[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 120 (Thursday, September 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10093-H10099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WHEN WILL WE STOP THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, we adjourned regular legislative business,
or ended regular legislative business, so early that it is in the
middle of the day. It is only 10 minutes to 1 out in California and
still the morning in Hawaii, so I am going to take advantage of this
opportunity and try to keep my good friend from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez,
interested by covering three different topics. The first thing I would
like to cover is Iraq.
I want to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Porter of
Illinois. There is great suffering going on in northern Iraq. I thought
that the Kurdish people would maybe reach a period of tranquility here.
They are one of these sad ethnic groups that spread over three,
actually four, nations, with the geographic lines changing over the
past several centuries multiple times. The only Nation that I can think
of that has been cut up into four different nations like this is the
once great nation of Armenia, now down to less than a fourth of its
original size; the first nation as a nation to embrace Christianity in
the 300's, the fourth century, and now we learn about these Kurdish
people dividing among themselves, starting to kill one another. We had
an opportunity here diplomatically to move in after Operation Provide
Comfort was sent to that area of northern Iraq by President George
Bush. Secretary of State Jim Baker visited. I recall telling President
Bush when he called me for the only hospital visit I remember having in
my life, and I was in the hospital for 3 or 4 days for some surgery,
and President Bush called me on my birthday, April 3, 1991, and he
said:
``Bob, we need you, get out of there.''
And I said, ``Can we talk business?''
And he said, ``What?'' He said, ``In the hospital you want to talk
business?''
I said, ``Mr. President, draw a line in the hills. The way you drew a
line in the sand, draw a line in the mountains.''
And he said, ``Bob, there are forces in Washington that would like to
see Iraq spin into at least three different nations.''
And I said, ``Well, if you'll look at the television, which I have
been looking at a lot in the last 2 days, you will see that they are
beating your brains out. Kurdish women are coming into our camps along
the Turkish-Iraqi northern border with children on their shoulders that
have already frozen to death.''
Fortunately with each day it was getting a fourth of a degree warmer,
and he said, ``Well, we're looking at it.''
The media then began to just savagely attack President Bush. This is
within days of the 4-day land war in Iraq ending on the 27th of
December. Here it was less than 5 weeks later and they are beating his
brains out. Within a few days he did draw that line in the hills of
northern Iraq and organized Operation Provide Comfort.
Well it is hard to believe that 6 years ago this coming March, 5\1/2\
years ago now, and the Kurds are still suffering. Iraqi troops in the
north, as Mr. Porter said, are beating in doors, shooting people. They
opened up with savage artillery fire a few days ago into Irbil, the so-
called capital of the Kurdish people in the northern area.
Why Mr. Clinton neglected this area of the world for almost his
entire first term is beyond me. We do have strategic interests in the
area because a dictator like Saddam Hussein can just destroy oil prices
around the world. He was driving faster than anybody believed toward
nuclear, biological and chemical warfare capability. It remains a fact
that we were never able to discover a single Iraqi scud missile.
This last week I have been in Great Britain visiting some of the best
intelligence sites outside of the United States proper in the world.
There is a new news center at the RAF base at Moesworth, which was our
second GLCM base in Great Britain. Fortunately with the dissolution of
the evil empire out of the Kremlin, we were able to shut down those
GLCM bases in Sicily and the two in Great Britain and stop the one in
Germany before it had even gone operational, and we had all of these
new facilities built for the GLCM, the GLCM missiles in Great Britain,
and we put in there something that is called the JAC, the Joint
Analysis Center. I went in there last Thursday, watched in the clearest
way possible, beyond anything I have ever seen of intelligence
capability so far,
[[Page H10094]]
watched the buildup of the Iraqi troops. Unless the President has taken
the course of Jimmy Carter and disregarded his daily intel briefings,
which Carter did in a few instances, then he could claim ignorance. But
I have to believe his National Security Council was keeping him briefed
on this buildup of power, and I managed to evaluate for the third time
the F-16--excuse me the F-15 E, the strike eagle fighter at Lakenheath,
which is not only the world's greatest operational fighter but the best
we have in all of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and flew a simulated
bombing mission up to Scotland, fought our way through British
tornadoes electronically defending the area.
That is just absolutely astounding how you can accomplish a real
mission all electronically, bomb a target, shoot down aircraft or get
shot down yourself. We did the shooting now this time, fought our way
back from aggressor F-15 E's, and as amazing as this system is, the
strike eagle, constantly updating the software packages in it from the
time that I first flew it in March 1990, just a few months before
Saddam Hussein came across the Kuwaiti border, the southern border of
Iraq, on August 2. In spite of its capabilities, not a single F-15 E
was able to find in the field a scud missile during the whole course of
the air war and the 4 days of the ground war in 1991.
And at Farmborough, the air exposition there, the Russian Su-37 did
not debut during Monday's open in the Farmborough exposition, but that
night, as I was walking and looking at some of the Russian equipment on
the flight line, the Su-17 taxis out. It is a beautiful looking
aircraft. It still astounds me how a nation so poverty stricken, so
incapable of making a class radio, a television, a refrigerator, an
automobile; this is Russia I am speaking of; how they can make a
fighter this beautiful and capable is beyond me.
