Mr. Warner: Mr. President, the cloture vote was very fully discussed by the distinguished Senator from Nevada and the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, with leadership and our ranking members, so I am confident that somehow this matter can be worked out. I want you to know, however, that I stand steadfast behind the content of a resolution I put together, along with Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Susan Collins, and some eight other cosponsors.
The question is how does the Senate bring it into focus under the complexity of our rules. I won't take the time to deal with that now, but I would say to those following this debate that we stand, the Senators I mentioned, the two principal cosponsors and myself, firmly behind this resolution, the content of which has been amended.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amended copy of the resolution be printed in the Record following my remarks, allowing ready reference for those persons examining the Congressional Record.
The Presiding Officer: Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. Warner: That resolution has been distorted and misunderstood in the debate thus far. That is one of the reasons I am so anxious to proceed with this debate. I want to make clear, because it was mentioned that perhaps these resolutions were brought along for political cover, that on that issue each Senator has to speak for themselves, but I assure my colleagues that this Senator from Virginia has moved forward with my thoughts and my ideas in the best interest of the country and the best interest of the men and women of the United States military, and not for any political cover. Nor will I, in any way, impugn the motives of Senators whose opinions differ from mine.
This being my 29th year in the Senate, I have never, to my knowledge, ever intentionally, and I don't think indirectly, impugned the motive of any Senator for the position he or she has taken on a matter. We are all patriots. We are equal patriots. We all support the men and women of the Armed Forces. Let that be understood.
I firmly believe, as we are approaching this debate, that it is imperative that the Senate work its will, and work its will in the open, on this issue which is so critical at this point in time in our many years of involvement in the Iraq situation.
I solidly support the President in his view that we cannot accept failure in getting a government, whether it is this one or an ensuing government, in Iraq up and running and functioning such that it can seize the full range of sovereignty in this nation, and not let this nation implode, causing absolute disaster throughout the region. Indeed, certainly as it relates to energy and other issues, it could impact severely on the rest of the world, not only in energy but in a signal that the terrorists have won. We cannot let that happen. So let's let the Senate work its will, and I think our colleagues here, the distinguished leaders, will work out a procedure by which we will do that. The comment was made, and understandably, that this is a nonbinding resolution. Nonbinding. Well, we have them in the history of the Senate. At this time, this Senator is not voting for any cutoff of funds. That is our one constitutional lever we can pull. As a matter of fact, in our resolution--I refer to our resolution as the one that I, together with Senator Ben Nelson and Senator Susan Collins of Maine have put together--we specifically have included an iteration of the concept advanced by our distinguished colleague Senator Gregg, which may come before the Senate. We solidly support that concept of no cutoff of funds.
What do we do short of that? Well, we have a debate. Somehow you have to have some focal point, something written down, some document in writing as to the ability of this institution, the Senate, to reach a consensus, and a bipartisan consensus, on how best we go forward with a new strategy in Iraq. That has been my motivation from the very beginning, to put this institution on record on a bipartisan basis. I am not talking about one or two Senators on that side joining all the Senators on this side or vice versa, no, a truly on its face bipartisan consensus, albeit a resolution without any legal force and effect.
It is important that the people of this country give their support to the men and women in uniform and to a strategy which they hope will succeed in our goal of not letting Iraq implode and fall into greater disaster than it is experiencing today. So how do they go about it? The President, in his speech on January 10, explicitly said those who have other ideas, generally speaking, or concepts, bring them forward. That is what we have done. We have exercised what the President has given us, the option to come forward.
To quote the President: "If Members," referring to Congress, "have improvements that can be made, we will make them," he said. "If circumstances change, we will adjust, showing flexibility," said the President.
Using that as our chart, we then proceeded as a group to figure out how best to comment on the President's strategy. We did say, and I repeat it, that the Senate disagrees with the plan to augment our forces by 21,500 and urge the President, instead, to consider all options and alternatives for achieving the strategic goals set forth below. Each Senator has to interpret that phrase, that sentence, as he or she so desires. I repeat that. Each Senator has the right to look at that and decide, one, do you disagree in any way with what the President is doing and the force of 21,500.
I believe we can accomplish the goals this country has set out to accomplish in Iraq, goals that were enumerated by the Baker-Hamilton commission, in a manner that we do not need a full force of 21,500. Indeed, that force, we now learn, could be somewhat higher than that number if you are going to have the essential support troops joined. Unfortunately, there was no reference to that made in the President's speech, and right now it is a matter of debate and contention.
I don't know what the additional figure is, but in my judgment, I say most respectfully that we do not in this resolution in any way challenge or contravene the constitutional provision that you are Commander in Chief and that you can deploy troops which, in your best judgment, are for the security of this Nation and the welfare of the troops. We don't challenge that. We simply accept your offer, we have expressed it, so we support it.
I support, for example, additional troops if they are necessary over and above the current level for operations in Al Anbar. On my last trip to that region, it was clear that the marines had enough troops to do certain portions of their mission, but it was also clear that additional forces were needed. Perhaps they could come from within the current force structure currently in Iraq. But perhaps you need--to use the word "surge"--some modest surge to meet the requirements for Al- Anbar to be brought under a higher level of security.
Nothing in this resolution prohibits the President from having some portion of that surge force of 21,500 utilized to do those things which are essential--further training of the Iraqi forces, further embedding, enlarging the number of troops to be embedded with the Iraqi forces. Those are the sorts of things this Senator supports. Within the framework of this resolution, I can take those stands.
But I turn now to the principal thing we have in this resolution, and that is one of the main things that I believe has to have greater emphasis. It is as follows. We state it very clearly in a provision in our resolution:
The United States military operations should, as much as possible, be confined to these goals, which were enumerated by the Baker-Hamilton Commission.
I go back and I read the goals here, all set forth on page 6 of the resolution. The military part of this strategy should: focus on maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq, denying international terrorists a safe haven, conducting counterterrorism operations, promoting regional stability, supporting Iraqi efforts to bring greater security to Baghdad, and training and equipping Iraqi forces to take full responsibility for their own security.
Therein is the principal motivation.
The Presiding Officer: The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. Warner: I wonder if I could ask unanimous consent that I could proceed until such time as Senators desiring to come forth and address the standing order, namely----
The Presiding Officer: We have an order to lay down the motion to proceed. Will the Senator allow that to go forward at this time?
Mr. Warner: Fine, if the Presiding Officer desires to do that.
