Health care to prisoners of war simply because i want that standard to be available to our soldiers in future wars. The standard we set today could follow us into the next war, and unfortunately, there will be. But having to take him off the ship because he was sick is no excuse to stop the interrogation to gather intelligence. Putting him on the ship because you dont want to use Guantanamo Bay is an illconceived and designed strategy that its not changed or replaced is going to come back to haunt this country. This man possesses an enormous amount of intelligence potential. He is now in federal court. He will be given a lawyer. And once hes charged with a crime, he should be given a lawyer. But before that, we have the right under the law of war to hold him, to gather intelligence, treat him humanely, but question him about what he knows about al qaeda, because theyre still out there lurking. So i would end with this. I would like to work with the senator from New Hampshire and anybody on the other side who would like to try a detention and interrogation policy that is more rationally based. Guantanamo bay in its early years did hurt the image of this country. Some of our interrogation techniques right after 9 11 hurt us as a nation. Guantanamo bay has been reformed. It is Geneva Convention compliant. The treatment act that i helped author along with senators levin and mccain is the Gold Standard of how you treat somebody under the law of war. I am proud of the system we have created over the last several years in a bipartisan manner, and i would urge this administration to create a vehicle to interrogate under the law of war people like allibi so that we can be prepared for the next attack and the policy they have in place today is going to deny this country the ability to gather valuable intelligence. And when it comes to defeating al qaeda, the more you know about how they behave and what theyre up to, the safer we will be, because they will not be deterred by the threat of death. You cannot deter them. You have to stop them. You have to hit them before they hit you. And the best way to do that is to gather intelligence when you find someone like allibi. And i am very disappointed that we have blown it when it comes to intelligence gathering with this target. And im very sad to report to the military members and their families that the bravery you have demonstrated and shown just a few weeks ago has been undermined, in my view, by an irrational political decision that denies our country the ability to learn from a highvalued target that you risked your life to capture. So i dont know how to fix this in the current political environment, but i know as a military lawyer it needs to be fixed. And i know that were not elevating our country by diminishing our ability to use Legal Systems that have been around for hundreds of years at a time when we need them the most. So i look forward to working with the senator from New Hampshire, who has become one of the leading voices when it comes to detention interrogation under the law of war. Ms. Ayotte i thank the senator from south carolina. And let me just make a correction for the record. I used the name alalwaki. It is al zawahiri who is the current head of al qaeda. And the point is this, if we capture stkau if we capture zawahiri tomorrow is he going to be on a ship . And is he only going to be on the ship for a week before and then were going to give him a lawyer and tell him he has the right to remain silent . No. What makes sense is that we have a detention and interrogation policy that with people like allibi, we make sure we take as much as time we need to find out we know everything they know. And we make sure we protect america and find out everything he knows. Thats what were worried about and thats what we need to do for our country. Mr. Graham would you yield. Were throwing around names. I think zawahiri took bin ladens place. Can you tell us a little bit about this individual called allibi . Why do we believe he would be such a treasure trove . What is his background . How long haes he been how long has he been involved in al qaeda . And what have we missed here . What opportunities have we lost by only holding him as an enemy combatant for less than two weeks . Ms. Ayotte mr. Allibi is someone who is alleged to have been involved in al qaeda for decades. He is someone who is as earlies as the as early as the 1990s was working with osama bin laden. He was alleged to have been involved in the 1998 bombings in the kenya and tanzania embassies that killed 224 people, including 12 americans. He reportedly played a Critical Role as the intermediary between stkau saw hery, who took over for bin laden in an effort to establish an Affiliation Network in libya where our ambassador was murdered along with three brave Americans Last september 11. He has been reported to be an al qaeda computer intelligence and operation security expert. And he is alleged to have been involved in al qaeda strategic planning. This is one of the most important captures we had in years of al qaeda. Mr. Graham would you hold . He was captured in tripoli, libya; isnt that right . Ms. Ayotte yes. Mr. Graham we believe he was in libya before the attack on our consolate in benghazi; right . Ms. Ayotte we do. Mr. Graham we also know him to be one of the higherlevel al qaeda operatives roaming the planet. He was involved in bombing our embassies in 1998 in kenya and tanzania; is that correct . Ms. Ayotte thats right. Mr. Graham what are the odds that he was in tripoli before the benghazi attack, had a record of bombing embassies in the 1990s and had nothing to do with the consolate attack in benghazi . You know, youre a prosecutor. What do you think the odds this have guy not having any knowledge or involvement in killing our ambassador in benghazi and being involved in the attack on our consolate that was organized by al qaeda affiliates . And what have we learned, if anything, about his potential involvement in benghazi . How can you learn everything this man has done in 11 or 12 days