Craig Thomas: Thank you, Mr. President, I think this is certainly one of the most important bills we have had before us and one,
Craig Thomas: frankly, that is the most time constrained of any we have had before us.
Craig Thomas: Normally, we have a good deal of time to talk about bills and we have budget bills that won't go into effect until next year, but the fact is, this bill, which is for the funding of troops,
Craig Thomas: these dollars need to be available within the next couple of weeks, as we understand it, of course.
Craig Thomas: So I think it is important that we recognize that and that we understand the purpose of this bill is to fund our troops.
Craig Thomas: Whether you agree with the troops being there, the troops are there, and the fact is that it is up to us to provide the support they need and the dollars which are necessary
Craig Thomas: to provide them the support that they need in the position that they are in.
Craig Thomas: If there were ever a bill that should be recognized as having a unique purpose and should not be attached to other kinds of non-pertinent issues, I think this is one.
Craig Thomas: We are going to have the opportunity to decide whether we want to attach other issues to this bill and extend it, whether we want to have a situation where there is a veto
Craig Thomas: and all those time-consuming things or whether we indeed want to have a clean bill that provides for the support of our troops that are now in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Craig Thomas: For weeks now, the president has repeatedly said he will veto the bill if it ties the hands of the generals on the ground.
Craig Thomas: What he is saying is he and the generals have a plan, and the fact is the plan seems to be making more advances
Craig Thomas: and accomplishments than we have had in the past, so we need to allow that to continue to work.
Craig Thomas: We have all said the president needs a different plan.
Craig Thomas: The president now has a different plan.
Craig Thomas: There is new leadership in Iraq.
Craig Thomas: So I think we need to understand where we are with respect to this bill because we certainly have been on notice and are well aware of the looming veto which would simply take more time
Craig Thomas: and keep this money from getting where it needs to be to support the troops.
Craig Thomas: Not passing this legislation, of course, would only delay the critical resources and the necessary equipment and training for our soldiers who are getting ready to deploy or have, in fact, deployed.
Craig Thomas: Secretary of Defense Gates has warned the Congress that if we delay emergency spending for our troops already deployed, many will not be able to come home.
Craig Thomas: This is a real serious statement, and we need to pay attention to it.
Craig Thomas: I don't want to portray the President's plan in Iraq as being a success so far, but our commanders on the ground are reporting good news
Craig Thomas: and that we are making progress, and that is what it is all about, of course.
Craig Thomas: We need to be there until we have completed our task.
Craig Thomas: I understand that explaining what the completion of the task is not easy, and people have different views about what that should be,
Craig Thomas: but it is pretty clear we need to be able to get the Iraqis in a position to govern themselves before we can return.
Craig Thomas: I am for returning as soon as possible, but I think setting an artificial definition for when they return is not appropriate anywhere and particularly not appropriate on this bill.
Craig Thomas: So, Mr. President I just do not understand how members on the other side can say one thing in their states and then stand and do the opposite thing --
Craig Thomas: stand for supporting their troops in their states and then come here and have an exactly the opposite position in Washington.
Craig Thomas: At this point, we are where we are, and we need to have funding for our troops in the field, no question.
Craig Thomas: Nobody would argue that, and I think no one would dispute that is a time-sensitive issue as well.
Craig Thomas: We are going to be here this week on this bill.
Craig Thomas: We are going to be gone next week.
Craig Thomas: If the bill were to be vetoed, then we would have to go through that whole process.
Craig Thomas: One can see that if we are going to get this done by the date which we have all heard, which is April 15, it is important we take off these kinds of things that are holding it up.
Craig Thomas: We should not play political one-upmanship when it comes to funding our men and women who are in theater or are ready to deploy -- I don't think there is any question about that --
Craig Thomas: nor should we attempt to move legislation by buying votes for things that would be at the expense of our troops.
Craig Thomas: Unfortunately, the emergency legislation we have before us has been larded up with all manner of nonemergency spending and extraneous measures.
Craig Thomas: Not only are we attempting to tie the president's hands by micromanaging the war, but we are trying to push through pet projects at the expense of our troops.
Craig Thomas: I understand the politics of this place.
Craig Thomas: When someone has something they would like very much to have done, the greatest thing to do is to put it on the bill that has to pass, and even though it is inappropriate,
Craig Thomas: even though it is not a part of the purpose of the bill, of course, I understand that helps get it done.
