. Eagleton is the kind of politician the system is supposed to produce but so rarely does. He has elevated the job of politics because he does not accept the conventional denigration of politics. He believes it is a noble profession, and in the hands of such as himself, it is exactly that. In the two decades since he left the Senate, Tom never let go of his indefatigable sense of justice, his unique sense of humor, his taste for politics, or his love of Missouri. Once, after a ``Meet the Press'' appearance a few years ago that I was on, Tom sent me a handwritten note afterward. He said that while he thought I ``demolished'' my Republican counterpart, I really ``should have knocked his toupee off his head.'' That was Tom Eagleton, always seeing the humorous or absurd, and he sent a lot of Senators personal notes such as that over the years that made us laugh. He was the point man for the effort that wooed the Rams football team from Los Angeles to St. Louis, and even Tom was stunned by the affection that football fans showed him on the streets of St. Louis--particularly after the Rams' Super Bowl victory in 2000. After a plane crash killed Governor Mel Carnahan, the Missouri Democratic nominee for the Senate in October 2000, it was Senator Eagleton who took the lead in knocking down spurious claims that it would be illegal to keep Carnahan's name on the November ballot. In addition to his three books, Tom wrote over 50 op-eds for his hometown newspaper after leaving the Senate at age 57. He truly believed in the word ``citizenship.'' In the last of those op-eds, published November 3, 2005, Senator Eagleton was candid in his analysis of the current disaster in Iraq. He wrote: Hubris is always the sword upon which the mighty have fallen. And: From here on, any President will have to level with the American people before going to war. Tom Eagleton loved the Senate. He loved this institution. He was an expert in its rules and procedures and he believed in the constitutional power to make decisions of war and peace. In addition to his most famous book, ``War and Presidential Power: A Chronicle of Congressional Surrender,'' he also coauthored a textbook for high school students called ``Our Constitution and What It Means.'' Most of all, you could see the pleasure he took from simply being here. Above all, Tom Eagleton loved his family, his home State of Missouri, and the St. Louis Cardinals. At one point he even considered applying to become the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, but he couldn't give up his Senate seat as long as Missouri had a Republican Governor to appoint his successor. This January, Tom celebrated his 50-year anniversary with his wonderful wife Barbara. Together they raised two children, Terence and Christy, and three grandchildren. Tom Eagleton was the quintessential family man. He never stopped giving. He gave his life to serving his State and his country, and when he died he left instructions that his body was to be given to Washington University for medical research. Senator Tom Eagleton lived a full and remarkable life, and all of his colleagues and all the country will miss him dearly. He died with no regrets. ``My ambition,'' he said, ``since my senior year in high school was to be a Senator.'' Not everybody achieves their ambition. Tom Eagleton actually did a lot more than that. He achieved his own ambitions and earned the love and enduring respect of millions. Along the way, he inspired so many of us, not least of all the no-longer-freshman Senator from Massachusetts who, 23 years later, rises sadly and proudly to pay tribute to the man who once gave up his seniority but never gave up his principles.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to inform Members that the Committee will hold a hearing entitled ``Small Business Solutions for Combating Climate Change,'' on Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 10 a.m. in Russell 428A.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to honor an extraordinary man, a dedicated public servant, and, now, the Governor of my home State, Massachusetts: Deval Patrick. It is particularly fitting that we honor Deval today--during Black History Month--because not only is Deval an outstanding choice to lead our State, but he is only the second African American to be elected governor in American History. Think about that: the second African American to be elected governor in any of the 50 States of our great Nation. That is pretty amazing. But what is more amazing is that the people of Massachusetts did not elect him because they wanted to make history, they elected him because they knew he was the best man for the job. They recognized that ``Together We Can'' was more than just a catchy campaign slogan--it's a philosophy about how to treat people and how to lead them. And it embodies the kind of leadership our State and our Nation are crying out for at this time. Throughout his entire life, Deval Patrick has been pushing the envelope, striving to achieve what many thought was impossible, overcoming obstacles that might have made others of lesser conviction or determination turn back. After all, this is a man who went from the South Side of Chicago to the Harvard Law Review. This is a man who was elected President of the Legal Aid Bureau while attending Harvard Law School and who defended poor families in Middlesex County, MA prior to graduation. Let me tell you something, I attended law school, and I worked in the DA's office prior to my graduation. It is no easy task to balance these competing demands, to work with families day in and day out on issues that their lives depend on. It is a truly remarkable achievement. Yet, Deval's commitment to public service did not end there. In fact, it was just beginning. Deval went on to spend many successful years at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, devoting his efforts to discrimination and voting rights cases. Then, after serving as a Partner at the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights by President Bill Clinton. At the Justice Department, Deval served with distinction in this--the Nation's top civil rights post--investigating church burnings, prosecuting hate crimes and abortion clinic violence; holding public employers accountable for job discrimination; ensuring access to housing free of discrimination; protecting the right to vote; and enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other important civil rights laws. During his time at Justice, Deval proved that he would fight for justice, that he would fight for individual rights, and that he was not afraid to hold people accountable, even if others found it politically difficult or distasteful. These are just a few of Deval Patrick's tremendous career accomplishments that lead him to this point in time as my state's newest Governor. For generations, too many young Americans have grown up with a gnawing sense of doubt: that maybe the best that America has to offer doesn't really apply to them. That's why I am so happy that a generation of children will see men like Deval Patrick in great positions of leadership. And it is my great hope that positive examples like his will lead a new generation of people of color to push this country to ever greater heights.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Chairman would like to inform the Members that the Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship will hold a hearing entitled ``The President's Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request for the Small Business Administration,'' on Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. in Russell 428A.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, next week, on February 22, while the Senate is on recess, my senior colleague and friend Ted Kennedy will celebrate his 75th birthday, all of this in a year in which he has already marked an extraordinary milestone--45 years of service to Massachusetts and his country in the U.S. Senate. Senator Kennedy began his career setting a high standard when it comes to birthdays. It was when he reached the minimum constitutional age, 30, that he first came to the Senate--1 of just 16 Senators elected at such a tender age from a total of over 1,895 Senators in all of American history. By his 70th birthday he was one of just 28 Senators to ever cast over 10,000 votes. But what we celebrate along with Ted at 75--Democrats and Republicans, all in awe of a lifetime of achievement--is the way in which literally every year since he has been marking the passage of time by passing landmark legislation. The Boston Globe put it best, writing not long ago that ``in actual, measurable impact on the lives of tens of millions of working families, the elderly, and the needy, Ted belongs in the same sentence with Franklin Roosevelt.'' That sentence is not constructed lightly--it is the measure of a public servant who doesn't know the meaning of the words ``you can't pass it''--``it can't happen''--``impossible.'' It is the measure of a Senator who--on every issue of importance: health care, war and peace, children, education, civil rights, the rights of women--can always be counted on to be in the lead, challenging on the issues, and fighting for the principles which guide a party and lift up our country. From his maiden speech in the Senate demanding an end to the filibuster of the original Civil Rights Act, there has not been a significant policy accomplishment in Washington over four decades that hasn't borne his fingerprints and benefited from his legislative skill and leadership. His is