Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I thank you for your time and for helping me to underscore an important point, that this bill would strengthen security measures for all types of shipping containers, at both sea ports and land ports of entry. twics

Mr. LEVIN. To make sure that the Record is clear, there has never been and has not been any objection--I am sure the majority leader would concur--any objection from this side at any time to the Armed Services Committee meeting today.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, as Detroit residents cope with a rise in homicides and shootings this year, city police are joining with other law enforcement agencies in an effort to stem gun-related violence through a new program. Operation Tactical Intelligence Driven Enforcement, or TIDE, was established to help determine crime patterns, identify the city's most violent offenders and ultimately prevent crime in the city of Detroit. Operation TIDE, which began on May 5, 2006, in the Detroit Northwestern police district, involves the coordination of 10 Federal, State and local agencies. It is designed to use the expertise of each agency to better track and share intelligence on dangerous criminals. The U.S. Attorney's Office, Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, Wayne County Sheriffs Office, U.S. Marshals Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Michigan State Police and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration are all involved in the project. To date, 115 people tied to gun crimes and gang violence have been arrested. The program is funded by a $600,000 grant through the Federal Project Safe Neighborhoods campaign against guns and gang violence and is currently being expanded into the other three police districts. Operation TIDE expands upon the current Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative strategy of suppression, deterrence, prevention/ intervention, investigation, prosecution and public awareness. Project Safe Neighborhoods is a long-term campaign that has assisted in taking many violent offenders off the streets of Detroit. Since its inception in 2001, Project Safe Neighborhoods has played an important role in a 34 percent reduction in violent crime and a 73 percent increase in firearm prosecutions nationally. In the Detroit area, it has resulted in more than 800 Federal gun prosecutions. Project Safe Neighborhoods public awareness campaign has resulted in hundreds of tips leading to prosecution. Ella Bully-Cummings, chief of the Detroit Police Department, described Operation TIDE by saying: Our strategy is to supercharge our crime prevention and enforcement efforts to reduce violent crimes using the intelligence and resources of all law enforcement agencies. Our police officers work every day at addressing active and potential crime in our city limits. By collecting and disseminating the acquired intelligence among partnering agencies, crime patterns will be swiftly identified. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials for their outstanding service and their vital contributions to the safety of our communities. Their commonsense approach plays a significant role in decreasing gun violence. I am hopeful that the 109th Congress will do more to support their efforts by taking up and passing sensible gun safety legislation.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr President, I would like to make remarks about an American who has made many proud and achieved an incredible milestone this past weekend. The person I am referring to is Joe Dumars who has been affiliated with the Detroit Pistons professional basketball franchise since he was drafted by the Pistons in 1985. This past Friday, Joe was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. On behalf of all Michiganders and Pistons fans everywhere, I would like to congratulate Joe and his family on this great achievement. Joe Dumars was born May 24, 1963, in Shrevepoint, LA. He attended Natchitoches High School and later McNeese State University, both also in Louisiana. He was the number eighth overall pick in the 1985 National Basketball Association--NBA--draft, selected by the Pistons for, among other things, his reputation to play defense. In the NBA, Joe lived up to that reputation--often being called on by Pistons head coach Chuck Daly to guard the other team's best player. This was never more evident in the 1980s as the Pistons consistently bested the Chicago Bulls due in part to Joe Dumars' defense on a young guard named Michael Jordan. To this day, Michael Jordan says Joe Dumars was one of the best defenders he ever faced. Always a team player, Joe Dumars became a pillar in the foundation of a Pistons team that went to the NBA finals three times in his career winning the championship twice in 1989 and 1990. Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, John Salley, and Joe Dumars proved that defense wins championships, and Joe was personally rewarded as the NBA Finals MVP in 1989. Joe Dumars retired as a player from the NBA in 1999 playing all 14 of his seasons with the Pistons. His career achievements include scoring 16,401 points, handing out 4,612 assists, grabbing 2,203 rebounds, and recording 903 steals. He was named to the NBA All-Star team six times and to the NBA All Defensive first team four times during his career. Joe's jersey was retired by the Pistons the year after he retired and it now hangs high in the rafters of the Palace of Auburn Hills. Although Joe's playing career was now over, his enthusiasm and love of the game never diminished, so he took a job in 2000 with the Pistons in their front office as president of Basketball Operations. He was named NBA Executive of the Year in 2003 and put together the team that reached the NBA finals in 2004 and 2005. Winning the NBA championship in 2004 made Joe a key figure of all three Pistons' championships. Friday in Springfield, MA, all of Joe's achievements earned him the ultimate recognition in his chosen profession. So to Joe, his family, his former teammates, and the entire Pistons organization, from this Pistons fan I say congratulations on a recognition well deserved.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, Saturday, September 9, 2006, was a great day for the Detroit Shock and for the people of Michigan. A crowd of over 19,600 at the Joe Louis Arena joined with the rest of Michigan in celebrating the Shock's second championship win and a tense victory in the fifth game against the reigning champions, the Sacramento Monarchs. In 2003, when the Detroit Shock came back after a difficult 2002 season to win the championship, it was the first time in the 7-year history of the WNBA that the championship title was taken by a team other than Houston or Los Angeles. The finals were tense, as the Shock started off with a loss at the Palace of Auburn Hills, in Michigan on August 30, which they followed up with a 73 to 63 win on Friday, September 1. As the finals moved to the Arco Arena in Sacramento, California, the Shock suffered another loss in the third game. With strength and courage, the Shock beat the Monarchs 72 to 52 in an away win on Wednesday, September 6. With one game left to go, and the prospect of overtaking the WNBA reigning champion, the Shock moved into the Joe Louis Arena for the last game of the finals. The heat was on as the Sacramento Monarchs led for the first half of the game and went into halftime with a 44 to 36 lead over the Shock. In the beginning of the second half, Deanna Nolan led the Shock to an 18 to 3 scoring run that put the Shock ahead for the rest of the game. The final two points were scored in the last seconds of the game by Katie Smith, with a 17-foot jump shot that made the Detroit Shock one of the very few teams to have achieved multiple championships in the WNBA. The win over the Monarchs in the deciding game showcased the spectacular performances of the Most Valuable Player of the 2006 WNBA Finals, Deanna Nolan, who, with a total of 24 points, led the game in points scored; Cheryl Ford, who led the game in rebounds, recovered 10 rebounds in addition to scoring 10 points; Katie Smith, who scored 17 points; and the rest of the Shock teammates. Each member of the Detroit Shock organization made meaningful contributions to the team's success, including players Jacqueline Batteast, Kara Braxton, Swin Cash, Cheryl Ford, Kedra Holland-Corn, Deanna Nolan, Plenette Pierson, Elaine Powell, Ruth Riley, Katie Smith, and Angelina Williams, as well as the Head Coach, Bill Laimbeer, Assistant Coaches Cheryl Reeve and Rick Mahorn, Athletic Trainer Mike Perkins, and the owner of the Detroit Shock, Bill Davidson. This championship win marks the fourth professional basketball title for Head Coach Bill Laimbeer, including two as coach of the Detroit Shock and two as a player for the Detroit Pistons. This is the fifth championship title for Detroit Shock owner Bill Davidson's Detroit teams. I know that my colleagues will join me and Senator Stabenow in congratulating the Detroit Shock on another spectacular championship win, and I know that the Shock will continue to be a source of pride for the people of the City of Detroit and throughout the whole State of Michigan.