[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 31 (Thursday, March 11, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1051-H1057]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, today, I am joined in this special order 
by my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence). As my 
colleague from California just indicated, we come to the floor of the 
House recognizing the tragedy of the terrorist attacks in Spain. We are 
not quite sure who was responsible, but we know there was a significant 
loss of life.
  We know that Spain has been an ally in the war on terrorism. Their 
soldiers have fought with our troops in Iraq. Their prime minister was 
here a couple of months ago indicating their strong support and their 
partnership, whether it was al-Qaeda, whether it was domestic 
terrorism, or whatever.
  But we join in expressing our sympathy to the government and the 
people of Spain for the loss that they suffered today and reaffirm our 
commitment to the people of Spain that we will continue to work and 
fight with them in this war on terrorism that in so many different ways 
has reared its ugly head not only in Spain, the United States, but in 
Africa, in Saudi Arabia, and with the USS Cole and a number of other 
attacks throughout the world.
  Today, we want to talk a little bit about the situation that has gone 
on in Iraq and kind of put that in context. We have recognized this war 
on terrorism. We have recognized the threats from Saddam Hussein and 
others for a long period of time. It was back in 1992 that Senator Gore 
was talking about what a threat Saddam Hussein and Iraq was.
  Here is a quote from a speech he gave in 1992. Senator Al Gore: 
``He,'' meaning Saddam Hussein, ``had already launched poison gas 
attacks repeatedly, and Bush looked the other way. He had already 
conducted extensive terrorism activities, and Bush looked

[[Page H1052]]

the other way. He was already deeply involved in the efforts to obtain 
nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Bush knew it, 
but he looked the other way. Well, in my view,'' and the ``my'' was 
Senator Gore, ``the Bush administration was acting in a manner directly 
opposite to what you would expect with all the evidence it had 
available to it at the time. Saddam Hussein's nature and intentions 
were perfectly visible.''
  Already in 1992, Senator Gore had identified Saddam Hussein and Iraq 
as a threat to American Security and to the security of the Middle East 
and as a danger to his own people. And I think that goes on to 
President Clinton, who, during the 1990s, identified Saddam Hussein and 
Iraq as a threat. And I think my colleague from Indiana may have some 
of the statements that President Clinton was making.
  This is not to say what should or not have been in the 1990s, this is 
saying that through the last 10 to 15 years we knew Saddam was a 
threat.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from Indiana.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for hosting this 
special order. And having just returned from Iraq, it is particularly 
meaningful to me to acknowledge the gentleman's leadership in this 
Congress in traveling to Iraq since the end of hostilities more, I 
think, than any other Member of Congress; and having just learned what 
that has meant to our troops and what that has meant to the people in 
the transition process at the coalition authority, I want to thank him 
for that.
  There is no question this issue of weapons of mass destruction, which 
has become such a political football in America today, represents some 
form of an intelligence failure, if by that we recognize that we have 
not found the vials of chemical and biological weapons. But it is 
absolutely imperative, as the gentleman suggests, to know that if it 
was an intelligence failure, it was a world intelligence failure and it 
was an intelligence conclusion that was drawn by at least two previous 
administrations.
  I cite in evidence the remarks of President Bill Clinton on February 
17, 1998. Again, these are the words of the President of the United 
States about what official U.S. policy was relative to the possession 
of weapons of mass destruction by the regime of Saddam Hussein.
  President Clinton said. ``And they,'' referring to predators of the 
21st century, ``they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to 
build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the 
missiles to deliver them.'' President Clinton went on to say, ``We 
simply cannot allow that to happen. There should be no doubt,'' 
President Bill Clinton said, ``There should be no doubt Saddam's 
ability to produce and deliver weapons of mass destruction poses a 
grave threat to the peace of that region and the security of the 
world.''
  President Clinton went on to say, ``There is no more clear example of 
this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety 
of his people, the stability of his region,'' and he went on to 
describe Iraq as, ``a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, 
ready to use them or provide them to terrorists who have traveled the 
world. If we fail to respond today to Saddam Hussein, he will be 
emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that he can act with impunity.''
  These are the words of the 42nd President of the United States of 
America, William Jefferson Clinton, about the conclusions of the 
Intelligence Community and his personal conclusions as our Commander-
in-Chief that Iraq did possess biological and chemical weapons in the 
year 1998.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, what we know is through the 1990s, there 
was a consensus that there was a war on terrorism that was being 
fought, that there were issues dealing with Iraq and dealing with 
Saddam Hussein. It was not only the President; it was the Clinton 
administration. Madeleine Albright said ``Hussein's weapons will not 
discriminate if and when they are used, and therefore it is important 
for the region to understand that he is a threat.''
  In September 1998 she said, ``Our adversaries are likely to avoid 
traditional battlefield situations because there American dominance is 
well-established. We must be concerned instead about weapons of mass 
destruction and by the cowardly instruments of sabotage and hidden 
bombs. These unconventional threats endanger not only our Armed Forces, 
but all Americans and America's friends everywhere.'' That is September 
9, 1998.
  So the threat of weapons of mass destruction, but most importantly 
the larger threat not specifically identifying what terrorist 
organizations would use, but recognizing the emergence of a different 
kind of threat to American, to Western Europe as the Cold War collapsed 
of unconventional threats that would endanger not military folks, but 
that would target civilians.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, on February 18, completely consistent with 
Secretary Albright's remarks, ``In the next century the community of 
nations will see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses 
now.'' In describing it, President Clinton said, ``A rogue state with 
weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to 
terrorists.''
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think the quotes go well on to other 
folks in 2000. So this is a continuing story of intelligence. As we 
move through this process, on a bipartisan basis, this is what we 
believed the threat was to the United States. One of the things that we 
are going to focus on here today, not what we think about here in 
Washington, when we put this in context, we will talk about the threat 
that Saddam Hussein was, not to America, not to the Middle East, but 
most importantly to his own people.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, to that end, and I am anxious to get to that 
conversation, I have to tell my colleague that the search for weapons 
of mass destruction found for the Iraqis that I spoke to in Basra, it 
found its locus the day Saddam Hussein was captured by American troops. 
This is a man who, according to former prisoners of war, he and his 
regime were responsible for the death by incarceration or other means 
of 1.2 to 1.3 million of their countrymen. According to Amnesty 
International, we have identified the remains thus far in 270 mass 
graves of 400,000 men, women, boys, and girls in the mass graves of 
Saddam Hussein.
  But the weapons-of-mass-destruction issue is an issue, and the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) is right to address it in the 
beginning inasmuch as it is in the mind of the American people. But 
none other than Senator Daschle, who has been the majority leader of 
the Senate in recent years, but at the time in 1998 and President 
Clinton's decision to fire cruise missiles and attack Iraq was minority 
leader, Senator Daschle said, ``We are here today to affirm that we and 
the American people stand with the President and the international 
community in an effort to end Iraq's weapons of mass destruction 
programs and preserve our vital and international interests.''


