Sen. David Perdue talks about global security and ISIS during swing through Albany

ALBANY — After serving just six months in Washington as Georgia’s junior U.S. Senator, David Perdue said he has learned a lot about how business is conducted in the nation’s capitol. And he doesn’t like what he has seen.

“I’ve learned Washington is very dysfunctional and that’s been confirmed since I have been up there,” Perdue, who made a visit to Albany Saturday, said. “I think there are a lot of well-intentioned people, but we don’t have a great enough sense of urgency and a lack of focus the priorities that need to be addressed. We passed a budget, but we haven’t gone at it with the intent of solving our debt crisis. And the global security crisis gets worse every day. Now we are debating an Iran deal that I don’t think will preclude Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state.

The deal the Obama administration cut with Iran earlier this month is intended to curtail Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The agreement, however must still pass the Senate, but the president has vowed to veto any rejection of the deal.

“I don’t know if we have the votes right now, but I hope we could override the veto,” Perdue said. “But if anybody objectively looks at this deal and takes the partisan politics out of it they will remember in 1994 we had a president tell us that a deal with a foreign country would preclude them from getting a nuclear weapon. We have the same deal going on right now with Iran.”

Perdue was referring to the deal struck by the Clinton Administration which was supposed to prevent North Korea from producing nuclear weapons. The North Koreans began underground nuclear tests years later.

“(Bill) Clinton did that with North Korea and Iran is just as bad an actor as North Korea. In some ways they are worse because they are one of the largest supporters of terrorism in the world,” Perdue said. “So, we have just given a bad actor in Iran the same level of recognition as five countries which have the ability to enrich (uranium) who have civil nuclear programs. There are 18 countries that have civil nuclear programs that can’t enrich. We are bypassing all those countries and giving the Iranians the same recognition as Japan, Germany, Holland, Brazil and Argentina.”

The rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraqi also concerns the senator, who counts the Kurds as one of the U.S.’s few true allies in the region.

“I am so impressed with the Kurds. I’ve met with them twice in Iraq. They are largest population of indigenous people in the world who don’t have their own country, Perdue said. “The Kurds in Iraq are our allies, they are the only guys holding ISIS off right now. I think Jordan and Egypt, who are now cooperating with Israel, are also solid actors trying to bring reasonable solutions to the Middle East.

“What I am saying is that the coalition that is fighting ISIS right now needs to have direction and the U.S. is not providing a clear mission. The president has said in his own words they don’t have a clear strategy on how to deal with ISIS.”

Closer to home, Perdue touched on the topic of illegal immigration and so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Perdue said he co-sponsored several bills to stop sanctuary jurisdictions, which came into play July 1 in San Francisco when 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was allegedly shot and killed by an illegal immigrant who was in the country despite being previously deported five times.

San Francisco is one of more than 300 “sanctuary cities” in the US which prohibit city employees and police officers from asking people about their immigration status. Perdue was asked how these cities can willfully ignore federal immigration laws.

“I asked the State Department and the DOJ (Department of Justice) that question the other day and I haven’t gotten a good answer yet,” He said. “It is amazing to me that we have so many cities which violate federal laws. There are laws on the book that say federal law supersedes state law yet these criminals are given free haven inside of these cities. Five times that guy has been deported, he should have been incarcerated.

“These cities should not be allowed to ignore federal law.”