before you give him a lawyer . I would argue you cant. The presiding officer senator, your time has expired, sir. Mr. Graham could i have one minute . The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Graham thank you. Ms. Ayotte thank you. Mr. Graham i would argue you cant possibly understand all he knows about benghazi and the last 20 years of terrorism by holding him on a ship for less than two weeks. He should be held at gitmo for as long as it takes to find out what he knows. Then he should be tried. Do you agree with that . Ms. Ayotte i agree with the senator from south carolina. We need to protect our country. That means a lot longer than a weeklong interrogation. Thank you, mr. President. Mr. Leahy mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from vermont. Mr. Leahy mr. President , if i might for a moment, weve had dozens and dozens of these people that have been arrested. We had the socalled underwear bomber. We had a recent one, a number of osama bin ladens family and others. They were given their miranda warning. They wont shut up. They keep talking on day after day after day. In my experience, if youre going to talk, youre going to talk, if you have a miranda warning or not. Wouldnt it be nice if we demonstrated to the rest of the world that were not afraid of these people . That we have the best Court Systems in the world and were going to use them. We have had three or four convictions of military commissions on terrorism cases. Weve had several hundred in courts. Senators, its really not responsible to talk about, oh, my gosh, we just took him straight to gitmo. Gitmo by itself is damaging the interest of the United States and the image of the United States. But the fact of the matter is these people who we arrested and went through our court system, they usually will talk ad nauseam, whether they have had the miranda warning or not. So lets be real. It might be a nice talking point to scare people. But the people who are actually involved in prosecution know it works. Mr. Whitehouse mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from rhode island. Mr. Whitehouse mr. President , we, yesterday heard very optimistic news about steering away from the brink of american default before it became too late. Majority leader harry reid came to the floor and gave very optimistic reports. Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell came to the floor, gave very optimistic reports. They hinted very strongly that a deal was close. Time was scheduled at the caucuses presumably to make a presentation of the deal. And then what . And then what . We have had some very interesting speeches and colloquies from our republican colleagues on the floor. I found the debate as to whether our defense and Law Enforcement experts had kept an al qaeda captive in the right location to be interesting. I found the earlier discussion about the Insurance Exchange web sites to be a very interesting discussion. I found the discussion earlier this morning about iran, very interesting discussion. But whats even more interesting is what theyre not talking about. What theyre not talking about is that today the republican leader pulled out of those very productive negotiations, of those very optimistic negotiations, of those negotiations that promised an end to this crisis. I find that absolutely stunning. Im amazed that we are in a situation where were that close to resolving a crisis and avoiding the catastrophes that have been predicted, one side would simply walk away. And i dont blame the minority leader. The information that i have is that he was asked to do so. But the message came from the other side, from the speaker, that Speaker Boehner torpedoed the bipartisan productive negotiations that were at the brink of solving this crisis. Instead of the bipartisan successful process, Speaker Boehner has wanted to interrupt and bring in the same partisan house process that has been a disaster for us over and over again. 100 partisan, 100 politics. We have sent bills over to the house. Those bills have never been brought up for a vote. They have been monkeyed with before they have been brought up, but house members have never had the chance to vote on a senateapproved measure, which would have ended it. Thats the speakers choice. Its the socalled hastert rule. Unless a Strong Majority of republicans is for something, he wont give democrats a chance even to vote, let alone to be a part of the negotiations. So here in the senate you have bipartisan negotiations with the leaders from both sides still with optimism and hope. On the other side, you have a leadership that wont talk to the democrats, has purely partisan decisions about whether something shall come to the floor, and has not yet brought a senate bill to the floor for a clean vote. It is a nightmare over there. And the strategy hasnt worked, in case they didnt get the memo. Holding the economy hostage was a terrible choice for the speaker. Causing the shutdown was a terrible choice. Holding the credit of the United States government hostage has been a terrible choice. To use a word that was used on the floor this morning by one of our republican friends, it was a fools errand. It was a fools errand that put the party in a ditch. In a ditch was the quote. Well, unfortunately, because hes the speaker, its not just the Republican Party thats in the ditch. The whole country is in the ditch. As this default looms. Some of them are trying to get out of the difficulty that they find themselves in by pretending that the default isnt real. We have default deniers now side by side i guess with the climate deniers and other deniers. They deny that october 17 is the real date when anything might go wrong. They deny that anything bad will actually happen if the United States government defaults. They deny that if we just pay the treasury bills and leave other things unpaid, anything bad will happen. Treasury bills get sold in an auction, in a market. If youre going to that auction to buy treasury bills and you see a government that isnt paying Social