[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 24, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1470-H1476]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H1470]]
                         WE ARE MAKING PROGRESS

  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, there has been a lot of discussion about 
the progress, and I applaud my colleagues for talking about the issues, 
with Iraq and the war on terrorism.
  I have got to tell you when I flew out here on Tuesday afternoon, and 
you have a question as to whether of not we are winning the war on 
terrorism, but the question is whether we are making progress. Just a 
small note in USA Today, on Tuesday, on page 8, ``Inspectors complete 
the Libya arms inventory.''
  It was only about 4 or 5 weeks ago that I had the opportunity to 
travel to Libya and to meet with Colonel Qaddafi. We had planned the 
trip to Iraq and Afghanistan in December, never expecting that 6 short 
weeks later we would be invited to go to Libya and to meet with Colonel 
Qaddafi to talk about the change in the attitude that has been 
highlighted for the last 6 or 8 weeks.
  Qaddafi's mea culpa on terror. Libya explains reversal, sees new era 
with the United States. What does that mean? What does that mean for 
the war on terrorism? Here is a real benefit that I think is an 
indication that we are making progress.
  The inspectors complete Libya arms inventory. International 
inspectors completed their inventory of Libya's chemical weapons 
stockpiles and confirmed that the country's only chemical weapons 
factory had been disabled, a watchdog organization said Monday. The 
inspectors said Libya had more than 20 tons of mustard gas and the 
materials to make thousands of tons of saren nerve gas.
  The Organization For the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it had 
inventoried materials at two storage facilities. Libya announced in 
December that it was scrapping its nuclear and chemical weapons 
programs in hopes of ending international sanctions. Washington has 
already lifted most sanctions.
  Libya is also working with inspectors from the International Atomic 
Energy Agency of the United Nations to dismantle its nuclear weapons 
programs.
  Who would have thought that a few short months ago, who would have 
thought a few short months ago that we would have made that type of 
progress with Libya?
  For more than a decade, probably closer to 2 decades, Libya had been 
identified and characterized as a state sponsor of terrorism. It is 
obvious that with what the experts have found in Libya, the tons of 
mustard and saren gas, that they had an active chemical weapons 
program. Also, through the negotiations and through the relations that 
they have made, we have got much better insights into their nuclear 
program, not only the status of how far their nuclear program had 
advanced, but perhaps more importantly, how they had gained access to 
the nuclear materials, the nuclear technology and the equipment to get 
into the nuclear business.
  By learning how they gained access to these materials, we have a 
better sense of what other countries might have been able to acquire, 
when they might have been able to acquire it, and how far they might 
have progressed in their own nuclear weapons programs, countries like 
Iran and countries like North Korea.
  Once we have identified the distribution network, the marketing 
network, the group of individuals, the organizations that made these 
materials available, it has given us an insight into the nuclear 
proliferation program that we never had before. There is no doubt that 
we are making progress in the war on terrorism that has been identified 
through much of the 1990s.
  Some say that this President, President Bush, was the one that after 
September 11 identified this new threat. Some say he pulled it out of 
the air; but when you take a look at the evidence, you see that a war 
on terrorism and the threat of terrorism had been identified through 
much of the 1990s.
  President Bill Clinton, February 17, 1998, here he is talking about 
Iraq. They have harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled 
monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors. 
Continuing, and 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. We simply cannot allow that to happen. 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. 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 the security of all the 
rest of us. A rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to 
use them or provide them to terrorists who travel the world if we fail 
to respond today, Saddam will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge 
that they can act with impunity. I have no doubt he would use them 
again if permitted to develop them.
  So during much of the 1990s, President Clinton identified not only 
the threat of Iraq but the threat of terrorist organizations coming 
from rogue states or coming from safe havens who would threaten the 
lives of American citizens and the security of the United States. What 
did others say?
  Some of our Senators have said, Iraq possesses a chemical weapons 
program and a biological weapons program. Name another leader on the 
face of this Earth who has decided not once but on numerous occasions 
to use weapons of mass destruction against his own people and his 
neighbors. Name one other country. Only Iraq, only Saddam Hussein.
  Another Senator has stated, Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass 
destruction programs and the means to deliver them are a menace to 
international peace and security. They pose a threat to Iraq's 
neighbors, to U.S. forces and the Gulf region, to the world's energy 
supplies and to the integrity and credibility of the United Nations 
Security Council.
  Now, because of the customs of the House and the rules of the House, 
I cannot identify the specific individuals who have made those 
statements; but the interesting thing to me, and I can share the names 
with my colleagues off-line, not here on the floor of the House, but I 
can share the names with my colleagues, and now it is some of these 
same individuals who are saying it was all made up. Excuse me. These 
individuals were saying the same thing and identifying the same issue 
that President Bush identified when he took action after September 11; 
but more importantly, almost immediately after taking office, President 
Bush identified that terrorism was a threat and that maybe the United 
States should consider alternative strategies.
  During much of the 1990s, we treated terrorist attacks as criminal 
acts. We waited for the attacks to occur. We put in place our policing 
authorities and our police resources, and then we prosecuted them as 
crimes, tried to find the bad guys and to prosecute them as crimes.
  In 2001, after watching what happened during the 1990s, the 
successful attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on 
our barracks in Saudi Arabia, the attacks on our embassies in Africa, 
the attacks on the USS Cole, all together creating a devastating loss 
of life, this President said, you know, maybe it is time that we should 
at least consider alternative strategies rather than treating these as 
criminal activities, recognizing them for what they are.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I 
would note that even when President Clinton was making the allegations 
about the strength of the effort in Iraq and about the threat that Iraq 
posed to the world, he was systematically dismantling the information-
gathering network that the United States had in place. He began to pull 
the operatives out of our spy networks so that we had no information on 
the ground. The Clinton administration was saying that we will gather 
that information electronically, we will use satellites and we will use 
monitoring of phones.
  The truth is you cannot know actions until you understand the heart 
of the individuals who are planning actions,

