June 19, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 103 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S4125-S4129]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ORDER FOR ADJOURNMENT

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come 
before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned 
under the previous order, following the remarks of our Democratic 
colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Jersey.


                              S.J. Res. 36

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to begin the debate in support of 
22 resolutions of disapproval and ask my colleagues to join me in 
asserting congressional prerogative over arms sales to foreign 
governments and to say unequivocally that our security partnership with 
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or any other nation is not a 
blank check.
  On May 24, the Secretary of State attempted to bypass this body in 
order to push through 22 separate arms sales to Saudi Arabia and United 
Arab Emirates, claiming an ill-defined emergency regarding Iran. Make 
no mistake. Iran continues to be a threat to U.S. interests in the 
Middle East. It continues to jeopardize the greater stability of the 
region. It has been rightly designated a state sponsor of terrorism. I 
think it is safe to say that no one in this body has been tougher on 
Iran than I. But we must ask whether the administration's actions are 
making us safer from Iranian threats or actually putting us more at 
risk. Does this administration have a strategic, maximum pressure 
campaign in place to address Iran's nuclear capabilities or its 
destructive behavior or is the Trump administration's only plan to turn 
the Middle East into a pressure cooker with no release valve? I fear it 
is the latter.
  Let me address the resolutions at hand, highlighting just a few. Arms 
sales are a critical national security tool, and reviewing and 
approving them are core functions of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee. We are responsible for considering how each proposed sale 
fits into our broader foreign policy goals and our national security 
interests, including the capacity and interoperability of our partners.
  The congressional review of arms sales is mandated for a reason--so 
that the Secretary of State explicitly cannot do what he tried to do 
last month with these 22 sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
  Despite the Secretary of State's claims, his May 24 justification 
lacks any detailed, persuasive information to demonstrate that these 
sales will somehow better enable the United States or our allies to 
address an imminent threat or ``emergency'' or that he was justified in 
trying to bypass Congress.
  Beyond failing to consult with Congress, I am troubled by the 
administration's continued willingness to withhold information from 
Senators. Just 3 days prior to the announcement, this ``emergency,'' 
Secretary Pompeo briefed the Senate on the very threat he now claims 
justifies invoking emergency authorities. Yet during this briefing, the 
Secretary did not mention, not once, any need to sell more arms to 
Saudi Arabia to address such a threat.
  An ``emergency'' by definition is an urgent and unexpected event 
requiring immediate action. Yet last week, Assistant Secretary of State 
Clarke Cooper admitted in an open House hearing that the decision to 
make the emergency determination was in the works for months--for 
months. When pressed on how an emergency declaration couldn't be in the 
works for months, Cooper tried to argue that the ``emergency'' showed 
up sometime in between the 2 days that the Secretary briefed members 
and then made the notifications.
  It doesn't work that way. If it is in the works for months, as you 
testified, and you were thinking about it, you should have told us.
  Their abuse of emergency authorities will ultimately be detrimental 
to the State Department, the defense industry, and U.S. national 
security.
  For decades, the Congress, multiple Presidential administrations, and 
the defense industry have engaged in the arms sales process in good 
faith. The Senate has approved billions of dollars of arms sales to 
dozens of countries.
  Whenever I am concerned about a particular sale, I have sought to 
work with the administration, the recipient country, as well as defense 
firms to explain those concerns and to reach a mutually acceptable 
solution. This approach has served all parties well. It ensures that 
there is a check on the Executive, whoever that Executive is. It 
ensures there is oversight over the number and types of U.S. weapons 
that make their way around the world.
  Allow me to outline a little bit of background regarding two of the 
resolutions we will vote on individually: S.J. Res. 36 and 38, for 
those keeping score. Then I would like to address border concerns with 
Saudi Arabia and implications for some of the other sales.
  These two resolutions are related to the sale of precision-guided 
munitions and parts to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, weapons they have 
used in the killing of untold numbers of innocent civilians in their 
ongoing campaign in Yemen.
  Over the course of 4 years, Saudi Arabia's air operations in Yemen 
have killed and maimed thousands of Yemeni civilians. Ninety thousand 
Yemenis have died. Eighty thousand children have died of starvation. 
Seven thousand or more cases of cholera are reported. Three million 
people are displaced--3 million people are displaced. Some statistics 
tell us that there are 14 million more on the brink of starvation. The 
United Arab Emirates has joined in this coalition in this fight on 
Yemen, and there are credible reports, concerns that I raised about 
abusive torture at Emirati detention centers

