[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 56 (Tuesday, March 28, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S982-S989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REPEALING THE AUTHORIZATIONS FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ--
Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Amendment No. 9
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 9, and I ask that
it be reported by number.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Texas [Mr. Cruz] proposes an amendment
numbered 9.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide findings related to the President's constitutional
authority to use military force to protect the United States and United
States interests)
On page 2, line 3, strike ``The Authorization'' and insert
the following:
(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Article II of the United States Constitution empowers
the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to direct the use of
military force to protect the Nation from an attack or threat
of imminent attack.
(2) This authority empowers the President to use force
against forces of Iran, a state responsible for conducting
and directing attacks against United States forces in the
Middle East and to take actions for the purpose of ending
Iran's escalation of attacks on, and threats to, United
States interests.
(3) The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against
Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243; 116 Stat. 1498;
50 U.S.C. 1541 note) is not independently required to
authorize the activities described in paragraphs (1) and (2).
(b) Repeal.--The Authorization
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, there is no responsibility we have as
Members of Congress more serious than protecting the men and women who
defend this Nation. We are facing a national security crisis due to Joe
Biden and his administration, which have repeatedly been unwilling to
act against repeated hostilities from the nation of Iran. They have
looked repeatedly for excuses to justify that inaction.
Now, I want to be clear. I am not where some Members of this body are
who want to maintain this authorization for use of military force. I
want to vote to repeal this authorization for use of military force.
The Iraq war was a long time ago, and I believe the Iraq war was a
mistake at the time it was fought. I would be enthusiastic about
Congress reasserting its war-making and war-declaring power by
repealing the AUMF.
But, at the same time, I don't want the repeal of the AUMF to be used
as an excuse by the Biden administration to roll over and do nothing if
and when Iran attacks and murders American soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and marines in the Middle East. And this is not hypothetical.
Just last week, General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, testified before the House that from January 2021 until last
week, there were 78 attacks against American forces in the Middle East
by Iranian-linked fighters--78. The Biden administration responded 3
times; 75 of them went unresponded. Tragically, but predictably,
appeasement doesn't work.
On Thursday morning, the CENTCOM Commander was testifying in front of
the House. Here on the floor of the Senate, we were debating this very
issue of the AUMF and Iranian aggression. We now know that, at 6:30 in
the morning eastern time on Thursday, Iran attacked U.S. forces,
murdered a U.S. citizen--a U.S. contractor--and wounded six other
Americans. That happened at 6:30 in the morning eastern time on
Thursday.
The Presiding Officer didn't know that on Thursday. I didn't know
that on Thursday. None of us knew that on Thursday. Why? Because the
Biden administration kept it a secret for 12 hours because they didn't
want to tell the Senate, while we were debating this issue, that an
American had just been murdered by Iran. That is disgraceful. The
Presiding Officer should be angry about it; I should be angry about it.
My amendment is very simple. My amendment restates that under article
II of the Constitution, the President has the authority to defend U.S.
troops and to respond to Iranian aggression.
The opponent of this bill, my friend Senator Kaine, will speak
shortly. What he said to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was
that the amendment is unnecessary; that article II already does that.
Well, good. If it is unnecessary, then the Democrats ought to support
my amendment and add it. Because I will tell you what it will get: If
we add this amendment, I will vote yes on the AUMF repeal. If we don't
add this amendment, I am a no.
Here is why: I don't want to give an excuse for the Biden
administration, the next time Iran attacks, to do nothing. If it is
unnecessary legally, it ought to be an easy give to say, ``Let's add
it, to be clear, that if you attack U.S. forces, the President has the
authority to respond,'' because I don't
[[Page S983]]
want the Biden administration using the repeal of the AUMF as an excuse
for their weakness or as an excuse for their appeasement.
There are some in the political world who are in favor of unending
wars. I am not one of them, but I am in favor of the United States
defending our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines.
Let me say this: I don't know if the amendment is going to get the
votes or not to pass. I think we will get most of the Republicans, and
I don't know if any Democrats will vote for it or not. But if this
amendment is defeated and the Congress goes on to repeal the AUMF and
Iran takes that as encouragement that the Biden administration will not
retaliate, I believe the consequences will be lives lost. I believe we
will be back on this floor with American soldiers and sailors and
airmen and marines having lost their lives due to Iranian aggression
because the Ayatollah believed the Biden administration would not
respond. The Presiding Officer doesn't want to see that. I don't want
to see that. I believe no Member of this body wants to see that.
If it is legally redundant, all the better to say: Let's send a
message to the Ayatollah that if you attack American forces, the
President--the Commander in Chief--has the authority to respond and
defend American forces.
That is the No. 1 responsibility of every Member of this body.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The bill that is on the floor is the effort to repeal authorizations
for war against Iraq that were passed by this body in 1991 and 2002.
These are not Iran authorizations. Iran and Iraq are not the same
nation. The wars against Iraq are over, and we need to repeal these.
