Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from California, I attempted to follow the Senator from Colorado, and Senator Leahy wanted to speak next.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, what is the pending business? Is there pending business, might I inquire?

Mr. SESSIONS. All right. Does the Senator know how long he might speak?

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, Mr. President, I want to talk on a slightly different issue, so I would accept that and withdraw any objection.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, with regard to the question of fencing along our southern border, I wish to make a couple of points. Over 1 million people were apprehended last year along that border. One million people coming in illegally were apprehended. Probably another half million got through without being apprehended. Good fences make good neighbors. It is time for us to bring lawfulness to that border. I think the American people want that. If somebody would like to know the differences between our parties and the differences of how we approach the question of having a lawful immigration system in America, I suggest that my colleague--I enjoy working with him a great deal on the Judiciary Committee. My colleague referred to the legislation that we voted to move forward to consider--legislation that passed this Senate 94 to 3 to fund the fence on the border and passed 83 to 16 to authorize the fence to be constructed--as ``hasty, ill-considered, and mean-spirited.'' He then went on to suggest Secretary Chertoff is conducting a war on immigrants. How much of a difference can we have here? How big a gulf? Do the American people want us to just say nothing can be done one more time and just give up, or do they want us to take rational steps that would bring lawfulness to the border? I think they want us to do the latter. They have been asking us to do that for some time, and the votes in this Senate and the House of Representatives have been overwhelming in favor of that approach. My colleague says that we had hearings in the Senate and we had a Senate bill on the floor, and he implied--I thought he said that fencing was a part of that bill, but it wasn't really. It was my amendment on the floor that moved that bill forward in a significant way. At any rate, we did discuss it, and there has been broad support both in the committee and on the floor to proceed to that matter. I just want to say, yes, we want comprehensive reform. No, we don't want to end all immigration. The wall the Communists built in East Germany was to keep their citizens in East Germany, to keep them from fleeing their country so they could have freedom. That is quite different from an attempt to maintain a legal flow of people into the country because we just can't accept everybody. This country cannot accept everybody who would like to come. A recent poll in Nicaragua said 60 percent would come to the United States in they could. A poll in Peru said as many as 70 percent would come if they could. The whole world has millions and millions of people who would like to come to this country. So we ought to set up a rational system, one that serves our national interest, one that is fair, and then enforce it, set up a system that works. As long as we have a wide-open border, without control and law, we are not doing our duty. I don't think those of us in this Congress, in this Senate, want to go back home after we recess and say we didn't follow through on what probably most of us have been saying--that we do believe barriers are necessary. The House has sent us a bill, not unlike the Senate bill that we passed 83 to 16 and we voted to fund 94 to 3. The bill I offered had 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of barriers. The House bill has about 700 miles, I believe, of fencing and barriers and electronics. There is not a lot of difference fundamentally between the two. We now will have an opportunity to offer amendments to discuss details. Fundamentally, we need to take action. We need to do something. We don't need to go home again and wait until next year without any action. Then when it comes to comprehensive reform, we need to bury the proposal we have that the Senate has considered and voted on, move that aside, and come back next year with a fresh approach and create a comprehensive plan for immigration that serves our national interest, that is consistent with what our allies, such as Canada and Australia, do, and consider what they do. If we do, we will come up with some good ideas, and we will have something the American people can support. If we gain some credibility with the American people by, first, taking action toward enforcement, we will be able to do something good, but it will have to be next year. There is no way this Senate should accept a rushed-through package before this election or after this election in some lame-duck Congress that does not have a fresh look at our policy. I will resist that with every fiber of my being, but I will not resist comprehensive reform because I think we need it. I wanted to share those thoughts, Mr. President. I am pleased that we just had a unanimous vote to move forward to the fence bill the House has passed. We will talk about it today and tomorrow. I also serve on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. We have had quite a lot of discussions on those two committees and now in Armed Services, in particular, about how to deal with the effect of the Hamdan decision and how to make sure we are in compliance with the Supreme Court opinion. I want to make a couple of points. The President thought and believed and his top lawyers advised him-- his top lawyers advised him--that the detainee interrogation program that was being conducted, that they wanted to conduct, was producing substantial results for America, obtaining information that has thwarted attacks on America and saved lives, has provided information to identify that some of the people involved in 9/11--these are some of the people who have admitted and we have evidence against to prove were actually complicitous in 9/11, coconspirators. The President has moved those prisoners down to Guantanamo. The interrogation process for those have been exhausted. They believe they have obtained all the information they can expect to obtain. They need to be tried for the crimes they have committed in a war they are conducting against the United States of America. They will be tried in the forum in which they should be tried, in a forum provided for in the U.S. Constitution, in a military commission. This is not a trial in the Southern District of New York for an American citizen for bank fraud or drug dealing. This is a military commission adjudication of whether these people are involved in a war against the United States that has resulted in the deaths of 3,000 American citizens on 9/11 and other deaths since then. So he had a legal opinion on that. They briefed it to him. And do you remember the President looking us in the eye right after 9/11, and he said just the other night, Monday night a week ago, I guess, on television, he looked the American people in the eye and said: I am going to use every lawful power I have to defend the people of this country. That is my responsibility, in effect, he was telling us, that is my duty, to protect this country, and I am going to use every lawful power I have. And we cheered. And we said: Yes, sir. And we said: Mr. President, catch those guys. Put your people out there and catch these terrorists who have attacked our country and killed our innocent people and crashed into the Trade Towers and run airplanes into them. Go get them. Do you remember that? Boy, I am telling you, people felt strongly about it. So now what do we have? Oh, we have the complainers and the second- guessers. I just want to say this: I believe the President's program was legal from the beginning. I have researched the law. I have been involved in this. I was a Federal prosecutor. I don't know everything, but I have some understanding of it through both of the committees in which I have been involved, and I know they researched the law and they believed they were operating lawfully. I remember the Ex parte Quirin case during World War II when President Roosevelt was President. They caught a group of saboteurs who were let loose on the American homeland from a submarine, I believe it was, and they came in and they planned sabotage against the American people. Do you know what they did? And the Supreme Court approved this in the famous case Ex parte Quirin. They took them, they caught them, they set up a commission, they tried them, and they executed most of them in short order because this was not like some normal trial. These were people coming into our country for the purpose of sabotaging this country, people whose motives and desires were to kill innocent men, women, and children, contrary to the laws of war--contrary to the laws of war, which do not allow for that. That is the big deal. So the people who have been apprehended, the people who were being detained and incarcerated and interrogated were not prisoners of war. This is crystal clear. You can't execute prisoners of war the way we executed the Nazi saboteurs. Prisoners of war are entitled to all of the protections of the Geneva Accords, and they have to be provided great protections and great advantages, really, and we adhere to that, we adhere to that today, and we always have. It was been taught to every soldier in America. But these are unlawful combatants. They sneak around. They don't wear uniforms. They don't carry their weapons openly. And their goal and tactic is to utilize terror and slaughter innocent men, women, and children to promote their agenda. That is not a soldier. A soldier can drop a bomb on a military target, but a soldier can't shoot because it may unfortunately result in someone being killed. But a soldier can't deliberately have his policy to kill women and children and noncombatants. Otherwise, they are an unlawful combatant, not a lawful combatant, and they have been considered not to have been covered by the Geneva Accords. But the Supreme Court, in my opinion fundamentally reversing the Quirin case, which the President relied on, came along and said that in Hamdan, Common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to these terrorists and that we need some more rules and regulations with regard to how to try them to create a just trial. OK. So what did the President do? Did he act unilaterally and say: I am not going to do it, I am not going to comply with the Supreme Court. Yes, he previously said he thought what he was doing was proper. No. What did the President say? He said: Congress, let's review Hamdan. We are sending you some proposals which will clarify what we can do with interrogations, which will fix the concerns about trying these unlawful combatants, and I want you to act on that, and we need to do it quickly because we need to continue to interrogate terrorists and we need to try those people who are responsible for the deaths of American citizens