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I understand it is for 10 minutes unless we get unanimous consent for more time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to proceed as in morning business for 25 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the Senator from West Virginia for the leadership he has shown on this matter and so many other matters--on every matter he has touched on, in fact, on intelligence and in his other work in this body. Today the Senate Intelligence Committee is releasing two of five parts of phase II of the committee's inquiry into prewar intelligence. One of the two reports released today looks at what we learned after the attack on Iraq about the accuracy of prewar intelligence regarding links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Today's report is a devastating indictment of the Bush administration's unrelenting, misleading, and deceptive attempts to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein was linked with al-Qaida, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. The President said Wednesday, just this week, that: One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror. Well, that shouldn't surprise anybody. The President's decision to ignore intelligence community assessments prior to the Iraq war and to make repeated public statements that gave the misleading impression that Saddam Hussein's regime was connected to the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 cost him any credibility he may have had on this issue. President Bush said Saddam and al-Qaida were allies--his words. And that: You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. The bipartisan report released today directly contradicts that linkage which the President has consistently made in his effort to build public support for his Iraq policy. The bipartisan committee report finds that the prewar intelligence assessments were right when the intelligence community said Saddam and al-Qaida were independent actors who were far from being natural partners. The report finds that prewar intelligence assessments were right when they expressed consistent doubts that a meeting occurred between 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague prior to September 11. Our report finds that prewar intelligence assessments were right when they said there was no credible reporting on al-Qaida operatives being trained in Iraq. Those were the two principal arguments which were used prior to the war to support the alleged linkage between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. The accurate prewar intelligence assessments didn't stop the administration from making many false and misleading statements trying to link Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida. In his September 5 presentation to the United Nations, Secretary Powell said: Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden, and his al-Qaida lieutenant. After the war, in June of 2004, the President said that al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader recently killed in Iraq, was the best evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida. And to this day--to this day-- these statements have not stopped. Just 2 weeks ago, the President said in a press conference that Saddam Hussein ``had relations with Zarqawi.'' Our Intelligence Committee report demonstrates that statement made 2 weeks ago by the President was false. The committee report discloses, for the first time, the CIA's October 2005 assessment that Saddam's regime: Did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye towards Zarqawi and his associates. The President's statement made just 2 weeks ago is flatout false. The drumbeat of misleading administration statements alleging Saddam's links to al-Qaida was unrelenting in the lead-up to the Iraq war which began in March of 2003. On September 25, 2002, the President said: Al-Qaida hides. Saddam doesn't, but the danger is that they work in concert. The danger is that al-Qaida becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. And then he said: You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. The next day, in September of 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld said: We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al- Qaida's leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who would help them acquire weapons of mass destruction capabilities. On October 14, 2002, the President said: This is a man--Saddam is a man that we know has had connections with al-Qaida. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaida as a forward army. On January 30, 2003, Vice President Cheney said: Saddam's regime aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida. He could decide secretly to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against us. And as the President said on Tuesday it would just take one vial, one canister, one crate to bring a day of horror to our Nation unlike any we have ever known. On February 6, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz said: And, worst of all, his connections with terrorists which go back decades and which started some 10 years ago with al- Qaida are growing every day. What the administration and the President and other administration officials did not say was what the intelligence community was saying about this crucial issue because it would have undermined their march to war and it would have refuted their main argument for attacking Iraq: that Iraq was linked to the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. What was the CIA saying? What was the intelligence community saying before the war? In June of 2002, the CIA said that: Our assessment of al-Qaida's ties to Iraq rests on a body of fragmented, conflicting reporting from sources of varying reliability. That same report of the CIA said: The ties between Saddam and bin Laden appear much like those between rival intelligence services. And the Defense Intelligence Agency stated in a July 2002 assessment, being declassified for this first time in this report: Compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and al-Qaida has not been established. So these two then-classified assessments preceded the President's statements that ``You can't distinguish between Iraq and al-Qaida'' and that, in his view, Saddam would love to use al-Qaida as a ``forward army.'' Then the CIA assessed in January 2003, still before the war, that ``Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are far from being natural partners'' and that Saddam has ``viewed Islamic extremists operating inside Iraq as a threat.'' The CIA assessed in January of 2003 that Saddam viewed al-Qaida with ``deep suspicion'' and stated that: The relationship between Saddam and bin Laden appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other. That 2003 classified report was issued 1 day before the Vice President stated to the American public that Saddam's regime: Aids and protects terrorists, including members of al- Qaida. The misleading statements by administration officials didn't stop there. The Intelligence Committee report recounts the story of the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and the Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague. In the fall of 2001, the Czech intelligence service provided the CIA with reporting based on a single source who stated that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April of 2001. On December 9, 2001, Vice President Cheney was asked about the report on ``Meet the Press.'' The Vice President said: It has been pretty well confirmed that he-- The 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta-- did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official with the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. On March 24, 2002, the Vice President told ``Meet the Press'': We discovered, and it has since been public, the allegation that one of the lead hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had, in fact, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague. But the Intelligence Committee report released today cites a June 2002 CIA paper that said: Reporting is contradictory on hijacker Mohammed Atta's alleged trip to Prague and meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer and we have not verified his travels. The Intelligence Committee report released today declassifies, for the first time, a July 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency paper that said: Mohammed Atta reportedly was identified by an asset, not an officer, of a Czech service, only after Atta's picture was widely circulated in the media after the attacks, approximately five months after the alleged meeting occurred. And that: There is no photographic, immigration, or other documentary evidence indicating that Atta was in the Czech Republic during the time frame of the meeting. Two months later, in September 2002, the CIA published its assessment that ``evidence casts doubt'' on the possibility that the meeting had occurred and that: The CIA and FBI have