[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 140 (Wednesday, October 17, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H7112-H7119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY WITH REGARD TO AFGHANISTAN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I would like to
thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) for exchanging his
time with me. He will be speaking right after I am done, but I have a
pressing appointment dealing with the very issue on which I am
speaking, which really made it imperative that I speak at this time. I
thank the gentleman from Maryland for the consideration that he has
given me on this one.
Mr. Speaker, it has been 1 month and 1 week since 6,000 Americans
were slaughtered in New York and the Pentagon. Needless to say, our
lives will never be the same. So much has happened, and at this moment
so much is happening, that at times it is as confusing as it is
awesome.
But amid this chaos and runaway emotions, our President, George W.
Bush, has proven a steady hand, and has refused to go off half-cocked.
He
[[Page H7113]]
has been courageous and decisive. He has acted with deliberation, and
has been methodical in his approach.
I was so proud that our President decided that a major humanitarian
commitment be made as part of our battle plan in Afghanistan and
against the terrorists in Afghanistan. With thousands of our own people
being slaughtered, we could have just struck out blindly, but we are
not doing that.
A tremendous effort has been made in this volatile environment to
protect the rights and safety of our own Muslim Americans, and we are
reaching out to Muslim countries and their people.
In Afghanistan itself, we are in fact limiting our retaliation to bin
Laden's terrorists and to the Taliban regime that gave him safe haven.
Underscoring the noble motives that still direct our actions, President
Bush recently drew our attention to the larger percentage of Afghan
children who are orphans, and asked that the children of America make
it a personal project to help these Afghan youngsters who have suffered
so much. What other country would be so gracious?
President George W. Bush is not only our leader in this crisis, not
only our Commander in Chief, but also a wonderful inspiration for us to
live up to our ideals. America has not always been right, and certainly
we have many black marks in our history, but we can be proud of our
record because we have often tried to do our best; more often than not,
tried to do what was right; and looked out, more than any other country
that one can record, to do the right thing and to respect the human
rights of people everywhere, even those of our enemy.
We rebuilt the economies of our former enemies during World War II,
and sent some of our young people, many of our young people, in fact,
in the last century, to defeat the forces of tyranny wherever they
were.
Let us remind the Muslim world, for example, that the last two places
that America sent her young people to intervene, our young soldiers,
were in Bosnia and Kosovo. In both cases we sent our Armed Forces
around the world to a place that had nothing to do with our own
security in order to save Muslim people who were being murdered by
armed thugs; and those thugs, of course, claimed to be Christians.
We understand, of course, that Christians would not participate in
the murderous and heinous crimes that were being committed against the
Muslims in the Balkans.
Similarly, we would hope that the Muslims of the world will make it
clear, as many have, that the ghoulish slaughter of innocent Americans
was totally inconsistent with their religious convictions, with the
teachings of Islam.
In terms of our country today, even though we have tried our best to
help those around the world who are suffering, we have been the target
of unprecedented hatred. Our open and free society is maligned and
vilified with a staggering level of venom and vitriol.
{time} 1400
Perhaps to understand this, we need to go back a few decades to a far
different time, during the Cold War. I worked in the White House during
the years when Ronald Reagan brought the Cold War to an end,
culminating with the dismantling of the Communist dictatorship that
controlled Russia and its puppet States. Essential to a great victory
was President Reagan's support for various people who were fighting to
free themselves from Communist tyranny.
The bravest and most fierce of these anti-Soviet insurgents were in
Afghanistan. There are a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks these days
who would suggest now long after that war has been over and the Cold
War has come to a successful conclusion that we should not have
supported those freedom fighters whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere
because freedom fighters, of course, these insurgents, were not perfect
people and, in fact, did commit some crimes, and there is no doubt
about it.
Those folks who are now complaining about that strategy which ended
up saving the world from a nuclear holocaust and from a Cold War that
went on and on, those folks who are complaining about it do not even
have good 20/20 hindsight.
Clearly and unequivocally the American people can be proud that we
provided the Afghan people the weapons they needed to win their own
freedom and independence from the Soviet Union, which was occupying
their country. That Cold War battle was a major factor in breaking the
will of the Communist bosses in Moscow, thus ending the Cold War. This,
however, is where we must begin if we are to understand the grotesque
crime committed against the American people on September 11.
One of the common errors found in news reporting as of late has been
the suggestion that those holding power in Afghanistan today are the
same people who we supported in the war against Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan in the 1980s. The liberal press likes to suggest that we,
meaning the American people, armed and trained those who have now come
back to murder us on September 11. This by and large is wrong. It is
factually in error.
Yes, there are some of those currently in power in Kabul who also
fought the Russians, but by and large we are talking about two
different groups of people. Those who fought the Soviet occupation were
called the Mujahedin, and during my time at the White House, I had the
opportunity to meet most, if not all, of the leaders of the Mujahedin
who fought against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
There was seven major factions, and it is significant that the
current Taliban leadership does not include any of these wartime
leaders against the Soviet occupation, not one. After I left the White
House and was elected to Congress, I had been working with these
Mujahedin leaders, and I felt very strongly about their cause. So when
I was elected to Congress, but before I got sworn into Congress, I had
2 months on my own between November and January. So I took that
opportunity and I hiked into Afghanistan as part of a small Mujahedin
unit and engaged in battle against Russian and Communist forces near
and around the City of Jalalabad.
The muja I marched with were incredibly brave, but they were not
senseless killers. They had religious faith, and certainly they were
devout, but they were not fanatics. In fact, they prayed daily but I
did not see them chastising the many Afghans who were with us who were
not joining them in prayer. They faced death but their dreams were of
life.
In fact, a boy, probably 16, 17 years old, an AK-47 strapped over his
shoulder, ran up to me as we marched through the Afghan countryside. It
was at night and the cannons were going off in the distance. I could
see them light up the sky. I could hear the thunder of the cannons
roaring. This young man came up to me, and in almost perfect English
said, ``They tell me you're in politics in the United States.'' I said,
``Yes, I am.'' He said, ``Tell me, are you a donkey or are you an
elephant?'' I said, ``I am an elephant.'' He said, ``I thought you
were.''