[[Page S4126]]

and illicitly transferring U.S. weapons to third-party actors in Yemen, 
some of which the United States considers terrorist organizations.
  These precision-guided munitions are supposed to be a way to avoid 
civilian casualties. Saudi Arabia has apparently intentionally targeted 
hospitals, bridges, power stations, apartment buildings, weddings, 
schools, and even a school bus filled with children--filled with 
children.
  We have heard claims that these precision-guided munitions are 
``humanitarian'' weapons and that they reduce the chance of accidently 
hitting and killing civilians. Well, that is not the case if the Saudis 
are purposefully targeting civilians in the first place. They only 
target them with greater precision.
  In light of the harrowing conflict in Yemen and in line with our 
regular committee process, last year I placed, as the ranking Democrat 
on the committee, an informal hold on the sale of 60,000 precision-
guided munitions, PGMs, to Saudi Arabia.
  I sent a detailed letter to the Secretaries of State and Defense. I 
outlined my concerns and asked for more convincing information about 
how U.S. assistance would improve Saudi Arabia's appalling behavior.
  Simply put, I followed every standard procedure in good faith and 
with respect for the executive branch's critical duty to protect our 
national security. Yet, for months upon months, this administration has 
failed to demonstrate how equipping the Saudis with more weapons would 
improve the Saudis' respect for human rights in Yemen or advance 
America's own values and national security interests, nor has this 
administration explained how these arms sales would improve the Saudi 
Air Force and command authority's ability and willingness to 
differentiate between military and nonmilitary targets and thereby 
reduce the wholesale slaughter of civilians in Yemen.
  In fact, after last year's brutal murder of the Washington Post 
journalist and American resident, Jamal Khashoggi, in October inside 
the Saudi consulate in Turkey, the Trump administration apparently gave 
up on trying to convince anyone that the Saudis have any regard for 
human rights at home, in Yemen, or abroad.
  Like a number of the other 22 proposed sales, these precision-guided 
munitions will not be used to counter a sudden emergency threat from 
Iran. This proposed sale of precision-guided weapons kits to Saudi 
Arabia is slated for one purpose, and that is the Saudi's disastrous 
air war in Yemen. Indeed, when asked this question directly in a 
hearing last week, Assistant Secretary of State Clarke Cooper admitted 
as much.
  Let no Member of this body deceive themselves or the American people. 
These bombs will most likely be dropped on Yemen--and not just on 
Houthi rebels and what few legitimate military targets remain after 4 
years of war. If Saudi Arabia acquires these weapons, American-made 
arms are likely to be used to kill Yemeni civilians.
  Finally, as with some of the other proposed sales, President Trump 
and the Secretary of State are enabling the transfer of both American 
jobs and sensitive American military technology to the Saudis. With 
this particular export license, Saudi workers will begin to manufacture 
part of the electronic guidance system for these precision-guided 
munitions--work that has been done and should continue to be done by 
American workers right here in the United States. In other words, the 
administration is not only selling the Saudi these weapons but also 
portions of the blueprints for building these weapons.
  In the midst of so much volatility in the Middle East, how could 
anyone possibly think that is a good idea?
  America's defense industry produces the most sophisticated systems in 
the world, and yet the Trump administration is opening the door for the 
Saudis to manufacture their own similar weapons in the future or 
transfer our American-made technical know-how to other countries.
  Disturbingly, we also know that the administration will not stop with 
this particular sale. State Department officials have actually admitted 
to Foreign Relations Committee staff that this is to be the first of 