on 9/11. That is not a seizing of power--some dictator. That is not someone who comes along and says: It has to be my way or the highway. So we have a group of Senators now on the Armed Services Committee who say: Well, they have their own plan and they have researched the law and they don't want to do what the President says. They want to do it their way. OK. This is what Congress is all about. I agree with the President. From what I understand of the situation, I am supporting the President's view. But I know people have different views, and I am willing to listen to those concerns. If we can reach an accord that I feel good about and the President feels good about and the Senators objecting who have their own agenda can agree to, that would be wonderful. But there are a couple of things that have to happen. We cannot end our interrogation procedures that have been so effective. General Hayden, the Director of the CIA, has told us and pleaded with us that if we adopt the proposal the Senators have favored--and it was voted out of the Armed Services Committee--he is going to have to stop the program. Wow. He is going to have to stop that program. So we don't want to do that, surely. I mean, this is a man of integrity and ability and experience. He has talked to his people who conduct these interrogations. They are not torturing anyone. We have a statute that prohibits the torture of anyone--Federal law. People can go to jail for that. It defines what torture is in very explicit terms. If somebody has proof that our people have tortured somebody, well, let's bring them up and try them. But let's not overreach here. We are in a dangerous world. The leader in Iran recently said that his goal was to see the United States of America bow down before Iran, in a public address. How about that? We have nonstate extremists committed to death and destruction around the world through suicidal attacks, and they represent a real threat to the peace and dignity of the whole world. So this is not an itty-bitty matter. There are two things that have to be done, and we should do them before we adjourn. The two things are as follows: We need to establish the rules for interrogations because if you read through the lines, if you read through the lines, what you will hear those agents saying is: We thought we were serving you. We thought we were following all these rules the lawyers told us to. But we were using what we thought were legal tactics and techniques to interrogate prisoners, and we have obtained great and valuable information which will help protect our country, which has helped us identify people who attacked us on 9/11, which has thwarted attacks. We have done all of these things. That is what we thought you wanted us to do, Congress. Now you tell us we are some sort of beasts and that we have done all these things wrong and we ought to be sued. And many of our people are being sued right now-- 400--by terrorists, and we are going to accuse them of being less than American. They put their lives on the line in some of the most dangerous areas of this globe to capture these terrorists. And they are saying: OK, Congress, you tell us. That is what I read General Hayden to be saying. He didn't say that exactly, but he speaks for those agents of his. And they are having to take out insurance policies against lawsuits because they expect to be sued more by terrorists. Where did this happen--in a war, we have lawsuits? I am suggesting that this matter is no light deal. We do not need to make a mistake and destroy the morale of those who have served us so ably, with so much fidelity and courage and hard work. We need to fix this, and we need to allow them to utilize legitimate techniques. Some of those have the ability to stress an individual for a period of time but not torture. That is against the law. That is illegal. It is not against the treaties we have signed. We can do that, but we don't need to go too far. The next thing is, it is time to get on with the trial of the people who attacked us, in a military format because it was a military attack on us. Al-Qaida, you remember, bin Laden declared war on the United States of America for years before 9/11. He attacked our warship, the USS Cole, he attacked our embassies in Africa, and there have been other attacks. We are in a state of hostilities with al-Qaida directly, and we have authorized those hostilities by the Congress of the United States. So they are rightly to be tried not in the Southern District of New York, not in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, they are to be tried in a military commission as an extension of the military campaign, the war we are conducting. The military commissions are not the same as trials, I have to tell my colleagues. They are just not. It is a different animal. Because we are Americans, we want to be sure that even those terrorists we try are not unjustly convicted, that the evidence against them is legitimate and that it proves their guilt to the required degree, and only then should they be punished, as opposed to just being detained, actually punished for the crimes they committed. But it does not require that we meet the standard of Federal district court. Let me just say these two things. We have made mistakes before. This time we are in now, we have the newspapers all excited, saying we have abused prisoners. We have leftist groups and world interest groups, and they have all said we are abusing prisoners and Guantanamo is horrible. Well, I have been to Guantanamo twice, and it is not horrible. They are treating those prisoners fairly and decently. They are not being tortured. Anybody who abuses prisoners is being disciplined. They said: Well, you abused prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Well, they have been tried and sent to jail, the American soldiers who participated in that. They put them in jail. And it was not part of any interrogation. What they did was just an abuse of those prisoners for their own amusement, their own sick feelings or ideas. They were not interrogators. They were not interrogating them. They were not following any rules of interrogation. They were just abusing prisoners. And we have tried them and convicted them and sent them to jail. The fact that they did that was discovered by the military itself. Our military has done its level best to treat prisoners fairly and justly, and it is a slander on them to continually suggest that is not so. People from all over the world have gone to Guantanamo. So I want to say this warning. I am going to watch this legislation. Even if the President agrees to it, I am going to read it. I don't know what they are talking about now. I haven't seen the latest negotiations between the Armed Services Committee and the White House. I want to give this warning. It wasn't too many years ago that people in the Congress and in the news media and the world groups all raised cain, and they said that CIA agents were out talking to bad guys, people who had criminal records, and they were paying them money to be informants for them. And some of them had actually killed people, and this was horrible. The CIA couldn't have that judgment call to make anymore, and they should never again associate themselves with people with criminal histories. The people said: This is going too far. Many times, the only people who know anything are people who are participating in it. You have to get the information wherever you can get the intelligence. No, the Congress said, listening to the media, listening to the ACLU-type groups. No, no. We have to crack down on our agents and make sure they don't deal with people with criminal records. So we passed a law that banned that. Then they said: Well, you know, the CIA can gather information differently than the FBI. We don't know what they might gather, so we have to create a wall between the CIA and the FBI, and the CIA can't share information with the FBI--not to prosecute somebody--just to find out what is going on. In this country, when they find out from foreign intelligence that someone is threatening the security of America, they are not able to share that information readily. I suppose they were trying to mollify the news media and the activist groups and those who are always complaining. Maybe they did, in the short run. But do you remember what happened after 9/11? I remember. We said we didn't have enough intelligence. Why didn't we know this was happening to our country? Why didn't we know? We began to look at it and see what was happening. Both of these issues--they were passed in a fit of morality or trying to go overboard to prove we were good and decent people. They went back and found both of these tactics, the wall between the FBI and the CIA and the ban on agents talking to dangerous people with criminal records were bad, and we promptly reversed them. Can you imagine that? So we threw them out. All I am saying is we need to watch this deal coming forward to the Senate today. We do not need to go too far. We have laws against torture. We have laws that require us to treat prisoners with decency and respect in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But there are things we can do consistent with our law and consistent with our treaties. It would be a mistake for us to unilaterally, out of some sort of attempt to placate opinion around the world or the opinions of those who dislike us, to adopt restrictions on our capabilities that go beyond what the law requires. How silly would that be. It might not make a difference in this case, because he has already confessed, but what cases are we going to see in the future? What other threats will this country have? I, for one, am not going to participate in unilaterally hamstringing the ability of our military and our intelligence agencies to do their job, to protect America consistent with our law, consistent with our heritage, consistent with the treaties which we signed. It is a tough call. The matters are very complicated. I respect people on both sides, but I am telling you we need to be careful. We don't need to make the mistakes we did when Frank Church was running the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate and we made a lot of errors, and other errors we made over the years. I thank the Chair for allowing me to share these thoughts as we continue to wrestle with how to establish interrogation rules and trials of those who have attacked our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am thinking about 20 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I think Alice Fisher is a fine person. My colleague and those on the other side are never happy with whatever the President does to try to protect this country. He looked the American people in the eye--after he was elected, we had 9/11--and he said: I am going to use every power I have to prosecute, investigate, and stop those who threaten the safety of the American people. That is my responsibility as Commander in Chief. I took an oath to do that, and I intend to do that. And he appointed some good people. Now all we have had is