the record of progressive politics in our era. On all the great fights that call us to stand up and be counted, from the minimum wage to Robert Bork and Sam Alito, Ted didn't just hear the call to duty he led the charge. Run down the list--the rights of the disabled a most personal cause for Ted--who for far too long were left in the shadows or left to fend for themselves, Ted Kennedy wrote every landmark piece of legislation that today prohibits discrimination against those with a disability. AIDS--when a whole lot of politicians were afraid to say the word, Ted passed a bill providing emergency relief to the thirteen cities hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic. Guaranteed access to health coverage for 25 million Americans who move from one job to another or have preexisting medical conditions wouldn't have happened without Ted Kennedy. Without Ted Kennedy, there wouldn't have been a bilingual education in the United States for the 5 million students who today have a brighter future because they are learning English in our schools. Without Ted Kennedy, we wouldn't have lowered the voting age to 18 and ended the hypocrisy that 18-year-olds were old enough to die for their country in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for its leadership at home. Without Ted Kennedy, we wouldn't be the world's leader in cancer research and prevention--as personal and meaningful an issue as there is in all the world for Ted Kennedy, not just a father, but a loving father of two cancer survivors. Without Ted Kennedy, we wouldn't have had title XI which opened the doors of competition and opportunity to a generation of women athletes all across our country. Ted is such an extraordinary public servant not only because he knows who he is, and sticks to his guns, never bending with the political currents, but because he has in his life and in his career proven again and again that progress doesn't happen by accident, it doesn't happen when you stick to the text of the latest opinion poll or the whispers of the morning focus group; it happens when leaders define and fight the fights that need fighting--when public servants of conscience and conviction refuse to take no for an answer. That is why for Ted Kennedy, the ``cause'' has not just ``endured''--but triumphed, again and again. Agree with him or not, and we all know that Ted has never been afraid to be a majority of one, Ted is such an extraordinary leader because he has excelled while completing the work in the U.S. Senate that so many others were afraid to begin. And, in being a standard-bearer for an ideal, an ideology, a view of the world, Ted has also become--as Clymer wrote--``not just the leading senator of his time, but one of the greats in its history, wise in the workings of this singular institution, especially its demand to be more than partisan to accomplish much.'' His partnerships with his fellow Senators are well-known and oft- recited, testimony to his skill and to his convictions. From Howard Baker, Jacob Javits, and Hugh Scott to Arlen Specter, Dan Quayle, Orrin Hatch, Alan Simpson, and Nancy Kassebaum and John McCain--Ted has never hesitated to cross the aisle to accomplish his goals--to further a common agenda--finding always--that ideologies, however incompatible in the currency of conventional wisdom--can be put aside for a greater good when Senators--however different--work in good faith to make their country a better place, to improve the lives of their fellow Americans. Ted has always believed you can put aside partisanship--overcome division--and that faith in the ability to come together has mattered most in some of the most trying and divisive times our Nation has endured. I don't just say this; I have lived it. Through the eyes of an activist, there is often a shocking and gaping gap between those in politics who talk the talk and those who walk the walk. It has been that way on Iraq; it was that way in the days of Vietnam. But I remember to this day that more than 35 years ago, after I had committed my life to organizing my fellow veterans to end the war, too few of our leaders were willing to listen, and even fewer were willing to stand with those Vietnam veterans who were standing up against the war. April, 1971--thousands upon thousands of veterans gathered on the Mall. The Nixon White House spread rumors that the veterans would riot and turn violent. The administration even tried to kick us off The Mall. And on that difficult night, when we didn't know if we were going to jail or we were going to demonstrate as we had come here to do, Ted Kennedy was among the brave few Senators who walked down from his office to sit and talk and listen to veterans who describe the realities they had found in Vietnam and why that war had to end. He reached out and demonstrated--in his actions as well as his words--that we had a right to tell truths many would have preferred we left unspoken, government had a responsibility to listen. He is listening still--to the voices his conscience tells him must never be ignored. He hears of children who go through their early years without health care and come to school unable to learn. And he has made their care his crusade. And so millions more children see a doctor today because of Ted Kennedy--and millions more will before he is done. He hears of workers punching a time clock--doing backbreaking work over the course of a lifetime. And he has made their economic security his agenda. And so millions of workers have seen wages increased over partisan objections, seen pensions protected when others said leave it to the market, seen Social Security protected while others said privatize it, and seen a safe workplace and the right to organize put back on the Nation's agenda--and these issues will again and again be advanced by Ted Kennedy. That is the drive--the passion--the special commitment we celebrate today--not a new ideology or a new age vision, but an age old belief that Americans have a responsibility to each other--that America is still in the process of becoming--and that we are privileged to serve here to make that dream real for all Americans. Ted Kennedy is the most prolific legislator in American history, but he is something more. Robert Kennedy once said the most meaningful word in all the English language is ``citizen.'' No one has lived out the meaning of that most meaningful word more than his younger brother. For that and so much more that makes this 75th birthday special, we honor our friend, our colleague, and a great citizen, Ted Kennedy.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remaining time between now and 2:05 be divided equally between myself and the Senator from Montana.

Mr. KERRY. I ask that I be given sort of a 2-minute notice before the division.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia whom I think has been unbelievably thoughtful, unbelievably patient and courageous in this effort. I had the privilege of traveling with him to Iraq, together with Senator Stevens. I could see the thought that he was giving then to the ways in which he was visually perceiving that it wasn't working the way it was promised. There is no stronger advocate for our Armed Forces. There is nobody who understands the military better, having just finished a tour as the chair of the Armed Services Committee. I really think the administration should bend over backwards to listen to this Senator who speaks with a voice of great reasonableness. He is greatly respected in the Senate. I thank him for his courage, for being willing to stand up on this issue. The Congress, all of us, come here with a new responsibility in a sense. The last election could not have been more clear. People all across the country registered their disapproval of the policy that was being executed in Iraq. In fact, the Iraq Study Group report was awaited with enormous anticipation by everybody as an opportunity to bring everybody together and think this through anew and find a way to get a legitimate, across-the-aisle, Republican/Democrat, joint effort in the best interests of our country. I regret to say that the best efforts of former Secretary of State Jim Baker; the former Attorney General, Chief of Staff of the President, Ed Meese; another former Secretary of State, Larry Eagleburger; a former leader in the United States Senate and moderate from the State of Wyoming, Al Simpson; and a former Secretary of Defense, Bill Perry--just to name a group of those who were on the Iraq Study Group--that their efforts were just cast aside. Every recommendation they made was left on the sidelines. Today we find the President adopting a policy which runs counter even to the advice of his own generals. Rather than listen to the advice, they change the generals and they put people in who would pursue a different policy. General Casey comes back, General Abizaid departs, and the policy goes on. This institution has a solemn obligation to vote on this issue. It should not be procedurally delayed, and it should not be played around with. The fact is, the American people asked us to accept responsibility for something for which we already have some responsibility because we voted as an institution to empower the President to be able to send troops to Iraq, though many of us who voted for that resolution never voted for the President to abuse the power he was given by ignoring diplomacy, rushing to war, and forgetting to do the planning that they had promised they would do. Our troops have done their duty. Our troops have served with remarkable courage under the most difficult circumstances. They