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karynnj

(59,466 posts)
Wed Feb 22, 2012, 10:45 PM Feb 2012

Here are the 109th Congress Iran legislation Santorum pushed, but failed on


Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about some of the recent developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

We have a lot of activity today. There is a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as some dissidents who are in town to talk about the state of affairs in Iran.

As many of my colleagues know, the Iranian Government's track record with respect to supporting acts of terror inflicted upon innocent persons and inflicting damage on peaceful relations among Middle Eastern countries is abysmal. Iran's bad activities in the Middle East and, candidly, bad actions in the world--at the head of the list, from my perspective, is promoting terrorism activities and Islamic fascism ideology that undergirds that terrorist activity in the Middle East--have secured a designation by the U.S. Department of State as a state sponsor of terrorism. Iran supports terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, the entity behind the 1983 suicide terrorist attack against U.S. military and civilian personnel in Lebanon. Hamas is another organization that they are now supporting, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. All of these are reprehensible organizations that the Iranian Government is directly sponsoring as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Additionally, Iran has been implicated in the 1996 attack on U.S. military personnel at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

Iran's reach into Iraq, which many of us have been complaining about for a couple of years and which is now being recognized by our Government, by our Department of State, and which is now being recognized by the world--Iran is one of the fomenters of terrorism within the country of Iraq.

Iran's connection to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the organization's Badr Brigades means that Iran has a hand in shaping the allegiances of both Iraq's police and military forces.

Iran's human rights violations, in addition to their terrorist activities, are no less chilling. The State Department reported that the Government of Iran engages in widespread use of torture and other degrading treatment and the Iranian Government continues to discriminate against religious and ethnic minorities. They do not discriminate as to who they discriminate against. Other Muslim sects--whether Sunni or Suffi or Jews or Christians, they discriminate against them all.

Iran's record of degradation of women is appalling and should not be tolerated by the international community. Iranian women are severely oppressed and their voices are constantly suffocated by the government. There are numerous examples of Iranian women who have been arrested and severely beaten for the simple fact they are females. One example is Dr. Roya Toloui, a women's rights activist and the editor of a publication that is now banned in Iran. She was arrested last summer in the wake of a 2005 July demonstration in the town of Mahabad. Dr. Toloui was held in prison for 66 days. While she was there, she was raped and she was tortured. Though she has since been released from prison, Dr. Toloui is in constant fear of rearrest and of death.

The State Department also noted Iran's continued restrictions on workers' rights. In short, the Government of Iran oppress its people and terrorizes the world and is a threat to the security of this country and to the security of democracies throughout the West.

The one additional aspect that has now taken a lot of press is Iran's pursuit of nuclear capability. This is very unsettling when you have a regime with this kind of track record to be in pursuit of nuclear capability. Iran, of course, is permitted to pursue peaceful nuclear research under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Its record on transparency and the true purpose of its program, obviously, is very much in doubt. In November of 2003 the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has been developing an undeclared nuclear enrichment program for 18 years and had covertly imported nuclear material and equipment. Furthermore, the IAEA reported that Iran had conducted over 110 unreported experiments to produce uranium, metal, and separated plutonium, and had possession of designs clearly related to the fabrication of nuclear weapons.

In 2005, in August, following the election of President Ahmadinejad, Iran announced that the ongoing negotiations under the terms of the 2004 Paris agreement, the agreement that suspended activities brokered by the EU-3, were ``satisfactory'' according to Iran. Then they announced they were resuming the conversion of raw uranium into gas for enrichment. In January of 2006, Iran removed the IAEA seals on the research enrichment plant in Natanz.

Recently, the IAEA board voted 27 to 3 to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, and in so doing noted Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran's aggressive behavior and concealment of ongoing nuclear activities can only lead to one conclusion, and that is that Iran is seeking to enrich uranium to use for nuclear weapons.

In response to this nuclear gambit, I believe we need smart sanctions for the U.N. to impose. For example, the U.N. should consider imposing a travel ban on Iran's leaders, banning international flights from Iranian air, banning the transportation of cargo carried by Iranian Government-owned ships, and possibly to pursue legal action against Iranian leaders responsible for human rights and terrorism abuses, as well as executions.

I recently introduced legislation with my colleague, Senator Norm Coleman, that seeks to empower the forces of democracy in Iran and support efforts to foster peaceful change within Iran. It is S. 333, the Iran Freedom and Support Act. It seeks to make it harder for the Government of Iran to have access to revenue and foreign investment. Resources that those investments accrue are used by the Iranian Government to support terrorist organizations and to pursue nuclear activity as well as to repress its people.

