[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 25 (Tuesday, March 2, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H733-H737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[[Page H733]]
COMMISSION ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, it has now been 30 months, 2\1/2\ years,
since the attack of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center in
New York City, the Pentagon in Virginia, and the loss of the plane in
Pennsylvania and the loss of all of those lives, more than 3,000 lives
lost on that particular day, all the result of the attack of a group of
organized criminals known as al Qaeda, the base, or the al Qaeda
network.
It is a very important thing for us to examine that attack and to
understand it in its full dimensions and implications. It is very
important for at least two reasons. First of all, there are the
families and the friends, associates of all of those Americans who were
killed that day. They have a right to expect that we will provide them
with every detail, that we will look into this event, this catastrophe,
this disaster meticulously, and we will understand it in every aspect,
and all of that will be done publicly and they will have access to all
of that information. We owe them, the families of the victims, nothing
less, not a scintilla less than that.
Secondly, it is important because the al Qaeda network still exists,
and they have others that are operating with them, perhaps in many
countries around the world, and some people suggest as many as 60. To
the extent that is true, we can expect that they are contemplating
additional attacks on our country. In fact, our intelligence agencies
inform us that they believe that is the case; and they are working
diligently to try to prevent that from happening.
But nevertheless, these plans are being laid and in order for our
intelligence agencies and our government to prevent another attack from
occurring, we need to know everything possible about the attack of
September 11, 2001: precisely who was behind it, how they formulated
it, why they did it, what were their motivations, what information and
evidence did we have prior to the attack, when did we have it, who had
the information, to whom was that information communicated, how was it
communicated, under what circumstances, how was it not communicated,
and what did we do as a government before, during, and immediately
after that attack. All of that information is essential knowledge if we
have any chance of preventing another attack from occurring in the
future.
So the commission that has been set up to examine these questions is
obviously crucially important, and we should be working with them in a
fully cooperative way. We should be providing them with all of the
resources and all of the time they need to complete this very essential
work. To the extent that we are not doing so, either this Congress or
the administration, we are failing in our responsibilities to the
American people and failing in a very serious way.
The commission is in existence now, but there was a question
initially as to whether or not it would actually exist. After initially
opposing the creation of an independent commission to investigate the
September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has consistently hampered
the commission's investigation. They have done so by failing to fully
cooperate and to share with the commission information that is
necessary for it to be able to conduct its work. This is inexplicable.
Why would the administration fail to cooperate with this commission?
Why did the administration initially not want the commission to come
into existence?
Should we infer from that that the administration had something to
hide, has something to hide, does not want information to come out? It
is hard to come to a different conclusion based upon the way in which
the administration opposed the creation of the commission and the way
in which the administration has hampered the work of the commission by
failing to fully cooperate with it and to share with it necessary
information. This has forced the commission, this failure to cooperate
and to provide necessary information, has forced the commission to
request an initial 2 months of time in order to fully complete the
investigation that it is mandated to complete.
Now, while such a request would seem to be routine, President Bush
and the Speaker of the House of Representatives opposed it. Both
eventually relented, but they have not done so sincerely. The Speaker
now refuses to allow the commission the original 60 days it was
originally given after publishing its report to formally wrap up its
work and communicate and work with the Congress on its recommendations.
This extra time is crucial and should not be eliminated.
We are having the pretense of cooperation and the pretense of
extending time but not the fact. The commission is given the same
amount of time; it is just being told to do different things within the
limited context of that time. The commission should have all the time
it needs. Why does the administration and the leadership of this House
not want to give it the time that it needs?
The Senate, on the other hand, has passed this legislation.
Legislation passed in the Senate would extend the commission's report
deadline and its eventual termination for an additional 2 months. The
House must follow suit, and it must do so quickly or the commission
will be forced to curtail its work and begin preparing its final report
before the original deadline. This work is too important to rush. Why
is the administration and the leadership of this House forcing this
commission to work under a very tight, restricted deadline when its
work is complex and complicated and it should have all of the time it
needs to complete it because the information that it is going to
provide is so essential to the safety and security of every American
citizen?
{time} 2000
Already the commission has produced findings. They have made great
strides in uncovering the events that allowed the September 11 attack
to occur. Let me give my colleagues just a few examples. The commission
has exposed some of the immigration screening flaws that allowed the
hijackers to enter the United States, including the dismal lack of
cooperation among Federal agencies with security watch lists. In other
words, our Federal agencies had watch lists, individuals that they were
watching, that they were alerted to and watching for; but the
information was not shared, and as a consequence, these people were
able to slip through.