have a right, together with the American people, to expect that this Congress does its duty. That does not mean avoiding a simple vote. If you are in favor of sending the troops, you have an opportunity tomorrow to register that vote, say you are in favor, stand up and be counted; if you are opposed you should vote no--as the House will do in a short period of time. Whatever procedural games are played on the floor of the Senate will never erase the perception by the American people of the responsibility that we ought to be exercising. They understand that this is the time and this is the place and they expect us now to execute our responsibility. We owe it to the troops. For all those who come to the Senate floor and talk about supporting the troops, responsibility for the troops, what would be fair for the troops, don't demoralize the troops--there is nothing more demoralizing, I will tell you, as a former troop myself, than having a policy that doesn't work; sending you out on missions which don't have the kind of purpose that you believe can succeed. You send these guys out in these vehicles, waiting to be blown up by an IED, knowing as they hold their breath that they don't have an adequately armored vehicle to be able to withstand it, and they go out and come back and turn to each other and say: What did we accomplish? What did we do? Did we secure a territory? Did we change minds? Did we actually hold onto some advantage gained by driving through a city in that kind of a dangerous situation? Sending an additional 20,000 of our troops in the middle of a raging civil war is not a sensible policy on any number of levels. I believe, as a matter of larger strategy, raising the stakes by sending 20,000 additional troops and saying at the same time, publicly, ``This is it, this is our big move, if this doesn't work we don't know what,'' is an unbelievable invitation to those who make mischief to make more mischief. And what's more, the very people who keep saying, ``Don't set a date, don't set a timeline,'' set a timeline on this very deployment because they have come to us and said this is only going to be for a few months. So they announce a timeline on the very escalation that they say is supposed to make the difference and advertise: If you are one of the bad guys, just wait those 3 months. That is what they can do, knowing it is only 3 months. I think there is a smarter strategy. I think there is a better way to be successful in Iraq, and it involves holding Iraqis accountable and setting legitimate benchmarks for what they ought to be doing. It is incredible to me that some people on the other side would obstruct a debate on the most fundamental issue confronting our country today. We are sent here to be a great deliberative body, and they don't want to deliberate. They don't want to make a decision. They think somehow they can just walk away and avoid responsibility for voting on the question of this escalation. The majority leader has said they will have every opportunity to vote on that in a short period of time. Every amendment they want to bring they will have an opportunity to bring. We can have, in the meantime, a real vote on Iraq. Since the end of last month when we started talking about talking about Iraq, 60 American troops have died in Iraq. There is a fellow by the name of Kevin Landeck, whom I just learned yesterday was killed on February 2 by an IED. Kevin Landeck comes from Wheaton, IL. He was a member of a Ranger unit over there. I have a wonderful photograph, a digital photograph on my computer of Kevin and a bunch of his other troops standing on a stairwell celebrating Christmas. The Christmas stockings are all hanging from the stairwell. I am proud that our office--Mary Tarr in our office particularly--has led an effort to help send packages to those troops regularly. Our office sends them boxes full of goodies, at Christmastime particularly--the stockings. Sadly, Kevin has given his life in the ultimate act of patriotism, a courageous young man, admired by his fellow soldiers. That happened during the time that we couldn't even debate this issue on the floor of the Senate, during a time that the Senate avoided its responsibility. We have every right to expect that the people who were elected to protect Kevin Landeck and the rest of those troops get this policy right--for their parents, for them, and for all of us. I believe the only way we are going to do that is, ultimately, to be able to set a target date which gives the President the discretion to keep troops there to complete the training. What other purpose is there to be there? We give the President that discretion. We give him the discretion to leave troops necessary to chase al-Qaida. We give him the discretion to be able to leave troops necessary to protect American forces and facilities. What other purpose would there be, after 4 years, to have us there but to finish the training of the Iraqis and to provide an emergency buffer against Iran and others? But you don't need to be on patrol in Baghdad, carrying the brunt of a civil war on a daily basis in order to provide that. You can be over the horizon. You can be deployed in garrison. You can be rear deployed. There are any number of ways to protect American interests in the region, and I am tired of our colleagues on the other side suggesting that a policy that clearly advantages America's position in the region, changes the dynamics, shifts responsibility to the Iraqis, and ultimately protects our troops is somehow a policy of abandonment. It is not. It is a policy for success. And it is to be measured against the current policy, which is an invitation to more jihadists. Our own intelligence agencies are telling us we are building the numbers of jihadists. We are inviting more terror. The world is more dangerous. Iraq is less united. Iran is stronger. Hezbollah is stronger. Hamas is stronger. This is a failed policy, and when a policy is failing, day after day, leaders have an obligation to stop and get it right. I believe that requires us to have a summit, bring the nations together to solve the issues between the stakeholders and ultimately resolve what our troops are powerless to resolve. A civil war is a struggle for power. We have to resolve that at the diplomatic and negotiating table. So I strongly believe it is not enough for Congress simply to go on record opposing the President's reckless plan. Congress has an obligation to provide a responsible exit strategy that preserves our interests in the region, retains our ability to protect the security of the United States, and honors the sacrifice our troops have made. Eight months ago in the Senate, 13 of us stood up against appeals to politics and pride and demanded a date to bring our troops home, to make Iraqis stand up for Iraq and fight a more effective war on terror. But while we lost that roll call, I still believe it was the right policy to put in place, to demand accountability, and to leverage action. Now, I am more convinced than ever that a combination of serious, sustained diplomacy and the enforcement of benchmarks for progress by the Iraqi government, leveraged by a 1-year deadline for redeployment of U.S. troops, is the best way to achieve our goal of stability in Iraq and security in the region. That is why I will again introduce legislation that offers a comprehensive strategy for achieving a political solution and bringing our troops home within 1 year. We have to find a way to end this misguided war, and I believe this legislation is the best and most responsible way forward. Let me emphasize that this strategy does not mean abandoning Iraq in 1 year: in fact, it gives the President the discretion to leave the minimum number of U.S. troops necessary to complete the training of Iraqi security forces, go after terrorists, and protect U.S. facilities and personnel. This 1-year deadline is not arbitrary. It is consistent with the Iraq Study Group's goal of withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the first quarter of 2008--it's consistent with the timeframe for transferring control to the Iraqis set forth by General Casey, and the schedule agreed upon by the Iraqi government itself. Even the President has said that, under his new strategy, responsibility for security would be transferred to Iraqis before the end of this year. It is the opposite of arbitrary. The President has said it, our generals have said it, the Iraq Study Group has said it. Some say those of us who oppose the President's failed policy in Iraq do not offer an alternative--nothing could be further from the truth. This legislation offers a comprehensive military and diplomatic strategy that incorporates key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group--including many that some of us here have long been advocating-- to provide us with the best chance to succeed: holding a summit with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria--creating an international contact group--enforcing a series of benchmarks for meeting key political objectives--shifting the military mission to training Iraqi security forces and conducting targeted counterterrorism operations--and maintaining an over-the-horizon presence to protect our interests throughout the region. It is time for Iraqis to assume responsibility for their country. We need a timetable which forces Iraqi politicians to confront reality and start making the hard compromises they have resisted thus far. Instead, they are using America's presence as a security blanket. Americans should not be dying to buy time for Iraqi