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The Chair reminds Members not 
to refer to individual Members of the other body.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, there is no question whatsoever that the 
position of the administration and others in America supported the 
conclusion that the intelligence community, not just of the Bush 
administration, but of the administration that preceded it came to a 
singular conclusion: that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass 
destruction.
  I am always anxious to remind my constituents in eastern Indiana that 
the reason we know Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction 
was because he used them. He used them on his own people. He used them 
to kill thousands in Kurdistan in the early 1990s in the immediate 
aftermath of the first Persian Gulf War. We are told by eyewitness 
accounts of men, women and children running in the middle of the night 
out of their bedrooms, out into the streets, grabbing their throats as 
they were asphyxiated by mustard gas or some other chemical agent and 
killed in the streets and towns of Kurdistan. Chemical weapons were 
used against his own people. It is not a subject of theoretical 
analysis or

[[Page H1053]]

intelligence analysis; but as the gentleman from Michigan knows, it is 
a matter of historical fact and record that Saddam Hussein in the early 
1990s possessed and used chemical weapons against his own population.
  What became of them in the days immediately prior to Operation Iraqi 
Freedom, we will continue to investigate. I traveled by the site of the 
Iraqi survey group in Baghdad just 1 week ago, and I know in meeting 
with the intelligence community there that that search goes on. And as 
we continue to bring Iraq forward in the family of nations, and as the 
people of Iraq, I believe, become more confident in their own future 
and in the end of the dark days of Iraq and the regime and the thugs 
that preceded this new Iraqi Governing Council and this new government, 
more people will speak and more daylight will shine, and we will 
eventually find out what became of this program and its horrendously 
dangerous by-products.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, during much of the 1990s this was done on 
a bipartisan basis, which is maybe different than what we see today; 
but here is Vice President Gore talking on May 23, 2000: ``The classic 
challenges of war and peace, of course, extend beyond Israel's 
immediate neighborhoods to Iraq and Iran. In 1991, I broke with many in 
my own party and voted to use force to stop Saddam Hussein's aggression 
in the Middle East. I believe in bipartisanship most of all when our 
national interests are at stake.'' Going on, he wants to build 
bipartisan bridges to bring Democrats and Republicans together in 
support of policies that would promote what is in our Nation's best 
interest.
  As my colleague has gone through and read some of the quotes, there 
was a bipartisan understanding about Iraq and the threat that it posed. 
Here again is Al Gore, the Vice President, in May of 2000: ``Despite 
our swift victory and our efforts since, there is no doubt in my mind 
that Saddam Hussein still seeks to amass weapons of mass destruction. 
You know as well as I do that as long as Saddam Hussein stays in power, 
there can be no comprehensive peace for the people of Israel or the 
people of the Middle East.''
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, a very moving part of my trip to Baghdad was 
our meetings at the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority 
at Saddam Hussein's palace.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. One of many palaces.
  Mr. PENCE. One of 100. It was the size of three or four resorts in 
Florida and twice as opulent. But across the street, there is a bunker 
underground hidden underneath what appears to be a garbage dump or a 
broken and destroyed building. It was three stories underground. It was 
one of those sophisticated bunkers we hear about; but what was most 
provocative to me was to learn that in that bunker was an enormous 
financial investment in a ventilation system which was designed as a 
countermeasure to the distribution of chemical or biological weapons. 
There was a decontamination room to essentially remove chemical or 
biological agents that were on a person before they could enter the 
bunker itself.
  For a regime that, according to some of the administration's critics, 
never had weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's own bunker, 
literally down the street from his primary palace, had an enormous 
multi-million dollar investment to protect him from weapons that he 
apparently did not possess.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Right. And we knew that he used these weapons, and so 
he had them at one time. The interesting thing about what Vice 
President Gore said in May of 2000, ``We have made it clear that it is 
our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone,'' that became the official 
policy of the United States, was to remove Saddam Hussein, not only 
because of the weapons of mass destruction, but because of the threat 
that he posed to his own people, to the Middle East, and to the rest of 
the world.
  We can go on and there are lots of quotes by other folks who have 
talked about that. This morning we had the opportunity to meet with Dr. 
Kay again, the original head of the Iraqi survey group, taking a look 
at exactly what was going on in Iraq. He has said, and I tend to agree 
with him after having met with him a number of times and after having 
gone to Iraq, we may not find the weapons of mass destruction. They may 
actually not be there. But what he has said is take a look at what was 
going on. He was developing the capability to go into quick production 
of weapons of mass destruction. He said I am not going to inventory 
this stuff, but as soon as the U.N. inspectors are gone, as soon as the 
sanctions are lifted, I will have the capability that 3 to 6 months I 
will be able to produce all of the chemical or biological weapons I 
need, so why store them. Get rid of the inspectors, develop the 
capability under what appear to be legitimate purposes; but they are 
dual-use capabilities. I will use them to make this, but just with the 
flip of a switch and fine-tuning, I can use those to make weapons of 
mass destruction. We know that he was developing those capabilities.

