Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Shalala).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, pursuant to House Resolution 476, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Kuster).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Ms. Kendra S. Horn).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), my fellow Washingtonian.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I have no further speakers. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I respect the gentleman's point about how we need to work towards an agreement to how Congress can have the most constructive role possible on arms sales. The concern here is the tendency of the White House to declare an emergency when they simply want to do something that we haven't allowed them to do. It is troubling because it takes us out of the process, so we need to find a way to make sure that they can't do that. It is not a huge mystery why these arms sales have been held up. We are concerned about Iran's malign influence. We are also concerned about the actions that Saudi Arabia has been taking in that region that could be stirring up conflict and making it easier for Iran to have that malign influence; quite specifically, killing civilians in Yemen in a way that generates sympathy, certainly, for the Houthis in Yemen but then sympathy for that side. So, we are worried about the way Saudi Arabia is conducting this war, certainly, and we are also worried about other actions by Saudi Arabia. Certainly, the murder of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, has not been answered for to this point. So, simply selling weapons to Saudi Arabia at this point is something that is going to take time and is going to raise questions. For the President to simply bypass us, taking us out of the process in that situation, I think, undermines our role. That is the purpose of this amendment, and I urge adoption.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer amendment No. 26 as the designee of Mr. Khanna.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a variation on a bill that this House passed and the Senate passed as well that the President vetoed that would cut off any U.S. support for the Saudi coalition that is fighting in Yemen. And I will agree with some discussion that came earlier that this is a complicated situation because we are concerned about the malign influence of Iran in the region. But the problem is the way the war has been conducted in Yemen. As I mentioned earlier on the previous amendment, the civilian casualties and the way the war has been conducted has undermined, I believe, our efforts to arrive at a peaceful solution and to begin to limit the Iranian influence in the region. I met with Saudi Arabian officials as they explained to me what their targeting strategy was, and how they were trying to mitigate civilian casualties, but I was not impressed because whatever they showed me on these pieces of paper, it has been well-documented that they bombed a school bus, killing a large number of children. They actually bombed a funeral, a funeral that had a lot of the key leaders in Yemen at it that were going to be responsible for negotiating a peace agreement. And on countless other instances they have bombed civilian targets. There is also a very aggressive blockade going on in Yemen that is having a devastating humanitarian impact. Now, I understand that Iran is also doing things that we should oppose. They are killing civilians; they are stirring up difficulties. But we are not supporting Iran. We are not responsible for that piece of it. But to the extent that we participate in helping Saudi Arabia, through intelligence sharing, through refueling, through a variety of different means, we are participating in the atrocities that are being committed on that side, and we should not be. It is not what is going to lead us to a peaceful solution. I also want to emphasize that this amendment, as did the bill that we passed, very carefully carves out the activity that we are engaged in in Yemen to counter violent extremist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS that have arisen in the region. We have a counterterrorism presence in Yemen. This amendment in no way restricts us from continuing that counterterrorism activity. This is focused on the civil war in Yemen. And it is worth noting that, as we get to the point now where Iran is involved, that is not the way it started. Basically, the Houthis in Yemen were an oppressed minority and suffered decades of mistreatment at the hands of whoever happened to be in charge in Yemen, which led to the revolt. Now, since that time, the Houthis have committed all manner of atrocities, as well as the war moved forward. But initially, this was a civil war that doesn't really have anything to do with the terrorism fight that we are doing. And I think it is incredibly important for the credibility of our foreign policy to clearly differentiate between our activities, our legitimate activities, in Yemen to stop those terrorists in Yemen who threaten us and threaten our allies in the region, and the activities of this broader civil war that, as I said, I believe, is merely creating more violence in the Middle East and empowering Iran by creating widespread sympathy across the board and in the United States for the Houthis and for the people in Yemen who are being the victims of these bombing attacks. The U.S. should step back from this. And if Saudi Arabia is the great ally that everyone has said they are, we should be able to have a conversation with them about how they change their actions, so we can be in a better position to support them and lead toward greater peace in the region and contain Iran. That is what we need to do. But the current policy isn't working, so this amendment makes it clear the United States is not supporting the Saudi-led coalition that is engaged in the civil war in Yemen, and I urge support. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I just have my close, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. There is nothing random about this decision; and I do find the gentleman's argument interesting. I suppose Congress should just sort of shut down and say, Pentagon, whatever you want, you have got. We are not going to say anything about it. I really disagree with that aspect of the gentleman's argument; that because the Pentagon has decided to deploy this weapon, Congress should have no say in it. We are not doing this randomly. We are not doing this arbitrarily. This is actually a debate that has gone on for a number of years as to whether or not to deploy this weapon. I will grant you there are arguments on both sides of it, but the notion that we are like, on a whim, making this decision is ridiculous. As I said, there are many former national security experts, including former Secretary of State George Shultz, who thinks that this weapon will destabilize and make us less safe. And let's remember, we have had a nuclear deterrent for almost 75 years now. And for all of those 75 years, we have