Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to share some thoughts about the Holmes nomination. I feel very deeply about it. I respect so much my friend, the Senator from Texas, and her service in this body. I will say that she and I have talked about it before. I think we are missing something here. I urge her to reconsider the position she has taken, although I know she has taken it carefully and I doubt that is likely. But I urge her and others to consider what we are doing here, about how we vote on judges. Let me just say that Americans and people around the world have various beliefs, and to some people different beliefs are viewed as strange. Those with religious beliefs may have different views on some issues than those who don't have religious beliefs. There is quite a lot of that. We don't all agree. We have different views about whether there is a Trinity, or what do you think about the virgin birth, and issues of all kinds. We have a lot of differences of opinion. We have a view in this country that there cannot be a religious test for a judge or any other position in Government. There cannot be a religious test that you can put on them, saying you have to have a certain religion or certain belief before you can be an official in this Government. No, that is not true. We should not do that. I guess what I will first say--and I hope I can be clear about this-- we differ in our religious principles. It has been suggested that Mr. Holmes' religious principles are extreme. I say to you that his principles are consistent with the Catholic Church's principles. What he has said in every writing I have seen, and as I understand it, they are perfectly consistent--in fact, he defended classic Catholic doctrine. He defended classic Catholic doctrine. Regardless of whether he had a personal view that was somewhat unusual about his religious faith, that is not the test we have here. The question is, Will his personal religious beliefs he may adhere to strongly interfere with his ability to be a good judge? He and his wife wrote a letter to a church in a church newspaper to discuss how they have ordered their marriage, and they have ordered it in the classical terms of Christianity. As a matter of fact, I think the Baptist Church recently affirmed a similar position in their denomination. It is the second largest denomination in the U.S.--second to the Catholic Church. That is not an extreme view. Whether you agree with it, it is scriptural, it is Christian doctrine. He defended and explained and wrote about that. Isn't it good that we have a nominee for the Federal bench who is active in his church, who thinks about the issues facing his country and writes about them and talks about them? That is a healthy thing. The question is--and it is legitimate for those who are concerned about those views--if they don't agree with his view on abortion or on how marriage is arranged, to inquire of the nominee whether those views are so strong they would affect his or her opinions from the bench. That is the test. If we get away from that, we have a problem. What is going to happen when we have a Muslim who has been nominated here or an Orthodox Jew, or any other denomination that doesn't agree with us on religious beliefs? Are we going to demand that they come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and renounce their faith as a price to be paid before they can be a Federal judge? No, sir, that is wrong. This is big-time stuff; this is not a little iddy-biddy matter, Mr. President. We should not be in that position. Yes, inquire if the person's views are so strongly held that they would impair his ability to be a Federal judge. Yes, ask whether they are a good lawyer, or do they have a good reputation among the bar, or do people respect their integrity, do they have good judgment, do people like and admire them. Ask those things. Ask whether the person has lack of judgment. But don't say: I don't agree with your theology on marriage; I don't agree with your church's view on abortion; therefore, I am not going to vote for you. That is a dangerous thing. It should not be done. It is a mistake for us to head down that direction. I cannot emphasize that too much. This is wrong. We should not do this. It is not the right way to evaluate Federal judges. I understand when somebody says: I just feel strongly about this deal on marriage that he and his wife wrote. I feel, feel, feel. We need to stop thinking like that and not be so much worried about how we feel, and we better think about the consequences of our actions and our votes. This is a dangerous precedent. I respect Judge Holmes. He is a man who has reached out to the poor, helped women lawyers to an extraordinary degree, helped them become partners in his firm. He has a wonderful wife who respects him and defended him in a real hot letter in response to the criticism of the article that she and Judge Holmes wrote. I think we ought to look at that. We have confirmed people to the bench that have made big mistakes in my judgement--we have confirmed people to the bench that have used drugs, yet, we are now debating keeping this man off the bench for his religious writings. Would Mr. Holmes be in a better position with members of this body if he had smoked dope instead of written religious articles? That should not be so. Let's look at his basic background and reputation for excellence. Of course, we know the two Democratic Senators from his home State of Arkansas support his nomination. So he has home State support. We know the American Bar Association rated him their highest rating, ``well-qualified.'' We know he is probably the finest appellate lawyer in the State of Arkansas. We know the Arkansas Supreme Court, when at various times they need a lawyer to sit on that court, they have called him two or three times to sit on the court. He is one of the most respected lawyers in the State of Arkansas. He was Phi Beta Kappa at Duke University. I think he was No. 1 in his class in law school. This is a man of integrity, of religious faith and conviction, who is active in his church, who has reached out to the poor all his life, tried to do the right thing, and he is the one who comes up here and gets beaten up. This is what his hometown newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, said. These are the kinds of comments from the people who know him: What distinguishes Mr. Holmes is a rare blend of qualities he brings to the law--intellect, scholarship, conviction, detachment, a reverence not just for the law but for ideas, for the life of the mind. All of that would shine through the clutter of argument that awaits any judge. He would not only bring distinction to the bench, but promise. In choosing Leon Holmes, the President could bequeath a promise of greatness. I think that is high praise. That is a beautiful comment. I suggest that is something anyone would be proud to have said about them. He has practiced commercial litigation at the trial and appellate level in State and Federal courts. He has acquired significant courtroom experience. He is currently a partner at Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull & Burrow in Little Rock. He was rated ``well-qualified'' by the ABA. He knows the value of hard work. He came from humble roots and is the only one of his seven siblings to attend college. He worked his way through college, finished law school at night while working a full-time job to support his family. He is an accomplished scholar. As I said, he finished at the top of his class, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa while a doctoral student at Duke University. He was named outstanding political science student upon graduation from the college. That is pretty good. Duke University is a pretty fine university. During the academic years of 1990 to 1992, he taught a variety of courses at Thomas Aquinas College in California. He taught law at the University of Arkansas during the year he clerked for Justice Holt of the Arkansas Supreme Court. One does not get selected to be a law clerk for a supreme court judge if one is not good. He displayed wide-ranging academic interest. His doctoral dissertation discussed the political philosophies of W.E.B. Debois and Booker T. Washington. It analyzed the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and has made efforts to reconcile their views. He has written substantial essays dealing with the subjects of political philosophy, law, and theology. He has been active in the bar in Arkansas. He taught continuing legal education courses on numerous occasions. He has been awarded the State bar's best CLE award four times. He sits on the board of advisers of the Arkansas Bar Association. He chaired the editorial board for the bar's education for handling appeals in Arkansas. That is pretty good. The Arkansas Bar does a publication on how to handle appeals in Arkansas. He was chosen to chair the editorial board for that publication. I submit to my colleagues that his peers think he is a good lawyer. He sits on the judicial nominations committee for the Arkansas State courts which recommends attorneys to the Governor for judicial appointment in supreme court cases where one or more justices recuse themselves. He is one of a top handful of appellate lawyers in Arkansas, and in 2001, the Arkansas Bar Association bestowed its writing excellence award on Mr. Holmes. On two occasions Leon Holmes has been appointed to serve as a special Arkansas Supreme Court judge, which is a real honor for a practicing attorney. The judges have praised his service in those cases, and more than one has urged him to run for a seat on the Arkansas Supreme Court. So he is well respected by the plaintiffs bar in Arkansas. Mr. Holmes is currently defending on appeal the largest jury verdict ever awarded in Arkansas history. It is the case of a nursing home resident who allegedly died from neglect. He is representing the plaintiffs side on appeal. If you are a plaintiff lawyer and you won in trial the largest civil judgment in Arkansas history, and it is on appeal and you want a lawyer to represent you, you want the best lawyer you can get, and you have the money to get that lawyer, you have a verdict worth millions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars--I do not know. Who did they choose out of the whole State of Arkansas? Leon Holmes. What does that say? They put their money on him. Their case was put on his shoulders. Look, he has given back to the community. This is not a man who is selfish as a practicing lawyer just to see how much money he can make. He was a habeas counsel for death row inmate Ricky Ray Rector, the mentally retarded man who was attempting to avoid execution. It came before then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. He refused at that time to commute the death sentence. But Holmes helped prepare the case for the evidentiary hearing in Federal court after habeas had already been filed. Not many big-time civil lawyers give their time to represent poor people, or mentally retarded people on death row. Holmes represented a Laotian immigrant woman suffering from terminal liver disease when Medicaid refused to cover treatment for a liver transplant. Do my colleagues think he made a bunch of money off that case? He did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. He helps people who are weak and do not have fair access to the courts. He represented a woman who lost custody of her children to her ex- husband, who could not afford counsel on appeal. He represented an indigent man with a methamphetamine felony history in connection with traffic misdemeanors. He has given back to his community outside the law, also. He was a house parent for the Elan Home for Children while a graduate student in North Carolina. He served as director of the Florence Critten Home of Little Rock, helping young women cope with pregnancy. He is partner with Philip Anderson, a former president of the American Bar Association who does not share Judge Holmes' views on a lot of issues politically, but he strongly supports him as an excellent judge, as do a large number of women. Let me read some of the people who know him. This is what his history shows. Some say, well, we do not know. He has these religious beliefs. What do we know about him in practice? Will he get on the bench and do all of these horrible things? It is not his record to do that kind of thing. Female colleagues from the Arkansas bar who know him support him strongly. This is what one said: During my 7 years at Williams & Anderson, I worked very close with Leon. We were in contact on a daily basis and handled many cases together. I toiled many long hours under stressful circumstances with Leon and always found him to be respectful, courteous and supportive. I was the first female associate to be named as a partner at Williams & Anderson. Leon was a strong proponent of my election to the partnership and, subsequently, encouraged and supported my career advancement, as well as the advancement of other women within the firm. So they say, well, he and his wife wrote this article quoting St. Paul and we think he does not like women. What about him being a strong supporter of this woman being the first female partner at his law firm? Continuing to quote from the letter: . . . Leon treated me in an equitable and respectful manner. I always have found him to be supportive of my career . . . Leon and I have different political views; however, I know him to be a fair and just person and have complete trust in his ability to put aside any personal or political views and apply the law in a thoughtful and equitable manner. That is Jeanne Seewald in a letter to Chairman Hatch and Senators Leahy and Schumer dated April 8 of last year when this issue came up. So this lady