reviewed the reporting available so far and they are unable to confirm that Atta met al-Ani in Prague. None of those assessments stopped the Vice President from continuing to suggest that the report of the meeting was evidence that Saddam's regime was linked to the 9/11 attack. On September 8, 2002, in a ``Meet the Press'' interview, the Vice President said that the CIA considered the report of the meeting credible, although again, that same month, the CIA said there was evidence that cast doubt on it having occurred. In January 2003, the CIA published an assessment stating that: A CIA and FBI review of intelligence and open-source reporting leads us to question the information provided by the Czech service source who claimed that Atta met al-Ani. The January 2003 paper stated that the CIA was ``increasingly skeptical''--increasingly skeptical--``that Atta traveled to Prague in 2001 or met with the IIS officer, al-Ani,'' and that ``the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility.'' But the Vice President was undeterred by the CIA's skepticism. On September 14, 2003, 8 months after the CIA said that the most reliable reporting cast doubt on the possibility of a meeting between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence officer, Vice President Cheney was still citing as this having possibly occurred. On January 14, 2004, a full year after the CIA expressed serious doubts about the meeting and the fact that not a shred of evidence had been found to support the claim of a meeting, the Vice President told the Rocky Mountain News that the Atta meeting was ``the one that possibly tied the two together to 9/11.'' Six months later, on June 17, 2004, the Vice President was asked whether Iraq was involved in 9/11. The Vice President said, ``We don't know. . . . We had one report, this was the famous report on the Czech intelligence service, and we've never been able to confirm it or knock it down. We just don't know.'' The Vice President may not have ``known,'' but the intelligence community sure as heck did not believe, and did not believe for a long time before the Vice President's statement, that the meeting took place. The intelligence assessments contained in the Intelligence Committee's unclassified report are an indictment of the administration's unrelenting and misleading attempts to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. But portions of the report which the intelligence community leaders have determined to keep from public view provide some of the most damaging evidence of this administration's falsehoods and distortions. Among what remains classified, and therefore covered up, includes deeply disturbing information. Much of the information redacted from the public report does not jeopardize any intelligence source or method but serves effectively to cover up certain highly offensive activities. Even the partially released picture is plenty bleak, about the administration's use of falsehoods and distortions to build public support for the war. But the public is entitled to the full picture. Unless this report is further declassified, they won't get it. While the battle is waged to declassify those covered-up portions of the report--unless, of course, those portions truly disclose intelligence sources or methods, every Senator should read the classified version of this report. It is available to every Senator, and I urge every Senator to read the classified version of this report and reach his own conclusion about what I and Senator Rockefeller have said about the portions of this report that remain classified and unavailable to the public. In addition to trying to create the impression that Iraq was connected to the 9/11 attackers, the administration also claimed that Iraq had provided al- Qaida with training in poisons and gases. For instance, in a speech on October 2002, the President said, ``We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases.'' In February, 2003, the President said, ``Iraq has also provided al- Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training.'' In March of 2003, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said there was a ``very strong link to training al-Qaida in chemical and biological weapons techniques, we know from a detainee that--the head of training for al-Qaida, that they sought help in developing chemical and biological weapons because they weren't doing very well on their own. They sought it in Iraq. They received the help.'' Those statements were based on representations of Ibn al Shaykh al- Libi, a detained senior al-Qaida operative. But what the administration hid was the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency did not believe al-Libi's statement. In February 2002, a year before the President claimed that Iraq ``provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training,'' the DIA assessed that al-Libi ``is more likely . . . intentionally misleading the debriefers.'' Nor did the administration disclose a second DIA assessment in February of 2002 that said, ``Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Ladin any useful CB knowledge or assistance,'' or DIA's April 2000 assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qaida training ``anywhere'' in Iraq. The administration's statements also flew in the face of the CIA's January 2003 assessment that al-Libi was not in a position to know whether training had taken place. So here is what we have. The President still says that Saddam had a relationship with Zarqawi. The Senate Intelligence Committee found that the intelligence community, in 2005, concluded that ``the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye towards Zarqawi.'' The President said that Saddam and al Qaida were ``allies.'' The intelligence community found that intelligence shows that Saddam Hussein ``viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime,'' and, indeed, as postwar intelligence shows, he, Saddam, ``refused all requests from al-Qaida to provide material or operational support.'' The Vice President called the claim that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta met with the Iraqi intelligence officer ``credible'' and ``pretty much confirmed,'' but the Intelligence Committee report finds that the intelligence shows ``no such meeting occurred.'' The President said that Iraq provided training in poisons and gases to al-Qaida, but the Intelligence Committee finds that postwar intelligence supports prewar assessments that there was no credible reporting on al-Qaida training ``anywhere'' in Iraq and that the terrorist who made the claim of training was ``likely intentionally misleading his debriefers'' when he said that Iraq had provided poisons and gases training. But the administration's efforts to create the false impression that Iraq and al-Qaida were linked didn't stop with just statements. One of the most significant disclosures of the Intelligence Committee report is the account of the administration's successful efforts to obtain the support of CIA Director George Tenet to help them make that false case. The events were of major significance. They go to the heart of the administration's case for war on the eve of a congressional vote on whether to authorize that war. Here is what happened. On October 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati, the President represented that linkage existed between Saddam and terrorist groups. He said that ``Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or an individual terrorist.'' But on that very day, October 7, 2002, in a letter to Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, the CIA declassified at the request of the committee the CIA assessment that it would be an ``extreme step'' for Saddam Hussein to assist Islamic terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States and that the likelihood of Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction if he did not feel threatened by an attack was ``low.'' When made public, the CIA assessment would have undercut the President's case. Something had to be done. So on October 8, 2002, the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, issued a statement that ``there is no inconsistency between our view of Saddam's growing threat and the view expressed by the President in his speech.'' The Tenet statement was aimed at damage control and it undercut the CIA's own crucial assessment at a critical moment. The New York Times quoted Tenet prominently in a major story on October 9. We called Tenet before the Intelligence Committee a month and a half ago, on July 26, 2006. In his testimony, quoted in the Intelligence Committee's report, Mr. Tenet admitted that perhaps there was an inconsistency between the President's statement and the CIA's assessment. Mr. Tenet said he issued his statement denying the inconsistency after policymakers expressed concern about the CIA's assessment, as expressed in the declassified October 7 letter. Again, that letter saying that it would be an extreme step for Saddam to assist Islamic terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass destruction attack. I ask for an additional 3 minutes, Mr. President.