not put a low-yield nuclear weapon on one of our submarines. We haven't done it. We have had a very strong deterrent. What I would say to Mr. Putin is, No, we are not going to deploy every single weapon system that we have ever thought of because that wouldn't be very smart. But we have thousands of nuclear weapons. And as Mr. Moulton said quite clearly, we need to make it clear, we will have an overwhelming response to any use of nuclear weapons. That is what will deter them. That is what will stop a nuclear war from starting. When we start to have that situation where it goes back and forth, and we say, Well, we can have a manageable nuclear war, that is the danger that leads people to oppose this weapon. I urge opposition to the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I want to make it absolutely clear, in all the scenarios that the gentleman on the other side just pointed out, the President has the absolute right of self-defense. As Mr. Khanna made clear in his opening remarks, the right of self- defense--if we were attacked in the way that Congressman McCaul described, the President has the absolute right to defend the United States. What this amendment says, basically it is counter to the gentleman's argument. The gentleman's argument basically is that Congress should get out of the way. Under no circumstances should Congress have any say in the use of the United States military. I think that is wrong. I think we have a role to play. The President should not be allowed to start a war anytime, anywhere, but he can absolutely defend the United States in accordance with the War Powers Resolution. All this says, that if it isn't a matter of self-defense, if the President has decided, as we decided in Iraq, that we are going to launch a war for preemptive reasons or because of many of the things the gentleman pointed out that Iran does, if we are going to start a war because of that, then we in the United States Congress should uphold our constitutional duty and have the right to vote on it. I think that is appropriate. Unless Members are in favor of Congress getting totally out of having any say in this, Members need to support this amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Gottheimer).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes. First of all, if you were to say ``unilateral nuclear disarmament'' to most people, I think, if you look at the plain language of the words, what that would say is we are going to universally nuclear disarm all nuclear weapons. That is what unilateral nuclear disarmament would mean. So that is not what we are doing here. Again, we literally have thousands of nuclear weapons. What we are doing here is trying to decide whether or not we want to deploy one in a different form, which is a smaller yield. So we are not--let me assure my colleagues again--getting rid of all of our nuclear weapons and unilaterally disarming from nuclear weapons. We are not doing that. This is one weapon with a small yield. The other thing that is worth noting; there is actually no evidence that the Russians have decided that they are going to use a low-yield nuclear weapon first without any new clear provocation. I have had this debate with a number of different people. There have been various conversations about this; just like we have had various conversations about a wide range of scenarios. But it is not at all clear that Russia has decided to launch a nuclear weapon. I believe that the purpose of a nuclear arsenal is deterrence; and we ought to find a clear message. In fact, I find this debate, which we have been having for a while, very dangerous because what we are saying to the Russians is there is a scenario under which they can use a nuclear weapon and we won't respond, and I don't think that should ever be true. We should say a nuclear weapon is a red line. You step across it, we will respond. It is also very untrue--this debate has said, Well, gosh, if they do a low yield, we have no option but to hit them with something 10 times as large. We have a wide range of yields on our nuclear weapons, a wide range of options in terms of where and when we could respond. But what introducing a low-yield nuclear weapon does is we take the Russian mutterings about doing an escalate to de-escalate and say, yeah, we are with you. This could happen. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Republican, is the one who has been most critical of deployment of this weapon, because, as he correctly states, when we start talking about low-yield nuclear weapons, you start making nuclear war acceptable. That is why deployment of this weapon is such a mistake. It takes us down the road of saying, we can have a manageable nuclear war. No. Make it clear to the Russians, if they start a nuclear war, we can't promise that our response is going to be proportional, but we can promise that we will respond. This is a mistake. But we are not unilaterally nuclear disarming. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton), a member of the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, the purpose of the 2002 AUMF could not have been more clear. I was here at the time. It was one of the more consequential debates we have ever had. And the purpose was clearly stated to go after Saddam Hussein because he had weapons of mass destruction and to wage war against the nation of Iraq. If we cannot repeal that 17 years later, then Congress has truly and totally abrogated its constitutional responsibility to regulate any use of military force. There is no justification 17 years later to keep this on the books so that Presidents can use the authority as a blank check. Congress should stand up.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, if I may inquire, who has the right to close on this one?

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, she didn't like the way we did it, so she wanted to fix it. It had to do with the Under Secretary for Intelligence and the title. It is kind of irrelevant what it was, but we worked with her, and we got it solved. We had it ready to go, and she pulled it today. She said she didn't want to do it. As I understand it, the reason was that she didn't want to feel obligated to vote for the bill because we had cooperated and worked with her. Well, how obnoxious of us to do that. The games that are being played here are not primarily being played by us. Let me say to this body that I am 100 percent committed to maintaining the bipartisanship of this committee, and what happened this year won't change that at all. I will say, in the past, the Republicans have not been as kind. We had a Member who voted against the bill in committee a few years back. He found out the next year that he got nothing in the bill because voting against the bill was not allowed. We had a lot of Members vote against it this year. I am not going to do that. We are going to keep working together. I want everyone listening to know that we on the Democratic side are not the ones being partisan in this bill.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.