politicians hoping to cut a better deal. We should be working to bring about the compromise that is ultimately the only solution to what is happening today in Iraq. And Iraqi politicians have repeatedly shown they only respond to deadlines--a deadline to transfer authority, deadlines to hold two elections and a referendum, and a deadline to form a government. Without hard deadlines, our best hopes for progress in Iraq have been repeatedly dashed. When Prime Minister Maliki took power in May, General Casey and Ambassador Khalilzad said the new government had 6 months to make the political compromises necessary to win public confidence and unify the country. They were right, but with no real deadline to force the new government's hand, that period passed without meaningful action--and we are now seeing the disastrous results. In fact, for 4 years now, we have been hearing from this administration that progress is right around the corner. We have been hearing the Iraqis are near a deal on oil revenues, that they are making progress towards reconciliation--but we still haven't seen any results. That is why we must give teeth to the benchmarks agreed upon by the Iraqi government for national reconciliation, security and governance. Meeting these benchmarks is crucial, but without any enforcement mechanism, they are little more than a wish list. That is why this legislation supports the Iraq Study Group proposal to make U.S. political, military, or economic assistance conditional on Iraqis's meeting these benchmarks. A deadline is also essential to getting Iraq's neighbors to face up to the realities of the security needs of the region. None of them want to see Iraq fall apart. That should be the basis for cooperation in stabilizing Iraq, and yet a sense of urgency has been lacking. This deadline will make clear the stakes and hopefully focus their minds on helping the Iraqis reach a political solution. We cannot turn back the clock and reverse the decisions that brought us to this pass in Iraq and the Middle East. We cannot achieve the kind of clear and simple victory the administration promised the American people again and again even as Iraq went up in flames. But we can avoid an outright defeat. We can avoid creating the chaos we all say we want to avoid. We can avoid a victory for our adversaries by taking a clear- eyed approach to identifying specifically what we can and cannot accomplish in Iraq. With a new Congress comes a new responsibility: to get this policy right. That starts with preventing the President from going forward with this senseless escalation. And it has to end with an exit strategy that preserves our core interests in Iraq, in the region, and throughout the world. Only then will we have honored the sacrifices of our troops and the wishes of those who sent us here. Only then will we have done our duty.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his comments about my colleague, Senator Kennedy, who I know, if he were here, would be equally grateful. I am not going to be addressing the issue of Senator Kennedy's birthday today. I will do so tomorrow. But we are all grateful for Senator Byrd and what he represents in the Senate. There is nobody who knows the record of my colleague better, who has served with him longer, or who has been through more battles with him than Senator Byrd. We are grateful for those comments.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Four years ago, as we all know too well, we sent our young men and women to Iraq for a war that many of us now believe was a grave and tragic mistake. Day after day, month after month, the administration has repeatedly exacerbated that mistake by leaving our soldiers in the field without the equipment and without the protection they need and deserve, knowing full well what the lethal consequences would be. There will be and there is disagreement in this body over the next difficult steps to take in Iraq. We can disagree on troop numbers. We can disagree on a timetable. We can disagree on the shape of a future political settlement in Iraq. Surely, we can all recognize those are honest differences of opinion. But there is no difference of opinion and there is no disagreement here that we ought to be giving our troops absolutely everything they need in order to accomplish this mission. There is no disagreement that those troops deserve everything they need to be as safe as possible, and there should be no disagreement that when we ask young men and women to leave their families to fight deadly foreign enemies halfway across the globe, when we ask them to put their lives on the line, the least we owe them is the equipment they need to protect themselves and get the job done. One soldier dying from a roadside bomb because he or she does not have the body armor is one too many. The fact is, when it comes to body armor, when it comes to armored vehicles in Iraq, our troops do not have what they need. According to the Washington Post this week, our soldiers are short more than 4,000 of the latest humvee armor kit, the FRAG Kit 5. Fewer than half of the Army's 14,500 up-armored HMMWVs in Iraq and Afghanistan have the latest equipment. As Lieutenant General Stevens, the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Force Development, said: We don't have the kits and we don't have the trucks. It is not just armored vehicles that would keep our troops safer. They need better body armor, too. People are actually holding bake sales in our States in order to raise the money to privately purchase and send to their loved ones the armor or the helmets they want. Over a year ago, the Pentagon issued a report that many of the deaths in Iraq caused by upper-body injuries could be prevented if all the body armor issued to our troops included side armor plates. Some of my colleagues raised this issue with Secretary Rumsfeld, and he assured them that the Pentagon was going to begin the procurement and delivery of an additional 230,000 sets of side armor plates. Last month, another Pentagon report found continued shortages in force protection equipment for our soldiers, a shortage of body armor, a shortage of up-armored vehicles, a shortage of communications equipment, and a shortage of electronic countermeasure devices. We have also heard firsthand from troops that many are still being issued body armor without the side armor plates. How can someone be content to send our soldiers on the most dangerous patrols in the roughest neighborhoods of Baghdad without the best possible protection being afforded them? In the last 4 years, over 1,100 Americans have died from roadside bombs, and thousands of our best troops have suffered debilitating injuries or had their lives permanently altered by these terrible weapons. Knowing full well you don't have enough armor for the troops already in the field, how do you responsibly turn around and say: That is OK. We will just go ahead and put another 21,500 or more right there alongside them, particularly when it is a job that Iraqis themselves ought to be doing? By themselves, these shortages are trouble. But the President's plan to send over this additional force makes them even more questionable. Now we hear that the troops pouring into Iraq will not even have enough up-armored HMMWVs or other armored vehicles until July. So what is the rationale for putting in the over 20,000 now, when the armor their lives depend on is not going to arrive until July? How do you turn around and say to a parent or to one of those young people themselves that they are the next people to be over in Bethesda or in Walter Reed minus their limbs? Oh, sorry, we just didn't get them over there in time, even though we had a couple of years to make the plans and respond, the most powerful, richest Nation on the face of the planet, one that prides itself on its technology and on its support for the troops. How do you explain that to one of those soldiers? Eighteen months into the war, Donald Rumsfeld told troops in Kuwait a now famous line: As you know, you go to war with the Army that you have. Well, in addition to being a pretty smug and even cavalier thing to say at that point in time, you ought to measure it by where we are today. That was about a year and a half ago. You may go into war with the Army you have, but smart people adapt to their enemy's tactics. You exploit their weaknesses, and you certainly work to minimize your own. We ended World War II in less time than it has taken to prosecute the current war in Iraq. We ended it with a weapon that didn't even exist when World War II began, when Pearl Harbor took place. We have known for years now that the technologies our enemies are using to kill our troops are outpacing the equipment we use to protect them. And the gap between their offensive weapons and our defensive armor is only growing, thanks in part to a major increase in an especially lethal kind of roadside bomb, the so-called EFP or explosively formed penetrator. This is a diabolical contraption which has been described as a ``spear that rips right through the vehicle.'' It can shoot a metal projectile through the side of even an up-armored HMMWV and turn pieces of the vehicle itself into shrapnel that kills or maims the soldiers inside. Ninety percent of American fatalities from these terrible weapons have come in Baghdad. Against the warnings of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, against the warnings of GEN John Abizaid, against the warnings of the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff last year, who said we don't need more troops and don't want them, the