The commission has also highlighted the air security flaws that
allowed the terrorists to board the planes and carry on with them
makeshift weapons. The commission has uncovered evidence that United
States intelligence agencies were given information that they did not
use properly and information that they did not share with other
elements of intelligence, other intelligence organizations within the
context of our government. For example, they were given the first name
and phone number of one of the hijackers. This information was provided
by German intelligence. But no action was taken on it. The first name
and the telephone number of one of the hijackers. Nothing was done
about it. Why?
These questions must be answered, and the commission must be given
enough time to develop the information which will enable these kinds of
answers to be forthcoming. If given sufficient time, the commission
will no doubt compile the most comprehensive and extensive report about
the September 11 attack and provide Congress and the White House with
concrete recommendations for improving the security of the American
people. It is essential that we do that.
Throughout the commission's existence, cooperation from the
administration has been grudging and delayed. The commission had to
issue a subpoena to the Federal Aviation Administration in order to
obtain detailed transcripts and other information about communications
that took place on September 11. That subpoena had to be issued because
the agency refused to cooperate. The Federal Aviation Administration
would not give the 9/11 commission transcripts and information about
communications that took place on the date of September 11, the date of
the attack. It is just incomprehensible.
[[Page H734]]
In October 2003, the commission had to threaten the White House with
subpoena because the commission believed it was not being provided all
the necessary materials for its investigation by the White House. While
interviews have been scheduled with former President Clinton and Vice
President Gore, similar cooperation has not been forthcoming either
from President Bush or other members of his administration. President
Bush and Vice President Cheney refused to meet with the entire
commission. Instead, they have decided that they will only agree to
separate, limited meetings with the chairman and the vice chairman.
They will meet separately for 1 hour and only 1 hour, and only with the
chairman and the vice chairman of the commission. National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice continues to refuse to testify publicly. The
commission is now considering whether to issue her a subpoena.
Obviously, because of this lack of cooperation, the commission needs
more time and the deadline needs to be extended.
In addition to studying the causes of September 11, there are other
things about this circumstance that the Congress ought to be looking
into. Congress should be conducting a vigorous examination of the
administration's actions in Iraq prior to, during, and currently with
regard to the war. With the exception of limited inquiries by the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House has failed to
exercise its oversight responsibilities with respect to our operations
in Iraq. The Constitution of the United States provides the
responsibility to the House of Representatives to oversee the
operations of the executive branch and to perform oversight functions
and to carry out oversight responsibilities. What could be more
important than the war in Iraq, which has now cost 550 American lives,
American servicemen and -women killed, nearly 3,000 others seriously
wounded, many of them lost limbs, wounds that they will carry for the
rest of their lives, not to mention thousands of other lives that have
been lost? What could be more important than that?
House committees should be thoroughly investigating, not just our
intelligence community's massive failures but how the President and
members of his administration used the intelligence that they were
given to support their case for making war in Iraq. We should also
examine all the other reasons that President Bush and other members of
the administration cited to support his war. All of this should be
examined carefully and in detail.
House committees should be thoroughly investigating the Pentagon's
postwar plans. The guerilla war is continuing despite Saddam Hussein's
capture. Civil strife is at an all-time high after today's synchronized
bombings of Shiite religious gatherings despite the apparent adoption
of an interim constitution. Why did the civilian leadership in the
Pentagon ignore Army recommendations for a more comprehensive
occupation? Why? House committees should be thoroughly investigating
how the administration secretly awarded billions of dollars in no-bid
contracts to companies like Halliburton. It is only thanks to the work
of Members of the Congress, like the gentleman from California (Mr.
Waxman) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), that we have
begun to uncover the scope of some of these massive contracts and that
the U.S. taxpayer is actually being overcharged, in fact grossly
overcharged, for much of the work that is going on in Iraq by these
companies.
House committees should be thoroughly investigating the
administration's plan to hand over power in Iraq. How was this hand-
over date chosen? It seems conveniently selected to take the upcoming
Presidential election into consideration. Why did it take months to get
the United Nations involved?
And then there is the whole matter of the case for the war itself.