does not share his political views, or I assume his views maybe on abortion or other issues, but she knows he will be a fair and good judge. Here is another letter: Leon has trained me in the practice of law and now, as my partner, works with me on several matters. His office has been next to mine at the firm approximately two years. During that time, I worked with Leon as an expectant mother and now work with him as a new mother. Leon's daughters babysit my 11-month-old son. I value Leon's input, not only on work-related matters but also on personal matters. I have sought him out for advice on a number of issues. Although Leon and I do not always see eye-to-eye, I respect him and trust his judgment. Above all, he is fair. While working with Leon, I have observed him interact with various people. He treats all people, regardless of gender, station in life, or circumstance, with the same respect and dignity. He has always been supportive of me in my law practice, as well as supportive of the other women in our firm. Gender has never been an issue in any decision in the firm. That is a letter from Kristine Baker, April 8, to Senators Hatch, Schumer, and Leahy. Another female attorney in Little Rock, AR, Eileen Woods Harrison, states: I am a life-long Democrat and also pro-choice. I commend Mr. Holmes to you. He is a brilliant man, a great lawyer and a fine person. That was a letter sent to Senators Hatch, Schumer, and Leahy. Another one states: I heartily recommend Mr. Holmes to you. He is an outstanding lawyer and a fine person. While he and I differ dramatically on the pro-choice, pro-life issue, I am fully confident he will do his duty as the law and facts of a given case require. One more--well, let me ask right there, has there been any instance shown where he has failed to comply with the law in his practice, in any way shown disrespect to the court, or in any way said a judge or a lawyer should not obey the law and follow the law? No, and these letters say that. Beth Deere, in a letter dated March 24, 2003, to Senators Hatch and Leahy, states: I support Leon Holmes because he is not only a bright legal mind, but also because he is a good person who believes that our nation will be judged by the care it affords the least and the littlest in our society. I am not troubled that he is personally opposed to abortion. Mr. Holmes is shot through with integrity. He will, I believe, uphold and apply the law with the utmost care and diligence. Well, I do not know what else can be said. The only thing I can see is that people do not like his views on abortion, they do not like the views on family he and his wife have, and they are holding him up for that. His views are not extreme. His views are consistent with the faith of his church, not only his church, but the majority of Christendom. Now does that make someone unqualified to be a Federal judge? Is the rule that no true believers in Catholic doctrine need apply for a Federal judgeship? They say that is not it; they say that they are not anti-Catholic. I am not saying anybody is anti-Catholic. I am saying a lot of people do not agree with the doctrine of a lot of Christian churches and that should not affect how they vote on a nominee if the nominee is proven to be committed to following the law. It is all right, of course, for a person to have a religious faith; everybody says that. We would never discriminate against anybody who has religious faith. But if their faith calls on them to actually believe something and they have to make choices and those choices are not popular or politically correct at a given time, but they adhere to them because they believe in them, it is part of the tenets of their faith and the church to which they belong--and I would note parenthetically no church spends more time studying carefully the theology of its church and the doctrines of its church than the Catholic church--if they are consistent with that church's beliefs, they now no longer can be confirmed as a Federal judge? It is all right if one goes along and does not ever do anything to actually affirm aggressively the doctrine of their church. In other words, if one goes to mass and never says anything about the question of abortion or family or other issues outside of the church doors, then they are all right, but if someone actually writes an article somewhere and says, I believe in this, they risk being punished. Actually, in this case it was an article written from one Catholic couple to other Catholics discussing in depth some of the doctrines of the church and how they believed in them. So the Holmes shared their thoughts within their church family about how the church's views ought to be interpreted and expressed their personal views about how it ought to be, does that disqualify them from being a Federal judge? No. I think this is a bad policy. The question should simply be this: Will he follow the law of the U.S. Supreme Court on abortion even if he does not agree with it? And the answer is, yes. He has already stated that unequivocally. His record shows that. The lawyers who practice with him who are pro-choice, women lawyers who affirm him so beautifully and so strongly, say he is going to follow the law. The American Bar Association, which is pro-choice and to the left of America on a host of issues, gave him their highest rating of well qualified. The Arkansas Supreme Court has asked him to sit on their court at various times because they respected him. In 2001, he wrote the best legal writing in the State. Some say they are worried because he has never been a judge. So he has not sat on the bench before. I do not think that is a matter that disqualifies him. Most people who become judges have not been a judge before on the district bench. So what do we do to assess how he will act as a Judge? We talk to the lawyers, talk to the American Bar Association, talk to other judges in the State, and ask: What is this person like? They all say he is first rate. Both Democratic Senators from Arkansas, who know this man, known lawyers who know this man and are familiar with his reputation, support him. As one of our Members said earlier, in criticizing him, they asked: How can I vote for someone who believes women should be subordinated to men in this modern age? That is not the gist of the Pauline doctrine in Ephesians. Mrs. Holmes wrote to tell us that she is not subordinate and she believes in equality and that their joint article did not mean anything other than that. The Catholic Church does believe in ordination of only males. Some may disagree with that. I am a Methodist. We, I am pleased to say, ordain women. There are many women ministers in our church. But I want to ask again, if a person agrees with the doctrine of his church, which has been discussed and considered by the finest theologians for hundreds of years, and he agrees with that, and we don't agree with that, we don't think that is right, do we now think we should vote against that person because we don't agree with his religious beliefs? It is very dangerous to do that. We should not do it. I ask again, what about other denominations and other faiths that have different views from ours? We may find them far more offensive than this. Are we going to refuse to vote for them? Are we going to insist that those people renounce the doctrines of the church to which they belong as a price to be paid before they can become a Federal judge? I hope not. I think we are making a mistake. If there was something which would show that Judge Holmes could not follow the law, was not a first-rate attorney, did not have the respect of his colleagues, did not have the respect of the American Bar Association, had women lawyers who thought he was a sexist and unfair in the treatment of them and they came forward and said so, OK, I might be convinced. But none of that occurs here. That is not what we have. We have nothing but his personal beliefs that are consistent with the faith of his church. Some people don't agree with his views regarding his faith and tell us that they are going to vote against him because of that. That is not a good idea; that is not a good principle for us in this body to follow. This is what his wife wrote. The first thing I will just note in here, she said, ``The article is a product of my''--she italicized ``my''--``my Bible study over many years of my marriage.'' But it was a joint article. She says this: I am incredulous that some apparently believe my husband views men and women as unequal when the article states explicitly that men and women are equal. The women who have worked with my husband, women family members, women friends, can all attest to the fact that he treats men and women with equal respect and dignity. I can attest to that in a special way as his wife. She noted this was an article from a Catholic couple to Catholic laypeople. ``It has no application to anyone who is not attempting to follow the Catholic Christian faith.'' She also notes that Leon cooks his share of meals, washes the dishes, does laundry, and has changed innumerable diapers, and she has worked many years outside the home, although right now she does not. I would like to have printed in the Record an article from the Mobile Press-Register of the State of Alabama. It notes the similarity to the treatment given to Alabama's attorney general, Bill Pryor, when he was nominated to the Federal court of appeals, a man who also is a thoughtful, intelligent, committed Christian Catholic. This is what the Mobile Press-Register says: The example of Bill Pryor should be illustrative in the case of Leon Holmes as well. When a nominee enjoys strong bipartisan support from the home-state folks who know him best, and from some of the top non-partisan legal officers in the country, that support should weigh far more heavily than should the out-of-context criticisms from ideological pressure groups whose fund-raising prowess depends on how much havoc they wreak on the nomination process. I know Attorney General Bill Pryor was asked about his personal religious views on issues such as abortion. He answered honestly and truthfully and consistently with his faith, a faith that he studied carefully. People didn't like it: Well, I don't agree with you on abortion, they say. So what. We don't have to agree on abortion to support somebody for a Federal judgeship. He affirmed and had demonstrated that he would follow any Supreme Court rulings and could demonstrate as attorney general of Alabama he followed those rulings. That wasn't enough for them. They weren't satisfied. I ask unanimous consent this article dated July 5, 2004, be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from New Mexico is to be next.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am delighted to yield the Senator from New Mexico up to 10 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to respond to a few of the comments that have been made earlier today. One of the complaints that has been made is that Leon Holmes, in a letter, said pregnancies from rape were as rare as snowstorms in Miami. I think there is a literary device called exaggeration for effect. I am sure he did not intend that literally. As a matter of fact, some of the studies at that time showed pregnancies as a result of rape to be very rare indeed. I think since then numbers have come out to show a larger number have resulted from rape. Mr. Holmes apologized, not recently but a number of years ago, for that statement and, in fact, has written a nice letter in which he dealt with that explicitly and said that was not appropriate and noted he had matured over the years. I point out he wrote that letter before he became a lawyer in the early 1980s, or earlier, as a young man debating as a free American citizen an issue that was important to him. So that is what he said. That is how that came about. He has apologized for it. I do not think it was malicious. I do not think he intended anything bad by it. I think he was trying to make the point that based on the evidence he had at the time not that many abortions occurred as a result of rape. But he has admitted that was wrong and he should not have used that kind of language. He has apologized to everybody he can apologize to. But it will not make much difference, I am sure, to some people. I see the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Chamber, Senator Hatch. I remember we had a young man who had gone off to college, I guess in his early twenties, and had used a college credit card to purchase illegal property for himself, and they found it in the dorm room. He went off to the Army and did well and went to law school and did well, and we considered that and sat down, and we felt this was not disqualifying. So they say that as a young man he made this one statement and this is going to disqualify him from sitting on the bench? It was 24 years ago. Well, as if there is something bad about this man, his comment was on the only thing he has politically ever really been engaged with--the pro-life issue. His pro-life views are his religious belief. It is consistent with his church's belief. It is his personal belief. He believes it is a bad thing to abort human life. And he has been active out there as a private citizen--not as a judge, as a private citizen-- advocating. But the complaints they had about him on this issue were over 20 years ago before he even got his law degree. So I think they are not persuasive in this debate. He has also been attacked about the question of ``natural law.'' And he answered the questions of the Senate Judiciary Committee, by Democratic members, about when they asked him about it. He said: In my scholarly capacity, I wrote in my ``Comment on Shankman'' that there are no other provisions that open the door to natural law. He was asked whether he