[[Page H1471]]

until you can assess the threat by listening to the rhetoric; but 
President Clinton dismantled that at the same time he was acknowledging 
the threat, and President Bush was faced with a situation in the world 
where we did not have information and we were struck without warning, 
without provocation.
  I think that before we consider all the ramifications, if we are to 
listen to the left, talk to America today, about retreating away from 
the war, about coming back home, about the mistakes they are claiming 
that we made, we have to understand the risk of retreat.
  We have now Pakistan who is engaged with us, but it would guarantee 
instability and overwhelm the President of Pakistan if we were to 
retreat. The fundamentalists, the extremists in Iraq would overwhelm 
the growing government process there. Our friends who have helped us 
get there, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, would face certain instability if 
we were not there to offer the moral support and the troop strength 
which we are offering today.
  It was well-known through the 1990s the threat that Iraq and many of 
the terrorist states, the risks that they posed to the United States; 
but in treating these not as acts of war but as a crime, like my 
colleague has said, we have to understand that the person who 
perpetrated the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center was actually in 
prison. He was only a criminal. It was his uncle who conducted and led 
the 2001 attacks with the certainty that they had communicated 
frequently.
  The failed policies of appeasement simply are not going to work in 
this war on terror; and if we understand that the instability of the 
world is the goal of the terrorists, that through the instability they 
represent a very small percent of the population but they will gain 
tremendous power in instability, we begin to understand why they are 
doing what they are doing.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding back, 
and when my colleague is talking about what was happening during the 
1990s, I am on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and I 
have had opportunity to go back through and look at what happened 
during the 1990s.
  What he was talking about and describing was what we described as the 
Deutch Doctrine. The Deutch Doctrine or the director of the CIA who in 
1995, 1996 decided that they would kind of cleanse and purge our 
intelligence network, believing that, yes, we could rely on satellites 
and electronic eavesdropping to get all of the information that we 
needed, that with the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the end of 
the Cold War, the need for spies was gone, and in reality what happened 
after the collapse of the Wall, a very new threat was emerging. There 
are statements from President Clinton, from his administration, that 
clearly identified that this threat was emerging.

