Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, has our modification to the second-degree amendment been sent to the desk yet? We will send up a modification to the second-degree amendment, and then I understand, as modified, Senator Allard will be accepting the second-degree.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I commend our colleagues from Oregon and North Dakota for this amendment. They have put their finger on a very significant problem in Iraq which is symptomatic. They would be the first to acknowledge this is a deeper problem. That is, we have reduced the number of our acquisition workforce. The chairman of the committee and other members of the Armed Services Committee, including myself, every year for the past I don't know how many years have been to conference with the House of Representatives. They have tried and successfully achieved reduction to the acquisition workforce despite our opposition to those efforts. They have made major cuts in the acquisition workforce. They call it bureaucracy. We have fought against some of the cuts. We have been able to reduce the size of the cuts. Nonetheless, over time, there have been significant reductions in the acquisition workforce, including people to oversee contracts, which is what we are talking about here. Our good friends from Oregon and North Dakota have identified a real problem. I congratulate the Senators for doing it. It is a problem reflective of a deeper problem we have now in the Defense Department. There has been an amendment offered by Senator Byrd which we have accepted which gradually increases the size of the acquisition workforce. That would help get to the underlying systemic cause of this problem. We are going to go to conference, hoping we will be able to add some people to our acquisition workforce who can do the very oversight which is so essential to avoid the very conflicts of interest which the two Senators have identified. The fact that the Byrd amendment has been adopted and we have added people on this side will put us in a better position, as well as this amendment, of course, of the Senators from Oregon and North Dakota. I commend them. It will help us not simply to hopefully avoid this kind of absurd situation where nongovernmental employees are overseeing the operations of Government contracts, frequently with inherent conflicts of interest involved, but where we are going to be able to cure the cause of this situation as well on a long-term basis. I commend them and thank them for the modifications they have made which I think will put us in a stronger position to defend this action in conference.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, very briefly--and I thank Senator Allard and our staffs for working this out--we have expressed some real concerns in terms of the proliferation challenges in terms of the ballistic missile technology which is at issue. Technology can be called defensive technology, but it also can be used offensively. The line between offensive and defensive missile technology is not a perfect line and, indeed, some of the technologies are both offensive and defensive. So it is important that the concerns we had expressed, and do express, in our second-degree amendment relative to the technology and the proliferation of these technologies be expressed in the underlying amendment, and that would remain. What we have removed from our second-degree amendment is the elimination of what amounts to, I guess, that 30-day either goal or deadline, which is waiveable by the Secretary of State. So what we have in our second-degree amendment now, as modified, is that we have left that 30- day goal in place--and Senator Allard had it in his amendment--but the efforts to try to address some of the proliferation concerns will remain in the second-degree amendment. I understand, as modified, that Senator Allard is willing to accept the second-degree amendment.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, if that is out of the way, I will yield the floor----

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, first let me comment on what I think is the heart of the amendment the Senator from Connecticut has offered, and that has to do with the interrogation function and whether that ought to be performed by private contractors. It seems to me abundantly clear that we cannot hire private contractors to perform a function that is inherently governmental, inherently sensitive, indeed inherently explosive, and on which there must be accountability, such as the interrogation of prisoners. We have treaty obligations. We have to live up to those treaty obligations, not because they are treaty obligations, although that should be enough, but also because the safety of our own troops is directly involved if we fail to abide by treaty obligations. The stakes are absolutely huge and we must have people performing these functions who are accountable to us, where there is accountability. Now the chairman has pointed out a problem with so-called subparagraph 1(b). I do think that is going to require additional exploration, and the Senator from Connecticut is perfectly happy to take a look at that additional exploration. As the Senator from Connecticut points out, there may indeed already be law on the books that this simply would reinforce. If that is true, it is possible we may not even need this provision, but that is something which the exploration of law can tell us. We may not need, or the Senator from Connecticut more properly may not need, the provision 1(b) if the current law already addresses that issue. But that is something we ought to explore when we lay this amendment aside. I will tell my friend from Virginia, the chairman of the committee, that the heart of this amendment, as I read it, is not section 1(b) but section 1(a). I think the Senator from Connecticut can speak most directly to that issue, but it is a question of whether we are going to contract out the interrogation function, where there is no accountability in something as grave as this procedure. Interrogating people who are captured in war has ramifications that are so significant to the security of our own troops, I think we must have the full accountability, which is only achievable when we have this performed by our own governmental operations, our own forces, our own governmental employees. So I think 1(a) is right on target. It is possible, and I think there is another reason to lay this aside, that according to at least an article which I read over the weekend there already is an Army policy directive on this subject, when I read this article----

Mr. LEVIN. On the subject of (a).

