Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. We held German prisoners in the northern campus of the University of Alabama where I lived when I was in law school. They had German prisoners there during World War II. But what I want to try to reassure my colleague about is that we do have a proper procedure that is ongoing. For example, we have defined these as combatants. We give them a combatant status review tribunal when they come in. They are reviewed in that fashion. They have a three-judge panel. They actually go beyond the requirements that the U.S. Supreme Court said in the Hamdi case. In addition to that, they created an Administrative Review Board that, on an annual basis, must make an assessment of whether there is continued reason to believe that the enemy combatant poses a threat to the United States or its allies, or whether there are other factors bearing upon the need for the kind of detention, including its enemy combatant intelligence value in the gulf war on terrorism. For example, in the first year of those Administrative Review Board hearings, there were 330 decisions to continue to detain the prisoners, 119 decisions to transfer them to other jurisdictions, other countries perhaps, or possibly other countries, and 14 release decisions. This second year, to date, the review board had 12 findings of continued to detain, 6 transfers, and no release decisions. At least there is a procedure. In response to criticisms in the Congress, around the word, in response to the Supreme Court decision, they have taken it carefully because the military is proud of its standards. The military wants to do this right. But they have a responsibility not to release those who should not be released as they continue to pose a threat to the security of our Nation.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator. I believe care has been taken to comply with the Supreme Court cases. The Department of Defense has gotten the system in a way that has a combatant status review tribunal and an administrative review board, and there have been multiple hearings. The Department is giving these prisoners--whether they are prisoners of war, lawful or unlawful combatants who are being detained--the rights to which they are entitled. I really do believe they have. That is the only concern I have about the perception that might be out there, even around the world, that we are acting outside the rule of law. I do not believe that is so.

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, as in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on June 20, 2006, by the President of the United States: Protocol III to 1949 Geneva Convention and an Amendment and Protocol to 1980 Conventional Weapons Convention (Treaty Document No. 109-10). I further ask that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred, with accompanying papers, to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 21. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the Journal of the proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate resume consideration of S. 2766, the Defense authorization bill, as under the previous order.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, tomorrow the Senate will resume consideration of the Defense authorization bill. Under an agreement that was reached earlier, we will continue to debate minimum wage for an hour and a half and then have votes on the Kennedy and Enzi amendments at approximately 11 a.m. Following the votes, Senator Levin will be recognized to offer his amendment regarding Iraq, with 5 hours of debate, to be followed by Senator Kerry offering an amendment regarding Iraq. This evening, cloture was filed on the bill. The filing deadline for first-degree amendments is 1 p.m. tomorrow. Senators can expect the cloture vote to occur on Thursday morning.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that MAJ Shannon Sentell, an Army congressional fellow serving in my office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the remainder of the debate on S. 2766.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to share a few thoughts about the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee, which I chair, which deals with space, missile defense, satellites, and many of the other high-tech systems on which our Defense Department relies. But I just want to respond to my colleague, Senator Durbin. I don't think he actually meant to say that our soldiers are coming home broken in body and spirit, but he came close. That is not what I am hearing. Go out to Walter Reed. They may have broken bodies and broken bones, but they are not broken in spirit. The night before last, I attended a wonderful ceremony of the 231st birthday of the U.S. Army. I was talking with soldiers there. We were talking about the war and the politics of the Capitol. They are aware of what is going on. I told them that I thought the Congress would not vote for any immediate withdrawal, and indeed we voted yesterday 93 to 6 against any kind of withdrawal requirement for this year. That vote, represents a strong bipartisan consensus of the Senate. One of those soldiers said: I will tell you what we want, Senator; ``We want to win.'' We want to win this war. That is what the American people want, that is what the soldiers who have gone there and sacrificed want, and that is what they believe in. The soldiers who have been there believe in what they have done. They have been courageous in performing their mission. It is difficult for me and for them to understand this idea that we can support the soldiers but not support the mission we sent them on, sent them by a three-fourths vote of this Senate. A majority of Democrats and Republicans voted for this war, and we are going to stay the course, we are going to help our military succeed, and we are going to help them win. The point I pick up more and more as I talk with these soldiers, what I am hearing from them, is they are afraid we are going to mess it up. They believe they are winning. They believe they are doing their job. They believe they will be successful. And they are really worried that this Congress will be the one that will lose its nerve and not stand with them after they put their lives on the line for this country. I believe this is a big deal, and that success in Iraq is important