The Su-37 taxis out, it is dusk, its landing lights and all of its
lighting equipment is on. It makes a match performance takeoff, racks
it over the orange cones that they set up to have as the line beyond
which you cannot fly near the crowd. I realized then that they were
probably putting on a performance for the authorities, the British
authorities, at Farmborough to show their max demonstration, a flight
which are not allowed to do in our military because it is so beyond the
envelope, as pilots say, so on the danger edge.
If you lose one engine in that two-engine aircraft, it is a definite
crash, and this Su-37 that is now available for export to countries
like India, through an arrangement with China, where after the first
few they would start building an aircraft totally capable of equaling
the performance of our F-15 E strike eagle. The pilot goes through some
opening maneuvers, then comes across the field in powered slow flight,
pulls up or powers up, rather, into perfectly vertical flight and
expecting to see him do what is called the cobra, which he pushes the
tail up beyond the vertical and then slowly powers back and recovers.
Instead he goes through the cobra manuever, flops on its back and does
what I can only call a snap loop.
I mean only a biplane, a little tiny highly stressed sports biplane
can do what this massive, maybe 20-ton aircraft could do, and that is
pull through and turn on its axis, on the horizontal axis wings in the
tightest loop--it is not even a loop, a snap loop--and recover and
power out of it and accelerate.
The point is the Russians are in the field before we are, even though
we have done this at our test center at Edwards Air Force Base with
vectored thrust, where you take the engine nozzles at the rear of the
aircraft and vary them so that you get this vectored thrust change,
thereby augmenting in an amazing way the control services, your air
runs, your elevator and the rudder on the vertical stabilizer.
{time} 1600
The Russians making this airplane available for export means that on
this floor in the 105th Congress next year we must again protect
against the shortsighted FR-22 Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics
Lightning 2, is what I think they will finally nickname the F-22.
It is amazing how people in this country, with all of the history
that has taken place just in this century, from the Wright Brothers
flying at Kittyhawk on December 17, 1903, to this December 17, in 93
years from a little aircraft that could only be powered 120 feet. That
is almost the wingspan of one of our new unmanned aerial vehicles, the
Global Hawk, which I spent the better part of a morning examining in
its hangar. The first one is due to fly soon down at Teledyne Ryan in
San Diego. I stole some time away from the convention. This Global Hawk
can loiter for almost 2 days without a man, bringing this dazzling type
of data downlinked to our intelligence facilities so we can observe the
brutal antics of a dictator like Saddam Hussein.
So here we are in a fast-moving world, all in this the bloodiest
century in history. We see a dictator bragging that he has outlasted
George Bush, Brian Mulroney, Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand,
Prime Minister Ohara in Japan. He has outlasted them all, in some cases
double turnovers like Mulroney to Kim Campbell to now the new, let us
call it labor liberal government in Ottawa. He is so cocky. He is there
on television yesterday saying that we will not face him man to man, as
though we had not cleaned his clock in Desert Storm. He is talking
about we are hitting him with technology.
Then, of course, in Tehran, on Tehran radio and television they are
talking about us, the Great Satan, child pornography, 1.5 million
abortions a year, runaway divorce, runaway pornography. And now we are
killing humble Iraqi soldiers, who they killed millions of in their war
back in the 1980's; that we are doing it with technology that comes in
out of the night that no one can see. It is just astounding how the
Clinton administration has rallied the Arab world against us.
Jordan, who is getting some of our advanced military equipment, will
not support us in this. Great Britain always stands beside us, but in
all the French papers today are saying that this is nothing more than a
cynical election final quarter stunt by Clinton.
Mr. Speaker, it is with some trepidation that I criticize the moves
that Mr. Clinton has made, but I am going to just ask 10 questions
today that I want the 1 million-plus audience that follows C-Span,
particularly on a day when we are through with legislative business so
quickly, I want to ask these questions. If somebody wants to take them
down, Mr. Speaker, be my guest. I would recommend you call them in to
the successful talk shows around this country and ask these questions,
as some of the more important ones come toward the end. Some of them
people have already thought about.
Here is the first of the 10: Why was Congress not notified?
Constitutionally he should get our permission for aggressive activities
like this. This is not defending the United States. This is not what
Thomas Jefferson talked about when people yelled at him to use our
young embryonic Navy to punish the Barbary pirates along the Tripoli
coast of North Africa.
Jefferson said very clearly, I can only use our small military and
our Navy, and there was not much Army at all, in a defensive way if the
United States, the colonies, the 13 colonies, are attacked. Only then.
By then it was 14 colonies, the 15th about to become a State. Only with
these young 15 American States can I use our military, small military
power defensively. Offensively, like sailing across the Atlantic to the
Mediterranean and punishing the Barbary pirates, for that I need
congressional authority.
