Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the agreement to have 1 minute on each side be waived, that we start the vote immediately.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. I consider the Senator from Massachusetts a great personal friend and I hope he takes no umbrage at what I am going to say. I have been here now 35 years. I certainly was not here during Senator Kennedy's brother's administration, but I was alert and part of the national constituency at the time and admired very much what President Kennedy did in terms of handling foreign policy, and particularly the Cuban crisis. I read this and I see an amendment that tells the President to report to Congress on what he intends to do in the future in terms of negotiations, to give us a schedule of the strategy he and Ambassador Bremer will follow almost on a daily basis. I wonder what would have happened to President Kennedy in the Cuban crisis had that been the demand of Congress, to tell us in advance what they were going to do about the possibility that those missiles from Russia might come to Cuba. I really cannot believe the Senate has gone so far that they want to handle the President's daily schedule and have it in advance. The President of the United States is the President of the United States. I really cannot believe anyone would vote for this amendment, and I hope the Senator will reconsider his language. This last section says the President should give a statement and justification for his actions in seeking or in failing to seek an agreement for NATO to participate, or a U.N. Security Council resolution. That is required by the Senator's amendment. First, it tells him to seek it and then it tells him to follow up on almost a daily basis through this continuum now of handling the Iraq crisis. This is worse than the amendment we considered before, which would ask the President to predict how many mortars, how many missiles, how many whatever are going to be needed in the future, what is the plan for the future contingencies that might occur in Iraq. This is saying the President should give us a schedule that the President is going to use to seek to obtain approval of a resolution for the United Nations Security Council, including participation by armed forces of NATO and member countries. As a matter of fact, we have already delegated that authority to SACEUR and to the ambassador to NATO. They have a daily proposition. I do not imagine they themselves even give the President a daily schedule of what they are going to do in the future with regard to NATO. Certainly to ask Mr. Bremer and the President's representatives to tell us what is their schedule now and in the future in dealing with other countries, when are they going to ask for U.N. participation, NATO participation, how are they going to do it, and will they please tell us, if they do not do it, why they did not do it, and if they failed, why they failed--my God, Senator, I really believe we should seriously consider what we are doing. This expects the President to seek and obtain. No, it does not expect. It directs him: The President shall seek and shall obtain. The Presidency is a separate, independent portion of this great democracy. We have some checks and balances on it, that is true, and they are pretty strong, but we do not have the power to tell the Commander in Chief what to do. We do not have the power over foreign affairs. He does. If he wants to make an agreement, he has to submit a treaty, and he has to submit it to us for our advice and consent, but he still has the power to make them. We cannot tell him what to do. This tells him what to do. It not only tells him what to do, it tells him to succeed and, if he fails, to tell us why he failed. Now, I do not know, maybe I am too much of an old trial lawyer. I get excited about some things, and I hope the jury is listening. I was pretty successful as a trial lawyer, as a matter of fact, because jurors listen if you get their attention. I hope I am getting the attention of the Senate, no matter where it is, because this amendment goes far too far: Shall submit to the Congress an unclassified report (with a classified annex, if necessary) on the United States strategy regarding activities to the post-conflict security, humanitarian assistance, governance, and reconstruction in Iraq that are undertaken