This morning, in the Armed Services Committee, we heard from General
Austin. He talked about his visit to Iraq. He was there when we were
fighting against them as an adversary. Now they are a strategic partner
in the region against nonstate terrorists and against Iranian
aggression. They are an ally and a partner.
Senator Cruz's amendment does restate article II powers in part of
the findings in a way that I don't find objectionable; but then in
another part of the amendment, it goes on to authorize affirmative
military action by the United States against the nation of Iran.
Iran is a bad actor and is getting worse--I don't disagree with
that--but if what we need is a debate about a war authorization with
Iran, we shouldn't do it on the basis of a 1-minute amendment offered
on the floor of the Senate. That is how we got into this problem in the
first place. The Iraq authorization in 2002 was considered in the
Senate for 1 day, with no committee proceeding. There were five
amendments in 1 day, and we went into a war that most would agree was
one of the worst blunders strategically that this body has made. Let's
not rush into a war authorization with Iran. If there needs to be
military authorities to take offensive action against Iran, let's, at
least, give it the dignity of a debate--a full debate--and not a 1-
minute amendment vote.
Finally, this amendment is opposed by groups all over the political
spectrum, from Concerned Veterans for America to the Friends Committee
on National Legislation to the American Legion, because they don't
think we should be rushing into war. Iran and its challenging activity
and aggression warrant some significant attention, not a 1-minute
amendment vote on a bill that it is not related to.
I urge opposition to the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I respect my friend from Virginia, but he is
mistaken. This amendment is not a new authorization for military force.
It restates current law. The language in the finding is, word for word,
the finding that President Trump put in place when he authorized the
strike that took out General Soleimani.
After that strike against General Soleimani, I introduced an
amendment on this floor to commend President Trump and the Armed Forces
for taking out General Soleimani; and we voted on this, commending
President Trump and our Armed Forces for taking out Soleimani. This is
not breaking new ground. This is reiterating the proposition that the
Commander in Chief has the authority to defend U.S. Armed Forces.
To my friend from Virginia, I would note, by the way, earlier last
week, we voted on Senator Graham's amendment that would have been a new
authorization for use of military force. Many Senators voted against
it. This is a much narrower amendment. This says if Iran attacks U.S.
troops, the Commander in Chief can defend those troops. That is current
law, but it is important for Iran to hear. It is important for our
troops to hear. It is important for the Biden administration to hear.
Nowhere in my friend from Virginia's remarks did he dispute that Iran
has attacked the United States 78 times in the last 2\1/2\ years and
that the Biden administration has responded only three times. We owe
our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines to have their backs.
I urge support of this amendment.
Vote on Amendment No. 9
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to Cruz amendment
No. 9.
Mr. CRUZ. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons),
the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), and the Senator from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) are necessarily absent.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell).
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 41, nays 55, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 73 Leg.]
YEAS--41
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Braun
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Hagerty
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lummis
Manchin
Marshall
Mullin
Ricketts
Risch
Romney
Rosen
Rounds
Rubio
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sinema
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
NAYS--55
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Gillibrand
Grassley
Hassan
Hawley
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Lee
Lujan
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Paul
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schmitt
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Van Hollen
Vance
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
Young
NOT VOTING--4
Coons
Feinstein
Fetterman
McConnell
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Welch). On this vote, the yeas are 41, the
nays are 55.
Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this
amendment, the amendment is not agreed to.
The amendment (No. 9) was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Amendment No. 33
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 33 and ask
that it be reported by number.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment by number.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Alaska [Mr. Sullivan] proposes an
amendment numbered 33.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide that nothing shall be construed to hinder the
ability of the United States to respond rapidly and decisively to any
attacks by Iran or its proxy forces)
Strike section 2 and insert the following:
SEC. 2. REPEAL OF AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE
AGAINST IRAQ RESOLUTION OF 2022.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq
Resolution of 2002 (Public
[[Page S984]]
Law 107-243; 116 Stat. 1498; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) is hereby
repealed 30 days after the Director of National Intelligence
certifies in an intelligence assessment to Congress that
repeal will not degrade the effectiveness of United States-
led deterrence against Iranian aggression.
SEC. 3. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION REGARDING ABILITY TO COUNTER
ATTACKS BY IRAN AND ITS PROXY FORCES.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to restrict the
ability of the United States to respond rapidly and
decisively to threats by the Government of Iran or its proxy
forces against United States facilities or persons, or those
of United States allies and partners, as appropriate under
the authorities provided to the President in Article II of
the Constitution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 4
minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relationship to
Sullivan amendment No. 33.
The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, Iranian proxies have attacked U.S.
forces in the Middle East 80 times since President Biden took office.
Deterrence is failing.
Many of us are deeply concerned that removing the 2002 AUMF will
further erode American deterrence relative to Iran, further
jeopardizing our troops in the region.