And he got it 10 times, through John Adams, his predecessor, through
Jefferson, through his successor, Madison, up through John Quincy
Adams. Ten times this Congress, in that Chamber just a few yards away,
authorized, the Chamber that we were in from 1807 through 1857, and the
small rooms on the Senate side before that, through the British burning
it August 24, 1814, 10 times this Congress said, you will, by order, as
the President, go after the Barbary pirates.
Now all of a sudden where is that congressional authority? We have a
scholar at the Library of Congress, professor Lewis Fisher, who has
written a brilliant book. and I hope next year we have a 2-year, 3-year
debate, multiple special orders like this with dialog back and forth on
why we have allowed
[[Page H10095]]
an imperial Presidency to grow through Republicans and Democrats. Now
we have a President burning up 50 million dollars' worth of cruise
missiles, sea-launched Tomahawks and air-launched Alcum, 50 million
dollars' worth with no loss of life on our side.
But I had a very long commentary with Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee,
holding up these New York headlines this morning saying ``Victory for
Clinton, War is Over,'' and Regis flippantly, I am sure he thought
better of it later, said ``I like wars where nobody dies.'' There is no
such thing as nobody dying. Peasants, personnel in Iraq who man these
surface to air sites we destroyed, they are dead. It is their
misfortune that they live in a country with an evil dictator.
Mr. Speaker, our official reporters of debate are excellent in
titling these 5-minute or 1-minute or 60-minute special order speeches.
If we choose, they will use our title. I would say that the title of
this first section of my special order would be ``When do we stop the
imperial Presidency?''
That is question No. 1. Why was Congress not brought into the
decision process; subquestion: why were we not even notified, those of
us on the intelligence committees: Senator Strom Thurmond, chairman of
Armed Services, the gentleman from South Carolina, Floyd Spence, both
ex-Army and Navy officers, chairman of National Security, why was not
Mr. Spence notified? Why were not the two chairmen, Medal of Honor
winner Bob Kerrey, Senator from Nebraska, the gentleman from Texas,
Larry Combest, chairman on our side; why were we not notified of this
operation?
No. 2. Why has there been no attack against the actual Iraqi army in
the North that violated the United Nations amendments and has done the
killing? The forces in the North are untouched. We attacked targets in
the South. Is that because they are softer targets? Maybe, because we
have more air power out of the South? Is it because Turkey will not
support us in this?
We have now a fundamentalist government in Turkey. The brilliant lady
President in Turkey was defeated, so I guess it is that Turkey will not
let us use Incirlik, the equivalent of Operation Proven Force. I was
there the day the land war started in Incirlik on February 24.
Because of a courageous Air Force officer who will not be named, I
was able to go on a combat mission with a KC-135 out of Dias Tek, right
over the Iraqi-Turkey border, refueling our F-111's, our 15's, our
16's. They were going down the very flight we refueled went down to
Sulaimniya and blew up a nuclear missile facility just on the outskirts
of Baghdad.
Incirlik was important. More Iraqi fighters were shot down by our
fighter pilots who came down from Spangdahlen and Bitburg and
Shusterburg than were shot down by the fantastic 33rd fighter wing out
of Eglin Air Force Base, FL. In the North they were the ones that
captured or shot down the Iraqi fighters fleeing to Iran, where they
were confiscated anyway, in that peculiar relationship between this
Persian nation and this Arabic nation, Iran and Iraq, but no punishment
for the Iraqi army that has done the killing, and is killing today. Or
it will be morning soon over there, and it will be another day of
killing, and Clinton is claiming victory here in the United States.
He did it in the most unseemly way: in the Oval Office, with Vice
President Gore at his side, not a briefing at the Pentagon, not
bringing Shalikashvili, our four-star Chairman of the Joint Chiefs into
his office, but sitting there, for all the world like two aging
schoolboys, discussing this technological short combat with 44 cruise
missiles and one F-16 Falcon punishing a surface-to-air site for
painting them with their radar.
If the Clinton administration did know of the troop movements before-
hand and failed to act, was the administration then encouraging through
its nonaction, encouraging this Iraqi attack to counter a growing
influence in the region by Iran?
No. 3. Was there some geopolitical reasoning behind this? I rather
doubt it, but it is a fair question.
No. 4. If the U.S. actions were a response to the Iraqi attack on one
of the two major Kurdish factions, why was the no-fly zone not extended
in the North? Why was the no-fly zone extended in the South? The
Kurdish cities of Sulaimaniya and Kirkuk, they are both outside of the
no-fly zone in the North. Now are they going to be the likely targets
for next week if Saddam Hussein decides that is his course of action?
Which leads me to other questions later on.
No. 5. Iraq, as I said from my own intelligence fact-finding in the
field in Great Britain just these last few days. If Iraq has been
moving troops to that region for at least half a month, 3 weeks, did
the Clinton administration warn Iraq that the U.S. was going to respond
militarily if any attack occurred against the Kurds?