second- guessing, second-guessing, second-guessing, complaint, complaint, complaint, hold up nominees; never happy. Somebody has to do something. I remember right after 9/11. What happened? We had a national epiphany. We found out in a spasm of political activity years ago, just like in many ways today, the Congress, to placate critics and liberals and activists, prohibited the FBI from talking to the CIA. They prohibited CIA agents because they heard some of them had made a mistake somewhere--there were allegations of that--that they couldn't talk, when they were out doing undercover operations trying to obtain human intelligence in dangerous areas of the world, with people who had criminal records and might have done something wrong. What happened after 9/11? We said: Why didn't we have any human intelligence? What are the problems here? What we concluded was that both of those proposals, for example, were wrong, and we promptly reversed them. We changed the law. That is all I am saying about this flap--and I have been involved with it on the Armed Services Committee, and I have been involved with it on the Judiciary Committee. We have had 30 or more hearings investigating the people of this country who are trying to preserve, protect, and defend this Nation. That is who we investigate and complain about. Do we ever hear about how to better catch the terrorists? It is time we start thinking about defending and protecting this country rather than to prosecute and block and obstruct those who have been giving their every waking moment to make us safer. My good colleague from Michigan is such an able Senator. I am sorry this didn't all work out to his satisfaction. The Department of Justice, the administration offered this, he didn't like that. They offered that, he didn't like that. Maybe sometimes one gets to thinking there has been a little strategy around here--and I have seen it in case after case that began with Miguel Estrada--for the Members on the other side to demand records, statements, internal conversations, internal memoranda to which they are not entitled. They don't want people coming in and demanding everything they said to everybody who came into their office. So they come up with this, and they ask for all these items. Then when they don't get them, they say: Obstruction, obstruction; we can't vote for the nominee. Now they have created an excuse to vote against a very fine nominee, when the person is doing an excellent job and ought to be confirmed so they can continue to be even more effective in the war against terror. I have seen it time and again. With regard to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of our Senators down here complaining had a whole host of those nominees held up for years. The court ended up deciding the University of Michigan higher education, affirmative action case with far less judges than should have been on that panel. There has been some real concern expressed about that. Obstructing, holding up, and delaying nominees is not the right thing to do. We have important governmental actions to do here. Let me tell my colleagues about Alice Fisher. She has proven herself in the Criminal Division. Under her leadership, the division has made a number of great strides. The Criminal Division has been responsible for the national coordination of all national security prosecutions, of all the criminal cases in Federal court, including domestic and international terrorism and counterintelligence matters. Alice Fisher has also worked closely with the intelligence community. That is her responsibility. We had too much of a wall of separation. Sure, she is to be engaged in these issues to assess potential threat information to our national security and disrupt potential attacks against this country. Alice Fisher provides advice to U.S. attorneys. I was a U.S. attorney for 12 years. There are 93 of them around this country covering the whole country. She provides them advice on terrorism matters, including such areas as terrorist acts in the United States and abroad, weapons of mass destruction, principles of extraterritorial jurisdiction, and use of classified evidence and intelligence information in prosecutions. Alice Fisher also established the Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism. During her tenure, the division's counterterrorism section, which Fisher also had previously organized and supervised as Deputy Assistant Attorney General, has prosecuted numerous ``material support'' terrorism cases, cases against people who have given material support to terrorists to further their ability to attack and kill innocent people in this country and abroad. Those prosecutions have been located throughout the country and include alleged planners supporting terrorism in Georgia, Ohio, Florida, New York, Virginia, and California; defendants facing extradition from the United Kingdom and other foreign countries; international terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaida, Hezbollah, FARC--the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-- and domestic terrorists. Under the direction of the Attorney General, the Justice Department is placing increased emphasis on targeting gangs. Fisher was chosen by the Attorney General to head that effort. Under her guidance, the Criminal Division has created the National Gang Targeting, Enforcement and Coordination Center, a multiagency initiative led by the Criminal Division, with participation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Bureau of Prisons, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Marshals Service. Those are agencies she coordinates. The gang initiative will create law enforcement strategies and facilitate operations across agency lines aimed at dismantling national and transnational violent gangs. Fisher also established a new gang squad of experienced gang prosecutors who coordinate nationwide prosecutions and make them more effective. Under her leadership, in partnership with various U.S. Attorney's Offices and the Drug Enforcement Administration, more than 130 defendants were recently indicted and hundreds of thousands of dollars seized as part of an international operation targeting the trafficking of black tar heroin in the United States. The multistate investigation, called Operation Black Gold Rush, included arrests in 15 U.S. cities and 10 indictments in eight Federal judicial districts, along with State charges. More than 17 kilograms of black tar heroin, a potent form of heroin that is dark and sticky in appearance, were seized during this operation. As Assistant Attorney General, she also has been involved now, and earlier when she was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, with the Enron task force. We remember when everybody talked about Enron that something had to be done about it. Many people doubted anything would be done about it. President Bush announced that we were going to have integrity in big business, and big business people who cheat and harm their employees and others in this country will be vigorously prosecuted. She was involved in that effort. She supervised the Enron task force. It has investigated that entire scheme created by the executives of Enron to deceive the investing public, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and others. The case has resulted in convictions of top Enron executives. Many said that wouldn't happen, but they have been indicted, convicted, assets seized, and those include Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, the two top people. As a member of the corporate fraud task force--and we need to be aggressive in prosecuting corporate fraud in America--Fisher coordinates with other agencies on corporate fraud policies and investigations. She has supervised recent corporate fraud prosecutions involving defendants from AIG, BP, and Qwest. She is not afraid to take on the big boys. She has done so effectively and courageously. She is cochair of the Law Enforcement Subcommittee of the President's Identity Theft Task Force. That is an important issue in our country. I have a staff person, and someone stole her identity and used it. She spent years trying to clear her record and get the situation straightened out. Under her direction, this subcommittee is focusing on enhancing coordination among law enforcement agencies, the Federal Trade Commission, and others to maximize the Government's capabilities to curb the international problem of identity fraud. Mr. President, I know you served so ably in Florida as a mayor and then later as a member of the President's Cabinet. Florida and other areas received terrific losses during Hurricane Katrina. We will probably spend over $100 billion on trying to help that whole region recover and a whole city, New Orleans, that was flooded. Having been a prosecutor in Mobile on the gulf coast after hurricanes, I can tell you that fraud does occur. You want to get money out to people who are hurting in a hurry. You can't ask for the same amount of time and evidence that you would normally ask. People need help right now. They have no place else to go. But people take advantage of that. The scum of the Earth take advantage of the generosity of the American people by often slipping in as contractors or claimed beneficiaries, lying about losses, to get money that is supposed to go to people who are hurting. Well, just days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Nation, Attorney General Gonzales established the Katrina Fraud Task Force. This task force would send a message right off the bat that fraud would be investigated and prosecuted, and it was to focus on fraud and corruption resulting from the hurricanes. He named Fisher the Katrina Fraud Task Force chairman. As chairman, Alice Fisher quickly set up a forward-looking strategic plan and resource allocation for this interagency task force, among all the other things she was doing, to investigate and prosecute fraud arising from Hurricane Katrina and related disasters. Under her guidance, the task force has made great strides to combat fraud. As of July 25, the task force had charged 371 defendants in 29 separate Federal districts. A majority of the cases charged to date have involved emergency benefits fraud against both FEMA and the American Red Cross--charitable donation fraud. People have gone out and claimed they are raising money to help people, and they just steal it. What kind of sorry person is that, who would ask people to sacrifice and give help to someone else, and then steal the money? We have that, and she is working against it. Other cases have involved Government contract fraud. We have people taking advantage of the contracting process and cheating when they are supposed to follow through and do certain amounts of work for the Government. They have certified they have done it, they get paid, and then we find out they didn't do it. Some of them need to go to jail. The task force has therefore been taking a number of proactive measures to identify, investigate and prosecute these kinds of cases. Alice Fisher created the Katrina Fraud Task Force Joint Command Center in Baton Rouge where analysts, agents, and