Kerry Amendment

Senate Passes Kerry Amendment Demanding Accountability on Secret Prisons

As reported earlier today, John Kerry offered an amendment on the Senate Floor calling for “Reports on Clandestine Detention Facilities.” The amendment just passed…

Kerry Legislative Victory Forces Administration to Facilitate Congressional Oversight

In an overwhelming rebuke to the Bush administration’s attempt to hide alleged CIA secret prisons from Congress, the Senate voted 82-9 today in favor of an amendment by John Kerry that will require the Director of National Intelligence to report on the reported clandestine detention facilities.

The Kerry Amendment requires classified reports to Congress providing a full accounting on any clandestine prison or detention facility operated by the United States government, regardless of its location.

The Washington Post reported recently that, “The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony” about the facilities. Reports indicate that Vice President Cheney discussed the facilities in a meeting with the Republican Caucus.

“I don’t have any doubt in the American public’s determination to win the War on Terror. But I do know that any administration that tries to keep Congress in the dark damages the cause for which we are all fighting,” Kerry said during Senate debate on his amendment today.

Details on Kerry’s amendment:

· Asserts Congressional oversight in this matter by requiring a classified report by the Director of National Intelligence to the appropriate committees detailing the involvement of the intelligence community in these activities.

· Not later than 60 days after enactment, the Director of National Intelligence must report to the Intelligence Committees of both the House and Senate. In doing so, the Director will provide a detailed accounting of the nature, cost, and operation of any clandestine prison or detention facility operated by the United States government, regardless of location, where detainees from the Global War on Terror are being or have been held.

Posted by Pamela Leavey on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 4:23 pm and filed under John Kerry, John Kerry Statements, Breaking News, In The News, Senate, George W. Bush, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


Remarks of Senator John Kerry Introducing the Kerry Iraq Bill

The following is the text of John Kerry’s Floor Speech today introducing his amendment outlining withdrawal from Iraq:

Mr. President, later today my Democratic colleagues and I will offer a critical amendment on Iraq. I am pleased to have worked on this amendment and to be a cosponsor. I look forward to participating in the debate when the amendment comes up. But I have come here now to introduce a bill that lays out in greater detail the comprehensive new strategy that I believe the president must implement to complete the mission in Iraq and bring our troops home in a reasonable timeframe.

A few weeks ago I departed Iraq from Mosul. Three Senators and staff were gathered in the forward part of a C-130. In the middle of the cavernous cargo hold was a simple, aluminum coffin with a small American flag draped over it. We were bringing another American soldier, just killed, home to his family and final resting place.

The starkness of his coffin in the center of the hold, the silence except for the din of the engines, was a real time cold reminder of the consequences of decisions for which we Senators share responsibility.

As we enter a make or break six month period in Iraq, his lonely journey compels us to talk honestly about the steps we must take to bring our troops home within a reasonable timeframe from an Iraq that’s not permanently torn by conflict.

While some say we can’t ask tough questions because we are at war, I say no - in a time of war we must ask the hardest questions of all. It’s essential if we want to correct our course and do what’s right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again. No matter what the President says, asking tough questions isn’t pessimism, it’s patriotism. We have a responsibility to our troops, our country and our conscience to be honest about where we should go from here.

There is a way forward that gives us the best chance both to salvage a difficult situation in Iraq, and to save American and Iraqi lives. With so much at stake, we must follow it.

We cannot pull out precipitously or merely promise to stay “as long as it takes.” To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue a political settlement that gives Sunnis a real stake in the future Iraq and while reducing the sense of an American occupation. That means a phased withdrawal of American troops as we meet a series of military and political benchmarks, starting with a reduction of 20,000 troops over the holidays as we meet the first benchmark - the completion of the December elections.

We must send this critical signal to the Iraqi people - that we do not desire permanent occupation - and that Iraqis themselves must fight for Iraq. History shows that guns alone do not end an insurgency. The real struggle in Iraq - Sunni versus Shiia - will only be settled by a political solution, and no political solution can be achieved when the antagonists can rely on the indefinite large scale presence of occupying American combat troops. The reality is our military presence in vast and visible numbers has become part of the problem, not the solution.

And our generals understand this. General George Casey, our top military commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that our large military presence “feeds the notion of occupation” and “extends the amount of time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.” And Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, breaking a thirty year silence, writes, ‘’Our presence is what feeds the insurgency, and our gradual withdrawal would feed the confidence and the ability of average Iraqis to stand up to the insurgency.”

It comes down to this: an open-ended declaration to stay ‘as long as it takes’ lets Iraqi factions maneuver for their own political advantage by making us stay as long as they want, and it becomes an excuse for billions of American tax dollars to be sent to Iraq and siphoned off into the coffers of cronyism and corruption.

The Administration must also use all of the leverage in America’s arsenal - our diplomacy, the presence of our troops, and our reconstruction money — to convince Shiites and Kurds to address legitimate Sunni concerns about regional autonomy and oil revenues and to make Sunnis accept the reality that they will no longer dominate Iraq. We cannot and should not do this alone.

The administration must immediately call a conference of Iraq’s neighbors, Britain, Turkey and other key NATO allies, and Russia. Together, we must implement a collective strategy to bring the parties in Iraq to a sustainable political compromise that also includes mutual security guarantees among Iraqis. To maximize our diplomacy, the President should appoint a special envoy to bolster Ambassador Khalilzad’s commendable efforts.

To enlist the support of Iraq’s Sunni neighbors, we should commit to a new regional security structure that will include improved security assistance programs, and joint exercises.

To show Iraqi Sunnis the benefits of participating in the political process, we should press these countries to set up a reconstruction fund specifically for the majority Sunni areas.

We also need to jump start our own lagging reconstruction efforts by providing the necessary civilian personnel to do the job, standing up civil-military reconstruction teams throughout the country, streamlining the disbursement of funds to the provinces, expanding job creation programs, and strengthening the capacity of government ministries.

On the military side, we must make it clear now that we do not want permanent military bases in Iraq, or a large combat force on Iraqi soil indefinitely. The Administration must immediately give Congress and the American people a detailed plan for the transfer of military and police responsibilities on a sector by sector basis to Iraqis so the majority of our combat forces can be withdrawn - ideally by the end of next year.

Simultaneously, the President needs to put the training of Iraqi security forces on a six month wartime footing and ensure that the Iraqi government has the budget to deploy them. The Administration must accept long standing offers by Egypt, Jordan, France and Germany to do more training.

The Administration must prod the new Iraqi government to ask for a multinational force to help protect Iraq’s borders until a capable national army is formed. Such a force, if sanctioned by the United Nations, could attract participation by Iraq’s neighbors and countries like India and would be a critical step in stemming the tide of insurgents and money into Iraq, especially from Syria.

Finally, we must alter the deployment of American troops. While Special Operations must continue to pursue specific intelligence leads, the vast majority of our own troops should be in rear guard, garrisoned status for security backup. We do not need to send young Americans on search and destroy missions that invite alienation and deepen the risks they face.

If the President still refuses to take this new course. Congress must insist on a change in policy. If we do take these steps, there is no reason this difficult process can not be completed in 12-15 months so we can take on a new role as an ally not an occupier. Only then will we have provided our troops what they deserve - leadership equal to our soldiers’ sacrifice.

Posted by Pamela Leavey on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 1:46 pm and filed under John Kerry, John Kerry Floor Statements, In The News, Senate, Democrats, George W. Bush, Iraq. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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