We could see the artillery pieces lining up. There was almost a
feeling in Europe that, well, maybe they were not going to do it, it
was just a show of force. You could see the way the troops were
deployed they were going to attack Irbil. So where was the warning
here? Where is the discourse between nations to say to Saddam Hussein,
if you do that, here is the result? Or is there a suspicion that it was
politically advantageous to let Saddam Hussein move, and then you have
a quick little action, and a certain person running for the highest
elected office in the world suddenly looks decisive? It is more than
cynicism to analyze that in a fair way.
No. 6. Why did the administration not respond when Iran recently
attacked one of the two Kurdish factions, the one backed by Baghdad,
which led to Iraq's decision to retaliate against the Iranian-backed
Kurdish faction? Why did we not respond then when the initial fighting
started a while ago? It was not ever in the press. They were busy at
the Democratic convention.
No. 7. Why is our military response only minimal and nonthreatening
to the Iraqi forces in the North?
No. 8. Will the United States escalate its response if Iraq attacks
the aforementioned Sulaimaniya or Kurkuk? Or what if its forces just
remain in the region? They are still occupying Irbil. There are some
reports they are pulling out, but not all of their forces.
They are still occupying what is considered the capital of the
Kurdish part of Iraq. Irbil is where the two helicopters that were shot
down April of 1994 in that horrible friendly fire mess where two F-15
pilots destroyed their careers, they are through flying, got either out
of the AIr Force or leaving it. One is gone and one is about to leave.
We shot down two U.N.-controlled H-60 Blackhawks with 13 people on each
one, and the majority of those people were Americans: a tragedy. Where
were they heading? Toward Irbil, which is above the no-fly zone. So now
Saddam Hussein has total control, if he chooses over Sulaimaniya and
Kirkuk.
No. 9. What attempts are made to gather allied and other Middle
Eastern support for further action? This is where former President
George Bush shined. He brought together not a dozen nations, not 15,
not two dozen, 28 nations in the allied coalition. He even brought the
declining Gorbachev on board. It was an amazing feat of diplomacy for
George Bush and Jim Baker, the Secretary of State, to build this
coalition. Who is with us? As I mentioned, not the French, not Turkey.
Just our standby mother country, Great Britain.
{time} 1615
No. 10, and this is the most important question of all: What is the
next step for our United States? What is our response? What is the
follow-through? This is what all the thoughtful retired military
analysts are saying on CNN and the three networks. It is amazing. This
is the reason, the imperial presidency, that our debate was so
important today about the Armed Forces Protection Act.
Now, I have the votes here, and if anybody is just getting home, Mr.
Speaker, following these two votes today, let me tell our military
across the world that both the Bartlett amendment, of which I was an
original cosponsor and helped him get through and get to the floor to
join the United States Armed Forces Protection Act, the vote on the
Bartlett amendment was 276 to 130. We only lost 11 Republicans; we
picked up 65 Democrats, a lot of absentees today because last night and
today are comeback days from a long district work period, 28 people
were not voting today, 276 to
[[Page H10096]]
130, but the final passage on Bartlett's amendment was to not have
American forces wearing the uniforms of other countries, the blue
beret, sewing on patches.
I said during the debate that there is nothing wrong with an arm
band, military policemen put on an arm band, Shore Patrol wear it, take
it off during off duty; nothing wrong with a temporary arm band.
When the French went into Rwanda, they did not put on any uniforms.
They told the warring factions there that if anybody killed a
Frenchman, they would meet, and the translation is almost perfect, with
more violence than they had ever conceived of in their lives; and in
French uniforms, they protected the French force, clearing the way for
our C-5's, our big Galaxies, to come into Goma and free the people from
the genocidal slaughter in Rwanda that is now taking place in the
country next to it in Burundi.
When we go in with those big C-5's, or C-1's, 41's, we do not paint
powder blue on the U.S. flag. They know that is the American flag
coming in there.
As I said in the debate today, what good did it do in Bosnia on the
Serbian-Muslim confrontation line to have U.N. forces there trying to
protect Srebrenica and Zepa, two U.N.-protected sanctuary enclaves and
that is where some of the worst genocidal slaughters took place. After
they had taken the weapons away from the U.N. forces with their blue
helmets and blue berets, the Ukrainians, the Dutch, one of the
Scandinavia units, took their shoes off of them, took their weapons
away, took their U.N. blue berets and ground them in the dirt and then
handcuffed them or tied them to small tactical targets in the area. So
much for respect for the U.N. regalia that they put over their
uniforms. Unbelievable.
So it was important that that pass 276 to 130.
But final passage, the United States Armed Forces Protection Act
itself, if we did not have 26 not-voting absentees today, we would have
passed 300, which is always a huge victory around here. As it is, the
vote is 299 to 109. We only lost five Republicans this time, and we
picked up 81 Democrats to say that the United States forces will not be
put under U.N. command or foreign command, and that means unless there
is a treaty like NATO, which is approaching its 50th anniversary, where
we train military maneuvers together several times a year, where the
officer corps has the same training standards, where the NCO corps
meets and trains together year in and year out and the treaty with NATO
was ratified constitutionally in the U.S. Senate, and debated in this,
the appropriations House, for the funding to satisfy it.