  There is evidence that he was doing human testing to fine-tune the 
capabilities that he would have and the weapons and products that he 
would eventually produce. We know that he was doing research on UAVs, 
unmanned aerial vehicles, potentially to be the means for delivering 
weapons of mass destruction.
  We know that he was developing a missile capability well beyond the 
authorized levels that had been established by the U.N. So in all of 
these areas, he was either moving his program forward secretly or 
moving them beyond what the U.N. sanctions had said. So there is no 
doubt, and that is the message through the 1990s.
  We are not sure exactly what was there because it was a very 
secretive society. He was very good at deceiving others when we were 
trying to penetrate into what was going on in Iraq. But there is no 
doubt about what his plans and intentions were. This is why Dr. Kay 
will say we may not have found exactly what we were expecting to find 
when we got into Iraq; but what we found was as dangerous, if not more 
dangerous, than what we had anticipated that we would find.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think that 
the statement that the gentleman just made is extremely important. I 
think that statement should be highlighted and underscored and chiseled 
in a place where every American can read it.
  As he said again here on Capitol Hill, Dr. David Kay, weapons 
inspector who led the original effort after the war with the Iraqi 
survey group, he said what he found was more dangerous than what they 
believed would be there. In terms of the establishment of a diverse 
program of chemical and biological weapons, as the gentleman has with 
great particularity described, was prepared in the event of the 
strictures being lifted, was prepared to produce large amounts of these 
types of weapons.
  Of course we found the nose cones on missiles hollowed out just for 
the size of an inclusion of a vial of certain types of agents that 
would have no other reason to be hollowed out as a warhead in that way. 
We found these munitions in large numbers. But David Kay said that what 
we found was in many respects more dangerous than what we expected to 
find.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think it is a very valuable debate to 
have here in the United States about what did we find versus what we 
expected to find; and that will force us to seriously look at our 
intelligence capabilities, what do we need to do to improve our 
intelligence capabilities to give us as policymakers better information 
on which to make decisions in the future; and we will have that 
discussion and debate. The President is fully cooperating with the 
various commissions that are out there to do an investigation of the 
intelligence community.

                              {time}  1545

  The Senate Intelligence Committee is doing it, the House Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence is doing it. We all recognize that the 
intelligence business is a very, very difficult business; that we do 
not get all the information we would like to have; that when we go into 
a place like Iraq or try to take a look at what is going on in North 
Korea, Libya or Iran, as we are trying to look in and figure out what 
is going on, these folks are trying to hide and deceive us so that we 
do not understand what is going on.

[[Page H1054]]