I asked this young man, ``What do you want to do with your life?'' He
said, ``I want to become an architect because I want to rebuild my
country when this is over.'' I do not know if he survived that war. I
do not know if he survived the Battle of Jalalabad, but I do know there
are young people like that whose lives have been wasted and talents
wasted in war and conflict in all these years.
The Russians retreated from Afghanistan about a year after that
conversation, after that Battle of Jalalabad, and when the Russians
left, the United States, which had been providing the resistance, a
billion dollars a year to finance that war, we simply walked away from
those people. We walked away and left Afghanistan to its own fate, this
after years of death and destruction. We left them with no guidance,
with no resources to rebuild or even the resources they needed to clear
the land mines which we had given to them to plant in order to help
them defeat the Russians. We did not even help them clear the land
mines that we gave them. We left them to sleep in the rubble, and most
importantly, we left them with no leadership except that of Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia, two countries which have played a shameful role in
Afghanistan over these last 10 years.
After the collapse of the Communist regime in Afghanistan, the
Mujahedin factions, with no direction from the
[[Page H7114]]
United States, began bickering and fighting among themselves. This went
on for several years and then in late 1996 a new force appeared,
seemingly out of nowhere, the Taliban. These were fresh, well-equipped
forces who had by and large sat out the war. They had been in Pakistan
in what were called schools. Taliban of course means student, even
though of course many of these so-called students are actually
illiterate.
All of the money that America provided the Mujahedin during the war
it seems, which was billions of dollars, had gone through the Pakistani
equivalent of their CIA, which is called the ISI, and apparently enough
money had been siphoned off of that to create a third force which is
what the Pakistanis did, the Taliban, and when the war was over and
other factions were bled white, they moved forward to dominate
Afghanistan.
Also behind the Taliban not only are the Pakistanis but Saudi Arabia.
During the war against the Russians, the Saudis provided the Afghan
resistance with hundreds of millions of dollars. Unfortunately, that
money mainly went to anti-Western, as well as anti-Communist Muslims.
One of those was bin Laden.
I remember as I was hiking through in that patrol that I took up to
that battle, we hiked past a camp that had these beautiful white tents
and suburbans and everything like that out there, generators. While
most of the Mujahedin were sleeping in the gully eating cold food,
there were these Wahabis, these Arab Mujahedin, who were living like
kings. Guess what? They hated Americans so much that my Afghan friends
told me, ``Do not speak any English, these people hate Americans as
much as they hate Russians. Even though you are here to save us, they
will come and attack and kill all of us if they know an American is
with us,'' and by the way, they are being led by some crazy man named
bin Laden. That was back in 1988.
Years later, after the Soviet troops left and the muja factions were
bickering, I knew something had to be done, so I met with the head of
Saudi intelligence, a General Turki, and I suggested to him that we
bring back the exiled king of Afghanistan. He was King Zahir Shah, who
was overthrown in 1972, and that in his overthrow started a bloody
cycle of events that led to the Soviet invasion in 1979 and then the
subsequent war against occupation, the chaos and confusion and millions
of deaths and maimings.
But General Turki wanted nothing to do with bringing back a moderate,
good-hearted exiled king. Instead, the Saudis and their Pakistani
allies were in the process of creating this third force. And he told me
there is going to be another force that will emerge called the Taliban.
What he did not tell me is that the Taliban were designed just to do
the bidding of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Why Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? Why are they so concerned with
Afghanistan? Well, there are three explanations. The first explanation
is that they both share a common fanatic religion. Many of the people
in Pakistan and many of the people in Saudi Arabia share the same
fanatic crazy form of Islam which is totally out of sync with 90
percent of the rest of Islam.
There are two other explanations, one for the Pakistanis, and that is
when the Taliban took over they took over the poppy field. What does
Afghanistan produce? What did it produce for all these years under the
Taliban? Sixty percent of the world's heroin. And the Pakistan's ISI,
their equivalent of the CIA, were up to their eyeballs in the drug
trade and everybody knew it, and they did not want the Taliban
overthrown for obvious reasons. They were business partners.
And then of course the Saudis. The Saudis, who are now trying to make
up for this past sin of putting the Taliban in power. They did not want
the Taliban out because with the chaos and confusion of the Taliban,
there would never be a pipeline built through Afghanistan so that the
oil glut that we find in Central Asia, massive amounts of oil would
never be able to make it to market because the pipeline had to go
through Afghanistan to get that oil out to market. Guess what? That
would have decreased the price of oil in the world by $3 to $4 to $5 a
barrel.
So it was oil and drugs and religious fanaticism. That is what kept
the Taliban in power. That is what put the Taliban in power.
As General Turki suggested when the Taliban first arrived, he
suggested they would be viewed as liberators, as people who were going
to bring stability, and that is what they were. By and large I will
have to say that when the Taliban first arrived in late 1996, the
people of Afghanistan were so hungry for stability and they were told
that these were nice religious people, they accepted the Taliban and
they wanted to believe that they would bring stability and peace to
Afghanistan, and many people gave them the benefit of the doubt.
Unfortunately, that was not what the reality was, which the people of
Afghanistan were soon to find out. As the Taliban expanded towards the
north, they were stopped by the people of the northern provinces who
refused to let these unfamiliar troops just come into their territory
and take over their provinces. That is when real battles begin to break
out. Then the rest of the people who are under Taliban control and the
rest of Afghanistan, as well as the rest of the world, were soon to
discover that the Pakistanis and the Saudis had created a monster. The
Taliban were and are medieval in their world and religious views. They
are violent and intolerant fanatics, and they are totally out of sync
with Muslims throughout the world, especially Muslims living in Western
democracies.
The Taliban are best known for their horrific treatment of women, but
they are also broadbased violators of all human rights, human rights
across the board. They have jailed and threatened to execute Christian
workers who just dared to espouse a belief in Jesus Christ, and they
ended all personal freedoms and freedom of speech and the press was not
even under consideration. They ruled by fear and violence.