for our Nation. I visited that region recently. I talked to the leaders of Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. What would it mean for us if we had a disastrous event in Iraq where the terrorists take over that country? What would it mean to their neighbors? What would it mean to the region? All nations of good will know we must succeed. Iraq is stepping up. There are now 260,000 Iraqi soldiers and security personnel in uniform and reaching higher and higher levels of performance. They are doing a much better job every day. They will soon be at 350,000 by the end of this year. They are being better equipped and better trained, and I believe we are doing a much smarter job of imbedding our soldiers with the Iraqi units so we can call in air support, we can provide mentoring, we can provide advice, we can call on other kinds of support, if they need it, to be effective. A majority of the raids and actions that are taking place in Iraq are taking place by the Iraqis. Iraqi soldiers are taking more casualties than American soldiers. We are not babysitting them. This image of millions casting their ballots for a freely elected government of Iraq is not a bad image for us to remember. We need to remember that, and it is important for us, let me note first and foremost, that this Nation not allow the terrorists to win in Iraq. We are going to be successful. But I realize the American people are concerned. They don't like to see violence and continued death. They don't like to see our soldiers at risk. I certainly understand that; neither do I. I have been an admirer of General Abizaid, CENTCOM commander, and his team of generals because General Abizaid has always resisted the temptation to see how many troops we can put in Iraq. He said that is not the way to win this war. We need the right number of troops, and we need to begin to draw them down as soon as it is appropriate to draw them down and lift up the Iraqi Army. That is what we need to do. Some want to have the President set forth a detailed plan so they can criticize it, basically. How will some sort of formalized plan help our soldiers be effective in the battle? It just tells your enemy what you are going to be doing. More importantly, a detailed plan is not going to be permanent. It will have to change because the enemy changes. As soon as you shut off one avenue of enemy success, they take another one and you have to respond to that. That is the history of warfare. That is the way wars have always been fought: you constantly adjust and constantly alter your efforts to be successful toward your ultimate goal of victory. That is what our military is doing. Trying to demand a date from our military to withdraw or trying to demand from them a plan of what they are going to do 5 months from now fails to understand and recognize the nature of this conflict, and this conflict more than most conflicts because we face an asymmetrical enemy, a nontraditional enemy, who knows it cannot stand and fight our military successfully, so it devises devious and sneaky ways to pit one religion against another, to attack American soldiers, to attack the local police, all designed to crumble the Government of Iraq. But it hasn't happened. Iraqis are still signing up and becoming policemen. Iraqis are still signing up and the army is growing. The Government of Iraq has elected, for the first time, their permanent leadership. Prime Minister Maliki is in office. His whole Cabinet now has been established. The two key Cabinet positions on which they spent extra time, Defense and Interior, have now been established, confirmed and voted by the 275 member Parliament. So they have their government now, fully elected, a permanent government, just like any other nation in the world. There is no interim government now. I believe they are going to be successful, and I tell you, it is going to be important for the United States that they are. We have invested a lot; our soldiers have invested a lot. They are proud of what they are doing. They are not broken in spirit. They want to be successful and win. I have some numbers I will share with my colleagues and those around the country who might be listening. In this conflict, the Army has had the largest number of people serving in Iraq, yet their enlistment rate through May of this year was 104.3 percent. They have exceeded their enlistment goals for this year. They have exceeded their reenlistment goals. The Army for a few months did miss their goals, and some critics said it was a broken Army and predicted disaster. The Army said: No, we are not broken, and we are going to meet our goals. For 13 consecutive months, the Army has met its goals. The highest retention reenlistment rates come from the units that have just come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Barr, who was at Walter Reed, was injured by an explosive device. He was punctured by as many as 100 different pieces of shrapnel. He was told he would have difficulty walking and would probably never run again. He said he was going to run again, and he was going back to Iraq with the unit that he came with. And he worked at it and he worked at it and he ran. He eventually went back to Iraq and served again. That is the kind of spirit that we have. That is the kind of spirit that you see in our Army. I was told by an officer who knew that story that every single soldier in his squad reenlisted. This is the spirit that this Congress needs to strive to be worthy of. This is the kind of professional commitment and courage that inspires us, or should inspire us. We should not be whining around here and trying to find some error that was made somewhere where body armor did not get to a soldier. Body armor is out there protecting soldiers. It is not a problem. To say that there has never been a shortage somewhere or somehow a supply failed to get where it was supposed to, I can't say; but it is not a systemic problem. But to go around and suggest to the citizens of our country that this Congress and the military is not committed to providing body armor to our soldiers is bogus and false and undermines what they are doing. It must be most confusing to our soldiers there. But I think the vote yesterday should give them confidence that most of this talk is simply politics. Most of it is just complaining and