  Mr. PENCE. If the gentleman will yield, I would like to know why 
President Bill Clinton got it wrong. I would like to know why Vice 
President Gore had the weapons of mass destruction estimate for Iraq so 
wrong. And I do not say that in a partisan spirit, I say that because 
if, in fact, there were never any weapons of mass destruction following 
the time he used them against his own people in the early 1990s, then 
there was an intelligence failure. But if it was, it truly was an 
institutional failure; not, as some would suggest, not associated with 
the present administration, but associated with an institutional 
failure that, I will add one other point if the gentleman will permit 
me, was not just an intelligence failure of the U.S. intelligence 
failure, but it was, as I said at the beginning, a world intelligence 
failure.
  The intelligence communities of every one of our allies in the 
western world, in this cause, and even many who chose not to join us, 
France and Germany and Russia's intelligence community, as their votes 
in the U.N. Security Council support, all of them came to the 
conclusion, unequivocally, that Saddam Hussein possessed biological and 
chemical weapons.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I get a little nervous talking about saying we got it 
wrong, because I have had the opportunity, having served on the 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence now for 3 years, to have met 
a lot of our men and women involved in this process.
  The first thing we have to recognize is they got a very important 
thing right, Saddam was a threat. It is not like we got into Iraq and 
it is like, wow, there is nothing here; he was not doing anything, he 
was just trying to build the country for his people. He was focused on 
delivering them quality healthcare, education. You guys got it all 
wrong.
  That is not the Saddam Hussein we see and this is not the Saddam 
Hussein that his own people saw. They got it right, that this guy had 
every intent of restarting a weapons of mass destruction program, and 
we missed that he changed his strategy, from stockpiling to producing 
these things on demand.
  So we got some of those things wrong.
  But overall, the strategic analysis, because these men and women we 
have in our Intelligence Community, this is an art, and Saddam Hussein 
was a master at deceit, and we did not necessarily give our intel folks 
everything they needed to figure it out.
  Mr. PENCE. The gentleman has caught me in a little bit of a 
rhetorical joust, and it seems to me that those who want to say we did 
not find what would have amounted, if we were absolutely correct, to a 
two-car garage load of biological and chemical weapons, it would not 
have filled more than that. But if we were wrong at the time, we went 
to war that that did not exist, that is the straining of the gnat when 
we ignore the elephant in the room.
  The elephant in the room is the man and his regime were a weapon of 
mass destruction, terrorized and killed over 1 million of his own 
people, had these weapons and used them against his own people in the 
past, and, as the gentleman from Michigan says eloquently, most 
assuredly our conclusion that he was a menace and threat was accurate.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Let us go to where the gentleman wanted to go today. I 
was in Iraq last year in August, I went back in September of last year, 
and then I was there 3 weeks ago. You were there last week. If there is 
any question about whether Saddam was an instrument of mass 
destruction, I think you and I were most touched when we actually had 
the opportunity to talk to the people of Iraq and their response. Then 
you talk to the next group that has had the most interaction with the 
Iraqi people on a personal level, and that is our troops. Then you talk 
to the policymakers and all of those kinds of things.
  But the closer you get to the people who were closest to Saddam, I 
think my colleague will agree, that, by and large, the vast majority of 
those folks, and I will admit and recognize that Iraq continues to be a 
very dangerous place; there are people there who want to kill our 
troops; there are people there who want to kill the Iraqis that are 
working towards building a new Iraq; but for the average person in 
Iraq, they are absolutely thrilled and thankful that Saddam Hussein is 
gone.
  Mr. PENCE. Apart from the inspiration of meeting particularly 
Hoosiers in uniform in Baghdad, the most inspiring for me, and this 
picture gives evidence, was the opportunities we had a week ago to meet 
with ordinary Iraqis, people working construction, men and women of 
various traditions, and even various faiths.
  One of our meetings, and it may astound some that could be looking 
in, Mr. Speaker, is we had a meeting with a Shia cleric, a Shiite 
Muslim politician and the Catholic Bishop of Basra, who walked in in 
full religious garb, embraced the Shia cleric, as they obviously had 
great affection for one another, and then spoke of the religious 
pluralism that was a tradition for over 800 years in the communities of 
Basra in southeastern Iraq.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. What we forget is the rich tradition of Iraq. I do not 
know whether you have got it, but I have some things that have been 
posted on the Internet by folks who recount the history of this part of 
the world. It is a rich cultural heritage, the cradle of civilization, 
and that is what the people of Iraq want to be recognized and 
remembered for. They want to forget about the days of Saddam Hussein, 
because he robbed them of that great history and tradition.
  Mr. PENCE. That is absolutely right. Basra itself is just south of 
the convergence of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, which the Bible 
records to be the location of the Garden of Eden. At Tallil Air Base, 
you can see essentially a pyramid from 2100 B.C. that marks the 
birthplace of Abraham, what was known as Ur of the Chaldeans. It is a 
place of incalculable historical value and significance, and the people 
reflect that.
  But I have to tell the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Speaker, that I 
fell in love with the Iraqi people that I met. The two qualities of the 
people that I met, and, again, it was only 60 or 70 regular Iraqis that 
we spent significant time with in the course of that weekend, but the 
Iraqi people that I met were highly literate, most of them spoke 
functional English, which was helpful to me, and the two 
characteristics, there were three. Number one, they were people who had 
very strong opinions, which made me feel at home, being from Indiana 
and the Midwest, as the gentleman from Michigan is.
  We sat in a meeting, and, boy we heard it. Some people did not like 
how we were spending money on construction, other people did not like 
how we were investing in domestic security. But they had strong 
opinions, they were articulate, and they were revelling in the ability 
to express the opinions for the first time in their lifetimes.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I experienced some of the same stuff when I met with 
the Iraqi people. You went right to where I was going. They are 
learning the ability to speak out, because under Saddam Hussein, if 
they had spoken out, they would be dead. So they are aggressive, and 
sometimes you kind of say look, you cannot say it that way or whatever. 
But, wait a minute, they have only had the opportunity to speak out for 
the last 8 months. You are right, they do not know everything they have 
to do to be politically correct.
  But what a wonderful experience for them for the first time to be 
able to speak out, to meet with Members of the U.S. Congress or of the 
Parliament from Britain or members from Spain, but representative 
government, and for the first time, to have the ability to express 
their opinions and their vision for their own country and communities.
  Mr. PENCE. I thank the gentleman. That was evident. The reason I 
start with that is to say this was not a group of people that were 
handpicked to tell four Congressmen what they wanted to hear. These 
people had some sharp elbows. But when you would ask any Iraqi, what do 
you think of our decision, along with 33 other nations, to remove 
Saddam Hussein, they would stop in many cases, their eyes would well up 
with tears, they would often grab us by the hand, and, as one Shia 
cleric looked me in the eye and said through an interpreter, Saddam 
Hussein was a nightmare, and I quote, he said, because I will never 
forget it, he said, ``The day you defeated Saddam Hussein