That explains why they have been willing to give safe haven to the
likes of bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist who has been in Afghanistan for
years training terrorists and planning attacks on the West. Yes, bin
Laden has an army of several thousand gunmen who have been marauding
around Afghanistan like a pack of mad dogs, killing and brutalizing the
population in order to keep the Taliban in power.
These foreign religious fanatics have killed thousands of Afghans. In
fact, the Taliban and bin Laden they are so despised by the Afghanistan
people, and here is how we can understand that, these people have
killed more Afghans than they have killed Americans. We grieve the loss
of 6,000 Americans and we come from such a large country. These
murderous Taliban and bin Laden's foreign troops have killed more
Afghans than they have killed Americans, and there is only 13 million
people in Afghanistan.
For these last 2 years the Taliban, with the support of Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan have captured control of all but a small portion of that
country. Only the northeastern Panjshir Valley, which is in
northeastern Afghanistan, and in the Shamali Plain north of Kabul were
free from the Taliban because they were under the command and under the
protection of the legendary and dashing leader, Commander Masood and
that area was the only area free from Taliban control up until this
time.
The day before the attack on the United States, however, there was an
attempt to kill Commander Masood although he was reported dead
immediately, he struggled on for life for another 5 days. That attack
on Commander Masood told me that something horrible was about to
happen. Something horrible was going to happen to the United States
because Masood was someone that bin Laden's enemies would obviously
turn to in an attack or a retaliation against the Taliban.
I was so concerned and dismayed that I made an appointment to see the
top levels of our National Security Council at the White House. My
appointment was set for 2:30 September 11. At 8:45 that morning the
first plane slammed into the World Trade Center. But the Taliban
domination of Afghanistan need not have happened and it certainly need
not have been able to keep its grip on power.
As a Member of the Committee on International Relations for years, I
pleaded with the Clinton administration to provide some kind of help
for
[[Page H7115]]
the Northern Alliance and to those others who were opposing the Taliban
rule.
{time} 1415
President Clinton would have none of it. In fact, his administration
was, in many ways, responsible for keeping the Taliban in power.
Now, every time I suggest this, people go ballistic. They believe I
am being partisan at a moment when, of course, national unity is the
order of the day. And I beg people just to hear me out. I would never
do this. It would be sinful to be partisan at a time like this. But it
is an important truth, the things I believe to be true, and I am trying
to express them, and this is not based on any type of partisan
consideration.
I take no joy in reporting that I, who have been more involved in
Afghanistan than any other Member of Congress, have every reason to
believe that the last administration had a covert policy of supporting
the Taliban regime. As a senior member of the Committee on
International Relations, after I came to this conclusion, I officially
requested the State Department documents, the cables, the memos, the
briefing papers that would prove or disprove my suspicion. The
gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), chairman of the Committee on
International Relations, joined me in that request.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, on two occasions, officially
promised me those documents and said that they would be made available
to me. After all, I was a senior member of the committee with oversight
responsibility of the State Department and American foreign policy.
What happened was as alarming as it is appalling. I was stonewalled for
several years. My request for those documents pertaining to the
development of America's and our government's policy toward the Taliban
was ignored. I was given meaningless documents, many times newspaper
clippings by the State Department, in order for them to claim that they
were trying to fulfill our request.
The State Department made a joke out of Congress' right to oversee
American foreign policy concerning the Taliban in Afghanistan. That is
what we have been going through for 3 years. When I repeatedly
complained that this could not be allowed to happen, that it was
undermining Congress' right to oversee a very important policy, I was
belittled and my requests were treated as if they were irrational.
Well, I believe the reason those documents were kept from me is that
they would have proven that the Clinton administration approved, all
the way up to the President himself, in keeping the Taliban in power.
This is even after it was clear that the Taliban were monstrous
violators of human rights, especially women's rights, and it was
becoming a safe haven for terrorists and drug dealers. Bin Laden was
there and 60 percent of the world's heroin was originating there.
By the way, in Afghanistan, let me note, and all of this is shocking
to Americans and I was shocked by it all, but in Afghanistan it is
commonly believed that the United States put the Taliban in power and
that until recent hostilities, it has commonly been believed that we
supported the regime. And there are many reasons for people to believe
this. All U.S. foreign aid to Afghanistan in these last 5 years have
been channeled through the Taliban, even though there were large areas
at times where the Taliban did not control and were controlled by
people who opposed the Taliban.
More than that, when some others, like myself and others, would get
together to try to put together humanitarian efforts that would go to
the areas in Afghanistan controlled by anti-Taliban forces, we were
blocked by the State Department. Not only did our government's aid not
go to anyone outside the Taliban-controlled areas, the State Department
blocked our efforts to get private aid to those people.
Then there has been Voice of America. It has been so one-sided in its
coverage that it is known in Afghanistan as the voice of the Taliban.
So the Voice of America, all these years, has been so lopsided in favor
of the Taliban it has been known as the Voice of the Taliban. And thank
goodness just recently a new director of the Voice of America, Bob
Reilly, has committed to undo this terrible deed.
But there are some other actions that have taken place during the
Clinton administration that go right to the heart of the charge I am
making; and people should listen very carefully to an example that led
me, which after this happened I just knew this was the Clinton
administration and I could not deal with them, they were obviously not
going to help us because they were undermining the efforts of the anti-
Taliban forces, but in 1997, for example, the Taliban overextended
their forces. Thousands of their best fighters were captured in
northern Afghanistan. The Taliban regime was vulnerable as never before
and never since. It was a tremendous opportunity. The opposition could
have easily dealt a knockout punch to the Taliban.
At that time I was personally in contact with the leaders of what is
called the Northern Alliance, and I recommended a quick attack and
bringing back old King Zahir Shah to head a transition government.
Well, this was a turning point, because the Taliban were vulnerable
then. They could have been taken out easily. Their best fighters and
tanks and aircraft had been taken, and the old moderate king, he was
ready to do his duty. Who at this moment of vulnerability saved the
Taliban? Well, President Bill Clinton, that is who.
