Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator. Does the Senator from Hawaii wish to be recognized?

Mr. STEVENS. Reserving the right to object, I don't know what that does to the other order.

Mr. STEVENS. That is fine. I have no objection. Senator Lott precedes that?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there is not a quorum call in effect, is there?

Mr. STEVENS. I am informed Senator Lautenberg will not be returning to the floor to speak. Next will be Senator Lott, right?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I think the Senate should realize that when you are talking about the Transportation Security Agency, we are talking about 45,000 screeners in the current system. Passenger screening takes about $1.8 billion; baggage screening, $1.3 billion. Security and enforcement takes $703 million. The security part of TSA is very small compared to the manpower looking at passengers and baggage. That is their primary function now. And of this $2 billion, $70 million comes from aviation user fees, and $95 million comes from transfer from carryover for the fiscal year 2003. This is a function, in terms of this part of the homeland security agency, that is directly related to the transportation mechanisms. We urged and have continued to urge that the aviation industry pay the vast portion of this now because the major portion of TSA affects the airports and airways. We believe, and I sincerely believe, that we should find a way to have airlines collecting these user fees, have them provide the kind of screening that is necessary for the passengers and for their baggage. As a matter of fact, we have placed in this bill--this is the Homeland Security appropriations bill, of which I am a member of the conference, and they are meeting right now--a substantial amount of taxpayer money to continue this process of getting all of the baggage screening and all the passenger screening done. But the bulk of the money, two-thirds of the money each year is coming from the aviation industry itself, which is currently terribly hampered. They are hiring people still. In the small airports, it is very unique because they still have the people who are handling the passengers, but they have these people hired by TSA who are using a third or more of their buildings. That has to stop. That has to transition to a private enterprise. If we do this, and we put it in Governmental Affairs, that is not going to happen. They don't have the pressure from the entities that are carrying these passengers. We do in Commerce, and we have tried our best so far to meet the process and to be fair to both the Governmental agencies that have the temporary job and the transportation agencies that are paying the bulk of the cost of that job. But there has to be a transition. We cannot keep it up. In fact, very soon the airlines are going to be unable to pay those charges. They are going to have to be paid by the taxpayers. We heard this morning they are not even going to be able to make their contribution to the retirement funds. This must be changed. I will use the remainder of my time to say I agree with Senator Lott. We had a conversation at noon today about the whole system. It hasn't been since 1977 that we reorganized the Senate. We should do that. We should recognize the changes in the economy, changes in our people, changes in the whole global concept. But we have not done that. This is attempting now--because Homeland Security agencies have come upon us-- by the way, it has been on us for a while; we didn't need the 9/11 Commission to tell us what to do. We created Homeland Security before they were created. They took it upon themselves to tell us how to do our own laundry. We can do this ourselves. By January, we will have to see what the House has done. We have the problem of dealing with 100 people, but they have 435 in the House. We are going to have to change to meet the reorganization they are going to bring about. They have a reorganization group going. We should have a reorganization group. With this group, the two whips have done a marvelous job trying to meet the demands of the 9/11 Commission, which is piecemeal as far as the Senate is concerned. We should have another reorganization. Whose job is that? That is the job of Rules and the Governmental Affairs Committees to reorganize and find a way to deal with the reorganization that is required for the Senate to meet current and future needs. This isn't the way to do it. The Senator keeps mentioning that two-thirds somehow or another is in Commerce. That is not so. We have one-third of this budget. We have one-third of the burden from the financing of Homeland Security, which is in TSA. I have the figures. I have table 3 from the Department of Homeland Security summary of appropriations for fiscal 2004 and 2005. This is prepared by the CRS. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is very clear. We are talking about one-third, not two-thirds. The other part of this is the other agencies spread throughout this maze of jurisdiction we have. When we reorganized in 1997, someone used a mixing bowl, and the committees spilled out first. It wasn't a good, sound reorganization. We need a good, sound reorganization. This is not the way to do it.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Would the Senator like to yield there?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have 5 minutes and the Senator from Delaware have 5 minutes.

Mr. STEVENS. If the Senator will not yield to me, I will not yield to him. I want 5 minutes and the Senator from Delaware wants 5 minutes. Does the Senator object?

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

Mr. STEVENS. I object. I only want 5 minutes, and I want to be able to respond to the Senator from Illinois. He would not yield to me. I see no reason why I should yield to him.