Craig Thomas: But the request submitted to the Congress was to have $100 billion for troops and hurricane relief.
Craig Thomas: The bill we are considering contains an additional $20 billion -- $20 billion -- for individual member requests, a minimum wage increase, and small tax packages.
Craig Thomas: The last time I checked, none of these are emergencies, so they do not qualify for this bill.
Craig Thomas: I understand the merits of many of these things, and they should be considered.
Craig Thomas: But, again, in terms of how we do things here, this is an emergency bill, and things that are in here ought to qualify as emergencies or else not be on the bill.
Craig Thomas: So we have to say: Do they have merit?
Craig Thomas: Of course they have merit.
Craig Thomas: There is no question that many of them do and could be individually addressed in normal legislative process.
Craig Thomas: They should be considered because they have merit and, indeed, are worth consideration.
Craig Thomas: However, we are also faced with the question that the majority has said we must get our fiscal house in order.
Craig Thomas: That is what we have been hearing, but that is not what we have been doing.
Craig Thomas: It is easy to say that, but it is another thing to do it.
Craig Thomas: We do need to take a look at spending.
Craig Thomas: This is an emergency bill -- this is outside the budget -- and so it is a wonderful place to pen on a lot of things that are additional spending that really aren't within the limits of spending,
Craig Thomas: that all of us seem to be so proud to be putting on in this Congress.
Craig Thomas: So I think we have to take a look at all those things.
Craig Thomas: Almost to a person, everyone has come to the floor and promised the American public that future spending would be paid for.
Craig Thomas: These things that are added are not paid for.
Craig Thomas: So we are not keeping that promise that has been made.
Craig Thomas: I think this week the majority will have an opportunity to stand by their words.
Craig Thomas: We must keep federal spending under control and accountable.
Craig Thomas: To add things that are inappropriate, that do not fit on the bill, that are outside the budget -- to use this opportunity is not being accountable.
Craig Thomas: To add projects to emergency spending, which by definition is outside the normal budget process, is not the right way to accomplish this goal.
Craig Thomas: It is going to be tough.
Craig Thomas: We are going to have projects that everyone on both sides of the aisle thinks: Oh, that is good for my State -- whether it is shrimp or spinach or whatever.
Craig Thomas: So there will be support for those things.
Craig Thomas: But the fact is, they do not belong on this emergency bill.
Craig Thomas: I remind my colleagues of the budget resolution for 2007, which explicitly defines what constitutes an emergency.
Craig Thomas: It says all of the five following criteria must be satisfied in order for something to be considered an emergency: No.
Craig Thomas: 1, is necessary, essential, or vital; No.
Craig Thomas: 2, sudden, quickly coming into being, and not building up over time; No.
Craig Thomas: 3, a pressing and compelling urgent need requiring immediate action; No.
Craig Thomas: 4, an unforeseeable, unpredictable, and unanticipated issue; and, finally, not permanent but temporary in nature.
Craig Thomas: The Senate has to establish the criteria, and I think we ought to follow it in this budget area.
Craig Thomas: I know we cannot fix the problems in just one week.
Craig Thomas: There should be an effort to remove all the extraneous and nondefense spending.
Craig Thomas: I look forward to bringing an important question before us, privatizing these things.
Craig Thomas: The American people will soon learn whether the members of the Senate have committed themselves to getting their financial house in order, whether they will back their words with action.
Craig Thomas: I yield the floor.
Acting President: The Senator from Texas.
John Cornyn: Mr. President, I join my distinguished colleague from Wyoming in addressing the pending business of the Senate,
John Cornyn: which is the emergency supplemental to help fund our troops who are serving in harm's way.
John Cornyn: The problem with this particular legislation is it does more than that.
John Cornyn: In fact, contrary to its advertised purpose of supporting the troops, it undermines the ability of our commanders on the ground to actually succeed in the goal they volunteered to do
John Cornyn: and which we have asked them to do because it sets artificial timelines and attempts to micromanage the fighting of the war on the ground.
John Cornyn: It ultimately jeopardizes the ability to get funds to the troops, to provide the necessary equipment,
John Cornyn: to provide the replenishment of used-up resources that are necessary as we rotate troops that are in the battlefield today.