Again, please, I beg of you do not dismiss what I say. Do not say he
is just being partisan, because I am not. Again, that would be a
horrible thing. This is the truth, so help me God; and I am trying not
to be partisan in fact. What happened was, at this moment when the
Taliban could have been eliminated, President Clinton dispatched
Assistant Secretary of State Rick Inderfurth and Bill Richardson, our
United Nations Ambassador, up to the northern part of Afghanistan to
convince the leaders of the Northern Alliance not to go on the
offensive but, instead, to accept an arms embargo against all parties
and a cease-fire.
Well, these people up in northern Afghanistan had been fighting the
Taliban. This is very impressive to have someone at that level,
Assistant Secretary of State and our United Nations Ambassador bringing
words of the President of the United States. This was so impressive
that they accepted the deal. These two high-level American officials
sent by President Clinton convinced the Northern Alliance to accept a
cease-fire and a supposed arms embargo against all sides. Of course,
the minute the cease-fire went into effect, the Saudis and the
Pakistanis began to massively rearm and resupply the Taliban and
rebuild their forces.
Our intelligence knew about this massive resupply effort. They
conveniently kept Congress from knowing it, and they conveniently kept
the Northern Alliance in the dark. The arms embargo against the Taliban
meant nothing, but the arms embargo against the Taliban's enemies in
the Northern Alliance was enforced and was expected to be followed and
was still in place. So the Taliban rearmed; and as soon as they did,
they drove the Northern Alliance nearly out of the country. They had
been weakened, of course, by a one-sided arms embargo.
And who put it in place? This was not an accident. This was a
conscious policy. For years, before that and since that time, I begged
the Clinton administration, our government, to do something about the
Taliban. The only response I got was the stonewalling of my requests to
find out exactly what the Government's real policy was towards
Afghanistan. All the while, bin Laden, who had already killed American
military personnel and had declared war on the United States of
America, was running around Afghanistan using it as a base of
operations and a safe haven for terrorist attacks.
Let us not forget he was involved with trying to kill the Pope in the
Philippines, and he was involved with terrorist activities elsewhere.
Yet we let him stay there and let the Taliban regime stay in place and
did nothing. We were, in fact, doing more than nothing; we were
supporting the Taliban. Our aid went through there. They undermined any
effort to send aid coming through the non-Taliban areas.
Voice of America was making sure that anything that was anti-Taliban
was balanced off by a Taliban spokesman. But if you had a Taliban
spokesman, it did not have to be balanced off
[[Page H7116]]
with someone else. So it was two-to-one coverage in favor of the
Taliban on the Voice of America.
Now, why is this? Why did we convince the Northern Alliance to go
into a cease-fire and a one-sided arms embargo? I believe that it was
part of a yet undisclosed understanding with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
to let them dominate Afghanistan. This understanding was obviously
turning into a nightmare. Now, by the way, that understanding might
have happened during the Bush administration. George W. Bush's father
may have had an understanding with the Saudis and the Pakistanis that
they would let those people dominate Afghanistan.
But once that understanding was turning into a nightmare and the full
truth of what the Taliban were all about, we should have immediately
ceased that agreement. And yet our leaders, with all of the evidence to
show that the Taliban were a horrible blight on the decent people of
the world and a threat to the world, our leaders lacked the will to
change the situation and to say to the Saudis and the Pakistanis, No
more of this. These people are human rights abusers. Look at the way
they treat women. They have terrorists operating out of there. They are
growing heroin. They are done. No, we could not get ourselves to say
that.
Over and over again, when I warned on the record and off the record,
in dozens of places and during dozens of hearings that we could not
turn our back on this Taliban threat or it would come back to hurt our
country, nobody paid attention.
Mr. Speaker, I insert for the Record some of the many statements that
I made during that time to my colleagues warning them about the Taliban
and what it might do.
September 15, 1999--International Relations Committee
Hearing ``I would again alert my fellow members of this
committee that what is going on in Afghanistan is as
important to America's national security as what is going on
in Iran, because we have a terrorist base camp.''
August 11, 1998--Letter to Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister
Pakistan, ``International Terrorists like Osama bin Laden
will become the deans of terrorism schools in Afghanistan.
For example, the recent bombings of US embassies in Africa
are tied to Osama bin Laden and his thugs.''
May 21, 1998--Letter to Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the
House--``As you may know, Afghanistan has become the world's
largest source of heroin. It is also one of the key terrorist
training and staging areas in the world. Further, instability
in Afghanistan limits the economic and democratic development
of Central Asian states and negatively impacts US policy
toward Iran. In short events in Afghanistan affect the lives
of more than 200 million people in the Central and South
Asian region.''
August 10, 1998--Letter to Karl Indefurth (Asst. Sec.
State) ``I have been preparing serious alternatives for
Afghan policy for the past six years. I have found no
willingness on the part of this administration to even try
the alternatives that I have suggested. I have come to the
conclusion that our goals are different. But for the time
being I will give you the benefit of the doubt. The stakes go
far beyond Afghanistan. There will be no peace in central
Asia, or on the subcontinent between India and Pakistan until
the U.S. decides that there will be no peace in this region
or elsewhere with a policy that is not based on the
fundamental principles of representative government and
opposition to tyranny.''
June 29, 2001 International Relations Committee Hearing
``This regime has permitted terrorists to use Afghanistan as
a base of operations from which their country has been used
as a springboard for operations that have cost the lives of
people throughout the Middle East, as well as targeted
Americans. That alone should give us a message about the
regime and our commitment and what ultimately should have
been done.''
July 19, 1999--Floor Debate on the American Embassy
Security Act of 1999 ``As the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Gilman) has stated, among the greatest threats to the
security of American diplomatic missions and personnel is by
Osama bin Laden and his legion of terrorists who train and
operate out of Afghanistan. The primary benefactors of bin
Laden's terrorists are elements in Pakistan and the extremist
Taliban militia, who not only host and protect bin Laden but
have imposed a reign of terror on the people of Afghanistan
and especially on the women of Afghanistan.''
October 30, 2000--Floor Debate on State Department
authorization ``This member and anyone who is in the
Committee on International Relations will testify, for years
I have been warning what the results of this administration's
policy towards Afghanistan would be. For years, I predicted
over and over again that, unless we did something in
Afghanistan to change the situation, that we would end up
with Afghanistan as a center of terrorism, a base for
terrorism not only in Central Asia but for the world.''
