mrs. shaheen: not at all. in fact, if we look at this map, we can see this orange color, that's one of the pockets that remains of isis right down in here. we have not yet eradicated isis. that doesn't account for some of the cells that still exist throughout this area. mr. graham: do you remember being told that thousands of isis fighters have gone back into the fabric of syria and they will reemerge under the right conditions? mrs. shaheen: absolutely. it's what we saw in iraq. gray gray i --. mr. graham: i want to say the following: this has been a long struggle. most americans, all things being equal, would like to get all of our troops home. the mideast is a very complicated place. i share the president's desire to withdraw our forces when it makes sense. and as to the public at large, i want to stress to you that having been in the military for quite awhile, i'm very aware of the sacrifices required to go overseas and serve in iraq, syria, and afghanistan. i've come to conclude that a presence over there

mrs. shaheen: not at all. in fact, if we look at this map, we can see this orange color, that's one of the pockets that remains of isis right down in here. we have not yet eradicated isis. that doesn't account for some of the cells that still exist throughout this area. mr. graham: do you remember being told that thousands of isis fighters have gone back into the fabric of syria and they will reemerge under the right conditions? mrs. shaheen: absolutely. it's what we saw in iraq. gray gray i --. mr. graham: i want to say the following: this has been a long struggle. most americans, all things being equal, would like to get all of our troops home. the mideast is a very complicated place. i share the president's desire to withdraw our forces when it makes sense. and as to the public at large, i want to stress to you that having been in the military for quite awhile, i'm very aware of the sacrifices required to go overseas and serve in iraq, syria, and afghanistan. i've come to conclude that a presence over there

mrs. shaheen: thank you. i'm pleased to be here as a co-sponsor of this legislation. i think the senate took an important step last week in sending a very strong message that what's happening in yemen is not acceptable. we have a humanitarian disaster there. and we need to see some actions by the saudis to help end that. we took another positive step forward today and hopefully we will follow that, again, with passage of the legislation today. but i think more importantly, in terms of the menendez legislation is that this is not going away. this is something we are going to continue to work at. because people need to be held accountable for what's happened and this is a bipartisan effort that will continue. so i'm pleased to join my colleagues today. those people who have been in the forefront of trying to call attention to what's happening in yemen, to call attention and hold people accountable for jamal khashoggi's murder, and to address the crisis that is happening with saudi arabia and to say very clearly to them and to the rest of the world that e believe in the

mrs. shaheen: mr. president. the presiding officer: t

senator shaheen. >> thank you mr. chairman and secretary geurts. i am glad at admiral merz was more direct about his response to that question. and i would say to you all that this is an imminent possibility. and unless congress is very clear about what the impact is going to be, i think it makes it harder to make a decision. so i hope that you will not be as diplomatic as you were in your response to that question, and you will be very direct and say, this is what is impact is going to be. because i think people -- i think we need to hear that in order to make the best decision possible. >> absolutely. will do, ma'am. >> secretary geurts, as we all know, the goal of the 355-ship navy came as a result of the qdr in 2014. now, all of a here on the subcommittee were in halifax a couple of weeks ago for the halifax security forum. and we heard admiral davidson who is the commander of the u.s. endopacific command say that we need a bigger navy. and he said that the chinese fleet continues to grow. and i quote, the capacity concern is going to become gr

senator shaheen. thank you, mr. chairman. secretary geurts, i am glad that admiral merz was more direct about his response to that question. and i would say to you all that this is an imminent possibility in a mosque congress is very clear about what the impact is going to be, i think it makes it harder to make a decision. i hope you will not be as diplomatic as you were in your response to that question and you'll be very direct and say this is what the impact it's going to be. i think we need to hear that in order to make the best decision possible. >> absolutely. >> secretary geurts come as we all know the goal of 355 ship navy came as a result of that cutie are in 2014. all of us here on the subcommittee were in the house for the house at security firm and we heard admiral davidson, commander of the pacific command say that we need a bigger navy. .. >> still comfortable that that number of ships is adequate to address the growing threat from china and russia, for that matter, the great power competition that we're now fac

. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator shaheen. senator blumenthal. >> thank you mr. chairman,,., this hearing marks the last official appearance here and work by my military fellow who happens to be a marine corps officer. he has done extraordinary work over the last year. i was tempted to ask you to issue an order that he continue in my office. but that work has been such a hardship i am sure, given his boss that i think he deserves relief from this duty, sir. but i just wanted to say on the record how grateful and pleased i have been with his performance. i would say he is the best of our military fellows except a few others in the marines. i don't want to single him out but he certainly is one of the best and we will miss him. i am grateful to you personally for permitting your marines to serve us in that capacity. i won't ask you for a response to that. i do have a question about submarine maintenance. i know you have been asked about submarines by other senators and question on maintenance issue. it is not the most glamour of the topics that we discussed today b

senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for your willingness to consider taking on these assignments at this critical time in our country. i want to go, general mckenzie come to another hot spot in the middle east, syria. i i appreciated your meeting wih me last week and i think at that time i raised that concerns that had based on my visit there this summer, that we made significant gains in northeast section of syria and have beaten back isis and life is returning to normal for the people who live there. i'm concerned about the fact that right now there is a hold on the stabilization funds for the part of syria. so can you talk about how we can continue to maintain the gains we have their with out that stabilization my? >> senator, thank you for eventually to maintain our gains we're going to have to resource what follows which is local security under supreme control general speaking east of euphrates. that will require monetary assistance that come from this country. also, i think from partners in the regi