President is now sending five brigades to referee a Sunni/Shia civil war. We are sending them without the protection they need to survive EFP attacks. Unfortunately, even with the latest armor, soldiers will still die from roadside bombs. But the new armor reinforces the doors, slows down the projectile, will keep soldiers safer, and it will save many lives. When GEN James Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps, talked about the armor kits, he said the following: They are expensive, but they are going to save lives. The technology exists right now to keep our troops safer. So why, 4 years later, do our troops not have it? Partly, it is due to the gross incompetence at the highest levels of this Administration in their commitment to the procurement process itself. Mostly, it is the fact that we have never been mobilized to actually do what you do in war. We talk about war; the rhetoric is all about war; but there is no request of Americans to behave as if we are at war. Certainly, for the people waiting for that equipment, there is no showing that we are serious about it. From the time we invaded, the need for a fleet of vehicles that could keep our troops safe has been unmistakable. From the time we first got there, people knew you would drive down the streets and be exposed to these kinds of risks. Yet we kept relying on one single provider of uparmored HMMWVs, and given the chronic shortfalls we have seen, that is a pretty amazing reliance. Still, the Administration doesn't seem to respond. The President's defense budget for next year does not include enough funds for armored vehicles, so the Marine Corps had to ask Congress for an additional $2.8 billion to buy more mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles. Going back to 2002, the Administration terminated funding for one alternative vehicle that was more suited to the battlefield in Iraq--because of what they called ``budget priorities.'' I want to know what the budget priority was that came ahead of providing a vehicle to our troops that would have been more suited to the battlefield. Was it the tax cuts? What was the priority? While this is an urgent short-term concern, we also need to think about what our soldiers will need in the long term for 21st century warfare. Enemies are taking book on the weaknesses that we are showing them on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this will not be the last war in which our troops are targeted in the vehicles they ride. Since Somalia, in 1993, we have known that humvees, with their thin skin and square-bottom chassis, are ill-suited for counterinsurgency and the modern battlefield. We need to bridge this short-term gap and we need to invest in the armored vehicles to keep our soldiers safe in the future. This is serious business, and we cannot afford to be vulnerable or reluctant to engage with the urgency it requires. No Commander in Chief and no Congress should knowingly put the lives of our soldiers at risk unnecessarily. But that is exactly what is happening as we escalate this war. It is long past time that we had an honest conversation about what protecting our troops means. Some of our colleagues have come to the floor, even after blocking a vote on what we might or might not do with respect to Iraq and the President's escalation plan, and they say they want an amendment saying that if Congress were to use the power of the purse to force this Administration to change its failed policy, that that somehow would be putting our troops at risk. Let me tell you what puts our troops at risk. It is sending them on a mission without the equipment, without the armor, without the vehicles that we know how to produce and are not being produced, and which they don't have. That is what puts our troops at risk. It seems to me it is unfair, if not negligent, to put our troops at risk in the crossfire of a civil war without the equipment they need. So we ought to make certain we give our soldiers the extra body armor and the latest uparmored HMMWVs in order to do their job. That is why I will again introduce a resolution in the Senate that offers us the best chance to salvage some measure of success in Iraq. I am convinced the real way you protect the troops is to give them a mission that indeed invites success. And absent the kind of summit and diplomacy necessary to resolve the fundamental political differences between Shia and Sunni, between the fundamental stakeholders in Iraq, our soldiers, no matter how brave or courageous--and they are both--cannot do the job. The job has to be done at a table negotiating out those differences. It is long since time we had a policy that sought to get Iraqis to take responsibility for Iraq. The Iraqis have shown again and again that they only respond to a deadline. About 6 months ago, General Casey and Ambassador Khalilzaid said publicly that the Iraqis had about 5 months to make a series of decisions in order to resolve their differences, or it may become almost impossible to make it happen. Those 5 months came and went. Nothing happened. Nothing was required of the Iraqis that was firm. Nothing happened to change the equation on the ground in Iraq. I believe it is only with a deadline that urges them to take those steps that we will ultimately be successful. That is what I believe we owe our soldiers.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, last week our country and the State of Massachusetts lost a favorite son. Antonio Pierro passed away last week at the age of 110. Today would have been his 111th birthday. The Guinness World Records has said that Pierro was America's oldest war veteran, having served in World War I, and the oldest American man in its records. Only seven veterans of WWI are still known to be alive. Pierro was born in Italy in 1896 and lived there before he immigrated to the United States in 1914. Only 3 short years later, he was drafted into the Army and sent to France to fight in WWI. Pierro was given the opportunity to fight for the Italians, an ally of the United States, but instead chose to fight for his new homeland. Once his service was completed he followed his father and brothers back to Swampscott, MA and spent the rest of his life as a resident of the Bay State. His love for America was evident to all of those he met. His nephew, Richard Pierro said, ``When he left Italy, he left for good. This was the promised land. He didn't want to go back, even if you offered him free passage.'' Pierro worked at a shoe plant, managed a body shop and eventually spent 17 years at General Electric in Lynn until his retirement, 46 years ago, in 1961. His family attributes his longevity to his strict adherence to three square meals a day and lots of sleep. Pierro lived by simple rules of life and remained dedicated to leading a simple, good life until the day he passed. His is remembered as having a ``twinkle in his eye'' and a gratitude for all that life had offered him. He lived in three different centuries, and he lived well. I ask that we remember him today as a veteran, a true American, and a testament to life's many gifts and surprises. Our country is honored by his service but also thankful for the lessons his life offers about patriotism, family, and the simple pleasures of life.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Small Business Disaster Loan Reporting Act of 2007,'' which will require the Small Business Administration to update its disaster response plan and to submit detailed disaster loan reports to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. This bill is a bipartisan effort, and I thank Ranking Member Snowe as well as Senators Landrieu, Vitter, and Lieberman for their efforts in bringing this bill together. In the months since Hurricane Katrina, Rita and Wilma, I have worked with other members of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship to improve the SBA's disaster loan program. We have introduced numerous drafts of this legislation, and each time our reform proposals have been blocked by the administration. While we continue to work toward passing this comprehensive reforms bill, we need to address some of the provisions that will assist Congress in assessing how the SBA's disaster loan program is operating in the present. SBA Administrator Steve Preston appeared before the House Committee on Small Business this morning and admitted that although the SBA has implemented widespread reforms in its operational approach to processing and disbursing disaster loans, there is no plan on paper to speak of that can be provided to Congress. To provide disaster victims with a quick and effective response in the aftermath of future disasters, we must continue to evaluate the SBA's programs, building upon successes and making improvements when we identify agency flaws. It is imperative that the SBA review its disaster response plan in preparation for the 2007 hurricane season, and this bill requires the SBA to do so and to submit its changes to our Committee and the House Small Business Committee for review. Last February, while thousands of Gulf Coast hurricane victims sat waiting for promised disaster relief to arrive, the SBA nearly ran out of money twice for its Disaster Assistance program. It required two emergency acts of Congress to keep the program running. Despite knowing about these funding issues well in advance, the SBA chose not to disclose the problem to its authorizing Committee until just before the issue came to a head. With greater coordination and transparency, Congress can work with the SBA to ensure that this essential disaster response program does not run the risk of shutting down. This bill requires the SBA to provide the Committee with detailed monthly and daily reports to update us on the program's lending volumes as well as funding levels. It also requires the SBA to notify its oversight committees when it will be seeking supplemental funding. Making the disaster loan program transparent for our review is crucial in creating a system that provides timely and valuable assistance to victims of disasters, and this legislation will help to do that. The SBA's failure to act quickly and effectively in response to the devastation of the 2005 hurricanes was unacceptable, but as we have learned from the continuing devastation in those areas, long-term disaster assistance for our small businesses also requires attention to federal procurement requirements. Small businesses need to play a leading role in rebuilding these areas. This legislation requires the SBA to report to Congress the number of contracts awarded to small businesses following disaster declarations, because continued assistance and government contracts for small businesses in these areas help to empower entrepreneurs to make their homes and cities vibrant once again. This bill will improve the SBA disaster loan program in allowing better congressional oversight to ensure the agency is giving entrepreneurs the tools they need to make a difference in their communities after a disaster.