many sales authorizing the Saudis to manufacture even larger, more 
sensitive portions of these highly advanced weapons.
  My colleagues, I hope you hear me because this is nothing short of 
madness. There is no way, shape, or form that these precision-guided 
missile systems could be used to address any kind of emergency, large-
scale Iranian threat that requires bypassing 30 days of congressional 
review. The same could largely be said of the rest of the 22 sales that 
this administration is trying to ram through.
  Finally, let me stress that since placing a hold on this particular 
sale, I have actually cleared a number of other sales to the region. In 
fact, I have cleared some of the sales the administration saw fit to 
try to ram through. So let no one accuse me of stonewalling all arms 
sales, of doubting the Iranian threat, or of ignoring legitimate 
threats faced by the Saudis and worthy of our continued cooperation.
  But there is simply no need at all for this administration to 
flagrantly disrespect this institution and longstanding norms that 
support good governance.
  In light of the recent news about aggressive Iranian action and the 
administration's decision to send more troops to the region, we must 
always consider changing dynamics.
  I urge the President to use the leverage he has indeed created from 
his campaign to find a serious diplomatic path forward that 
meaningfully constrains Iran's nuclear ambition and its other malign 
activities.
  I continue to believe that upending congressional prerogative doesn't 
make us safer, and it is not in our long-term interest.
  This administration's willingness to turn a blind eye to the 
wholesale slaughter of civilians and the murder of journalists suggests 
that a move forward with these arms sales will have lasting 
implications for our moral leadership on the world stage. This behavior 
sends a message that America is no longer exceptional and that our 
behavior should be no different than a Russia or a China--pursuing 
power, acting transactionally, and avoiding accountability.
  My colleagues, America is better than this. It is well past time for 
the Senate and the entire Congress to stand up and push back--to stand 
up for our role as a coequal branch of government.
  I would remind my colleagues that today it is President Trump. 
Tomorrow it will be some other President, maybe one you disagree with. 
If you set the precedent that you can just have arms sales go under 
this false emergency procedure, you will have no say in arms sales.
  Stand up for the rule of law instead of the rule of lawlessness, and 
stand up for our greatest American values that transcend party and 
politics and together defend the long-term security interest of the 
United States.
  Let me close by highlighting alarming and truly disturbing 
developments just over the past 48 hours. Yesterday we learned that 
over the objection of his own diplomats and belying numerous credible 
reports about its recruitment of children from Sudan to fight in Yemen, 
Secretary Pompeo blocked the inclusion of Saudi Arabia in the section 
detailing the use of child soldiers in the State Department's annual 
``Trafficking in Persons Report''--over the objection of his own 
diplomats. This administration is protecting Saudi Arabia, declining to 
condemn its recruitment of children to fight its battles.
  This morning, Agnes Callamard, the U.N. Special Rapporteur 
investigating the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, released a gruesome, 
scathing report about the murder itself and the appalling U.S. 
response. She details calculated, horrific details, including plans to 
cut up Mr. Khashoggi's body, with one participant saying that 
separating the joints should not be a problem. This is truly horrific.
  I could go on. I plan to return to the floor to speak tomorrow. I 
know I have Senator Cardin here, a senior member of the committee, and 
others.
  Let me now simply say that this report has reignited and even 
deepened the concern about why this administration seems incapable of 
criticizing Saudi Arabia.

