Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, we all know that the Obama administration's 8 years in office is beginning to wind down. As it does, as is natural for a President ending his time in office, the President and the members of his team are starting to focus on their legacy and on how they want to be remembered.

Now with regard to this administration's policies in the Middle East, unfortunately for them, the legacy and narrative that is beginning to take hold is one of not leveling with the American people--not one of honesty. That should concern all of us--all of us in this body, whether Democrats or Republicans.

When the President of the United States is in open disagreement with the Secretary of Defense and with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on one of the most critical issues our Nation faces--whether to send our sons and daughters into combat--it should be cause for significant concern for all of us in this body and across the country.

President Obama has repeatedly told the American people that U.S. troops in the Middle East are not in combat. In 2010, he announced that we were ``ending our combat mission in Iraq,'' and in 2014, he used the same words to talk about Afghanistan. More recently, he said that our mission in Syria ``will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.''

Yet, just less than 2 weeks ago, in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, when Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dunford, were asked if our troops in the Middle East, Syria, and Iraq are engaged in combat, these two senior U.S. officials unequivocally said: Yes, they are. To the members of our military serving overseas, particularly in the Middle East, Secretary Carter and General Dunford were stating the obvious. Indeed, there have been recent news reports in the Washington Post and in the Military Times that describe up to 200 Marines at a place called Fire Base Bell in northern Iraq, firing artillery missions on a daily basis in support of Iraqi troops in order to kill ISIS terrorists. Our soldiers serving in the Middle East as part of the Joint Special Operations Command conduct regular counterterrorism missions to kill and capture terrorists in the Middle East. Of course, we see on a daily basis our brave pilots from all the different services, who have dropped approximately 40,000 bombs in Iraq and Syria in close air support missions, focused on destroying and killing ISIS members and their infrastructure and their logistics bases.

Since 2014, almost 1,200 bombs and close air support missions have been conducted in Afghanistan. Just yesterday, we were informed of a successful strike--again, a coalition strike with fighter aircraft-- that killed three ISIS leaders.

These missions have entailed risk. Some of the members of our military have been killed and others have been wounded, but there is no doubt that all of what I have just described is the very definition of combat. The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have both stated this.

Indeed, in a lead editorial in the Military Times on Friday entitled ``It's a combat mission, Mr. President,'' the editorial concluded by saying:

When U.S. and allied troops are on Islamic State turf with the mission of wiping it from existence, they are on a combat mission. Calling it anything else is wrong.

To Secretary Carter's credit, at a hearing last week, he agreed and stated unequivocally that ``these [members of our military] are in combat . . . and I think we need to say that clearly.''

This is the Secretary of Defense. Well, apparently the White House didn't get the memo. Last week, when asked about a very brave Navy SEAL who unfortunately was killed in a fierce firefight involving U.S. Special Operations forces, Kurdish commandos, and Islamic State fighters, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that ``the relatively small number of U.S. servicemembers that are involved in these operations are not in combat but are in a dangerous place.''

That is the White House--``relatively small'' and ``not in combat.''

Why does President Obama and his White House continue to peddle the fiction that U.S. forces are not engaged in combat? That is a really important question that we need to be asking. Why? The whole world knows that we are. Why are they peddling this fiction to the American people?

Perhaps the Commander in Chief is truly unaware that our military forces are in combat, and there are hundreds of them that are. If that is the case, that would be very troubling indeed. What is more likely is that the President has told the American people repeatedly that he will end wars and won't send combat troops to the Middle East, and so the word contortions coming from the White House are part of the twisted attempt to salvage and protect the President's legacy. But by spinning the truth for political purposes, the President is coming perilously close to leaving a legacy of dishonesty when it comes to our military involvement in the Middle East.

Much more worrisome, this dishonesty comes with a cost. First and foremost, it diminishes the service and sacrifice of our troops and their families. Again, in the Military Times editorial on this very topic, on Friday it stated:

Calling it a training mission [in the Middle East] is cold comfort to the parents, spouses and children of the deployed troops. . . . The more the White House insists these troops are not part of a combat mission, the more distrust it breeds in the ranks [of our military] and among the public. It's viewed as the sort of condescending semantics Washington plays to deny the obvious. That can only serve to erode support for the [important] mission.