November 9, 1997 House Floor Debate on Afghanistan--``A
chaotic Afghanistan will eventually wreak havoc in the United
States. It has already caused the lives of American lives and
servicemen to be lost. A terrorist trained in Afghanistan
helped blow up a building which housed our military people in
Saudi Arabia. There was an assassination attempt on the Pope.
They found out that the terrorist who was going to
assassinate the Pope was trained in Afghanistan. We cannot
let this go on, because not only is it immoral to let this go
on, but practically speaking, if we do, it will come back and
hurt us.''
April 12, 2000--International Relations Committee Hearing
``They (the Clinton Administration) have kept those documents
(relating to U.S. policy towards Afghanistan) . . . away from
my office, and prevented us from doing the oversight we feel
is necessary. And with a regime in Afghanistan like the
Taliban, anti-western, making hundreds of millions of dollars
off the drug trade, involving the training and base areas for
terrorists, that is a destabilizing force for the whole
region and this Administration, I think bears full
responsibility for whatever deals it has cut with whichever
powers, whether they be Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or whoever
this deal was cut for this Taliban policy. The historians
will note that it is this Administration's fault for cutting
such a corrupt deal.''
March 17, 1999--International Relations Committee Hearing
``In Afghanistan in the last few years, what we have seen is
the emergence of a regime that is immersed in extremism and
terrorism, and a regime that is certainly up to their necks
in the drug trade. Doesn't what is going on in Afghanistan
pose a threat to any of these future plans for growth,
stability and democratic development in Central Asia?''
September 23, 1997--House Floor Debate ``The extremist
Taliban Movement is not only responsible for the ongoing
suffering of the Afghan people, they pose a grave threat of
fundamentalist violence in neighboring countries, especially
Pakistan, and their extremism permits Iran to have a greater
political role in the region. The Taliban currently provides
a haven for terrorists such as bin Laden of Saudi Arabia and
the training for terrorist organizations now operating in
Egypt, the Balkans, and the Phillippines.''
October 28, 1999--International Relations Committee Hearing
``Well, as I reminded the full Committee at a hearing last
week, what is happening in Pakistan has been predicted for a
number of years. I personally predicted it time and again
saying that if we do not do something about Afghanistan that
it would bring democracy down in Pakistan. I do not know how
many times I have expressed that and the chickens are coming
home to roost in terms of the policy by the United States
government that led to this very situation.''
August 10, 1998--Letter to Karl Indefurth (Asst. Sec.
State) ``In short, unless this administration, including your
office, begins taking a more responsible approach, you will
continue to fail miserably, with all the serious national
security implications that apply to the United States.''
Well, I knew at that time that this would come back to hurt us; and I
am sorry, and it makes us all heartsick to figure that this could have
been averted. The heinous crimes committed against us in New York and
at the Pentagon was a result, and let us make this clear, was a result
not only of bad intelligence but bad policy. That bad policy started
when George Senior walked away from the Afghan people. George Bush
Senior was President of the United States and walked away.
That policy was made worse when President Bill Clinton, who, for
whatever reason, decided that he was going to go on quietly backing the
Taliban. And again, that might have been an unspoken agreement that
came from the Bush administration with the Saudis and the Pakistanis,
but there was no excuse for any President to keep that agreement going
when it was so clear that it was working against the people of the
world and the security of the United States.
So, in a way, we cannot fault bin Laden for being what he is. We
cannot fault him for being a nut case that hates America. The same is
true of Mullah Omar and the rest of his Taliban minions. They are
mentally unstable and live in their own world. Putting this into
perspective, Reverend Jim Jones, who spouted out Christian verses and
coupled them with Karl Marx as part of his own dogma, he gave hundreds
of his followers Kool-Aid, remember that, that killed them after
leading them into a jungle fortress in South America.
Yes, human beings can do crazy things and can be totally irrational.
It is our government's job, however, to protect us against this type of
dangerous insanity. That is why we spend billions of dollars on defense
and intelligence.
[[Page H7117]]
So that leaves us with the question of accountability. Yes, bin Laden
and the Taliban, even though they are as crazy as they are, they must
pay the price. The Taliban will be driven from power. They must be
driven from power. And bin Laden and his gang of murderous thugs must
be tracked down and executed by our forces or by the Afghan people, who
they have tortured and murdered. Whoever, as long as these perverts and
killers are eliminated.
{time} 1430
But that is not enough. We must also hold accountable those in our
government who are supposed to protect us, but let us down; 6,000 of
our fellow citizens were slaughtered by anti-American terrorists. Why
were we not warned of the horrific attack about to be launched against
us?
This was the worst failure of American intelligence in our history,
and those who failed must be relieved of their responsibilities if a
repeat of this horror story is to be prevented. There was a headline in
the Washington Post on September 14 suggesting that American
intelligence services had been conducting a secret war against bin
Laden for several years. If that is true, then even more we need to
fire the incompetent leaders of that covert war. They were responsible
for protecting us from this specific terrorist gang. The heads of our
intelligence agencies were focused on bin Laden, and they totally
missed a terrorist operation of this magnitude run by their number one
targeted terrorist leader?
I cannot help but remember a few years ago I was called by a friend
who had worked in Afghanistan during the war against the Russians. He
indicated that he could pinpoint bin Laden's location. This man is an
incredible source. He has credibility. He worked in Afghanistan. I
passed on his phone number to the CIA. After a week when they had yet
to contact him, I called the CIA again. After another week, there was
no response. Our CIA supposedly focused on bin Laden, a man who was a
very credible source who knew Afghanistan had pinpointed bin Laden,
they did not even call him off.
I contacted the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), chairman of the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and he ushered me in the
next day to meet with a bin Laden task force, the CIA, the NSA, the
FBI. Then I found out hundreds of people full time on our employment
rolls being paid good salaries with all of the backup focused on bin
Laden. I gave them my informant's number; and after a week they, too,
had not called him.
Finally, when I talked to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and
told him that even that group had not called my friend, he must have
shamed them because eventually they called my friend. But when my
friend got the telephone call, they acted like they were not interested
and they were just going through something they had to do. Anyway, a
month had already passed since he moved forward to try to tip us off on
how to capture bin Laden.