Mr. LEVIN. Tenet admitted to the intelligence subcommittee that the policymakers wanted him to ``say something about not being inconsistent with what the President had said.'' Tenet complied. Tenet acknowledged to the committee, in his July 26, 2006, testimony, that issuing the statement was ``the wrong thing to do.'' It was much more than that. It was a shocking abdication of a CIA Director's duty not to act as a shill for any administration or its policies. Director Tenet issued that statement at the behest of the administration on the eve of the Congress's debate on the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. The use of the Director of Central Intelligence by the administration to contradict his own agency's assessment in order to support a policy goal of the administration is reprehensible, and it seriously damaged the credibility of the CIA. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for its indulgence and I yield the floor.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent we stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I have long supported law enforcement's efforts to combat gun trafficking. Earlier this summer, 11 people were charged with purchasing firearms in gun shops in Virginia and illegally dumping them on the streets of New York City between 2004 and 2005. These arrests bring attention to the need to vigorously enforce our gun laws in order to stem the flow of guns to the black market. These individuals have been charged with making straw purchases of handguns at various gun shops in Norfolk and Portsmouth, VA, and transporting them to New York City, where they were allegedly sold on the streets at a significant markup. Straw purchases are transactions that violate Federal law in which one individual submits to the required Federal background check for a gun that is clearly intended for use by someone else. Such purchasers play a crucial role in the illegal trafficking of guns by purchasing with the intention of reselling them to prohibited buyers. The alleged conspiracy, which took place from September 2004 through June 2005, was first uncovered in 2004 when New York City police officers began making undercover purchases of firearms from this organization on the streets. The guns were traced back to gun shops in Virginia where the original straw purchases are said to have taken place. More than 50 guns were involved. Gun trafficking has also been a problem in my home State of Michigan. According to an Americans for Gun Safety analysis of ATF trace data from 1996--1999, over 40 percent of the guns traced to crimes committed in Michigan in 1998 and 1999 originated in other States, a much higher rate than the national average. The largest number of out of State suppliers of guns to Michigan during that period were in Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama. These statistics demonstrate the length to which criminals are willing to go to circumvent our gun laws. This kind of activity can be stopped by vigorously enforcing our gun laws, providing law enforcement with stronger tools to crack down on gun trafficking, on corrupt gun dealers and other armed criminals, and by passing sensible gun safety legislation. I commend the hard work of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other Federal, State and local law enforcement officers. Vigorous law enforcement is an integral part of reducing gun violence.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. And I thank my friend.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, our current policy in Iraq has not been working; it is not working. It is making us less secure against the common enemy which the Senator from Texas has correctly identified. It is, indeed, a common enemy. The question is whether the current course we are on is contributing to the defeat of that enemy or whether the current course we are on is making us less secure, as our resolution states. It is long past time for a change in course. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Unfortunately, President Bush and the administration just keep digging us into a deeper and deeper hole. The President has given the Iraqis the impression that our commitment in Iraq is open ended. He reinforced that impression when he said last month: We are not leaving so long as I am President. The Iraqi leadership needs a wakeup call, a dose of reality. They need to be told: If you don't get your political house in order, if you don't reach a political settlement that leads to the end of the Sunni insurgency and leads to the dismantling of the Shia militia, then we cannot save you from yourselves. It is in your hands, we must tell the Iraqis, not ours. Whether you want to put together a nation or whether you have a civil war is your choice. We have opened the door for you. We have given you an incredible opportunity which no other country would even consider giving but ours. We have paid for it in blood and treasure. But only the Iraqis can utilize that opportunity. We cannot force them through that door that we have opened for them. The Iraqi leadership now is operating under the misconception that we are there as long as they want us or as long as they need us. That misconception must end. They must be told that they must make the political compromises, they must share resources, they must share political power, that only they can decide if they are going to, in fact, avoid an all-out civil war and defeat the insurgency. We cannot do that for them. We have been there now longer than we fought the Korean war. They have had an opportunity to create a constitution. By now, they were supposed to consider amendments to that constitution. That apparently has been shelved by the Iraqi political leadership. That is unacceptable to us; it is unacceptable to the American people. The American people want the Iraqi leadership to make the compromises they need to make to avoid an all-out civil war. They must take hold of their country. We must begin, I believe, a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq this year, by the end of this year--and the Iraqis should be told by the end of this year that the phased withdrawal is going to begin. It is essential to do this in order to prod the Iraqis to reach the political settlement which, according to our top commander in Iraq, is essential if all-out civil war is going to be avoided. This cannot be won militarily. The military piece has been done. We have 80 to 90 percent of the Iraqi military force now trained. It is the political will in Iraq which is lacking, and that will must be brought to bear. We must prod it, we must pressure it, we must push them to do what only they, again, can do. I believe they must face an abyss. These decisions are obviously difficult, we know that. There is a long history there that needs to be overcome. But the Iraqi leaders must face the abyss. They must face a very stark choice: civil war or nationhood. The American security blanket is now providing a negative incentive to reach those kinds of essential decisions. Instead, similar to a broken record, President Bush and members of his administration keep saying that the choice in Iraq is between staying the course or withdrawing, cutting and running. That is not the choice. There is a third choice: changing the course, changing the negative dynamic in Iraq, which is the best and, I believe, only hope of achieving our mission. Staying on this downward spiral in Iraq makes no sense. Some of the President's recent comments on Iraq sound as if he is out of touch with the reality on the ground. For example, the President was extremely naive when he said at a recent press conference that the violence in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza was the result of ``groups of terrorists trying to stop the advance of democracy.'' But it is a terrorist group, Hezbollah, which is part of a democratically elected Government of Lebanon, and the democratically elected Government in Iraq supported and identified itself with Hezbollah, a terrorist group, and its attacks on Israel. The President also said at that August 21 news conference that ``Saddam Hussein had relations with Zarqawi,'' a terrorist who was killed in Iraq. That simply is not true. It continues an administration's tactic of trying to link Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, a link that our intelligence community has repeatedly said did not exist. It continues a pattern of this administration of falsely linking Saddam Hussein to the people who attacked us on 9/11 in an obvious effort to win public support for the administration's Iraq policy. It is part of a continuing pattern of misleading and false statements, such as the effort which lasted over years of making the American people believe that there was a meeting in Prague between the head of the Iraqi Secret Service and Mohammed Atta prior to 9/11, Mohammed Atta being the lead hijacker and attacker on us on 9/11. That was false. The intelligence community did not believe that meeting took place. And yet month after month prior to the war and after the war, the administration kept pointing to reports of the meeting that suggested the link between the people who attacked us on 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, trying to create the impression that Saddam Hussein was part of that attack, to such an extent that over half the American people believed that, in fact, there was such a link. Finally, the President recently insisted there be no withdrawal of American troops so long as he was President. He gave a long list of reasons for his statement, and one of those reasons was that it is what the Iraqi people want, to quote the President. The President is badly misinformed. An April 2006 survey of Iraqi public opinion conducted by the University of Michigan and reported in U.S. News leads to the opposite conclusion. This survey found that almost 92 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition troops in Iraq. Even more disturbing than that is the fact that this number was an increase from the 74 percent of Iraqi people who opposed the presence of coalition troops in Iraq in 2004. So that in the 2 years from 2004 to 2006, the percentage of Iraqi people who oppose the presence of coalition troops in their country increased from 74 percent to 92 percent. And almost 85 percent of that 92 percent--almost 85 percent of Iraqis--are ``strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops.'' So our open-ended commitment of troops is not supported even by the Iraqis, and it sends the wrong message to the Iraqi leadership. Our strategy in Iraq is not succeeding. We need to change course. The longer we maintain our failed stay-the-course approach, the weaker we are in the war on terrorism. The Iraqis need to hear a wake-up call from the President instead of a soothing message that we will be there so long as he is the President. President Bush has repeatedly said that as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. The Iraqi security forces are 85 percent stood up. Where is the Presidential promised response that there be at least the beginning of a standdown as the Iraqis have been standing up? Where is that commitment being kept, so critically important to the American people, so repeatedly made by the President of the United States: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down? It doesn't say after all the Iraqis have been fully trained, even though they are nearly there. It says as they stand up. And the reason that is so critically important is because as long as the present policy continues, that the Iraqis believe we will be there as a security blanket even though they do not make the political decisions and compromises which are essential to their success, our policy of staying the course, our open-ended commitment makes it less likely that we are going to succeed in Iraq. I think every Member of this Chamber believes we have a common enemy, and that is the religious fanatics who terrorize innocents. They are a common enemy and we all want to see them defeated. But the current course that we are on makes it more difficult for us to defeat that enemy where they are, and it makes it less likely that we will have the ultimate success which is so essential to our own security. The amendment that is being offered calls on the President to change course in Iraq. It also says that one important indication of that change would be the replacement of the current Secretary of Defense. I have said in the past that I would call for the changing of the Secretary of Defense if I thought it would represent a change in the administration's policies in Iraq. I have focused on the policies, not on the personalities. But, in my view, as the resolution says, replacing Secretary Rumsfeld would be an indication, finally, that the Bush administration recognizes the need to change course in Iraq, and because it is that policy change which is so essential, I will support the resolution and hope that the Senate is allowed to vote on it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the University of Michigan poll to which I made reference and which was referred to and utilized, I believe, in U.S. News and World Report.