inspectors from the Inspector General and Federal law enforcement communities co-locate-- these are all of the agencies, State and local--they get together to focus on procurement fraud and public corruption which could result from the over $100 billion reconstruction money flowing into the affected region. As of July 25, 2006, the Command Center has received and referred 6,424 complaints to various Federal agencies. The task force has provided training for the Inspector General community. Each one of these agencies have their own Inspector General, and many of those Inspector Generals are not familiar with hurricane work. They train all of them so that the Commerce Department, the Agriculture Department, the Coast Guard, and other agencies involved with this relief effort can have watchdogs within their agencies trained to prevent fraud. I am going to tell my colleagues, we have had a problem in this Nation, and we still do, of public corruption. There are public officials, whether in hurricane areas or not, who are taking money, extorting bribes and that sort of thing. Unfortunately, that is true. For the most part, we are a Nation of high integrity, but there are those who don't meet those standards and need to be prosecuted. I would say, in many cases, the Federal investigators are the ones who really have the best opportunity, the independence, the distance, from the situation to handle these cases, and they just have to do it. They have been rightfully praised over the years for their leadership in that area. Under Fisher's leadership, the Public Integrity Section has prosecuted major public corruption cases, including the ongoing Jack Abramoff investigation, which has to date resulted in five pleas of guilty and in a conviction after trial of David Safavian, the former chief of staff of the General Services Administration--the GSA, a big Government agency here in Washington, their chief of staff. In addition, Fisher supervised the successful prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy for conspiracy and public corruption offenses. Fisher was recently named by the Deputy Attorney General to establish a national procurement fraud initiative. Now, we have a lot of money that is paid out as a result of Government procurement by our military and other agencies, and there is a good bit of fraud there, so she is forming a national initiative on that. Since Fisher's tenure began, the Department of Justice has made headway in aggressively prosecuting crimes against children. A lot of people say the Department of Justice shouldn't be involved in those kinds of things; that it is not important, and we need to focus on other big issues. But I submit the Department of Justice's leadership and work in these cases can make quite a difference. For example, the Criminal Division is currently coordinating 18 national child pornography operations targeting hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of customers or participants in mass child pornography distribution schemes. In addition, as of July 26, 2006, the Innocence Lost Initiative targeting children victimized through prostitution has resulted in 228 open investigations, 543 arrests, 86 complaints, 121 informations or indictments, and 94 convictions in both the Federal and State systems. Fisher is working on the implementation of the Adam Walsh Act. We all know John Walsh, what a tragic story he has lived through and, as a result of it, has become a national leader, well-known throughout this country for his work in the protection of children. So she is working now to create the mechanism to fully implement the Adam Walsh Act, which was passed by Congress just recently to combat child exploitation, and the Department's new initiative targeted at protecting children from predators, Project Safe Childhood, another time-consuming and challenging activity. Fisher serves as a key member of the Department of Justice Intellectual Property Task Force and oversees the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division. Under Fisher's leadership, the Department has increased its prosecution of these cases and enhanced international partnerships in this area. It is important that we do operate internationally. As Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, Fisher developed and implemented a strategic plan to focus and prioritize the mission of the Division's approximately 750 employees. This management plan has organized the Division around the following priorities and goals: Supporting the national security mission. Supporting the national security mission--that wasn't the No. 1 goal of the Department of Justice Criminal Division when I was a prosecutor. This is as a result of the leadership of the President and the Attorney General and Alice Fisher. So the top goals are supporting the national security mission, protecting this country from attack, ensuring Government integrity, prosecuting fraud and corruption, ensuring market integrity. That is-- in the free market, the banks, financial communities, businesses, securities, making sure that there is integrity in that. They have a record of achievement. Combating violent crime is still a part of the duties, particularly gangs and drug trafficking and protecting against crimes on the Internet and crimes against children. So this is a very fine, hard-working public servant who gives her every waking hour to trying to promote justice and protecting this country from attack. What she can say and what she can't say in response to probing and fishing expeditions from Members of Congress about meetings and conversations and top-secret security activities that she may be involved in is not her decision; it is really the Executive Branch deciding how much of these actions should be made public. So it is not her fault. I submit to my colleagues that she wasn't involved in any of these issues that people are so hot about. She didn't set the policies. She didn't write the memos. She was lower down in the chain of command at that time. That wasn't her responsibility. She is being drawn into this now so that we can continue to have complaints about the efforts of this President and his team to aggressively find, identify, prosecute, and convict those who would threaten the people of this United States. So I am impressed with Alice Fisher. She was a young, aggressive woman when I met her. She didn't have a whole lot of experience. I questioned her about that. But I could sense that she had the drive to be successful, to serve our country, and she has utilized every opportunity she could to further the interests of law enforcement and justice in America. I think she is a good nominee. In a different time, she would go through just like that; it would not be a problem. But here we are with an election coming up, and the theme here is that this administration is abusing prisoners and being mean to unlawful combatants and terrorists, and they are trying to maintain that theme and drag her into it. They shouldn't do that. She needs to be confirmed. She needs to have the full authority of the office of chief of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. She will be more effective if she has been confirmed and holds the office permanently. She will do a great job, I believe. Her record has proven that. I urge my colleagues to support this nominee. Mr. President, I thank the chair and yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I couldn't agree more. I think the Senator from Arizona has made a tremendously important point. This President is committed to a successful outcome in Iraq. He has chosen his Secretary of Defense, and his Secretary of Defense is his person in whom he has confidence, and he does not believe changing that Cabinet Member at this point in time would help him be successful in that effort. I agree. But regardless of whether you and I might agree, it is his call. He was elected after a full debate over the wisdom and the conduct of the war in Iraq. He was reelected. I think the American people, therefore, affirmed him and expect him to choose the type people he believes will be successful. I think the Senator makes a good point. I would just share a couple of thoughts before my time is up. To repeat, we made a decision in this body. A majority of the Democratic side and a large majority if not all the Republicans voted to authorize this military action. Many things went far better than we could have expected. But we are now facing very difficult, persistent violence that places at risk our soldiers, places at risk the new Iraqi Government, and it is something that should not be minimized. This is a very tough time. But we have to be successful. I know my colleagues have filed a motion and had quite a number of votes on one or more resolutions to set a date and just withdraw, regardless of what is going on in the country--to just withdraw. Just a few weeks ago, just before we recessed on August 3, we had an Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq. Testifying before that committee was General Abizaid. General Abizaid followed Tommy Franks as CENTCOM Commander. That region of the world is under his control. We had just voted overwhelmingly to reject a pullout of the troops in Iraq without regard to the status of the military situation in Iraq. I asked him a question at that hearing. I see the Senator from Alaska is here. I know he has had experience in these issues. He served our country in combat. This is the question I asked General Abizaid: What kind of reaction, what kind of impact would there be with regard to the Islamic extremists in the Middle East? And you are a student, General Abizaid of that region. You spent time in that region as a young person. You speak Arabic and you have been with us, conducting this Iraq war, virtually from the beginning. What kind of impact would result if we were to precipitously withdraw? Would it mollify the extremists? Would it make them say, well, the United States is a nicer place now? We don't have to be so aggressive now? Or would they likely be emboldened, empowered, and more aggressive? And just like that, General Abizaid said: Emboldened, empowered, more aggressive. I said: In your opinion, would a failure in Iraq embolden and empower these radical extremists? Yes, it would. I asked again: And, in your opinion, would setting a fixed date, regardless of the situation in Iraq, for a withdrawal, embolden or empower the extremist forces? Embolden. Then I asked General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps general: General Pace, this is a matter we've discussed. Unfortunately, it's had very little support in the Senate but there is a political election coming up and people float this idea that we should just pull out. You've heard General Abizaid's comments. He's been in the region for years and been leading this effort. Would you agree with his comments? General Pace, Marine Corps general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: Sir, I agree with each of General Abizaid's responses to each of your questions.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would, briefly.