mr. president, i rise today to discuss s.j. res 54, appointed statement from the united states senate that the status quo in yemen is not tenable. that we will not stand idly by as the president lends our country's name to the calamitous military forays of another nation and our security partners across the world do not have a blank check. to my knowledge this is the first time since as considered a joint resolution under this provision, which is directly derived from the war powers resolution. this is ante important step to researching congress' role in authorizing the use of force. i was proud to see a strong show of support for the procedural vote to move this resolution forward, and i hope that my colleagues above-cited i'll content to embrace that moral fortitude. more please support senator young's amendment to this resolution which i understand senator sanders also supports. this language would clarify that refueling operations definitively cosseted u.s. support for hostilities in

thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator fisher. senator shaheen. >> thank you. and thank you to both of you for the impressive work on the report. i want to -- admiral -- ambassador edelman, i want to pick up on something that i think i heard you say at the end of your remarks. you talked about the operational concepts to win the great power competition being missing across the whole department of defense. did i understand that correctly? if so, can you explain a little more about what you mean by that and what you see being done to address it? >> senator shaheen, i think it manifested itself in a couple of different ways, actually, in our discussions. for instance, the strategy does talk about taking potentially more risks in the middle east, yet when we asked different folks in the department with different sets of responsibilities that touched on this issue, where exactly are you talking about taking the risk? is it risk with regard to the fight against isis or is it risk with regard to containing iran or is it risk in afghanistan, we got different answers fr

the folks i knew many years ago when she was in her 20's and i was in my 30's. >> [laughter] mr. buckley: i'm supposed to say that. folks, we can celebrate a lot tonight, but 2020 is the big enchilada, as they say. we have get rid of donald trump, -- [applause and cheers] mr. buckley: we have got to get rid of chris sununu. [applause and cheers] we have got to reelect chris and annie to congress. we have got to hold our majority in the senate and the house, but more important, we have to reelect jeanne shaheen to the united states senate in 2020. so with that, jeanne shaheen. jeanne shaheen. jeanne shaheen. jeanne shaheen. sen. shaheen: thank you, raymond. thank you all very much. you know i have very warm feelings when i come into this room because this is where i announced my very first race for governor in 1996. [applause] we were here with our three daughters, before the sons in law and all the grandchildren. we have gone forth and multiplied. just as the democrats have, right? so -- [applause] we have so much to celebrate today. and as everyone spoke and has said, it is beca

bart mr. king said those things when they finally made it over and talked about how long it would take to make justice happen. how long, not long because -- the moral universe is long, but it tends towards justice. the great thing about folks here -- the great thing about folks who reads you are reading to bend with inevitability. the only way to end, the only way it's ever happened as far as to be the vendors of the ark. [applause] and so, i want to close with one theme that may seem a little strange for an elected leader to be talking about. but now that we've slipped the two houses in the legislature i am blown away by the folks -- you elected young people in younger people. you all elected diversity and gender diversity, rhys diversity, lgbt diversity come it's amazing what you will accomplish. but i caution everybody here. lincoln talks about power. to paraphrase what he said companies that if you want to see the true character of a person, don't view them in adversity. give them power. l

one thing i would like to mention, mr. chairman, is the question came up earlier about gray zone conflict and i feel like -- >> with regard to senator shaheen's -- >> yes, senator shaheen's question. we were required in last year's ndaa to look at readiness through a domain lens, air, ground, sea, space and cyber. we've also done that work. in the spring we hope to have some assessment of how the department is doing in assessing readiness across all those domains as well. >> thank you very much. i tell you what we're going to do, mr. pendleton, i'm going to look over your prepared statement and see if i need to follow up on any questions for the record. does anyone else wish to ask questions? senator hirono. >> very briefly. mr. secretary, you have been impressively prepared to respond to the chairman's questions. thank you very much. with regard to our ship yards, could you provide to this committee a list of what specifically is being done at the four public ship yards to implement the shipyard infrastructure modern opti

so, mr. president, i rise today to urge my colleagues to support amendment number 4080 to senate joint resolution 54. i introduced this amendment this morning and i am proud to report that the senate shaheen and collins and -- senator shaheen, collins and coons are now supporting this important bipartisan amendment. amendment 4080, would amend senate joint resolution 54 by simply defining the term hostilities to include inin flight refueling of united states aircraft conducting missions as part of the 0 -- on going civil war in yemen. it would prevent the refueling of saudi arabia coalition aircraft in yemen that have been responsible for violation of human rights laws. it does not define the term hostilities more broadly for the war powers resolution or in any other instance many before discussing the amendment in more detail, allow me to zoom out for a moment and explain how i see the broader picture related to saudi arabia and yemen. the civil war in yemen is an unmitigated national securi

mrs. shaheen: thank you, thank , madam president. we will soon be voting in this chamber on senate resolution 64, which is a congressional review act looking at a treasury department rule change to promote -- that i believe will promote dark money in politics. now since the supreme court's decision in citizens united, our political system has been flooded, absolutely flooded with money from special interest groups. according to the center for responsive politics, independent expenditures on campaigns went from $203 million in 2010 to less than ten years later, in 2016, $1.48 billion. from $203 million in 2010, after the citizens united decision, to $1.48 billion in 2016. this is a massive influx of money into our elections that undermines the confidence of the american people in our political system. it creates an environment that is ripe for corruption and inappropriate influence. and it sows further disenchantment among the electorate. it allows voters to believe that their voices are less important than businesses with a bigger ch