Mr. STEVENS. What is the time situation?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I cannot hear.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I have sent three of the pending amendments to the desk in an amended form. These changes have been coordinated with the managers of the bill and I believe they are acceptable to them. The first amendment, No. 3840, revises the acquisition authority of the national intelligence director and that is at the desk. The second amendment, No. 3830, modifies a certain provision related to the Central Intelligence Agency and that amendment is at the desk. Amendment No. 3882 revises the provisions related to the inspector general of the National Intelligence Authority. It conforms these provisions to those in the Inspector General Act and avoids duplication of the inspector general efforts across the impacted agencies. That amendment is at the desk. I appreciate the courtesy of the managers of the bill and their staffs, and their willingness to engage in dialog on these amendments with me and my staff. We are still working to resolve differences over amendment No. 3827 regarding the information-sharing network to address some of the concerns identified by the White House and others. We hope to reach a resolution on that language this morning, but, as I said, I thank the managers of the bill for their help in resolving these issues. It has been a matter of great concern to those of us who have worked with the intelligence community for quite some time. I now ask unanimous consent that amendments Nos. 3840, 3830, and 3882 be amended as noted in the revised amendments that I have sent to the desk; that the amendments be considered en bloc and adopted en bloc, and that the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. STEVENS. How much time do I have remaining of the 10 minutes?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have heard this talk about the inspectors and their conclusion that they have not found weapons of mass destruction. Seventeen times the United Nations asked Saddam Hussein to disclose where the weapons of mass destruction were. We know he used them on the Kurds. We know he used them in Iran. We know we have evidence he was trying to build additional weapons but the inspectors kept asking to return. They asked again and again to return so they could find out if there was evidence of where he had those weapons of mass destruction. Now they are before the Armed Services Committee this morning and they are going to testify that they have found ``no evidence'' of the weapons of mass destruction. We had the same conclusion with regard to the Iraqi air force. We were told Saddam had destroyed a series of airplanes. Later we found them buried in the Iraqi desert--a whole series of airplanes--the whole airplane buried. It was capable of being dug up, brought out of the dirt and used. Now, we have not found the weapons of mass destruction yet. This Senator believes he had them. We know he had them in the Kurd area. We know he used them on Iran. This idea that somehow or another the President or the Vice President have lied, I am tired of hearing this disrespect for the President and Vice President of the United States and I will be willing to debate any time what happened in Iraq. I went to Kuwait time after time, and to Saudi Arabia, and talked to the pilots who were flying the continuous air patrol over Iraq. Since the gulf war, our pilots were up there every day, and every day they were shot at by ground-to-air weapons that Saddam was not supposed to have at all. This idea that somehow or another the President and Vice President of the United States lied because they believed there were weapons of mass destruction there, I believe there are weapons of mass destruction there and I still believe there are weapons there somewhere. Where they have taken them, I do not know, but they have not found them. The inspectors kept finding enough reason to go back and go back. They went back 17 times. To say the President lied, what about those inspectors who said, We have to go back; we have not found them yet but we are going to find some more? Did they lie? I think there ought to be greater respect for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency of this country, and in this campaign. I have never heard such disrespect. I did not go out and campaign against President Clinton and say he lied, and yet we know he did. He admitted he lied about the matters that were before the grand jury. Now we did not go out and accuse the President of lying. We had a lot of discussions on the floor about that. So if we want to compare Presidents and who lied and who did not, I am ready any time the Democrats want to do it, but I am tired of this disrespect. It is time we showed respect for the system. I do not remember in the past when a Senator asked another Senator to yield and if that Senator had time, it normally would happen. At the very least the Senator would say: Let me finish my statement now and I will yield at the end of my statement. That kind of senatorial courtesy has to come back to the Senate. If the Senator wants me to yield, I will yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. STEVENS. The Senator has 10 minutes on his time on the 1 hour to which the Senator is entitled.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am delighted to have an opportunity to debate with the Senator from Illinois because I listened to the comments he made before, comments I violently disagree with. For instance, in 1998, President Clinton went before the general officers of this Nation, officers from all of our units of the military, and he told them he believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He laid down a just challenge to Saddam Hussein to come forward and disclose them or he believed he might have to go into Iraq himself. That seems to be forgotten. Apparently, the Senator from Illinois didn't hear the Vice President when he mentioned Mr. Zarqawi last night, a man who was in Iraq before even the problems of Afghanistan who was operating there. He is back there now. He had operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was part of the bad guys there. Now we know he is back in Iraq again. He is mentioned as being one of the senior contacts within the al-Qaida organization that was there before and came back again now. The Vice President has mentioned the contacts that existed in the al-Qaida world in Iraq. I still believe he was right. There is no question about it. There was a portion of the terrorist organization in Iraq before, and they are back there now. As far as the weapons of mass destruction, I believe at the time we had seen the briefings--and I am one of the eight in the Congress who received the same briefings the President of the United States got about Iraq. We got them in confidence. As a matter of fact, even the statement the Senator from Illinois made about Mr. Bremer, who is the President's representative, that is from a classified report that