as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Then it gives five separate categories of things that are done in the future. It is not a report of what has happened in the past. To demand it of the President and say the President shall submit a report to us on anything I think overlooks the concept of checks and balances. We can ask the President to do something by a bill, and he can veto it. He is surely not going to veto this bill, although if I were President, if that came to me I would veto it because it does not represent the distinction I understand to exist under the Constitution in terms of the three great branches of this democracy. Now, to have the President give us an estimate of the number of Armed Forces personnel that are needed in Iraq to guarantee the stability and reconstruction of Iraq, separately stated for each of the Armed Forces and, within each of the Armed Forces, for each of the components, predict again--predict the future, predict the contingencies, predict whether Turkey is going to participate, predict who else is going to participate, predict who will not participate, my God, do we want the President to publish that, that so far this nation has not agreed, so far that nation has not agreed? We were privileged to listen to the Secretary of State today in a classified session upstairs give his opinion of what might be possible, but to ask even the Secretary of State to give us a plan and publish it for what he intended to do to try to achieve a goal that is a goal of all branches of our Government, and that is terminate our affair in Iraq as soon as possible and successfully, I think it would be highly improper. I do not think he would submit it. I take umbrage at the fact that this amendment tells the President what to do, and tells him to tell us how he is going to do it, in advance of even knowing what the circumstances are that he has to plan for. We do not know how long we are going to be in a security situation in Iraq. I have told the Senate, and certainly I think most people know, I got a little upset when they would not let part of our committee into Baghdad. Other parts of the United States forces and executive branch are in Baghdad, and I pointed out to them that with other Senators I went in and out of Vietnam several times on helicopters that were shot at, but we went throughout Vietnam to see and report back to the Senate what was occurring. I thought we had that right to go into Iraq and report back what was occurring, but I was convinced later that--and we now know that there is a serious security threat there because of the snipers who are there, because of those people who are still so allied with the Baath party and Saddam Hussein that they are willing to literally commit suicide to cause us problems. That is not a new phenomenon if we look at what has been happening between Palestine and Israel for so many years, but we did not expect it there. I confess that was really a shock to me to hear about that, when our people were there to protect those who have been given their freedom, that some of their countrymen are willing to continue to kill us because we are protecting their own countrymen. This concept now is getting to the point of really being a difficult problem. I think the Senate has a right to participate in these plans and to have hearings when the time comes and ask these people to come up and testify before us about what the plans are. Those plans undoubtedly would require expenditures of some Federal funds. I expect them to come before our committee and tell us they have requirements and then set forth the nature and extent of those requirements. I certainly do not expect this committee to send a demand to the executive branch, particularly the President himself, to tell us now what they are going to do in the future and to predict now what the contingencies are in the future that have to be met or to have a statement and justification for the President for his actions in seeking or failing to seek NATO participation or a U.N. Security Council resolution. That is something the Constitution gives the power of the President to do. We are going to demand he give us a statement of justification for not taking action? I don't think that is within our province. Not at all. I hope the Senate is listening. I hope the jury will agree with me and we will not approve this amendment. How much time remains?