[[Page S4127]]

  I urge my colleagues to think long and hard about what these votes 
will signify to the American people, to our allies, to our fundamental 
values, and to the institutional rights the Senate has to review arms 
sales that are a critical part of our foreign policy. Do not give it 
away to this administration or any other.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time to underscore the points 
that Senator Menendez made in regard to the vote we will have tomorrow 
here on the floor of the Senate.
  I really want Members to know that we are really talking about the 
fundamental protection of the checks and balances in our system. I 
don't think most Members know about the process we use for arms sales 
and review, but I can tell you that it has been to protect the interest 
of this country and the legislative branch of government. The 
requirement is for consultation and notice to Congress before arms 
sales are consummated.
  Yes, we have a Republican President, and we have Members of Congress 
who object to sales and want to get further information, and those 
holds can be lifted after additional information is provided. But I 
want to remind the Members of this body that it was in the last 
Congress, with a Republican President, that the Republican chair of the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee put holds on sales in this region 
for good reason--because of the inconsistent policies we had among Gulf 
States that needed to be clarified before we divided the support for 
America even more in that region. Senator Corker was right in what he 
did, and our country is stronger today because of what he did.
  If we allow President Trump to go forward with these arms sales under 
emergency circumstances, we forever could lose the ability of the 
legislative branch to weigh in on arms sales.
  Senator Menendez is absolutely right. Today it is a Republican 
President. This should not make any difference in our respect for the 
powers of the legislative branch of government and the checks and 
balances that are necessary.
  Senator Menendez is right about this. It has been the legislative 
branch of government that has said protection of human rights is an 
important ingredient.
  Over and over, we find that in the State Department or in the White 
House they are very transactional, and but for the legislative branch 
of government, those issues would never be addressed.
  Now we are going to let the President of the United States use 
emergency powers--which I think almost everybody in this body would say 
really does not exist--to circumvent the proper review and power of the 
legislative branch of government.
  And yes, in these arms sales, human rights are a major issue. Senator 
Menendez points out correctly that American arms have been used to 
facilitate the aerial attacks against Yemen led by the Saudis and the 
coalition--and these guided missiles would be a part of that--and they 
are the leading cause of civilian death in Yemen. Over 1,000 have been 
killed as a result of the Saudi-led coalition attacks. We have been 
given assurances over and over--which has not happened--that they will 
be better at it.
  We also know that there is not a military solution to the Yemen 
crisis. America's military involvement only makes the circumstances 
worse. It is one of the worst humanitarian disasters that we have seen 
in recent times. We need to disengage on the military side. By allowing 
the President to use these emergency powers, we make the circumstances 
worse.
  Lastly, I remember the outrage of every Member of this House on Jamal 
Khashoggi's tragic death. Everyone was saying that we have to hold 
accountable those responsible for those actions. But listen to what 
Senator Menendez said. Today, Agnes Callamard, the Special Rapporteur 
for extrajudicial executions, released the findings of her 
investigation into the October 18 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a person 
who lived in the United States and was brutally murdered. The Special 
Rapporteur noted that there was evidence that the responsibility of 
Khashoggi's murder extends beyond the 11 individuals currently on trial 
for the murder in Saudi Arabia, points in the direction of the Royal 
Family, and points out that further investigation is warranted of high-
level Saudi officials, including the Crown Prince. And we are going to 
go ahead and allow the President to conduct arms sales?
  We have strategic relations with other countries. That is fine, but 
it has to be embedded in our principles--the strength of America, our 
values. If we allow business to be as usual--that you can take a person 
who was under protection of our country as a resident and allow that 
person, a journalist, to be murdered, and we know who is responsible 
and we don't take action--what message are we sending to the global 
community? Where is America's leadership?
  Senator Menendez is giving us an opportunity to say: Yes, we believe 
in the legislative branch of government as a check and balance on 
whoever is in the White House, whether it be a Democrat or a 
Republican, or a Democratic- or Republican-controlled Senate. We 
believe in the checks and balances in our system. It serves a purpose, 
and we are not going to let the President use emergency powers when 
that does not exist.
  On these particular sales, there are human rights issues that demand 
that we do not approve these sales. That is what is at stake in this 
vote.
  I take this time to plea to my colleagues: Recognize that what we are 
voting on is not whether we support the President of the United States. 
It is whether we support our responsibilities as Members of the Senate 
and we take the necessary action to protect the powers of checks and 
balances and to make the right decisions about American values and 
human rights.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, there is a reason Article I of the 
Constitution is about the structures around the legislative branch and 
Article II of the Constitution imagines structures around the executive 
branch. It was the legislative branch that was most important to the 
Founders. It was rooted in the desires and dreams and priorities of the 
people. The way in which we structure ourselves and how we have become 
chosen to these bodies has changed over the years, but we are Article I 
for a reason.
  The division of labor between the Article I branch and the Article II 
branch was not limited only to domestic policy. The Founding Fathers 
spent a lot of time talking about making sure that the Article I branch 
had a significant say, a dispositive say over foreign matters as well. 
That is why we have the power to declare war, not the executive. That 
is why we have the power of the purse when it comes to funding overseas 
activities, and it is the reason Congress gave itself the power to have 
oversight over the arms that we sell to the rest of the world. It is 
because these arms and the relationships that surround the sale of 
these arms are amongst the most important foreign policy decisions that 
we make.
  We don't have to look far to understand how arms sales can go wrong 
very quickly. It was the arms that we sold either overtly or covertly 
to the rebel forces in Afghanistan that ended up becoming the arms used 
by some of the most vicious terrorist groups that eventually attacked 
the United States. It was arms that we sold to Syrian rebels that ended 
up in the hands of the extremist Sunni Muslim groups there that we 
were, in fact, fighting. So we have good reason for historically coming 
together, Republicans and Democrats, to ask these questions about arms 
sales.
  I agree with Senator Cardin in that, if we let this emergency 
declaration go without protest, without a vote, I don't know whether we 
are ever going to get the power to oversee arms sales back as body, and 
it will be just another mechanism by which we fritter away our coequal 
responsibility to determine the course of America's role in the world 
to a growing imperial Presidency, especially when it comes to matters 
of foreign affairs.
  I want to be clear with my colleagues and the Presiding Officer that 
I didn't just adopt this view when I became a member of the minority 
party. I didn't just decide that this was important when Donald Trump 
became President.