Mr. LEVIN. But the President says we should stay the course.

Mr. LEVIN. It will trigger exactly the opposite. If the Iraqis finally recognize that our commitment is not open-ended, we are not going to be their security blanket, if they finally recognize we cannot do for them what only they can do for themselves--share power, share resources, consider amendments to their Constitution, which were supposed to have been considered by now--that statement to them will trigger a reality in them that only they can save themselves; we cannot save them. We can give them an opportunity--and we have, at great cost of blood and treasure. As I said before, I know of no other country that would do what we did, what we have done for mankind, which is to give people an opportunity for freedom. I didn't vote for this war. I thought it would unleash forces which would be very negative. But now that we are there, I have always believed--my dear friend from Virginia knows this--that we should maximize the chances for success. The road we are on now is not a road to success. We are on a downward spiral now. Sectarian violence is increasing, not decreasing. So the consequences are consequences which we both want to avoid. The consequences which the Senator from Virginia outlined are consequences which are clearly negative, and every person in this Chamber and in this land would want to avoid those consequences. But how do we best prod the Iraqis to take hold of their own situation and share power, share resources, recognize the rights of each other, become tolerant, give up the revenge slayings which are going on there? How do we force them to do that if we say we are here for some open-ended time? The President says some people want to withdraw now--and some do. What I believe is we should give fair notice to the Iraqis that in a reasonable period of time, since their army is now almost fully stood up, we are going to begin a phased withdrawal, and that should begin by the end of the year so that it can be done in a way which is planned, thoughtful, but that it finally impress on the Iraqi leaders that: Folks, it has been 3 or 4 years. You have had elections. You have had an opportunity to pass the Constitution. You have a civil war some folks say is going on. You and you alone can address the issues which are driving that civil conflict. We cannot as Americans solve their political disputes. That is what I believe is at stake. We all want to avoid the consequences. The issue is, How do we best avoid the consequences which the Senator from Virginia has outlined? Stay the course? Is that avoiding the consequences? I don't think so. We get deeper and deeper into that mire, and the very consequences, the consequences which the Senator from Virginia has outlined, are the consequences which are more likely to occur if we do not change that negative dynamic which exists in Iraq with a wake-up call which the President alone can give to the Iraqis. Only the President can tell the Iraqis: Folks, there is no open-ended commitment here. You have to take hold of this situation. I think only the President can do that. We can try, and that is what we are doing. Some Senators believe we should try to send that message to the Iraqis. I think the good Senator from Virginia was present at the White House when I urged the President to stop counseling patience when the Iraqis should understand that the American people are impatient. We are impatient, and rightfully so, at the failure of the Iraqi political leadership to reach those political compromises which are essential to avoiding an all-out civil war, and end the insurgency. The Senator was present when I urged the President: Please, Mr. President, you know I voted against the war. I am not expecting you to grab on to my advice. I have been a critic. I have been a critic of the way the war has been handled. The Iraqi Army being disbanded was a tragic mistake. The failure to have a plan for the aftermath was a terrible mistake. There were a lot of mistakes. But to the extent you are willing to consider this message, Mr. President, let the Iraqis know the American people are impatient, instead of counseling patience. The President looked me in the eye and said: That is a useful message. In other words, it is a useful message for a Senator to be delivering. But he implied--by implication--he is not willing to deliver that message himself to the Iraqis. What this argument is about, in my judgment, is that the President needs to deliver that message to the Iraqis in order to help them recognize that is the only way they can succeed--if they take hold. They have to look into that abyss. They have to see some stark alternatives. They, the Iraqi leadership, have to see some very stark alternatives: settle the issues politically, defeat the insurgency thereby, avoid all-out civil war thereby. You have to do it, folks. We can't do it for you. I believe that has to be laid before the Iraqis as the best chance of avoiding those very negative consequences which the Senator from Virginia outlined.

Mr. LEVIN. I think it is more likely that the Government will succeed if they recognize that they are the ones who have to succeed and we can't do it for them. The gamble that we are now taking is greater, which is continuing on a course of action which is failing. You know, the first argument which was used to go to Iraq was there were weapons of mass destruction. That was the first argument which was used. That didn't work out as the basis for the policy. The next one was we are going to promote democracy in Iraq. Now the argument is there were no weapons; we are not doing very well on the democracy side since that democratic Government is supporting at least one terrorist and probably two terrorist groups, in Lebanon and in Gaza, so the democratically elected Government is giving substance and support to what we believe is terrorism. So now there is a third argument used for this policy, that our leaving will create a huge problem. First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then it was we were promoting democracy. Now it is we cannot leave because look what will happen if we leave. Look at what is happening because we are staying in an open-ended way because they don't see that stark choice they face because they are relying on Uncle Sam's security blanket. That is what must be changed. That is the dynamic which I believe must be changed, and the only way to change it is in a reasonable way, a thoughtful way, a planned way, to say: Folks, we have to do what we said we would do--as you stand up, we are going to stand down. You have known that now for years. We are going to carry out that policy which the President has enunciated.