Why are we concerned about this?
First, the 2002 AUMF was, as recently as 2020, used to support the
very justified killing of the Iranian Quds Force leader Qasem
Soleimani.
And, second, even as we are debating removing the 2002 AUMF right
now, Iranian proxies have stepped up attacks on Americans.
My amendment is simple and prudent and common sense. It requires the
DNI to certify that the removal of the 2002 AUMF will not undermine
American deterrence against Iran. This is prudent, and it is due
diligence.
Why wouldn't every U.S. Senator want to know whether the actions we
are taking right now here in the Senate enhance or diminish deterrence
against Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism?
Under my amendment, the DNI has 30 days to do this analysis, and 30
days should not be considered an inconvenience when American lives are
literally at stake.
I urge all of my colleagues to support this prudent, commonsense
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I respect my Armed Services colleague from
Alaska, but I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
Iraq is not Iran. The bill that is on the floor is to repeal war
authorizations voted on by this body against Iraq in 1991 and 2002.
Iraq is not Iran.
The President of the United States has sent two messages to this body
saying that the repeal of the Iraq war authorizations are necessary
because Iraq is now a partner of the United States and that the repeal
will neither jeopardize any current military operation, make the United
States less safe, or take options away from the President to defend
against Iranian aggression.
The certification has been given by the President. This is a bill
that would ask one of his subordinates, who has been available to talk
to any of us by phone in the 2 weeks this bill has been on the table--
it would basically say: OK, Mr. President, you said this, but we want
to hear from one of your subordinates.
Avril Haines has been available to talk to any Member of this Senate
in the 2 weeks this bill has been on the floor. The President has
indicated this would not jeopardize our ability to defend against the
activities of Iran-backed militias. We should not conflate Iraq, now a
partner of the United States, with Iran, an adversary of the United
States.
I urge a ``no'' vote.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, do I have any time left?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 20 seconds.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I am not conflating Iran and Iraq. Iran
right now is the threat, and, again, I ask my colleagues--none of whom
have an answer--why wouldn't we do the due diligence, 30 additional
days, to ask the DNI if what we are doing on the Senate floor right now
undermines American deterrence relative to Iran?
It is a simple request. It shows that we are acting to make sure we
protect our troops in the region. And, again, 30 days is not a lot of
time----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SULLIVAN. To make sure our troops in the region are safe and
secure.
Vote on Amendment No. 33
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No.
33.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons),
the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), and the Senator from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) are necessarily absent.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Tillis).
The result was announced--yeas 38, nays 57, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 74 Leg.]
YEAS--38
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Britt
Capito
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Hagerty
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lummis
Manchin
Mullin
Murkowski
Ricketts
Risch
Romney
Rosen
Rounds
Rubio
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sinema
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tuberville
Wicker
NAYS--57
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Braun
Brown
Budd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Cortez Masto
Daines
Duckworth
Durbin
Gillibrand
Grassley
Hassan
Hawley
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Lee
Lujan
Markey
Marshall
Menendez
Merkley
Moran
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Paul
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schmitt
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Van Hollen
Vance
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
Young
NOT VOTING--5
Coons
Feinstein
Fetterman
McConnell
Tillis
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 38, the nays are
57.
Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this
amendment, the amendment is not agreed to.
The amendment (No. 33) was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, we hear from Democrats a lot these days
about ``ending the Iraq war.'' Let's pause for a moment to remember the
first time they ``ended the Iraq war.''
President Obama pulled American troops out of Iraq just over a decade
ago. The ``dumb'' war, as Obama called it, was finally over--except it
wasn't. It turns out those American troops had kept a lid on a lot of
chaos. When they left, the bad guys came back with a vengeance.
President Obama dismissed ISIS as the ``JV team'' of the terrorist
world, but even he couldn't turn a blind eye when ISIS seized Fallujah
just 2 years after our troops left Iraq, then Mosul a few months later,
and then threatened to bring all of Iraq into their so-called
caliphate.
So, ultimately, President Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and
great ender of the Iraq war, had to start a new Iraq war not even 3
years after he had bugged out, although actually it was an Iraq-Syria
war. Obama's retreat backfired so badly that he had to deploy our
troops to two countries this time, not one. And guess which use-of-
force resolution President Obama cited to fight ISIS. The same one that
President Trump relied on in 2020 to kill Iran's terrorist mastermind,
Qasem Soleimani, which is the same resolution Democrats want to repeal
today. All of which goes to show that this debate is not about Saddam
Hussein; it is about whether the President--whether any President
should have maximum authority to pursue America's enemies in Iraq and
Syria.
The Democrats have argued that the 2002 resolution wasn't necessary
to stop
[[Page S985]]
ISIS because the 2001 War on Terror use-of-force resolution also
applied. That is true. But apparently President Obama didn't think the
2001 resolution was sufficient since he also invoked the 2002
resolution. I would welcome any Democrat to explain why the leader of
their party was wrong.
