[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.




                          ____________________