[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 6 (Tuesday, January 27, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H118-H119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Neugebauer). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, last week during the State of the Union 
address President Bush spoke to us about the Iraqi War and described 
how the Kay report, the Dr. David Kay report, indicated dozens of 
instances of what the President called weapons of mass destruction-
related program activities.
  Now, I am not sure what a weapons of mass destruction-related program 
activity is, but I do know what it is not. It is not a weapon of mass 
destruction, because we have not found weapons of mass destruction in 
Iraq. And, in fact, David Kay himself has said so. He has resigned his 
position as the United States Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, working 
for the CIA.
  He has stated that in his opinion, Iraq does not have stockpiles of 
chemical weapons of mass destruction or biological weapons of mass 
destruction, that Iraq does not have nuclear weapons, and any nuclear 
program was rudimentary in nature, according to Dr. Kay. He feels that 
these stockpiles do not exist now and did not exist before we went to 
war with Iraq in March of 2003.
  Now, this is a startling conclusion from our Chief Weapons Inspector 
because it is so different from what the Bush administration told us in 
the fall of 2002 in the run-up to the congressional vote of whether or 
not to give congressional authority to the President to use military 
authority to deal with what was described as the imminent threat to 
peace, to regional peace and world peace and to the United States, the 
imminent threat of the use of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
  Mr. Speaker, I voted to give the President that authority based upon 
the representations of the administration because I wanted to disarm 
Saddam Hussein of those weapons of mass destruction. Now, we have 
finally captured Saddam Hussein, and I am glad that we have; I am glad 
he is out of power. I believe both Iraq and America are better off now 
that he is in custody. But, Mr. Speaker, we have not found those 
weapons of mass destruction; and we now have a report from Dr. Kay that 
those weapons of mass destruction did not exist and they do not exist 
today.
  Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s. We know that 
because he used them in murderous ways against his own citizens, the 
Kurds in northern Iraq, and he used them to murder tens of thousands of 
Iranian citizens. But the issue is not what he had in the 1980s. The 
issue is whether he had such stockpiles in 2002 and 2003. We were told 
with complete certainty by the President, by the Vice President, I was 
told with 20 other Members of the House in a briefing in the White 
House on October 2, 2002, by Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet that 
there was complete certainty that Iraq possessed these weapons of mass 
destruction. And based upon those representations, I voted with many of 
my colleagues to give the President that war authority.
  Now, it is now clear that there were half-truths and deceptions from 
the administration as well as mistakes from the Intelligence Community. 
And I stand here tonight to call for an independent investigation, an 
independent review, of both the work product of the Intelligence 
Community of the United States and the work of the administration 
policymakers that stated with such clarity that we faced an imminent 
threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
  Clearly the American people were misled. Clearly the Congress was 
misled. I was misled by the Bush administration and by the United 
States intelligence agencies.
  The President and the Vice President continue to want the American 
people

[[Page H119]]

to believe that there was this threat and is this threat of weapons of 
mass destruction. The President talked about WMD-related program 
activities last week without clarifying what they were. The Vice 
President continues to insist that Iraq has weapons of mass 
destruction. These statements are contrary to the report of the Weapons 
Inspector, Dr. Kay.
  I call for an independent investigation and review so that we can get 
to the bottom and find out the truth.

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