said that you couldn't alter the Constitution on a natural law basis on a specific case. I believe one of the members of the committee asked him, what about any other case? And he said no. He was asked another question: During his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Clarence Thomas testified that he did not ``see a role for the use of natural law in constitutional adjudication.'' Do you disagree or agree? Please explain why or why not? Mr. Holmes replied: As I have stated above, I do not believe that the courts are empowered by the Constitution to appeal to natural law as a basis for their decisions. The courts are given whatever authority they have by the Constitution. The Constitution does not authorize the courts to use natural law as a basis for overruling acts of Congress or acts of state legislatures. The comment that he believes natural law overrides the Constitution is contrary to his personal religious views but proves that he will be a fair judge. He was attacked viciously for the article he and his wife wrote about marriage. I will just note that he and his wife together were quoting the Pauline doctrine of marriage out of the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. It was written in a Catholic magazine for Catholic readership. It assumed certain background knowledge by the readers of the article on Catholic doctrine. It did not attempt to explicate Catholic theology for readers of other faiths who would lack that background and have difficulty understanding. Moreover, the main thrust of the article was to explain why gender-neutral language was inappropriate in the liturgy of a church. It did not focus on Catholic doctrine on marriage. In a letter to Senator Blanche Lincoln, a fine Senator from Arkansas who supports him and a Democratic Senator, he wrote this in explaining what he and his wife meant: The Catholic faith is pervaded with the view that the visible things symbolize aspects of the spiritual realm. This pervasive element of the faith is manifest in the teaching that the marital relationship symbolizes the relationship between Christ and the Church. My wife and I believe that this teaching ennobles and dignifies marriage and both partners in it. We do not believe that this teaching demeans either the husband or the wife but that it elevates both. It involves a mutual self-giving and self-forgetting, a reciprocal gift of self. This teaching is not inconsistent with the equality of all persons, male and female, and, in fact, in that column we say: ``[a]ll of us, male and female, are equally sons of God and therefore brothers of one another.'' This aspect of my faith--the teaching that male and female have equal dignity and are equal in the sight of God--has been manifest, I believe in my dealings with my female colleagues in our firm and in the profession as a whole. Indeed, many of them support him quite strongly. I reserve the remainder of the time and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I think we will soon be voting--at 5:30. I urge my colleagues to remember this. You do not have to agree with a nominee's personal religious views to support him or her as judge. The fact that you do not share a person's personal religious views on a host of different matters is not a basis to vote no. The question is, Will that person follow the law? That is the right test. That is the classical test we have always had. We are getting away from it. We have Members I respect in this body who say we just ought to consider ideology, we just ought to consider their politics, just put it out on the table. Let's not pretend anymore that these things are not what some of my colleagues base their judicial votes on, let's put it out there. But I say to you that is a dangerous philosophy because it suggests that judges are politicians, that judges are people who are empowered to make political decisions; therefore, we ought to elect judges who agree with our politics. It is contrary to the Anglo-American rule of law through our whole belief system in which judges are given lifetime appointments so they can be expected to resist politics and to adhere to the law as it is written and as defined by the Supreme Court of the United States. That is what it is all about. That is what we need to adhere to here. If we move away from that idea, if we suggest we no longer believe or expect judges to follow the law and not to be politicians, we have undermined law in this country to an extraordinary degree. The American people will not put up with it. The American people will accept rulings even if they don't like them if they believe the court is following the law, if they believe the court is honestly declaring the Constitution. But if they believe our Supreme Court has ceased to do that, or any other judges in this country have ceased to do that, and they are then imposing their personal views--even though they have not been elected to office, don't have to stand for election for office, hold their office for life and they are unaccountable--they will not accept that. There is a danger in America at this point in time. What President Bush is doing, day after day, week after week, is simply sending up judges who believe the law ought to be followed and they ought not to impose their political views from the bench. How can we be afraid of that? Our liberties are not at risk by these judges, as one wise lawyer said at a hearing of the Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member. He said: I don't see that our liberties are at great risk from judges who show restraint. Our liberties are at risk from those who impose their political views from the bench. I think Justice Holmes has demonstrated a career of commitment to the law. He has won the respect of both of the Democratic Senators from Arkansas. He has won the respect of the Supreme Court of Arkansas. He has won the respect of the American Bar Association, fellow women lawyers who worked with him, year after year after year. He is the kind of person we want on the bench, a person who truly believes in something more than making a dollar, who has represented the poor and dispossessed, who has spoken out on issues that are important to him, who is active in his church. That is what we need more of on the bench. I urge the Senate to confirm Leon Holmes. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to comment on some of the things that have been said. First of all, I believe there are things our country has every right to maintain secrecy on. I think the administration has been open about producing memorandum to us in a way that I don't know they are required to do. I was a Federal attorney in the Department of Justice and a U.S. attorney for 12 years. I have some appreciation for the way the Government works. The President has a right to receive legal advice on all the options he may have from his Attorney General or staff attorneys. In fact, a lot of reference has been made here, and as far as I can tell, Attorney General Ashcroft's memoranda are memoranda written only by lower level attorneys, detailing the legal options available in a time of war. Certainly we want to encourage attorneys to consider these ideas and these issues on what is appropriate in terms of interrogating prisoners who are bent upon the destruction of the United States of America and as many of its citizens in this country as they can possibly kill. That is fact, and we know it. The rules of law and of war are a joke to the terrorists that we have captured and others still bent on attacking Americans. They care nothing about it. They make television movies of beheading people. That is what they think of the rules of law. So what we need to do is decide what is appropriate and what laws we are bound by, and we ought to set a good policy there. I would say this: The Senator from New York is a good lawyer. He has said in his own view that torture sometimes may be necessary. That is what Senator Schumer said. I think any Attorney General should properly advise any President of the United States in time of war on absolutely what the limits of his powers are. Those are things that maybe ought not be bandied around the world. It is hypothetical. You don't know what the precise circumstances are. But the question that started all of this is abuses in prison in Iraq. The memos at the center of this debate have absolutely no connection--there is no connection--between what went on in Iraq and these memos, because our soldiers were operating under established policies of the military and internal discussions between the President and various lawyers, or memoranda they may have received from various lawyers. I want to say this about Attorney General Ashcroft. I was at the Judiciary Committee hearing when he testified. I saw him subjected to unfair abuse by former colleagues on that committee which was embarrassing to the committee. I don't think I have ever seen in my experience in this Congress the kind of disingenuous and unfair treatment of a former Member of this body. It was not right. The ranking member was using the whole time to make a litany of distortions and charges against the Attorney General where he had no opportunity to answer them. He knew there was no way he could. It was not right. It was wrong. I said that then, and I say it now. He had no opportunity to respond to the ranking Member. Senator Leahy knew it, and said these things one right after another: You did this, you did that. They continued in that vein. The question here was, Oh, he wouldn't define torture, yet he had a memorandum defining torture. That is not what Attorney General Ashcroft said. Go back and read the transcript. I saw what he said. Attorney General Ashcroft is a smart man, an honest man, and he answered the question directly. He said, Senator, the Congress defined torture. It is not for me to define torture. You define torture. The Attorney General doesn't define torture. I am not defining torture. The Congress has already defined it. There is a statute. I have a copy of it here in which we defined it under certain circumstances. We set out an anti-torture statute. That is what the Attorney General was referring to. Then somebody with great demand said, We want these memos; you are going to give them right now. Are you giving them or not? The Attorney General sat there in a nice, direct, soft way, and said, No, Senator, I am not giving you these right now. Are you claiming executive privilege? He said, No, I am not claiming executive privilege. These are memorandum submitted to the President of the United States. It is the memorandum of his client. It is the President's memorandum. It is not his to give. He can't go around giving out the confidential information he sent to the President of the United States about what he can do during the conduct of a war. That is not right. He didn't do it. And he didn't back down on it. One of the Senators said, Well, this is important because I have a son in uniform. The Attorney General said, My son has been in Iraq. He just got home, and he is going back to Iraq. He is in uniform, too. I care about this issue. I don't think what has been said is fair. With regard to the amendment that is pending, I reject it. We need to vote it down. It is political. It is designed to embarrass this administration politically, and it hurts us around the world. We are asked to cast a vote suggesting that this administration has not conducted itself in a proper way. The evidence does not show that. I am on the Armed Services Committee as well as the Judiciary Committee. We have had, I think, four hearings in Armed Services. We brought back the top general. We had the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld. We had Secretary Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary. We had General Abizaid and General Sanchez. We had General Taguba who went over there and conducted the investigation and issued the report on it. I heard all of that evidence. None of them said, Well, we got a memorandum from the Attorney General that the President of the United States signed off and said we are supposed to torture prisoners, we are supposed to carry them around, move them around and put hoods over their heads, and otherwise abuse them. There is no evidence that was so. In fact, the military had a pretty good series of policies about how to treat prisoners. Some said, some of them went too far. If some of them went too far, let's hear exactly what they say went too far and what was wrong. If we need to change that policy, I am willing to discuss that. In fact, we are discussing that at this very moment. A number of the things that were so objectionable, none of the things that happened in that prison, were in any way remotely connected to the memorandums and directives and regulations issued by General Sanchez and the commanders in Iraq. In fact, all the memorandum said they should follow Geneva Conventions in how they handle prisoners. Some say we did not train them about the Geneva Conventions. Every American soldier is trained about the Geneva Conventions. I was in the Army Reserve for 10 years. I was a lawyer and U.S. attorney for some of that time, and for a short period of time I was a JAG officer. I taught a course on the Geneva Conventions. You had to sign a document saying you briefed your soldiers every year on the Geneva Conventions. Everyone knows you cannot torture prisoners, you cannot display them in sexual ways. Everyone knows that. Every private is taught that. Everyone up to the generals is taught that. It is not the way we are supposed to treat people. Certainly it was not justified and not the policy of the military. It never was the policy of the military. I don't appreciate the suggestion that this was the policy of the military and that somehow the internal