Mr. STEVENS. How much time remains?

Mr. STEVENS. I postulate, if this power exists to do what the Senator from Massachusetts wants to do, we might not have been in Vietnam. I had a conversation with a former Senator who disagreed with President Johnson and wished he had some way of deterring him from his course. I remind the Senator of the power of the President: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices. . . . Nothing in this Constitution gives the Congress the right to ask for that. In fact, to the contrary, there is a specific power for the President. In section 3 of article II it says: He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; . . . There is nothing in this Constitution that gives us the power to tell the President of the United States what to do--not at all. The separation of powers is one of the most distinct advantages of this democracy. It is the longest living government on the face of the Earth today because it is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but it has a Constitution. That Constitution we all swear to uphold and defend. Part of that Constitution is the separation of powers concept. We do not have the power to dictate to the President of the United States. We can send him a bill and ask him to do something, and he can veto it if he wishes, but we cannot, in my judgment, tell him to do anything. We cannot command him to plan in advance; to tell us what he is going to do; to tell us what is the plan of action for an area that is still so unstable that people are being killed. I regret that as much as the Senator from Massachusetts. We all do. There is no question about that. There seems to be building up a feeling here that somehow or another we are wrong to be in Iraq; we are wrong to stay in Iraq. Yesterday, I had in my office a young man from the 101st Airborne who had served in Iraq. I asked him, What do you think about being there? He said: Senator, I am proud I went there, and I want to tell you I am proud of what we are doing there. He said: I never thought I would live to see the day we would see the results of a person like Hitler. I saw those graves. I saw the way they had been treated by that dictator. We were right to be there and we are right to be there. I believe he would go back there today if we asked him. The problem is not the presence of our people over there in danger. The problem is people questioning our right to keep them in danger without some plan in advance that would absolutely protect them from danger. I think we have the best system of defense in the world. I know we have the best military in the world. We have the best systems available to them in the world. We have the best sensors. But it is still possible to fool all of this technology and have a person come in and kill one of them. As a matter of fact, it is possible to come and kill one of us. We can't tell them to give us a plan how to protect us, as a matter of fact. We don't have a plan to protect ourselves, as a matter of fact. We live in a democracy. The democracy is that we elect people to carry out the duties under this book, the Constitution of the United States. I say this amendment violates the spirit and the meaning and intent of the Constitution of the United States. It is not our right to tell the President to give us a statement of justification for his actions in seeking or failing to seek an agreement in terms of foreign policy. I do believe that we have a right, again, to schedule hearings, to ask them to come up and give us their opinions, as we did today with the Secretary of State--off the record, however, on a classified basis because of the nature of it. I believe we have an absolute right to ask him to give us details of the money he asks us for. And he will ask us for money, I am certain. But to go this far, to say that not later than 30 days from the enactment of this bill the President shall submit to the Congress this report, a schedule, to seek approval of the United Nations authorizing multinational force; an estimate of the number of forces we are going to have there to guarantee reconstruction for each component; an estimate of the number of personnel, armed forces of foreign countries that are needed to guarantee the stability and reconstruction--all of this--a schedule for the President to seek participation as an organization of many nations in NATO, ongoing operations in Iraq--I couldn't prepare that schedule. I couldn't prepare a schedule of my actions for the next week if I tried. And I don't see how the President can prepare a schedule of his actions on a matter so deep and so intricate as trying to determine how we should complete our actions in Iraq. If I remember right, in October we passed a resolution the President signed giving him authority to do what he is doing. That resolution didn't say, and as you do, give us your plan of action in advance; define for us your strategy in advance; give us the number of people you are going to deploy; tell us how you are going to get foreign troops to come at us; go to the U.N.; go to the NATO. We knew better than that. We responded to his request to get our approval of his intent to use his power as Commander in Chief to try to restore freedom to Iraq. I am proud of this President and what he did. I intend to defend him as much as I can and assist him as much as I can in achieving what the Congress asked him to achieve, and I do not believe he should be put in a straitjacket to do so.

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, were the yeas and nays ordered on the Kennedy amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. I call for the regular order.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, Senator McCain will be recognized to offer an amendment and after that Senator Corzine.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the question is relevant because the purpose of this commission is to support ongoing congressional reviews regarding the collection and analysis of intelligence data. We have not done it yet. We don't need any support that I know of. The support base is the executive branch and in the media to examine the report and the role of policymakers relating to Iraq and Iraqi freedom. That is not over yet. Again, there is a timeliness to commissions. But more than that, there is the ongoing impact coming into this Senator's soul that we are starting a campaign of 2004. It is too early to do that, when we have men and women overseas in uniform trying to defend themselves and carry out the orders of the Commander in Chief. It is not timely to do this, and I do object to it. Mr. President, I don't often do this. I am really going to be a little bit brash--you could not imagine I would do that, I am sure. Does the Senator from Nevada wish to ask a question?

Mr. STEVENS. I shall take care of myself, Madam President.

Mr. STEVENS. Senator McCain assured me he would cooperate with our schedule, knowing the event Senator Inouye and I will attend tonight at 7:30 honoring World War II veterans. We will come back to continue the bill after that ceremony.

Mr. STEVENS. I was going to make that order. I am pleased that the Senator said that. Mr. President, in order that the Senator from Hawaii and I can go to an appointment we have involving World War II veterans, I will take it upon myself to move to table the Corzine amendment and to ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent at this time that it be in order to move to table the McCain amendment, and for that purpose I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, for the information of the Senate, following these two amendments, there will be a period for routine morning business. I ask unanimous consent that following the votes there be a period for routine morning business, and that the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, make a statement.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, Senator Reed will be making a statement on the bill. Following his statement, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for routine morning business until the Senator from Hawaii and I have returned from our event, which will be, I believe, about 8:15.