This is but one of many stories, many examples. I know this one is
true. I have to believe some of the others are true as well. But it
suggests that there has been less than an energetic commitment by the
last administration to get bin Laden, and this was after he had bombed
a military barracks on Saudi Arabia.
After that attack on America, bin Laden was banished from Saudi
Arabia, and he moved then to Sudan. This is where he set up al-Qaeda,
and that is the organization which probably was behind the September 11
attack on New York and the Pentagon. It is significant then that after
bin Laden left the Sudan and set up operations in Afghanistan, that the
Government of Sudan offered the United States a file on bin Laden's
terrorist network. They had all of his communications monitored. They
apparently had all of his operatives around the world catalogued, as
well as all of his secret bank accounts.
This was information then from a credible source, a country who
wanted to curry favor with us. Even if it proved inaccurate, we had
nothing to lose by taking a look at that information. Our CIA refused
to even look at it, much less take possession of it and copy it. The
decision to reject this offer from Sudan, it is reported that this
offer was rejected by Madeleine Albright herself, who insisted that the
file not even be accepted, much less perused.
Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record an article detailing this
incident.
[From The Observer, Sept. 30, 2001]
Resentful West Spurned Sudan's Key Terror Files
(By David Rose)
Security chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic repeatedly
turned down the chance to acquire a vast intelligence
database on Osama bin Laden and more than 200 leading members
of his al-Qaeda terrorist network in the years leading up to
the 11 September attacks, an Observer investigation has
revealed.
They were offered thick files, with photographs and
detailed biographies of many of his principal cadres, and
vital information about al-Qaeda's financial interests in
many parts of the globe.
On two separate occasions, they were given an opportunity
to extradite or interview key bin Laden operatives who had
been arrested in Africa because they appeared to be planning
terrorist atrocities.
None of the offers, made regularly from the start of 1995,
was taken up. One senior CIA source admitted last night:
``This represents the worst single intelligence failure in
this whole terrible business. It is the key to the whole
thing right now. It is reasonable to say that had we had this
data we may have had a better chance of preventing the
attacks.''
He said the blame for the failure lay in the ``irrational
hatred'' the Clinton administration felt for the source of
the proffered intelligence--Sudan, where bin Laden and his
leading followers were based from 1992-96. He added that
after a slow thaw in relations which began last year, it was
only now that the Sudanese information was being properly
examined for the first time.
Last weekend, a key meeting took place in London between
Walter Kansteiner, the US Assistant Secretary of State for
Africa, FBI and CIA representatives, and Yahia Hussien
Baviker, the Sudanese intelligence deputy chief. However,
although the intelligence channel between Sundan and the
United States is now open, and the last UN sanctions against
the African state have been removed, The Observer has
evidence that a separate offer made by Sudanese agents in
Britain to share intelligence with M16 has been rejected.
This follows four years of similar rebuffs.
``If someone from M16 comes to us and declares himself, the
next day he can be in Khartoum,'' said a Sudanese government
source. ``We have been saying this for years.''
Bin Laden and his cadres came to Sudan in 1992 because at
that time it was one of the few Islamic countries where they
did not need visas. He used his time there to build a
lucrative web of legitimate businesses, and to seed a far-
flung financial network--much of which was monitored by the
Sudanese.
They also kept his followers under close surveillance. One
US source who has seen the files on bin Laden's man in
Khartoum said some were ``an inch and a half thick''.
They included photographs and information on their
families, backgrounds and contacts. Most were ``Afghan
Arabs,'' Saudis, Yemenis and Egyptians who had fought with
bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
``We know them in detail,'' said one Sudanese source. ``We
know their leaders, how they implement their policies, how
they plan for the future. We have tried to feed this
information to American and British intelligence so they can
learn how this thing can be tackled.''
In 1996, following intense pressure from Saudi Arabia and
the US, Sudan agreed to expel bin Laden and up to 300 of his
associates. Sudanese intelligence believed this to be a great
mistake.
``There we could keep track of him, read his mail,'' the
source went on. ``Once we kicked him out and he went to
ground in Afghanistan, he couldn't be tracked anywhere.''
The Observer has obtained a copy of a personal memo sent
from Sudan to Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, after
the murderous 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania. It announces the arrest of two named bin Laden
operatives held the day after the bombings after they crossed
the Sudanese border from Kenya. They had cited the manager of
a Khartoum leather factory owned by bin Laden as a reference
for their visas, and were held after they tried to rent a
flat overlooking the US embassy in Khartoum, where they were
thought to be planning an attack.
US sources have confirmed that the FBI wished to arrange
the immediate extradition. However, Clinton's Secretary of
State, Madeleine Albright, forbade it. She had classed Sudan
as a ``terrorist state,'' and three days later US missiles
blasted the al-Shifa medicine factory in Khartoum.
The US wrongly claimed it was owned by bin Laden and making
chemical weapons. In fact, it supplied 60 percent of Sudan's
medicines, and had contracts to make vaccines with the UN.
Even then, Sudan held the suspects for a further three
weeks, hoping the US would both perform their extradition and
take up the offer to examine their bin Laden database.
Finally, the two men were deported to
[[Page H7118]]
Pakistan. Their present whereabouts are unknown.
Last year the CIA and FBI, following four years of Sudanese
entreaties, sent a joint investigative team to establish
whether Sudan was in fact a sponsor of terrorism. Last May,
it gave Sudan a clean bill of health. However, even then, it
made no effort to examine the voluminous files on bin Laden.
So bin Laden and the Taliban must pay for their crime. There is no
doubt about it. And if we are looking for accountability, let us look
at George Bush, Sr., who walked away from Afghanistan and left the
Pakistanis and the Saudis to do what the United States should have
done, which is help them rebuild their country. There is accountability
there. And the Clinton administration, as I have said, must bear a
heavy responsibility for a policy, a secret policy, that made a bad
thing much, much worse.
Our intelligence agencies, they, too, must be held responsible
because obviously there has been a great deal of incompetence that has
led, and a malfeasance, that led to the death of 6,000 Americans by
this terrorist gang who was supposedly the number one target of our
intelligence system.