[[Page S4128]]

In fact, I brought a resolution of disapproval of this very similar 
arms sale under President Obama.
  I note there were 24 Members of this body--20 or so of them 
Democrats--who voted to maintain our prerogative to vote against that 
arms sale. There were 20 members of the Democratic Party who were 
willing to vote, in a sense, to cancel out a sale that had been 
proposed by a Democratic President. So, on this side of the aisle, we 
have been willing to hold to this principle whether the President is of 
our party or is of a different party. It is because we think this is a 
nonpartisan principle.
  I agree with Senator Menendez and Senator Cardin in that, if we don't 
take a positive vote here, we are potentially giving away this priority 
forever. This emergency that exists in the Middle East is not a new 
emergency. You could argue that if the emergency is related to Iranian 
behavior, it is one that has been created, in part, by this President's 
policies. It, frankly, invites any President, Democrat or Republican, 
to be able to just point to one of the various crises in the Middle 
East, of which there is always one, as the reason by which Congress 
just can't be bothered to weigh in on this particular arms sale.
  Second and lastly, I want to quickly go over a case that I have made 
several times on the floor of the Senate. That is the case that, I 
think, is shared by most smart watchers of the Middle East, which is 
that there really is not a national security disaster for the United 
States that equals that of Yemen today.
  First of all, it is a humanitarian nightmare, and it is not one of 
these humanitarian nightmares that was caused by a drought or a famine 
and over which the United States is just looking and watching. It is a 
humanitarian disaster that we are, in part, causing. We are selling the 
bombs that are being dropped in a country where 100,000 children under 
the age of 5 have died of starvation and disease, where tens of 
thousands have been killed by conflict and the bombs that are dropping. 
They are dropping on school buses, on Doctors Without Borders' 
facilities, on churches, and weddings. These are not all by mistake. 
Many of them are purposeful.
  We have never seen a cholera outbreak like the one that we have 
today--never in our lifetimes. Just this week, the head of the U.N. 
relief mission there rushed here to Congress to give us devastating 
news. I don't know whether all of my colleagues were able to meet with 
her or get a briefing from her, but the head of the relief work in 
Yemen told us that there are a quarter million Yemenis who are so sick 
and so malnourished that they are beyond saving. A quarter million 
Yemenis are going to die this summer and this fall.
  The Saudis and the Emiratis have stopped funding the relief work, and 
they have stopped funding the World Health Organization and the World 
Food Programme. They are all closing up shop. The conflict is bigger 
and in more places than ever before. The bombing has not stopped, and 
the money from the contestants is no longer flowing. This fall, we will 
see a catastrophic loss of life in Yemen that the world has not seen in 
a very, very long time.
  Second, this is all coming back to haunt the United States, these 
bombs that are being dropped. This famine that exists is not seen as a 
Saudi-caused famine; it is seen as a U.S.-Saudi-caused famine. So these 
young Yemenis--and they are mostly young--are being radicalized against 
the United States, and there are willing places and willing contestants 
for their allegiance who are gobbling them up. Al-Qaida and ISIS have 
never been stronger in Yemen.
  I will admit we have made some military progress against them in the 
last couple of years, but from the beginning of the conflict to today, 
they are much stronger than ever before, and they have more potential 
recruits than ever before because of our actions there.
  Third, there is no change in battle lines. Sit down with the maps of 
what the Houthis control and what the coalition controls. They are, 
essentially, the same today as they were a year ago or 2 years ago. 
Senator Cardin is right in that there is no military solution here. The 
more bombs the coalition drops, the more mercenary armies they bring in 
from Sudan and other places, and the more the battle lines just harden.
  Fourth, Iran gets stronger and stronger by the day. When this all 
started, the Houthis were not a proxy force of the Iranians. They 
relied on them. Yet, as the war goes on and our country stands 
unwilling to negotiate a peace and we remain only willing to fund the 
war, Iran gets deeper and deeper into the Houthis. When the political 
settlement is finally achieved, Iran will have much more of a footprint 
in Yemen than had we ended the war last year or the year before.
  Lastly, just to underscore this point that others have made in the 
context of these gross, grave Saudi human rights abuses, whether it be 
the Americans who are there whom they are locking up today and 
