National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 - Continued
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007--Continued -- (Senate - June 20, 2006)
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I was one of those last week who spoke to this amendment by the Senator from Florida. I know now the Senator from Kentucky, the distinguished majority whip, has introduced another amendment and has suggested perhaps it would be appropriate to vote for both of them, since what in effect was a misstatement by a low-level Government employee in Iraq has now been clarified, making it crystal clear that it is not the policy of the new Government in Iraq to grant amnesty to those who have killed Americans.
But I have to scratch my head a little bit and wonder why it is we are having this debate. We are on the Defense authorization bill, an enormously important bill that is being shepherded on the Senate floor by the distinguished chairman, for the last time as chairman--at least this will be the last time he will serve as chairman because of term limits on that committee. But we are essentially having a debate over a nonissue, and we are being asked now to send a message to the new Iraqi Government that you are going to be admonished, in effect, because of some of the missteps of a low-level Government employee.
I am really confused about the message our friends on the other side of the aisle are trying to send our allies in Iraq. On the one hand, we have amendments that are offered suggesting that we leave them in 6 months' time and bring all of our troops home, and whatever happens as a result of that, well, it is not our problem anymore; it is their problem. On the other hand, amendments like these suggest that anytime a low-level government employee misstates the facts and has to be then corrected, and that person is then disciplined through dismissal, do we in essence want to pick a fight where there is no fight and where it is clear what the policy of the new Iraqi Government is?
I think we should give this new Iraqi Government at least the benefit of the doubt that some would give to Saddam Hussein. There are some who come to the Senate floor and say, no, it was a terrible mistake for us to ever go into Iraq notwithstanding the fact that we know that Saddam Hussein was a mass murderer. I, along with other of my colleagues, have stood on the edge of mass gravesites where at least 400,000 Iraqis lie dead by the hands of this mass murderer Saddam Hussein.
We know the record is clear that al-Qaida in the form of Zarqawi, who was killed just last week, was in Iraq more than 2 years before the United States and our coalition partners took out Saddam Hussein. There are those who said no, no, no. Iraq has no less linkage whatsoever to international terrorism, and now we know the facts are that the worst al-Qaida operative of all, the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, was in fact in Baghdad and was in Iraq more than a year before Saddam Hussein was deposed.
So I guess I am confused by those who would say, no, let's leave the Iraqis on their own, wish them luck, but so much for the loss of lives and lost treasure invested in trying to help the Iraqi people free themselves from this terrible tyrant and get on their own feet and create a stable democracy in Iraq. But then, on the other hand, when this new democracy that has done miraculous things over the last few years has ratified their new constitution and created a unity government and have now finally gotten their permanent government in place, that when a low-level figure makes an unauthorized, incorrect statement, for which he has been disciplined, we want to come to the Senate floor and offer amendments admonishing our friends, the Iraqi Government. They are our allies in what has now become the central front in the global war on terror.
If we don't finish the job and support our Iraqi allies in any way we can as they continue this fight against al-Qaida, against other foreign fighters, against insurgents who want to destabilize the government and put Saddam Hussein back in power, if we don't do everything we can to support them militarily and rhetorically provide them any assistance we can, then we are going to be in a less safe condition because we know that any power vacuum that would be created in Iraq would easily be filled as it was in Afghanistan by the likes of Osama bin Laden and others.
I appreciate the fact that there are those who say, Well, we ought to just vote for both of these amendments. But I really think we are heading down a bad road here by slapping the Iraqi Government on the wrists for what clearly was a misstatement of a low-level government employee for which he has been disciplined and which has now been very much clarified that it is not the policy of the Iraqi Government to provide amnesty for those who have killed Americans in that country.
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