Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Dorgan be recognized to offer an amendment on budget costs. I further ask consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of the amendment on Wednesday, there be an additional 30 minutes equally divided in relation to the Dorgan amendment; provided further that at the expiration of that time Senator Bingaman be recognized to offer an amendment regarding detainees; provided further that there then be a 40-minute period equally divided in the usual form; further, that following that time the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Dorgan amendment to be followed by a vote in relation to the Bingaman amendment with no amendments in order to the amendments prior to the votes, and with 2 minutes for debate equally divided prior to each vote.

Mr. STEVENS. I have a further consent agreement. Does the distinguished leader wish to have that set forth before he agrees for the first unanimous consent? I reoffer the first request.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that at 10 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of House bill 2330, the Burma sanctions bill, under the following conditions: One hour of debate equally divided in the usual form; Then upon the use or yielding back of time, the bill be read the third time and the Senate proceed to a vote with no amendments in order to the bill, at a time to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the Democratic leader, with particular reference to the prior agreement we have already entered into.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am now authorized by the majority leader to say there will be no more record votes tonight.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, no one regrets the deaths that are occurring in Iraq any more than I, or anyone else here, particularly those of us who served in the uniform of our country. We know the seriousness of being involved in Iraq. The offensive operations in Iraq started in March. I believe it was March 19. This budget was presented to us long before that. It did not have money for Iraq. As a matter of fact, we have handled this concept of the war in Iraq on the same basis as Bosnia, Kosovo, et cetera--with one exception. The President came to us and asked for a supplemental for Iraq, and we passed it. The money is there. He asked for the money; we gave it to him. I don't understand this demand, now, for another supplemental. We do not need any more money right now. We are continuing to spend the money Congress provided, over $60 billion. I have a little sense of politics in this. I don't quite understand. Politics are never raised on the floor of the Senate, obviously. But clearly the political implication is, somehow or other, the deaths are related to the fact that the President has not asked for any money. We have plenty of money right now to run this war. The costs of the war are coming down. As I pointed out previously here this afternoon, all of the costs of the manpower for fighting in Iraq are in this bill. The costs that are not in this bill, that are being paid from the supplemental, are the incremental costs of moving forces to Iraq, moving materiel to Iraq, moving people back from Iraq, taking care of our global expenses, and conducting the war in Iraq. The President came in and asked for a $10 billion contingency fund. I joined in saying no, you can't have a contingency fund. We gave him the money he requested, the money whose use they detailed. But we didn't put up $10 billion as a contingency fund because we didn't think it was necessary, and I still don't think it is necessary. But we do understand if the cost of the war in Iraq will somehow exceed what we have already provided, the President will come for a supplemental in time. He has done that. We are funding the war in Iraq on an incremental basis from a supplemental fund we gave the President. Again, we gave him so much money, we rescinded $3 billion in this bill. Three billion dollars of the previous supplemental have been rescinded and spread around in other areas of the Department of Defense. I think we ought to get back into some historical context here. We have had a series of peacekeeping operations, so-called peacekeeping operations. There were people killed in Bosnia. There was a war in Bosnia. There is a war in Kosovo. There is a war in Afghanistan. This administration has asked for the money, and we have given it to them. The money we gave them, by the way, the $60 billion-plus, was for the whole area that was commanded by General Franks. It was the war zone. That included Afghanistan as well as Iraq. We have had, unfortunately, in the past--and I also mentioned this today--we had in connection with Bosnia and Kosovo a policy of the administration, the previous administration, to not ask for money at all. They took the money from the O&M accounts of the Departments, the various forces--Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines--and spent it. They never told us where they were spending it. When they came up and asked for a supplemental to replace it, they asked us for the money to replace the accounts. We never really got detailed descriptions of how much money was spent per day in Bosnia or Kosovo. I don't know where this is coming from. As a matter of fact, Senator Inouye and I have been involved in managing this bill, now, since 1981. We can tell the Senate the way we are handling the bill now is the way we should handle a bill for defense. We pay the money for the regular costs, and the Department asks us for the extraordinary costs. The last administration had the money for the personnel and regular