National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 -- Continued

Floor Speech

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008--Continued -- (Senate - September 25, 2007)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues, the Senator from California and the Senator from Delaware. They are making a sincere effort to find a way out of this terrible morass we are in, in Iraq. I can recall 5 years ago when we were called on to vote to give an authorization for the use of force to President Bush. It was in October, before an election a few weeks away, and there were some who argued the President would never use that force. There were some who argued he would use it immediately. Unfortunately, history has proven he used it in a few months. We now find ourselves enmeshed in a war we never bargained for.

That authorization for the use of force said it was for the purpose of deposing a dictator and destroying weapons of mass destruction that threatened the United States. The dictator is gone, the weapons of mass destruction never existed. Yet we are still there and 3,800 American soldiers have been killed so far, 30,000 injured, and 10,000 grievously injured. The numbers rise by the day. At one hundred a month, American soldiers die. There is violence on the streets. Attempts to have meetings for cooperation and compromise are cut short by bombs and bullets. It is a situation which we never bargained for, and this President has no concept of how to extricate America from that morass.

I call to the attention of the Senate, though, not the Biden-Brownback amendment, which I will speak to at a later time but, rather, an amendment offered by Senators Lieberman and Kyl. It is an amendment which relates to a country next to Iraq--Iran. Iran is a dangerous country. Yesterday, there was a lot of controversy about whether its President should be allowed to speak at a major university in the United States. Many argued he should not have. Whatever your opinion on whether he should have been allowed to speak, when it was all said and done, when he had finished his speaking, there was no doubt in my mind that it was pretty clear how radical and unreliable he is. Some of the things he said were preposterous, outrageous, and didn't reflect the truth as we know it, either in the United States, the world, or in his country of Iran. I can't imagine that President Ahmadi-Nejad won any converts yesterday, but he is the head of a dangerous nation, a nation which in many respects is moving in directions which the United States has to view very warily.

I have joined with Senator Gordon Smith in a bipartisan resolution applying economic pressure and diplomacy to change the Iranian policies that might lead to nuclear armaments. I believe that is our first order of business and a high priority for the United States. That is why I joined him in that resolution. In fact, in the past, I voted for resolutions by Senator Lieberman and others acknowledging the potential threat of Iran. I think we should be forewarned that this is a dangerous country, until they change their ways and perhaps change their leadership.

I wish to commend to every Senator before the vote on the Lieberman-Kyl amendment that they take a few moments and read it. There is a paragraph in this amendment which I find troubling, if not frightening. I wish to read it into the Record. I will concede this is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment and doesn't have the force of law, but I want my colleagues to understand what they are voting for if they decide that a vote for the Lieberman-Kyl amendment is a vote against Iran. I will read it as follows:

It is the sense of the Senate--

And now I read from paragraph 4 in the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, and I quote verbatim from the latest version I have--

to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

I see the Senator from Connecticut is on the floor. If this language has been deleted or changed, I hope he will bring to it my attention, because as written and as read, the language that I have been given is troubling. Conceding this is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment, we are, in fact, saying we support the use of military instruments in Iran. What does that mean? Does that mean we are supporting the invasion of Iran, that we are supporting military tactics against Iran? Shouldn't we be extra careful in the language of these amendments when we find that the authorization of force for Iraq has dragged us into a war now in its fifth year, a war longer than World War II, with bloody and deadly consequences for the United States and innocent Iraqis?

I can't vote for this language as read. If it has been changed or will be changed, I am ready to talk, because I certainly have no defense of Iran and its intrigue, its activities, and its plans that we understand to be the development of nuclear weapons.

As I have said, I have joined with Senator Smith encouraging economic and diplomatic sanctions against Iran, but this amendment goes beyond that. I repeat:

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

I think this is entirely too expansive. It is dangerous language. Those who vote for it are going on the Record for the use of military power in a way that I don't think they fully comprehend. Again, if this is being changed, if it is going to be changed before the vote, then I will concede that many items before the Senate are works in progress. But as written and as read, I cannot accept this language. I think it is a dangerous effort to put us on the record for the use of military force in Iran. Even if we are militarily capable of doing that today--and some question whether we are--the simple fact is there is a process to call for congressional approval under our Constitution before we declare war on any Nation. This, unfortunately, takes us down that road toward that goal in a way that I think is unacceptable, and for that reason I will oppose it.

I yield the floor.

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