ISIS

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the recent terrorist attacks around the world--including, of course, the horror of Paris--but also to talk about what undergirds that, and that is the threat posed by ISIS. Some use the acronym ISIL; Daesh is another phrase that has been used to describe this vicious terrorist group. But I think we need to--at the same time as we are trying to prevent terrorist attacks--focus on the broader policy to destroy ISIS.

We know it has been 4 1/2 years since the people of Syria began protesting against the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad. As we also know, that conflict escalated rapidly and was coupled with a dysfunctional and sectarian government in Iraq, especially starting from the capital of Baghdad. The fighting and unrest created space for extremism to grow and to take root.

About 1 1/2 years ago, we saw the emergence of the group we now know as ISIS. This group poses a very serious threat to our national security as well as to the security of many parts of the world. There is no question that ISIS is a clear threat to the security of our partners in the region and--as we know most horrifically, in the last few days--in Europe.

They also have a desire to attack the U.S. homeland. We know that. We have to remember that this is a group that originated as an Al Qaeda offshoot. They share the same motivations or at least similar motivations, and they, of course, share the same brutality, if not worse.

In recent weeks, ISIS has claimed responsibility for horrific attacks outside of Syria and Iraq. They claim responsibility for the bombing of a Russian airliner that went down over Egypt in the Sinai, killing all of its passengers--Russian passengers. ISIS suicide bombers attacked a market in Beirut, Lebanon, last week, just before Paris. Then, of course, came Friday night, the 13th. This was, as has been reported, a coordinated, ruthless, and despicable attack in Paris that killed 129 innocent civilians.

So what this horror--and we could list other examples, but these most recent events remind us--what this horror reminds us, is what our job is in Congress and across our country, but especially when it comes to the role of the U.S. Federal Government.

We have at least two responsibilities in this area. No. 1 is to prevent terrorists from coming into the United States of America; and second, but related, is to destroy ISIS, without a doubt. To do both of these will continue to be difficult and challenging. Anyone who comes up with a simple proposal or a commentary that makes it seem simple really doesn't know what they are talking about, really doesn't understand the complexity of this. I even doubt their commitment to it when they give one-line answers to difficult challenging problems.

Last year, I was blessed, in June of 2014, to have the chance to go to Normandy. Senator Leahy, the senior Senator from Vermont, organized a visit to Normandy on the 70th anniversary of D-day. For someone representing any State--in my case representing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, from where so many Pennsylvanians and, of course, so many Americans died on the beaches of Normandy or died within days of that battle--it was deeply moving to be in Normandy, to listen to presentations from those who had lived through the horror of Normandy and those who were coming back to celebrate the fact that they had served and were alive after these 70 years.

We were able to see the beaches. We saw the cemetery. I walked down to the cemetery, and the first grave I happened to look at was one of a Pennsylvania soldier, just fortuitously when I was looking at the first marker, the first grave.

One of the themes of that visit, of course, was France, the people of France thanking the United States, thanking allies and expressing gratitude in so many different ways, in heartfelt ways, at the leadership level, from President Hollande, all the way down. And one of the best images of that gratitude was displayed in this picture. I will put it up on the easel. This is an enlarged version of what was on a brochure. You can see it, and it is written in two languages, of course. The translation is ``70th Anniversary of the Liberation of France,'' in English and French, and the date--June 6, 2014, commemorating the 70th anniversary.

What you may not be able to make out from a distance is the image. It is, of course, a beach, and it is the image of a little girl. She has an orange plastic pail and a green plastic shovel--an image we all understand--a child going on to the beach to play in the sand. She is in a yellow dress, with her back towards us, and she is moving towards the beach.

What is so moving about this expression of gratitude by the people of France is that the shadow that emanates from that little girl is not her shadow. Rather, it is the shadow of an American GI, or what I believe to be an American GI, and I am not sure anyone could contest that. It is a profound and very moving and very powerful expression of gratitude that all of us can understand: that this little girl would not be able to be on that beach to play in freedom--or any of the other places that were under attack during World War II--were it not for the bravery of American soldiers, the commitment of the American people, and the work that was done to undergird that effort by the allies against the axis powers.

It is a very powerful reminder of the contribution of that soldier depicted by the shadow and the freedom that little girl can enjoy because of that sacrifice--a profound sacrifice, a sacrifice you cannot even describe if you had volumes of books to write about it. I was moved because it was a wonderful expression of gratitude to the people of the United States by the French people.

I was thinking about that in the aftermath of this horror. Folks all over the United States and around the world were expressing solidarity with the people of Paris and the people of France, and it gave us the chance to try to give back to them in the aftermath of their tragedy, a year or so after they had expressed gratitude to us. This relationship between our two countries is very strong and goes back to the beginnings of our Republic, even back to the days of the Revolution.