Somewhat to my amusement, some Democrats and a few Republicans have
contended, not to worry, the President can always rely on his Commander
in Chief authority under article II of the Constitution to order
military operations like the Soleimani strike. I agree. Yet these are
the very same Senators who usually argue that article II authorizes
only the most immediate and modest actions in self-defense. Everything
else, they say, takes congressional approval. I will be curious to hear
from them the next time a President relies primarily on his article II
authority to take necessary action to defend America.
But enough with debating how many JAG lawyers can dance on the head
of a pin. Let's ask a more important question. In the real world, will
repealing these resolutions make America more safe or less safe? To
which I answer, just look around the region.
Iran's proxies are trying to kill Americans every day, and that is
hardly an exaggeration. Just last week, a suicide drone made by Iran
killed an American contractor and wounded six other Americans in Syria.
An Iranian rocket attack wounded another American after that.
Meanwhile, ISIS still carries out dozens of massacres and suicide
bombings every year. That is not to mention new terrorist groups who
may be waiting in the wings, ready for their shot at the title as
America retreats.
If we repeal these resolutions, will it make America more safe or
less safe?
The answer to that question is obvious. Threats still originate in
and emanate from Iraq, whether terrorist groups like ISIS or Iran's
proxies. We should not lightly throw away additional authorities to
target them.
Furthermore, we shouldn't give Joe Biden any more reason to avoid
taking necessary action to protect America. President Biden is already
in full flight from the Middle East. It was President Biden who ended
the war in Afghanistan, just like President Obama ended the Iraq war.
Now the Taliban rules in Kabul, harboring terrorists who threaten our
country.
Iran killed an American last week because Joe Biden never acts until
Iran kills an American. Since he became President, Iran has attacked
American positions at least 83 times. Yet President Biden has only
retaliated four times. Little wonder the ayatollahs think they can get
away with it, as they have with that latest strike, because after we
finally hit back last week, Iran struck our positions again, injuring
yet another American. Yet Joe Biden, as of this moment, has not
retaliated.
A couple months ago the administration also cited an obscure
legalistic grounds for why President Biden didn't shoot down a Chinese
spy balloon over the Aleutian Islands. The last thing this President
needs is more encouragement from Congress to turn the other cheek.
Besides the message to the President, we should also consider the
signal we send to our friends and enemies in the Middle East. President
Biden has made matters worse through his shabby treatment of America's
best friends. He has attacked the Netanyahu government over its
domestic policies and funded its political opponents. He has attacked
Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and promised to turn the Kingdom
into a ``pariah'' state.
If we send the message that we are abandoning our friends, we
shouldn't be surprised if they begin to hedge their bets. Already, our
allies are doing just that, turning to China as a new power broker.
Just this month, Beijing brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
It has encouraged the Saudis to trade oil in Chinese currency instead
of dollars. China has also undertaken to build a secret port in the
United Arab Emirates.
The trend is unmistakable. China looks like a rising power in the
region, while America appears to be on the decline and on the way out.
We can reinforce that impression today or not. Democrats can say that
is not the message they intend, but what matters more is what our
friends and foes hear. We will vote on it soon.
And it is not just China that is exploiting our weaknesses. Iran sees
our retreat as a green light to dominate Iraq. Already it is
manipulating in Iraq's politics and arming Shia militias. Iran just
signed a border deal with Iraq to send more arms and cash to its
proxies. Tehran's influence will only grow if ours recedes. We will
vote on that soon too.
In short, repealing these resolutions will embolden terrorists,
embolden Iran, and embolden China, while demoralizing our allies and
making it harder to punish attacks on Americans. Do Senators really
want to sign up for these consequences?
When another ISIS rears its head or Iran's proxies use Iraq's
territory for safe haven, do Senators really want to be responsible for
stripping our troops of these additional legal authorities?
I don't, and I won't. But if they do, let them say so plainly. Let
them say that this academic exercise, which even they admit won't
legally constrain any President, is worth these deadly real-world
consequences.
Our men and women deserve that honest debate. After all, it is their
lives depending on it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, this week, the Senate debates whether to
end two authorizations of the use of military force against Iraq.
Congress passed the first authorization in 1991 for the original Gulf
war, a strategic and narrowly scoped campaign to liberate Kuwait and
punish Saddam Hussein's unlawful aggression.
Congress passed the second one in 2002, paving the way for the
disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq and the biggest blunder in
the history of American foreign policy.
We have spent far too little time on this floor considering the
legacy of both wars, and I want to thank Senators Kaine and Senator
Young for this long overdue debate about the constitutional
responsibility of Congress in our foreign policy.
Most Americans, I think, would be surprised to learn that Congress
has much of a role in foreign policy because for virtually my entire
time in the Senate, there has been very little evidence that we have
played one.