Security recipients on time, that has massive liquidity and cash flow problems as a result of the debt limit failure, we may say, yeah, well pay you first, but are you really going to pay the same rate for that security of that country while that country is facing all of these other problems . It is a preposterous notion. It is the type of notion that you can only believe when you absolutely need to believe it for your ideological purposes. Reality simply does not support a notion like that. If you are living in a cocoon world of extremist ideology, you can come up with thoughts like that, and if you are only talking to other people who think the same way, you can kind of agree that that thought makes sense. But there is a little problem. Reality wins. Real always wins. Theyre playing with dynamite over there, and theyre pretending that its not even dangerous. It would be one thing if we understood that they respected how very dangerous the stunts are that they are pulling in the House Republican leadership. Its even more dangerous when they dont appear to know the danger that they are causing for our economy. I hope that we will get back to work here in the senate right away with a bipartisan solution to this rather than allowing the house and the speaker to wreck the opportunity we had just as late as yesterday in order to play dangerous partisan games. We dont have the time for that, and its the wrong thing. Its the wrong thing in a very immediate way in terms of the damage that it will do to our economy, to the world economy, to people across this country whose Interest Rates are pegged to treasury bills, to anybody who depends on an economy where people have confidence that the United States is a solid investment and have confidence that our economy is going to grow. The default puts all that at risk. It creates real economic hazards for our country. But the method of getting us here has additional hazards, and id like to close by talking about them. From the very founding of this republic, we have prided ourselves on our distinct american system of government. We have fought for it, we have protected us protected it. It has seen us through world wars, civil wars, great depressions, great recessions, all types of calamity. And what it fundamentally is, the phrase we use probably as much as any other about our country is that it is a government of laws, it is a government of laws, and it risks being turned in by a very small faction in one party, in one house, in one branch of government, and it being turned into a government not of laws but of threats. A government where the person who can make the scariest threat wins. It doesnt matter that what youre objecting to was passed in the regular order, passed by both houses of congress, signed into law by the president , approved by the Supreme Court. It doesnt matter that it was the center of the last president ial election and that their point of view lost convincingly. What matters to them is if they can make dangerous enough threats, they may be able to try to get their way anyway, anyway. That is not the way a government of laws behaves. That is the way a government of threats behaves. And if we go down the road of a government of threats, we are taking a very big step away from our american heritage, away from the procedures of our american constitution and away from the values that have seen us through hundreds of years of growth and of pride. It is a dangerous point, and the fact that theyre willing to do that, the fact that theyre willing not only to wreck the economy but to wreck the status of this country as one that is run by a government of laws and turn it instead to a government of threats shows how shallowly they wear their patriotism on their sleeves. It is buncum patriotism to put the real values of this country into the hopper into a government of threats instead of a government of laws. A great judge, a Supreme Court justice once said the procedure is the bone structure of a democratic society. Breaking those bones to make your point is no way to enhance our democratic society. So i hope that the majority leader and the minority leader will resume their negotiations right away. I hope, frankly, its begun already and i just dont know about it yet, but we have got to get going. And if the minority leader is unwilling to tell Speaker Boehner no, knock it off, you have done enough damage already, were going to solve this in the senate and were going to sit down and have a bipartisan compromise, if he is unwilling to say that, then we need to come back to the floor and we need to bring up the bill that the republicans filibustered on saturday that would have gotten us out of this pickle. Time is short. We have got to get moving. And if our colleagues on the other side then want to filibuster, to filibuster the solution to this debt limit crisis, they will have shown their hand in a very dangerous way. I yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call mr. Vitter mr. President , . The presiding officer the senator from louisiana. Mr. Vitter thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , i ask unanimous consent to end the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Vitter thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , a couple of hours ago i was here on the senate floor urging and encouraging the house to act on a compromise proposal to deal with the current fiscal issues before us that included the no washington exemption from obamacare language. As i said, i think thats very, very important for two reasons. One, the principle. I think the first rule of american democracy should be that washington lives by the same rules as it imposes on america. Under obamacare, under everything. And secondly, a very practical consideration. I think the quicker we do that, the quicker we start getting things right. The quicker we start understanding in a gut, personal way the real challenges and burdens of obamacare and the quicker we start changing that. I returned just a couple hours later to congratulate the house becaus