costs in the bill, but they took some of that money and fought the war in Bosnia and fought the war in Kosovo and then came up for a supplemental. This administration came for the supplemental first. They have the money. It is in the bank. They are spending it. And somehow they are being criticized for not asking for a supplemental. I oppose this amendment. I intend to oppose it. I intend, as a matter of fact, to make a motion to table it in the future. There is an agreement for debate. We are in a situation where, as far as I am concerned, we should not ask the Department to come and ask for moneys on a contingency basis. That is really what the Senator is suggesting--ask for money, what you might spend in the future, beyond what we have already given you. There is a bank over there. They have the money. To ask for a budget amendment for the fiscal year 2004, to be submitted this year, I don't understand at all. It wasn't required by the congressional budget resolution, by the way. If this was so important, why didn't someone raise it in connection with the congressional budget resolution that passed after we went to war? And we are at war. I really believe it is time we understand what is going on. I do not want to see us get another supplemental request this year. We have 13 appropriations bills to pass. They have plenty of money. Why tie us up in another supplemental? Everyone knows a supplemental this time of year would become a Christmas tree. Everyone is going to offer amendments to do things they didn't get in the other bills, and every one would be a demand for an emergency. As long as I am chairman, we are going to try to have some discipline with regard to dealing with money. The discipline is, we follow the budget. I have committed to follow the budget. We are following the congressional budget. In order to do so, we had to ask the President's permission. Chairman Young, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and I asked for permission to take $3 billion off the President's request that is in this bill for defense. We admit we took $3.1 billion from what the President asked for in his budget request and put it in other subcommittees. Because of the fact the congressional budget resolution was $2.6 billion below the President's budget, we needed to find money to fund operations of those other departments that would not fit within that bill. We are proceeding on a basis that I think makes sense. I hope we will have bipartisan support for it. But one thing we don't need is another supplemental at this time dealing with Defense when Defense has money to continue to operate in Iraq. When they run out of money or come close to it, I assume they will come and ask for more. I presume the cost per week is going to go down. It has been fairly high. The incremental cost was over $34 billion last month, as I understand it. Under the circumstances, if it continues to wind down, I believe the monthly cost will decline and the Department will be able to get through this fiscal year with the money they have. If they need more money in the calendar year 2004, they can come in and ask for it. But I predict--I hope I am right--they are not going to need any more money in calendar year 2003 for either fiscal year 2003 or the first quarter of 2004. If they do, and that could happen--God forbid this thing could blow up over there and we would have to send more forces back in. I don't know. No one can predict what happens in a situation like we have now. We want to as rapidly as possible cease being an occupation force. This reminds me of some of harassment that took place during World War II when we had operating forces in areas where part of the enemy was not subdued and there were sniper attacks. There were bombing attacks. It was a disaster for people in uniform, who suffered even after the war was over. There were some deaths in World War II. I think this is a sad thing. I hear a call to bring the troops home. One of the reasons the troops are there is to protect one another and protect the people we just freed. I thought the price of freedom was in fact doing what our people are doing; that is, following the commands of the Commander in Chief. It is a very tough thing to say, but once we undertake action such as this, our national image would be absolutely tarred if we brought these people home before there was security for the people who have been liberated from that regime, the Baath party of Saddam Hussein. We can't leave them exposed, nor can we leave exposed our people who are trying to bring about reconstruction. I think we have to use common sense. To say the President shall submit a budget amendment--by the way, I don't know of any requirement anywhere in the law that the President has to submit a budget resolution before. I don't know that Congress has ever said the President shall present a budget amendment for a specific amendment of money or a specific item. I have been here 35 years. I can't remember such a requirement before in my life. For no other reason, I would oppose that because he is the President. The Constitution gives him some powers. It gives us powers. One of the powers is to exercise the power of the purse. But we are not the ones who can command the President to ask for the money. He is the President. If he wants the money, he should ask for it. If he doesn't need it, we should not compel him to ask for it. I am sure if he needs it, he will be the first one to ask for it. As a matter of fact, I have heard comments about our President on this floor lately that are sort of derogatory. I think he is a fine man. He is a great President. He is doing a good job. He is honest. He is