[[Page H1055]]

was like a dark curtain being lifted off of the Iraqi people and the 
daylight shone in.''
  The sense of gratitude among the Iraqis, not only leaders, but rank 
and file folks that we met, was deeply moving to me as an American, and 
it was real and it was genuine. And I believe that from what they said, 
that among the 10 million souls who call themselves Iraqis, it is the 
dominant, overwhelming opinion of the people, one of gratitude to the 
people of the United States of America for ending a nightmare in their 
Nation.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is the same experience I had. In September I had the 
opportunity to spend a day with one of my constituents who is kind of 
heading up the healthcare rebuilding in Iraq, Jim Hoveman. I spent the 
day, and we went through one of the facilities where they are 
rebuilding an administrative building.
  Again, I am just kind of walking through the building, and I stopped 
and talked to two of the construction workers. It was not long, and I 
had about 40 of them around me, kids, maybe 18 years old, and then 
individuals that were probably getting closer to 45 or 50. But they 
wanted to talk, and they wanted to ask questions. But you could see the 
excitement that they felt, to have the opportunity to talk with people, 
to express their views and express their appreciation.
  Then we went to one of the hospitals. The doctors and everybody 
focused finally on equality of healthcare, meaning it was going to be 
available all across the country. In Basra, they did not have much at 
all. This is a country that spent like $1 per individual.
  A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be at the White House 
where the First Lady introduced the program that they are going to do 
with Project Hope to build a highly technical state-of-the-art 
Children's Hospital in Basra.
  There is some debate as to whether this hospital should be built or 
whether the money should be spent in a different way. Again, we will 
have that debate. But what it says is is it not awesome that for the 
first time, rather than seeing a high quality healthcare system that 
deteriorated for 30 years, now there are people that are looking at 
going into Iraq and creating a state-of-the-art children's hospital so 
that not only all the kids from Iraq, but that children from around the 
Middle East will now go to Iraq for quality healthcare and special care 
for the kids.
  Mr. PENCE. These are the stories, Mr. Speaker, that are not being 
told. These are the stories of compassion that are, however, reaching 
the Iraqi people. They may not make it on American broadcast television 
with great frequency, but they are reaching the hearts of the Iraqi 
people. You can see from this photograph, which is one of literally 
dozens I returned with, these men were construction workers at a USAID 
program, and some were attending a class on democracy. And we just 
stopped, and I think you can see even from this poor reproduction the 
warmth with which I was greeted by regular Iraqis.
  I share one anecdote. We walked into a classroom, they are holding 
these democracy classes all over Iraq, and they are probably at, what 
we would say in the United States as a 5th grade level, where they are 
teaching what it means to live under a constitution, what the Bill of 
Rights are. We went into one of these classes. They are all adults. And 
I walked in, and, of course, was listening in for a time as they spoke 
in Arabic.
  Then they rose and started to greet me and a few other Members of 
Congress. Several women wearing traditional garb walked up. I said, 
``Do you speak English?'' They all said yes. They proceeded to share 
with me, and I have got them in my office, handwritten poems about what 
democracy means to them. And on my Web site, Mike.Spence.House.Gov you 
can see this picture, literally these women handing this to me as if it 
were a newborn infant, this poem, their hands literally shaking at 
excitement with the idea of being able to be involved in representative 
democracy as citizens.
  I close on this point. I looked them in the eye and I said, ``You all 
are like the founding generation of the United States of America. You 
are like the people that lived in 1776.'' I said, ``I envy you, because 
future generations of Iraqis will look back at you and thank you for 
your courage and your success and your belief in a free future.''