Mr. SESSIONS. I won't be speaking but just 3 or 4 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Then he basically volunteered, he said: Senator Sessions, sir, what I'd like to say is that the troops that serve in the region are not afraid of what's happening there. They would be afraid of what would happen if we just precipitously left. I would carry it a little bit further because I was talking to some soldiers. Basically, what they told me was they were worried the politicians wouldn't have the gumption to stay the course and be successful after we have committed so much of our resources and lives, when we have a new government that has been up less than 6 months, trying to get itself established, and then we send signals with this kind of debate that we might just up and leave. Fortunately, when we have had the votes, they have not been there. It is not helpful, in my view, to have this kind of debate. We have had it before. We have had our votes. The American people have elected the President again when he stated exactly what he intends to do to protect this country from the regimes and the terrorists that are gathering in Iraq. We have an outstanding Secretary of Defense, a man who has the confidence of the President, a man who has listened to the generals. I was on an airplane, a C-130, flying into Baghdad with General Abizaid. We could hardly hear anyone talk on the planes. Just the two of us were sitting on one side of the aircraft. He explained to me why he thought we should not send more troops there 2 years ago. He testified recently at the hearing that he does not believe we need to send more troops. Is Secretary Rumsfeld dictating this policy or is he listening to the general? That is what they have advised him; that is what he is doing. He is following the advice of one of the most brilliant generals in the Army, General Abizaid, the commander in that region. If we will continue to follow that advice, if we will show strength and courage, if we continue to alter our tactics to meet the changing tactics of the enemy, this mindless violence can be defeated and a good and decent government in Iraq can be established. We have invested so much in that effort. We voted as a Congress to undertake this action. We need to see it through successfully. We can do that. We just do not need to lose our nerve. We must win this war. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, what we are having now is a rehash of people's complaints about the war, and they are focusing it on the Secretary of Defense in a political season. We all know we will soon have an election. So, everything anybody wants to complain about with regards to the war on terror, that they are unhappy about regarding the difficulties we now face in Iraq, is now dropped on the head of the Secretary of Defense. The President of the United States took his case to the American people in the last election. We heard these same complaints from these same people, and they made them all over the country, and the President of the United States, George Bush, won that election. He won it with a majority of the votes of the American people. For the first time in over a decade, a President has won the majority of the votes in this country. Now unfortunately, that is not enough. I would just say a couple of things I think are important. This Senate, after months and weeks of debate and discussion and hearings-- open hearings, secret hearings, briefings from the intelligence officers at lower rank, briefings from the CIA Director, from Defense intelligence--we came into this body and we had to do our duty. Our duty was to vote our conscience on whether to authorize military force in Iraq. That was a solemn duty. I do not think anyone here misunderstood the seriousness of that event. If they did, they are not very grown up because it was a grownup decision we were asked to make: whether we were going to commit our soldiers to military action against the Saddam Hussein regime, which had violated 16 U.N. resolutions. This regime had fired at our airplanes on a regular basis--we cannot forget that. And we were dropping bombs on him weekly and he was shooting missiles at our airplanes weekly. That had been going on for years. He was violating the resolutions, he was violating the weapons of mass destruction discovery and openness requirement that he had committed to, to the U.N.--all those things. The situation was such that we, with many of our allies, gave him one last chance. He didn't take that chance, that one last chance to clear himself and demonstrate he had no weapons of mass destruction, and that is when we voted. There was no mystery about that. The Secretary worked with GEN Tommy Franks, and GEN Tommy Franks approved and designed a military campaign that he believed would be successful. He moved with lightning speed and tremendous effectiveness, and it was a tremendously effective destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime in a time period far less than I would ever have thought possible and with a loss of life far less than I would have thought possible. It was a brilliant deal, and the Secretary of Defense, if you read GEN Tommy Franks' book, followed GEN Tommy Franks' decision, supported that decision and was praised by GEN Tommy Franks, the man who led this effort against Saddam Hussein and removed him from office. Now what has happened? Many of the things that were predicted to happen didn't happen. We didn't have a humanitarian disaster. We didn't have to lose thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers in house-to- house fighting. We didn't have oil well fires. We didn't have a lot of things people projected. The people did welcome our soldiers, and they were happy to see the statue fall. You remember those scenes. But look, we have difficulties now. There has been a persistent measure of violence in Iraq driven by a whole lot of forces. They are determined and striving every day to not allow a good and decent government to be formed and be sustained in Iraq. We have invested a lot of time and effort in that. It is tough. I have a nephew there and the son of a good friend there in the Marines, in tough areas right now. My nephew is in the Marines. I have a sense for the effort and courage of our soldiers. It is a tough duty, and we are in a very tough struggle. The struggle moved to Baghdad. An effort has been made to destabilize Baghdad and the Government there. We moved to counter that. That is the way, American people, it is always going to be when you deal with an enemy who has an ability to think. When you move in one direction, they will counter. When they move in another direction, you have to counter that. That is the way it will be. It is not a failure when an enemy moves in one direction for you to counter that and alter your tactics. In fact, I expect any good military commander would be altering tactics on a regular basis to stay one step ahead of the enemy. That is what we are in, and it is a tough battle. I, therefore, ask, first and foremost, does the resolution suggest--I say the resolution. It hasn't been offered because it is not appropriate, as I understand it, and it would not be appropriate to be offered. But any resolution to change the Secretary of Defense, is that going to help our soldiers in Iraq? Is that going to help them be successful? Is it going to make their lives better? Will it help us win this war, which we must do? We need to ask ourselves that. It is ironic, I have to say, that some of the people who complain about Secretary Rumsfeld not having enough troops voted consistently for the reduction of the number of troops we had by 40 percent when President Clinton was in office. I see Senator McCain here. He has been a strong supporter of defense. He has been concerned about the number of troops and said so consistently. But there are many in the Chamber today who are saying we do not have enough troops and at the same time saying they must be withdrawn ahead of time; we ought to pull the number of troops down. How ironic is that. They say Secretary Rumsfeld doesn't listen to the generals. I say he has listened to the generals.

