[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 70 (Wednesday, June 8, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         FITZ-PEGADO SPEECH II

  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, shortly before the Senate adjourned for 
the Memorial Day recess, I began a series of speeches about Lauri Fitz-
Pegado, President Clinton's nominee to be Assistant Secretary and 
Director General of the U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service.
  I talked about how Lauri Fitz-Pegado has orchestrated lies to 
Congress. I talked about how she has served as a lobbyist for the 
Communist government in Angola and how she had worked for the 
bloodthirsty Duvalier regime in Haiti, a regime which has left us with 
the tragic legacy we are dealing with today.
  Mr. President, Lauri Fitz-Pegado has done much more. She has spent 
her entire career as a hired gun lobbyist for despicable foreign 
interests. She has deliberately attempted and succeeded in misleading 
Senators about her past.
  Mr. President, I talked about a reason which by itself should be 
sufficient to reject the nomination of Lauri Fitz-Pegado: her role in 
orchestrating perjury before Congress and the U.N. Security Council as 
the representative of Citizens for a Free Kuwait.
  In 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of their country, the Kuwaiti 
Government in exile formed Citizens for a Free Kuwait. They hired the 
lobbying firm of Hill and Knowlton to attempt to influence public 
opinion in the United States toward entering the conflict. Lauri Fitz-
Pegado was in charge of the effort.
  Her strategy was to use alleged witnesses to atrocities to tell 
stories of human rights violations in occupied Kuwait. Using their 
testimony she orchestrated what has come to be known as ``The Baby 
Incubator Fraud,'' and that truly is what it was.
  She first coached a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only at the 
time as ``Nayira,'' to testify before Congress that she had seen Iraqi 
soldiers remove Kuwaiti babies from hospital respirators.
  Nayira claimed to be a Kuwaiti refugee who had been working as a 
volunteer in a Kuwaiti hospital throughout the first few weeks of the 
Iraqi occupation. She said that she had seen them take babies out of 
incubators, take the incubators, and then leave the babies--her quote--
``on the cold floor to die.''
  That testimony was quoted and cited by six Members of the Senate as 
reason to go to war with Iraq.
  However, it was later discovered that the girl was, in fact, the 
daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States. It also turned 
out that Lauri Fitz-Pegado had concealed Nayira's real identity.
  Since then, every reputable human rights organization and journalist 
that has investigated the case have concluded that the baby incubator 
story was an outright total fabricated lie.
  Even a study commissioned later by the Kuwaiti Government could not 
produce a shred of evidence that the Ambassador's daughter had managed 
to sneak back into Kuwait while it was occupied in order to do a few 
weeks of volunteer work in a hospital overrun by bloodthirsty Iraqis.
  When the perjured testimony was discovered, and later reported by the 
television news program ``60 Minutes,'' Fitz-Pegado first maintained 
that she had believed the girl's story, and that she did not mean to 
deceive anyone.
  But later the firm she worked with said that they did know about 
Nayira's family ties, they did know she was the Ambassador's daughter, 
but the cover now was that Congress itself wanted the lie told.
  They blamed Congress for their lies. What is more, they put on a 
repeat performance, this time using phony witnesses using false names 
and occupations, in front of the U.N. Security Council on November 27, 
1990.
  Mr. President, Lauri Fitz-Pegado did not inform the Banking Committee 
of this baby incubator scam. I believe that if the other members of the 
Banking Committee, Democrat and Republican alike, had been aware of 
even this limited set of facts during the confirmation process, her 
nomination would have been rejected by that committee.
  Later in the morning I made my first speech about her. I told the 
Banking Committee the story that they had not yet heard. After my 
colleagues on the Banking Committee heard about the baby incubator 
fraud, I am proud to say that ranking Republican Alfonse D'Amato joined 
my call for the nomination to be returned to the Banking Committee and 
I have a meeting planned with Chairman Don Riegle to discuss the matter 
with him. I appreciate his interest and concern.
  Lauri Fitz-Pegado's response to this attempt to subject her 
nomination to the light of day has been to try to set up a series of 
private lobbying meetings with Capitol Hill staff. Instead of having 
the charges against her properly investigated, and having witnesses 
testify under oath, she instead wants to secretly work out 
accommodations behind closed doors, her usual mode of operation.
  Believing that she can lobby the U.S. Senate in the same way that she 
has lobbied for Third World dictators, Lauri Fitz-Pegado even showed 
up--unannounced and with a taxpayer financed Department of Commerce 
lobbyist--at my office last week. In other words, taxpayer's money is 
now being used to get her confirmed.
  Finding that I was not in, she followed up with a letter claiming 
that she had made multiple attempts to schedule meetings with me--
another absolute lie; she never made an attempt to schedule until she 
showed up at the office and that now she would like a private closed-
door meeting to lobby for my support. She will not have it.
  Mr. President, that precisely sums up why America can do better than 
Lauri Fitz-Pegado. President Clinton said in his 1992 campaign that he 
was going to shut down the revolving door between lobbyists and 
Government. This is not the way to shut it down. Mr. President, with 
the likes of Lauri Fitz-Pegado, he has greased it.
  Mr. President, that is wrong. We need an open hearing, with members 
of the media present, and with witnesses under oath, before we even 
think of voting to confirm this woman.
  Lauri Fitz-Pegado deserves her day in court. I want her to have it, 
and that is all that I am asking for.
  She deserves the chance to explain her involvement with the Marxist 
Government of Angola. She deserves the chance to explain her ties to 
the bloody Duvalier regime in Haiti. She deserves the chance to explain 
her role in baby incubator fraud.
  But Mr. President, more than that, the American people deserve to 
hear her explanations in the full light of day, on the record, and 
under oath--not in clandestine sessions in which she tries to lobby her 
way from congressional office to congressional office, and ultimately 
Senate confirmation.
  Lauri Fitz-Pegado is a professional ``image enhancer.'' She has spent 
her working life teaching people how to deny rather than explain; how 
to change the subject and then to counterattack. It works on a lot of 
people, a lot of the time. But it will not work this time.
  The U.S. Senate should not except Lauri Fitz-Pegado's ``image 
enhanced'' version of her past. It should demand independent 
investigation by professionals, and it should demand that witnesses 
appear under oath.
  Apologists for Lauri Fitz-Pegado say that she should be confirmed 
because the position to which she is being appointed is not of great 
significance. Great significance? There are 200 trade offices around 
the world in 70 countries. If it is not of great significance, then, 
rather than appoint her to it, let us abolish the trade offices.
  If confirmed, Lauri Fitz-Pegado would have control over a global 
network of 200 trade offices around the world. Mr. President, I have 
said that my opposition is not based on party or on ideology. It is 
based on the fact that there are few people in America who have less 
business being in charge of our Nation's trade secrets than Lauri Fitz-
Pegado. There are few people who are less qualified to be in charge of 
the trade of the United States.
  If her nomination is not returned to the Banking Committee for 
further review, then I intend to expose other aspects of her past 
associations on the Senate floor. There will be long and protracted 
debate, and sensitive documents will be read into the Record.
  I have no desire to publicly implicate any other individual or agency 
of government. But if this nomination is not subjected to committee 
scrutiny then facts that are far more embarrassing to Ms. Fitz-Pegado 
and others will be made public on the Senate floor.
  Mr. President. America can do better than Lauri Fitz-Pegado. It would 
be hard to do worse.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina suggests the 
absence of a quorum. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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