John Cornyn: It would ultimately make it more likely that troops who are already there -- who sacrificed a lot, along with their families --
John Cornyn: are going to have to sacrifice even more because the troops necessary and the equipment necessary to actually rotate in and relieve them of their responsibilities will not be available.
John Cornyn: The other thing that is so unseemly, to me, about this whole process is, because this is the train leaving the station and colleagues know that this bill needs to pass,
John Cornyn: or at least some version of it -- emergency spending to support our troops --
John Cornyn: that the House, in particular, and now the Senate has joined in a similar manner in larding this appropriations bill with various pork projects.
John Cornyn: My colleague from Wyoming has pointed out that the nature of emergency spending means this money goes straight to the deficit.
John Cornyn: In other words, the bill is passed on to the next generation and beyond and not paid for.
John Cornyn: We just went through an elaborate process in passing a budget resolution.
John Cornyn: Time and time again, the new majority has said they want to engage in some budget and fiscal discipline, but that stated goal, to try to deal with taxpayer dollars responsibly,
John Cornyn: to find offsets for spending and have pay-as-you-go rules is completely belied by the actions reflected in this particular appropriations bill.
John Cornyn: The fact is, we did debate this issue just two weeks ago with regard to artificial timelines and micromanaging the war.
John Cornyn: The Senate voted 48 to 50 not to approve cloture on S.J. Res.
John Cornyn: 9, which was an effort by our Democratic colleagues to micromanage and set artificial timelines.
John Cornyn: They lost that vote by 48 to 50.
John Cornyn: Now they are back again, trying it another time.
John Cornyn: Giving the enemy a timetable when American troops will withdraw from Iraq without regard to conditions on the ground, without regard to the early signs of progress that we are making,
John Cornyn: only helps the enemy plan on how to establish and accomplish their goals, not our goals.
John Cornyn: Our focus should be on how to succeed in Iraq, not how to tie the hands of our troops, jeopardize the funding that is necessary for their success,
John Cornyn: and to micromanage something that we have no business micromanaging from the halls of Congress, thousands of miles away from the battlefield.
John Cornyn: The tragedy of this is it now represents 18 different proposals by the Democrats in Congress on how to lose in Iraq and not a single proposal on how to succeed.
John Cornyn: The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on which I serve has pointed out that there are between 5,000 and 6,000 al-Qaida operatives now in Iraq.
John Cornyn: To pass legislation which sets an arbitrary deadline for withdrawing our combat forces without defeating al-Qaida makes no sense, no sense at all.
John Cornyn: It will create a power vacuum, much as Afghanistan was after the fall of the Soviet Union,
John Cornyn: which then gave rise to a failed state and a launching pad for terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
John Cornyn: We need to do everything in our power to prevent that from happening again and not forget the lessons of 9/11 and allow it to be repeated in Iraq.
John Cornyn: The Iraqis know that our commitment there is not open-ended, and they understand the future of Iraq is in the hands of the Iraqis.
John Cornyn: But to pass legislation that micromanages how our troops should fight the enemy and essentially allow the creation of safe havens for terrorists is the height of irresponsibility.
John Cornyn: We pointed out before, but it is worth pointing out again, we unanimously confirmed General Petraeus, the architect of the counterinsurgency plan currently being carried out in Baghdad.
John Cornyn: He does not need the armchair generals in the Senate dictating military tactics to him.
John Cornyn: If the members of this body really support the troops, we will provide, unencumbered, the resources necessary for our troops to accomplish the goals which they so valiantly
John Cornyn: and bravely volunteered to do, under the leadership of great generals such as Gen. David Petraeus.
John Cornyn: We all want our troops home as soon as possible.
John Cornyn: We all share that goal.
John Cornyn: But any decision to withdraw from Iraq before the Iraqis themselves are able to stabilize their country, with our help, to allow them to govern and defend themselves,
John Cornyn: will not heighten America's national security but, rather, will jeopardize it.
John Cornyn: We have had 18 proposals to date from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
John Cornyn: Every attempt they have had to try to pass one of these proposals has failed.
John Cornyn: But as Yogi Berra said, "It's deja vu all over again."
John Cornyn: Here we go again.
John Cornyn: We just voted last week 48 to 50 against legislation that would impose a deadline.
John Cornyn: I hope we will not have to continue to debate this over and over again and continue to send the message to our enemies: Yes,
John Cornyn: you are that much closer to breaking America's will in this contest of wills in something that is so important to our national security.