second-guessing, like is done on the floor of the Senate every day. We hear it every day on many issues and debate and criticism is passed of the strength of American Government. But I would urge my colleagues to think differently about soldiers in conflict, soldiers in harm's way. We need to be careful what we are saying here. It may sound good, it may hurt President Bush, to make this allegation or that allegation, but is it perhaps creating in the eyes of our enemies a belief that we are divided, that we won't stay the course, and that if they just kill enough people, civilians, Americans, Iraqis, that somehow, it will all just fail. Is that the possibility that we are creating? That is why I urge my colleagues to be very careful and watch what you say in terms of attacks on the efforts that our military have so courageously undertaken in Iraq. Things happen in war. Bad things happen. But no military has done a better job of striving for perfection than ours has. I would also like to respond to charges that this Nation is going to be embarrassed historically because we have tortured people that were captured in this war on terrorism. We talked about Lincoln. Lincoln eliminated the writ of habeas corpus. Roosevelt, as Senator Durbin said, locked people up, Japanese Americans, in a way that was not justified. He basically takes a view, as so many seem to be saying on the left and on the Democratic side, that we have a policy of torture in the United States. That is not so. The President has repeatedly, time and time again, said: We have no policy of torture; we do not torture. There is a statute in the United States Code passed shortly before I came here that defines and prohibits torture. It does not say you can never put any stress on someone, but it says you can't subject them to torture, and it defines it precisely. They say, well, what about Abu Ghraib. Let me remind everybody, we learned about Abu Ghraib when the Army general reported what happened in Abu Ghraib. Let me remind people that what happened to those prisoners in Abu Ghraib, so wrong that it was, had nothing to do with interrogation, had nothing to do with any plan of torture. These were not even prisoners who had any intelligence. It was the late graveyard shift and a group of soldiers lost their discipline--lost their discipline under the stress of war--and performed in a way that got them prosecuted and sent to jail by the U.S. military. That was not the policy of the United States of America. We have heard this most complex chain of thoughts and reasoning, this complex chain of reasoning which is almost laughable, and is worthy of the most incredible conspiracy theorists, that somehow President Bush is responsible for what happened in Abu Ghraib. It is not so. The military responded firmly and aggressively to this terrible wrong. And do you remember the story--I know the Presiding Officer does--of the fine African-American colonel under the stress of attacks on his men in Iraq, he fired a gun near the head of an enemy that had been captured in order to attempt to frighten him and to get intelligence from him. Apparently, he got some intelligence of value that he believed helped protect the lives of his soldiers. But do you know what. He was booted out of the military because we don't tolerate that kind of thing. His actions went beyond what our standards allow, and he was cashiered from the Army. A fine person with a fine career who made a big mistake, and he paid for it because we don't accept that kind of thing. It is demeaning, it is dishonest, it is wrong to suggest that we have a policy to torture prisoners. With regard to Guantanamo, I know the President said he would like to see it closed. Well, I want to know what he is going to do with those prisoners. I have been there twice. Those soldiers do their jobs under difficult conditions every single day. They are highly professional. They do not allow themselves to be baited into overreacting when these prisoners display the worst kinds of anti-Americanism. Until just recently, not a single captive had died at Guantanamo. Now we have three suicides. So I suppose that is our fault now, that we had three people commit suicide who were being held down there. These are not bad conditions at all. They are good conditions. They are treated fine. They are given the Koran, given places to worship, given places to exercise, and given all kinds of things that most prisons around the world don't give to the prisoners of their own countries, much less to the people who want to destroy their country. But what I would say is this: They committed suicide. Those suicides were a political statement. They were their efforts to attack and undermine the United States. Their fervent desire was that Members of this Senate and the House of Representatives would use their deaths to speak on the floor to try to undermine our war against terrorism to make us less successful in the war on terrorism. That is exactly what their goal was. And, I would say this: does anyone in this Chamber doubt that if they had access to a bomb, they would have put that bomb on their body and killed anybody they could have? They would have killed themselves to promote their terrorist agenda. If they had been given the opportunity, wouldn't they have put a bomb on and killed others at the same time? I say those suicides are an absolute indication that we have in Guantanamo some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Now, I heard an official of our great ally, the United Kingdom, say we ought to close Guantanamo. I wanted to write him and say: Do you want to take these prisoners to the U.K.? Do you want to hold them? And then if you get tired of holding them, are you just going to let them go in London on your subways and on your buses? Then the critics worry that if we turn them back to their home countries and we have a rendition of the prisoners back to their home countries, that we have to guarantee that they are going to be treated wonderfully. So we can't keep them in Guantanamo, we can't--who else wants them? We can't even send them back to their home countries to be held in prison, apparently. So this reminds me of nuclear waste. Everybody has nuclear waste, but nobody wants to do anything with it, and they use the argument that you can't dispose of nuclear waste to try