The United Nations estimates that more than 300,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003. In that time, another 2.5 million people have been displaced.

Just over 4 years ago the House unanimously passed a resolution calling the situation in Darfur genocide. The resolution urged the President to consider multilateral--even unilateral--intervention to address this crisis.

The legislation spoke of Congress's hope that the United States would not allow what happened in Rwanda to happen again.

Not on our watch.

Since then we have passed legislation increasing economic pressure on Sudan. The U.N. Security Council has passed resolutions and implemented arms embargos. Members of Congress have met with Ambassadors and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

And yet we have failed to bring an end to this nightmare--a nightmare that is now entering its sixth year.

In May, Senator Snowe and 27 other Senators joined me in a letter to President Bush saying that it was time for definitive U.S. leadership to bring a long-term resolution to the crisis in Sudan. This bipartisan letter from almost a third of the Senate said:

Fourteen years ago the world watched as genocide unfolded in Rwanda. Despite dire warnings and pleas for help, 800,000 people were brutally killed in less than one hundred days. Today the world looks back in painful regret at its failure to take action. Yet, we are likely to face a similarly harsh historical judgment if we do not once and for all take action against the genocide in Darfur.

A rogue regime guilty of killing hundreds of thousands of its own people--guilty of rape, torture, and the creation of millions of refugees--must not be allowed to thumb its nose any further at the international community.

Yet the Sudanese regime continues to stall the deployment of a historic peacekeeping force--a force that is still only one-third deployed more than 1 year after it was approved by the U.N. Security Council.

I and others repeatedly have raised directly with President Bush and with Secretary Rice the need for decisive Presidential leadership.

Senator Biden has held hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ask why the administration cannot do more to help with the desperately needed deployment of peacekeepers.

President Bush himself said during a visit this year to Kigali Memorial Center, where 250,000 Rwandans are buried in mass graves, that he hoped the world would "once and for all" work to halt the genocide in Darfur.

Today's tragedy in Darfur is of historic proportion. It is our duty to step in and show the world we really care. But it takes Presidential leadership--not in 6 months, not in a year, but now.

The United States is not the only country that needs to act. A recent BBC investigation showed that Chinese military equipment is still being used by the Government of Sudan in Darfur, despite a U.N. arms embargo.

The arms embargo--which my colleague, Senator Bill Nelson, has been arguing should be strengthened--requires foreign nations to ensure that they are not in any way providing military assistance for the conflict in Darfur. Yet, over the years, Amnesty International and now the BBC have documented Chinese and Russian military equipment in Darfur.

China and Russia are members of the U.N. Security Council and have a responsibility to ensure their equipment is not adding to the human suffering in Sudan.

If China wants the world to see it as a modern and responsible global leader, it is time to show real leadership on such issues as Darfur, Burma, and Zimbabwe. It should no longer use its Security Council veto to protect brutal dictatorships. It must be diligent in its weapons sales to conflict zones.

My friend and colleague, Senator Chuck Hagel, said it perfectly in a recent speech. He said:

Powerful nations must be the adults in world affairs. Anything less will result in disastrous, useless, preventable global conflict.

I couldn't agree more.

I call on China to stop propping up the Sudanese regime with oil purchases. Ensure that Chinese weapons are not fueling the conflict. Use your full diplomatic leverage to ensure full U.N. peacekeeper deployment, and work with the global community to help forge a long-term political settlement in Sudan.

This week Senators Snowe, Kerry, Feingold, Lugar, Brownback, Schumer, Menendez, Dodd, Specter, Leahy, Levin, Obama, Biden and others have joined me in introducing a final resolution of this 110th Congress on Darfur.

It urges the President, the United Nations, the African Union, and other key members of the international community to pursue a comprehensive strategy to address the ongoing crisis in Darfur. It also condemns the Government of Sudan for its continued violence and obstruction of the international community. A similar resolution is being introduced in the House.

Quite simply, the situation in Darfur has reached a tragic juncture. This administration and Congress will either act soon or, sadly, this genocide will have occurred on our watch.

A few years ago, President Clinton faced the reality of the failure to halt the genocide in Rwanda. He called it "my great, great regret in international affairs."

That was a brave and honorable reflection.

We cannot allow ourselves to have to look back years from now to say the same thing happened in Darfur. The United States and the global community, particularly those on the U.N. Security Council and Sudan's neighbors, have a moral responsibility to speak out and act to save the people of Darfur.