Clinton's veto last year of the defense authorization bill made this
legislation that was passed today necessary, and it will be taken up
soon in the Senate, and I predict it will pass there. Our Congress has
repeatedly passed measures extending protection to our U.S. troops in
the field that have been under command in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
I discussed the Somalia operation.
Mr. Speaker, I am the last Congressman out of Somalia. I came out of
there just a few days after the slaughter of our Rangers, the world's
greatest and I mean, bar none, helicopter regiment in the world, the
160th Aviation Special Operations regiment up at Fort Campbell, and of
course our great Delta force where five men were killed, two of them
won the Medal of Honor, for demanding three times to go down on the
ground and try to rescue Michael Durrant's crew. At least they rescued
Warrant Officer Durrant.
Now, were it not for Clinton's veto of last year's authorization
bill, we could not even get it in the authorization bill; hence, this
freestanding legislation. These protections would already be the law of
the land if he had not demanded that we take out the big three. No U.S.
under foreign command, no misadventures like Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia
without congressional constitutional debate and approval or rejection,
and the third one was no missile defense of America's homeland. Those
three big geese he took out.
But when he signed the bill on February 10th in the Rose Garden, what
did he attack? Bob Dornan's legislation that he had to sign into law,
honorably discharging people who had contracted in one or two cases
innocently, not through their own conduct, a philandering husband
bringing it back to a sergeant wife, but in the other 1,000 cases, by
breaking the U.S. military code, the uniform code of military justice,
by the smallest category, putting a dirty needle in their arm, using
drugs, that is a prima facie case and a zero tolerance military case of
somebody who should not be on active duty, a tiny little percentage of
that, a smaller percentage of those who disobeyed their commanders'
orders not to go to houses of prostitution where the prostitutes were
100 percent infected with a fatal venereal disease, and the biggest
category of all, which is a prima facie violation of the UCMJ laws
against sodomy.
One thousand people would have been discharged August the 10th if the
Democrats and a handful of Republicans, who fortunately are retiring
from the U.S. Senate, demanded that the Dornan language be taken out
when we passed that continuing appropriations bill back in April, and
out the law came.
What I am going to discuss, the point here, is something else that I
got signed into law, the Bob Dole-Ben Gilman law, the first rewrite
since 1942 of how we handle American men and women missing in combat
situations; and now with the recently passed authorization bill, seven
provisions were gutted out of that law that Clinton signed on February
10th of this year, 1996, and we will have hearings next week, markup of
a bill, a freestanding bill just like this, on which I already have a
record number of cosponsors, including you, Mr. Speaker, because I have
every Republican in the House, 235 of us, Mr Sanders, our only
Independent, the gentleman from Vermont, and 30 Democrats bringing on
more and more every day.
Then we have to find the vehicle to stop these protections for POW's
being stripped out of the law before we adjourn here on Friday, the
27th of this very month.
So those were important debates today, and it impacts upon what is
happening in Iraq at this very moment, if Clinton just arbitrarily
decides to back up the high technology of the missiles with actual
airmen or Army forces, Special Ops forces on the ground.
Mr. Speaker, it is important that I point out on the Bartlett
amendment, that 276 vote was it, the 276 winning vote that Admiral
Boorda tragically, in a depressed state of mind, made an important
judgment call and destroyed himself. Yes, threw himself back into God's
arms. There is never cause for that unless someone is in a deeply
depressed state, and it appears he was and God will be merciful, but he
killed himself over $1, or $1.50, a little V, a little Roman number V
that you put on a Navy commendation medal that says valor was involved
and that he won it off the coast of Vietnam.
Whatever slight question there was there, he had taken the V off of
his ribbons, two commendation ribbons, the year before. Why he would
have let Newsweek, on a hounding mission, drive him to this desperation
where he goes to the oldest Navy post in the world, the Navy Yard down
on the Anacostia River, and shoots himself in the heart, why he would
do that, I do not know. But it shows him how important medals, ribbons,
regalia, berets, as I said on the floor, an Army Green Beret, how they
feel about their green beret.
Ask British paratroopers how they feel about their red beret, or our
paratroopers. Ask the Navy Seals, who wear black berets, how they feel
about their particular main designating uniform, and you will see that
there is a big difference between an arm band and asking someone to sew
on a patch over their patch or to wear a belt or a helmet or a beret
that is the color of the United Nations.
And get this, I was not able to get the time to put this in the
Record. You are an ex-Army officer, Mr. Speaker, from Oregon, our
Speaker pro tem today. Are you aware, and this is in an article from
the Washington Times, June 26th, by a U.N. official, American official
at the United Nations, Joe Sills, S-I-L-L-S. He is director of the U.N.
Information Center right here in the District. He conceded June 27th,
in an article that he wrote, that U.N. commanders, not U.S., U.N.
commanders, but all the other U.N. commanders, I do not know about the
Brits, that
[[Page H10097]]
shockingly, they take an oath of exclusive allegiance to the United
Nations. An oath of exclusive allegiance to the United Nations, and
they sign an employment contract with the U.N. that transforms them
into U.N. military; in other words, U.N. mercenaries.