                              {time}  2215

  They all saw terrorism as something that was coming, but they put in 
place a series of policies. One of the things that I give President 
Bush a tremendous amount of credit for, after September 11, he never 
went back and said, you know, I wish that this had happened during the 
Clinton administration; or, boy, they really left me with the cupboard 
bare, no spies, no intelligence capabilities, no human intelligence 
collection capabilities. He recognized that fighting the war on 
terrorism is a very, very difficult process with a lot of different 
strategies that should be employed.
  That is why shortly after he took office he brought together his team 
and said we need to explore other alternatives. We will continue moving 
full speed ahead on some of the more aggressive policies the Clinton 
administration had put in place, but we are not going to back and 
publicly critique the Clinton administration for what they did or did 
not do. That is not the issue. We are fighting a war on terrorism, and 
it is time to put in place a strategy and a program that we believe 
will be effective. So we started rebuilding human intelligence.
  What happened under the Deutch Doctrine in 1995-1996, what happened 
is we said, number one, we are not going to recruit people who have 
human rights violations or who have criminal records. When you look 
around the room of Saddam Hussein's cabinet and you see who is sitting 
at the table, you say I wonder how many of those folks do not have 
criminal violations or human rights violations. Obviously, none of the 
folks inside the room are going to qualify to give us the information 
that we need. These are individuals who systematically have executed at 
least 400,000 of their countrymen. The estimates range from 1.2 to 1.5 
million of their countrymen are buried in mass graves around Iraq.
  These are people who used weapons of mass destruction. Yes, they used 
chemical weapons. It is not a question whether they had them. They used 
them against the Iranians and they used them against their own people. 
Obviously, none of the people who had some insight into what Saddam 
Hussein was thinking were going to qualify to work for our Central 
Intelligence Agency. The people sitting in a cave with bin Laden 
planning and training terrorists in Afghanistan and the remote regions 
of Pakistan, would they qualify to work for our Central Intelligence 
Agency in 1995 and 1996? Absolutely not. So we knew we could not 
recruit any more individuals.
  But then the Deutch Doctrine went one step further. They said we are 
going to scrub the assets that we currently have. What does that mean? 
That means that for those folks already spying for the United States 
and trying to tip us off and give us the information we need to stay 
secure, if we have people on the payroll of the Central Intelligence 
Agency who have human rights records or criminal violations, we are 
going to scrub them. They are gone.

  These are individuals who had made the decision and obviously they 
did things that were pretty damaging and ugly in the past, maybe were 
still involved with regimes that were doing that, but had committed and 
said we are willing to give information to the United States, for 
whatever their motivations, whatever they may be, whether it is money, 
whether it is sanctuary, whether it is a promise that they are not 
going to be prosecuted for their crimes. Whatever their motivations or 
agreements that they had, they were now being told, sorry, thanks for 
helping us for the last 3 years, 5 years; you are no longer part of the 
program.
  They are sitting there and saying, let us see. We made this 
commitment to the United States, we have been feeding them information 
for such number of years. They have now sold us out. I wonder how long 
before they tell people who we are.
  What happened during the mid-1990s, our intelligence community was 
gutted from exactly the resources that we needed to fight a war on 
terrorism, which is human intelligence. Not a satellite that tells us 
there is a building and a suspicious truck going in and out that has 
some materials on it that if you put it together, X, Y, Z, it is a 
legitimate material; but if you put it together differently, it becomes 
a weapon of mass destruction or a toxic gas.
  We did not understand the plans and intelligence of the terrorist 
organizations that we were fighting and that posed a threat to us. So 
we end up getting into, just prior to 2001, as the planning for the 
attacks were going on, understanding very little about our enemies 
other than knowing they are out there and consistently highlighting 
them, whether it is from President Clinton, whether it is from our 
colleagues in the other body, or whether it is from other members of 
the Clinton administration.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman brought up a personality trait 
of the President. When he inherited a bad problem, the President did 
not whine about it, did not take it to the American public, did not 
point fingers. He just set to work to solve the problem. There are many 
things that the President could have talked about that existed in the 
military at the point that he took over. Raises had been ignored for 
the 8 years under President Clinton; the inventory of our weapons were 
depleted seriously through many actions taken under President Clinton. 
Spare parts for vehicles and tanks were depleted, and the maintenance 
readiness status of our equipment was sadly lacking; but the President 
has not said one word about that during this war. He simply went to 
work, asked for the money to take care of the problems, and began to 
take care of the problems.