                              {time}  1600

  And they all giggled with delight; they understood what I meant and 
were obviously thrilled with the comparison to our founding generation.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding; and I 
think he has it exactly right, because we have to recognize how far 
these people have to go and where they are coming from. I mean, whether 
it is in Afghanistan where they were under the control of the Russians 
and the Taliban for 12 years and their per capita income is $150, where 
they do not have the rule of law, they do not have police agencies in 
place, they do not have a judicial system in place, they do not have 
transparent government agencies, so they have to go through that whole 
building process and they have to learn about representative 
government.
  It is unrealistic for America, for Congress, or for anyone else to 
expect that by July 1 they will be like us, that they will fully 
understand representative government. That is going to take a 
tremendous amount of work; and we are doing this work in a very 
difficult environment, because there are still folks there who, if they 
saw and could identify the Iraqis that were meeting with the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Pence), those folks will become targets. There are 
groups out there, this is still a very deadly environment, but the 
gentleman is absolutely right. These people are going to be at the 
leading edge of building a new country.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, because the point he 
just made to me is a colossal one. The very willingness of regular 
Iraqis to attend democracy classes sponsored by the United States 
Agency for International Development is an act of personal courage. The 
day after we left Baghdad, literally a week ago, was the bloodiest day 
in Iraq since the end of the war. Four mosques were attacked in Karbala 
and in Baghdad where we just were. Nearly 300 Iraqis were killed; many 
more hundreds injured, and all of the mosques that were attacked, as 
the gentleman alluded to, all the mosques that were attacked were 
clerics and imams who were cooperating or understood to be cooperating 
with the transition to democracy in Iraq.
  One last point. The Iraqis that we spoke to were rather incredulous 
that we were in any way surprised by the violence. I will never forget 
the Iraqi who said to me, these people killed over a million of our 
countrymen to hold on to power. Why does it seem surprising to your 
people that they would kill to get it back?
  And I yield back.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, some ask, are you winning the war on 
terror, and the level of violence in Iraq is something that we are 
very, very disappointed in. But the gentleman is absolutely right. We 
should not be surprised. There was a letter that we intercepted and 
captured a couple of weeks ago that clearly indicates we are making 
progress, because the letter indicates that, Hey, we need to kill 
Americans and coalition forces; but where we really now need to move 
to, because we know that they are being successful, we need to target 
Iraqis, either to discourage them from moving forward to building a new 
Iraq, and to try to create divisions between the Shiites and the Sunnis 
and the Kurds and try to incite civil war. The terrorist organizations 
and individuals who feel that they will be disenfranchised because they 
are associated with the former regime will do just about anything to 
keep power, and that anything right now means that they will target and 
kill Iraqis.
  When we were there, we had the opportunity to meet with 600, 500, 600 
police cadets, and we went there because the week before we were there, 
again, two bombings and over 100 either police recruits or policemen 
were killed. They are the first step in building a civil society, 
keeping law and order on the streets. And we talked to them; we laid a 
wreath at the academy and spoke with them about how we were going to 
stand with them. Because we know that these young men and women, men 
and women in their police academy, the day they leave that academy, 
they

[[Page H1056]]

are going to go into an environment where the police are going to have 
a price on their head. But when we went through, and I mean the 
gentleman had the same experience with the folks that he saw, the first 
thing you did is you looked in their eyes. They were glad that we were 
there. You looked in their face and there was a smile on their face. 
You heard what they had to say, and I think there was appreciation in 
what they had to say. You shook their hands, and it was a firm 
handshake.
  Something that I had not experienced in my previous trips: when we 
were at the police academy, after just about every handshake and every 
thank you, they put their hand over their heart and then put it at 
their side. I said, What does that mean? I got it wrong; sometimes I 
would start with that. And they said, no, no, no, you end with that. 
What they said when they explained, they said, that demonstrates the 
intensity and the sincerity with which they are expressing their 
appreciation and their feelings to you for being there. So we had six 
Members of Congress who went to their academy and said, thank you, and 
as the gentleman states, our chairman was very eloquent when he talked 
to them, saying that you are the generation that will create the 
foundation for a new Iraq, and people will remember you because of what 
you are doing and the risks and the sacrifices that you may take. I 
yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I thank him for 
that moving explanation. I can candidly tell the gentleman that I did 
not have the presence to ask why almost every one of the nearly 80 
Iraqis that I met ended every conversation like this; but I am very 
moved to learn it on this blue carpet, that it meant this is the 
intensity of the gratitude and the feelings. But I can attest on this 
floor that virtually every Iraqi with whom I spoke ended with their 
hand on their heart, speaking to me as a member of the United States. 
And I really believe, although intelligence estimates are that we are 
dealing with 1,000 to 2,000 insurgents, left over thugs, imported 
terrorists, people that are doing the killing that is going on and 
purposing to do more, but this is 1,000 to 2,000 essentially criminals 
and terrorists in a country of 10 million. And I believe in my heart, 
and I know the gentleman is my senior in Congress and often cautions me 
about over generalizations, but I believe in my heart if the Iraqi 
people could look the American people in the eye and rise as one man or 
one woman, they would be standing with their hand over their heart.
  The people of Iraq that I spoke to are profoundly and overwhelmingly 
and emotionally grateful to the people of the United States of America, 
of Great Britain and Spain and all of the 33 nations that freed them 
from this nightmare of Saddam Hussein. I think of particularly the 
moment where a man who had been jailed 12 times over 25 years, who now 
is heading up an organization to identify the fate of nearly 1.2 
million Iraqi men, women, and boys and girls who are still missing, who 
were dragged from their homes because of the belief in their disloyalty 
to Saddam Hussein. No due process of law, no trial of a jury of their 
peers, simply dragged away, never to be heard from again. And that man, 
as I expressed my appreciation for his courage, put his hand over his 
heart and expressed his thanks to the people of the United States of 
America for ending the nightmare, as he described it, of Saddam 
Hussein.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, let us take a look at a different layer, 
because the gentleman and I know that when we are in Iraq, we do not 
get to go to all of the places we would like to go. I mean, when I have 
been in Baghdad, it is kind of like there is a lot of commerce, there 
is a lot of cars, the roads are busy, there is lots of people; and you 
want to just grab your driver and say stop, let me out, and let me 
spend the next half hour, hour just walking down the streets and 
talking to the people of Iraq, because I want to find out whether you 
are giving me the straight scoop. I think I am getting good input from 
the Iraqis, but are you selectively feeding me people that will only 
come with a smile on their face and those kinds of things.