That was the situation with the Finnish officer in command, used to
be a Communist country, when I was visiting there this very week last
year, and that is the situation that I think the Scandinavian officer
that is in charge now. There was some controversy between Mr. Dellums
and myself over my putting two thoughts together on the Constitution.
Well, I usually carry a Constitution in my pocket, and I wanted to put
in the Record at this point, Mr. Speaker, exactly the words in this
just amazing document that when you read it, it is so short.
I faxed this out of a standard almanac and when you take it, it is
only four pages, two pieces of paper, just seven articles before you
get to the 10 original articles in the Bill of Rights, the added
amendments, just 7 amendments in the original articles. And in article
I is where it delineates the powers of Congress. It is 130 words, only.
But in article II, the subservient article, it is only 16 words about
the President being the commander in chief, and here are those very 16
words: The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States. And then there is a comma, followed by 18 more
words, because we did not have a standing Army, and a very small
standing Navy, and of the militia of the several States, when called
into the actual service of the United States.
And except for emergencies, who calls them into active service? What
we now would call the Reserves and the National Guard, not militia, we
do, the Congress.
So there are the President's 34 words, 16 and 18, involving the
militia. Here are the key 130 words in the first article of our
Constitution, section 8, the powers of Congress.
{time} 1630
There are many things about borrowing money, regulating commerce, the
rule of naturalization, how to coin money, punishment of
counterfeiting, post offices, all these domestic issues come before the
following. Here begins the 130 words.
We start with the 5 words at the beginning, so it is actually 135
words:
``The Congress shall have power,'' colon, and those other things I
mention, and it comes, ``Shall have power to declare war, grant letters
of Marque and Reprisal.'' A little 18th century language in there. ``To
make rules concerning captures on land and water.''
That means the capture of our people. That means the Congress decides
when someone is a prisoner of war, not Lyndon Baines Johnson saying
they are detained by a hostile power. Anyone captured in Southeast
Asia, therefore, in Loas, in Cambodia and in the north of Vietnam and
the south, they called our captured people air pirates or war
criminals, never the dignity of the term prisoner of war, basically not
right until the very end. But of course once Nixon had come into office
under Melvin Laird, they were called POW's. Actually once we got rid of
McNamara with his ignominious and disgraceful resignation on Leap Year
Day in 1968, the bloodiest month of the war, he walks off the
battlefield drenched in blood, symbolically, with hundreds of POW's up
in Hanoi being tortured, at least 12 tortured to death, 100 executed in
the villages. Once he walked off we started calling them properly, our
missing, prisoners.
So to make rules concerning capture on land and water. Here come the
powerful words that are on a plaque right outside the main door of the
Armed Services, now the Committee on National Security: ``To raise and
support armies.'' And then a side though at still to this day for over
two centuries dictates our budget process. We would all like to have
some kind of continuity of 2, 3, 5 years on the defense budget but we
are restrained by this amazing document. ``But no appropriation of
money to that use''--supporting armies--``shall be for a longer term
than 2 years.''
``To provide and maintain a Navy.'' The reason Navy is singular and
armies are plural is because we did have different armies fighting in
the Revolutionary War, George Washington, the South and support for his
troops but under different command in the Carolinas and Georgia. So
Navy meant they were only looking at the Atlantic. They could not
foresee yet a full-time presence, the 6th Fleet in the Med or the 7th
Fleet in the Pacific. So Navy is singular.
But to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a Navy, that
is this Congress. That means uniforms, equipment, what type of
aircraft, what pay, what type of recruiting and how many people will be
in uniform. That is why when Presidents in both parties stand on their
high horse about their Defense budget, they propose. We decide what the
defense structure of our America will be and we will fund it properly.
Now, it continues, these 135 words: ``To make rules for the
Government and regulation of the land and naval forces.'' Whether or
not there will be homosexuals on active duty is not Clinton's call, it
is the call of this Congress.
They would not even have a vote on this House floor. The few voices
for recruiting homosexuals, male and female, no vote in this House.
They tried to do all that in star chamber, behind the scenes, roll us
in the conference committees.
``To provide for calling forth the militia.'' There it is. Except in
emergency, a hurricane or something with Governors having their
proper--I am coming to that--control of the militia, that is, the
National Guard, but to provide for calling forth the militia, the
Reserves and the National Guard.
``To execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel
invasions.'' That is a repeating of the declaration of war power of
this Congress over the President, the 16 words, that he is the
commander when the fighting starts that we declare because you cannot
have 535 commanders.
Next. ``To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining of the
militia.'' When you call up the Guard, we decide what discipline they
will be under.