forthcoming. He admits if he makes mistakes, and then he gets highly criticized for having made the mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes from time to time. It takes a real man to say he has made one. That is why I came to the floor yesterday and congratulated George Tenet for having taken the step of admitting he bore the responsibility for the error in handling the reference in the President's State of the Union message. But this President is doing a good job. This Secretary of Defense is doing a good job. I think the American people should be proud of them. In my home State, they are certainly proud of them. And they are proud of the young men and women in uniform representing our country over there. I think the very thought that somehow something is going wrong here and because something is going wrong here people are dying in Iraq is just a terrible thing. People are dying in Iraq, unfortunately, because there are snipers. There are terrorists loose in Iraq. I thought we were conducting a global war against terrorism. What is going on in Iraq is terrorism. There has been a regime change. There are people opposed to that change, and they are trying to kill our people over there. They are trying to protect their own brothers and sisters in their own country. I hope the Senate settles down a little bit. In the past, we have handled this bill very expeditiously because of our respect for men and women in uniform. This is the money to pay those people who represent our country throughout the world. They are deployed in many countries. They read about what goes on here. They listen to it. They have it on C-SPAN. By the way, it is a very interesting thing for this generation to go overseas compared to my time overseas. I never got a phone call after I left my home until I got back. These young people have phone calls every day. They have e-mail. They use the Web. They conduct their classes when they are deployed overseas and continue their studies. It is a different world. They know what is going on here. I hope they understand what we are trying to do is get this bill passed and make sure they get their pay raise; make sure everything is in place in time so when September 30 comes, this bill will have passed and become law and be there for the protection of our men and women in uniform. I regret deeply that we have to handle an amendment like this. We know the amounts required for the fiscal year 2004 military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We already put the money up. They are reporting monthly on what they spend. Now we want to predict how much they are going to spend. I really do not see the relevancy of this amendment. Tomorrow, I hope to end the debate by moving to table. I hope the Senate will support that motion. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this is a very complex issue. I wish to remind the Senate that in this bill, we have added $2 million for employer support for Guard and Reserve to help address problems with recent deployments. I was just informed there was a Rand study of deployments. The authors looked at the issue in the wake of the high rate of military deployments through the nineties, and the prospect that deployment will rise even more. The authors found, paraphrasing part of this report, that reenlistment was higher among members who deployed compared with those who did not, and sizable increases in deployment all appeared unlikely to reduce reenlistment rates. Research suggested past deployment influences current reenlistment behavior because it enables members to learn about their preferences of deployment and about its frequency and duration, which may revise members' previously held, more naive expectations. I have had some letters similar to what Senator Byrd has just read. I do think there are individual problems, and that is our job as Members of the Congress, this body in particular, to look into those and try to remedy them and see they do not happen again. I again commend the Senator for addressing the problem. There are existing provisions of the United States Code, specifically sections 12301, 12302, and 12304, that detail the varying levels of mobilization, the number of forces the President can call up and the amount of time those forces can be activated and actions required with respect to Congress. There is no question there is already a law concerning this situation, and by law the President of the United States has the authority to deploy members of the Guard and Reserve overseas as appropriate and within the context of the laws I just mentioned. This amendment would obviously change those laws, and if nothing else, before we change those laws, we should give the legislative committees, the Armed Services Committee, the opportunity to look at the subject. I think their review should be based upon a review of people with competence who have had experience in the problem of assisting the Commander in Chief to deal with the Reserve components of our military. I am told the standard rotation is a deployment of 180 days. Those deployment days do not include preparation or recovery time, and typically the units may be mobilized for 230 days in order to complete the 180-day deployment. This would put a restriction on that past policy as it has been carried out. We should have some in-depth review of the relationships of these policies of rotation, deployment, and mobilization days, as well as the impact on families and upon their employers, as the Senator has mentioned. Without question, employers are affected and without question small cities and towns, such as exist in my State and I know exist in West Virginia, are impaired