Americans serving in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan know that they are in combat. The Commander in Chief needs to acknowledge this fact and the bravery it entails and not disguise the true nature of their duty.

Second, the costs that come with this dishonesty is that it further undermines the administration's very tenuous foreign policy credibility regarding its stated goal of degrading and destroying ISIS. While this is the correct goal, a series of missteps in the Middle East, including the President's failure to enforce his own redline when it was crossed by Bashar al-Assad in Syria has brought us to the point where our adversaries and our allies question U.S. credibility and resolve. Islamic State terrorists know that they are in combat against American forces. They see it every day. But when the President says otherwise, it signals a lack of conviction, making it harder for us to defeat these terrorists.

Third, this dishonesty about the role of our troops allows Presidential candidates to duck a tough issue. For example, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said-- unchallenged by anyone, including in the media--that she would continue the President's policies of not sending combat troops to Syria and Iraq. But the President is sending combat troops to Syria and Iraq.

Finally, and more broadly, by playing fast and loose with the facts about our policies in the Middle East, the Obama administration is making it harder to gain congressional support for its policy. I strongly believe that when the executive branch and the legislative branch on national security and foreign policy issues are in agreement and working together, that is when we are strongest as a country. I have been critical of this administration's policies in certain areas and supportive in others. If Congress feels like the administration is being played and the American public is not getting the courtesy of the truth, support in this body for these important policies will crumble.

We saw an extreme example of this over the weekend in a remarkable New York Times Magazine piece about the President's Deputy National Security Advisor, who is credited with selling the Iran nuclear deal to Congress and the American people. We see line after line in a very lengthy article about not leveling with the American people on that deal, which we debated here on the Senate floor.

Let me give you a couple of quotes from that article. One is just how they sold the deal. Now I am quoting the article.

The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented--that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about in 2013 because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country--was largely manufactured [by the White House] for the purpose of selling the deal.

So here we have White House officials saying they manufactured a story to sell the nuclear deal to the Congress and the American people.

Another quote talked about a speech the President gave on the deal--a very important speech--and it says:

While the President's statement and speech was technically accurate--

This is about the timing of the negotiations-- it was also actively misleading.

So again a top White House official is pretty much admitting that he was fabricating a narrative to get the American people and the Congress of the United States to ``sell'' and ``buy off'' on the Iran deal.

You know, reading this article, one gets the sense that to some of the people in the White House, this is all a game. Facts don't matter, but cleverness does. The quotes in the article from young White House officials are almost gleeful when they recount how they sold the nuclear deal to ``clueless reporters''--any of the press listening, I hope you like that adjective--and Members of Congress and how the White House created an ``echo chamber'' and were the puppet masters, literally putting words in the mouths of Members of Congress and reporters to sell this deal.

My colleagues should read this article. Again, it is like a game. But, of course, this is not a game. All of this--American troops in combat, whether the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism should obtain a nuclear weapon--this is not a game. This is a deadly serious reality.

I was reminded of this serious reality this past week when I spent much of my recess with the assessment and selection team of the Marine Corps' Special Operations Command. It wasn't clever 30-somethings with fine arts degrees out in the field, working on little sleep, but 20- somethings of all backgrounds, from every corner of America, going through some of the most rigorous military training possible. Some of these young marines will make the cut for Special Operations Command and others won't, but all are striving for the honor of defending their Nation during challenging times. No doubt in due time many will be heading to the Middle East and other parts of the world, doing their duty to keep us safe.

The Obama administration owes these brave young Americans the truth, not spin. The Obama administration owes Congress the truth, not spin. The Obama administration certainly owes the American people the truth, not spin. The sooner the President and his White House start leveling with the American people about our roles and our policies in the Middle East, the better it will be for all of us.

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