How did we come to go to war in Iraq? How was it that this resolution
was presented to the Congress and passed in a very controversial and
divisive way? Now that several months of searching have passed without
finding any weapons of mass destruction and there remains no evidence
whatsoever of a connection between Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq,
and September 11, one thing is inarguably clear: President Bush and his
surrogates intentionally misled the Congress, the American public, and
the world about the evidence that such weapons existed in Iraq.
Some may say that this is a premature accusation because it remains
possible that some weapons of mass destruction will be found. But such
a discovery would not change the indisputable fact that the President,
the Vice President, members of the Cabinet, particularly the Secretary
of Defense, and other White House advisers were not truthful about the
certainty of that evidence. The President would like us to believe that
the discrepancies between what the White House said before the war and
what we now know to be the truth resulted from failures in our
intelligence. He has disingenuously appointed another commission to
supposedly study these failures, but he has carefully bounded the
commission's scope to prevent scrutiny of his own actions as well as
those close to him who were involved in this decision-making process.
Gaps in our intelligence-gathering represent a gravely serious matter
that needs to be examined fully. But it is even more important that we
scrutinize the discrepancies between what the intelligence agencies
told the White House and what the White House told the Congress and the
world. If we cannot trust the President to tell us the truth about the
need to send our troops into harm's way, then we have lost an essential
component of our system of government. Whatever power our leaders have
derives from the informed consent of the governed. This President
failed to properly inform those we govern.
There are numerous documented examples of the White House's deception
in this matter. Part of the administration's method of operation was to
take the intelligence community's assessment that a threat may exist
and transform that possibility into a certainty in its public
statements. For example, United Nations inspectors found that Iraq had
failed to account for a quantity of bacterial-growth media. Had this
been used, the United Nations inspectors reported, it, and I quote,
``could have produced about three times as much'' anthrax as Iraq
admitted to having.
This report was fed into the White House propaganda machine and came
out somewhat differently in President Bush's October 7 address. It came
out in the following form, and I quote: ``The inspectors, however,
concluded that Iraq had likely produced already two to four times that
amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has
never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions.'' The
added rhetoric there did not come about by accident. Those words, used
the way they are in that sentence, are designed to frighten people. And
people who are frightened are more likely to bend to your will, even if
your will is warped and taking them in the wrong direction. If you
frighten people, they are more likely to follow you. That was the
intention of those words and the misleading elements that are inherent
in them.
A recent report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
described this particular act of trickery this way: ``In two sentences,
possibility becomes likelihood, likelihood then subtly becomes fact,
and a huge stockpile is created. Finally, biological agent is
transformed into weapons, and not just any weapons but extremely
sophisticated delivery systems, the only way such weapons could kill
`millions.' Small changes like these can easily transform a threat from
minor to dire.''
The Carnegie report has identified 40 distinct caveats or conditions
included in the October 2002 national intelligence estimate that White
House officials usually left out of their public statements. The Bush
administration regularly omitted terms like ``probably'' or ``we
suspect'' or ``we cannot exclude'' when telling the world what our
intelligence agencies had reported. Sometimes the White House was less
subtle. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations, and I
quote, ``Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid
sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and
conclusions based on solid evidence.'' That is the end of Mr. Powell's
quote. We now
[[Page H735]]
know that what the Bush administration gave us was indeed nothing more
than speculation, speculation presented as if it were fact.
Another trick the administration and its advisers employed was the
lumping of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons under the single
rubric ``weapons of mass destruction.'' In so doing, the White House
could combine the likelihood that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons,
a relatively minor threat, with the potentially catastrophic scenario
of an Iraqi nuclear program for which there was never any evidence
whatsoever.
{time} 2015
The administration further inflated the threat to the United States
by insisting, with absolutely no supporting evidence, that Saddam would
give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. The October 2002
National Intelligence Estimate concluded that this was unlikely. It was
unlikely, said our National Intelligence Estimate, except under
imminent threat of United States attack. Establishing this nightmare
scenario was essential to securing public as well as congressional
support for war. Only through terrorists did Saddam pose a threat on
American soil. Without that threat, enthusiasm for an attack on Iraq
would have been, no doubt, greatly diminished.
Using those methods, the White House presented us with the image of a
``mushroom cloud,'' without which they could not wage the war they had
been wanting to wage for years.