Mr. STEVENS. We have not done that. We need to have the time to do that.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, in explanation, it is my intent to come back. The Senator from Hawaii will not have to come back. We want to enter into a unanimous consent agreement for the order of amendments. There will be two amendments. At 10 o'clock Senator Byrd will offer an amendment. I believe we will have an order for the Senate to come in sometime just prior to 9 o'clock.

Mr. STEVENS. I am not going to make that order yet. That is the understanding I have, that we will come in around 9 o'clock and consider two amendments, and Senator Byrd is to offer his amendment at 10 o'clock. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. STEVENS. The so-called bug-to-drug program has an official name. The official name is the Engineered Pathogen Identification Program. Its goal is to identify and protect soldiers from both unknown and genetically engineered pathogens, such as anthrax, plague, and Ebola. Currently, there are no pathogen vaccines. It would take 7 to 15 years to develop one. This program is an attempt to shorten the time from drug development to its release for use as some type of an antigen to these pathogens which are very dangerous to our service men and women worldwide.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we had a time agreement and the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Arizona have spoken. I will make a few brief remarks and yield to my colleague. Then it is my intention to move to table these two amendments. Let me state why. First in regard to Senator McCain's amendment, I state this sincerely, I think Senator McCain provides a very useful function for this Congress and this Senate with regard to the process we are involved in, the appropriation of money from the Treasury, spending the people's money. I am very sincere. We have checked every one of the amendments we have agreed to by unanimous consent with the Senator's staff before getting that agreement. That is a process we didn't use before. At times they make comments that lead us to change the amendments. And the Senator has, through this process, picked out some he would like to take out of the bill or put in the bill before we pull it out of committee. Let me comment on a couple of those. The Senator mentioned the brown tree snakes. We have provided $1 million for control of these snakes. That primarily is to continue a very successful program so far that has been carried out on military planes to Hawaii from Guam. These snakes are carried inadvertently on military planes to Hawaii from Guam. The snakes are endemic to Guam and come on the military planes at Anderson Air Force base in Guam and then go into Hawaii. We hope we can prevent it. It will have an enormously adverse impact on the agriculture sector of the economy. But it is a military function. It is trying to eradicate or control these brown snakes where they come from, as they have been a menace to Hawaii because of their ability to crawl on to military planes as they come to Hawaii from Guam. I commend the Senator for raising the question, but clearly we have examined it. It is an ongoing program. The canola oil fuel cell initiative is an existing program between the Department of Defense and the Department of Interior. It is funded in this bill for $2.5 million. Both Departments put money into it. This project will extract and convert technologies, transforming agriculture materials into bio-based fuel. Specifically, it is the rapeseed-based biodiesel fuel, and the underlying goal is to convert bio-based fuel into a hydrogen-rich gas stream to use with fuel cells and micro turbines and other power generation systems. It does have a legitimate defense interest, and it is a program for the Department of the Army, primarily in research and development. Shakespeare in American Military Communities is a very interesting program. This is being done in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts. It is a partnership with the Department of Defense. The goal is to bring the arts to military personnel and their families as they are brought to other communities and high schools throughout the country. The proposal for this year is to perform ``Macbeth'' on 16 military bases in conjunction with educational programs. This is one of the programs the military is very pleased that we are trying to make available to them to improve the cultural activities on military bases, particularly for young children. We are looking into the prospect of taking some of these cultural programs overseas to meet the needs of the people stationed there. We have under consideration Fort Huachuca and Davis Monthan Air Force Bases. I know them both very well. Further, the Senator raised the question of the Griffiss hangar renovation. This is part of a hangar that is used for the ongoing work and research of the Air Force research laboratory in Rome, NY. Damage to the hangar increases the heating, utility, and other fixed costs of the laboratory facility to its detriment. It is a renovation of a former Air Force base, but it is used by the Air Force research laboratory. I regret to say I disagree with my good friend. I do note that what he is doing is trying to make certain we know what we are doing. On this amendment, I am sad to say I disagree with him, and I will move to table