That image of that little girl probably couldn't be expressed or presented were it not for what happened in World War II and what happened on the beaches of Normandy. Again, we were able to achieve that result by working with allies the world over. It would not have been possible were it not for the work of people around the country sacrificing--the soldiers and their families, the factories, the spouses who worked in the factories while soldiers were overseas. There was a lot of good work done then by the Congress to support the war effort. We have to figure out a way here to get back to that kind of sacrifice, that kind of commitment.

There was a reminder recently of what a Member of this body said around that time, about 1945. Senator Arthur Vandenberg from the State of Michigan delivered a seminal speech in January 1945 on this floor. Senator Vandenberg was a Republican, an avowed isolationist and a strong opponent of President Roosevelt. But on that day he said:

We cannot drift to victory. We must have maximum united effort on all fronts. ..... and we must deserve the continued united effort of our own people.

It is Vandenberg's example of setting aside partisan politics for the good of our Nation that gives us this expression: Politics stops at the water's edge. We have all heard that expression. If we haven't, we should educate ourselves, and if we have heard it, we should remind ourselves of it. But I am afraid when we debate foreign policy and security policy, there is often a dismissal of that basic lesson he taught us. I am afraid we have lost sight of his legacy that politics must stop at the water's edge when it comes to our security, whether that is the fight against terrorism itself or whether that is a military campaign against ISIS.

This fight against ISIS demands our attention, but it also demands our unity.

Unity is not just a nice expression, something we should hope for. The challenge demands it. If we are not unified, it is going to be very difficult to defeat ISIS or any other threat, frankly. We must not do oversight by sound bite when it comes to this policy. We can engage, as some have done--not everyone but enough to be concerned in both Houses of Congress--in categorical condemnation of the President's policy on virtually everything in the international arena. That doesn't move the ball down the field. It also doesn't absolve the President of accepting and incorporating critiques of the policy--specific critiques of what we should be doing or are not doing or might want to consider. But categorical condemnation doesn't help anyone. It doesn't solve the problem. It just divides people and prevents us from having that essential unity to make sure the strategy works.

I have been critical of a number of the President's policies on the international stage. I haven't always agreed with him. But if one is going to disagree with the President or disagree with a colleague about something as important as a strategy to defeat what most people believe is the biggest threat to the civilized world, you should be very specific. Unity demands that you be specific. We don't have time for just words and finger pointing. We need a bipartisan approach to this challenge.

So we do need bipartisanship. We need sober and serious deliberation, and we also need spirited debate. I am not advocating that someone doesn't criticize the policy or engage in a very heated exchange with someone who has a different point of view. But it has to be a debate, and it has to be an engagement that yields a result. And the result is a policy and a strategy that is going to be effective and that has some degree of substantial unity.

A lot of our allies look at the squabbles here in Washington and wonder how serious we are about this fight. If all we do is just comment and answer reporters' questions, maybe go to a hearing once in a while, that is OK, but this policy is going to take a lot more than that. Some of our allies look at our failure to unite behind a common strategy and wonder whether the United States will be an enduring partner for as long as it takes to eliminate ISIS from the planet--not just to defeat them on the battlefield but to destroy them. A lot of these allies, I am afraid, are wishing for more Senator Vandenbergs or at least more Vandenberg-Roosevelt days, when someone could disagree almost violently about domestic policy or even an aspect of our security, but at some point you came together and said: We are going to move forward with this strategy and work together.

In November of last year, the President outlined a multipart strategy to address the threat posed by ISIS. He spoke about the airstrike campaign in Iraq and Syria, which now involves 11 countries and has yielded more than 8,000 airstrikes as of last week. Those strikes have taken out ISIS leaders. They have taken out financiers, bomb makers, foreign fighters and foreign fighter recruiters.

Of course, most recently--just last week, just before the horrific news about Paris--we were told the man responsible for the beheadings of ISIS hostages had, in fact, been killed. That was a good result for the civilized world. We also heard from the President at that time--and since that time--of a 60-plus nation coalition.

Most recently, there have been hits on the tanker trucks bringing oil out of ISIS-held areas for sale on the black market, hits on communications equipment or weapons caches, and they have helped protect opposition fighters who cleared the way for significant territorial gains, especially by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces--great fighters in this battle. Reports now indicate that ISIS territorial holdings in Iraq and Syria have been diminished by as much as 25 percent in roughly the last year. CENTCOM's assessment--this isn't an assessment by a politician; this is CENTCOM--indicates that the refinery in the city of Tikrit has been largely retaken, as has been the city of Sinjar and a main road connecting ISIS strongholds in Raqqa and Mosul. These airstrikes are denying ISIS safe haven and significantly hindering their ability to move freely around areas where they operate.

