Help America to Vote Act

HELP AMERICA TO VOTE ACT

Ms. CANTWELL. I have offered an amendment to this bill that will bring predictability and clarity to our deployment of National Guard and Reserve units.

I thank my cosponsors, Senators BOND and LEAHY, the cochairs of the Senate National Guard Caucus, as well as Senators BINGAMAN, LEAHY, JOHNSON, NELSON of Florida, GRAHAM of Florida, MURRAY, KENNEDY, PRYOR, LAUTENBERG, and KERRY, who are joining me in sending a message that we need to be consistent in how we calculate the deployment times for our Guard and Reserve personnel.

This amendment will direct the Pentagon to consider the full activation time for Guard and Reserve personnel in considering its deployment policies and also to establish a program to more effectively notify troops and their families of changes in deployment policies and/or extensions in deployment periods.

This action will go a long way in ensuring better predictability for our military reservists, their families, and employers—they certainly deserve it.

I am proud to say that it has been endorsed by the National Guard Association of the United States, the Reserve Officers Association and the National Military Families Association.

As many in this Chamber know, over 20,000 troops in Iraq were faced with a rude awakening last month when the administration changed a 50-year standard practice in calculating deployment policies—a change the effectively extended deployments for these troops by several months in many cases.

Prior to last month's decision, the length of deployment was calculated based on the time a reservist was activated—when a member of the Guard and Reserve left home. However, last month, the administration changed the method of calculation to time deployed "in theater."

This is not the way to treat our Reserve component. We are asking more and more from them, and they deserve better. The Guard and Reserve are critically important to our national security both at home and abroad.
Since September 11, 2001, the National Guard has mobilized 210,000 of its 350,000 soldiers at one time or another. The Reserve has mobilized 85,000 of its 205,000 in that same time period.

In my own State, with the recent alert of the Army National Guard's 81st Armored Brigade, 41 percent of Washington State's National Guard—4,041 troops—are currently alerted and deployed, as well as 2,100 reservists from bases around my State.

These are historic levels of sustained mobilization, and we need to be clear that we are asking a lot from these men and women—and we must do everything we can to ensure that the Guard and Reserve continue to recruit and retain skilled and committed personnel.

It goes without saying that these men and women definitely signed up to serve when their country calls. The reservists in my State do not dispute their commitment; they embrace it.

However, we need to know that we are asking an extraordinary commitment from our Nation's Guard and reservists, their families and their employers and we need to recognize the full commitment.

This is why I was concerned when the Pentagon announced that it will calculate deployment lengths for the over 20,000 Guard and Reserve members in Iraq based on the actual time in the theater of operations—otherwise known as "boots on the ground."

This change altered a long-standing practice dating back to the Korean-war era in which deployment lengths for Guard and
Reserve officers were calculated from the moment they were actually activated—that is, when they are called to leave their jobs and families to begin pre-mobilization preparation time and included post-mobilization time.

This preparation time can sometimes take as much as 3 to 6 months.

As a result, thousands of troops in the theater of operations who were expecting to go home—literally counting the days to return—were just informed that their time would be extended, some by as much as 6 months.

This is just wrong.

As Mark Kimmey, an Army reservist, wrote in the New York Times: "the message to reservists is unmistakable: the Army no longer takes into account sacrifices made to maintain two career lives."

We absolutely own it to our Guard and reservists to give them predictability in the process and to fully recognize that the Guard and reservists' lives are serving from the point they are activated.

My amendment will direct the Pentagon to revert back to the standard practice in considering, for the purposes of deployment announcements, mobilization reports and communications, the clock to start ticking from the point of activation—that is, "boots out of the house."

If we need our reservists to serve in theater for 1 year and 6 months in preparation time, that's fine. But let's be honest, these troops are being deployed for 18 months—not a year. Troops, families, and employers deserve the respect of our acknowledging the sacrifice.

Let me be absolutely clear—this amendment does not, by any means, seek to limit the operational use of the Guard and Reserve, nor are we seeking to limit the flexibility of their use.

