Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to address a number of matters of great concern. There might be, but I don't know of any State that has a greater presence of veterans within it than Florida, certainly per capita. We have a huge military presence in our State and a large number of veterans.

I have commented to people, by the way, that in my time in the Senate, which is now about 3 years and 2 months, a substantial percentage of the calls we get to our office are from veterans regarding veterans' issues. I have a veteran in my family--my brother--who has recently encountered some bureaucratic hurdles he is trying to overcome in terms of getting service from the VA. So these are relevant matters that are of great importance.

I am glad the Senate is on the debate. I am glad we have proceeded to have this debate. It is an important one, and I do hope I will have an opportunity to offer an amendment I have relevant to the bill that involves and gives the opportunity for the Secretary who oversees this Department to be able to hire and fire, particularly to hold accountable mid- and higher level officials within the Veterans' Administration who are not doing their jobs and are contributing to this backlog.

I can tell you that in Central Florida we have a veterans hospital that has been well over budget and has timeliness issues and it needs to be addressed. I think that is a veterans' issue that has extraordinary bipartisan consensus. So my hope is we will be able to address it and we will have an amendment process that allows these ideas to be brought forth. From what I heard from the Senator commenting just a few moments ago, he welcomes amendments. So I hope I will have an opportunity to offer that.

I know as part of this debate the issue of Iran sanctions has been raised. I don't think it is rare to have issues that perhaps are not directly on point to a bill offered in debate, particularly when getting into a debate on an issue that has been so difficult. That is part of the problem with the Iran sanctions issue.

I understand when someone files a bill, the managers have worked hard on it, and the last thing they want is for it to be slowed down because of debate on another topic that is not directly on topic. I understand that concern. I do. But on the other hand, I hope Members will understand that part of the frustration has been the inability to even get a debate on what truly is an extraordinarily important issue.

For those here watching and those at home watching and those who may see this later, let me take a moment to briefly discuss what is at stake. I briefly discussed this a few weeks ago, but I wanted to take this opportunity to do so again.

Here is the issue: Iran, a few years ago, began developing a nuclear processing capability. What that basically means is they take uranium, for example, and they reprocess it to a certain level. You need to have a certain level of reprocessing in order to, for example, provide domestic energy for nuclear energy plants. Many countries in the world have nuclear energy, but only a handful actually process it themselves. Most decide to buy it already processed from abroad.

We have agreements and arrangements with countries all over the planet that do that. Only a handful actually retain the capacity to reprocess it or to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. So when we see a country announce they are going to invest money, time, and energy in developing a reprocessing or an enrichment capability, that raises red flags, and here is why. Because while you only need a certain level of enrichment to be able to provide nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and a little bit higher level in order to use it for medical isotopes, the exact same scientists, the exact same machines, the exact same facilities are the exact same ones that can also reprocess or enrich to an even higher level to use in a weapon.

The story of Iran has been, over the last few years, to increase their enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. That in and of itself raises red flags. Adding to that uncertainty and concern about it has been the fact they have tried to hide most of this. Consistently, Iran has been found to have secret development projects ongoing that they only admit to once they are discovered. They take a tremendous amount of effort to hide it from the world. That begins to raise red flags, because if it is truly just a peaceful program, there would be no reason to hide it or to hide their capabilities. But Iran has consistently hidden them.

There is even more reason to be concerned. In addition to increasing their capacity to enrich and reprocess, Iran is also developing long-range missile capabilities. A long-range missile--basically a missile that can fly from Iran 1,000 miles, 1,500 miles, 2,000 miles, 3,000 miles--costs a lot of money to develop. It takes a lot of time to develop.

You don't spend time or money developing those capabilities for purely conventional purposes or for defensive purposes. Usually when you undergo those efforts to develop that kind of capability, it is because you want to have the opportunity to one day put a nuclear warhead on one of those rockets.

So that is the story of Iran: massive expansion in their enrichment and reprocessing capabilities; secret enrichment programs which they try to hide from the world; and the development of long-range missile capabilities. Add to it that we are not dealing with the government of Belgium, Japan, South Korea, or any other responsible government on the planet; we are dealing with a government that actively uses terrorism all over the world as an active element of its foreign policy. They are involved in supporting various terrorist elements around the country, not just in the Middle East. Open-source reporting revealed that just a couple years ago they were involved in a plot to assassinate a foreign ambassador in Washington, DC--not in the Middle East somewhere but here. They have an active cyber capability designed to attack, disrupt, and create acts of terror online. They have been implicated, for example, in the bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina. There are few, if any, countries in the world that more actively support terrorism than the Government of Iran.

