Hire More Heroes Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I don't know that we have faced a debate of this historic importance for 12 years, because it was about 12 years ago that we voted on the floor of the Senate on whether to invade Iraq. Senators don't forget those debates. What is at stake is war. What is at stake is human lives--not only the enemy but the innocent and those who are friends.
I remember that debate very well. There were 23 of us who voted against the invasion of Iraq--one Republican, Lincoln Chafee, and 22 Democrats. At the time, we were told by Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and others that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and we had to stop them for fear that they would use those weapons against our allies and our friends and even against the United States. It turned out that there were no weapons of mass destruction--none. After the invasion, they scoured the country and could find no evidence of those weapons.
The cost of that war is incalculable. The numbers only tell part of the story. There were 4,844 Americans who lost their lives. Tens of thousands have come home with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder. The cost to our Treasury is in the trillions. That and the war in Afghanistan--incidentally, the longest war in our history--were efforts in the Middle East to try to bring some order to chaos. Only limited success emerged from those efforts after all of the costs were paid in human life and treasure.
Those who are quick to talk about a military option to deal with the Iranians should be reminded, as the Senator from Vermont just said, of the extraordinary cost of that alternative. I have always felt then and now that diplomacy should be the first effort to try to avoid military action, to try to avoid a war. That is what this is about.
This President, Barack Obama, decided to make the sanctions regime tougher than ever.
To do it, he had to engage countries from around the world that depended on Iranian oil and were prepared to stop importing Iranian oil to punish them until they would come to the negotiating table. He gets absolutely no credit for that from the other side of the aisle--none--but he should.
He then took our major leaders and allies in the world and brought together a P5+1 coalition. We met with the Ambassadors from these countries. It was hard, just as an amateur student of history, to sit across the table from the Ambassadors of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France and imagine that coalition coming together for any purpose that would serve the United States in the cause of world peace, but they did. The P5+1 came together and entered into a serious negotiation in an effort to stop the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon. That was the goal. That was the reason for the sanctions.
There are many aspects of Iranian foreign policy and conduct which are reprehensible to me even to this day that don't reach that level of nuclear weaponry, but we focused on nuclear weaponry because we knew that was critical. If Iran developed a nuclear weapon, it would threaten our greatest friend and ally in the Middle East, Israel, as well as other countries that have worked closely with the United States, and trigger an arms race on the Arabian Peninsula, which would have been devastating. So we set out to stop that from happening.
Something happened during the course of that negotiation which was unprecedented in the history of the United States. On March 9, 2015, 47 Republican Senators sent a signed a letter to the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader in Iran. I have read the letter over and over again and still cannot believe it. On March 9, 2015, 47 Republican Senators sent an open letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran which basically said: We know you are in negotiation with the United States over stopping the development of a nuclear weapon, but understand--this letter makes it clear--that this President does not have the last word.
That has never happened before. I have asked those who studied the history of this country if there was ever a time when the United States of America was involved in delicate international negotiations and a group of Senators or Congressmen wrote to the other side--to the Iranians--to tell them to think twice before negotiating with the United States of America. It has never happened. It is unprecedented.
So 47 Republican Senators who did not want to wait until the agreement was reached or written decided in advance to warn the Ayatollah in Iran not to negotiate with the United States or to assume that any agreement would be enforceable with Congress or future Presidents. What a contrast that 47 Republicans would decide in the midst of negotiations to send that letter--what a contrast with the Democratic side of the aisle.
For the last 6 weeks, I have been in touch with my colleagues over here--they are probably tired of hearing from me--talking about this agreement and where they stood. I know, but for a few, what they went through. Many of them were trying to educate themselves on the terms of this agreement because it is complicated. They were talking to experts in the field. One Senator came back and spent 5 hours with the intelligence agencies here in Washington trying to understand the complexities of this agreement and how they worked.
After all of that time, after all of that reflection, and after all of that study, these Senators announced their positions. Forty-two supported the President's position, and four opposed the President's position. Instead of prejudging the agreement or assuming the agreement was bad, they took the time to read it and study it. They took the time to use their responsibilities as Senators to make sure they understood this historic document, and 42 came out in favor of it.
I will tell the Presiding Officer that at this point in history, we have a tough decision to make--whether we as a nation will pursue this agreement in an effort to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon or the alternative. I have yet to hear a critic of this agreement honestly present the alternative. The alternative is obvious.
Today Iran owns enough fissile material to make 10 nuclear weapons. The Prime Minister of Israel has warned the world that they are only months away from developing a nuclear weapon in Iran. Yet we hear from the other side of the aisle that we should walk away from any inspections or agreement to stop a nuclear weapon. What is going to happen the next day in Iran if that point of view prevails? What happens if this agreement we have entered into should founder and fail? The door is closed, no inspectors, no negotiations, and Iran is on its own. That is not the recipe for a safer world. That is not the recipe for a safer Israel, as far as I am concerned, and that is why I support this.
I am happy to be joined in my support with leaders such as GEN Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under a Republican President and former Secretary of State under a Republican President, who has endorsed this agreement. He has told us: Don't trust Iran. Mistrust Iran, if you will, and verify.
We are going to send in scores of inspectors to verify--inspectors who have access to everything in Iran--and if there is a dispute over access, it is one that can be resolved in a matter of days or weeks.
I might add that there are telltale pieces of evidence for the development of nuclear weapons that the Iranians could never destroy in that of period of time. We will know if they have breached this agreement, and in knowing that, we have created the authority within the United Nations for the United States alone to reimpose sanctions based on a breach of this agreement by Iran.
It is an extraordinary agreement. Could it be stronger? Of course. But when we look back throughout history at the skeptics who have attacked Presidents of both political parties who have tried to reach agreements to create a more peaceful world, this is no different. When President Ronald Reagan--literally a deity in the Republican Party--decided to sit down and negotiate with Mikhail Gorbachev over nuclear weapons, the conservative wing of the Republican Party said he was signing a suicide pact, wasting his time, and threatening the United States--Ronald Reagan--in negotiating with Gorbachev. The same held true when Richard Nixon decided to open negotiations with China. The critics on the right were quick to condemn him. Chinese were sponsoring North Vietnamese who were killing American soldiers. There were plenty of reasons not to do it. Richard Nixon did it with bipartisan support, and the world is a better place for the courage he showed.
At this point, as we bring this aspect of the debate to a close--and I see Senator Reed is here and will be recognized soon--we listened carefully to those who are critical of this agreement. It turns out that not a single Republican Member of the House or Senate is supporting this agreement--not one. It is hard to think back in diplomatic history when there has been such a partisan division within Congress on an issue of this historic importance and magnitude, but that shouldn't deter us. We need to work with our allies so we can move forward with the inspections and the deadlines to make certain we do everything in our power to bring peace to the Middle East, short of war. Those who want military action should speak up and say so. I don't. I want to see this done through diplomatic means, and I believe this effort is a good-faith effort to achieve that.
I yield the floor.
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