National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, as we return to the legislation,
unfortunately we are still, apparently, unable to move forward with
managers' packages and amendments and others. So I would like to
apologize to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have pending
amendments, who have parts of managers' packages, and who have invested
so many hours of time and effort to this legislation, not to mention
members of the committee who spent an inordinate amount of time putting
together a Defense authorization bill that I think all of us on both
sides, with the exception of four who voted against it, were proud of
and a product that was accomplished in a bipartisan fashion.

I, again, want to thank my friend from Rhode Island for all of his
hard work. But apparently right now we are still stuck in resistance.
Rather than go through all of the reasons why, I hope we can have some
serious negotiations in order for us to move forward and complete this
legislation.

Meanwhile, the world moves on, and there are greater and greater
challenges to our security. In fact, this morning the New York Times
says: ``Trainers Intended as Lift, but Quick Iraq Turnaround Is
Unlikely.'' That is The New York Times.

The New York Times says:

Mr. Obama's plan does not call for small teams of American
troops to accompany Iraqi fighters onto the battlefield, to
call in airstrikes or advise on combat operations. Nor is it
likely to significantly intensify an air campaign in which
American warplanes have been able to locate and bomb their
targets only about a quarter of the time.
``This alone is not going to do it,'' said Michele A.
Flournoy, who was the senior policy official in the Pentagon
during Mr. Obama's first term. ``It is a great first step,
but it should be the first in a series of steps.''

One of the reasons I have that quote from Michele Flournoy is that it
is not just former Bush administration officials. It is former Obama
administration officials who all agree that what we are doing is
without strategy and without prospect of success.

POLITICO article: ``Obama's Iraq quagmire.''

The President finds himself dragged back into a war he was
elected to end.
When pressed on why the latest efforts do not include
having American troops serve as spotters for airstrikes or
sending Apache aircraft to back up the Iraqi troops, Deputy
National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters the
president ``has been very clear he'll look at a range of
different options.''

That is encouraging that the President has been very clear. I love
it. All these spokespeople use two sorts of fillers: One is ``very
clear'' and the other is ``quite frankly.''

Do you ever notice that? Isn't that interesting? Maybe we should take
that out of their vocabulary--``very clear'' and ``frankly''--when they
are neither clear nor frank.

But anyway, Mr. Rhodes said--he is really a very interesting guy:

``The U.S. military cannot and should not do this simply for Iraqis,
and, frankly, Iraqis want to be in the lead themselves.''

``The U.S. military cannot and should not do this simply for
Iraqis.''

Does anyone in the world think that the United States of America
would be engaged simply for Iraqis? Has Mr. Rhodes ever listened to Mr.
Baghdadi and ISIS and their intentions to attack and destroy America as
much as they possibly can?

POLITICO: ``Trainers or advisors? White House and Pentagon don't
agree.''

The White House says the new batch of troops deploying to
Iraq are going to train Iraqi recruits to fight the Islamic
State. The Pentagon says the 450 American personnel headed to
Al-Taqaddum Air Base are going over just as advisers.
The mixed signals come as President Barack Obama struggles
to find a balance between achieving his goal of ``degrading
and ultimately destroying'' the terrorist group known as the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant while avoiding
restarting a war in Iraq that he has worked to
end since he became President in 2009.

From The Wall Street Journal editorial this morning: ``Obama's Latest
Iraq Escalation.''

President Obama all but admitted on Wednesday that his
strategy against the Islamic State is flailing by ordering an
additional 450 U.S. military advisers to join the 3,500
already in Iraq. Alas, this looks like more of the half-
hearted incrementalism that hasn't worked so far.
The fundamental problem with Mr. Obama's strategy is that
he is so determined to show that the U.S. isn't returning to
war in Iraq that he isn't doing enough to win the war we are
fighting. In September he pledged to ``degrade'' and
ultimately ``destroy'' ISIS--the kind of commitment a U.S.
President must never make lightly. But his fitful bombing and
timid special-forces campaign hasn't been able to stop the
jihadist advances, much less drive it out of Iraq's western
cities.
The longer ISIS stands up to a U.S. President pledging its
destruction, the more of a magnet it becomes for young men
willing to die for its perverted form of Islam.

Again, an article in the Wall Street Journal today: ``To U.S. Allies,
Al Qaeda Affiliate in Syria Becomes the Lesser Evil.''