Today's synchronized bombing of Shiite Muslim religious ceremonies in
Baghdad and in Karbala are tragic reminders that Iraq remains an
extremely dangerous place. At least 143 people were killed and
thousands more were likely injured just today.
These bombings are just the latest in a series of attacks against
Iraqi civilians and against United States soldiers. Five hundred and
fifty United States soldiers have died in Iraq, and over 2,700 have
been wounded, seriously injured. While there is no accurate figure
available for Iraqi casualties, it is reasonable to assume that that
number is in the thousands. The vast majority of these deaths occurred
after the end of major combat, after the end of those major combat
operations was announced by President Bush on May 1 of last year.
It is now conventional wisdom that the President and his
administration failed abysmally to plan for the conditions in postwar
Iraq. Vice President Cheney's predictions of a rosy welcome were
shattered long ago. Our troops remain engaged in a guerilla war, and
Iraq's civilian population lives under constant threat by the same
adversary.
Why is the House, this House, ignoring this reality? The CIA, the
State Department, the Army, the Marine Corps, the Army War College, and
various nongovernmental organizations have produced thousands of pages
of recommendations that were ignored. These predictions have proved
extremely accurate after the fall of Baghdad. Outside experts are
saying that the ongoing financial, diplomatic and human costs of the
Iraq occupation are far worse than expected because the administration
did not take its own agencies' suggestions.
This is an extremely serious charge, yet no House committee is
currently investigating what went wrong with our postwar plans. We are
in this House ignoring our responsibilities to oversee the operations
of the administration on matters of great and grave seriousness.
Tonight is an opportunity to outline some of the advice that has been
ignored by the administration, first with regard to U.S. military
recommendations. War games run by the Army and the Pentagon's Joint
Staff in preparation for war with Iraq led to very high troop levels.
The Army's recommendation for an invasion force was 400,000 troops.
Secretary Rumsfeld envisioned the force level of 75,000.
The Army's recommendation took into account the invasion and
subsequent occupation. It argued a larger force would actually be more
useful after Baghdad fell as opposed to the initial invasion. A large
force would allow the Army to restore order quickly and perhaps allow
for a much smaller occupation force 6 months or so later.
In Bosnia the Army stationed 200,000 troops to watch over 5 million
people. In Iraq, with a population of 25 million, the Army dispatched
fewer than 200,000 troops for postwar action. The heart of the Army's
argument was that the U.S. would win the war and do so quickly but
could be trapped in an untenable occupation if there were too few
soldiers.
Marine General Anthony Zinni, who preceded Tommy Franks as CENTCOM
Commander, agreed with the Army's recommendation for higher troop
levels. The Army had also worked out cost projections prior to the war,
despite claims by Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz
that it was impossible to produce such numbers.
The State Department's Future of Iraq Project is also important for
us to look at. Starting in late 2001, the State Department began
contemplating postwar plans and created the Future of Iraq Project. It
brought in outside experts and teams of exiles and created 17 working
groups designed to systematically cover what would be needed to rebuild
Iraq's political and economic infrastructure. Congress authorized $5
million to fund the project's studies in May of 2002. The final report
consisted of 13 volumes of recommendations on specific topics. Among
the list of recommendations were these:
First, restore electricity and water supplies as soon as possible
after regime change by employing Iraqis, thereby creating jobs and
engendering goodwill toward the coalition by the indigenous population.
Secondly, they recommended do not disband the entire Iraqi army. The
project suggested purging the Iraqi army of its Baathist elements but
retaining most members to help restore public order and provide for the
country's defense when the U.S. departs. It also stressed, however,
that ``all combatants who are included in the demobilization process
must be assured by their leaders and the new government of their legal
rights and that new prospects for work and education will be provided
by the new system.'' The report later detailed steps on how this could
be accomplished.
The project went on to stress how disorderly Iraq would be soon after
liberation, despite Vice President Cheney's rosy predictions. The
report predicted the power vacuum and the crime and looting that
followed Saddam's removal would be extensive, and, of course, they were
entirely accurate.
The report also suggested that despite the need for a long United
States postwar commitment, instituting a long-term military government
would alienate the Iraqi people.
The report also warned against the ill will that would result from
Iraqis being seen as working for foreign contractors instead of having
foreign contractors be seen as assisting the Iraqi people. We have seen
all of that come to pass because the recommendations of that report
were ignored.