Mr. SESSIONS. I will be pleased.

Mr. SESSIONS. Unfortunately, I think the Senator's suggestion is correct. We are on the eve of an election. We have a motion here, a suggestion and an attack on the Secretary of Defense who is leading a war effort. Let me ask the Senator from Arizona, who served in the military courageously and who has been actively engaged in trying to help us be successful in this war, is he troubled that the resolution and remarks that are made, even recognizing we are in an election cycle, could be such that they would add to the risk and difficulties our soldiers face?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4844.

Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate my colleague so much. I express my appreciation to Senator Nelson of Nebraska for being a cosponsor and for his work on the Committee on Armed Services. I failed to mention that Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is also a cosponsor of this amendment. We have so many ideas about how to defend America that we should not disrespect others who may disagree every now and then on how something should be done. I respect Senator Inouye. He is a patriot and an expert on defense. I have seen his leadership on national missile defense, which is seen today as a very wise investment. If a single missile moved toward the United States for the first time in history, we now have some capability to knock that down. In fact, in a few years, we will have a powerful capability to knock that down, but we have some capability right now. I believe we could successfully knock down one of those missiles. I will share a few thoughts. My colleague, Senator Reed, talked about the Russians, who had a meeting with our people. The Russians said they might not like it if we launched a missile like this. If we had this capability, they might not like it. It is interesting that we are openly talking with them about the capability, and letting them know what our plans are. The experts tell us they could tell, shortly after a launch, whether or not a missile was aimed at them. Certainly we are not going to launch World War III, no nation would, if a single missile was aimed toward them. We need to think this through. With regard to the review and the studies, my colleague, Senator Reed, on the Committee on Armed Services, and I serve together. He may have misunderstood what this amendment would do. The authorization bill we passed that authorized spending on this missile system required a study. It said that study must be completed and no more than $32 million could be spent until it was completed. It would require not only the Defense Department to participate but the State Department to participate. That was to allay the concerns being raised. That language is not undermined by this amendment. This amendment does not refer to it. It would be absolutely mandated by the language in the Defense authorization bill. We certainly want that report. There is no attempt, I say to my colleagues, to undermine that requirement. That requirement remains in place. The effect of failing to fund this program, a program that was based upon a need identified by the formal 4-year Quadrennial Defense Review of the Department of Defense, a study was made to identify how best to meet that need. This conventional Trident was decided to be the best way to have that need met in short order. That is why the Defense Department has asked for it. They have never been secretive about it. They have been absolutely open about it. They have made sure they have gone the extra mile to carry out a series of steps that would make us not mislead any country. It is the right thing to do. Our submarines carry 24 nuclear missiles today that can hit a target around the world within 30 minutes. I have a son-in-law in Hawaii who is an officer on a nuclear submarine. I am very proud of him. My daughter is in Hawaii today. I know a little bit about those submarines. They carry nuclear weapons. We don't want the President of the United States to have a real serious threat to America existing for a short period of time, and the only response he or she may have is a nuclear weapon. We want them to have extra options, an option to use a non-nuclear weapon. There was some suggestion by Senator Reed, almost like he is afraid for us to have this capability. We have the capability now to launch cruise missiles on shorter range targets where there is more time. We don't go willy-nilly launching cruise missiles. This is a non-nuclear weapon. It would do no more damage than a cruise missile would, maybe less if it is not an explosive warhead. I don't see the danger. I know the concern. We have had a hearing on it. We have talked about it. The Defense Department, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Cartwright, Strategic Commander, one of the most able officers in the military, one of the most respected, say we need this. They have asked us and written us to do it this year. It is affordable. It will use existing missiles. It will be a missile that now has the capability to launch and is designed to carry nuclear weapons. We are going to ``non-nuclear'' it and make it a conventional weapon. It is very much needed. A former Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown, under Jimmy Carter, and former Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger, under President Reagan, have both asked for this to be done. They said, in an op-ed they voluntarily published, we need this capability. I urge my colleagues to think this through. If we authorize it, additional studies will be required. My colleagues, please know when you vote on this you are not building and deploying the system but simply doing the research and development. We will have another step in between with the full extra study we have asked by the Defense Department before we make a final decision to go forward. That is where we are. It is a reasonable approach, an approach that has listened to the concerns of some of our colleagues and tried to respond to those in a way that keeps this on track. We don't want to end up 2, 3, 4 years from now not having done this, leaving the President of the United States in the future without the capability, without an option to protect the people of America. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to express my appreciation to the Senator from Oregon for his thoughtful and careful analysis of the tip credit issue. I have heard a lot of things said about it recently, and a lot of them are quite off base, and it is good that we hear the matter carefully discussed and explained. Amendment No. 4844

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I offer this amendment to restore the military funding request of $77 million under research and development for the Conventional Trident Modification Program. The Quadrennial Defense Review--that is, the 4-year review of the military's world strategic plan--made this finding: We need to make greater progress in fielding prompt, accurate, nonnuclear global strike capabilities, and that we also make further modest reductions in a strategic nuclear force. So they have looked at that nuclear posture review and as a result have concluded, as General Cartwright and Admiral Giambastiani, as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a letter to Senator Inouye, that these capabilities as requested in this request for the Conventional Trident Modification fulfill the military's need for a prompt strike weapon. So this is what they requested. The Conventional Trident Modification Program is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of using existing Trident super submarine-launched ballistic missiles with nonnuclear warheads to provide the President an important strategic capability for countering serious threats to the United States and to do so in time-urgent situations. It will use an inert warhead--someone said it could even be concrete--and a warhead traveling at the speed that this missile travels would have sufficient impact with an inert warhead of nonexplosive capability to meet the needs of the military. So while the Senate-passed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2007 fully funds this effort, the Senate Defense appropriation bill that is now before us would eliminate all funding for this critical program. According to the report accompanying the appropriations bill, the Defense Committee: Believes that fundamental issues about the use of this weapon must be addressed prior to investing in this effort. The committee also believes that other potentially less provocative alternatives have yet to be considered, it says. I will try to address specifically these two concerns, but first allow me to remind my colleagues that this issue was thoroughly considered and debated by the Armed Services Committee prior to and during its markup of the Defense authorization bill. The Strategic Forces Subcommittee, of which I am the chairman, held a hearing on this specific issue--the global strike capabilities--during which we discussed it in depth. During our markup, moreover, the Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment proposed by the Democratic members of the committee that would limit spending on the CTM beyond $32 million of research and development pending the submission by the Defense Department of a report by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State addressing the military, political, and international issues associated with the conventional Trident missile modification. But I would argue that this capability is just too important for our Nation to allow another year to slip by without proceeding at least with research and development. To accommodate the concerns of some of my colleagues, the amendment before you would restore only the research and development funds associated with the CTM Program. Not included is the $50 million requested by the Department of Defense for acquisition activities related to the CTM Program. I believe this was a reasonable compromise, an effort to gain broad support for this new system. I believe further that to provide R&D funds to demonstrate the concept, while withholding procurement funding until Congress has an opportunity to review the required report, meets and goes beyond, really, the needs and concerns that our colleagues have raised. To speak directly to the matter, why do we need a submarine-launched ballistic missile that can strike virtually anywhere on the face of the globe with precision, with a conventional warhead, within 30 minutes or less? Former Secretaries of Defense Harold Brown, under a Democratic