Amendments Nos. 1150, 1151, 1152, 1153, 1154, 1155, 1156, 1157, 1158, 1159, 1160, 1161, 1162, and 1163, En Bloc to Amendment No. 1136

AMENDMENTS NOS. 1150, 1151, 1152, 1153, 1154, 1155, 1156, 1157, 1158, 1159, 1160, 1161, 1162, AND 1163, EN BLOC TO AMENDMENT NO. 1136

AMENDMENT NO. 1174 TO AMENDMENT NO. 1136

    Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator from West Virginia yield for a question?

    The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

    Mr. BYRD. My time has expired.

    The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time has expired.

    The minority leader.

    Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will use my leader time to yield to the Senator from Illinois for whatever question he may want to ask of the Senator from West Virginia.

    Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Democratic leader for the time.

    I rise for a brief moment in tribute to my colleague from West Virginia. Over the last 6, 8, or 10 months, the United States has been making critical and historic foreign policy decisions which have reversed values and traditions that have guided this country for decades. One Senator has come to this floor time and time again to turn that bright, glaring light on America that is our responsibility to do, and the Senator from West Virginia has done it again today. I thank him for being that voice time and again in the Senate, and I hope that many of us will join in this chorus to accept our congressional responsibility to the people we represent, to stand up and ask the hard questions that Congress must ask of every President, regardless of party, particularly at a moment in time when over 100,000 of our best and brightest in service to this country are risking their lives. My tribute and thanks to the Senator from West Virginia.

AMENDMENT NO. 1174

    Mr. DURBIN. Perhaps I will not use all of the time and will yield back to the sponsor of this amendment.

    Mr. President, I thank the Senator for focusing the attention of the Senate on an issue of such moral gravity. As the President of the United States said in Africa yesterday, that continent has never been challenged as greatly as it is challenged today by the AIDS epidemic. I might add parenthetically, the world has never been challenged in a way we are being challenged today by this world AIDS epidemic.

    I sit on the Democratic side of the aisle and am proud of my party loyalty, but when I went to the State of the Union Address with President Bush just a few months ago and he said the United States of America was going to lead the world with a $15 billion commitment over 5 years to fight the global AIDS epidemic, this Democrat stood up and applauded as loudly as he could. And ever since, every opportunity I have had, I have given this President credit for leading our Nation in the right direction on the global AIDS epidemic.

    I add, as well, I am happy this President has joined two of his predecessors in visiting sub-Saharan Africa. We have overlooked this continent far too long. There is great potential in sub-Saharan Africa, a great potential for economic growth and a great potential for building democracy, building a market economy.

    But as President Bush has learned and everyone who visits Africa learns, this whole continent is consumed with this epidemic. You can go to Africa looking for any issue you are interested in; I guarantee what you will find is the AIDS epidemic. Whether you are interested in food, AIDS, or economic development, whether microcredit or education, your first concern will be the AIDS epidemic.

    How can you teach children in school when school teachers are dying at an alarming rate? How do you keep up with the health care needs with so many AIDS orphans and so many infected people? What is the economic future of a country where you cannot predict what next month's workforce will look like? All of these issues, whatever they may be, all point to the one central concern: Fighting and conquering this epidemic.

    We applauded President Bush on both sides of the aisle for the $15 billion over 5 years. What Senator Bingaman is doing today is saying to the Senate, don't let the applause die down. Let's give the President a chorus of support, not just a chorus of applause. Let's make certain those who did stand up and laud the President for his leadership will be here doing our part.

    It is inexcusable to say we can only spend $2 billion this year to fight the global AIDS epidemic. The United States can do more and must do more. If we do not, more people will become infected, more people will die, more AIDS orphans will populate the poor countries around the world which means the challenges in the later years will be even more substantial.

    How much money is needed at this point? Here is an estimate that has been given from the United Nations agency about the need to fight the global AIDS epidemic. If you look at the next fiscal year, 2004, $8 billion is needed on a global basis. The United States AIDS spending is substantial but, unfortunately, it makes up only a small part of this global need. Frankly, when you look at what the President has proposed, if we could increase our spending to a $3 billion level it could make a significant difference.

    This year about $4.7 billion will be spent worldwide fighting the global AIDS problem; $1.6 billion of international bilateral assistance country to country of which the United States puts up about $640 million; $1 billion in multilateral AIDS groups like the Global Fund, which I support; $1 billion by the governments of infected countries, and $1.1 billion by the families of those infected countries—about $4.7 billion. And the need is $8 billion.

