Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the leadership for this extended debate. This is an important conversation we should be having, and to have an unprecedented almost 6 hours of debate just reflects how great we do, in fact, consider this.

I also want to thank the leadership for allowing two different votes, a vote on this amendment and then a vote on the CR and not trying, somehow, to combine those two because I think that would have also lessened the gravity of what is going on.

Mr. Speaker, I support this amendment, but I do so with grave reservations, and, in fact, in the speech of the Intelligence Committee, I would give this low confidence that this mission will, in fact, be successful.

Mr. Speaker, there are no Boy Scouts in Syria. There is not anybody over there fighting that you would want to live next door to you in your neighborhood; but, with that said, we will go through under this President's stated plans a vetting process that will try to find those Syrian opposition teams--people, individuals, and/or groups that are secular that are not Islamic jihadist and they are not a part of the Assad regime--in order to create this force that they are talking about.

Mr. Speaker, this will not be in all likelihood the last time we will come to this Chamber and discuss the fight against radical Islam or this fight in Syria. Those discussions may very well be, as General Dempsey said today, involving the deployment of U.S. military assets other than just fighting this thing from the air.

I want to be able at that point in time to say to the American people, ``We have explored every other opportunity, every other way of getting at this, of creating ground forces in Syria, short of sending American troops into harm's way again.'' I think it is what we deserve.

We clearly want to train these Syrians to be able to defend their own country. That is the most successful model. We have had a long experience with doing that, a checkered past in some instances; but, nevertheless, the best alternative, as we see today, is to make that happen.

I would also point out to my colleagues that by December 11, when this authorization expires, we will know a whole lot more than we do today.

Today, we are looking at this whole issue from about 10,000 feet, so to speak. By December 11, if this plan is put into place, we will know what the President specifically has in place. We will know how the President intends to vet. We will know how the President--where and how these training camps will be set up.

We will have the military's evaluation of how that process will work. We will just simply know a whole lot more then than we know today.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to get us to that point. Help us understand the additional facts that we don't have in the Record today in order to do that, but, to do that, you will have to support this amendment.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the McKeon amendment to get us in this overall group a better sense of understanding of what might or what might not be accomplishable by this December date, whether it is through a new CR or the omnibus or the NDAA so that, at that point in time, we will make a much more informed decision than we will today.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source