So this is with whom we are dealing. As a result, the international community, through the United Nations, imposed sanctions. Not only did they impose sanctions, they imposed the requirement that they immediately suspend and stop all enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. We can imagine why the neighbors of Iran are concerned. It is not just Israel that is concerned. Ask the Saudis, ask the Turks, ask any number of the other countries in the region.

Recently, the President and this administration have begun to undertake conversations with Iran about this program. Their hope is that we can get Iran to a place where we can lock them in; where they, in exchange for the loosening of these sanctions, agree not to do certain things.

I don't know of anyone here who would not love to wake up to the news tomorrow that the Supreme Leader in Iran has decided to abandon the reprocessing and enrichment capability and to truly show that all he is interested in is domestic energy for peaceful purposes. The problem is that is not what is happening. I believe what is happening is the United States, through the State Department and this administration, de facto, is already--but if not, is on the verge of--agreeing to allow Iran to keep in place its enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, and I will explain why this is a problem.

If that capability is still there, if they retain all the facilities necessary for enrichment and reprocessing, even if they agree to limit it to a certain level for now, at any point in time in the future they can ratchet it back up and can go on to develop a weapon. In fact, unfortunately, the design for a weapon is the easiest part of all this. The hardest part is reaching the technological capability to enrich uranium to a certain point to weaponize it.

If we allow them to keep all the equipment, all the technology, all their scientists, all the infrastructure in place, then at any point in the future when they decide it is time for a weapon, they can break out and do that. And I would submit that the evidence is strong that this is exactly what their strategy is.

I don't think, I know for a fact that the mandate given to those negotiators on behalf of Iran and the Supreme Leader was the following: Do whatever you can to get these sanctions lifted off our shoulders, but do not agree to anything that is irreversible.

Put yourself in their position. If you want to retain the option to one day be able to enrich and then build a weapon, you are probably willing to take one step back by agreeing to suspend enrichment only to a certain level in exchange for the lifting of these sanctions, knowing that at some point--in 2 years, 3 years, or 4 years--when the world is distracted by something else, when something else is going on around the planet, you can then decide to come up with any excuse to build a weapon.

One of the reasons I know that is their strategy is because it is exactly what the North Koreans did. The playbook has already been written. They would engage in these ongoing negotiations, on again, off again, all designed to buy time.

Why does a government like Iran need or want a nuclear weapon? And they do. It is pretty straightforward.

No. 1, because of deep historical reasons, they desire to become the dominant power in the Middle East, to drive not just the United States but other nations out of the region and diminish everyone's influence at their expense.

The other is because they view a weapon as the ultimate insurance policy. They don't want to be the next Muammar Qadhafi; they want to be North Korea so they can now act with impunity, so they can do anything they want against us or anyone in the world because no one could possibly attack them because they have nuclear weapons.

I have heard stories about, well, we will know; we will be able to see this happening before it happens and do something about it. But look at Pakistan and India, which was a surprise to everybody, particularly India's capabilities. It is not outside the realm of the reasonable to believe that at some point one day we will wake up to the news that Iran has detonated a device and proven their capability. In fact, I have zero doubt in my mind that this is where they want to go.

What I find offensive in this whole conversation is the notion by some in the administration that anyone who feels this way or anyone who has doubts or skepticism about these negotiations is warmongering.

I actually think the failure to impose sanctions now will inevitably place a future President--perhaps even this one--with a very difficult decision to make, and that will be whether to go in and take military action to stunt or stall their weapons program because, make no mistake, a lot of damage has already been done. A lot of damage has already been done to the sanctions that were already in place. There is already growing evidence that the amount of revenue coming into Iran, the amount of business dealings coming into Iran just simply on this talk about the interim deal has truly spiked.

We also see it in their comments. The leaders of Iran--from the President, to the Supreme Leader, to the chief negotiator--are not just bragging in Iran; they are bragging all over the world that they have agreed to nothing and the West has capitulated.