[[Page H1472]]

  Today, I heard a speaker who described leadership as seeing a need, 
then taking a personal responsibility to take care of that need. As I 
look back on the President's performance since 9/11 in a situation that 
was tremendously challenging for any person, I see a person who saw a 
need and took a personal responsibility to begin to address the 
problems. He has addressed them well. If we look at the changes since 
9/11, we see the dramatic changes in the situation in the world today. 
He talked to our friends in Saudi Arabia and said there were networks 
financing terrorism there, and that has changed. He compelled them to 
make a change in that.

  Today Saddam Hussein is not in power, but instead is in prison. Who 
can forget the image of that leader who had killed a half a million 
people, his own people, and here was that leader, that vicious, violent 
leader crawling out of a hole in the ground where he had been hiding, 
whipped and beaten by the steadfast determination of American forces to 
rid the world of that evil and to keep him from doing more destruction, 
either in the world or to his own people.
  Afghanistan this summer has already had elections. They are looking 
at a Constitution that is offering new freedoms in that country. Iraq 
has approved the temporary Constitution, the one that for the first 
time gives women rights in that Middle Eastern country, one that 
recognizes private property rights.
  Children are back in school in Iraq today because of the President's 
actions. As my colleague has mentioned, Libya has given up their 
chemical and nuclear weapons. Iran is acknowledging their participation 
in this dramatic build up of weapons of mass destruction. The Pakistani 
President has vowed to fight terrorism in his country with his troops 
and is doing a dramatic job of that.
  These are significant changes in the history of the world. And make 
no mistake about it, if the changes were not made to the better, toward 
the more stable governments, the changes will be made in the world to 
more unstable governments. That is the choice in the world today, 
stability versus instability. It is not so much a question of those 
countries that are democrat or not democrat. The question is stability 
and the protection of humans and human rights in those countries.
  So the President inherited a military that was depleted, one that 
seemed to be on its heels. I would point out that when I went to Iraq 
in October and early November, I talked with many of the soldiers 
there. For 3 days we had lunch and dinner with American soldiers, both 
men and women fighting the fight. Every day I would walk through the 
large dining halls of 800 or 900 people, and I had a chance to visit 
with a lot of young men and women. In unison and one by one they said 
please tell the President we love him. That was prior to when the 
President went there on Thanksgiving morning. When I saw him about to 
come around that curtain, I realized what the American troops would say 
to him because they had said the same thing to me a month earlier.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman probably agrees with 
me that one of the most rewarding things to do during a trip to Iraq is 
to meet with the troops, especially those troops patrolling the streets 
of Baghdad, especially those troops rebuilding the schools and health 
clinics, doing the different construction projects around Iraq, because 
they are the ones that are interacting on a daily basis with the people 
of Iraq. They are the ones who are experiencing firsthand the sincere 
expressions of gratitude and thanks for the work that the United States 
and our coalition partners have done.
  People ask, Is Iraq better off today than what they were before? 
Before they were under a dictator that was killing them. We have heard 
the stories of what his sons would do. One of the troops that I met 
with this week indicated he had an opportunity to talk to someone who 
told him a story about the excitement that the Iraqis are expressing 
about fielding an Olympic team. There is a young boxer who is looking 
forward to making the Olympic team. His brother was a boxer for the 
Iraqi team before, but his brother lost an international match. He got 
back to Iraq, was picked up and was never seen again. His brother 
figures somewhere in a mass grave is his brother killed and buried for 
the simple fact that Uday or Qusay said you did not do a good enough 
job, and you are dead. There are many stories of what Uday and Qusay 
would do in the streets of towns where they had palaces. It was an 
unbelievable, brutal regime.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman was talking about the 
soldiers in the streets, there were three young men from New Mexico, 
and they brought me a picture from their patrol that morning. These 
young men were in their early 20s. They graduated from New Mexico high 
schools. I had watched one play in the State championship ball game. We 
talked about that game, but their greatest pride came from the 
recognition that was given to them by the Iraqis in the streets over a 
period of time. They said when they got there, people were peeking out 
of the curtains. They were unsure because they had been told for 35 
years that the Americans had only one intent, and that was to kill when 
they came.