There were other suggestions that came from the Central Intelligence
Agency that were forwarded to the administration. The common theme
among all CIA predictions was that disorder would follow the fall of
Baghdad. The CIA believed that rivalries in Iraq were so deep that
quick transfer of sovereignty would invite chaos. The CIA began running
war games to plan for the postwar Iraq. These included representatives
from the Defense Department. But when the Secretary of Defense's office
heard of this kind of cooperation between Defense and the CIA in the
early summer of 2002, the Office of the Secretary of Defense
reprimanded the Department of Defense employees who participated and
ordered them to stop cooperating with the Central Intelligence Agency.
It is astonishing.
These war games were intended to make cost predictions and simulate
potential problems. Because of that they were seen as weakening the
case for launching this ``war of choice.''
There were also numerous recommendations from nongovernment
organizations and the relationship of NGOs and USAID. In the fall of
2002, USAID began planning for postwar Iraq. Since it was the natural
contact for nongovernmental organizations, these NGOs were concerned
with relief operations in Iraq. At the time most high-ranking officials
in the Bush administration were comparing the eventual fall of Iraq to
the fall of Germany and Japan. The NGOs strongly disagreed with this
assumption and made those views known to USAID.
[[Page H736]]
The NGOs believed Iraq would likely fall into chaos following regime
change and requested that sanction restrictions be lifted from them so
that they could prepare for postwar Iraq. The NGOs should be allowed to
go there and make the arrangements so that postwar Iraq could be
organized and people would see that there were organizations that they
could relate to and that chaos would not ensue. This request was
denied. The NGOs continued to stress the disorder that would follow
war, but all they received back from USAID representatives were broad
assurances that everything was taken care of.
There was a report from the War College. In January, 2003, the Army
War College produced a report that addressed Iraq reconstruction
challenges. It predicted long-term gratitude towards the United States
was unlikely and that if the United States had to supply the bulk of
the occupation force this would lead to many more problems in postwar
Iraq. The Army War College report strongly recommended that a large
international force would be ideal for postwar occupation. It also
provided a 135-item checklist of what tasks would have to be done right
after the war and by whom those tasks would have to be accomplished.
According to those involved with this report, the Pentagon paid
little attention to any of its postwar recommendations.
There were, of course, unrealistic assumptions. Exaggerations during
the buildup for war were not limited to weapons of mass destruction.
Administration officials often made widely ridiculed assumptions about
postwar Iraq. Here are just a few: Both President Bush and Vice
President Cheney claimed we would be greeted as liberators. USAID
Administrator Natsios claimed rebuilding would cost U.S. taxpayers $1.7
billion. Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz repeatedly
claimed it was impossible to guess any costs for the war. Secretary
Rumsfeld called former Economic Adviser Lawrence Lindsey's claim that
the war would cost $200 billion way off. He thought that was a gross
exaggeration. Wolfowitz claimed reconstruction would cost U.S.
taxpayers very little. What is the record? To date, the United States
Government has spent approximately $150 billion in Iraq, and we know
that the President has an additional bill of at least $50 billion which
he will present to the Congress sometime after the November election.
Lawrence Lindsey's recommendation seems quite good now based upon the
experience. It is too bad he was not listened to at the time.
The House of Representatives must investigate. These examples are
just the tip of the iceberg. There are literally thousands of pages of
postwar planning that were prepared and then ignored.
Why was the Defense Department and not the State Department initially
put in charge of postwar Iraq? Why were we not more prepared? Why did
the administration not take its own recommendations? Why were we told
there were no cost estimates when of course there were?
Postwar plans were available and they were ignored. The House of
Representatives must investigate this to ensure that legislative
remedies are examined and to put in place mechanisms that will prevent
another failure of this magnitude.
Just for a moment let us take a look at the no bid contracts.
Halliburton and Bechtel already have contracts in Iraq worth $3.14
billion. Those contracts result from the conflict in Iraq and the
reconstruction efforts. Yet the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman)
and his staff at the Committee on Government Reform have found that the
cost of many of the reconstruction projects could be reduced by 90
percent if the projects were awarded to local Iraqi companies rather
than contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel. The American people, in
other words, could be saving 90 cents on the dollar if this
reconstruction activity were done in a way that is not designed to
benefit the people who benefit the administration.
