We all know we have a problem, a broad problem. Ninety-eight percent of the fuel that is used by our vehicles, our autos and trucks for personal and commercial purposes, for highway and air travel operates on oil. The world has the same problem.

As this body of knowledge has evolved, a much more critical job for researchers and scientists has evolved into explaining and educating policy makers and the public to the risks of global warming and the possible consequences of action or of no action.

Yet, if we accept the solution offered today by this bill to explore and develop for oil on the coastal plain of ANWR, it will be 5 years, at least, and probably closer to 8 before the first barrel of oil flows from that effort.

The military's own report says that one-third of deaths and casualties could have been avoided if proper body armor and vehicle armor had been provided from the start of the war.

America has lost the moral high ground with the rest of the world, and we have fewer allies as a result. President Bush and his administration have undermined the war on terror by using tactics outlawed by international treaty and condemned by even our closest friends.

The conduct of President Bush's war of choice has been plagued with incompetent civilian leadership decisions that have cost many lives and rendered the war on and occupation of Iraq a strategic policy disaster for the United States.

So a truthful assessment of how America is doing in the war on terror as a result of President Bush's war on Iraq is that we have been set back by decades.