it in just a moment. With regard to the amendment offered by Senator Corzine, I have a problem, a decided problem with this. There is an ongoing investigation or series of hearings--I don't know whether you want to call it an investigation yet--of the items covered by this proposed amendment, creating a national commission on the development and use of intelligence related to Iraq. Iraq is still ongoing. To create a commission now to look into Iraq primarily based upon the problem related to the President's statement in his State of the Union Message--which, by the way, was true, but not really totally accurate in terms of the interpretation people gave to it--in order to start the campaign of 2004, at a time when we have men and women in uniform over there now, their commanders, Ambassador Bremer, all of the people who participated in the process of this intelligence activity, including the CIA and the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, all of them will be involved in hearings before the commission. They are already in hearings before the House and the Senate, and they have unknown involvement in the internal investigation also going on in the Department. As I said previously, almost all of us heard the Secretary of State, my great friend Colin Powell, tell us about his involvement and how this train of circumstances developed with regard to how that statement was in the President's State of the Union Message. We all know Presidents don't write their own State of the Union Message. They review drafts, and they rely on their subordinates to see that they are absolutely accurate. In the process, a statement was inserted that could be interpreted in a way that could mislead people. Already the Director of the CIA has admitted his system made a mistake. He has taken responsibility, as he should, for something that should have been taken out by the CIA reviewer. It was not. It was taken out of a previous statement at another time. No question was raised about its being taken out. In this instance, it was not taken out and Director Tenet said it should have been taken out. He takes the responsibility himself because of the failure of his Agency, just as I make a policy when any member of my staff makes a mistake, I treat it as my mistake. George Tenet didn't make the mistake. The process in the CIA made the mistake. The President didn't make a mistake. In the process of preparing that statement, there was a mistake made. I am tired of making a mountain out of a molehill on this one. I am particularly disturbed with the fact that people want to create another commission. This is not a time for a commission like the commissions we have known in the past. This is not Watergate. That is the impression. This is not a Watergate. It is not even a ``truth gate.'' The President read a speech that was prepared for him. We all clapped at it, and we all approved of it. It was one part of it, one tiny part of it that should have been taken out in the process of review. Now to create a commission primarily for that and all the rest of the garbage in this thing--pardon my French--all the statements in here as to what is going to be investigated with regard to the possession of mobile laboratories, with regard to an attempt to procure aluminum tubes--it wasn't an attempt; they were procured. But the concept of whether or not Iraq possessed delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction--we had 17 resolutions of the United Nations that were not complied with. Why were they passing 17 resolutions if there was nothing to investigate? But the main thing, why should we create a commission now to look into something that is ongoing? Once this is all tied down and we have our people home and Mr. Bremer is residing in the U.S., and the people involved in all of the intelligence activities that led to the statement are in the United States again, we can have some form of commission to review it. This Senator would not oppose that. But this is an ongoing operation, and this is an attempt to smear the President of the United States. I shall not permit that if I can possibly avoid it. As I understand it, there is no further time agreement. I have the floor. I intend to keep the floor until I make a motion to table this amendment. I am happy to yield to my friend from Arizona for a question.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer rights be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Hospital Group Purchasing: Has the Market Become More Open to Competition?'' on Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 11:00 a.m., in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Panel I: Mr. Mark McKenna, Chairman, Novation, Irving, TX; Mr. Richard Norling, Chairman and CEO, Premier, San Diego, CA; Mr. Said Hilal, Chairman and CEO, Applied Medical Resources Corporation, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA; Mr. Thomas Brown, Executive Vice President, BIOTRONIK, Inc., Lake Oswego, OR; Mr. Gary Heiman, President and CEO, Standard Textile, Cincinnati, OH; Mr. Lynn James Everard, Hospital Purchasing Consultant, Coconut Creek, FL: Ms. Elizabeth Weatherman, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus, LLC, New York,

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 at 10:00 a.m., for a hearing entitled ``Great Lakes Restoration Management: No. Direction, Unknown Progress.''