  The gentleman and I have both had the opportunity to talk to another 
layer of people who have interacted with the Iraqi people, and that is 
the American and coalition troops. When I was there last time, I had 
the opportunity to have dinner with 10 soldiers from Michigan, and my 
colleagues had dinner with 10 to 15 troops from their States. So we are 
talking to 75, 80 troops. And then I also had the opportunity to talk 
to parents or spouses whose husbands or wives are over in Iraq; and the 
American troops and the coalition troops, they are the ones, the ones 
that I met with. They are the ones that are patrolling the streets of 
Baghdad. Baghdad is divided into sectors, and the group that I had 
dinner with, they are patrolling four segments. So you ask them and 
say, What are the Iraqi people saying to you? And our troops, although 
I have not spoken to all of them, so I cannot say all of the troops, 
but the ones that I have spoken to have no doubt that we are there for 
the right reasons.
  The gentleman from Indiana is right, they are not worried about 
whether we found weapons of mass destruction. Again, they have heard 
the stories of the torture, the killings, the brutality they have seen, 
how Saddam took care of himself and did not take care of his own 
people. They know all of this stuff. And they will tell us we are there 
for the right reasons. The Iraqi people are thrilled that we are there. 
The Iraqi people are frustrated that some of the rebuilding is not 
going as quickly as they would like it, that the security is not where 
they would like it, it is not where we would like it. But at the end of 
the day, they are glad we are here, they are glad Saddam is gone, and 
they are going to help us rebuild. They will tell us great stories 
about interacting, handing out books, rebuilding schools, digging 
wells, cleaning up irrigation trenches, getting the power going, and 
doing all of these things to help the Iraqis on a personal level.
  I think the gentleman from Indiana had an opportunity to meet with 
some of the troops, and I yield to my colleague.
  Mr. PENCE. We did, Mr. Speaker. As this picture attests, this is the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), who led our delegation with great 
distinction, and me with a number of Hoosiers in the Air Force at the 
air base south of Baghdad. We were able to dine, as the gentleman from 
Michigan did, with a number of men and women in uniform; and it was 
truly inspiring.
  As the gentleman suggested, Mr. Speaker, I just have to say that 
among the Iraqis with whom I spoke when I was in Baghdad and Basra, and 
among the soldiers, both British and American, when I would bring up 
the subject of weapons of mass destruction or the lack thereof or the 
search therefore, people would be completely uninterested. I remember 
speaking to an American intelligence officer who had been in charge of 
surveying a handful of the 270 mass graves that we found so far. And I 
looked him in the eye and I said, What say you of the lack of weapons 
of mass destruction? And he looked at me and he looked down at his 
shoes covered with sand, and he looked back at me with emotion in his 
eyes and he said, sir, from what I have seen, we did what needed to be 
done, whether we ever find any of those kinds of weapons or not. And 
this was the attitude that I got among our troops. I will say this 
without hesitation.
  Having walked into the palace of Saddam Hussein myself and walked 
into another one of his palaces and seen the opulence with which he 
indulged himself and his cronies, and then having walked through the 
ruination of Basra, which is a city with 20 percent of the sewage 
capacity that it requires, with 50 percent of the electricity it 
requires, 30 years of neglect and repression, and the tyranny and 
murder of over 1 million people, I am going to agree strongly with that 
intelligence officer. We did what needed to be done in Iraq and we, as 
these soldiers reflected again and again, and the gentleman from 
Michigan got this as well in his words, these soldiers know we were on 
the side of the right in ending the 30-year reign of a murderous 
dictator, Saddam Hussein.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I have not had the opportunity to go to 
Basra, but the gentleman from Indiana talked about the Third World 
conditions. Again, I spent more time in the health care area in talking 
on a pretty regular basis with Mr. Haveman, talking about

[[Page H1057]]

what is going on there and what existed before. This is actually what 
the first lady talked about when she was talking about the new hospital 
we want to build in Basra. Decades ago Iraq had one of the strongest 
systems. But here are some of the stories.
  Mothers tell stories of watching their children die because doctors 
do not have a small enough tube to give them oxygen. When parents bring 
their children to the hospital, they must also bring food, bedding and 
clothing, even their own blood supply. Under Saddam Hussein, one in 
eight children died before the age of 5. One in three was malnourished. 
Infant and child mortality rates doubled in 10 years while low birth 
weights increased from 4.5 percent to 30 percent. Today, infant 
mortality rates, and this is when the coalition came in, infant 
mortality rates in Iraq are similar to those in much less developed 
countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The prevalence of leukemia has also 
increased dramatically in the past decade and continues to grow at an 
alarming rate. Children in the United States with leukemia have a 90 
percent survival rate.