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to inform the Members that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship will hold a hearing entitled ``Alternatives for Easing the Small Business Health Care Burden,'' on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at 10 a.m. in Russell 428A.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for such time as I consume.

Mr. KERRY. Well, I ask that, yes.

Mr. KERRY. I probably will not use more time, but at least I am protected. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the comments of my colleague, the Senator from Connecticut. I appreciate the frustration he expressed about what has gone on in the last hours here and the difficulty of presenting to the country a Senate that appears unable to make up its mind about what resolution we ought to vote on. The fact is, the last 24 hours in the Senate have not been a profile in courage; they have been a profile in politics. Rather than protect the troops, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to try to do what they can to protect the President. I think they have made an enormous mistake. The fact is, if we voted on the Warner resolution, those who support the mission, the escalation--but the mission, as the Senator from Arizona said--have a chance to vote no, and those who believe the escalation is a mistake have an opportunity to vote yes. It just does not get any clearer than that. No matter what happens with all this argument about the process of one resolution versus another resolution, the bottom line is that people who on Sunday shows and in hearings stand up and say they oppose the escalation were, yesterday, unwilling to allow the Senate to vote on that. They were unwilling to have a vote of conscience on the question of the direction of this war. So rather than protect the troops, those troops who are about to be sent into a mission that, in fact, does not resolve the issue of Iraq-- and perhaps even makes it far more dangerous, certainly more dangerous for those troops being asked to perform it--are not protected by the Senate, making its best effort here to try to make a vote that disagrees with the President. The Senator from Arizona was down here a few minutes ago asking the question of the majority leader: If you do not support the troops' mission, then aren't you, by definition--if you vote as we would like to vote here--not supporting the troops? That is just an extraordinary leap of logic which has no basis whatsoever in real reasoning. The Senator from Arizona himself has criticized the policies of this administration time and again--in fact, not enough. But time and again, he has said Mr. Rumsfeld was wrong or he did not have confidence in him or this and that. Was that a criticism of the troops? Was that not supporting the troops? I am absolutely confident the answer is no. I know, and we all know, the Senator from Arizona supports the troops, but he has been able to draw a distinction between criticizing the policy and support for the troops. I will tell you, the best way you support the troops, you support the troops by getting the policy right. Right now, all over the Hill here in Washington, there are veterans of the Iraq war who are going around and talking to Congressmen and Senators and the public, advocating that this mission in Iraq ought to change, that we ought to begin a process of terminating our involvement there. They have a very different view of their own service than that which is expressed by some on the other side of the aisle. The fact is, there is a growing sentiment among many of those being asked to do this very difficult job that the missions they are being sent on don't, in fact, always make sense. I remember--and I know the Senator from Arizona remembers--what it is like to be a troop in a war. I remember being on a river in Vietnam when the Secretary of Defense was flying over us on one of his visits to take a look at what was going on. Every single one of us said to each other: Boy, wouldn't it be great if he came down here and talked to us and found out what we really think is going on. We would have loved the policy to change. The fact is that more and more of the veterans I have talked to who are returning from Iraq and some, regrettably, as Senator Dodd and I noticed a few days ago, whom we met over there who have not returned alive, are against what is happening and believe there is a better way to manage this war. What we are trying to do is have a vote, albeit on a nonbinding resolution, a vote that expresses the view of the Senate with respect to this war. We have a moral obligation to make that statement in the Senate. It is our duty to have that vote. The soldiers in Iraq are performing their duty. Why aren't the Senators in the Senate performing theirs? Is it their duty to obstruct? Is it their duty to protect the President, to prevent a vote? Even though they go out publicly and talk about their opposition to the war, their opposition to the escalation, their belief that the direction is wrong, we are not supposed to vote in the Senate on the question of whether you support the troops or don't support the troops by sending an additional 21,000 troops over there. Now is the time for the Senate to register its opposition to the escalation. If you pursue the logic of the other side of the aisle when they say: Well, we can't have a vote here, we shouldn't express anything, we shouldn't try to change anything, then we are complicit in the very process with which we disagree. If lives are lost subsequent to our unwillingness to stand up and vote, do we bear any responsibility for the loss of those lives? Do you go home and say to yourself at night, to your wife or your children: Do you know I did everything possible to try to stop what is happening? When you make the next phone call to a mother or father or wife in your State and express your sorrow for their loss in the next days ahead, will you also be able to say, with a clear conscience, that you did your best to try to prevent that loss, to set this war on its proper course? I don't think so. I don't think anybody, with a clear conscience, can say that. I hate the fact that we are reduced to having a vote on something that isn't at this moment going to change the direction. But every step is incremental; every step is a building block. Every step helps to build the change of opinion we need to achieve in this country, where people will understand the way you best define patriotism and the way you best defend the interests of our troops on the ground in Iraq. Surely, we haven't reached a point in the Senate where you can't even have a debate on the most important life-and-death issue facing people in this country. What are we supposed to do? Pack up and go home and let the President continue to make a mistake? Are we supposed to be somehow satisfied that the President has earned the right and the new Secretary of Defense? Who knows yet; the decision is out. But the record of the last 5 years, 6 years is one of mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake, one after the other, from the planning to the numbers of troops, to what you do afterwards, to how you preserve the peace, to what kind of politics we are going to pursue. So we are doing what we can, within our limited power, with 60-vote restrictions, to register our disapproval to sending an additional number of troops, which has been told to the American people is 21,000 but which, in fact, is over 40,000 when you finish with the support troops who are necessary. These troops deserve a policy that is worthy of their sacrifice. No Senator that I know of is not committed to success. We would like to be successful. But what is the definition of success now? We have heard month after month from Ambassador Khalilizad. General Casey, over 7 months ago, said this is the last 6 months for Iraq. They have a fundamental 6-month period within which they have to get their act together, and if they don't, serious problems. That time came and passed. What happened? We hear another promise of the next few months. We have had months and even years now of these promises about