administration, and James Schlesinger, under a Republican administration, said it well in a recent op-ed article they wrote together, the two of them--Secretaries of Defense, men of wisdom and experience. They said: In a world in which terrorist groups may have access to nuclear weapons it is imperative to give future U.S. Presidents more options to prevent nuclear attack. I think that says it all. Indeed, it is likely that by the time this system is ready to be fielded, President Bush will not be here to utilize it, but his actions, and our actions as a Congress today, can provide future Presidents with these needed options. To be sure, we are not dealing with an academic debate. It was reported in a 9/11 Commission report that on August 11, 1998, a cruise missile attack against bin Laden, who was then hiding in Afghanistan, missed its intended target ``by a few hours.'' How might the course of history have been altered that day if the President had at his disposal a prompt global strike capability? In another example, it was reported by the press that the initial attack against Saddam Hussein, at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, took some 4 hours to reach the target using Stealth fighters and sea-launched cruise missiles--ample time for the enemy to escape. In addition to targets in the war against terrorism, one can imagine other important uses for a conventional weapon that can strike targets across the globe in minutes, for example, destroying a ballistic missile armed with weapons of mass destruction as it is being prepared to be launched against the United States; intercepting a weapon of mass destruction which is being loaded into a container ship heading for a U.S. port; or disrupting key enemy command-and-control facilities so that they cannot execute an attack plan; thwarting enemy moves to seize strategic advantage at the outset of some crisis. It is true that some of these targets could be attacked using existing strike forces such as cruise missiles, bombers and precision- guided weapons, fighter aircraft launching from carriers or perhaps special operations forces. But each of these alternative strike platforms carries risks to U.S. personnel, require complex planning and support infrastructure, and cannot reach their target in minutes. It is hours. CTM is indeed a niche capability. But the regrets of not having this option are just too high to contemplate, given today's security environment. Wouldn't we want any President to have this capability? I believe all can agree on the strategic value of the conventional Trident program. Let me address what I understand to be the principle concerns of some of its critics, which are that the launch of a conventional Trident missile might be mistaken for a launch of a nuclear-armed missile and prompt a catastrophic nuclear response from some third-party nation that believes it is under attack. The Defense Department has taken seriously this concern. As a matter of fact, the first thing they have done, and decided to do from the beginning, is to be absolutely open to the world about the capability they have in these missiles and their plans to convert a nuclear missile to a conventional missile; but they have, in addition, put in place a comprehensive approach for mitigating this risk. But before examining these specific steps, I ask my colleagues to look more carefully at the fundamental underlying concern. Would a nuclear power with ballistic missiles, such as China or Russia, perceive the launch of one or even two ballistic missiles, as an attack against its territory, starting a nuclear war? I think not. Even during the darkest days of the Cold War such an attack by a single missile was considered implausible. People always talked openly, among the defense forces of all these nations, about the situation in which a single missile might be launched by mistake. It is well known if people are going to kick off a nuclear war and have a number of missiles, they would launch their entire fleet, hundreds of missiles at a time, trying to catch the Nation's adversary unaware and perhaps destroy their retaliatory capability on the ground. All that was the strategy involved in Mutual Assured Destruction--a thing, basically, of the past, frankly, and thankfully it appears to be so. But we have to be concerned and cannot forget the lessons of that period. But let's take this further. Very few States can currently detect a launch of a missile and track the trajectory of its warhead. Very few nations have the capability of detecting our launch. The country that has the most capability in this regard would be Russia, but we are told by Defense officials that once the Russians detect a launch, their system capability is such they will know it is not aimed at them. They will know where it will land, and they will know it poses no threat. They are not going to kick off a war over this. Assuming the above context is not enough to assuage our concerns, the Department of Defense has in place a comprehensive strategy to mitigate risks posed by the misperception or ambiguity problems. One of the measures that they plan is advanced notification to leaders of select States. For example, the United States maintains a robust set of communication links between U.S. leaders and their Russian counterparts and military counterparts all over the world. We have that capability and, in fact, communicate on a fairly frequent basis, and additional communication links with senior Russian officials are planned, such as the Joint Data Exchange Center for shared early warning. In this case, Russian and U.S. officials would sit side by side in a jointly staffed early warning center. Isn't that a good step forward? What do we have as a strategy for the United States today? We are reducing significantly the number of our nuclear warheads, and we are creating a center for early warning, where our military people sit down side by side to further eliminate any possibility of a mistake. There are political exchanges and military-to-military talks with Russians and other nations to inform them of our plans for the CTM. These efforts are already underway. We are right upfront with the military leaders around the world about what we are developing and why we are doing it. Operational measures, such as distinctive command and control procedures for the conventional Trident missile, would differ from procedures for nuclear-armed Tridents, and potential visits and inspections to build confidence through transparency are planned. Our Defense Department talked openly with other defense departments. We will take every effort to make sure there is no risk from this. In summary, the risk of a country misinterpreting the launch of a conventionally armed Trident missile as a nuclear attack are low to nonexistent. The Department of Defense risk mitigation strategy will further eliminate that risk--indeed, eliminate it totally. In this post-September 11 world, we need strategic capabilities to promptly thwart dangerous threats to the United States, where time is of the essence and the regret of not acting is too high to imagine. The conventional Trident option provides our leaders the capability to go after high-value targets where access may be difficult or where other U.S. forces are not present. It is a capability that will be reserved for extreme national emergencies. It is a capability we need today. It is an option any President can have if we move forward and should have. I close by asking my colleagues to think carefully about this amendment. It is a very important issue. I can understand that people might have raised concerns. But what I want to say to my colleagues is we had a hearing on this. We had General Cartwright and others testify. General Cartwright is the Commander of the Strategic Command. This is under his direction. He is a very impressive general. We asked him tough questions about all these issues, and he was quite forthcoming and open about it. He answered every single one of them. Our Armed Services Committee has voted this out in a compromise fashion to guarantee even further study before the system goes to full development. But we do not need to waste another year. We do not need to go another year without the future President of the United States having the capability that we have the power to give him, to launch a nonnuclear strike anywhere in the world and hit a target within 30 minutes. It is the right thing to do. It is very important for our Defense Department. They strongly support it as part of their 4-year Quadrennial Defense Review. We have letters from General Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others supporting this matter, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Indeed, Secretary Rumsfeld said in his letter, just a few days ago: The Department [of Defense] strongly supports this amendment. Failure to fund this program would delay a capability we need now to respond promptly and precisely to time-sensitive, high-value targets anywhere in the world. This capability is within our grasp. It will work. It is simply a matter of developing the warhead and doing training with it. But the capability we have is such that these missiles can hit the most precise targets within 30 minutes anywhere on the globe. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, there are 2 or 3 minutes before the vote, and I will take a brief minute to summarize this matter. The Secretary of Defense personally has written us and asked that we allow the Department to go forward with this conventional Trident missile capability saying: Failure to fund this program would delay a capability we need now to respond promptly and precisely to time-sensitive, high-value targets anywhere in the world. This has also been the subject of an op-ed by former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, who served under Jimmy Carter, and former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who served under Presidents Nixon and Ford and served in President Carter's Cabinet also. They say we need this now. It would not deploy this system but would allow research and development, and requires, before any more than $30 million is spent-- before any more than $30 million is spent--that the Defense Department and the State Department must complete a study and present that to Congress before we go forward. We do not need to delay. If we wait another year or 2, we will allow another year or 2 or 3 or 4 to go by without the President having the capability within 30 minutes to hit any target on the globe with a nonnuclear weapon. The concern over misinterpretation of the missile launch intent has been dealt with openly and directly by the military. They have talked with foreign nations about it. We will make every effort to ensure that does not happen. And it, indeed, as I have explained earlier, should not be a problem, as these former Secretaries of Defense stated. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have such respect for Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens, but I do want to mention a couple of things that are important for my colleagues. This is a high priority for our military leaders. They believe it is critical to have this capability. As former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown said, along with James Schlesinger: The detonation of a nuclear weapon in the United States by a terrorist group would be an unprecedented disaster. It is essential [essential] that Congress approve the funds for this program. Moreover, a small reprogramming action in the current fiscal year could accelerate the missiles' initial deployments. In a world in which terrorist groups may have access to nuclear weapons, it is imperative to give future U.S. presidents more options to prevent nuclear attacks. They go on in quite a long article and deal with this. My colleague, in talking about this, mentioned that: Well, this could be recklessly used. But any weapon we have could be recklessly used. Some have said President Clinton was not wise when he launched a cruise missile into the Sudan. I defended it when he did it. But he made that decision. He made that decision. That is a conventional weapon. The only difference, really, colleagues, in a conventional Trident launch and a cruise missile launch is it is quicker. We talked about there are multiple hours many times, they are not as fast, they have to be launched often from an aircraft or from ships that are not readily available, they are not readily available to be launched. So we are talking about delays. This would allow us the capability of launching a nonnuclear weapon, much like our cruise missiles and Tomahawk missiles, to hit a precise target that could represent a deadly threat to the people of the United States of America. It is unbelievable, really, that we have this capability. Right now the President can do it, but the only missiles he has that he could launch that could hit a target within 30 minutes are nuclear missiles. It would be unlikely we would ever launch one nuclear weapon like that that I can imagine. It could happen, I guess, but it certainly would be cause for the greatest anguish and concern, and it would be unlikely to ever be done. So I am just saying this is the plan that our experts, who are working on strategic issues in the Department of Defense, believe gives the President a capability and gives the Defense Department, our military, a capability that can help protect America with a conventional weapon. Maybe it will be an inert warhead, inert substance in what would be the warhead, that it is not even an explosive. And it could strike a target around the world that could save thousands and thousands of lives, tip the balance of some sort of military conflict. So that is where we have reached some disagreement. I am very respectful of the chairman and ranking member of this Appropriations Committee. They have defended America personally, putting their lives on the line for our country. They have, for many years, preserved, protected, and defended this country through very able Defense budgets. Many times it was not so popular. But they have been there, and they have fought for them. And we now have the finest military the world has ever known. I salute them for it. We just have a disagreement on this single matter. I think it is important or I would not raise it. I urge my colleagues to consider it. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to take a minute to let my colleagues know what the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Coleman, and I have discussed with respect to the consideration of a particular section of the Pension Protection Act of 2006--Section 1220. Namely, that section would establish additional standards in the Internal Revenue Code for tax exemption for credit counseling organizations. The chairman was the genesis of these provisions, and it is through his hard work and persistence that they were ultimately included in the bill we are currently considering. The credit counseling reform language will go a long way toward ensuring that the hundreds of bona fide tax-exempt credit counseling organizations operating today across the country that serve an invaluable role in helping consumers understand, deal with, and manage their credit and debt problems will be able to continue as tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), with all of the important obligations and benefits that this status entails. Ensuring the continuation of tax-exempt credit counseling organizations that meet the high standards set by the Federal Tax Code, along with standards set by state law and by Federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, will mean that the necessary counseling, education and debt management plan services will be available to all financially distressed consumers who need them for many years to come. It also means that there will be sufficient tax-exempt credit counseling organizations available to fulfill the pre-bankruptcy counseling mandate of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. As for the purpose of Section 1220, I would like to turn to my colleague, Senator Coleman, who--as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations--conducted an investigation into abuses in the credit counseling industry.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, after working together with Senator Feinstein, I am pleased to introduce the Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2006. I have worked to take the lead in protecting consumers specifically as it relates to the sale and distribution of controlled substances and prescription drugs over the Internet and holding liable those who do so via unregistered online pharmacies. I commend Senator Feinstein for her leadership on this issue and look forward to working with her to pass this important piece of legislation. This bill would prohibit the distribution of controlled substances and prescription drugs by means of the Internet without a valid prescription and provides for the legitimate online distribution of those drugs in certain circumstances. Two weeks ago, Attorney General Gonzalez testified that sale and distribution of ``controlled pharmaceuticals on the Internet is of great concern,'' since it ``gives drug abusers the ability to circumvent the law, as well as sound medical practice.'' This bill would go a long way in addressing the concerns expressed by Attorney General Gonzalez by reigning in a practice that has gone unregulated for far too long. Recently, there has been an explosion in the number of online pharmacies that provide prescription drugs--both controlled and noncontrolled substances--to users without valid prescriptions. Most illegal drug abuse involving prescription drugs is associated with Internet purchases, where users are given a prescription without ever seeing a doctor. The most prominent abuse occurs with regard to controlled substances such as hydrocodone, Valium, Xanax, OxyContin, and Vicodin. A 2002 study reported that nearly 15 million adults admitted to abusing prescription drugs, with 2.4 million new abusers in 2001 alone. Currently, there is no way to police this illegal activity. The ease with which consumers may purchase controlled substances and other prescription drugs from online pharmacies without a prescription is shocking. Often consumers can obtain a prescription from physicians employed by the online pharmacy by simply filling out a brief questionnaire on the pharmacy's Web site. Most online pharmacies have no way to verify that the consumer ordering the prescription is actually who they claim to be or that the medical condition the consumer describes actually exists. Thus, drug addicts and minor children can easily order controlled substances and prescription drugs over the Internet simply by providing false identities or describing nonexistent medical conditions. In 2001, Ryan Haight, a California high school honors student and athlete, died from an overdose of the painkiller hydrocodone that he purchased from an online pharmacy. The doctor prescribing hydrocodone had never met or personally examined Ryan. Ryan simply filled out the pharmacy's online questionnaire and described himself as a 25-year-old male suffering from chronic back pain. Ryan's death could have been avoided. I believe that Congress is in the best position to help prevent teenagers from purchasing controlled substances and prescription drugs from online rouge pharmacies. I also believe that Congress has the ability to help prevent adult prescription drug abuse by making it harder to purchase these drugs online without a valid prescription. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act would provide criminal penalties for those who knowingly or intentionally--unlawfully-- dispense controlled substances and prescription drugs over the Internet; give State attorneys general a civil cause of action against anyone who violates the act if they have reason to believe that the violation affects the interests of their State's residents; and allow the Federal Government to take possession of any tangible or intangible property used illegally by online pharmacies. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act would also require online pharmacies to file an additional registration statement with the Attorney General and meet additional registration requirements promulgated by him/her; report to the Attorney General any controlled substances or prescription drugs dispensed over the Internet, and comply with licensing and disclosure requirements. The Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2006 takes a substantial step toward plugging a loophole in our drug laws by regulating the practice of distributing controlled substances and prescription drugs via the Internet. By holding unregistered online pharmacies accountable for their activity, we are ensuring that those who seek to purchase prescription drugs by using the Internet are protected from those engaged in reprehensible business practices. Mr. President, once again I thank Senator Feinstein for her leadership in addressing this serious issue. I commend this bill to my colleagues for study, and I urge them to support this important legislation.