memorandums up in the Department of Justice in Washington about hypotheticals and what powers the President might have somehow were carried out in the prisons. They had established policies. I saw in the Washington Times today, quoting one of these memos, a memo entitled ``Humane Treatment.'' That ought to make some people around here happy. It actually says ``Humane Treatment of Al-qaida and Taliban Detainees.'' That is a pretty good title for a memorandum. They are complaining about some military memorandum they did not like the title of, saying the title suggested something bad and within the memorandum there were commands to preserve and protect the prisoners. This title is a good title. President Bush says he accepts ``the legal conclusion of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority.'' Of course, our values as a Nation call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment. Now, what is all this about? Senator Hatch mentioned, as I believe Senator Cornyn did, and several years ago in the Judiciary Committee we had a number of hearings right after September 11 on what the authority of the United States is with regard to treatment of prisoners and the application of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to unlawful combatants. It is that simple. What is an unlawful combatant? It is a person who does not wear a uniform, who enters a country surreptitiously, who attacks civilians, and does not comply with the rules of war. Our enemies are supposed to comply with the rules of war also. Unlawful combatants do not comply with the rules of war. Al-Qaida does not. Most of the people in Afghanistan were not complying with the rules of war and the people who are bombing and killing in Iraq right now are not complying with the rules of war. All of them are unlawful combatants. One of the reasons for the Geneva Conventions is to give protections to prisoners of war who were lawful combatants, to encourage people to be lawful combatants and not to be unlawful combatants, not to be terrorists who sneak around and bomb people. Has this ever been dealt with in America? Are we making this up? Is this some idea the Senator from Alabama thinks is an idea that has never been dealt with before? No. In the Judiciary Committee we had a hearing on it and discussed these issues in some detail not long after September 11. We had testimony and read and debated the Ex parte Quirin case. In Ex parte Quirin, the Nazis sent saboteurs into the United States to bomb and kill and dismantle our civilian structure. That was their plan. They were Nazi saboteurs. They were not wearing German uniforms. They were not acting in a way consistent with the regular Army. Their plan of attack was terrorist in nature. They were apprehended. The President of the United States, certainly a greatly respected President for our Democratic colleagues who are pushing this legislation, President Franklin Roosevelt, was highly offended. He said we are not going to give them a trial in Federal court. We are not going to try them with a jury in the United States of America. These people are setting about to destroy our country, to kill our people, and to sabotage our civil infrastructure. They are going to be tried, as I have the power to do so, by a military commission. He so ordered it. They were tried in the U.S. Department of Justice right down the street by a military commission. They did not have public trials. After completely trying the case and building a record and making findings of guilt, most of them were executed within weeks of their arrest. The validity of these trials were challenged and the case went to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court affirmed the views of the President. Some of these enemy combatants were given probation and some of them who were tried that way were American citizens. Crimes were committed in the United States by American citizens, but they were participating as unlawful combatants. They were tried by a military tribunal. They were convicted. Most of them were executed. Some of them got lesser times and one or two who cooperated got out of jail before too long. But all served a considerable amount of time and the Supreme Court said that was appropriate. That was right. The history of the military commission is strong. That is justice. Military commissions do justice. Military officers are people. They do not want to convict innocent people, send innocent people to jail, or do things that are wrong. They are empowered in combat to use deadly weapons on a whole host of people that could kill them. President Truman, who followed President Roosevelt, dropped an atom bomb on two cities in Japan. The President of the United States does have powers in wartime that are different from that kind of situation when somebody robs a bank down the street. Fundamentally, what we are dealing with is how to deal with prisoners under these circumstances. Some people say, a lot of people in this country say, they don't respect us, they don't respect law, they bomb innocent civilians, women, men, children. They cut off people's heads and make a video of it and brag about it. But they are not entitled to any rights. They are not entitled to any rights. We just ought to go at them and kill them, the sooner the better. We have some in this body who say these terrorists are entitled to more rights than the laws themselves give. In fact, they have insisted on it. This resolution actually calls on the Government to give these terrorists and unlawful combatants more rights than they are entitled to under the law. President Bush has said: I am going to comply with the Geneva Conventions. We are going to treat these people humanely. That is the right position, I believe, and that is what he has done. We have given them fair treatment. I visited Guantanamo and saw how it was done down there early on. I believe they were treated very well. The reports that come out of there continue to show that. We know we had a terrible problem in Abu Ghraib prison where, on a midnight shift, a group of soldiers were out of control. Now we have a desperate attempt by Members of this Senate to go around and say the abuses that occurred on that night were somehow the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense, General Sanchez, General Abizaid, President Bush, and John Ashcroft. That is not true. It is wrong. It undermines our ability to lead in the world. It does, I believe, place greater risk on our soldiers who, at this moment, are on the battlefield in Iraq because we sent them there. We should not do that. If you have legitimate complaints, let's have them, let's hear them in the Senate. But I do not believe we need to be suggesting there is a policy of this Government to mistreat people as was done in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. We had a distinguished senior Senator who said we had traded Saddam Hussein's prisons for American prisons. What he meant by that was we were treating prisoners just as Saddam Hussein did. That is wrong. It is a slander on the soldiers of the United States. It should not have been said. When that was said, it got headlines in the terrorist camps all over the world. It should not have been said. It is false. Not long ago I had the opportunity to meet seven Iraqi individuals who had had their hands chopped off in Saddam Hussein's prisons, with Saddam Hussein justice. We know of the thousands he had killed there-- without trial, without any benefit of being able to put on a defense, and how he used, as a policy of his government, terror. These kinds of dictators use random violence to terrorize a population to keep power. He did it systematically. This was one of the most brutal dictators in the history of the world. He killed hundreds of thousands of people. There are maybe 300,000 graves in that country of people who were killed. So it is wrong to say that. Why we keep pushing this, I do not know. I will just say this: The Armed Services Committee--we have this bill on the floor right now, and it has taken us too long, and it has caused us to not be able to have the hearings we probably would have had--but we are going to have more hearings on what happened in Abu Ghraib prison. Already people are being tried and convicted and sentenced for misbehavior there. We are going to keep on, and the higher up it goes, they are going to be followed. I was a former prosecutor for some time, and I will ask anybody in this body to tell me: If a soldier is charged with committing an abuse on a prisoner, and he was ordered to do so, or there was some written document he was relying on to do this abuse, do you think he is not going to produce it? Do you think he is not going to say that in his defense? Certainly, he will. So if there are any higher-ups involved in this, it is going to come out. But, frankly, I do not see the evidence that any higher-ups in the higher echelons of the Government ever issued any orders in any way that would have justified this. It did not happen at any time except on a midnight shift by a few people, who videoed themselves, videoed themselves in circumstances that would be very embarrassing to their mamas and daddies if they had seen it, I can tell you that, on their own behavior, much less what they were doing to the prisoners. So I do not think it was a pattern. I do not think it was a policy. In fact, all the evidence we have seen so far shows it was not. Within 2 days of this information coming forward to the commanders in that region, General Sanchez ordered an investigation. He suspended people. The military announced publicly, in a public briefing in Iraq, that they were conducting an investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. They have continued those investigations. A number of people have been charged criminally by the military. A number of them have had their cases end with punishments being imposed, and others will have them as time goes by. I would say, what more can you ask them to do? They are cracking down. I do not appreciate resolutions such as this that suggest it was a policy of the United States that this occurred, that suggest that our American soldiers are the same as Saddam Hussein's soldiers and prison guards--the way they treated their prisoners. It is not right. It is wrong. It should not be said, and it undermines the confidence that we ask the world and the Iraqis to have in our soldiers. We believe they are going to do good work. We believe they are doing good work. We know, when you have 100,000, 200,000 soldiers over there, some of them will make mistakes. Just like any city in America that has 200,000 citizens, 130,000 citizens, some of them are going to commit crimes and make errors and do things wrong. They ought to be disciplined. They ought to be held accountable. But we do not need to fire the mayor because somebody commits a crime on the streets of the city. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Arizona is in the Chamber, and I know he may well have comments to make on this or other issues. I will conclude by saying this is not a good resolution. It has no business here. It is contrary to what we ought to be doing. We ought to be spending our time on how to help our military get a handle on this problem in Abu Ghraib, and we ought to be spending our time mostly on trying to help them be effective in dealing with, capturing, and killing the terrorists who reject all rules of law, who reject all Geneva Conventions, who believe they have a legitimate right to advance their personal power agenda by killing innocent people whenever and wherever they can. I am most grateful that we have American soldiers this very moment following the vote of this Congress and executing the policy we ask them to execute in Iraq to further freedom and liberty around the world. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Reed amendment. The amendment before us covers ground that was considered and already rejected by the Senate in the three missile defense amendments offered by Senators Boxer, Reed, and Levin. The amendment Senator Reed offers today uses the same approach to testing proposed in his amendment that we considered last Thursday and that the Senate rejected. But his amendment today has the additional disadvantage of imposing a very significant cost--to the missile defense program and to our ability to defend the Nation from long-range missile attack. These costs are identical to those that the Senate rejected yesterday when we defeated the amendment proposed by Senator Levin. Senatore Reed's amendment would prohibit expenditure of fiscal year 2005 funds for ground-based interceptors until initial operational test and evaluation is completed. I would remind my colleagues that the Senate has already voted in favor of a Warner amendment to require realistic testing of the ballistic missile defense system in 2005. Yet Senator Reed is proposing, again, an approach which would require operational test and evaluation of the BMD system and prohibit the use of fiscal year 2005 funds to acquire additional missile defense interceptors until such testing is completed. This is precisely the approach that the Senate has already rejected and precisely the approach that even the pentagon's own chief testing official believes is premature and unhelpful. The Senate has already spoken on the testing issue. Furthermore, the amendment we are considering, if adopted, would do serious harm to the Nation's ability to defend itself from long-range missile threats. Just as with the Levin amendment yesterday, the Reed amendment would cause a break in production line for missile defense interceptors and unacceptable delays in the effort to defend our Nation from known and serious long-range missile threats. Planning and conducting operational testing and completing the evaluation of such testing would take at least a year. During that year, no funding for the next 10 interceptors could be spent. Key manufacturing personnel would be lost, subcontractors would be lost, and knowledge of manufacturing processes would be lost. When a production line is broken, it has to be restarted. Rehiring and retraining workers, requalifying subcontractors, and reestablishing manufacturing processes would take additional time and a great deal of money. A production break would also increase technical risk to this program, since quality depends in significant measure on well-trained and experienced workers and well-qualified subcontractors and stable manufacturing processes. Loss of these funds for just a year could result in a delay in fielding these interceptors of nearly 3 years and a 4- to 5-year gap between fielding the 20th interceptor and 30th interceptor. Restarting the production line would incur a cost to the taxpayer of more than $250 million. Some Senators may argue that fencing funds is not a cut, but I would suggest that if the funds are lost for at least a year, there is not much difference between this fence and a substantial budget cut. The threat more than justifies the need for additional GMD interceptors. That threat is here today. It was confirmed last year by the Director of Central Intelligence, in testimony before the Armed Services Committee, when he testified that the North Korea has a missile that can reach the United States. The need for additional interceptors is based on the threat and all the evidence I have seen fully and clearly justifies the acquisition of the 10 interceptors in the budget request. Any significant slowdown in this effort would leave the ground-based midcourse defense element with a severely reduced inventory of interceptors by 2007 and would leave our Nation vulnerable to North Korean and, potentially, Middle Eastern threats. Unfortunately, Senator Reed's amendment, if adopted, will cause just such a serious slowdown. Mr. President, the Senate has spoken already on all the issues raised in this amendment. I strongly urge my colleagues to be consistent and to oppose this amendment. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. If the Senator will yield, I will yield to Senator Coleman ahead of me.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to recount a special discovery made recently in south Georgia by a Birmingham constituent of mine. The discovery was of a letter dated April 8, 1943, that was sent from a 24-year-old Alabama soldier serving in North Africa to his newborn son back home. A world war was raging and the letter's author, David Henry, Sr., of Roanoke, AL, was concerned that he might never get to see his newborn son. It is a special letter, indeed, sent from another continent and reflecting the essential values and life's lessons that Mr. Henry wanted to impart to his 3-month-old son, David Henry, Jr. Among other things, the letter tells young David about the value of choosing work you enjoy, developing a love of reading, finding a hobby, and guarding against greed and selfishness. Fortunately, Mr. Henry, Sr., survived the war and returned home to his wife and young son. The letter and the penned wisdom, however, has lain dormant for more than 60 years. Mr. Henry, Jr., discovered the letter recently while cleaning out his parents' house in south Georgia. Mr. Henry's dad died this past February. Mr. Henry sent me a copy of his father's letter, urging that it be used in some productive way. I found the lessons and wisdom in the letter profound, and as relevant today as they were in 1943. I forwarded the letter to The Birmingham News, which ran a timely and touching Page 1 story on May 29, 2004, over the Memorial Day weekend. Written far away from his home and loved ones, Mr. Henry, Sr.'s, letter truly reflects the thoughts of a young man wise beyond his years. I ask consent that the letter and the accompanying newspaper article by Birmingham News reporter Carla Crowder be printed in the Record, so that all can benefit from its timeless wisdom. The material follows: (North Africa, April 8, 1943) ``My Dear Son: ``This is the first letter your dad has ever written you, and I expect it will be the last until I see you. Today you are almost three months old. Tomorrow will be your birthday, and I can only say `Happy birthday, son.' ``When you were born I was a long, long way from your mother doing my little part toward preserving the freedom of our country. Had there been no war, nothing could have kept me from being with your mother on January the ninth. There was a war, though, and I am glad that I can say that I had a part toward making our country a safe place so that our mothers can live in peace and comfort. ``There are lots of things I have learned in the past few years, things that I would like for you to know and things that I am sure you will find to be true as you grow older. ``If I were asked to make an eleventh commandment I think I should say. `Thou shall not be selfish.' You will find as the years roll by that it is very hard to keep from being selfish. In this greedy world of ours we run over each other trying to get, we know not what, but with the idea that we must get it before the other fellow does. We do not know when we have enough. We never want to turn anything loose, even if we do not need it. We always want more if we have no place to put it. I think that the first lesson toward happiness is to learn to share what you have with some one else. ``I should like for my son to know how to work and to enjoy it. I think that the secret toward learning to like to work is to believe that you can do your job just a little better than anyone else. I think that every successful man enjoys hard, strenuous outside work as much or maybe more than the office. Start early, learn to cut wood, learn the art of rolling a wheelbarrow or how to handle a hoe. Take long walks. Like through wooded country and by all means never miss a rabbit hunt. ``Begin early to read. Always have something in your pocket to read while waiting on a bus or while trying to go to sleep. Reading is knowledge and knowledge is success. ``Until you are one hundred years old, never be without a hobby. If you are interested in woodwork, then you shall have a shop before you are 10 years of age. If you are interested in radio, then you shall have any type of equipment to tinker with that you wish. Gather information from every source possible. Gather reading material from every place where you might find it. What you learn from your hobbies goes a long way toward your success in life. ``Learn early to make friends. Always remember that you cannot buy real friendship. Remember that a real friend is one of the most valuable possessions a person may have. Learn new names, new faces, facts about people. Learn to really know people. ``There is quite a bit of difference between saving and being selfish. If a person should throw something away, and you come along and save it until you need it, than that would be saving. If you have something you do not need and you throw it away, even though you know someone else might be able to use it, then you are being selfish. Learn to appraise an article, and if it has a value, then save it. Remember what it is and where it is, so that when you or someone else needs it you will be able to find it. Learn to save money. Put it where it can be used. Do not hide it so that no one else can use it. ``One of the most important things that I want my boy to know is that it always pays to be honest. No matter how small or how insignificant, it always pays to tell the truth. Be honest, do not take that which does not belong to you. Do not bother with other people's things. However deep you get in trouble, go to someone, tell them the truth and you will find the easiest way out. ``Very soon you will make a trip from Birmingham to Roanoke, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles. That is farther away from home than I was until I was about 19 years old. You will learn as you grow older that a city is a city whether it is in Alabama, Georgia, New York, England or Africa. I want you to travel early, to find out what it took me years to find out, that every country has its hills and dells, its rivers and branches, its oceans and seas. That you can find all sorts of people in any country, city or village. Never-the-less I want you to travel a lot, see the world. See for yourself that all people want a chance for freedom, a chance to worship as they choose, a chance to talk as they choose and a chance to earn their own living. ``Your loving Dad'' David P. Henry.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, for his leadership. I support his position on this issue that is before us today, as well as that of Senator Allard who chairs the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee where this matter is dealt with in depth. Both these Senators have worked on this issue for quite some time and have given it serious consideration. I believe they are correct. Indeed, I believe the Levin amendment runs counter to the policy of this Senate that has been established for some time. It is, I believe, now the fourth amendment of its kind, designed to erode the support and commitment we made to deploying a national missile defense system. A number of years ago, in 1998 or so, this Senate in a bipartisan way adopted the Cochran-Lieberman amendment that declared it was the policy of the U.S. Congress that we should deploy a national missile defense system as soon as practical--not develop one, not research one, but to deploy it as soon as possible. That passed, I believe, with about 90- plus votes in the Senate and was signed by President Clinton. It represents the policy and commitment of the United States. Over the years, we have moved toward that goal. We were told it could not be done. We were told a missile could not hit a missile in the air. We were told, yes, there may be a threat out there, but it probably is not very real, and even if it is you can't make the technology work. This is Star Wars. It goes back to some degree to the ridicule that was directed toward former President Reagan for his steadfast belief that this country needed to move from just trying to see how many missiles we can aim at our enemies, see how much threat we can focus on them, to the concept he believed was more peaceful, which would be to develop a system that would allow us to defend ourselves against attack. That is what we voted on, and we voted on it virtually unanimously. I think 90 percent plus of the Senators in this body voted for that amendment. That is where we are today. Now we have here at the last minute, as this bill moves forward, one more attempt to drawdown money and to spend it on other things. Yes, there are a lot of needs in this country. You can go to education, you can go to health care, you can go to homeland security, you can go to a lot of things we believe we need desperately in America, but we are here to make choices. We made a commitment and a choice to field a national missile defense system. I will point out that a lot of Americans probably do not know this system is working. The science is being proven day after day. In fact, in September we will be placing in the ground in Alaska a national missile defense system that can help protect us from missile attack--not just from North Korea, but from an accidental launch. They could be effective in protecting this country, and as we go forward we will continue to improve this system. As you test and develop this system, spiraling as we are doing now, then we may find we can develop a better radar system, we can develop a system that can be deployed on ships more effectively than what we have today. We may be able to develop a local land-based system. We may improve our computer system. We may be able to improve our guidance systems. We may be able to improve our ability to defeat even the most sophisticated attempts to confuse a national missile defense system. But it does not have to be perfect before we put it into place today. I say we are going to continue to do that. I believe we are committed to going forward with this. It would be a terrible mistake to cut $515 million from a system that is on track now to be effective and to be deployed. This will shut down the assembly lines. This will shut down the production that is ongoing. It is going to cost us much more money in the long run. It is not going to be good for our productive system. It is the kind of on-again, off-again political management of the production and deployment of systems that is not healthy for our Defense Department. I see my time has expired. I thank the chairman for his leadership. I also oppose the Levin amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Reverend Bobby Welch, a native of Fort Payne, AL. Recently, Reverend Welch was elected President of the 16.3 million member Southern Baptist Convention. A 1965 graduate of Jacksonville State University, Reverend Welch entered the Army and was sent to fight in Vietnam, where he demonstrated his bravery and commitment to our great Nation. Reverend Welch was shot by Vietnamese forces and left for dead on the battlefield. This United States paratrooper, Ranger, and Green Beret received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in recognition of his courage and service. The achievements of Reverend Welch demonstrate the leadership qualities of Americans. Reverend Welch has upheld the principles of our Founding Fathers through his military service to his country. His courage in harm's way mirrors that of the brave soldiers who now risk their lives daily for the maintenance of democracy. After his military service, he chose to answer his highest call, the Christian ministry. He has poured himself into that calling with conviction and zeal, and the harvest has been tremendous. He now pastors the 4,000 member First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, FL. And, now, his Southern Baptist Convention has chosen him as their president. His leadership of this vibrant and growing denomination will continue its success in touching the lives of millions who are struggling to find meaning in their lives. This denomination every day provides aid, comfort, purpose, and hope to people that are hurting and in need. They help those who are sick and dying, those with marital problems, those in jail, those with alcohol and drug problems. They sanctify marriage, celebrate births, and provide solace at times of death and loss. They further these goals through a worldwide ministry. They provide specific advice and financial help and a vision of an new and better life in Christ. That's what they do--and they do it every day. And they do it without government aid or direction. They do it also with fidelity, as they understand it, to the Word contained in the Holy Scriptures. Faithfulness to righteous living, even in times of corruption and excess, has always been a cornerstone of the Baptist way and it has benefitted our Nation in far more ways than we can list. So, it is appropriate that we pause a moment to recognize Reverend Welch and his life and the many contributions of the Baptist denomination he leads.