today's vote will affirm what military leaders from defense secretary gates to general collin powell, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, michael mullen, have been saying for some time. repeal of don't ask, don't tell will make our military stronger. with our nation at war it's especially important that our policies promote the recruitment and retention of the best soldiers regardless of their race, regardless of their religion, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of gender. president obama and secretary gates have conducted a year-long review which many in this party, a year-long review of the impact of the fully and openly integrating lesbian and gay americans into the military. it's no surprise that the report concluded that open service poses no threat to our military readiness or effectiveness. it's estimated that don't ask, don't tell policy has cost the american people somewhere between $300 million and $500 million to implement. it has resulted in 14,000 soldiers who were trained, who were discharged not for performance but were discharged because of their sexu

winner charlie hanley who wrote a story he went and checked all the places that the white house and collin powell claimed were were producing biological and chemical warfare agents in iraq he checked them all out they had all been sealed for years since one nine hundred ninety one the summer of ninety one and he reported this back that was completely ignored even though that story went into every major news room in the united states it was totally ignored we it fair put it out electronically and otherwise we did everything we could but we were one of the few groups on the job then if you look at the at the information landscape today you would have places like atrios you would have glenn greenwald at salon you have a whole new generation of media critics that are really good at fact checking yes many of them are opinionated but they're very good at fact checking and. the echo chamber that would have been there had george bush tried to start that war in two thousand and ten i'm afraid would have been a little bit more resistant would have presented a little more resistance to a war that was based

you have seen everyone from collin powell to condoleezza rice supporting it. this is going without a treaty that would allow for inspection of nueclar arms in the country of russia which has had issue with loose nukes and not putting money into their security. we have been without a treaty for a year. that is why the democrats in the senate, along with a few brave republicans here, are pushing to get this done. i believe those are two examples where the senate, just to show you, is worth to the nth hour. we will work through christmas to get these bills passed. >> do you think there is an appetite to change the rules of the senate? so that the filibuster cannot be used in the specific way it has been used throughout this congress to block every single piece of significant legislation and require 60 votes on everything the senate votes on? >> i believe there is a way to change the rules. >> we have the new senators that have come in. a lot of us have managed things. we're appalled by the abuses going on. sometimes things will pass. sometimes things will fail. w

and, finally, former secretaries of states, kissinger eagleberger and collin powell wrote in "the washington post" that new start preserves our ability to deploy effective missle defenses. the testimonies of our military commanders and civilian leaders make clear that the treaty does not limit u.s. missle defense plans. so i know we have a lot of experts in the senate on this issue, but i certainly believe that the experts who have spoken there about the lack of an impact on our ability as a country to develop a missle defense system are people who should be believed because they know what they're talking about. now, the other thing that i think it's important to point out, and i know senator kerry did this earlier, but with respect to the resolution of ratification and some of the concerns that senator demint raised on the floor this evening, i just want to read what is in this resolution of ratification. this is language that senator demint had amended into the resolution to address the concerns that he had. defending the united states and allies against stratigic attack, it is the sense o

collin powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the united states, former secretary of state, he supports the dream act. defense secretary robert gate, who is the defense secretary now in this administration, but a republican held over by president obama and asked to serve because of his great leadership, he has recommended in the 2010 and 2012 strategy for the defense departments office of the undersecretary of defense and personnel readiness to help the military shape and maintain a mission-ready all-volunteer force wants to see the dream act. david chu the under secretary personnel of readiness during the bush administration said and i quote -- "many of these young people who wish to join the military have the attributes needed, education, aptitude, fitness, moral qualification. in fact, many are fluent in bothening lish and their native -- english and their native languages and we have seen the challenges globally from faroff countries where our enemies are not armies of a country, but of individuals, the language that's could be bought to bear to help us in our nat

you had the prince bondar, the saudi ambassador for 20 years who played ball with collin powell and the top decision makers in our government, and it's something the average person would never know about. he also was quite candid in explaning the whole saudi approach to influencing american policy. he said, basically, we want to take care of people when they leave office because if you do that, you'd be surprised how nice they are when they are in office, so they have the reputation over the years of taking very good care of former government officials who end up in very curby consulting jobs with the saudis who work in various think tanks and make a comfortable living thanks in large part to the fact they were very pro-saudi in the government. this is a very bipartisan approach by the saudis by the way. they do the same thing with every president. they give money to the presidential libraries, support the first lady's causes, sometimes they do it before the president becomes the president, sometimes it's after in the hope of showing government leaders, our presidents even, that there i

that's why former collin powell came out in support of the dream act. that's why the undersecretary for personnel and readiness during the bush administration, david chu, came out and said this is, in essence, the very effort that we would like to see. these young people will provide the opportunity of serving the united states in uniform. moreover university professors, respected education association, leading fortune 500 businesses like microsoft support this. mike huckabee explained allowing undocumented children to earn their way. to earn their way. let's not stop young men and women who only know this country as their country. who made no choices on their own. let's be family friendly. let's observe the values. let's pass the dream act today. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask to be notified after four minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: madam president, the military has a very fine program now that allows

back to the former secretaries of state, madeliene albright, james baker, warren christopher, collin powell, rice and george schultz. that goes back over the last generation or more of our diplomats. and secretaries of defense, harold brown, hank carlucci, jim schlesinger. i say, again, to my colleagues, these people studied this, know these issues, have dealt with them in the past. and to his great credit, president george h.w. bush who noactd the start treaty -- negotiated the start treaty in 1981 has urged us to dot same. it is not in -- to do the same. it is not insignificant that this body should ignore it. not every day do we have the chance to avert armageddon. nothing short of that is at stake in my view. it is worthy of our time, attention and our vote even at this time of year. in fact, one might make the case, what better time of year than to make this case than in this holiday season where we talk about peace in the world to all men of goodwill. and so, madam president, i urge my colleagues to take whatever time we have to in these next few days to cast a vote and leave a legacy

powell. writing in his new memoir about your february 5th, 2003 speech to the u.n., which has now become historic, here's what the president, former president says. collin'sresentation was exhaustive, eloquent, and persuasive. coming against the backdrop of saddam's defiance of the weapons inspectors it had a profound impact on the public debate. later many of the assertions in colin's speech would prove inaccurate but at the time his words reflected the considered judgment of intelligence agencies at home and around the world. do you wish you'd been less exhaustive, eloquent, and persuasive? >> no. that was my job at the time, and the information that i was being given by the intelligence community hung together. now i spent four days and nights out at the cia going over it and asking every way i could, are you sure of this? do you have multiple sources on this? and i got those assurances. they're the same assurances that the intelligence community gave to the president, the same assurances the intelligence community gave to the congress four months earlier. and at the request of the congress and the congress passed a resolution supporting the president