                              {time}  2230

  Yet through the weeks families became familiar with them being in the 
same streets and in the same alleyways, and protecting and guarding, 
and gradually they began to open their doors. On that morning, the 
morning they took the picture in the street, they brought it to me to 
put into my office here. One of the families brought out their young 
kids and held them up to see them eye to eye. He said it brought tears 
to his eyes to see the changes in the Iraqi people in just a few short 
weeks.
  The greatest question that our solders ask us is, why don't Americans 
hear this in the American press? Why don't my mom and dad hear about 
the good things that we're doing on the streets? I could not give them 
an answer but when I was there in my 3 days I took 5\1/2\ hours of 
video. I have consolidated that onto a CD that I take into the schools 
in my districts and I talk over and over and over about the good things 
that American soldiers are doing there in the reconstruction, not only 
in the reconstruction of the facilities in Iraq, but in the 
reconstruction of the hope and the dreams and the human spirit that we 
see taking place right now.
  Our young men and women are recognizing the very valuable thing they 
are creating in the human spirit in Iraqis, and both the young men and 
women got tears in their eyes when they were telling me about it.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding for that brief story.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague. I think we also want our 
colleagues to recognize in the times that we have been to Iraq, we 
recognize that Iraq is still a very dangerous place. Our troops will 
tell us that. There are Iraqis who clearly were part of the brutal 
regime of Saddam Hussein who received and reaped all the benefits of 
the Oil for Food program, the health care system and all of those types 
of things. Obviously, Iraq for them will not be a better place because 
now instead of the few benefiting from the riches of Iraq, all 26 
million people will benefit.
  Obviously, the terrorist organizations have made Iraq a battleground, 
the point of intersection with those who are fighting terrorism.
  We recognize that Iraq continues to be a very dangerous place for our 
troops, for the Coalition troops and for the Iraqis that are working 
for us. The Iraqis that are now working for us are the targets 
frequently rather than Coalition forces.
  My last trip 4 weeks ago to Iraq, we went to the police academy. The 
police academy is one of the first institutions of building a civil 
government after 30 years of a brutal regime, a lawless regime. We want 
to get a constitution in place, we want to get a set of laws in place 
as well, we want a police force in place, we want a judiciary in place, 
we want representative government in place, we want a free press. All 
of this stuff takes time, but one of the first building blocks is 
putting in place a functioning police organization.
  The terrorists, recognizing that this is one of the first blocks that 
needs to be put in place, have now targeted the

[[Page H1473]]

new recruits. In the week before we were there, over 100 recruits had 
been killed in two different bombings.
  We went to the police academy where over 600 young men and women, 
young men and women, the new Iraq now creates opportunities for women. 
We went there to lay a wreath, to show our solidarity with the Iraqi 
police officers and the police recruits. As we got done laying the 
wreath, we then had the opportunity to go around and shake hands with 
probably 300 of the 600 Iraqi police recruits. You could see it in 
their eyes.
  I think this is the experience that our troops go through. They see 
it in the eyes, in the faces of the Iraqi people, they feel it in the 
handshake that you get, a firm handshake, you hear it in the words that 
they tell you, the sincerity of saying ``thank you,'' and I am sure 
that our soldiers have experienced the same thing that we did.
  After they looked us in the face, after they shook our hands and 
after they said ``thank you,'' they put their hand over their heart and 
brought it back to their side, demonstrating the sincerity and the 
earnestness with which they were expressing their thoughts and feelings 
to us for having American troops there, for liberating them from Saddam 
Hussein and providing them the opportunity. They recognize, these are 
young kids, they are 18 to 24, and they know that the day that they 
leave that academy, they have got a price on their head because the 
terrorist groups do not want the beginning of a civil society, and the 
police force is one of those first building blocks. So they leave that 
academy knowing that they are going to go out.
  I think I just read this week again that in the last 7 or 10 days, 
another 20 Iraqi police have been killed. I am sure that some of those 
that have been killed, I would tend to believe that some of those that 
were killed were in that group of 600 that we met 4 weeks ago. But they 
were there, there is a new class there now, they are committed to 
building a new Iraq.
  I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico. We have been joined by our 
colleague from Arizona.
  Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. He is bringing up a 
very compelling story that occurred when I was in Iraq. We went to 
Kirkuk. At that town, we visited the police station. I am understanding 
that it is the same police station that was bombed several weeks ago in 
Iraq causing great damage.
  But when we were there the police captain began to address this 
concept of liberty. He likened it to growing a garden. He said in his 
words that for the roses to grow in Iraq, the roses would have to be 
watered with Iraqi blood. He said, We're willing to do that. We're 
willing to shed Iraqi blood for Iraqi freedom. When I heard those 
words, I knew that Iraq, no matter what the trials, no matter what the 
troubles, would be in good shape as long as we are there to help, as 
long as we are there to help until they get their strength.
  The only thing that can cause Iraq to suffer worse is for America to 
lose its resolve, because the Iraqi police at that station in Kirkuk 
said two things, Don't leave Iraq too early and do not leave Saddam 
Hussein loose. That was before we captured Saddam Hussein. We have 
taken care of the second piece but America cannot lose its resolve. 
Otherwise, the Iraqi people will pay dearly for the terrorists and the 
extremists who would go in and punish anyone who has cooperated with 
the United States or with the Coalition forces.