This does absolutely nothing to limit the ability of the Pentagon to mobilize and use our Guard and Reserve units, nor does it limit the length of time that they can be deployed.

Moreover, the amendment's provisions can be waived at any point in the case of dire, unexpected operational needs.

We are simply asking the administration to adopt the standard practice in effect for decades in calculating deployment times so that troops and their families can know when to start their clocks.

Ultimately, this is a very modest amendment. We are asking the Pentagon to be honest, consistent and predictable in the use of our Guard and Reserve. They deserve it; their families deserve it; we owe it to them.

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to join my well-meaning colleagues on both sides of this debate in trying too determine the best mechanism for not only our leadership in Iraq and getting the Iraqi people on their feet, but also in getting other countries to help by forgiving Iraqi debt.

It is crucial that we in this Chamber send a strong message to the Iraqi people that we will be the world's most outspoken advocate for Iraqi reconstruction and that the United States will play a leadership role.

Now I don't impugn the motives of other Members who want to qualify our assistance through a loan formula.

I share my colleagues' concerns that the funding for Iraq reconstruction is a serious cost that we need to thoroughly consider and oversee.

However, I think it is critically important to realize that Americans have already been making a serious investment in this region in order to ensure that we are so close to achieving: A stable, peaceful, democratic Iraq.

We spent billions of dollars to expel Hussein out of Kuwait; we spent billions throughout the nineties patrolling a no-fly zone; and we spent billions to liberate Iraq, and we are spending billions to secure and stabilize the country.

We are now the closest we have ever been to achieving the very goal that we have sacrificed lives and spent billions to achieve.

We are very close to taking the Iraqi people off their knees and putting them on their feet. Yet, the right way to do this is by helping them build a strong economy not by saddling the Iraqis with further debt.

Let's consider what we are saying when we ask the Iraqi people to take on this loan. Think about it. Iraq's annual oil revenues may be somewhere around $15 billion, but we are on the verge of adding to an existing debt level of $200 billion—and expecting them to pay with their oil revenues.

To think that Iraq can pay off a loan by oil revenues when its debt is thirteen times its annual oil revenues is ridiculous. A future Iraq would end up spending half of its oil revenues on interest payments alone.

Is that the message we want to send to the Iraqi people?

Is that the message we want to send to the mayor of Kirkuk who I met?

To the governor of Basra who doesn't have enough electricity to serve his community?

To the members of the Iraqi council, who are not only giving their time to serve their country, but are risking their lives.

To the woman of the Iraqi council who spent 16 years in hiding with other women only to rejoice when she found out that the United States was coming to give them an opportunity to meet and express their opinions in public.

These courageous leaders have stepped out to rebuild this country, and are willing to give their lives to do so.

We need to help these people re-build their country, not pile on additional debt.

Now is not the time for the United States to back away form its leadership role in nurturing Iraq's future.

Make no mistake, I am disappointed like all my colleagues that the American economy isn't recovering as well as it should.

I am disappointed in our terribly low levels of domestic investment.

I have as much concern as anyone over our domestic economy—my home state of Washington is still facing a terribly high 7.5 percent unemployment rate.

But we cannot tell the American people that we are going to solve their problem by somehow holding down the Iraqi people to a future debt that will not let them stand on their feet.

The United States must play a leadership role in Iraq reconstruction.

And it is very hard to play a leadership role when our commitment to Iraq reconstruction is qualified by the conditions of a loan.

We need to say to the rest of the world community that it is time for them to help build Iraq, too.

We need to say that if they are serious in their commitments about rebuilding Iraq, as the U.N. did in its resolution today,
then get behind that message and deliver.

But to say that out of the $87 billion that we are talking about, that some-how $10 billion of it ought to be paid back in a loan—only if the other countries are not willing to commit to debt forgiveness—is not the message of a leader.

A leader who believes in the Iraqi people will stand behind them and give them the ability to get their country on their feet.
We must be this leader and get them on their feet and get our troops back home.