The Founders envisioned a very specific role for Congress, and it
wasn't to micromanage foreign policy. They knew matters of war and
peace required a level of coherence and action at odds with a
legislative branch that, by design, often moves slowly and encourages
disagreement and some would say sometimes even incoherence.
But if the Founders had a reason for giving the Executive broad
flexibility to conduct war, they also had a reason for giving Congress
sole power to declare war.
They wanted to make it hard to start a war, not easy. They knew that
Presidents would often find war tempting as a means to amass power, run
roughshod over our constitutional checks and balances. From their study
of ancient times, they also understood the ways in which endless war
threatened and undermined democracy.
Here is what James Madison wrote in 1795, just 6 years after
ratification of the Constitution:
Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the
most to be dreaded. . . . No nation could preserve its
freedom in the midst of continued warfare.
The Founders understood this because they studied history. They knew
our history better than we know it ourselves, and they sought to apply
its lessons to decisions in their time. For example, they read about
how the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta corroded Athenian
democracy from within by straining its economy, by feeding unrest, and
creating a vacuum for strongmen who were peddling easy answers to
difficult questions.
That is why they gave Congress--not the President--the sole power to
declare war, but also to ratify treaties, confirm our military and
diplomatic leaders, and approve our budget for national security. And
they expected Congress to oversee foreign policy actively on behalf of
the American people.
If we look back over the last 30 years--twice the length of time that
the pages on this floor have even been
[[Page S986]]
alive. If you look at the last 30 years from when Congress first
authorized the use of force against Iraq until today, what can we say
about how Congress has lived up to its responsibility? Has Congress
fulfilled the responsibility that the Framers gave it? I am afraid
there is not very much that is good in that record.
For 30 years, I would argue, this body has been derelict in its
responsibility, and it has come at a terrible time and with a terrible
price--a terrible price. If we go back three decades to the early
nineties, I had just started law school. The first President Bush was
in the White House, and we were living in the early years of a post-
Cold War world. President Bush had inherited what he called a new world
order following the collapse of the Soviet Union. We didn't really
appreciate it at the time, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, the
United States lost a fundamental organizing principle that had been
with us, really, for decades.
The Cold War was not just a fight against the Soviets; it was a fight
against tyranny. For Americans of my generation, the Cold War defined
our foreign policy for good and for ill. It also defined us as a people
and defined who we were not. It gave us purpose. It unified us. It made
us deliberate about our role in the world.
The Presiding Officer may have read today--I did--a new poll from the
University of Chicago where, for the first time, there is a vast
minority of Americans who say patriotism is important to them; for the
first time, there is a vast minority of Americans who say religion is
important to them. You know, the vast majority of people are worried
that they are not going to provide something better for the next
generation, which is where I think a lot of that comes from.
But think about that change--that change--from when we were being
raised to how people feel about it today. It is dramatic. I would say
we can't give up. There is a lot of patriotic business for us to do,
not just on the floor of the Senate but in America today. I would
argue--and I will in a minute--there is as much for us to do now as
when we were in the Cold War and we were having our fight with the
Soviet Union.
Those principles of sort of engagement and disengagement, of
agreement and disagreement, but a way of thinking about the world also
had an important effect in terms of constraining our actions, limiting,
to some extent, our behavior abroad and disciplining our politics at
home.
In the fight against communism, we made more than our fair share of
egregious mistakes, to be sure. Among them--the worst--the Vietnam war.
But I would say, still, our foreign policy in those days and the values
that underlay it in total, in sum, strengthened our democracy at home
and advanced U.S. interests abroad--not perfectly but mostly.
The fall of the Berlin Wall disoriented us. Could America continue to
lead the world without the moral and political organizing principle of
an ideological foe? That was the question. One answer was to reject the
question, to sort of assume it away; that to imagine that the triumph
over Soviet communism meant that the liberal order--our democracy and
capitalism--had prevailed. And there were people writing books about
the end of history, if the Presiding Officer will remember, saying that
is exactly what had happened.
When Saddam Hussein threatened that new world order by invading his
neighbor Kuwait, the U.S. rallied the world to drive him out. In just 7
months, our military routed the Iraqi Army, liberated Kuwait, and
effectively put Saddam Hussein in a box. George H.W. Bush showed
restraint. The first President Bush showed restraint. No country in the
world--no tyrant in the world--was more locked down by our no-fly zone
than Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
We had built international support from all over the world for what
George Bush had done. You think it wasn't a hard decision for him to
say we could go into Baghdad--we could go in and get that terrible
dictator--but he knew we didn't have an answer for the sectarian
violence that would break out in the aftermath of toppling Saddam
Hussein, so he showed restraint.
I think, at the time, our total and swift victory gave confidence to
those who believed that our political project was done; that history
had ended; that we had finally swept tyranny into the dustbin of
history; and that all we had to do was clap our hands, sit back, and
watch democracy spread.