John Cornyn: We need to get this legislation passed and passed soon, so our troops do not have to guess whether the funding necessary to carry out their mission will be forthcoming.
John Cornyn: Using the supplemental appropriations to play political games and to pay off domestic priorities,
John Cornyn: such as peanut subsidies and spinach subsidies, is not in the best interests of our men and women in uniform.
John Cornyn: That is why the president has threatened to veto this bill, due to the pork and the timelines that are included in it.
John Cornyn: I encourage my colleagues to think long and hard before moving forward in a way that would compromise the mission of our troops who are serving to protect all of us.
John Cornyn: I yield the floor.
Acting President: The senator from Alabama.
Richard Shelby: Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the amendment of Senator Cochran, the amendment to strike the language, of which I am a cosponsor.
Richard Shelby: I raised this in the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense last week.
Richard Shelby: Senator Cochran indicated then that he would do as he has done; that is,
Richard Shelby: to move to strike the language in the supplemental requiring the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in 120 days, 4 months, 120 days.
Richard Shelby: Mr. President, as you heard -- and you have been a party to -- four months is clearly not enough time for General Petraeus or the brave members of our armed forces
Richard Shelby: to have a chance to see if a surge in troop numbers could turn the war.
Richard Shelby: I don't know for sure.
Richard Shelby: I had, as a lot of us did, a conversation with Gen. Petraeus before he took command about the troop surge, about the 20,000 troops.
Richard Shelby: I personally thought we need 100,000 troops, but we don't have them.
Richard Shelby: Gen. Petraeus is a very smart man.
Richard Shelby: He is a combat soldier.
Richard Shelby: He is in control.
Richard Shelby: I believe to put on an arbitrary timeline of 120 days is the wrong message at the wrong time, where they are beginning -- just beginning -- to secure some neighborhoods.
Richard Shelby: Will they continue to do this?
Richard Shelby: We hope so.
Richard Shelby: But we should bring every bit of stability we can to the Baghdad area.
Richard Shelby: I have no illusion about sooner or later coming home.
Richard Shelby: I would like to see our troops come home.
Richard Shelby: I don't think that will be the end of the struggle with Islamic fundamentalists by any stretch of the imagination, but I think if we are able to stabilize that area of Iraq to some degree,
Richard Shelby: perhaps there can be some kind of diplomatic resolution to the area because ultimately none of us ever envisioned staying in Iraq.
Richard Shelby: We have been there 4 years.
Richard Shelby: I wish we were not there today, but we are and we are heavily engaged.
Richard Shelby: I think we need to give our armed forces every opportunity to succeed.
Richard Shelby: We should not send an ambiguous message to them: We are going to support you today and tomorrow we want you to withdraw, in 120 days, or begin to withdraw.
Richard Shelby: I think that is the wrong message, and I think it would undermine the morale of our troops.
Richard Shelby: Congress should not be armchair generals.
Richard Shelby: We should not try to micromanage what is going on the ground.
Richard Shelby: That is why I support the Cochran amendment.
Richard Shelby: We need to give our commanders and our soldiers every chance to succeed in Iraq, to bring stability there, where diplomatic maneuvers then perhaps could begin to work.
Richard Shelby: Sending ambiguous messages to our armed forces is not the right way.
Richard Shelby: They need our support both morally and materially.
Richard Shelby: I believe at the end of the day they are going to get it.
Richard Shelby: The president has already signaled if this language were to stay he would veto this bill.
Richard Shelby: I believe what he says he is going to do.
Richard Shelby: But we can strike this language today.
Richard Shelby: We can move on and get this supplemental passed to make sure our troops are well funded and that they have what they need to succeed.
Richard Shelby: And they will succeed.
Richard Shelby: The members of our armed forces are in harm's way every day.
Richard Shelby: We know the horror stories about war.
Richard Shelby: But they bravely face a sometimes unknown enemy and have done everything asked of them -- sometimes two and three times, Mr. President, as you well know.
Richard Shelby: Micromanaging the war from the halls of Congress is not the right thing to do.
Richard Shelby: I urge my colleagues to support the Cochran amendment and strike this language out of the supplemental bill.
Richard Shelby: Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that my full text of my remarks be included in the record.
Acting President: Without objection.
Richard Shelby: I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Acting President: The clerk will call the roll.