{time} 2030
There is ample evidence of overcharging. We have learned that Kellogg
Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is overcharging the United
States for fuel delivered to Baghdad from Kuwait. They are charging as
much as three times the amount for gasoline that can be purchased there
on the market, inflating the price three times.
We have also learned that Kellogg Brown & Root employees received
kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor in exchange for awarding that
subcontractor a reconstruction contract. But that is all. How much of a
kickback was there? Who were these people who received the kickback?
Who at Halliburton knew about it? Who at the Defense Department may
have known about it? Who else in the administration may have known
about it? There is an awful lot of information we do not have, and that
is why this investigation needs to go forward.
Members of Congress were informed of these sole-source noncompetitive
contracts by media reports, by investigative reporters in the media.
Despite repeated requests by Members to Federal agencies, the
administration has been slow to respond, or simply has declined to
provide details about why these large private contracts were awarded on
a non-competitive basis.
Here are two brief examples. USAID awarded several contracts worth
hundreds of millions of dollars to a few companies it hand-picked to
compete against each other, yet repeated inquiries from the minority on
the Committee on Government Reform to USAID have been brushed aside,
and now USAID has refused to provide copies of the contracts or
information on how it chose which companies would bid on these initial
contracts.
This is the taxpayers' money. We are spending enormous amounts of
money, and it is being spent secretly, and the Congress is not being
allowed to look at the contracts or examine how this bidding process
went forward.
The administration has also failed to disclose information about its
sole-source oil field contract with Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root.
Kellogg Brown & Root was awarded a no-bid contract on March 8, 2003,
but the Defense Department did not disclose until April 8 that this
contract has a potential value of $7 billion. Today, despite a
recommendation by the Army Corps of Engineers to open this contract to
public scrutiny, the Defense Department continues to keep its content
classified for allegedly national security reasons. Whose security is
at stake, we have cause to wonder.
House committees must investigate. It is clear that Members of
Congress are receiving grudging and delayed cooperation, if they
receive any cooperation at all, from the administration regarding
reconstruction contracts. Only a formal committee investigation will be
able to answer the serious questions and allegations that have arisen
from these no-bid contracts and this no-bid process.
Ambassador Bremer has set the deadline for transferring power back to
the Iraqi people as June 30, 2004. This date falls conveniently close
to the beginning of the summer Presidential campaign. The date was set
solely by the United States, despite recent events indicating that Iraq
will not be able to make a peaceful transition without the United
Nations leading negotiations. This begs the question, Was this date set
for political purposes?
The House should be asking these questions and demanding clear proof
of the reasoning behind this date. Part of the original reasoning was
that elections in Iraq would be held shortly after the transition
deadline to ensure the legitimacy of the new government. But that is no
longer the case. The United States plan for such an election was
roundly rejected, and it was the United Nations that had to step in and
negotiate a solution to the election question.
Does this administration still believe the United Nations is a
``worthless debating society''? I wonder.
Under the United Nations plan, national elections will take place in
the late fall of 2004. Should this new development not affect the
transfer date? The Congress and the American people deserve answers to
these questions that at this late date still remain unanswered.
So, Mr. Speaker, we have two issues. One is the 9/11 commission and
why that commission is not being allowed the time it needs to complete
its work comprehensively and completely and provide answers to
questions that beg
[[Page H737]]
answers, answers that we need as Representatives and which the
administration should have also, if it does not have them already.
The 9/11 commission should be given more time to carry out its work,
and the 2-month extension is not too much to ask. Why are we rushing
the completion of the work of that commission? That question ought to
be on the mind of every Member of this House, and every Member of this
House ought to demand an answer. The extension ought to be granted, and
it ought to be granted sincerely and accurately so that they have the
full time that they need to complete their work.
There, of course, remains all of the questions that I raised, and
many, many more. I have just begun to scratch the surface of the
questions that remain with regard to what happened prior to our going
into Iraq in that war, what has happened during it, and what is
continuing to happen and what we will do subsequently with regard to
that country. Many questions remain unanswered.
The responsibility to develop those answers lies with this House of
Representatives. The leadership of this House should appoint
appropriate bipartisan committees to look into these matters. We are
derelict in our duty. We are not fulfilling our responsibilities to the
American people on an issue that is of paramount importance, an issue
that involves thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars in
American treasure and the future safety and security of the American
people. Those answers should be forthcoming, and there should be no
delay in setting up the mechanisms which will allow them to come
forward.
____________________