What we were told by the State Department is, well, that is only for domestic consumption; they are just saying that to be popular at home and to appease the radicals within Iran.

By the way, the term ``radical'' is an interesting term when applied to Iran. All the leaders in Iran are radical; it is just degrees of radicalism.

But to get back to the point I was making, we hear the comments they make in Iran--bragging how they have won, how they snookered the West, how they agreed to nothing, how everything they were doing before is going to move forward--and we are told: Just ignore that. They are just saying that for domestic political considerations.

That is not true. In fact, the Supreme Leader himself, the Ayatollah, has announced that these talks are going to lead to nowhere. He is not going to interfere, but they are going nowhere.

This is a transparent effort. All you have to do is open your eyes and see what they are doing. All they are doing is buying time. All they are doing is looking to relieve as many sanctions as possible without giving up anything they can do in the future or are doing now. For a deal such as this to work, you have to rely on all sorts of verification systems with a government that has made a specialty out of hiding their intentions and programs in the past.

The reason we see the push for the additional sanctions to be put in place is because at least 59 of us in the Senate--and I suspect many more who haven't lent their names to this effort yet--recognize that we cannot afford to be wrong about this because a nuclear Iran would be one of the worst developments in the world in a very long time.

In addition to being able to hold the region hostage, in addition to now being able to act with impunity--they don't have a weapon now, and they try to assassinate Ambassadors in Washington, DC. Imagine what they think they can get away with if they do have a weapon.

Beyond that, think about the risk it poses to our allies in that region, and think about this: Think about the reaction of other countries in the region to the news. The Saudis are not going to stand by and watch Iran develop a nuclear capability and not have one of their own. So I submit a nuclear Iran isn't just one more country joining the nuclear weapons club; it can be as many as two or three more countries eventually joining the nuclear weapons club in the most unstable region in the world, a place that has only had conflict, I don't know, for 5,000 years. This is what we are on the verge of here.

I appreciate the work diplomats working in the State Department do. There is a role for diplomacy in the world, and the good news is that we can negotiate agreements with most of the countries on this planet. But I think diplomacy also requires us to understand its limitations. It is very difficult to negotiate settlements and agreements with governments and individuals who don't ever feel bound by them, who see them as one-way streets, who see them as tactics and vehicles to buy time. That is what we are dealing with.

The other part we forget is that in some parts of the world and with some governments on this planet, the language of diplomacy is viewed as a language of weakness. It becomes an invitation to become aggressive or miscalculated.

I don't know of anyone in this body who is looking to get into another war or armed conflict. That is not what Americans are all about. If we look at the story of the conflicts we have been engaged in, almost all of them involved a reluctant nation having to get involved for geopolitical purposes, because we were trying to stem the growth of communism, because we were attacked in Pearl Harbor. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. Americans aren't into that. What we want to do is live happy lives and raise our families in peace. We want to be able to sell to and buy from other countries. We want a peaceful world we can partner with for business and culture.

But I also think it is important to understand that when mistakes are made in foreign policy, it is a lot harder to reverse than when they are made in domestic policies. If we pass a bad tax bill, we can always come back and pass a new one. If we make a mistake--as this body did by passing ObamaCare--we can always come back and repeal it. If we make a mistake in domestic policy, we can always come back and reverse it somehow. It is not the same in foreign policy. Once there is a nuclearized, weaponized Iran, it will be quite difficult to undo, and so are all the things it will lead to.

Let me also say that additional sanctions are no guarantee that they will never get a weapon, but it changes the cost-benefit analysis. It tests their pain threshold economically. It forces them to make a decision about whether they want to continue to be isolated from the world economically and whether weaponizing is worth it.

If you put in place an interim agreement or a final one that allows them to retain the capability to enrich in the future, they will build a weapon. That is not a matter of opinion; in my mind, that is a matter of fact. Maybe this President won't be here by the time that happens, but someone is going to have to deal with that, and it is not just the President; our country is going to have to deal with that. I at a minimum want to be on record today as making that point because if, God forbid, that day should ever come, I want it to be clearly understood that I, along with my colleagues, warned against it.