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3221

Mr. LEVIN. The amendment has been cleared and very strongly cosponsored by many Members on this side of the aisle, as well as I think probably everyone if they had the opportunity which they can, of course, do at a later time.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, let me add my thanks to the Senator from Nevada for, as always, looking out for the interests of our troops, the men and women in the Armed Forces. Where it is necessary to make up for failures, he is the first to find ways to do that. It is a very important function of this Senate. I commend the Senator. I ask to be added, also, as a cosponsor.

Mr. LEVIN. The amendment has been cleared.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank my chairman. This is what the article reads, and because I have a reprint of it I am not sure what paper I read it in, but this is the computer reprint of an article by Joe Brinkley, which says the following: That the use of private contractors as interrogators at Abu Ghraib and other prisons violates an Army policy that requires such jobs to be filled by Government employees because of the risk to ``national security,'' among other concerns, the Army acknowledged on Friday. An Army policy directive published in 2000 and still in effect today, the military said, classifies any job that involves the gathering and analysis of tactical intelligence as inherently governmental functions borrowed from private sector performance. Now if we are going to set this amendment aside, there is an additional reason to do so. In addition to taking a look at whether 1(b) is necessary, the issue raised by the chairman, we should also take a look at what current Army policy is relative to the hiring of contractors to perform the interrogation function. I have tried in the last few minutes to get a copy of that Army policy, and I have been unable to do so in the last few minutes, so I could actually check it out myself. So if this amendment is laid aside, I would seek to do exactly that. One other comment, and that is this so-called Department of Interior. What is the Department of Interior doing here? Talk about lack of accountability. This is a contract which the Department of Interior entered into with private contractors to do interrogation. We talk about lack of responsibility, lack of accountability. The Army has lost control of its own contractors. These are not Army contractors, they are Department of Interior contractors. And why? Because they have engaged in a so-called offloading mechanism, where they use a contract of another agency to pay for the performance of functions which they, the Army, want. That is an area which I would hope our committee would look into because, to me, we have laws against this kind of offloading. The subcommittee of which I am ranking member, the Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations, has had hearings on these offloading abuses. We have passed law to try to prohibit these offloading abuses. We have language, as a matter of fact, in this bill that would prevent some of the abuses the GSA was involved in in terms of offloading. If we had known about this particular problem, we would have included that in our committee consideration of this issue. The Senator from Connecticut is pointing out something which is vitally important to us, and that is people who do interrogations on behalf of our Nation, relative to prisoners of war, must be accountable. We must be able to deter abuses of the rights of prisoners under treaties, or else when our people are captured, we are going to find we are in the same position as these prisoners. We need accountable people. That requires the people who are doing the interrogation be Government employees, at a minimum, hopefully uniformed employees, secondly. We have two problems that are sort of parallel. We have this offloading problem where the Department of Interior contract is used to hire contractors. By the way, this also goes back in part to the reduction of the acquisition workforce. It goes back to the same issue we addressed on the prior subject. The chairman of our committee, of which the Presiding Officer is an extremely valued member, will remember the last conference, and the conference before that, and the conference before that with the House of Representatives. Every year we face this effort to reduce the amount of people who are working in our acquisition workforce. We are paying the price for those cuts. We tried to stop those cuts, and we succeeded in at least reducing the scope of the cuts year after year, but as conferences work out, there are compromises on this. So there have been cuts, against our wishes, in the acquisition workforce. This again is a price we are paying for the reductions in the acquisition workforce which have occurred in prior years. I commend the Senator from Connecticut for identifying an issue. We must make sure the interrogation of prisoners, detainees, or combatants, as he puts it in his amendment, at any U.S. military installation or any installation under the authority of the U.S. military or civilian personnel must be carried out by people who are responsible to us, who are part of the U.S. Government. If they are not in the military, or at least governmental employees, and not simply contractors, where the accountability is much less, where is the accountability for contractors? Where is the accountability? We passed a law recently which provides the criminal accountability if you can make out a crime, but it is very difficult at times to prove crimes.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Harkin, I call up amendment No. 3316, which expresses a sense of the Senate that the Secretary of Defense should develop appropriate methods of oversight of the American forces radio and television service system to ensure presentation of all sides of important public questions, and on behalf of Senator Harkin, I send a modification to the desk and ask unanimous consent the modification be agreed to.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Sarbanes, I call up amendment No. 3296, which would grant a Federal charter to the Korean War Veterans Association, Incorporated.