Unfortunately, as is often the case in human events--as is always the
case in human events--reality turned out to be far messier. That naive
optimism ended when al-Qaida flew planes into the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon and crashed a plane in Pennsylvania, murdering 3,000
of our fellow Americans.
So the first decade of the 2000s was characterized by a single-minded
focus on responding to the pain, to the shock, and to the tragedy of 9/
11.
All of this, I think, had an incredibly disorienting effect. Since
those times, since those days, we have been fighting not a Cold War
against a single rival power but a perpetual Global War on Terror that
finds enemies everywhere and has led to catastrophic decisions; a
perpetual war on terror that has terrorized us. And this endless war
led Congress to cede vast authority to the President to wage that war,
surrendering our constitutional responsibility to set the boundaries,
to debate the wisdom, and oversee the use of lethal force in the name
of the American people, which is one of the reasons that we were sent
here in the first place.
In the first Gulf war, Congress's deference to the executive had no
significant consequences because the first Bush administration actually
had a coherent strategy based on limited and achievable objectives:
liberate Kuwait, defeat the Iraqi Army, contain Saddam.
After 9/11, congressional deference cost the American people and our
leadership in the world dearly.
In Afghanistan, what began as a limited mission to destroy al-Qaida
metastasized into a 20-year campaign to transform the country into a
liberal democracy, something Afghanistan would never become--certainly
not over that time period and probably not in our own lives--and a cost
of over 2,300 American servicemembers, nearly 4,000 contractors, and
over 46,000 Afghan civilians.
In 2002, when the second President Bush came to Congress and
misrepresented the threat of weapons of mass destruction--which Saddam
had destroyed years before and which many of our allies and our own
intelligence Agencies doubted that he had--when they claimed that
Saddam's secular regime was somehow tied to al-Qaida, a terrorist group
driven by religious fanaticism, when they said the war could pay for
itself with Iraqi oil, conclude in months, not years, and that we could
somehow turn a Nation whose sectarian rivalries Saddam had prevented
from exploding through violence and oppression into yet another
pluralistic democracy; most people in Congress went along for the
ride--except, I should say, for a few of my colleagues still in this
body, including Senator Durbin; Senator Murray; Senator Reed; Senator
Stabenow; Senator Wyden; my former senior Senator Mark Udall, then a
Member of the House--I say to the pages that are here: Mark their names
into history books for the vote that they took. That was a courageous
vote that they took. I believe the Presiding Officer's--he is not
here--but I believe the Presiding Officer's predecessor, Chairman Leahy
from the great State of Vermont, took that courageous vote as well.
Except for the handful of them and my colleague Mark Udall, then a
Member of the House--except for them, almost no one here asked if there
was even a strategy or what it was. They didn't ask how toppling a
Sunni dictator in a Shia majority country would strengthen Iran. And I
can assure you, they didn't ask what China was doing, as we committed
ourselves to a second nation-building project in the Middle East.
And by acquiescing to the President, Congress essentially cut off the
American people from the vital debate about the true cost and
consequences of the war.
And in the end, the cost was terrible. The Iraq war killed over 4,600
American servicemembers and over 3,600 contractors. Over 50 times--50
times--more troops were killed or injured in the post-war insurgency
than in the original march to Baghdad. The war killed
[[Page S987]]
200,000 Iraqi civilians and displaced over 9 million people. It left
the country in ruins and its identity in tatters.
Twenty years later, Iraqis are still trying to pick up the pieces.
Since the war, corruption has stolen $150 billion of Iraq's wealth.
That is over half of the country's entire GDP last year. Twenty years
later, Iran is also in a stronger position than ever, seizing on the
vacuum we created with proxies from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon to Yemen,
threatening our troops in the region and vital allies like Israel.
China is cutting deals today. Having avoided those 20 years of
bedlam, they are now showing up and making peace agreements between the
Iranians and the Saudis, not having paid the price that we've paid. And
20 years later, America's global leadership and credibility have yet to
recover as a result of the decisions that we made.
In the name of spreading freedom across the globe, we, instead,
spread images of chaos and civil strife, of torture at Abu Ghraib, of
waterboarding and black sites--all violations of the values that we
claimed to serve; that I believe we do serve.
And to pay for it all, we borrowed $8 trillion from our children--$8
trillion--from the next generation of Americans.
In fact, we were so committed to not paying for that war, to not
sacrificing the way our parents and grandparents did when they were
engaged in wars, we were so committed to not bearing the burden that we
cut taxes twice and borrowed another $10 trillion from our children to
pay for those.
Imagine what we could have done for this country if we had spent that
$18 trillion here at home, the good-paying jobs we could have created,
the 21st-century industries and infrastructure we could have built, the
opportunities we could have created for the next generation of
Americans. Instead, from their perspective, we would have been better
off lighting that $18 trillion on fire.