how this is a moment of turning the corner. This is the critical moment for Iraq. This is the moment of the difference. Everybody has known for the whole last year or more that you have to resolve the oil revenues issue. As I stand on the floor tonight, the oil revenues issue is not resolved. They say they are making progress, they are getting closer, but it isn't resolved. The fundamental question of federalism, the role between the Shia and the Sunni and a strong Baghdad and a strong central government is unresolved. That is a fundamental part of the struggle. Our troops, with their technology, with their great weapons, with their unbelievable willingness to sacrifice and their courage, they can't resolve that issue. Iraqi politicians have to resolve that issue. Right now, as we are debating or not debating this issue, Iraqi politicians are still jockeying for power at the expense of our young men and women. I object to that. I get angry that we have to have a private fundraising effort to put together a rehab for our soldiers--thank God for the people who did it--in order to take care of those who are going to be wounded. And our people are talking about patriotism and supporting the troops? We have lost all contact with what is reasonable or what is real in this effort. It is unacceptable that any young American ought to be giving their life or going through the sacrifice for Iraqi politicians who refuse to compromise, for a legislature that refuses to even meet. Less than 50 percent of them can be convened, a Parliament that doesn't meet, that is the democracy we are supposedly fighting for--Shia and Sunni politicians who are jockeying amongst each other, creating their own militias, each of them playing for a future with a U.S. security blanket lying over it, preventing the full explosion of the kind of sectarian violence that would flow, if all were left to their own devices. That is the one thing our presence is doing. There is a stopgap. It does prevent absolute chaos, but it is creating a slow, cancerous, insidious kind of chaos that is building on itself. A couple of days ago, the largest number of civilians were killed by a bomb, by one single suicide bomb. It gets worse by the day because the fundamental issues of difference between people who have always lived there and will live there after we are gone are not resolved. If you stand back from this and look at it and ask, as any reasonable American would ask: What do you do to resolve this, what do you do to make a difference in Iraq, I don't think any American is going to come to the conclusion that a soldier with a gun is going to make that difference. General Casey has told us he doesn't believe it will make the difference. General Abizaid said he didn't think it would make a difference. The President has even said there is no military solution. So if there is indeed no military solution, my question to this administration is: Where is the robust diplomacy and the robust political jawboning, arm twisting that is necessary to get a solution? Where is it? It is invisible to the average American. If we don't get serious about that diplomacy, if we don't have a summit that some of us have been calling for for 3 years, and that is ultimately the only way to resolve these differences, then our soldiers are being sacrificed and being asked to sacrifice each day without a reasonable policy that is guiding this war. What are we left to do? Are we left to say that our colleagues can stop a vote? We are going to walk away, and we are not going to try to do what we can to change this or to stop it? I don't think so. That is not the Senate that I came to serve in or I think most of our colleagues came to serve in. This is a silly sort of process that is going back and forth. If you are opposed to the escalation, you ought to have a right to vote on it. If you are for it, you will have the right to vote for it. Go register your vote and then go out to the country. The troops over there are tougher than anybody in this room. They understand what their mission is. And what we do, ultimately, barring the effort to either cut off the funds or force the President to do something with 60 votes that we don't yet have, is not going to change their dedication or their courage or their commitment to the specific mission. Because that is the kind of troops we have. But while we are talking about the kind of troops we have, let me ask a question: Our troops, most of them, go through basic training. They go through a specialized school. They train with their brigade unit company for a while. Then they are sent over. Most of our troops are ready to go to battle, and some of them do, new recruits, within 7 months, 9 months. We are now at the 3-year mark, 4-year mark on training of 300,000 troops in Iraq. What I hear from the experts is the problem with them is not training. The problem is motivation. How much training do you think the terrorists get? How much training do you think the guys get who have those machineguns and go out? Where is their training camp? Where are their barracks? Where is their 9-week basic training or 12 weeks? Most of those people are out there in a matter of days and hours because they are motivated. Right now in the streets of the West Bank and the streets of Lebanon and in the streets of Iraq, the guys we are struggling against are getting up earlier, staying up later, and they have more motivation. And the guys we are supporting and putting forth money and guns and all the technology and all the training in the world are not motivated. Many of them don't show up. So unless we deal with this issue of motivation, of people who are willing to die for their country and people who are willing to go out and put their lives on the line and a group of politicians who are willing to make the decisions necessary to resolve this, this is going to go on and on and on, and it is not going to end well. Everybody knows what the public assessment is on the latest NIE. People are learning privately what it is. The fact is, these are difficult times over there. This is not getting better. It is getting worse. Twenty-one thousand troops are not going to change that. An escalation is not going to change that. More troops on the ground raises the stakes. More troops on the ground provides more targets. More troops on the ground raises the stakes in a way that says, because we heard it from the administration: Boy, this is kind of our last- ditch stand. And if we don't make this work, we don't know what is going to happen. What a wonderful message to send to the other side. We are being accused of sending bad messages. If you raise the stakes like that but create a mission and actually can't necessarily achieve it, you are preordaining the potential of even worse consequences because you will make the negotiation even harder. You will make it harder for the surrounding countries to say: This is sensible, we ought to get involved now. And you will make it harder for the people there to make the compromises necessary because they know that down the road is this confrontation with reality with an administration that has already said: We don't have a plan beyond this. What a predicament. That just defies common sense. So we have made matters worse. We will raise the stakes, but we don't have a way to deal with it. A wing and a prayer. This is a ``Hail Mary'' pass by this administration, with no guarantee. I think our troops deserve some guarantees of an outcome. The best guarantee I can think of is to redeploy them in a way that puts more emphasis on what the Iraqis need to do. It doesn't mean leaving Iraq completely. There are plenty of over-the-horizon strategies, such as in the desert deployments, a capacity to be there for emergency assistance, to tamp down chaos and go after al-Qaida, an ability to remain in a truly supportive training role without having our troops on the front line of a civil war. But those are not the ones they are putting on the table, and that is not what we hear them talk about. We hear these two dramatic things: We have to go down this road where we have telegraphed our move and raise the stakes, and saying they are talking about complete withdrawal. No, they are not. Most are talking about how to achieve success in a responsible way which honors the sacrifice of our troops and meets the important national security needs of the United States of America. The only way I know of to do that is to get to the diplomatic table; bring our neighbors into a new dynamic where they begin to have credibility; get Syria and others through the Arab League, the U.N, Perm 5, and begin a process of legitimate diplomacy, such as we have read about in the history books of our Nation for years. The great diplomats of our country are aghast at what we are doing now. Listen to any number of them privately, some who served in the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President--Secretaries of State, such as Jim Baker. Jim Baker is a model in how to build a true coalition. It took him 15 trips to Syria before. On the 15th trip, he finally got President Assad to agree to support what we were engaged in. I am not sure the current Secretary of State has made 15 trips in the last 5 years. I cannot tell you the exact number, but I don't think it is 15 in the years she has been in office, let alone the prior Secretary of State. Mr. President, we have to get serious about what we are going to do. The fact is, there are over 3,000 young Americans who have now died. I think four were reported in the newspapers yesterday. There will be more