Mr. LEVIN. The amendment has been cleared on this side.

Mr. LEVIN. On behalf of Senator Bill Nelson, I call up amendment No. 3376, which will set forth the sense of the Congress that the Secretary of Defense should provide support for reduced launch costs and enhanced technical capabilities at space launch ranges through additional safety systems, and on behalf of Senator Nelson I send a modification to the desk and ask that the modification be considered.

Mr. LEVIN. The amendment has been cleared on this side.

Mr. LEVIN. I support the suggestion that the pending amendment of the Senator from Connecticut be laid aside to hear two issues.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN. I very much support his effort to codify what should be the rule relative to the use of outside people when it comes to carrying out such a critical function as interrogating prisoners of war. The same article says--this is the exceptions reference the Senator made--according to the public affairs officer, military commanders in Iraq, and I presume otherwise, ``retain the right to make exceptions.'' That is the reference the Senator from Connecticut made. The paragraph after that said the rule does not authorize exceptions involving collection or analysis of tactical intelligence. That is not in quotes. I think it really is important that we see exactly what that policy currently provides, not because it will take the place of a law--it will not, for the reasons given by the Senator from Connecticut. I think we must codify what is right in this area. Whether the policy that exists now is correct or not, we should put this into law because we have to make this point about how significant this is. That means the highest possible level of requirement, which is law--not policy, which can easily be changed or ignored, but law which cannot be ignored--is appropriate here. I think for a lot of reasons we should try to take a look at what the exact wording of the policy is, not because it will substitute for what the Senator is doing, which is essential, but because we ought to know precisely what the current provisions are.

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator yield on this issue?

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, 3 months from yesterday is the expiration date for the assault weapons ban. Despite Senate passage of a bipartisan amendment that would have reauthorized the ban, it appears that this important gun safety law will be allowed to expire. The House Republican leadership opposes reviewing the law and President Bush, though he has said he supports it, has done little to help keep the law alive. In April of this year, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence joined hundreds of local elected officials and senior law enforcement officials to urge President Bush to push for reauthorization of this critical piece of gun safety legislation. I commend them for their efforts and continue to support this commonsense gun safety legislation. The 1994 law banned a list of 19 specific weapons, as well as a number of other weapons incorporating certain design characteristics such as pistol grips, folding stocks, bayonet mounts, and flash suppressors. The assault weapons ban also prohibited the manufacture of semiautomatic weapons that incorporate at least two of these military features and which accept a detachable magazine. I support the efforts of the law enforcement community and local leaders who are calling for legislation extending the law. In 1994, I voted for the assault weapons ban and, in March of this year, I joined a bipartisan majority of the Senate in voting to extend the assault weapons ban for 10 years. Law enforcement support for the assault weapons ban is broad. It includes the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Police Foundation, the Police Executive Research Forum, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the National Association of School Resource Officers, the National Fraternal Order of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, and the National Black Police Association. In addition, mayors and police chiefs from Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. have joined over 200 other local leaders in urging Congress to immediately pass a 10-year extension of the current ban. Despite broad support for this law, the National Rifle Association fought against passage of the assault weapons ban in 1994 and continues to oppose it to this day. The ban is a major public safety measure that protects citizens and police officers and I urge the President and the Congress to act immediately to reauthorize the law.