I bring this up not to relitigate the past but to remind us of the
profound cost to America and the world of giving Presidents a blank
check in foreign policy, of shirking our constitutional responsibility,
our duty to provide real oversight and hold the Executive accountable
to our democratic values, to the rule of law, and to the voices and
opinions of the American people.
We should acknowledge that there will be moments when doing so will
be inconvenient for us in the short term. There are countries around
the world that are not inconvenienced by the set of values we purport
to live by. The fact that they are inconvenient doesn't mean they are
not right.
As the Founders understood, there is always going to be a temptation
to trade freedom for the illusion of security, to act instead of
consult, to ignore our commitment to human rights and the rule of law
for expediency, or to turn a blind eye to corruption or incompetence by
a President of your own party--especially of your own party. But over
the long term, our willingness to resist those temptations I think is
what makes America different. It is what makes our foreign policy
different at its best. It is what has made us a beacon to the world
even if our light has flickered at times. It is why the world doesn't
look to China or to Russia for moral leadership; it looks to us.
Because American foreign policy at its best has never been about
serving the whims of a tyrant or a party boss; it is about serving the
American people and offering a better vision for humanity through the
power of our example and our partnership with the world. And it is why
we in Congress have to take our roles seriously in this democracy--we
really do--to take our obligation to the American people just as
seriously and not simply honor our constitutional balance of power in
the breach but every single time.
So my hope is that this modest vote we are going to take is the
beginning of a new commitment by Congress to fulfill our constitutional
responsibility, to bring the American people back into this
conversation about what our global leadership should look like in the
21st century, and to work in partnership with the President to define a
new organizing principle for our leadership because we don't have
another 30 years to wait, and the whole world is watching.
I, for one, know that--I think when we pick up the enduring values
that reflect our foreign policy at its best, that reflect a sense of
justice here at home as well, when we can stand for both freedom and
for opportunity, which we have decade after decade after decade, there
is a coalition of countries all around the world that would rather sign
up to that vision than sign up to the tyranny that is on offer from
other societies.
But we have to remember what the Founders told us. In our time, we
have to exercise this responsibility that we have here in Congress, and
we need to do the work faithfully that the American people sent us here
to do.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 13
(Purpose: To establish a Joint Select Committee on Afghanistan to
conduct a full investigation and compile a joint report on the United
States withdrawal from Afghanistan.)
Mr. Scott of Florida. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 13
and ask that it be reported by number.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment by number.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Florida, [Mr. SCOTT], for himself and
others, proposes an amendment numbered 13.
(The amendment is printed in the Record of March 21, 2023, under
``Text of Amendments.'')
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. In September 2021, President Biden's misguided
and dangerous decisions in his botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from
Afghanistan led to America's most stunning, unforced, and humiliating
defeat in decades.
Due to President Biden's carelessness and failed leadership, 13 U.S.
servicemembers were lost; billions of dollars of U.S. military
equipment were left for the Taliban, and here is a picture of some of
it; and hundreds of American citizens were stranded behind enemy lines.
The world is now a more dangerous place. Our enemies, like Russia,
Communist China, and Iran, are emboldened, and the American people are
rightfully furious.
We must have accountability, and the best way to do that is
establishing a bipartisan, bicameral Joint Select Committee on
Afghanistan--similar to the Iran-Contra committees--to conduct a full
investigation and compile a thorough report on President Biden's
tragically failed withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I appreciate very much my colleague from
Florida's continued focus on the need to fully account for what went
wrong with the Biden administration's horribly botched withdrawal from
Afghanistan; however, I regret that I must oppose his amendment because
this is not the right venue for establishing a committee of this
nature.
In the coming months, we are going to consider the annual National
Defense Authorization Act, and important oversight issues such as the
ones raised in the amendment by the gentleman from Florida should be
debated within that context and that framework.
This legislative effort to remove outdated authorities that were put
in place two decades ago for a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq to
prevent them from abuse in the future has to be kept, in my estimation,
as clean as possible to enable them to be signed into law without
further delay.
As I said before, by allowing these authorizations to live on long
past their original purpose, Congress has forfeited the power to
authorize military force to the executive branch.
I know my colleague from Florida cares deeply about oversight issues,
as evidenced by this amendment, so I hope he and I can work together
both to pass a clean repeal of these two outdated authorizations and
then discuss
[[Page S988]]
robust oversight measures for Afghanistan within the confines of the
NDAA process.
In closing, I would urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment
in order to keep this bill a clean repeal of the 1991 and 2002
authorizations.
Vote on Amendment No. 13
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to
amendment No. 13.
Mr. YOUNG. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays are ordered.
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that the vote begin
now.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons),
the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr.
Sanders) are necessarily absent.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell).
The result was announced--yeas 33, nays 62, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 75 Leg.]