to block nuclear power. So this is just another attempt to make it more difficult, in my view, for us to be successful in handling these prisoners. They are not being tortured at Guantanamo. It is not the policy of the United States to torture anyone, and they are not being tortured. The few people who violated our high standards have been disciplined and punished. So let me say this in conclusion, Mr. President. The good news is that we have free debate here, and we get to duke it out and we get to have our say. We just voted yesterday 93 to 6 to declare we have no intention of any precipitous withdrawal from Iraq; that we are going to stand there with our soldiers, and we are going to stand with our allies in Iraq and help them establish a free, decent, democratic government, a government that will be to our national interests to an incredible degree. It will be more valuable than most people can comprehend to us and to the world to have a decent, peaceful Iraq and to defeat the terrorists there who want to take it over and make it their place. The other good news is that we have had a very successful attack on the CEO of terrorism, Zarqawi, and he has been killed. He clearly was the No. 1 executive officer of terrorism in the world, and that was a big victory. We also now completed the confirmation of the Defense Minister and the Interior Minister for Iraq, so the entire Cabinet is in place, and an entire government is in place. The Iraqi Army continues to get better, and it continues to grow, and we are beginning to see the possibility that our troops can be withdrawn. If we have to send more troops there, I will listen to the commanders. If they can bring the troops down, that will make me happy. We are going to listen to our commanders and do what it takes and continue this process in a way that leads to--what? Victory. That is what the soldiers we have sent there want, that is what the American people want, and that is what we in this Congress have to do; to figure out how to help our military people go forward and achieve victory. That will be my effort, and I think for the most part that is the bipartisan consensus of this Senate. Mr. President, again, I finish with a tribute to the professionalism of those in service, to the risk they have incurred; how they have attempted to conduct the violence of war in a way that mitigates civilian casualties and that reflects the highest ideals of the United States of America. I could not be more proud of their service. The conduct of this war on terrorism will be received as the most humane and careful war in history. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Is it necessary we actually cut the current rate of spending to achieve that?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator because he has given us optimism and hope that we can reduce this deficit, and he has shown us we can do this without slashing our social programs or any other spending but just contain the growth.

Mr. SESSIONS. With regard to the growth of revenue to our Government--and you had a chart which showed that--as I recall, last year we showed over 14 percent growth, and with this year almost half gone, we are looking at in excess of 11 percent growth. That is after taxes have been cut. Is that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. That is such an important answer. Let me ask the Senator this.

Mr. SESSIONS. And even with this long-term 20-, 30-, 60-year projection of larger deficits, if we just contain the growth in the entitlement programs by a realistic amount, we could have a great impact on reducing those projected deficits; isn't that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. First, I wish to say to any Americans listening and all our colleagues, when Chairman Gregg speaks about long-term financial challenges facing this Nation, we ought to listen. ``E.F. Hutton'' speaks. So our ``E.F. Hutton'' is speaking, and I could not be more proud of the package he has proposed because all of those proposals, in my view, are not only workable but they will work. What we tend to do around here a lot is we propose packages and ideas, and the ones that pass will not actually work. I say to Chairman Gregg, you had a chart that showed a declining deficit. Would you put that up? I just want to raise one point about it because it, perhaps, raises a misconception. It shows a reduction of the deficit and, in effect, a zero deficit. But you do not mean by that that to achieve that huge reduction in our current deficit, we have to cut spending; is that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. That is such an important answer. Let me ask the Senator this.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator because he has given us optimism and hope that we can reduce this deficit, and he has shown us we can do this without slashing our social programs or any other spending but just contain the growth.

Mr. SESSIONS. And even with this long-term 20-, 30-, 60-year projection of larger deficits, if we just contain the growth in the entitlement programs by a realistic amount, we could have a great impact on reducing those projected deficits; isn't that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. Is it necessary we actually cut the current rate of spending to achieve that?

Mr. SESSIONS. First, I wish to say to any Americans listening and all our colleagues, when Chairman Gregg speaks about long-term financial challenges facing this Nation, we ought to listen. ``E.F. Hutton'' speaks. So our ``E.F. Hutton'' is speaking, and I could not be more proud of the package he has proposed because all of those proposals, in my view, are not only workable but they will work. What we tend to do around here a lot is we propose packages and ideas, and the ones that pass will not actually work. I say to Chairman Gregg, you had a chart that showed a declining deficit. Would you put that up? I just want to raise one point about it because it, perhaps, raises a misconception. It shows a reduction of the deficit and, in effect, a zero deficit. But you do not mean by that that to achieve that huge reduction in our current deficit, we have to cut spending; is that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. The Senator from Georgia is here. I think he would like to offer an amendment. I yield the floor.