[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 117 (Wednesday, July 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S10266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  REPRESENTATIVE RICHARDSON'S SUCCESSFUL HUMANITARIAN MISSION TO IRAQ

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, on another issue, I rise to 
congratulate my friend and colleague from New Mexico, Representative 
Bill Richardson, for his recent trip to Iraq that resulted in the early 
release from prison of two Americans, David Daliberti and William 
Barloon.
  Madam President, we have all been affected by this story. We agonized 
with the families of these two Americans since their arrest in March 
when they inadvertently crossed the Iraqi border while trying to visit 
friends at the United Nations observer post in Kuwait. We recoiled when 
we learned that their sentence would be 8 years in prison. We watched 
as others tried to negotiate a solution to the crisis, including the 
wives of Mr. Daliberti and Mr. Barloon, who visited their husbands in a 
Baghdad prison. And we worried as a nation when we received reports 
that both men were experiencing heart trouble that required 
hospitalization while in the prison.
  We have now learned, however, that Representative Richardson has been 
doing more than simply listening to the news coming out of Iraq like 
most of the rest of us. He met eight times with the Iraqi Ambassador to 
the United Nations in New York, sometimes catching a flight from 
Washington early in the morning so that he could return before votes 
were cast in the House.
  These visits established a feeling of trust that allowed 
Representative Richardson to travel to Iraq, where he pressed Saddam 
Hussein for the release of the captive Americans on humanitarian 
grounds. As with any negotiation, we now know that there were moments 
of disagreement and misunderstanding with the Iraqi President. 
Representative Richardson persisted in arguing that releasing these men 
at this time was the right thing to do.
  Madam President, in a world with a seemingly endless number of 
intractable conflicts and troubles, from Bosnia to Rwanda to North 
Korea, it is with a sense of relief that as a result of Representative 
Richardson's successful humanitarian mission to Iraq, we have one less 
crisis hanging over our country and over the two families that have now 
been reunited.
  All Americans should be proud of Mr. Daliberti and Mr. Barloon for 
their courage and strength over the past 5 months. I am especially 
proud of my friend and colleague from my home State of New Mexico for 
his remarkable achievement in winning their release.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  

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