This is what so many of us were so concerned about when we literally
begged for help for the Free Syrian Army back as long ago as 3 years
ago--that we would end up in a situation where we had the Faustian
choice of Al Qaeda, Bashar al-Assad versus Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-
affiliated organizations. That is a scenario that most of us said might
happen, unless we supported the Free Syrian Army.

The Wall Street Journal says:

In the three-way war ravaging Syria, should the local Al
Qaeda branch be seen as the lesser evil to be wooed rather
than bombed?
This is increasingly the view of some of America's regional
allies and even some Western officials.
Outnumbered and outgunned, the more secular, Western-backed
rebels have found themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder
with Nusra in key battlefields.

The list goes on and on.

Lebanon's Labor Minister, who is a prominent Lebanese Christian
politician long opposed to Mr. Assad, said:

``This is great error--we refuse the choice between ISIS
and Nusra, We want to choose between democracy and
dictatorship, not between terrorism and terrorism. If the
Syrians have to choose between ISIS, Nusra or Assad, they
will choose Assad.''

That is exactly the situation that Assad has been hoping for.
The New York Times: ``Russian Groups Crowdfund the War in Ukraine.''

The Novorossiya Humanitarian Battalion boasts on its
website that it provided funds to buy a pair of binoculars
used by rebels in eastern Ukraine to spot and destroy an
armored vehicle. . . . It is unclear just how extensive the
fundraising network is, or how much money flows through
it, though the separatist groups identified by The Times
claim in social media posts to have raised millions of
dollars.

The New York Times, ``Increasingly Frequent Call on Baltic Sea: `The
Russian Navy Is Back.' ''

The Wall Street Journal, ``The New Cold War's Arctic Front: Putin is
militarizing one of the world's coldest, most remote regions.''

The Washington Post:

The U.S. should send aid to democracy's front lines in
Ukraine.

In the past several months, Ukraine's freely elected
government has taken dramatic steps to reform its economy,
fight corruption and rebuild democratic institutions. It has
imposed painful austerity on average Ukrainians, stripped
oligarchs of political and economic privileges and rewritten
laws to encourage free enterprise and foreign investment. It
has done all this even while fighting a low-grade war against
Russia, which has deployed an estimated 10,000 troops to
eastern Ukraine and, with its local proxies, attacks
Ukrainian forces on a near-daily basis. . . . What's missing
is a decision by Mr. Obama to make the defense of Ukraine a
priority. The president has ceded leadership on the issue to
Germany and France and overridden those in his administration
and Congress who support arms deliveries. . . . A stronger
U.S. commitment to Ukraine will not guarantee its success.
But Mr. Obama's lukewarm support risks a catastrophic failure
for the cause of Western democracy.

I cannot emphasize enough to my colleagues that this is a critical
and fundamental issue as to whether we will provide defensive weapons
to Ukraine, and I would remind my colleagues who don't want to send
American troops anywhere that they are not asking for American troops.
They are not asking for a single boot on the ground. Why in the world
we can't provide them with defensive weapons is something I will never
understand as long as I live.

The New York Times, ``Hackers May Have Obtained Names of Chinese with
Ties to U.S. Government.''

And, of course, we all know that in the last week some 4 million
Americans, at least, have been hacked into and had some of their most
sensitive information broken into, which is one of the arguments many
of us had for consideration of the cyber bill on the floor of the
Senate as part of the Defense bill. Obviously, we are in a cyber war.
Obviously, it requires the involvement and engagement of the Department
of Defense, along with our intelligence agencies, and that is why I am
a bit taken aback by the vociferous opposition by my colleagues on that
side of the aisle to addressing this issue since it is clearly part of
the defense and security of this Nation.

I would like to mention--and I appreciate the indulgence of my friend
from Rhode Island--the issue of Russian rocket engines. Less than 6
months after the prohibition was enacted in last year's NDAA, which
would end the use of RD-180 on military space launches by 2019, the
administration has stated they want access to 14 more Russian rocket
engines. Agreeing to the administration's request endorses another 8
years of Russian rocket engines and over $300 million for Vladimir
Putin and his cronies.

We must not reward Vladimir Putin and the Russian military industrial
complex. We cannot in good conscience agree to reward the Russian
military industrial base with over $300 million in rocket engines while
they occupy Crimea, destabilize Ukraine, send weapons to Iran, and
violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

The bill before us today would limit the use of Russian rocket
engines and restates the committee's direction to end the use of
Russian engines for national security space launches by 2019. There are
some who want to continue our Nation's dependence on Russian rocket
engines. The NDAA would put an end to this dependence and stop hundreds
of millions of dollars from going to Vladimir Putin. We can meet our
national security space needs without Russia, and we must lead by
example by eliminating our dependence as quickly as possible and
fostering competition.