But there are two other institutions that did not do their job and
contributed to this tragedy that we face. Number one, let me note and
this is going to be short, I think the news media has to bear some
responsibility. I made these statements about Afghanistan on numerous
occasions. The news media was there. There were lots of reporters
listening. Not one reporter said the gentleman from California (Mr.
Rohrabacher) has a right to read these documents. We are going to do a
story on one Congressman's battle to do the oversight in his committee
that he is supposed to do.
I did not see any of the newspapers, the Washington Post or the New
York Times or the L.A. Times doing this. They did not follow-up. The
news media were too concerned with what? They were too concerned about
President Clinton's sex life and stories about the sex life of one of
our fellow Members of Congress and some affair he had with an intern.
Let me say certainly I am not saying that they should ignore these sex
stories, but the news media did not have to spend all of their
resources and all of their efforts and every story dealing with these
sex stories when there were monstrously important stories to cover.
Now we know with just a little bit of effort and time and energy and
commitment to some research into what was going on in Afghanistan, we
could have been warned by our news media and this could have been
averted. The news media was so busy trying to sell papers with sex, get
listeners in their broadcast area with sex stories, that they let the
American people down; and they should take that seriously.
Second, I think Congress bears some responsibility. We have oversight
committees. I do not believe we take our oversight as seriously as we
should. I say that for myself as well, even though as Members can see
by this example today, I tried my best at least in this situation where
I felt it was a life-and-death situation to do my job of oversight.
There are far too many people who just accept baloney from government
agencies. I have been briefed by the CIA so many times; I have been
briefed by the intelligence services. They give us nothing, and we
accept it. We in Congress must do this job that we have in protecting
our interests. We have to be more serious about it in our oversight
responsibility. I think we have to bear some of the responsibility
ourselves.
Mr. Speaker, the slaughter of these thousands of Americans must be
avenged. We must see to it that this monstrous crime never happens
again. To accomplish this, we must correct the flaws in our system, and
all of us must do our job better than we are doing it today.
Now when we are moving against the terrorists in this last phase,
moving up to today, we must make sure we are united, and we must make
sure that we are strong and smart.
The last time America mobilized our forces and sent them to the other
side of the world to fight a criminal regime was during the Gulf War;
and that war fighting, that was a situation where we fought the war
very well. Our troops did very well, but the political and the
strategic decision-making during that last conflict 10 years ago was a
disaster.
Again, George Bush, Sr., was President, and just like in Afghanistan,
he ordered America to walk away before the job was done. In the case of
Iraq, two or more days of fighting would have brought Saddam Hussein
down. Instead, we left him in power; and today his regime remains a
major security threat to the United States and to the Gulf region.
Would anybody be surprised to find out that Saddam Hussein had
something to do with the murderous assault on September 11? We should
not have left him alive; we should not have left that regime. We should
have helped build a democratic alternative to Saddam Hussein's regime.
Perhaps out of consideration to the Saudis, again, we did not do that;
and we should have. It would have been consistent with our own ideals,
and it would have been practical in the long run.
So our policy was decided by George Bush at that time who left Saddam
Hussein in power, and President Clinton in terms of his recent decision
with the Taliban, we have left people in power; and we have ended up
with America in danger, with American lives in danger.
Believe it or not, some of the same old faces from the first Bush
administration are popping up, and I am talking about George Bush, Sr.,
are popping up to fight this war, even though they screwed up in the
last one. The advice that they are giving, as one would expect, is dead
wrong.
There are those, for example, in the State Department and the CIA who
have argued from the onset of the current crisis that we should be
satisfied with having bin Laden handed over to us; and the Taliban,
they say, should be permitted to remain in power. This is vital for
every American to understand. We have powerful forces in Washington
working right now to have the Taliban stay in power. What? After we
know what happened with Saddam Hussein, we are going to keep these
crazy people in power? What is behind this suggestion? The suggestion
is because we have to be considerate of Pakistan. Oh, something might
happen to Pakistan. They were the ones that created the Taliban in the
first place. They were the ones who kept the Taliban in power.
Now, even after 6,000 Americans have lost their lives, senior
American officials at the CIA and the State Department want American
policy to reflect the wishes of Pakistan. It is absurd. Because of this
mind-set we still have forces within the CIA to this day undermining
potential alternatives to the Taliban Government and potential
alternatives that the Pakistani Government would not like. They are
even holding up support and supplies for these brave Afghanis who would
fight with us to overthrow the Taliban regime.
In the middle of a conflict in which these rag-tag armies who are
opposing the Taliban are our greater allies, the CIA and the State
Department have leaked negative stories about the so-called Northern
Alliance. If Members have heard something negative about the Northern
Alliance, it is because our own State Department and the CIA have been
trying to undermine it.
Our own government's foreign policy officials have been sowing this
dissension and undercutting the support for these people because they
would like to have someone else who is more acceptable to the
Pakistanis to be the leaders of Afghanistan.
Mr. Speaker, America should be in favor of the people of Afghanistan
running their own government, and we have an alternative. Let us all
remember, America's greatest allies in this are the Afghan people
themselves. The desire to dominate Afghanistan by Pakistan is what
created the evil force, the Taliban, in the first place.
So what is our alternative? We have an alternative, and we should not
be undermining it. First of all, we need to support those people who
will fight to liberate their country from the Taliban. But there is
another alternative in terms of government. It was a golden age which
almost all Afghans remember; it was a moment like Camelot when there
was peace and prosperity for decades in Afghanistan. That is when the
old King, Zahir Shah, ruled Afghan. He ruled for almost 4 decades.
[[Page H7119]]
{time} 1445
As I say, he was overthrown in 1972 and that is what began that cycle
of horror that they have not even finished yet. But millions of Afghans
remember the King and they have told their children, that was a good
time for our country.
Well, King Zahir Shah still lives. He is 86 years old. He lives in
exile in Rome. The old King is the most beloved person in Afghanistan.