we should not be discussing on the floor. It ended up somehow being leaked, that one line from the report. But the report deals with the overall relationship of Mr. Bremer to the whole process. The problem is this: When we look at the Bremer situation, what Bremer did--we were there. We talked to him. He did want more forces around Baghdad. He thought there should be more. The President relied upon our general officers. He told me personally and he told us as we went to Iraq and came back from Iraq, we are doing what our general officers request, as far as the troop strength is concerned. The general officers disagreed with Bremer as to the location of those forces. There is no question about it. We probably should have had more. In my opinion, we should have been able to come through Iraq from the north, through Turkey, and come from the south from Kuwait, and had two forces moving through Iraq and squash those people over there. Instead, because of developments in Turkey, we could not go through Turkey. We flew our troops down to Kuwait, we took their supples all the way around, and when the supplies reached them they then went in, and instead of having forces meet in Baghdad, particularly in Saddam Hussein's home part of Iraq, they then come back to Baghdad, and that left them spread out. My memory is that the insurrection started in the south because the forces had gone north and we couldn't spread them that thin. People said: Send more troops. Send more troops. We heard that on the floor: Send more troops. The ability to maintain and supply those troops was a real difficult situation, particularly when all the support supplies were coming through Kuwait. We even started sending some supplies through Jordan. But the problem really is what happened in terms of Saddam Hussein, in terms of the relationship to al-Qaida, and the relationship to weapons of mass destruction. I stood here on the floor of the Senate and called Saddam Hussein a Hitler. I did that at least 9 months before the war started. I still believe he was a Hitler. He invaded Kuwait, and we had to kick him out. He was rebuilding his military within that area that he still maintained control of in Iraq. We had control of the south and north part of his country. Yet look at it in terms of the no- fly zone we were trying to protect. But in terms of the part he controlled he was rebuilding his military because of the money that came into his hands through the ``food-for- oil'' program. You can stand here, no matter what you say, and say we haven't found weapons of mass destruction. That is true. We haven't found them. I still believe there are some out there, whether they are in adjoining nations or buried in the ground. Whatever happened to them, he had them. To accuse the administration of misleading the public when they relied upon the intelligence analysts that we relied on--the same intelligence analysts President Clinton relied on when he made his 1998 speech. Certainly those of us who were here supported the resolution that asked the President to send troops into Iraq; we believed it. When you look at it, if we want to get into situations when Senator Kerry voted against the 1991 war resolution in spite of what Iraq did in invading Kuwait, he voted against us going into Kuwait to liberate Kuwait. I think my friends on the other side of the aisle have been wrong for 30 years. As a matter of fact, those on the other side of the aisle mainly opposed the Reagan buildup in the 1980s. I was chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and I remember those votes. Fifty times here we voted on amendments that were offered to try to strike weapons systems from the defense bill that I managed to bring to the floor to rebuild the military capacity of the United States. All of those amendments came from the other side of the aisle. When you look at it, when you look at the trouble, why did we have a shortage of intelligence? President Clinton started degrading human intelligence in the CIA. He denuded the intelligence system as far as human intelligence is concerned because he wanted to rely on the satellites in the air and the communications systems, electrical systems. I cannot believe we are going to get into these one-sided statements. I would like to have a full debate. I am sort of at a loss. I don't have my records. The Senator from Illinois has his records, but I don't have them. But I have a feeling that had we not denuded the CIA in the 1990s, we would have had better intelligence. But the information we had relied upon, the American public relied upon, and this Senate relied upon when we voted to give the President the right to go into Iraq. To say the President was wrong because he relied on the same intelligence we relied upon I think is a faulty argument, and it should not happen on the floor of the Senate in a political season where we are trying to destroy the reputation which the President deserves for having the guts to do what Clinton didn't have the guts to do.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I yield myself time under the intelligence bill.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I call up amendment No. 3827, and I send to the desk a modified version of that amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. I think it is already before the Senate.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I again thank the managers of the bill, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman and their staffs, for working with us on this amendment. That amendment has now been modified, and I think it meets the objections or the reservations that were set forth by the administration Statement of Position, the so-called SAP, that we received on this bill. It has been modified to make certain that the President will have the authority to designate an entity. We all agree, we hope, that he will not delegate this matter to the national intelligence director. I think it is a function that is essential to carry out the purposes of this bill. Therefore, I am offering the modified amendment. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment, as modified, be considered and adopted, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3839 be withdrawn from consideration. I am still sad about the vote that was against the position I supported with regard to disclosing the aggregated top line of intelligence. I hope before we are through with this bill that we will find some way to accommodate some of the reservations I have about that process, but in any event I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I say to the two Senators, it is my intention now to support this bill. I congratulate them for listening to us. Sometimes I have raised my voice. One newspaper said I shouted at the distinguished Senator from Maine. That is just my trial lawyer voice, and I apologize for it. I do thank the Senator for her courtesy and apologize if I have been mistaken in terms of the tone of my voice, but that is my voice. I cannot do much about it.