``And for governing such part of them''--the Reserves--``as may be
employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States
respectively''--we are a Federal system--``the appointment of the
officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the
discipline prescribed by Congress,'' this U.S. Congress. I wanted it on
the record. The imperial Presidency, out of control once again, must be
debated finally, this delineation of power, in the 105th Congress. We
do not have time to do it over the next 3 weeks. We have to pass 12
spending bills, and as we just heard announced by the gentleman from
Texas [Mr. Armey], our majority leader, we are going to roll votes on
Tuesday. So when we come back in Wednesday at noon for voting, there
goes another week, and then we are down to a few productive days until
we adjourn on September 27 and the majority leader told me he intends
to stick to that prediction on the 27th. Now, end of the military
constitutional part of my remarks.
Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cooley). The gentleman from California
has approximately 14 minutes.
Mr. DORNAN. That is enough to discuss this tragedy.
Mr. Speaker, I am looking at the new Time magazine. Donald Rumsfeld,
who served 10 years in this Congress, served well, was appointed as one
of the youngest Secretaries of Defense, I think the youngest in the
history of our Nation, by Jerry Ford, although he only got to serve a
year in that distinguished post. I understand that on Meet the Press
this weekend--I was, as I said, in Great Britain at an air base--my
wife tells me that Rumsfeld was asked about the Richard Morris mess and
that he said, ``It doesn't matter.'' That is what it says on the cover
of Time: The Morris Mess. He said, ``It doesn't matter.'' He dismissed
it. Well, I think it does matter. Here is the architect of Clinton's
comeback based on family values and small issues.
Clinton stood right below the Speaker, at that second lectern, in his
State of the Union and said clearly, the era of big Government is over.
So he had to deal with little things. And he mentioned about three
dozen in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Chicago.
But we see him dealing
[[Page H10098]]
with little things, mostly involving our future children, his 1
daughter, my 3 daughters, 2 sons, and 11 grandchildren, God willing,
this December. I have got a higher stake in this than the Clintons.
And he talks about school uniforms, which my kids wore, 5 times 8,
yes, 40 years my children wore school uniforms, not in high school but
5 children times 8 years of grade school, they wore school uniforms.
And police uniforms. How many speeches have I made dedicated to our men
and women wearing blue and Khaki, who put their lives on the line for
us domestically around this country, to the increasing violence level
and crime.
And military. And obviously when I am having breakfast with enlisted
people and sergeants and lunches and dinners, which is what a lot of us
do who are on the Armed Services or Committee on National Security
traveling, when I meet with them, sometimes it is outspoken, sometimes
it is in just half sentences or half thoughts buried beneath the
discourse. The morale in our military is better than the morale in our
Secret Service or our FBI because they are further away, the ones I see
in the field, from some of the disgraces and scandals that take place
in this country.
I will bring a chart to this floor next week showing how many of
Clinton's associates through all of his political career are dead, in
jail, disgraced, out of the public eye. It is astounding. I had a
Democrat who I will not mention tell me in this aisle, just before we
adjourned in August, that it is dangerous to be a friend of the
Clintons. You end up either dead or in prison or indicted. That is from
a Texan, a good man.
Here is this cover and, I think it creates a problem for our teachers
across this country. Here are, I cannot call them the Morrises, because
like Hillary in the first gubernational term from 1979 through January
1981, Hillary did not use the name Clinton, she used her maiden name,
and I guess Morris's wife does not use it because it is not in the
whole article for eight pages. It is Eileen McGann. Dick Morris and
wife Eileen McGann back home in Connecticut last Friday.
This is what adultery gets you, the cover of Time magazine. He was on
last week's Time magazine, a rather handsome picture of Clinton with
him in a little cutout sitting on his shoulder, like that old Disney
cartoon of the devil and the angel, and he is sitting there and it says
``The man who has the President's ear,'' and he is back on the cover of
Time.
I asked the Library of Congress, they gave me a guesstimate, going to
have the figures for me when I get back to my office, I guess, of how
many Time magazine covers in a 52-week calendar period are devoted to
human beings, because we have some covers on vitamins, on crime, or
housing, sometimes a racehorse like Secretariat taking the Triple Crown
will hit, it will be on Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News. But how many
people are honored or dishonored with a Time magazine cover? Very few 2
weeks in a row. You have to be a President or a Prime Minister with a
war starting to get back-to-back covers. I think Nixon did it for
unhappy reasons, but here is Dick Morris on the cover of Time magazine
2 weeks in a row.
And this cover is not because of an affair with some person that he
fancied he was in love with at work, away from his lawyer wife Eileen
McGann in Connecticut, not a one night stand like some weak businessman
juicing up in a topless bar and betraying his wife. This is a $200-an-
hour call girl, hooker for 10 months on a $500-a-night Democratic
campaign donation, people who fund the Democratic party.
My mailing list would collapse, my donations, which is I think the
best balance of PAC money--2 or 3 percent--to small donations, to
itemized people, that is $200 or up, I think I have got the best
balance of anybody in either party in the House--but mine would
collapse, those small little unitemized donors, if they thought that I
was living at $500 a night, and that is on the candidate.