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the Reed amendment, but I would note that Senator Reed has certainly done a lot of work on this issue. Yesterday, Senator Warner proposed a second- degree amendment that incorporated a number of the concerns the Senator had about missile defense. This amendment today would cover much of the same ground that was considered in the amendment offered by Senator Reed yesterday. That amendment was adopted by the Senate and modified, as I noted, by Senator Warner. The amendment today uses the same approach to testing as the amendment yesterday, but it has the additional disadvantage of imposing a very significant cost to the Missile Defense Program and to our ability to defend the Nation from long-range missile attack. It would prohibit expenditure of fiscal year 2005 funds for ground-based interceptors until initial operational test and evaluation is completed. And that has a technical and important legal definition. I remind my colleagues, the Warner second-degree amendment, adopted yesterday, requires the Secretary of Defense to establish criteria for realistic testing of ballistic missile defense systems and to conduct a test consistent with those criteria in 2005. The Senate approved this approach, rather than the Reed approach, which would require operational tests and evaluation of each configuration of the BMD system. Indeed, the Senator's amendment today is much more demanding because unlike the one yesterday, it would restrict the ability to acquire additional missile defense interceptors until such testing is completed. During the debate yesterday, we noted that the Department of Defense Director of Operational Test and Evaluation believes that operational test and evaluation for ground-based midcourse missile defense elements--the kind of testing the Senator is proposing--is premature and not helpful to that effort. We note the need for flexibility to incorporate developmental goals into missile defense testing so that the missile defense system can continue to evolve and improve over time. These developmental goals are precluded, by law, from operational test and evaluation. We noted that the Warner amendment provides the flexibility to include developmental goals and avoids the cost delay involved in significant replanning of the test program. All these arguments are relative to the amendment before us today as well. So I note again that the Warner amendment, adopted by the Senate yesterday, requires a test be conducted in 2005, consistent with the Secretary's criteria for realistic testing. Yet the Reed amendment before us would prohibit the Department from using funds for additional interceptors in 2005, until the approach to testing rejected by the Senate yesterday is not only adopted but completed. So the Senate has spoken on this issue. Further, the amendment we are considering, if adopted, would do serious harm to the Nation's ability to defend itself from long-range missile threats. While we have no defense today against long-range ballistic missile attack, we are on track to field a missile defense test bed that will provide an early, limited capability to defend against long-range missiles later this year. Our goal is to have five missiles in place in September that have the capability of knocking down attacking missiles whether they come from any place on the globe, protecting the entire United States by placing them in this geographically perfect spot in Alaska that allows us to protect the whole country. I think most people need to remember that. People made fun of this. They said it could not be done, a system like this would not work. But it is going to be deployed in September. What this amendment would do is stop the assembly of additional missiles that are now ongoing, block the assembly line that really needs to continue for at least a year, maybe two. I think that is the biggest problem we have with it. The kind of testing and evaluation and development we are doing today, through a spiral development type concept, is to move forward, to get this system up. As Senator Reed's chart showed, we have ships at sea. We have early radar warning systems. We have communications systems. We have to have command systems as well as the missile and its technical capability to hit an incoming missile. The tests so far have proven that the existing capabilities of the guidance systems that we have enable an American antiballistic missile to knock down an incoming missile with remarkable certainty. It is a remarkable scientific achievement. Someone said recently, it is equivalent almost to putting a man on the Moon. It has been done. We are there. We do not need to slow this down. But there is no doubt in my mind that as we go forward additional tests will be conducted, that additional scientific and technological advancements will be brought on line. We will continue to improve this system as we go forward with it. We have had a lot of debate on national missile defense. I know people have different ideas about how it ought to be developed. We have put some real faith in General Kadish and his team at National Missile Defense. I think they have proven worthy of the faith we have put in them. We gave them flexibility. We did not try to micromanage what they were going to do. We challenged them to produce a system that could be deployed this year. We gave them the ability to develop and move forward in a way they thought best. If they believed changes needed to be implemented differently from what they thought when they first started, we gave them flexibility to do that. They are coming forward in a great way. I am proud of what General Kadish has accomplished and what Admiral Ellis has stated and his confidence in this system. I believe we have been very fortunate to have top-flight people in charge of this program. If not, we would not be nearly as far along as we are. I do not think we ought to constrict them with this amendment. I respect the Senator's goals. I know he has studied it carefully. He believes this would help. But at this point I think it would do more harm than good, and I oppose the amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS. I believe it would cover at least a good bit of the United States against a Middle Eastern threat, and it could be effective against other threats. But, obviously, the main threat at this point--the ultimate goal is to provide a system that can protect us from all threats.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am delighted to yield.

Mr. SESSIONS. I know the Senator has studied this carefully, and I respect him for that. We have made a commitment to go forward and deploy. We have done a good deal of testing to date. We are going to need to test the whole system. The Senator is right. We may find that some difficulties exist that need to be dealt with. We may find that some things work better than we thought. But until we get the system in the ground, I don't think we can do the kind of realistic testing that we need, testing the command center, the advanced radar, the communications systems, and all of that. I am committed to this spiral development system in which we don't straitjacket ourselves but continue to develop as we test. I think your amendment would limit the development and go back to the more traditional firm testing, step by step. I respect your view on it, but I think we should go the other way. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, in regard to the Reed amendment--and that discussion has been had so far--I am pleased that the chairman and Senator Reed have worked out an agreement. I hope that will be satisfactory. I haven't had time to fully study the details of it, but I expect to be supportive of the agreement which they have reached. We know the Army is stretched today. We definitely need to consider what we can do to alleviate that. I would like to add a few thoughts in general on the subject of the Army, its restructuring which is ongoing, and how we best can deal with it and what our policy about it should be. We are in the process of a major restructuring within all of the Department of Defense, but particularly the Army. In dealing with that, they are in the middle of it right now. General Schoomaker, who spent his career as a combat officer and a special forces officer, is a man of decisive leadership skills. He is working very hard to determine how to get the Army in the posture we want it to be. With Guard and Reserve, we have over 2 million personnel in uniform, but we are finding it extremely difficult to maintain 150,000 or less soldiers in Iraq. General Schoomaker has a story which he tells. It is about a rain barrel. He says the way he sees the military, the Army's rain barrel has a spigot and the spigot is about two-thirds of the way up. Whenever we have a demand, we draw down the water, but we are only drawing the top third of the barrel. In large part, the barrel is not accessible and readily deployable for purposes that we are likely to face in the future. He believes we can work on that. He knows something we all know--that we have a finite defense budget. I am as strong a person as there is in this Senate on expanding spending for defense and making our defense capabilities second to none. We are that today. We have the greatest army the world has ever known. The professional soldiers who serve us so well are doing incredible things. We are proud of them. People just say that. I say to you that every military in the world knows the American military is unsurpassed. They respect us. That is why they want to train with us. They want to learn our tactics. They want to see what equipment we are using. It is something in which we should take pride. He is working with that and how to better utilize our resources. There was an article recently which a radio reporter in Alabama asked me about. People are transferring from the Air Force to the Army. I said I didn't know that. I did some checking on it. The Air Force has concluded they are 17,000 above their needs, that these 17,000 soldiers are excess for the mission they have. So they are giving an opportunity to change their MOS, or transfer to the Army, which needs more. The Navy has discovered it has 7,000 excess. I chaired an Armed Services Committee, the Sea Powers Subcommittee, and all the new ships that we are building today are using half--maybe less than half--the number of sailors to operate them as we used to use because of technology, better equipment, and science. We can operate a combat warship with half the people he used to have. So the Navy is downsizing. They do not want to spend any more money than they have to for personnel who aren't critical for their mission because they have technological advances they would like, and new ships they need to bring on. The Air Force is thinking the same way. The Army, of course, is more personnel driven. Although it is quite technologically advanced today, all of our soldiers have to be highly trained to be able to utilize the technology they have. We are already at an increased end strength posture for the Army. The numbers I have are around 19,000 above the authorized end strength, but that is flexible. General Schoomaker says he is not asking for legislation that mandates a permanent increase in his end strength. He stated in committee, in answers to questions as part of his formal testimony, he would prefer not to be mandated to have this end strength increase, but because we are in combat today he has done it and can maintain it. He would like to be able to utilize funding from the supplemental to maintain that strength. He has said he would prefer we allow him to continue to work on his restructuring and see if we cannot create more combat brigades that are ready to be deployed, fully equipped, and highly trained. Frankly, in years past, we have had more soldiers than we have had equipment and training. The Europeans are being criticized by the United States, and in their own self-evaluations, for bringing on large numbers of draftees and others who stay just for a short period of time. They are not highly trained and not highly equipped and are spending a lot of money, but the soldiers are not deployable to serious combat situations. Their ability to deploy and actively participate in combat is far less than it should be. If we think