    What Senator Bingaman brings to the Senate today is an amendment asking the Senate to put the money where the promise has been made. The President has toured South Africa, Botswana, countries like Senegal. In visiting these countries he has said the United States is committed to $15 billion. With the Bingaman amendment, we will make certain that commitment is more than just passing rhetoric.

    I say to my colleagues in the Senate who have had a chance to travel overseas and not visited Africa, if you want to be a convert on the urgency of this issue, visit Africa. Meet the people who are infected today and are trying, every single day, just to survive.

    Go to Soweto Township in South Africa, as I did just a few months ago with Senator Feingold of Wisconsin, and meet women who are infected with HIV who have small children and will never be able to have access to antiretroviral therapy which could keep their lives stronger and longer than otherwise would be the case. The best they could hope for is one nutritional meal a day, to give them strength to ward off infection.

    Come to the streets of South Africa. Come see in Cape Town the AIDS orphans roaming those streets, AIDS orphans—I saw this with my own eyes—who are sniffing glue, stealing, living on the streets. Their families are gone. It is repeated over and over, thousands of times, millions of times, in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Come to Uganda and find those battling with the AIDS epidemic with very little money but great resolve, preaching abstinence and fidelity and condoms if necessary to protect themselves. These are people winning this battle every single day, waging the battle every single day, surviving for another day. But they need our help.

    The richest nation on Earth should put $3 billion on the line this year, this next year, as the President has promised—in 2004. By keeping that promise, we will say to the world, we are not only trying to meet our moral obligation, we are urging you to do the same.

    This money has a multiplier effect. Mr. President, $3 billion from the United States will multiply into more and more money being spent on the global AIDS crisis. But, likewise, our failure to do so, our failure to keep our word—what the President said in the State of the Union Address—that is going to be noted as well.

    We have a lot more we can do. It is not just a matter of humanity and compassion; it is a matter of global security. These countries that are devastated by AIDS are fragile societies which, if they fall, if they cannot maintain their civil structure, will become vacuums, and in those vacuums we know we will find havens for terrorism, laboratories and experiments for the worst possible political outcomes. We don't want that to happen.

    We need to stand together with the President. I don't think we should be making excuses or coming up with alternatives. Let's put our money where the President promised it would be. Let this President, traveling in Africa, receive word within an hour that the Senate is standing behind him. The promises he is making to the continent of Africa are promises which both political parties in the Senate are going to stand behind. That is the best possible message.

    Senator Bingaman, Senator Leahy, Senator Daschle, I, and others want to make certain $3 billion will be available next year to combat this pandemic across the world.

    I stand in strong support of this amendment, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

AMENDMENT NO. 1196

    Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and ranking member for accepting my amendment, cosponsored by Senators MIKULSKI, LANDRIEU, SNOWE, and HUTCHISON, regarding the Millennium Challenge Account and considering the role of women and girls in the development process.

    The Millennium Challenge Account has great potential to make a significant difference in some of the poorest countries of the world by incorporating the best practices that are known to accelerate economic development. The account will create incentives for countries to engage in these practices, and builds them into the design of development projects.

    According to the bill before us, the Millennium Challenge Corporation will use indicators to see which poor countries meet criteria on good governance, economic freedom, and investing in health care and education. My amendment adds consideration of the role of women and girls in those indicators.

    Why is this important? Why should women be singled out?

    One of the strongest lessons we have learned over the last 30 years is that when development efforts address the different needs of women and the specific barriers they face, countries are more likely to succeed. When the needs of women are not addressed, development assistance projects are more likely to fail. It is one of the core lessons of development effectiveness.

    Women are the vast majority of the world's poor. We cannot succeed in reducing poverty unless we ensure that women are fully integrated into our efforts. Around the world, social, economic, and political barriers inhibit women's access to opportunities. If we address these barriers, we can unleash women's potential to contribute to their families, their communities, and their economies.