                              {time}  1615

  In Iraq, the rate is less than 10 percent. Saddam took care of 
himself, his family, and a core group of Baathists, but other than 
that, the country just totally slid. And those folks received very 
little health care, very few benefits from the government.
  Mr. Speaker, I will yield to my colleague.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I just remember when my colleague first 
returned from Baghdad, he shared with a number of us, his colleagues, 
video footage of Baghdad as a bustling city, a very modern city, which 
it was. And the reason we went to Basra the first day was because 
Ambassador Bremer and other officials were locked in round-the-clock 
negotiations over the constitution. So they sent us as the first 
delegation of American Congressmen to Basra.
  I have to tell you that going from Basra, which is like a Third World 
country, I mean it is ravaged not by war, it is ravaged by 30 years of 
neglect and tyranny by Saddam Hussein who refused to, even though 
billions of dollars were flowing from the Oil for Food program into his 
regime, and he was building more and more palaces, these monuments to 
his own greatness with marble floors and crystal chandeliers the size 
of minivans hanging from the hallway ceilings, but then go to Basra, 
and there is ramshackle dirt buildings falling down, roads in 
disrepair, sewers in disrepair, it demonstrated to me that contrast 
more than anything between the bustling city of Saddam Hussein to a 
city under the control of Basra, the Shiite population, the mendacity 
of this regime and the self-indulgence and evil of this regime letting 
so many people live in poverty while they live in sinful opulence.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Pence) for bringing it up. It reinforces the amount of work that needs 
to be done there: Getting a constitution, establishing a law, getting 
the police force in place, getting the judiciary, getting government 
institutions in place, and then also practicing the art of 
representative government.
  But there is no doubt that I believe the people of Iraq are thankful 
that we are there, that we are making progress in that. And we have 
talked about the people in Iraq that my colleague and I have personally 
had the opportunity to meet. We have talked about our second hand 
accounts that are told to us by our troops who are interacting with the 
Iraqi folks on a daily basis.
  Then there is one other level that I just want to get to before we 
run out of time, and that is before I went to Iraq the last time we 
spent a day in Libya. And for those who do not believe that we are 
making progress in the war on terrorism, there are a lot of folks who 
are believing that we are not winning or making progress in the war on 
terror, or that we are not serious about it, Muammar Qaddafi, Colonel 
Qaddafi believes that we are making progress, that we are serious about 
winning this war on terrorism.
  The changes that have happened in Libya are dramatic, going from 
somebody who had a weapons of mass destruction program, a nuclear 
program all under development, all secret, to where we are today, fully 
exposing it, telling us not only what he has, but how he got it and 
these types of things.
  We do not fully understand exactly why, but I do not doubt that there 
is some relationship to what we did in Iraq and where we said we are 
going to be focusing on, a war on terrorism, focused on it like a 
laser, we are going to go after it, and however he got to where he is 
and however Libya got to where they are today, we ought to be thankful 
that in this element of the war of terrorism, we have made that much 
progress in a very short period of time.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. This 
photograph illustrates a brief meeting that we had with Ambassador Paul 
Bremer across the hallway from the negotiations over the constitution. 
My colleague spoke of the long work we have ahead. There is a new 
interim Constitution, which is a radical document in the Middle East, 
people have basic Bill of Rights freedoms in this ancient land for the 
first time ever in their history. In this picture actually appears the 
draft of that interim constitution that Ambassador Bremer calls it.
  If we will stay the course, not only will we see the changes and the 
repentance that we have seen of Colonel Qaddafi, but I believe we are 
going to see the transformation of the society of Iraq as an Islamic 
country in their own form of democracy and freedom and a society built 
on rights that will transform that part of the world for our children 
and grandchildren and for the children and grandchildren of the good 
people of Iraq.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt we are making progress. 
I want to read a couple of quotes from a speech that we heard in Libya. 
And if it becomes the role for the Middle East, we will have made great 
progress. Think about this quote. This is one of the Libyan 
parliamentarians. ``I believe God created man on this earth. Therefore, 
they have natural needs and natural rights. These are not bestowed by 
anyone else and they cannot be taken away by men.'' This is in Libya.
  Now, think if they move that that direction. ``Every person has the 
right to develop to their full potential to live in peace, security and 
prosperity.'' ``How can you enslave people who are born free?''
  There is something that is inside of all of us that we recognize 
these types of rights as being basic rights. And as we help bring those 
rights to Libya, as we help bring and foster those rights in 
Afghanistan and Iraq, we do not light the spark or the flame in these 
peoples, we give the flame the opportunity to grow and flourish. It is 
there. That is something that is in all of us, the right to be free, to 
be secure. And what we are doing is we are giving them the right to do 
that. But we also, at the same time, recognize the difficulty and also 
the number of people who want to extinguish that flame and enslave 
these people one more time just like Saddam did.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. I thank 
my colleague for joining me today.

                          ____________________