if these durations are for too long. Clearly, we have come through a period which now I think we ought to review a little bit, and I will speak later today about the reliance of the Department of Defense on supplemental appropriations for contingency and peacekeeping operations in the past two decades. That is something that has to be addressed, and the Senator from Nevada addressed it earlier today, and I will discuss those. For now, though, again coming back to this basic problem of this amendment, do you think we can say the Secretary of Defense has already issued a statement of intent to devise a plan to deal with a portion of these problems? There is no question we have a difficult future to deal with because we still have forces in Kosovo; we still have forces in Haiti; we still have forces in Bosnia; we still have forces in Korea; we still have forces in Okinawa; we still have forces in Diego Garcia; we have forces at King Sultan Airfield in Saudi Arabia. The Senator from Hawaii and I represent two areas that have what they call forward-deployed forces. I say to the Senator from West Virginia, often when we have forces deployed from Alaska and Hawaii to go overseas, we then get replacements who are really people who have been called up, Guard and Reserve units, to come to our forward-deployed areas to fill in those spots. They are not considered deployed overseas. If they were from West Virginia, they would be away from West Virginia for a substantial period of time. The Senator's amendment would not cover those people. In terms of review, I hope, if we are successful in establishing a commission to bring this about, that there will be a basic review of the overall concept of deployment, whether it is overseas or otherwise, when it takes members of the armed services away from their home duty station and their families and particularly those who have multiple family members of the military who could be affected by deployment at the same time. One of the difficulties I have is now looking at Africa and what is going to happen in Africa. We have had repeated demands for the President to deploy forces there, increased demand to look at more than one nation that is going through a period of rebellion and riotous conduct. I think that may be one of the worst deployment problems we will have in the future, is to find forces to undertake those objectives, fulfill the objectives of the Commander in Chief's orders if we are at the same time still in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Korea, Kosovo, and Iraq. It is mind-boggling, to say the least, to deal with the concept of deployment at the present time, the requirements overseas to maintain the policies of the United States.

Mr. STEVENS. It reads: . . . there are three principal objectives that I want to achieve. They are: Structure active and reserve forces to reduce the need for involuntary mobilization of the Guard and Reserves. Eliminate the need for involuntary mobilization during the first 15 days of a rapid response operation (or for any alerts to mobilize prior to the operation). Structure forces in order to limit involuntary mobilization to not more than one every 6 years. Establish a more rigorous process for reviewing joint requirements. I am just picking portions of this statement. It will be in the Record. Make the mobilization and demobilization process more efficient. We agree with that. We ought to agree that there should be a review of that. I hope, however, the Secretary also would undertake some review of the impact of what he is talking about in terms of looking at what it will do to our enlistment rates, our retention rates and, in particular, into the viewpoints of the individual Governors who, after all, have a basic responsibility for the National Guard itself. I would like to introduce the amendment. I don't have it ready. Does Senator Inouye have any comment on this? I need to get the draft of the amendment. Would the Senator wish me to yield the floor? I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. There may be some misunderstanding in the minds of those who have been called up, or the dependents of those who have been called up, concerning existing law. The existing law does limit the deployment for overseas to 180 days. They must be rotated in that period of time. As I have said, it takes 230 days to complete that because of the time to call them up. They have to give them notice. They report. They then are put into units and then they are sent overseas. When they come back, they come into the units where they are going to be really demobilized and it takes some time then, too. I do not think we have a disagreement with the Senator from West Virginia about the need to ease the pressure on these continuing forces caused by the concept of total force, but there seems to be one misunderstanding. It is the unit that is deployed for the 180 days--in some instances members are deployed individually to fill in units. They would be subject to the same limitation, but the basic concept of the law deals with being able to deploy members of the Guard and Reserve as appropriate within the context of the law I have mentioned. Amendment No. 1255 to Amendment No. 1244 Mr. President, I have my amendment, which I send to the desk, and I will give a copy to my friend from West Virginia. I submit this amendment on behalf of myself and the Senator from Hawaii as a bipartisan approach to deal with the issues and try to bring them together. The Secretary of Defense has a group going ahead on this. We obviously believe the Congress should be involved in some way. I ask that that amendment be in order to be called up at this time.

