Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am here to talk about the Syria Sanctions Enhancement Act of 2013, which I am very proud to introduce today, with bipartisan support, joined by my colleagues Senators Ayotte, Cornyn, and Casey. This bill is a comprehensive effort to update our existing system of sanctions and to reflect the reality that President Bashar al-Assad and his murderous regime continue to engage in a horrible civil war against the Syrian people.

This bill builds upon the longstanding U.S. sanctions regime against Syria begun in 2004 to deal with that government's policies supporting terrorism, continuing its occupation of Lebanon, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining U.S. and international efforts to stabilize Iraq. Following events in Syria beginning in March of 2011, a series of executive orders have been issued to address the ongoing violence and human rights abuses that have been supported and perpetrated relentlessly by the Assad regime. Fortunately, Congress has come together on a bipartisan basis to sanction many people who are committing terrible atrocities. Now is the time to add to those sanctions, to enhance and enforce them, and ensure they encompass everyone who is enabling Assad to continue his massacres against his own people.

I have seen some of the effects of this cruel war in person. Earlier this year, I traveled to the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, with Senator McCain and Senator Graham, where I saw firsthand how the Assad regime has torn families and lives apart. I returned home from that trip convinced, along with my colleagues, that the United States cannot stand idle while this war rages on and over 1 million Syrians are displaced from their country--a substantial part--the estimates are 30 percent of its entire population displaced from their homes. I remain convinced the United States should take action not only with sanctions but with more effective humanitarian relief. Sanctions are an effective way to cut off Assad's financing and therefore his source of power. Humanitarian relief is necessary to aid the Syrian people who have become refugees in such enormous numbers, even as we pursue those sanctions.

Thankfully, most of the world has come together to denounce and isolate Assad for his horrible abuses. Appallingly, though, a few--most notably Russian banks--finance Assad and enable his continued atrocities.

In September, Senators Ayotte, Cornyn, Shaheen, and I urged the Treasury Department to sanction those Russian banks that are perpetrating war in Syria. They are enabling that war as well as the atrocities it has spawned, and there is significant evidence that some Russian banks, including VTB, VEB, and Gazprombank, have given financial cover to Assad and may still be hiding his assets. This bill, the Syria Sanctions Enhancement Act, would ensure that those actors do not go unpunished. It would sanction financial institutions doing business with Assad and his senior officials, and it would also provide for a full accounting of all Assad's assets. If Assad is hiding money in Russian banks or elsewhere, we need to know where that money is, because it rightly belongs to the people of Syria, not to its murderous dictator.

But our actions against Assad must be wider in scope than simply the financial sector. Therefore, the Syria Sanctions Enhancement Act looks at all the perpetrators of horrific violence who empower Assad and it creates sanctions against them. This bill codifies existing executive orders that sanction senior Syrian officials and people who sell or invest in the Syrian Government. It sanctions anyone who helps the Assad government develop weapons of mass destruction or provides them with conventional weapons. They are responsible for the majority of killings in Syria. They are complicit, and knowingly, purposefully--they are not merely the enablers, they are the providers of those assets used by Assad against his own people.

We have seen how some unscrupulous arms dealers continue to provide arms to the Assad regime that enable his killing. Just yesterday, I was pleased to announce that the Defense Department will stop doing business with Rosoboronexport, the arms dealer that is selling weapons to Assad. Think of it: The U.S. Government was financing, with U.S. taxpayer money, purchases of helicopters for the Afghan Government, to go to the Afghans with the knowledge that that same Russian export agency was selling weapons to Assad. It was stopped, but it is just one example of a company that allows Assad to continue killing his own people.

This bill also requires the President to submit a list of people responsible for human rights abuses committed against the people of Syria. The President must submit a list of those culpable individuals who should be held accountable for human rights abuses committed by Assad against his own people, and the bill will sanction anyone who has provided goods, services or support to enable human rights abuses.

As my colleagues can see, this bill would do quite a few things, but there are a number of important things it will not do. It will not prevent the United States from supporting the moderates who are fighting against the Assad regime, and it would not jeopardize our ongoing efforts to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile; rather, it creates a strategic framework to ensure that the prolonged dismantling of chemical weapons does not serve as a cover for the international community to ignore the brutal reality of these slaughters throughout Syria. The bill is carefully crafted to ensure that the sanctions do not target the people of Syria themselves who are just trying to survive during a difficult time. That is why humanitarian relief from this country is of such paramount importance.

Over the past few months, there has been a lot of debate over what the United States should or should not do in Syria.

Over these past months, the debate has focused on military force and many have been hesitant to use such military force in Syria. But that does not mean the United States can or should stand idle on the sidelines as hundreds of thousands of people are dying and the war threatens to create a wider conflict in the Middle East. I think we can all agree, on both sides of the aisle, that we should be strengthening sanctions against the human rights abusers and supporters of Assad and his military that is tirelessly, relentlessly, and purposefully murdering his own people.

This bill is a bipartisan attempt to move forward around the common concerns of helping the Syrian people. In the coming days, I look forward to a debate on this bill and the way forward in Syria as we consider Iran's nuclear program and other important factors. There will be a meeting in Geneva upcoming. I view this bill as a means of strengthening our government's hand as we seek peace in Syria and seek to strengthen those forces in Syria that seek to protect their own people.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on this important effort to ensure that the United States continues to stand up and speak out strongly on the side of the people of Syria against a regime that is striving solely and single-mindedly to keep itself in power at all costs, in fact, whatever the cost in the slaughter and displacement of its own people.

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