Mr. LEVIN. But the President of the United States says we should stay the course.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this so-called trifecta bill is a bet by the Republican leadership that the American people will not notice their strategy to gut the estate tax in order to give the wealthiest one-half of 1 percent of our families a huge tax break. I hope they will lose that bet. The Republicans have tried to sweeten their fiscally reckless proposal by extending popular tax cuts that have strong support and by adding an increase in the minimum wage that many of them do not even want and have opposed repeatedly for years. Republican leaders know that their estate tax proposal would not pass on its own, so they have added other provisions that many want in hopes of drawing enough votes to pass their true goal--more tax cuts for the superrich. Failing that, the Republican leaders seem willing to settle for having as a talking point that they tried to increase the minimum wage, even though they have opposed it year after year. The American people will not be fooled. They know that many have fought tooth and nail to increase the minimum wage, and that we will keep fighting. But we won't be blackmailed into supporting irresponsible tax cuts by a political gambit. This estate tax proposal is unfair and unaffordable. Only a tiny fraction of all estates pay any estate tax. In 2004, only 1 percent of estates in Michigan and 1.2 percent nationwide paid any estate tax. And as the amount exempted from the tax continues to rise to $3.5 million per person in 2009, the percentage gets even smaller. And despite claims to the contrary, even without this misguided bill, those families actually subject to the estate tax will still be able to pass on great wealth to their children. Once phased in, this so-called ``compromise'' proposal would cost at least 75 percent as much as repealing the estate tax entirely. In the first ten-year period in which the proposal would be in full effect, it would cost nearly $600 billion. The cost would be $750 billion when interest payments on the additional debt are taken into account. We simply cannot afford such a massive tax cut that would push us even further into the deficit ditch. Today, each American citizen's share of the debt is almost $29,000. As we continue to run up record yearly deficits, the country's total debt will be more than $11 trillion by 2011, which is $37,000 per person. It is not just reckless fiscal and economic policy to saddle future generations with this kind of crushing debt burden; passing this kind of burden to our children and grandchildren goes against what should be our basic values. In the words of Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, who proposed the estate tax: ``[I]nherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government.'' If we have any hope of getting our Federal budget deficit under control, eliminating the estate tax for the extremely wealthy is exactly the wrong thing to do. We need to look out for all of our citizens, not just the very wealthiest among us. This giveaway to a tiny fraction of estates will ultimately have to be paid for by steep cuts in government services or tax increases that will likely impact far more Americans. To achieve the goal of more tax cuts for the very few, this bill holds hostage two critical issues. First, it includes a desperately needed, though flawed, increase in the minimum wage. And, second, it has a package of popular tax benefits that includes allowing families to deduct up to $4,000 in tuition payments and tax credits for research and development. Minimum wage workers have not seen a Federal raise for 10 years. During that same time period, Congress raised its own pay eight times. An employee working full-time on minimum wage earns only $10,712 per year, which is below the Federal poverty level. It is shameful this Congress find it acceptable that Americans work hard every day, all year long, at legal jobs and still languish in poverty. I have cosponsored a bill that gives the working men and women of this country the pay raise that they deserve, legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in several increments. If the majority cared about rewarding the hard work of a large number of Americans as much as they cared about protecting the enormous wealth of a few others, there would be a clean vote just on raising the minimum wage. Even though the so-called trifecta bill would raise the minimum wage for many workers, it would also result in a pay cut for many Americans. It includes a ``tip credit'' provision that really should be called a tip penalty. The bill allows workers in industries in which tips are commonplace--such as waiters, waitresses, hotel maids, parking attendants and bartenders--to receive as little as $2.13 before the tips. Although this tip penalty has been Federal law for years, States have been free to guarantee higher wages to workers in these industries. This bill would supersede those state laws to permit the lower wages. This will decrease wages in at least seven States, and it will set a dangerous precedent by allowing the Federal Government to interfere with the States to cut the wages of the lowest-paid workers. This bill also holds captive several important expiring tax provisions that have broad support and would easily pass on their own. The provisions include the work opportunity tax credit, which encourages employers to hire members of targeted groups such as high risk youth, families receiving food stamps, SSI recipients, and qualified veterans. Another provision, the welfare-to-work tax credit, enables employers to claim a credit on the first $10,000 of wages paid to certain long-term family assistance recipients. Another provision is the deduction for the expenses of elementary and secondary school teachers of up to $125 for books and other supplies. And there is a deduction of up to $4,000 for qualified tuition and related expenses. There is also a provision that would help shippers on the Great Lakes. Finally, the expiring provisions include a critical tax credit for research and development done here in the U.S. This is an important way for the Government to help our Nation's economic competitiveness, especially in the manufacturing sector, which represents nearly two- thirds of our total private R&D. While the R&D credit's cost of $16 billion for two years is a significant investment by the Government, each dollar of the credit leads to a significant increase in business R&D spending, thus spurring economic growth. Congress should enact this important program on a permanent basis, instead of revisiting it every year or two, given all the uncertainty that is created by doing so. It will be shameful if these provisions--which are good for the economy, important for our people, and supported by this Congress--are not renewed because of the political gamesmanship on this bill. Mr. President, we hopefully will not fall for this political trick. The American people deserve better from their Government. If the Republican leaders want to pass a minimum wage increase, give us a clean bill that does that and we'll pass it today. If they want to extend the popular and reasonable tax provisions that are expiring, let's work together to do that. But the pending bill would require us to swallow two poison pills and one aspirin. Hopefully, that combination will be resoundingly rejected by the Senate. (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, last November I cast one of only two votes against the Senate's version of pension reform. One of my primary concerns with that bill was that companies trying to do right by their workers would be unfairly penalized. I was concerned that on balance, that bill did more to drive companies away from offering guaranteed benefit pension plans than it did to strengthen the system. But the bill before us today is much improved, and I will support it. Let me state upfront that it is through a highly unusual maneuver that we are taking up this issue in the form of a new bill sent over from the House last week rather than as a final House-Senate conference report. As part of their ongoing efforts to ram through a reckless near-repeal of the estate tax, House Republicans hi-jacked the pension conference process to remove a package of widely supported tax breaks so they could be paired up with their estate tax proposal in another bill. The abuse of process involved in that maneuver is serious. But regardless of political games, defined-benefit pensions are facing a crisis today and reforms are needed to make sure that retirees receive the benefits they were promised. We need to make sure that companies are required to adequately back up the promises they have made to their workers. At the same time, we should make sure that reforms are designed to encourage the recovery and strengthening, rather than the termination, of underfunded and vulnerable pension plans. Striking this delicate balance is not easy. I am pleased that two misguided provisions from the Senate bill were dropped in the conference negotiations that are reflected in this bill. The first of those two provisions would have required companies with solid pension plans but who