The bill also codifies sanctions, controls, and regulations currently in place against Iran by Executive order. It codifies those in statute. The bill declares it should be a policy of the United States to support the Iranian people in their prodemocracy movements. We believe, and the bill says, that the people of Iran are entitled to self-determination, to free and fair elections, and we want to provide the resources in helping those groups attain those free and fair elections. We authorized $10 million in this bill, but thanks to the effort on the supplemental the administration has sent up to the Congress, they have requested $75 million for prodemocracy efforts in Iran. I hope the introduction of our legislation last year perhaps gave some encouragement to ask for such funding. They have asked for $75 million. I will amend our bill to ask for $100 million for those efforts.

The Iran Freedom and Support Act is a nonviolent way to try to effect change in Iraq. I agree with the President and all who have talked about keeping our military options on the table, but it is vitally important to try to use our diplomatic options first and foremost. At a time when the threat from Iran is real, it is not only real to this country, not only real to the Middle East and Iraq, but it is, obviously, real to their own people in the way they treat them.

This is an important piece of legislation. It is something I hope we can do. It is important in spite of what the President has done. I support his policies that we show the Congress is 100 percent behind his effort to do something about the nuclear gambit Iran is engaged in right now. I am hopeful we can pass this legislation in a timely fashion.




http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r109:FLD001:S51597

Note that Santorum spoke of Biden opposing it - but Biden was NOT the Chair of SFRC, Lugar was - and he is not one of the cosponsors.

In fact, Lugar has long fought various Iranian resolutions - many pushed by AIPAC (which incidentally has "forgotten" this year that they do not invite competitors if the President was speaking - http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2012/02/22/3091803/gingrich-at-aipac-faux-pas-or-a-sign )

Here is the full list of bills - just in that one Congress - that Santorum was the lead sponsor on - Note that 4 and 6 passed that horrendous Congress.
Items 1 through 10 of 10


1. [109th] S.333 : Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 2/9/2005) Cosponsors (61)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 2/9/2005 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

2. [109th] S.1737 : Iranian Nuclear Trade Prohibition Act of 2005
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 9/20/2005) Cosponsors (1)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 9/20/2005 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

3. [109th] S.2657 : Iran Sanctions Extension Act of 2006
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 4/26/2006) Cosponsors (2)
Committees: Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Latest Major Action: 6/22/2006 Senate committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Hearings held.

4. [109th] S.3971 : Iran Freedom Support Act
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 9/28/2006) Cosponsors (9)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 9/28/2006 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Note: For further action, see H.R.6198 , which became Public Law 109-293 on 9/30/2006.

5. [109th] S.RES.336 : A resolution to condemn the harmful, destructive, and anti-Semitic statements of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, and to demand an apology for those statements of hate and animosity towards all Jewish people of the world.
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 12/16/2005) Cosponsors (21)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 12/16/2005 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

6. [109th] S.RES.337 : A resolution to condemn the harmful, destructive, and anti-Semitic statements of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, and to demand an apology for those statements of hate and animosity towards all Jewish people of the world.
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 12/16/2005) Cosponsors (22)
Latest Major Action: 12/16/2005 Passed/agreed to in Senate. Status: Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.

7. [109th] S.RES.349 : A resolution condemning the Government of Iran for violating the terms of the 2004 Paris Agreement, and expressing support for efforts to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council for its noncompliance with International Atomic Energy Agency obligations.
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 1/20/2006) Cosponsors (1)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 1/20/2006 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

8. [109th] S.RES.587 : A resolution expressing concern relating to the threatening behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ideological alliance that exists between the countries of Cuba and Venezuela, and supporting the people of Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela in the quest of those peoples to achieve a truly democratic form of government.
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 9/26/2006) Cosponsors (2)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 9/26/2006 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

9. [109th] S.AMDT.3640 to H.R.4939 To increase by $12,500,000 the amount appropriated for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, to increase by $12,500,000 the amount appropriated for the Department of State for the Democracy Fund, to provide that such funds shall be made available for democracy programs and activities in Iran, and to provide an offset.
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 4/26/2006) Cosponsors (None)
Latest Major Action: 5/3/2006 Amendment SA 3640 ruled out of order by the chair.

10. [109th] S.AMDT.4234 to S.2766 To authorize, with an offset, assistance for prodemocracy programs and activities inside and outside Iran, to make clear that the United States supports the ability of the people of Iran to exercise self-determination over their form of government, and to make enhancements to the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 1996.
Sponsor: Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] (introduced 6/14/2006) Cosponsors (2)
Latest Major Action: 6/15/2006 Senate amendment not agreed to. Status: Amendment SA 4234 not agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 45 - 54.
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