Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019--Veto

Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Then, when laying politics on top of it, where you have a level of animus toward the Commander in Chief that there is at this point, it becomes very difficult to sort this out. So as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I want to try to lay out some fundamentals that we need to deal with.

As has been pointed out by everyone--and I think everyone agrees--the situation on the ground in Syria is an incredibly complex situation. It is difficult to understand and impossible to manage at some point because of the fact that there are dozens and dozens of tribal entities that share religious or cultural or tribal affiliations either together or in opposition. The result of that is the mess that we have had in Syria for so long.

On top of that, in northern Syria we have a situation where the Kurds and the Turks are at odds with each other. This has happened just recently, and as everybody in this body--House and Senate, Republicans, Democrats--knows, it is a very serious situation, but this is not new. The animosity and fight between the Turks and the Kurds have been going on for centuries. This fight between these two groups has been going on for centuries.

Who are these two groups? First, we have the Turks on one side, on the north of the border, who are members of NATO and are at the very least theoretical allies of the United States, although in recent years that alliance has been strained, and that is an understatement of what the situation is.

Recently, they negotiated a deal with the Russians to buy S-400 missiles, which is a horrendous problem for a member of NATO. NATO was formed, of course, to push back against the Russians, and now you have a member of NATO that is engaging with the Russians in this fashion. This has caused us real grief.

Those of us who deal with it have dealt with it for months. We have been pressing the Turks as hard as we can about the mistake they have made and the consequences it is going to have. They have an order for F-35s. They make a number of parts for the F-35. We have told them clearly, in no uncertain terms, for months that they can have the F-35s or they can have the S-400s, but they cannot have both. They insisted that they can. That is simply not going to happen. I think they are starting to believe that.

Fast forward to where we are now. The Turks have amassed 30,000 troops on the border with Syria and are ready to come in and take on the Kurds, who had moved into the northern part of Syria due to the failed-state status of Syria.

To say that the President of the United States is responsible for this is simply a political statement that isn't true. You can dislike the Commander in Chief, you can dislike the calls that he makes, but this is a war that has been going on between these two groups for centuries. It was going to happen.

The fact that Erdogan had amassed 30,000 troops on the border was a clear indication that it was going to go forward. We had about 28 troops between the two standing armies and admittedly the President of the United States pulled those 28 troops out of harm's way.

In any event, you can argue about what got us here, what the triggering factor was, whether it was or wasn't going to happen anyway, but what you can't argue about is what the situation is today. There isn't anyone in this body that would disagree that this is a very serious situation.

Turkey is alone on this, by the way. With the possible exception of the Qataris, they are alone on this. The world has been watching this, condemning what Turkey is doing. They have done a cross-border incursion, and they are facing their age-old enemy, the Kurds, inside of Syria.

So what do we do about this? Well, the House has passed a matter that the minority leader has talked about and wanted to pass. Senator Paul has brought his idea to the floor. But I want to tell you that the Foreign Relations Committee has been working on this since it blew up.

I want to thank my staff, and I want to thank Senator Menendez' staff, the ranking member, who pulled an ``all-nighter'' last night, putting together a piece of legislation, and an ``all-morninger'' to get to the point where we are.

This piece of legislation is going to be dropped very quickly. Risch- Menendez is a bipartisan piece of legislation that addresses the issues that all of us are concerned about. It addresses the issues with Turkey. It addresses the issues with the Kurds. It addresses the issues that the minority leader addressed regarding the ISIS prisoners who are being held. It is a good piece of legislation.

It is going to have numerous--and I mean numerous--cosponsors to the bill from both sides of the aisle.

From my own standpoint, I am always at a point where I want to reach an objective and want to get to a result. Senator Paul's and the other legislation cannot become law. This bipartisan piece of legislation, Risch-Menendez, which addresses this very, very serious issue can become law.

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