torturing or whether it be the dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi as 
reported on most recently by the United Nations, America just looks so 
fundamentally weak in the world. It looks so fundamentally weak in the 
world when the Saudis stick a finger in our eye by grabbing a U.S. 
resident and dismembering him in their consulate and then lie to us 
about it until the evidence is so incontrovertible that they have to 
tell the truth.
  The result of that is we draw them closer in. Our Secretary of State 
goes to Saudi Arabia; it is not the Saudis who are coming to us. We 
offer them more nuclear secrets, and we give them more weapons. Then, 
inside this deal, not only do we give them weapons, but we actually 
grant them coproduction of some of the most sensitive technology that 
we own, which is of our smart bombs. That is the kind of deal that you 
do if the other party has leverage on you. We give coproduction to 
countries when we feel like we are the weaker party. We are giving the 
coproduction of smart bombs--we are going to vote on this tomorrow. We 
are giving the coproduction of smart bombs to a country that just 
chopped up an American resident into little pieces and lied to us about 
it. What a world we are living in.
  It is important for this body to stand up for itself sometimes. It is 
not to stand up for your party, not to stand up for your particular 
principles or to stand up for yourself. I think I can make the case to 
vote for these resolutions based just on our institutional prerogative. 
The war itself is a national security nightmare for us.
  I said this when President Obama was perpetuating it, and I say it 
here today. So, for me, this has nothing to do with who is in the White 
House. I believed this from the start, and many of us have believed it 
from the beginning. Even if you don't believe in standing up for our 
prerogative as an institution, standing up for American national 
security compels you to vote against these sales tomorrow.
  I thank Senator Menendez for being such a strong, resolute voice not 
just for the principle of standing up for human rights but for the 
principle of standing up for this body. I am glad to stand by his side 
and by so many others who are sponsors of this, and I am glad that he 
has brought us to the floor this evening.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, let me summarize. I don't know of any 
other colleagues at this point. I do know that some will probably speak 
right before the votes tomorrow morning.
  I thank the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, who has been such 
a clarion voice from the earliest days on this question of the Yemeni 
conflict. He has been there every step of the way in his arguing and 
pricking of the conscience of the Senate as it relates to this. Senator 
Cardin is also well-known for his advocacy of human rights in his many 
years between the House and the Senate.
  This vote tomorrow is a vote for the powers of this institution to be 
able to continue to have a say on one of the most critical elements of 
U.S. foreign policy and national security--arms sales--to not let that 
be undermined by some false emergency and to preserve that 
institutional right regardless of who sits in the White House. Do not 
give up that power on behalf of this Senate and future Senates to come. 
Think about what you will do if you cede that right.

[[Page S4129]]

  Stand up for the Constitution. Article I of the Constitution became 
the very first article. It is about this body's--the Congress'--being a 
separate, coequal branch of government as the Founders of the Nation 
envisioned. Stand up for the Constitution. Stand up for the proposition 
that our bombs will not be the ones that create an incredible 
humanitarian disaster for which our moral conscience will be stained 
forever.
  All Members will have that moment to decide where they want to stand 
in history and whether their votes are to give the Saudis and the UAE 
arms that ultimately drop on innocent civilians. Can you live with 
yourself? Is this your moral compass?
  Lastly, stand up for the proposition that the greatest country in the 
world--the United States of America--will not stand by when a 
journalist--someone who practices the First Amendment rights that we so 
cherish, whether it be here at home or around the world--because of 
nothing else but his criticism of the Saudi King, could be dismembered 
by a saw in a consulate of the Saudi Government's in a foreign country. 
How can we be silent in the face of that?
  These are all of the elements that are involved in this vote 
tomorrow, and I trust the Senate will live up to its collective history 
and stand up for a moment of principle, a moment of courage, if you 
will, and stand up for all of these values that make America unique, a 
shining light to the rest of the world. That is what is at stake in the 
three votes we will cast tomorrow morning.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________