The people love him there, but our government under Bill Clinton and
right now even our government with CIA officials and State Department
officials in our government, they have done everything they can to
suppress even the consideration of bringing back the King as an
alternative. As I say, the people of Afghanistan love the King.
There was a very famous meeting that took place among Taliban leaders
and one that they were badmouthing the King, this good-hearted person
everyone loves, and one Taliban leader says, ``Now, wait a minute, you
can say anything you want about the King, but when I was a boy my
mother asked me to pick berries along the river and the King was
fishing at the river. I had a basketful of berries and when the King's
guard tried to take it from me, I wouldn't give him the berries. The
King walked over and said, `What's the confusion?' The guard explained
to the King that I refused to give him the berries and I told the King
that my mother sent me here to bring these berries back for my family.
The King kissed me on my forehead and said, `Always obey your parents.
Your mother is very wise. Bring these berries back for your family.' ''
Then the Taliban leader turned to his other Taliban leaders and said,
``And there's not one of us in this meeting that wouldn't have taken
those berries for ourselves and eaten them.'' That shows you even how
much those people know that the King of Afghanistan is a very good-
hearted person. Do not let anybody in our government try to undermine
this alternative saying that the leaders of the opposition, the so-
called Northern Alliance, which is now an alliance of commanders from
all over the country, they call themselves the United Front now, those
people have sworn their allegiance to the King because the King has
said that he wants to go back to Afghanistan, he will do it for 2 years
or 3 years as head of a transition government, and during that time
period people with education will come back, they will lay the
foundation for a civil government and they will have some sort of
democratic process, and then the people of Afghanistan will then
proceed to elect their leaders, instead of having our faith in some
strong guy to come in and take control of Afghanistan who happens to be
a friend of Pakistan.
During the Cold War, we backed many tinhorn dictators, we backed
despots and strong guys, and in the Muslim world we had a series of
alliances with corrupt and repressive regimes, many of them just based,
as I say, on a royal family or some tough guy who was willing to do our
bidding. That is not what America is supposed to be about. It would be
a better world if we would not be that way and we need not to continue
that past mistake.
The exiled King of Afghanistan wants to help in a transition for his
country into a more peaceful and democratic nation, like the King of
Spain did for his people after his people were plagued by a
dictatorship for decades. The United States, in fact, should be working
with other monarchies who are willing to do this, too, monarchies to
evolve into a democratic process. The royal family in Qatar, for
example, is establishing an electoral process in which the rights of
women to vote are being respected. In Kuwait they are going somewhat in
the same direction. But by and large America's dealings in the Arab
world have not furthered the cause of liberty and justice. If we just
stick with our ideals, stick with people who want to make a difference
in this world, who have good hearts and want and believe in treating
people decently and believe in democratic government, we will win. We
will affect the entire world. We must make allies with those people in
the Islamic world, for example, who want to live in freedom, want to
have a democratic government and want to have a more peaceful and
prosperous life for their children. Even in Afghanistan, these people
would be on our side and they would throw away any relationship with
blood-thirsty fanatics.
We do not need to use our troops to invade Afghanistan. Let me make
this clear. We are going to hear stories of dissension in the ranks of
the anti-Taliban forces. No, there is no dissension. They know that
they support the King, but they are going to be told by our own
government that there is dissension. These people will do the job. The
anti-Taliban coalition is ready to overthrow the rule of the Taliban.
They might need some help from Special Forces teams or Rangers who can
help them with logistics or with some ammunition, let us say, but the
Afghans do not need us to fight. They know how to fight and they are
willing to liberate their land from these fanatics and terrorists who
have held them hostage. With our help they can free themselves and we
can join with them after they free themselves from the Taliban in
hunting down and killing every member in bin Laden's terrorist gang and
bringing them to ultimate justice. I am saying this not as revenge,
because that would be inconsistent with our own values, but killing bin
Laden and his gang of fanatics and by joining in an effort to stamp out
the scourge of terrorism, we are setting a new moral standard and we
are deterring future such terrorism.
The United States has led the world in the defeat of the
totalitarianisms of the 20th century. We can now defeat the evil of
terrorism by elevating the commitment of civilized nations not to make
war on unarmed people. Perhaps it will be called the George W.
Doctrine. But what our President is suggesting is that targeting
noncombatants anywhere in the world for whatever reason will no longer
be tolerated.
This can truly be a step forward for the forces of civilization if
this becomes a new standard. We are indeed building a better world on
the ashes of the World Trade Center. If it is to be a new standard and
not just a justification for our retaliation for the September 11
massacre of our people, if it is to be a new standard, it will help us
build a new world. If we are to build on the ashes, we have to start,
however, by seeing to it that the bin Ladens of this planet are never
again given safe haven. So it not only means hunting down the
terrorists but a commitment by all governments of the world not to give
safe haven, not to themselves make war on noncombatants but not to give
safe haven to terrorists who make war on noncombatants.
On September 11 marks the end of an era. The monstrous crime against
our people has set in motion a wave of actions and reactions that will
change our lives and change our government and change our world. There
must and will be an accounting. At home, those top government
executives and the policies that protected the Taliban, they will be
held accountable. Those intelligence officers who were so incompetent
that this attack came without warning and was so successful, they will
have to be held accountable. Especially these people, they are very
high-level people I am talking about. I am talking about people who are
professional, they are in every department and agency, no matter who is
in there, Republicans or Democrats, and they found that these are cushy
jobs. They must be cleared out and fired and replaced by people who
take their job seriously and have the energy and vision to meet the
challenges and threats of today and in the years ahead.
Those countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, have a price
to pay. To be fair, the Pakistanis and the Saudis now understand the
horrible things that they have done and are trying to work with us, but
they have got to make up for the colossal mistakes they have made and
we have got to make sure that we are the ones making the decision, not
them making the decisions for us.
Finally, the murderous terrorists themselves, they have the ultimate
price to pay. On that, there can be no compromise. We will have a
victory over these ghouls who murdered our defenseless fellow Americans
and we will win because we are unified as never before and because this
generation of Americans has the courage, the tenacity, the ideals and,
yes, the leadership that has always been America's greatest source of
strength. It is up to us, we will do our duty, and nothing will deter
us.
____________________