By the way, I think this opposition to additional sanctions is part of a pattern of flawed foreign policy decisions on behalf of this administration, one that has largely been built on the false assumption that our problems in the world were caused by an America that was too engaged, too involved, too opinionated, was providing too much leadership and direction, when, in fact, the opposite is now true.

Many of the conflicts happening around the world today are a result of the chaos left by this administration's unclear foreign policy. Many of our allies openly question--and I can tell you from my travels that privately they strongly question--whether America's assurances remain viable and whether we can continue to be relied upon in the agreements we have made in the past to provide collective security for ourselves and our allies.

When you leave a vacuum, it is going to be filled. What it is being filled by right now are some of the most tyrannical governments on the planet. Look at what happened with Moscow over the last 5 years. Moscow viewed the whole reset strategy of the United States under this President not as an opportunity to engage us but as an opportunity to try to get an upper hand on us.

Look at what has happened in the Asia-Pacific region where the Chinese regional ambitions to drive the U.S. out have grown exponentially, as have their capabilities. Meanwhile, our partners in the region, while they welcome the rhetoric of a pivot, question whether we will have the capability to carry it out.

Certainly in the Middle East an incoherent foreign policy with regard to Syria left open an ungoverned space where foreign jihadists have poured into that country and have now basically converted entire parts of Syria as the premier operational space for global jihadists to train and operate.

Now Iran. The situation in Iran, to use a colloquial term, is freaking out all the other countries in that region who have no illusions about who Iran truly is. They know exactly who these people are, and they are baffled at how the most powerful and informed government on the planet doesn't realize what they realized a long time ago--that you are not dealing with a responsible government here with Iran. You are dealing with a nation that openly supports terrorism as a tool of statecraft, that openly has shown that they want to develop a nuclear weapons capability so they can become untouchable and the dominant power in that region.

If we don't put in place a mechanism for additional sanctions to take place, I submit that the negotiation that is going on with the Iranians will become irrelevant. By that point, even if you wanted to impose more sanctions, it would be impossible to do because so many other countries will have reengaged with commercial transactions with Iran. You are not going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle, and the genie is already halfway out.

I hope we will take this more seriously, but at a minimum I ask this: Why can't we vote on it? If we are wrong, debate us on it. But why can't we vote on it? Since when has the Senate become a place run by one person on a matter of this importance and magnitude? Since when has the Senate become controlled by one person's opinion?

Are you telling me that the people of Florida who I represent do not deserve the right to be represented and heard as much as the people of Nevada or any other State? Are you saying that on an issue of this importance, one individual should have the power to basically say we will have no debate when 59 Members of this body--in a place where it is tough to get 51 votes on anything--have expressed the strong opinion that they favor this?

Why can't we have this debate? Isn't that what the Senate was designed to be, a place where the great issues of our time could be debated and flushed out before the eyes of the American public and the world?

What we are consistently told is we can't have this debate and we're not going to do it. Why? Why can't we debate this? This is important. Its implications will be felt by people long after we are no longer here. I hope more attention is paid to this.

Let me just say that I understand the frustration. A piece of legislation is filed on behalf of veterans, and the Iran issue comes up. But we are running out of time. This is the only mechanism that exists to have this debate.

I would argue that it actually is relevant because it is our men and women in uniform we are going to turn to--when this thing ends up the way I know it will--and ask them to take care of this problem.

If in the end these negotiations fail, and I tragically have to say they are destined to fail, and Iran retains their enrichment capability and eventually develops a nuclear weapon, it is the men and women in uniform of these United States--our sons, our daughters, our neighbors, our friends, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters, and our fathers--whom we will ask, as we always do, to go solve the problem for us. But if we put in place sanctions that clearly articulate and lay out the price they will have to pay to continue with these ambitions, we may be able to delay that, and even prevent it; otherwise, that day will come. This piper will be paid, and I hope the price will not be so high. I fear that is where we are headed. We are on the verge of making an extraordinary geopolitical blunder that will be very difficult to undo or reverse once it is already made.

All we are asking is to have a vote on this issue. This matters enough to the American people. This matters enough to the safety and future of our children and future generations. This matters enough to the world. It deserves a full debate, and it deserves a vote.

If you are against it, you can vote against it. If you are against it, you can debate against it. We want to hear their arguments and thoughts. Why can't we vote on it? It deserves a vote. It is that important.

I yield the floor.

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