also had poor credit ratings to use actuarial assumptions that require them to put away unnecessarily high amounts of money into their pension trusts. I am glad that this bill uses a more direct measure of a pension plan's financial health to determine whether additional money needs to be put into the plan. The second provision of concern dealt with an actuarial method known as ``smoothing.'' Under current law, the amount of money companies are required to put into their pension plans is determined by using a four- year weighted average of the values of pension assets and/or liabilities. The Senate bill would have shortened smoothing to 12 months, which would have added significant volatility for companies when they are determining how much money they need to set aside for the pension plans. The bill before us today changes smoothing to a 2-year time period. I would have preferred the 3-year average proposed in the original House bill, but the 2 years in today's bill is an obvious improvement over the Senate's original 1 year. Based on my concerns with these credit rating and smoothing provisions, Senator Voinovich and I wrote a letter to the House-Senate pension bill conference committee members, urging them to consider the potentially adverse impact these provisions could have on companies that offer defined benefit pension plans and the employees and retirees who are counting on the stable pensions they have been promised. I was pleased that one-third of the Senate joined us in signing this letter, and I appreciate the conferees addressing our concerns. I am also pleased that this bill, like the Senate bill, will give airlines extra time to fund their pension obligations. I am told that this action means that Northwest and Delta will keep their plans when they emerge from bankruptcy, rather than turning their obligations over to the Government's pension insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, PBGC. Passing the airline provision is a win-win. The companies should now not dump their plans on the Government, and the airlines' employees and retirees will get to keep their full earned pensions. I am pleased this bill includes four tariff-related bills I authored that will help Michigan companies become more competitive. I am also pleased that the bill encourages companies to use automatic enrollment and automatic increase in 401(k) pension plans to ensure that workers save more. In addition, this bill includes long-overdue reforms to multiemployer pension plan law. These reforms will allow multiemployer pension plans to address any short-term funding crises as well as add new flexibility to advance fund and guard against a future crisis. Unfortunately, the bill also takes the unwise step of allowing underfunded multi-employer pension plans to cut benefits that workers have already earned. While I understand that shared sacrifice may be necessary in some instances, taking away earned benefits is unfair, and I hope this does not set a precedent for future pension laws. I am also disappointed that this bill does nothing to pay for making permanent provisions enacted in the 2001 tax law to expand tax- preferred retirement and education savings accounts. The conference agreement makes these tax cuts permanent without offsetting their cost. According to Joint Committee on Taxation estimates, making these tax cuts permanent would cost $52.6 billion between 2007 and 2016. We are deep in a deficit ditch and already each American citizen's share of the debt is almost $29,000. Instead of just adding to our deep fiscal troubles, we should be closing down abusive tax shelters and offshore tax havens and coming up with other ways to pay for any further tax cuts. While this bill is less than perfect, on balance I will support it because of the critical need to address retirement security for millions of Americans.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd, Senator Sununu and our other cosponsors in offering Senate Resolution 548, which expresses the sense of the Senate regarding the need for the United States and the international community to take certain actions with respect to the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. Like all Americans, I am deeply concerned about the ongoing violence and the loss of civilian lives in the Middle East. Hezbollah, an organization on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, must accept full responsibility for sparking this latest round of violence. I support Israel's right to defend itself in response to Hezbollah's acts of terrorism against it. As this resolution urges, I hope that the governments of Iran and Syria will end their material and logistical support for Hezbollah and use their significant influence over Hezbollah to disarm the group and release all kidnapped prisoners. As this resolution also urges, I favor the United States and the international community working with the governments of Israel and Lebanon on an urgent basis to attain a cessation in the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel based on: the safe return of Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah; the disarmament of Hezbollah, the removal of all Hezbollah forces from southern Lebanon, and the replacement of those forces with army and security forces of the Government of Lebanon; an reaching an agreement to fully implement United Nations Security Counsel Resolution 1559 and to create and deploy an international stabilization force with a clear mandate to enforce a permanent ceasefire. I also hope that the U.S. Government and the international community will work together to organize an international donors conference to solicit and ensure the provision of international support for the reconstruction of Lebanon's infrastructure; and to remain engaged to promote sustainable peace and security for Israel and Lebanon and the greater Middle East.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I intend to support cloture on S. 3711, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, and will vote for final passage. I am voting for cloture and for final passage because I believe we need to move forward to open up more areas for natural gas exploration to address the increasingly tight natural gas supply in the U.S. and its resulting high prices, but to do so in a way that protects our environment. Over the past 6 years, the tight natural gas supply and increasing costs of natural gas has had a significant impact on consumers and particularly on the U.S. manufacturing sector, which depends on natural gas as both a fuel source and a feedstock and raw material. With U.S. natural gas prices the highest in the industrialized world, many companies have made decisions to move their manufacturing operations offshore. More than 2 million manufacturing jobs have been lost to overseas operations in the last 5 years, and I believe we need to take reasonable efforts to bring down the cost of natural gas in the U.S. I agree with many of my colleagues that this compromise on offshore oil and gas exploration represents what is achievable in the Senate, and I urge the leadership on both sides to resist strongly any efforts by the House to broaden the scope of this legislation. If the bill comes back from conference with the House of Representatives without the Senate limits and environmental protections, I will not support the final product worked out by the conferees. Senator Reid's letter to Senator Nelson is very reassuring in that regard.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, over the last 10 years, there have been more than 3.7 million crimes committed with firearms in this country. That is an average of 100 violent gun crimes every day, with almost 60 percent of these violent gun crimes occurring in our Nation's major cities. America's major cities have been flooded with illegal guns. The underground market for guns is largely a product of the diversion of massive numbers of guns from licensed gun shops into the hands of criminals. A variety of sources supply the illegal market, including theft, unlicensed sellers who buy guns for the purpose of reselling them, corrupt Federal firearms licensees, and straw purchasers who buy guns for other unlicensed sellers, criminal users, and juveniles. Based on its own gun trafficking investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF, has concluded that corrupt gun dealers are the source of the largest number of firearms diverted to the illegal market. In 1998, the ATF found that 56 percent of dealers and 30 percent of pawnbrokers who sold 50 or more guns, had Federal firearms violations. In addition, 18 percent of the dealers and 45 percent of the pawnbrokers had guns missing from their inventory. Despite the fact that the ATF inspections often reveal multiple illegal acts by gun dealers, the revocation of a dealer's license is a rare and difficult event. In 2003, the ATF conducted 1,812 inspections that uncovered regulatory violations with an average of over 80 violations per dealer. Despite this large number of dealers with multiple violations, the ATF issued only 54 notices of license revocation that year. I have consistently supported commonsense legislation to help stop the flow of guns to the black market. Unfortunately, the failure of Congress to act on several commonsense bills has allowed criminals and terrorists continued easy access to guns. In addition to endangering our families and communities here in the United States, congressional inaction may also be helping to fuel international trafficking of powerful firearms. If we make it harder for criminals to get guns, there will be fewer gun violence victims. By helping to keep guns out of the wrong hands, we can save lives.