about the rain barrel analogy of General Schoomaker, we think about the ability to move personnel numbers from the other services, which can be an important part of our restructuring and improvement in our defense forces, we may find that we can make more progress than we think. That is certainly my goal. Our Guard and Reserve are performing exceedingly well. I visited them in Iraq. I know some military police and the Guard unit have been criticized for unacceptable behavior in the Abu Ghraib prison. I visited an Alabama National Guard MP unit in Baghdad. Every day our soldiers were going to a local MP unit. They were working with the local Iraqis. They told me they bonded with them. They walked out on patrol with them. They taught them how to investigate crimes. They taught them all they knew about law enforcement. Forty percent of those guardsmen--many of them 40 years of age--were State troopers and police officers in Alabama. They are well trained in how to handle people, how to deal with crowds, how to maintain order, how to handle traffic tickets, and investigate crimes. Our Guard and Reserve are important. They can absolutely supplement our Active-Duty forces, and should. We should not create a system or expect we have to do all our work with only Active-Duty soldiers. They certainly can do that. I don't think anyone is suggesting to the contrary. So we have one national defense system. We have one Army, Guard, and Reserve today. We need to continue to transform and restructure that entity so we have a structure that is sufficient to meet the demands. But we also are lean and well paid and well trained. It does no good to add a bunch of soldiers to the military if we are not going to add training capability, if we are not going to add equipment, if they are not trained on the best helicopters, if they are not trained with the best missiles, or trained with the best computer systems and do not know how to access our global hawk and other satellite systems that provide intelligence. If we do not do that, we are not as successful as we should be. At a NATO conference not long ago, a year or so ago after the Iraq war, a French rapporteur reported on it. He said the conclusion that one would draw from the war in Iraq is that a smaller, technologically advanced, well-trained military can defeat a much larger military not well-trained and not technologically advanced. As we work to make sure we do everything possible for our Army, everything possible for our Guard and Reserve, we must make sure they have the best pay possible, make sure they have the best benefits possible. I will offer an amendment in a few minutes on that. We must make sure they are trained with the best equipment possible, so when they are on the battlefield, they have the ability to inflict the greatest military force on the enemy and be as protected as is possible. That is where we are. Hopefully, on this amendment, we have reached an accord we can all live with. Many people want to do something for our Army because they are so proud of them and they know how tough the duty is in Iraq. They have seen their neighbors go off in the Guard and Reserve to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. They want to do something for them. It does sound like maybe one of the best things we could do is increase the numbers. I am not sure we ought to rush too fast. We need to be thoughtful and cautious as we go that way. We need to listen to General Schoomaker. He has not asked for permanent increases in end strength, although he is up now pushing 20,000, as I understand it, above the authorized end strength. If we do all that is necessary to bring efficiency to bear and we reward our soldiers for their terrific performance, we will have met our challenge. I see Senator Reed, a West Point graduate. He understands the military. It is a pleasure to serve with him on the Armed Services Committee. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Three minutes. Mr. President, I would just share for our colleagues some other things that are happening. There is a serious effort to restructure our forces that also includes looking at our troop strength deployed abroad in a number of different areas. I think we have 37,000 soldiers in South Korea. I believe that number is larger than it needs to be. The military is looking at what they can do to reorganize those forces there and bring some of them home. I believe, having visited 12 military installations in Europe just within the last 2 months, we can bring home substantial numbers of our troops from there. In fact, I think it would be a mistake if we do not bring home two divisions. Probably 40,000 Army soldiers and their dependents could be brought home from Europe. It is not necessary to maintain that kind of strength abroad. So there are a lot of things we can do to make life easier for our soldiers. General Schoomaker would like to see a soldier be able to go to a military base with his family and stay there 7 years, and be promoted and stay with a unit and improve his technical skills and his unit cohesion before being moved again. Those are goals we need to seek so we will be even better in capability, and it will also be good for the soldiers and their families. I reserve the remainder of the time and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, there is one point I want to make clear. The act provides for retroactivity of the salary benefits. With regard to soldiers who lost their life in combat since the beginning of the Afghan war or in terrorist acts, their families will receive 2-year's salary and benefits retroactive to the loss, as well as being a part of future benefits for those soldiers who lose their lives in the future. To reiterate, I ask my colleagues in the Senate to consider that we have before us an opportunity to correct what has been for many a longstanding inequity for our military, the paucity of our death benefits programs for our soldiers killed in combat. We began to make a difference when in the fiscal year 2004 Defense Authorization Act, this Senate offered and the Congress passed the provision to improve the death gratuity from $6,000 to $12,000. This was an important improvement, but more can be and needs to be done. To that end, I offer this amendment that begins the process of enhancing our death benefits program to bring it more in line with the significance I believe we all attach to the sacrifices made by our military and their families. This amendment asks the President and the Secretary of Defense, working with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, to submit enhanced death benefits for our military and their families as part of the fiscal year 2006 budget request. We expect the next budget in just 8 months. This will give the Department time to deliver the final report on the death benefits from the study we directed in the fiscal year 2004 Authorization Act. There are specific areas where the death benefits provisions are in need of improvement. The Veterans Administration reached similar conclusions in a 2001 study, and I am confident that the compensation teams working on these issues in the Defense Department are equally convinced that we need changes. Among the changes is an increase to the Servicemen's Group Life Insurance maximum benefit to $350,000. The Department of Defense would also provide a minimum floor of Servicemen's Group Life Insurance of $100,000 for every servicemember at no cost provided that members selected the maximum amount of $350,000. I felt great anguish that some of our troops were not selecting the insurance due to the cost or perhaps a lack of understanding about the risks of serving in our military and or the benefits of this program. It may seem hard to believe, but saving $16.25 per month, the current fee to receive the current maximum $250,000 benefit, may appear to be an important financial decision for some, especially our more junior troops. This change makes the insurance a more attractive option. The amendment will direct in fiscal year 2005 indexing the current death gratuity to the same rate as the basic pay increase. It further asks the Defense Department, beginning in fiscal year 2006, to index Servicemen's Group Life Insurance to the same percentages to which basic pay increases. This is important to ensuring that the benefit does not erode over time like the death gratuity benefit clearly did. Further, this amendment makes possible for the first time a benefit to ease the transition as well as to clearly recognize the sacrifice of military members killed due to hostile or terrorist actions. For the family left behind, there is no greater tragedy than loved ones lost in combat. It is clear that service aboard our ships, in our aircraft and around our mechanized equipment is a hazardous vocation. Our troops work with live ammunition and in environments so very different and inherently dangerous when compared to many other occupations. When troops are lost in training accidents or in service-connected events, we should recognize that risk and provide benefits accordingly. The amendment would authorize one full year of salary and benefits to those lost in the service of their country to recognize the hazardous nature of the work performed by the military. Similar in intent to procedures in other militaries, such as Canada and the UK, and in many U.S. States and cities, this amendment provides an increased benefit for members killed in hostile acts. I have recommended 2 years salary and allowances for those lost in hostile situations. The Defense Department, by a DoD instruction, already makes a determination if a casualty resulted from hostile actions for every member of the military who is lost on active duty. By comparison, the surviving dependents of a police officer or firefighter killed in the line of duty receive $267,494 under the Public Safety Officers Benefits Act. This benefit has been indexed to correct for inflation and sends a clear signal to our Nation about the value of these leaders of our citizenry. The military is no less valued and this benefit, along with the other provisions in existence and the enhancements in this amendment reflect our Nation's appreciation. These provisions are similar in intent to the Public Safety Officers Benefits Act of 1976 which acknowledges the risks faced by our police officers and firemen. This amendment acknowledges the risks of military service and helps those left behind with transition assistance. Anyone who witnessed the bravery of our police and fire personnel on 9/11 and who saw the memorable pictures from that day was profoundly struck by how wonderful these heroes were and how willing they were to go into harm's way. Our soldiers are no less brave. I have visited our wounded heroes at Walter Reed Hospital recently and, like our police and fire personnel, our military is extraordinary for their bravery. This is especially the case for those who pay the ultimate price and die in the service of their country. I would add that in 1908, the 60th Congress saw fit to authorize 6 months of pay as a death gratuity, and in 1917, the 65th Congress repealed this law in favor of a Government life insurance program. In retrospect, I think the 60th Congress had it correct. A key feature of this amendment is that the recognition benefits--the one year or two year salary compensation--are to be retroactive for those who were lost in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. We owe this recognition to those troops who went abroad to defend our freedoms. This amendment also provides an opportunity for the President to recommend any other benefits he deems appropriate. The amendment does not impact the plan for fiscal year 2005, except for beginning to index the $12,000 death gratuity. This will, I believe, give the Defense Department some time to finalize its approach to these changes. The intent of this legislation is to ensure that as part of the fiscal year 2006 budget request, which is due to us in 8 months, that the budget request we receive will incorporate these measures. This gives the administration time to expedite the final report, gather the appropriate accounts together, and to provide to the Congress the legislative initiatives and supporting regulations to substantially improve our death benefits programs. We owe our brave men and women no less. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I believe no one else is seeking to speak on this subject, so I yield back all the time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia and also my cosponsors, Senators Joe Lieberman and Jim Inhofe. When we ask American soldiers to leave our shores to go abroad in a combat environment to execute the policies of the people of the United States of America, we need them to know, and Americans want them to know, that if their life is lost in that effort, their families are going to be well taken care of. We have a lot of private groups that work at this, but it is most important that the Federal Government have in place policies that would allow their loved ones to be fully and adequately compensated. Last year we increased the basic death gratuity from $6,000 to $12,000. That was an improvement. It doubled. It is important that we have indexed that to inflation, and it is still not nearly enough for a family today. So we looked at the Serviceman's Group Life Insurance policy, which is somewhat subsidized by the Government, but it is paid for by the soldiers. They take out up to $250,000 in life insurance. Many young soldiers don't like that $16 a month or so that comes out of their paycheck. They sometimes don't choose to take it out. We want to encourage more people to take on that benefit--take out the maximum life insurance so the military will now, under this amendment, if approved, have an additional $100,000 in life insurance fully paid for by the Government, if the soldier takes out his life insurance part. I think that will encourage more people to sign up and provide a much larger benefit package for them. Those are some of the issues that we were concerned about. Years ago, soldiers got a year's salary if they lost their life. That was changed as part of the life insurance package a number of years ago. I think the Senate believed that we needed to guarantee a person's salary for the year they worked if they are hurt during an Active-Duty accident--not in combat. For 1 year, they will get their salary and benefits paid. Those killed in combat, because they were serving their country in a hostile environment, would have 2 years of salary paid for them. Those are the kinds of things that can make a real difference in the life of a family. Families will not need to worry about where their next meal is going to come from if they have enough money to take on new housing and move, and maybe for expenses in putting children in school, and all those things that go with the tragic loss of a loved one. We need to make sure they are fully taken care of in that regard, and this amendment would do that. I cannot say again how strongly I believe we should do the right thing by those soldiers who give their lives for their country. In my State of Alabama, I have talked to over 20 families who have lost a loved one since the war on terrorism began. I have talked to husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers. We have talked to them about the loved ones they have lost--their children. I have been to funerals. Those are things that are very meaningful to anybody who has had that experience. I feel a special responsibility, as I think every Senator does, to those soldiers who went because we voted to send them there; we asked them to go for us. I think this is a good first step toward achieving the compensation that families need. There are other compensation benefits they receive, such as benefits for children, income for spouses that are in law, but this is a lump sum that can help a family adjust and establish a life under new and different circumstances and help them get through the tragic period of pain and loss they inevitably will have to go through. We asked that the Defense Department do a study for us on their ideas and evaluate the current system for fairness and workability. They did not complete that report. We have seen a draft of that report. It was supposed to have come in March. It has not officially been completed. I will say this: I think it is quite likely that after we evaluate that report, we may want to come back again next year to do some other things to bring more fairness and more support to the families who lost a loved one in the service of their country. There is no higher service that one can render than to give their life for their country. We have lost a good number of soldiers. We have lost them in the past, and we are losing them in this war on terrorism. I feel strongly that our obligation includes making sure those families left behind are well taken care of. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I yield time to the Senator from Georgia, who chairs the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Armed Services Committee, on which the Presiding Officer also serves. I value his judgment on this issue and appreciate his support for this amendment.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that Brian Goodwin of my staff be granted floor privileges for the remainder of debate on this important issue.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Allard for his leadership and his expertise. He is becoming perhaps the most authoritative Member of the Senate on this issue. He has worked on national missile defense since he has been in the Senate. It is great to work with him. We do need to do the right thing. We have committed as a country to deploy a national missile defense system. We voted to deploy that system as soon as technologically feasible. That was back in the 1990s, and President Clinton signed the statute we passed. I believe it got 90-plus votes in the Senate. Although there were a lot of people who were opposed to it until the very end, in the end everybody realized that we needed to defend America, and we had the capability of doing so. There has been a cottage industry of skeptics out there that has made fun of President Reagan. They called his vision for national missile defense Star Wars. Then when President Reagan said no to Gorbachev's proposal in Reykjavik, which accepted so many of the things President Reagan wanted so badly but told President Reagan he would have to stop national missile defense, he thought about that very hard on the eve of the reelection campaign. He knew he would be criticized, but he said, no; national missile defense is important to America. It was important to peace in the world because, instead of worrying about how many of the enemy we could kill, we could begin focusing on how to protect our people from being killed by missile attacks. It was a defining moment in the cold war. One expert recently said that was the moment that signaled the end of the Soviet Union. We debated it here in the late 1990s. Senator Thad Cochran and Joe Lieberman proposed the deploying amendment to go from research and talk to actual deploying and setting a goal for it. We had a bipartisan national commission that unanimously voted that the threat to the United States from missile attack was real, more imminent than intelligence agencies had previously said, and that we needed to move forward to deploy a system. Under General Kadish, we have achieved a magnificent result. General Kadish--history will record--has been a tremendous leader, a man of substance and honesty and stability and good judgment, under all kinds of pressure. He has been beaten. Senator Levin, the ranking member on our committee, is such a fine Senator. He and Senator Reed have been critics of the program. They have raised questions about the program. I don't think it has hurt the program. It has probably helped the program. I know they have never been big fans of it. We made that decision. We are going forward today. The amendment Senator Reed has proposed, I am afraid, would cost us in the long run and provide little benefit. The provisions for cost, schedule, and performance baselines that he mandates have essentially been adopted now by the Department of Defense. It was part of a General Accounting Office study, and the Department of Defense has gone along with that study. The provision for conducting operationally realistic tests for each block configuration is not unreasonable. Each test we conduct today, however, has developmental objectives. And since this statute would prohibit the agency from approving developmental tests, we would have a real problem there. Those tests may be a problem. Each test would have developmental capabilities. It would require a significant replanning of the test program, slow the development, and increase costs in the long run. We made a commitment to a new type of strategy for developing this unprecedented system. It is called spiral development. We said to the military, you develop this system. We are not going to put you in a straitjacket. We are going to allow you to move forward. And as you bring on new science and new capabilities, you decide and make recommendations to us as to how you would deploy it. Maybe we decided it would be unwise for us to mandate exactly how this system should come out. I think that is what I would have as my biggest complaint with Senator Reed's well-meaning amendment. I think it puts too much restraint on the freedom and initiative of the leaders in the Department of Defense to be creative in making the system and utilizing the money we put into the system effectively to come up with the best results. I have been extremely proud of what has been accomplished so far. In September, we will deploy a missile in Alaska--the spot in the world that allows us to protect all of our States. It can knock down missiles that might be produced by the North Koreans, who have acted bizarrely many times in recent years. It would also allow us to knock down a missile launched by mistake, which could happen at any time. It would not be a complete system yet, and we will begin to test from that platform. In other words, to have a national missile defense system, you have to have a headquarters, radar, a communications system, Aegis- deployed radar to pick up missiles as soon as possible after launch. This system has to work together as a coherent whole, and you need to have the ability to identify early an incoming missile and knock it down. We have proven hit-to-kill technology, bullet hitting bullet, that has been proven in quite a number of tests, and we continue to try to make it even better. I think the best way to test the system is to go forward with the plan we have today, get it in the ground so we can test it in the harsh Alaskan winters, and in the summer, when the humidity is up and maybe there is condensation in the tubes, and we can see how the radar works, and we can make sure we can have communication with our ships and see how the command structure works in order to make a decision. That is the way we need to test. General Kadish and his team have accomplished a technological feat that many people in this country believe is second only to putting a man on the Moon. It is incredible. They have proven that they love America, that they are willing to advance rapidly toward a goal but at the same time be honest and prudent with the taxpayers' money. I would not favor an amendment that would constrict them too much. That is what I am afraid this amendment does. That is why I am supportive of Chairman Warner's proposal, which I think would accomplish much of what Senator Reed would favor, without adverse consequences. I thank the Chair and yield back my time.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Allard for his great leadership on the issue of national missile defense, space technology, and all the related issues. We are fortunate to have him as chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee. He understands the issue. He has been dealing with it for many years. He studied it and brought his scientific background to the issue. I agree with him, and I also very much agree with the comments of our distinguished Senator Jon Kyl from Arizona, who also has studied this issue for many years. We voted back when President Clinton was President, and he signed the bill to deploy a national missile defense system as soon as technologically feasible. It was an amendment, I recall, by Senator Thad Cochran and Senator Joe Lieberman. It passed by a very large vote, and we made a commitment to do that. There was a lot of debate about it then. I think some people still are somewhat motivated by their criticism of President Reagan's Star Wars maybe; that this would not work; it could not work. They just did not like it. But we voted on it after a national commission had reported unanimously that we needed to have this defense. Overwhelmingly the Senators voted for it. Since then, there has been a steadfast effort to slow, delay, and undermine the actual deployment of this system. We are now on the move to deploy this system in September in Alaska, to put, I believe, five missiles in the ground, and this will give us the ability to conduct realistic testing, the kind of testing that can actually deal with the realistic conditions around the world, our radar systems, our interceptor systems, the nature of the launch facilities in Alaska, which is the perfect place, people have convinced us, to deploy a system and cover all the United States. It will protect us now. It has military capability to protect this country when deployed. It also could, in addition to perhaps a threat from a nation such as North Korea that actually rattled its missiles a number of times and are working steadfastly to improve their missile system, help us deal with an accidental launch from a country that has a missile defense program. It would give us the ability to have protection today for the entire United States. That is what we committed to do. We voted to begin this deployment in September, and General Kadish and his entire team, General Holly and others, have worked so hard to prove the feasibility of this system. A bullet can meet a bullet. We have done it. We know it will work. Now we need to set up an operational system, a very realistic system, deploy these missiles, and continue to test them. We will learn to make them even better to deal with some of the problems we have not anticipated today from this deployment and the testing that can occur there. We are doing this as part of the spiral development, the idea that when you are developing a new system such as this, it is not possible to anticipate everything that may occur, every challenge that may be out there, and as we learn, we continue to improve the system. We in Congress in the past have made mistakes sometimes about mandating a new weapon system, a new production, and then demand it meet 10 characteristics, when we may find, as we go along in the development of it, if we drop off 1 of those characteristics and keep 9 of them, we have even more capability and a better system. We are giving them some freedom to deploy and test as they go. I believe we are well on the way under Senator Allard's leadership and Senator Warner, the chairman of our committee, to deal with any scientific difficulties that have come up in the past. I thank the Chair for recognizing me to speak on this issue. I join with Chairman Warner and Chairman Allard in urging defeat of the amendment.