Fire Grants and Safety Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, we will be voting about 5:30, about 30 minutes from now, to end debate and tomorrow have some amendments, then go to final passage on legislation to repeal the authorization to use military force for 2002 directed against Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

The problem I have with what we are doing is that we are repealing the authorization to use military force because Saddam is dead and that threat is gone, but we are not replacing it with an authorization that our troops desperately need, which is to create an AUMF to allow our military to go after Shiite militias that are attacking them routinely inside of Iraq. There have been over 78 attacks since 2021 directed at U.S. forces by different groups, mostly Shiite militias controlled by Iran, in Iraq and Syria. A couple days ago, there was an attack on an American base in Syria. An American contractor was killed. God bless him and his family. And we retaliated, and they retaliated back. The bottom line is that our response to aggression against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria is woefully inadequate. Seventy-something attacks since 2021. Clearly, nobody feels afraid to attack our troops over there, and we need to create some deterrence that we don't have today.

So I had an amendment that failed that would allow authorization to use military force to exist where the Congress blesses the use of military force against Shiite militias that are operating in Iraq because they are a threat to about 2,500 troops that we have stationed in Iraq.

The forces in Syria--about 900--are there to finish the counter-ISIS mission, and I hear people, particularly on my side, say that we shouldn't be in Syria.

You know, doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is insanity. The last time we pulled all of our forces out of Iraq, it was President Obama with the support of then-Vice President Biden, the ISIS JV team became the varsity team. They took over great parts of Syria and Iraq. They destroyed the city of Mosul. They set up shop in Raqqa, Syria, and they launched attacks from Syria, ISIS directed, at United States and Europe throughout the world, killing thousands of people.

President Trump authorized our military to take down the caliphate. And this idea that if you leave, they won't come back is stupid. You know nothing if you believe that. You may be tired of fighting radical Islam. They are not tired of fighting you. I would rather fight in their backyard than ours. They are going to destroy us if we don't destroy them.

Here is the good news. They are on the run. As long as we keep some of our forces in place, working with people in Syria and Iraq who do not want to live under ISIS rule, we will be relatively safe. If you pull all the troops out, you are going to get the same outcome. People who keep arguing this, you really are doing a great disservice to the country, and your arguments make zero sense. You don't understand the enemy. You have no idea what this war is about.

This is a religious struggle. They have declared war on every faith but their own. They want to purify Islam in their own image--ISIS and al-Qaida. They want to destroy the State of Israel and eventually come after us. Leaving them alone doesn't guarantee you much. In 2001, before 9/11, we didn't have one soldier in Afghanistan. We didn't even have an embassy. We totally abandoned Afghanistan, and the attack against our country on 9/11 originated in Afghanistan.

When will you learn that these people are out to get you? And when I say ``you,'' I mean Americans. Anybody who believes in diversity in faith, they have a world view that has no place for you. The good news is most people in the Mideast are not buying what they are selling, but they are very lethal and dangerous left unattended.

Now, when you create the right mix of U.S. forces and local forces, you pretty well keep them on the run and keep them at bay. So to those who suggest we shouldn't be in Syria with 900 U.S. forces to prevent ISIS from coming back, you are setting the stage for a reemergence of ISIS, and once is enough, folks.

They destroyed the Yazidi population, raped women by the thousands and created carnage all over Syria and Iraq and projected attacks against American Western allies from a safe haven in Raqqa, Syria.

Now, the theory of the case here is that we as Congress need to take back authority, and this authorization to use force no longer needs to be in place because the war against Saddam Hussein is over. We can argue about Iraq being a good idea or a bad idea. We did have bad intelligence. But here is what I would say 20 years later. Saddam being dead is a good thing, from my point of view, because he was a thug and a dictator on steroids. And the people of Iraq are on their second or third election. It has been messy, but they are moving in the right direction. And we have 2,500 troops back in Iraq to make sure ISIS doesn't come back and destabilize the region and try to have some influence against the Iranians.

So if you want to repeal the AUMF, I think you owe it to the troops to follow it with something. So the people who want to do this say: Article II, which is the inherent authority of the Commander in Chief, allows President Biden to protect our troops in Iraq. There is truth to that. But the whole idea is for us as a Congress to have a say in foreign policy and not sort of give a blank check. So if you want to cancel the check to go after Saddam because he is not around, I think you owe it to the troops to lend your voice because the enemy sees this as retreat.