    Empowering women is a smart investment because it will help us achieve many of our other goals. Research has shown that: HIV infection rates are higher when the gap between men and women in literacy is larger. In agriculture, women have less access to education and to labor, fertilizer, and other inputs than men do in developing countries. When women receive equal access to these inputs, their yields for food such as maize, beans, and cowpeas increases by 22 percent. According to the World Bank, increased progress in closing the gap between men and women in schooling would accelerate economic growth. Increases in women's education accounted for 43 percent of the total reduction in child malnutrition in developing countries. In Egypt, increasing the education level of mothers from none or less than primary, to completion of primary school reduces the proportion of the population below the poverty line by 33.7 percent. The probability that a child will survive in urban Brazil is almost 20 times greater when women accumulate income rather then men.

    Lack of understanding of women's roles lowers returns on development investments. Women participate directly or indirectly in virtually every sector of life in developing countries, from agricultural production to high-tech manufacturing, but their roles can be "invisible". For example, women in rural Africa are responsible for 80 percent of agricultural production. However, research shows that, even where we can show that women perform the majority of agricultural labor and are responsible for the most food production, agriculture extension services seldom reach women. According to a study in Kenya, yields among women farmers could increase 7 percent if they were given the same tools, training, and education as male farmers.

    One of the greatest successes in recent years is microcredit programs, which have targeted women. People in the microcredit movement realized that many poor women have creative ideas and the willingness to work hard to improve their economic well-being. What they do not have is access to credit to make those ideas happen. When women cannot own property, or travel outside of their villages, they cannot access credit from banks. Microcredit programs bring credit to women, and they have worked. Most microcredit programs have over 95 percent repayment rates and have helped many women change their own lives and those of their families. Unless we ensure that this type of thinking is part of the MCA, we will not succeed.

    Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that countries that treat women with dignity and afford them a choice in how they live their lives, give them equal access to essential services and an equal opportunity to contribute to public life are the countries that are the most stable and viable.

    The amendment that I have proposed is modest, but it addresses an important gap to ensure that the MCA achieves its overall purpose. We must address the different needs, roles, barriers, and potential of women in our development interventions.

    My amendment would create incentives to developing countries to do so by taking into account and assessing the role of women in eligibility criteria.

    We must ensure that we are doing what we know works to create a better, more stable world. Unless we ensure that women's roles, as well as men's, are fully integrated into the design of the Millennium Challenge Account from the outset, we will not succeed.

AMENDMENT NO. 1197 TO AMENDMENT NO. 1136

    Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in his State of the Union message in January of this year, the President discussed the threat posed by Iraq's nuclear weapons development program. The President went on to make the following statement: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

    After numerous concerns being raised about the veracity of this last statement, the administration has recently acknowledged that the President should not have made this claim. In a statement authorized by the White House, a senior Bush administration official said on Monday, July 7: "Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech."

    In May of this year, Chairman Pat Roberts and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence requested that the Inspectors General of the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency work jointly to investigate the handling and characterization of the underlying documents behind the President's statement.

    I would note that earlier this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, determined that some of the intelligence documents provided to it by the United States are forgeries. These documents were provided to the IAEA as evidence of Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from the Republic of Niger. In March of this year, Senator Rockefeller requested that the FBI investigate this issue as well.

    I want to thank the bill managers for accepting the amendment I planned to offer today a "Sense of the Congress" amendment to the State Authorization Bill which, 1, expresses support for the thorough and expeditious joint investigation into this matter by the Inspectors General of the Department of State and the CIA; 2, that the findings and conclusions of this joint investigation should be completed by September 12, 2003; and, 3, that the findings and conclusions of this joint investigation should be unclassified to the fullest extent possible, consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods.

    I am a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which is conducting a review of pre-war intelligence on the existence of, and the threat posed by, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, WMD, as well as other matters related to pre-war intelligence reporting related to Iraq.

    The reported existence of Iraq's WMD and support for international terrorism, al-Qaida in particular, were the primary justifications put forward for military action against Iraq by the Bush Administration to the Congress, the American public and the international community.

    There is no more serious undertaking for our government than to take our Nation to war. Such a momentous decision must be made on the basis of the best intelligence available—and intelligence analysis must be objective and not influenced by policymakers or other outside pressures.

    As this issue demonstrates, the administration's intelligence-derived assertions about Iraq's level of WMD-related activity raises increased concerns about the integrity of the U.S. intelligence community and the credibility of the U.S. Government—both here and around the world. These concerns are all the more troubling because of the administration's new national strategy of military pre-emption—which places a premium on timely, accurate and non-political intelligence assessments of the threats to our country.