tomorrow and the next day. The fact that we are losing young Americans is not a reason to say we should leave. But it is a reason to say we should get the policy right. It is a reason to say we owe them a strategy that supports the sacrifice they are making. We ought to be able to do better than what we are doing now, Mr. President. So this is really pretty simple. The Iraqi Study Group put forward some 79 recommendations. They have all been cast aside. This was a moment where the President could have brought Democrats to the table, all of us. We could have sat down and come together around, OK, let's put all these recommendations together. These will work, and we are willing to support these. Let's go out jointly and see if we can leverage the full power of the Senate and the Congress and the country behind the kind of strategy we need in the Middle East in order to protect these real interests, which range from Israel, to containing Iran, dealing with the protection of the gulf states, to Lebanon, the fledgling democracy, and obviously to stability in Iraq. We all understand that, not to mention oil and the economy and the other interests that we have. Those are real. But I respectfully submit that the current policy we are on is recklessly putting those very interests at greater risk. And the measurement of that statement is in the fact that Iran is actually more powerful today as a consequence of what we are doing. Iran loves the fact that we are bogged down in Iraq because it makes it far more difficult for us to play a legitimate card in order to deal with their nuclear ambitions. There is nobody in the world who doubts that. Lebanon is more in jeopardy today, with Hezbollah and Nasrallah in greater positions of threat to the Government and the Prime Minister. Hamas has been in an ascendency in the last months, and we have been unable to move forward with a legitimate entity with which to be able to ultimately make peace. All these things are worse off today than a year ago, than 2 years ago, and worse off than 6 years ago. If they are worse off, how do you stand there and say this is a good policy, that we ought to keep doing what we are doing, digging a deeper hole, and making it worse? I was over in the Middle East a month ago. I met with leaders of the region. I can tell you that while, yes, they say they don't want a precipitous departure and a crazy consequence of chaos as a result, they also do want the United States to play a sensible, constructive, and legitimate role in resolving the fundamental issues of the region. So I think a lot of us have had enough of hearing these phony debates about who supports the troops. We all support the troops. This is the best trained military that many of us have ever seen. They are doing an amazing job under difficult circumstances. Again and again, I say that they deserve the support of a Congress that gets this policy right and that fights for them while they are over there and guarantees that when they come home, they don't have to fight for themselves to have the promises that were made to them kept. That is what this is about. I think we can have a very simple vote. If you are for the escalation and you think it is the right policy, vote no against the resolution. If you are against the policy of escalation and you think it is the wrong policy and you want to be counted, then you ought to vote aye for the resolution. That is a vote we can have tonight, tomorrow, or any time. Most people here know where they stand, but they are unwilling to show the American people and unwilling to hold this President accountable. Shame on us. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today we pay our respects to a great son of Massachusetts who passed away on Sunday, an inspiration to me and a leader beloved by many, Father Robert Drinan. In all his life's endeavors, from the church pulpit to the halls of Congress to the classroom, Father Drinan was guided by a firm and unwavering moral compass. He lived out in public life the whole cloth of Catholic teachings. In religion and politics alike, he followed his sense that we are all put on this Earth for something greater than ourselves. Wherever he went, he was led there by a concern for the weak, the helpless, the downtrodden. In religion and politics alike, that was his calling. And as he walked between these worlds, on a path unique in our Nation's history, he was always unmistakably and wonderfully true to himself. Father Drinan was a forever gentle, resilient, tenacious advocate for social justice and fundamental decency. In the most divisive days of Vietnam, when things were coming apart, this incredible man, this most unlikely of candidates, showed America how a man of faith could be a man of peace. As a politician, Father Drinan is best remembered for his spirited opposition to the Vietnam war. That's what brought him to Congress in the first place and it is how our paths first crossed. In 1970, after we first met as opponents in the Peoples' Caucus, I was honored to support, campaign, and to work with and learn from committed Democrats like Jerome Grossman, John Marttila, Tom Kiley, John Hurley, and Tom Vallely. Together, many of these committed activists would spend the next decades championing the great progressive causes that marked the Drinan campaign. Father Drinan's slogan was ``Father Knows Best.'' I began studying law at Boston College--where Father Drinan had been the youngest law school Dean in the country--while he was down here, in Congress, making law, and making history. Father Drinan's testimony against the war was remarkably powerful. He toured jails in Saigon and met a South Vietnamese politician there who had been jailed after placing second in an election. In the religious language of just war doctrine and the plain language of common decency, he helped us to see the flaws of our policy in Vietnam and urged the Church to speak out with great moral authority. And even before his own words found their way into FBI files, even before his own name made its way onto Nixon's enemies list, Father Drinan was a champion for dissent and he had a special understanding of the obligations of patriotism. He helped eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the scene of one of the Cold War's ugliest chapters. He met with famous Soviet dissidents like Sharansky and Sakharov and founded the National Interreligious Task Force for Soviet Jewry. Angered by the treatment of Soviet dissidents, he was the first Congressman to call for a boycott of the Moscow Olympics. And he sought to hold the President of the United States accountable for his behavior. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, he questioned witnesses in the Watergate hearings. But even before then he became the first Congressman to urge the impeachment of President Nixon, not for the Watergate coverup but for the illegal bombing of Cambodia. That, he thought, was the far greater crime. ``Can we be silent about this flagrant violation of the Constitution?'' he asked. ``Can we impeach a president for concealing a burglary but not for concealing a massive bombing?'' After 10 years in Congress, Father Drinan was forced to choose between the two passions of his life: politics and the Catholic Church. He chose to remain in the priesthood and spent the rest of his life outside government as a passionate advocate for human rights and a much-loved law professor. ``As a person of faith,'' he said, ``I must believe that there is work for me to do which somehow will be more important than the work I am required to leave.'' As president of the Americans for Democratic Action, he traveled and spoke widely on hunger, civil liberties and the dangers of the nuclear arms race. He cofounded the Lawyers' Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control, and served as vice chair of the ACLU's National Advisory Council and a member of the Helsinki Watch Committee. Father Drinan's life of political activism was in the best tradition of what it means to be a Jesuit--love of learning and a commitment to justice. Jesuits were among the first to speak out against the Vietnam war and later against illegal interventions in Central America. As a professor and an activist, Father Drinan lived the ideals of his faith. Asked about his activism, Father Drinan once said ``it goes back to the fact that you're a Christian and a Jesuit. . . . It means you have to love each other and that you can't persecute people. You have to be compassionate to everyone in the world.'' It was as simple as that for him. When asked if he was planning to slow down in old age, Drinan recently told a reporter, ``Jesuits don't ordinarily retire. You just do what you do.'' His leadership helped give a new moral authority to the antiwar movement, and he was a mentor to a generation of Massachusetts politicians. People like Barney Frank, who stepped into Father Drinan's congressional seat with big shoes to fill--and has spent the last 25 years there honoring Father Drinan's legacy with his own dogged fight for social justice. Father Drinan leaves behind a sister-in-law, three nieces, over 6,000 adoring students, legions of supporters in the fourth district of Massachusetts, and those across the State and the Nation whose lives he touched. Father Drinan once said, ``If people are really Christians, they are involved in life, and politics is part of life. I feel if a person is really a Christian, he will be in anguish over global hunger, injustice, over the denial of educational opportunity.'' It was the defining mission of his truly remarkable life.