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I will oppose the nomination of Jerome Holmes to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Although I do not question the integrity or qualifications of Mr. Holmes to be a Federal circuit court judge, I do have serious questions about his ability to be an impartial jurist. While all judges have and are entitled to their personal views and philosophies, a judge's decisions should not be controlled by an inflexible ideology. When a nominee's personal views will determine or dominate their judgements, such a nominee should not be put in a lifetime position on the Federal bench. I am concerned by statements that he has made indicating insufficient sensitivity about the irreversible errors in the implementation of the death penalty. For example, in a presentation given by Mr. Holmes, he said that: Like any human endeavor, there is a possibility of error . . . But the statement society is sending--that certain conduct and the perpetrators of it deserve to die--is not materially diminished by the fact that in the implementation of the death penalty mistakes are made. Mr. Holmes' statement demonstrates a lack of understanding and concern about the death penalty and the way that erroneous convictions undermine a legal system. Mr. Holmes has also sharply criticized affirmative action programs both before and after the Supreme Court rulings and those hardline views exhibited a lack of adequate respect for Supreme Court precedent. Although he told members of the Judiciary Committee that he would follow precedent, he was vocal in his opposition to the Supreme Court's decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, criticizing the Court for missing an ``important opportunity to drive the final nail in the coffin of affirmative action''. Because Mr. Holmes' statements do not reflect the objectivity necessary to serve in a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench, I cannot vote to confirm his nomination.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to recognize the Tuscola, Michigan County Fair as it celebrates its 125th anniversary. The Tuscola County Fair, in existence since 1881, showcases the local agricultural community in addition to other attractions, is an important contributor to the local economy, and entertains thousands of fairgoers of all ages each year. The fair, which first took place the year President Garfield was assassinated, generates more than $2 million of activity in the county. The impetus to locate a fair in Caro, MI, was the desire of agricultural groups in the area to display their harvest, livestock, home canning and baked goods, flowers and needlework, and of local merchants and other industries to demonstrate new products and machinery for the farm and home. Over the years, the Tuscola County Fair has experienced several milestones. The fair first showed a profit in 1891, and in 1892, a half-mile clay track was constructed. Interestingly, while the track was intended for sulky races, in 1924, female jockeys raced Kentucky thoroughbreds every day of the fair. In 1896, a new Agricultural Hall was constructed to showcase the agricultural industry. In addition, the Fair Office, the oldest building still standing, was constructed in 1917, and in 1920, the present ``Heritage Hall'' was constructed. During World War II, the fairgrounds were used to house German prisoners, who worked to help the local sugar industry that was so vital to our war effort. More recently, in 1981, the Historical Society of Michigan designated the fairgrounds a historical site. Many people have contributed to the success of the Tuscola County Fair, including Emery J. Vandemark, the longest serving board member, the treasurer for 28 years, and the current 13-year President; the late Jay Kitchen, past president; Walter Jackson, president of the fair board and active 4-H member; James Fitzgerald, past president; Jerry Vandemark, longtime fundraiser; and longtime members Waldo Garner, Robert Nowland, Walter Putnam, and Frank Altizer, among many others. The fair organizers and the many dedicated volunteers over the years have played an integral role in ensuring the success of the fair, and I know my colleagues join me in recognizing and congratulating all those who have contributed to the fair for their efforts.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I strongly and enthusiastically support the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006, S. 2703. The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy, and the Voting Rights Act provides the legal basis to protect this right. Ensuring that all citizens can vote and that every vote counts is surely one of our highest national priorities, and the passage of time has not diminished the need for such protections. Hearings held in the Senate and in the House in 2005 and 2006 revealed a new generation of tactics, including at-large elections, annexations, last-minute poll place changes, and redistricting, which have had a discriminatory impact on voters, especially racial and ethnic minority American voters. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to insure that no Federal, State, or local government may in any way impede people from registering to vote or voting because of their race or ethnicity. Most provisions in the Voting Rights Act, and specifically the portions that guarantee that no one may be denied the right to vote because of his or her race or color, are permanent. There are, however, three enforcement-related provisions of the act that will expire in August 2007. The first is section 5, which requires certain jurisdictions to obtain approval or ``preclearance'' from the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, before they can make any changes to voting practices or procedures. The second provision that will expire is section 203, which requires certain jurisdictions to provide bilingual language assistance to voters in communities where there is a concentration of citizens who are limited to English proficient. The third are those provisions in sections 6 to 9 which authorize the Federal Government to send Federal election examiners and observers to certain jurisdictions covered by section 5 where there is evidence of attempts to intimidate minority voters at the polls. The legislation before the Senate today reauthorizes the portions of the Voting Rights Act that will expire next year and will allow the Federal Government to address new challenges. Today we are mindful of the fact that nearly 41 years ago, thousands of individuals risked their lives and some died in the challenge of systems that prevented millions of Americans from exercising their right to vote. For a hundred years after the Civil War, millions of African Americans were denied this fundamental right, despite the 15th amendment to the Constitution that prohibited the denial of the right to vote on the basis of race. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather c1auses--as well as violence--were used to deny African- American citizens the right to vote in many Southern States. During the 1960s, to secure this most basic right, the cost was high: church burnings, bombings, shootings, and beatings. It required the ultimate sacrifice of ordinary Americans: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, who simply sought to register voters in Mississippi; Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose death precipitated the famous march from Selma to Montgomery; Viola Liuzzo, a White Detroit homemaker and mother of five who was killed by a Ku Klux Klansmen's bullet after she participated in the Selma to Montgomery march; and the four little Black girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing--Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Cynthia Wesley; Medgar Evers, who had organized voter registration in Mississippi for the NAACP and was gunned down in his driveway; the horrible beatings of John Lewis and of Fannie Lou Hamer and Aaron Henry of Mississippi. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks, their names are forever etched in this Nation's history. The impact of these tragic revelations and the subsequent enactment of the Voting Rights Act is stark. In Alabama, Black voter registration increased from 0.4 percent in 1940 to 23 percent in 1964 and more than doubled from 1954 to 1968, to 56.7 percent. Mississippi's Black voter registration went from 6.7 percent in 1964 to 54.4 percent in 1968. And the increase was reflected in many other cities and States nationwide. Let us do what we must do. Our democracy depends on protecting the right of every American citizen to vote in every election. Let us resoundingly reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.