This guy is a consultant and he is eating up Democrat money, big
chateaubriand meals at night. The basic rate is $440 a night at the
Jefferson Hotel up on 15th street. That is where he is meeting with
this call girl, call woman, Reynolds, whatever this prostitute calls
herself. She was on Hard Copy last night, kids across America watching
this.
What does a school teacher do, Mr. Speaker, when they have to explain
to kids that for high-powered 10-month adultery, your wife will pose
with you on the cover of Time. And listen to her article here. Of
course she writes, ``Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.''
And then it is a 6-page article. ``Even if this destroys me,'' he
says. Destroys him? He signed a book contract with Random House today,
Mr. Speaker. How many millions will that involve, publicly giving this
scandal to the Nation? She ends with these words, McGann: ``I didn't
want to question him on the details. I thought it would bring further
hurt.''
I do not think I believe that. I see you smiling ear to ear. No
questioning on the details.
``It was too soon,'' she said. Oh, the crockery flies later, after
the book deal is signed. She says, ``Let he who is without sin cast the
first stone. My advice, that we just had to get past it. I accepted
Dick's apology. Dick and I talked about the story again that night. He
was very, very upset.''
How was she feeling? Was her heart seized with pain, or is this the
Hillary school, if you can reflect and bask in the glory of the power,
that you will take these hammer blows and insults.
``But he was forlorn. I thought it would be destructive to ask about
the details and to try and find out what was true.''
{time} 1645
I am sure. As the young people would say, yeah, sure.
``On Friday, we had lunch on our little terrace overlooking our
garden.''
Oh, how prosaic. How utterly Victorian hypocrisy this all is.
``There were these press creatures lurking in the wildlife preserve
behind our house trying to take pictures.''
Why would they do that, when you can get a picture of them in their
dining room, a picture of them in their garde, if you have the Time
Magazine contract to follow up on last week, and the picture posed,
these are the dining room curtains, you can see if from the little
dinner scene. I guess there are no children. How would they be
devastated in the Morris-McGann household if there were children?
But she said, ``Our golden retriever named after Disraeli has been
following Dick around offering him comfort.''
Oh, the golden retriever is giving his comfort, and she is accepting
his apologies.
``Tomorrow a friend is going to bring us another puppy, which I am
going to name Bismarck, and we will call him Bizzy.''
I don't understand the Bismarck connection there. He went down in
flames.
``Maybe that will help. We are going to try to heal. The Random House
book contract will help.''
This is pathetic. I will ask you something you already know, Mr.
Speaker: We had an Air Force three star general leave the command, the
Southern Command, for one brief adulterous situation, and leave his
beloved U.S. Air Force in disgrace.
If this was a CEO of any corporation in America, I think the pressure
from the stockholders would say it is all over. It happened to DeLorean
when he was CEO of Pontiac. He lost becoming chairman of General Motors
over something far less than this. Any military officer I know in
America, it would be the end of their career.
But what does he get? A call the next day from the leader of the free
world, from Hillary Clinton, and from Vice President Al Gore. I wonder
if they were trying to fend off a Vincent Foster nightmare, to make
sure he was doing okay, is why they called.
What is happening to our country, Mr. Speaker? What is going on in
the United States of America, that we are unable to absorb a scandal
for the importance that it has, and dismiss all this stuff, as though
it does not count and it does not reflect upon the highest office in
the land.
We are in for a tough 4 years if the Dole-Kemp team cannot catch and
close the lead and dismiss the self-serving adventure of my friend Ross
Perot, who I had always considered a patriot for what he had done for
our POW's and our missing men in particular.
I do not know what the next 60 or so days are going to bring us, but
if this country is going to tolerate and glorify this kind of scandal
at the top, then
[[Page H10099]]
our decline as a civilization is proceeding at a faster collapsing rate
than I had ever assumed.
When I would think Richard Morris, who claims to be a Republican,
would ponder, is what was read in the homily and in the Gospel at
Lincoln Heath Air Force Base where I went to mass Sunday.
First it says in the epistle, Peter's letter to the Romans, do not
conform yourself to this age. Romans 12, verses 1, 2. And then the
gospel, this last Sunday, Matthew 16, 21 to 27, whoever would save his
life in this world, will lose it. But whoever loses his life for My
sake will find it.
This is Jesus speaking.
What profit would a man show if he were to gain the whole world and
ruin himself in the process? Even getting a book contract. What can a
man offer in exchange for this very self?
I like the old translation, what does it profit a man to gain the
whole world and lose his soul?
The Son of Man will come with His father's glory accompanied by His
angels, and when He does, he will repay each man according to his
conduct.
My advice for the Morrises would be to disappear into a retreat, a
decent obscurity; forget the lousy book contract, and try and rebuild
your life again with some dignity.
For our voters across this country, I would tell them this, and I am
going to say it over and over in the next 3 weeks with as many special
orders as I can get: Mr. Speaker, November the 5th is not just an IQ
test for every voter in this Nation who bothers to go to the polls. It
is a morality test. If you do not vote for Dole and Kemp, you flunk a
morality test in this United States of America in the year of our Lord
1996, and you flunk the IQ test too.
____________________