No matter what you want the enemy to believe about what is going on here, all they understand is the American Congress is making a step to get out of Iraq, and that is good news for them.

After Afghanistan--the disaster there--don't you think we should be more clear in our thought?

The Biden administration was wrong to take troops out of Afghanistan. They are right to have troops in Iraq and Syria, but the Congress is trying to be a bit hypocritical here. We want to cancel one authorization to use force, and we don't have the courage, apparently, politically, to say the military has our approval, as a Congress working with the President, to go after Shiite militias that are killing our forces in Iraq and attacking them regularly.

What does Iran want?

Now, this is not an authorization to go after the Iranian regime. It is an authorization to protect American forces in Iraq from attacks in Iraq coming from Shiite militias loyal to Iran.

What are they trying to achieve?

They want to drive us out. If the 900 troops left Syria tomorrow, Assad would eventually conquer what is left of Syria and ISIS would fill that vacuum and you would have a conflict with Turkey and the Kurds. And all the people--our chairman of the Armed Services Committee is a very smart guy and a very great friend--all the Kurds who fought with us, they would be wiped out.

So I am glad the Biden administration is going to stay in Syria because we need those troops to keep ISIS from coming back and to work with our Kurdish partners.

But when it comes to Iraq, they are trying to drive us out because Iran wants us out of Syria so their buddy Assad can run the place. They want us out of Iraq so the Shiite radical elements in Iraq can topple the Iraqi Government, and the Shiite militias would take authority away from the Iraqi Army, and they will have influence over Iraq and Syria.

It is not in America's interest to allow the Ayatollah in Iran to have more influence and more spaces to govern and more oil to generate revenue from. So if you don't get that, you are not really following what is going on.

So no matter what you say about article II, I hate to tell you, ISIS probably doesn't follow our Constitution that closely. The best thing we could do, if you want to repeal the 2002 AUMF that was generated to get rid of Saddam, replace it with something new--an authorization to use force to protect our troops that we all agree or most of us agree should be in Iraq to protect America from attacks from Shiite militias. That amendment was rejected.

Here is what you are doing. You are sending a signal by doing this that we are leaving, we are withdrawing, and that we don't have the will as a nation to see this thing through. There is nothing good comes from this. You are openly admitting the President has authority to use force to protect our troops, but you are not going to lend your voice to that cause, and I don't understand that.

If the Congress, working with the President, said: No matter who is President, you have the ability to use military force to protect our troops against Shiite militias in Iraq, that would make us stronger. The enemy would understand it better. Our allies would understand it more clearly. And they have got to be wondering, What the hell is going on here?

So the bottom line is, you are setting in motion, by not replacing the AUMF with something specific to Shiite militias that are attacking our troops regularly--you are setting in motion more danger for those in Iraq and eventually Syria.

And I don't question your patriotism. I do question our judgment as a body. This is a very ill-conceived idea. It is going to juice up the enemy. It is going to confuse our allies. And it could be easily fixed, but we choose not to.

I don't know what the political environment is in America today, but the idea that the war is over with radical Islam is insane. I have listened to people--some on my side--come down here and want to repeal the authorization to go after al-Qaida and affiliated groups after 9/ 11. General Kurilla, the CENTCOM commander in charge of the region, said, last week, because of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS in Afghanistan has the ability to strike us in this country within 6 months without warning.

So can you imagine the damage to be done to national security interests if we repeal the 2001 AUMF?

So I will close with this. While I understand theoretically why we want to replace--get rid of the 2002 AUMF because Saddam is gone, I don't understand why we are leaving this vacuum and this doubt. This is easily fixed.

You are creating a narrative that is going to come back to haunt us. You think it is an accident within 2 days of introducing this idea that they hit us in Syria again? They are going to test us.

And here is what I think. The Biden administration is doing a lousy job, quite frankly, of instilling fear in the enemy. Whether you like Trump or not, people were afraid of him. And there is no fear. And here is what I would like to have established: Working with the administration, not against them, to send a clear signal: You kill Americans at your own peril. We are not leaving. We are not going to let radical Islam come back and do it all over again.

So I will be voting no. This is one of the most ill-conceived ideas after 9/11.

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