So what have we heard over and over? Airstrikes alone will not win this. I agree with that. I get that. But airstrikes are moving the ball down the field in the sense that they are giving the opportunity to fighters on the ground and helping in other aspects of the strategy. So we have to continue the airstrikes. I hope people around here don't start saying: Well, airstrikes alone don't do the job; so let's stop the airstrikes. No, we have to continue them and, if necessary, for years--many years.

But this strategy is not just a military strategy. The President also outlined an effort to counter the financial networks that support ISIS, which gets funding from multiple sources. We know them: illicit oil sales, trafficking in antiquities and other goods, extortion of the local communities, and outside donations. The Department of Defense is targeting financiers for kinetic strikes, a fancy way of saying you are going to be taken out if you are a financier.

Treasury has sanctioned a number of senior ISIS leaders and facilitators, cutting off access to the U.S. financial system. The strategy also includes measures to address foreign fighter recruitment and travel. We are also working to expose ISIS's hypocritical propaganda which many Muslim leaders around the world have said is inconsistent with their religious values. It is clear there can be no enduring defeat of ISIS without remedies for the governance issues which created this space for extremism to fester.

In Iraq we are working to create an inclusive government that has a capability to counter ISIS. In Syria we need a negotiated political solution that ensures Bashar al-Assad--whose continued presence in Damascus has been a recruiting windfall for ISIS--has no role in the future of Syria and has to go. I have said that many times. I appreciate the fact that Secretary Kerry and his team have recognized these underlying problems and have worked to address them.

So while the administration has taken important steps, we know it is not enough. We know that. Recent events require an intensification of our efforts. I have critiqued this Syria policy for years and will continue to press the administration to do more on ISIS financing. We have to make sure ISIS can't pay their people's salaries. We have to cut off their financing so they can't operate, so they can't pay for propaganda, so they can't buy weapons, so they can't buy ammunition, and so they can't make the horrific IEDs that kill innocent civilians and soldiers. So we must continue this debate as Members of the Senate with the administration. Part of making sure we get the financing challenge in the right place is to confirm Mr. Adam Szubin, who would play a substantial determinative role in the Treasury Department.

So what do we do? It has been very difficult to get people focused on a bipartisan strategy. There is a lot more we can do. I believe the establishment of a bipartisan study group, comprised of experts and former government officials from both sides of the aisle, will be useful at this juncture. This group should be authorized by Congress, appropriated a modest amount of money for supporting its work, similar to the Iraq Study Group formed in 2006. The group should evaluate the nature of the ISIS threat as well as the conditions in Iraq and Syria that have allowed it to grow and evolve, and it should evaluate the military and nonmilitary options available to the United States to address this threat and the underlying conflicts and governance issues. There is a lot this group could do and contribute to what would be a stronger, bipartisan, unified policy. There are many outside experts whose careers of service in the Middle East, and civilian, military, and intelligence roles, offer a wealth of expertise. This group could conduct its work over a 6- to 9-month period and report back to Congress with its findings. If they could do it faster, we would certainly authorize and encourage them.

Initiating a bipartisan study doesn't mean we should press pause on our current efforts. Members of Congress need to continue supporting our soldiers, bringing the fight to ISIS with intensity and focus. We need to continue our efforts to reach a negotiated political transition in Syria and to encourage inclusivity and good governance in Iraq. If a Sunni soldier doesn't feel a part of his own government, they have to support a unifying government. We need to continue to press the growing humanitarian crisis emanating from Iraq and Syria, but I believe our efforts to defeat ISIS and our long-term goal of countering violent extremism would benefit from a serious bipartisan expert study group.

In closing, I will once again invoke the words of Senator Vandenberg. In the speech he gave in the 1940s, he said: ``Here in the Senate we do not have perpetual agreement between the two sides of the aisle, but we have never failed to have basic unity when crisis calls.''

``We have never failed to have basic unity when crisis calls.'' Crisis has called, right now. We know that. The crisis is ISIS and terrorism. We have to destroy ISIS and prevent terrorism from coming to our shores. We don't have time for politics. We don't have time for people talking in sound bites and pretending they are doing oversight. We need bipartisan work that will bring people together on a unified strategy. I urge my colleagues to reflect on the spirit of Vandenberg's seminal speech and to find a unified path forward that supports our long-standing partners and protects the security of this great Nation.

I will conclude with a picture. This is a picture of a little girl who can walk on a beach in freedom because of the bravery and sacrifice of our soldiers in World War II. If we are worthy--worthy of that sacrifice--we had better get our act together, come together--both parties--and make sure we have a bipartisan policy. We don't have time for finger-pointing. We have to come together and make sure we do all we can to have a sound, serious, bipartisan effort against ISIS and against terrorists. I believe that is a mission worthy of a great nation and certainly worthy of the sacrifice of the people who are on the battlefield right now--our soldiers, our fighters, as well as soldiers from around the world--and certainly worthy of the sacrifice that led to the beautiful expression of gratitude that the French people gave us just last year.

I yield the floor.

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