I say to my colleagues, we have two launch providers, ULA and SpaceX.
Regardless of the Russian RD-180, we will be able to provide full
redundant capabilities by 2017 with the Delta IV, Falcon 9, and Falcon
Heavy. There will be no capability gap. The Atlas 5 is not going
anywhere anytime soon. With the engines allowed under this amendment,
ULA has enough Atlas 5s to get them through at least 2018, if not
later.

As the New York Times editorial board stated last week:

When sanctions are necessary, the countries that impose
them must be willing to pay a cost, too. After leaning on
France to cancel the sale of two ships to Russia because of
the invasion of Ukraine, the United States can hardly insist
on continuing to buy national security hardware from one of
Mr. Putin's cronies.

I have a Reuter's article from last year. ``Comrade Capitalism: In
murky Pentagon deal with Russia, big profit for a tiny Florida firm.''

ULA's dealings with Russia are troubling and ethically questionable.
A Reuters investigation this past November on the RD-180 raises
troubling issues regarding the businesses and shell companies that
facilitate the purchase of Russian rocket engines. The report describes
a five-person company called RD AMROSS, a joint venture between Russian
rocket engine manufacturer Energomash and Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne
that collects nearly $93 million in cost markups.

The article uncovers that in the past, RD AMROSS was investigated by
the Defense Contract Management Agency, which determined that in a
previous contract, RD AMROSS had collected $80 million in ``unallowable
excessive pass-through charges.''

The article titled ``Comrade Capitalism'' also exposed the role
senior Russian politicians and close friends of Vladimir Putin play in
the in the Energomash management. The article states that according to
a Russian audit of Energomash, the Russian rocket manufacturer had been
operating at a loss because funds were
``being captured by unnamed offshore intermediary companies.''

Well, I just want to say there is no argument for the continued
purchase of these rocket engines from the Russians--from Vladimir Putin
and his cronies, one of whom was involved in the management and has
been sanctioned by the United States of America.

I have confidence America is capable of building our own rocket
engines, and I am confident we can do that in a reasonable period of
time--like 1 to 2 years. For us to commit to the continued use of these
rocket engines and making millions and millions of dollars, in this
case $300 million, for Vladimir Putin and his cronies is--the question
has to be asked of individuals who want to continue the purchase of
these rocket engines from this Russian shell company: Why do you want
to help Vladimir Putin? Why do you want to help Vladimir Putin and his
cronies by giving them as much as $300 million? That is a legitimate
question.

If any of my colleagues who support this basically unlimited or
continued purchase of rocket engines from Russia rather than having it
terminated in a reasonable and very short time, the question has to be
asked: Why are you helping Vladimir Putin? Why are you helping his
cronies? That is a legitimate question, and if any of my colleagues try
to force this continued and unnecessary purchase of Russian rocket
engines, that question needs to be asked of them.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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Mr. McCAIN. I would remind my good friend from Nevada, the Democratic
leader, for the last 2 years we took up the Defense authorization bill,
and it was taken up so late there was not a single amendment--not a
single, solitary amendment on the Defense authorization bill for the
last 2 years. So I understand the Democratic leader's commitment to
amendments. It is too bad that for 2 years we never had a single
amendment to the Defense authorization bill.

As far as relevant amendments are concerned, one of the things about
this body is that everybody has the right to propose an amendment until
their amendments are not made germane. The three pending Democratic
amendments we have now on the bill are not germane.

So all I can say is that I hope we can get a modification. I hope we
can move forward.

I just wish to point out one more time what I know that my colleagues
have heard over and over, and I will make it brief. Henry Kissinger
testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the world has
never been in more crises. This world is at risk, and we have to--we
have to protect the men and women who are serving in our security. I
would argue that a national defense authorization act is probably more
important now than it has been at any time in recent history.

I refuse to modify my request.

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Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as is obvious, we have an agreement to
votes on both the Gillibrand and Ernst amendments. I would imagine it
may require a recorded vote, but I am not positive. Then, we are
planning on moving forward with additional amendments as agreed to by
both sides and a managers' package as well. That is our intention. I am
told that at some point there may be a cloture motion on the bill as
well.

So I wish to thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his continued
cooperation, and hopefully we can get as many Members' amendments as
possible up and voted on and finish the bill, at the soonest, next
week.

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