YEAS--33
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Braun
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cramer
Cruz
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Kennedy
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
Mullin
Paul
Rosen
Rounds
Rubio
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sullivan
Tuberville
Wicker
NAYS--62
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Crapo
Duckworth
Durbin
Gillibrand
Grassley
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Lankford
Lujan
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Ricketts
Risch
Romney
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Van Hollen
Vance
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
Young
NOT VOTING--5
Coons
Feinstein
Fetterman
McConnell
Sanders
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warnock). On this vote, the yeas are 33,
the nays are 62.
Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this
amendment, the amendment is not agreed.
The amendment (No. 13) was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Amendment No. 40
(Purpose: To establish the Office of the Special Inspector General
for Ukraine Assistance.)
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 40 and ask that
it be reported by number.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Missouri [Mr. Hawley], proposes an
amendment numbered 40.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 4
minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to a vote in relation to
Hawley amendment No. 40.
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, this body has spent to date $113 billion
on the war in Ukraine and counting. Yet we do not have any direct
oversight of any of the money that is being spent.
My amendment is very simple. Let's create 1 government watchdog--not
2, not 3, not 20; 1 government watchdog--to oversee every cent that is
spent on Ukraine and to report back to this Congress and to the
American people as to how their hard-earned money is being spent.
Currently, there are dozens of reporting requirements. There are
multiple bureaucrats who are involved.
Listen, we learned this the hard way in Afghanistan, where, after
years of lack of oversight, billions of dollars wasted, and,
tragically, many lives lost, this body finally created a special
inspector general to oversee the Afghanistan effort and reporting
requirements, to report back to the public on what we knew and were
learning. That is what we should do in this case.
I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I don't have an objection to the notion
that the funds we are spending together in Ukraine should have careful
analysis. We know from past experience, if there is not that careful
analysis done, there could be problems. This is not the bill to do it.
When we do war authorizations, we don't put other amendments on, no
matter how good they might be, if they are extraneous to the war
authorization. The 1991 and 2002 war authorizations did not include
additional items, no matter how meritorious they might have been.
So while this idea is an idea that I think people can gravitate
toward, I think this is the wrong bill, the wrong vehicle, to insert
something about Ukraine into this repeal of the Iraq war
authorizations.
We have not done a repeal for 52 years. The authorizations themselves
were clean authorizations.
I would urge a ``no'' vote so that the repeal, when we vote on it
tomorrow, will be a clean repeal. I would urge my colleagues to vote
no.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, very briefly, first of all, I want to
compliment Senator Hawley for pursuing this route.
There isn't a person in this room, there isn't a person in America
who doesn't want to see that every dollar spent for the taxpayers is
looked after. In this particular instance, I am going to oppose this
simply because there are already 64 ongoing or planned audits and
reports on U.S. assistance to Ukraine.
This piece of legislation would require a quarterly schedule, and
that actually reduces the number. For instance, USAID direct budgetary
support comes every 2 months.
So this is being looked after, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where we
are talking about enormous amounts of money--not that this isn't a
large amount, but those were enormous, and the work in auditing was not
very good. In this case, it is very good. We have been looking at it in
the Intelligence Committee, and we have been looking at it in the
Foreign Relations Committee and have found zero siphoning of U.S.
dollars. So this really is an expenditure that is not necessary because
it is being looked after already.
I would urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, do I have any time left?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. You have 49 seconds.
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I would just say, in response to my
friend's point about there being 60-plus reporting requirements already
in place, that is part of the problem. When everybody is in charge,
nobody is in charge.
Currently, the oversight requirements are spread across three
different Agencies of the inspector general. The State Department, the
Defense Department, and USAID each would have a little piece of this--
dozens of disparate requirements.
Let's unify it. We have done this before--one inspector general, one
staff, one set of requirements. Make it public. Give the American
people the accountability they deserve.
I urge a ``yes'' vote.
I yield the floor.
Vote on Amendment No. 40
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
Mr. MENENDEZ: I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons),
the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from
Pennsylvania
[[Page S989]]
(Mr. Fetterman), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin) are
necessarily absent.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr.
Tuberville).
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 26, nays 68, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 76 Leg.]
YEAS--26
Barrasso
Blackburn
Braun
Britt
Budd
Cruz
Daines
Fischer
Graham
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Johnson
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
Moran
Ossoff
Paul
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sinema
Sullivan
Tester
Vance
NAYS--68
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Boozman
Brown
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Duckworth
Durbin
Ernst
Gillibrand
Grassley
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Hyde-Smith
Kaine
Kelly
Kennedy
King
Klobuchar
Lankford
Lujan
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Mullin
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Ricketts
Risch
Romney
Rosen
Rounds
Rubio
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Thune
Tillis
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
Young
NOT VOTING--6
Coons
Feinstein
Fetterman
Manchin
McConnell
Tuberville
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). On this vote, the yeas are 26, the
nays are 68.
Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this
amendment, the amendment is not agreed to.
The amendment (No. 40) was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
____________________