Mr. STEVENS. I apologize. I am offering this amendment in the second degree to the Byrd amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. If I could explain this proposal, it would create a commission on overseas deployments to have 11 members: 3 appointed by the President, 2 appointed by the Speaker, 2 appointed by the minority leader of the House, 2 appointed by the majority leader of the Senate, and 2 by the minority leader of the Senate. They would be appointed the term of the commission. We ask for the commission to hold its first meeting not later than 30 days after they have been appointed. They have the duty to give us a report within 120 days after enactment of the act--obviously, that would be a period of 90 days for their basic work--and they would recommend ways to reduce the burden of overseas deployments while maintaining readiness, overseas presence, and support of the national military strategy. The report and recommendations shall address the overall side, structure, and sufficiency of the Armed Forces in relation to current requirements for overseas deployment and presence, and the adequacy of the current balance and mix of Active and Reserve component forces, and the adequacy of the current balance and mix of critical, high-demand low-density units the rotation and assignment of members of the Armed Forces married to each other, limitations on the periods for overseas tours and unaccompanied tours and hardship locations. I believe this commission would have a duty to give us some basic information to address the problem raised by the Senator from West Virginia. Incidentally, I now have the numbers the Senator from West Virginia asked. There were Reserve and Guard organizations deployed. They were in Operation Noble Eagle, which was Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraqi crisis, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Kuwait, and Iraq. We have had a sizable deployment of Guard and Reserve personnel--the Reserve component is what they refer to--in all of those instances. I do have the numbers and the duration. As I indicated, the rotation schedule was that which I mentioned, which is 180 days for deployment overseas. I urge the Senator from West Virginia to consider supporting the amendment we have offered to his amendment to assure we have the right mix of Active-Duty and Reserve components and that we devise means to reduce our forces with the least disruption on the lives of the service members involved.

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. That is the current law.

Mr. STEVENS. Not quite. We do not interpret it that way. It goes further than existing law. Existing law says the units can be deployed for no more than 180 days but under the current law, the time and preparing for that deployment and the time after that deployment to be redeployed, say, another place such as england or somewhere, to be put together so they can be brought home, those times don't count against the 180 days. The Senator's amendment adds a dimension not included in existing law, not more than one deployment in any 360-day period.

Mr. STEVENS. One hundred and twenty days from enactment of the basic appropriations bills, yes, sir.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I will make a statement while I am trying to locate the amendment I am going to offer. The 2004 budget request included no funding for the establishment of additional weapons of mass destruction civil support teams. There are currently 32 teams that are certified and operational. The plan is to field a total of 55 teams to ensure there is at least 1 team established in each State and territory. The Senate Armed Services Committee included additional manpower and funding to establish 12 additional teams in fiscal year 2004. We included additional National Guard manpower for these teams, but we did not provide operation and maintenance or procurement funding. I will send an amendment to the desk and ask that we consider it. This amendment conforms our bill to that of the Senate-passed national defense authorization bill regarding what we call CSTSs of the funds provided to the Department of Defense. This amendment would earmark $39.3 million in operation and maintenance funds, $25.9 million in procurement, and $1 million in research and development funds. I present the amendment as one that is offset and merely allocates funds to these teams as required by the Senate-passed authorization bill. I believe it has the support of my colleague Senator Inouye.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have amendments from our side of the aisle which have been cleared. The first is Senator Roberts' amendment to make amounts available for research, development, test, and evaluation defense-wide, $2 million for the development of integrated systems analysis capabilities for bioterrorism and response exercises. Second is Senator Lott's, to set aside Marine Corps procurement funds for use for the procurement of nitrile rubber collapsible storage units. Next is for Senators Graham and Hollings of South Carolina to make amounts available for research, development, test, and evaluation, Navy, $6 million for Marine Corps communications systems for the Critical Infrastructure Protection Center. Finally, another is for Senator Lott to set aside other procurement, Army funds, for the procurement of TSC-750 computer systems. I ask unanimous consent to offer the amendments en bloc and have them reported en bloc and considered en bloc.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 12:15 the Senate proceed to executive session and immediately vote on the confirmation of Calendar No. 295, Lonny R. Suko of Washington to be a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Washington, without further intervening action or debate; and I further ask that following that vote, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, the Senate then resume legislative session, and recess as under the previous order.