  Again, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague. I thank him for being here 
tonight. There is no doubt that we are making progress in Iraq and not 
only do Americans continue to pay the price, and our Coalition forces, 
but the Iraqis who are standing with us right now are probably the ones 
that are really on the front lines that scare the terrorists most, 
because they are demonstrating to the rest of the Iraqis that they are 
willing, as my colleague said, to pay the price with their blood to 
grow the flower of freedom in Iraq.
  I yield to my colleague from Arizona.
  Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman very much for yielding. I want to 
compliment both my colleague from Michigan and my colleague from New 
Mexico for their leadership on this issue and for helping carry the 
message to the American people that what we have done in Iraq is 
working and that it has been a struggle that has been well worthwhile.
  As my colleague from Michigan well knows, I went with him to Iraq in 
August, and we were there largely before any Members got in. We spent 3 
days. As my colleague from New Mexico mentioned, he went to Kirkuk. We 
also went to Kirkuk and Tikrit and Mozul in addition, of course, to 
going to Baghdad. For anyone who has been there, it is a tremendous 
education to go and to meet the people and to see the progress that is 
being made. We were there early on.
  It was interesting to me, you were discussing the threat that is 
posed to anyone who goes to Iraq right now. When we went, we were 
freely allowed to travel by helicopter and did indeed travel by 
helicopter from the Baghdad International Airport to downtown Baghdad 
and around downtown Baghdad and then to each of the other places that 
we visited. We spent a lot of time in helicopters.
  My colleague from New Mexico mentioned having taken about 5 hours of 
video. I think I took about 20 hours of video, in part because that is 
what we were allowed to do. We had a fair amount of time in 
helicopters. It does show you a great deal about the country.
  My first and probably most striking recollection of it, and this was 
in August, so the climate was different than it is now, was of taking 
off from Baghdad International Airport, and I had a TV news camera with 
me, and of shooting the neighborhoods surrounding the outskirts of 
Baghdad as we flew into downtown, and the young kids rushing out into 
the streets and out into the parks and waving up to us and giving us 
the thumbs-up and expressing their joy and their appreciation for what 
we as Americans have done for them.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. We were there in August and I think even then we also 
flew over the city and we saw the tremendous amount of commerce, the 
cars on the roads. Baghdad looked much like a functioning city until 
you got to some of the compounds where we had built the protected 
barricades. I can tell you that having been back there 4 weeks ago, the 
commerce has even expanded much more significantly.
  There are more cars on the road. We drove by the gas stations. The 
lines are gone. The kids are still out there on the streets. It is 
still a dangerous place, but this is a place that is making progress.
  Mr. SHADEGG. It seems to me as I listened to you each speak about 
this, it has got to be hard for the average American citizen to 
appreciate all that we have done, because we in America take our 
freedoms so much for granted. We cannot even imagine the kind of 
repression that they suffered.

  The gentleman refers to commerce in the streets. One day, I believe 
when you were getting a classified briefing, I was up in a helicopter 
in our trip not eligible to get that classified briefing and we flew 
over a market. This bustling market with hundreds of people there 
buying and engaging in commerce was just a tremendous display.
  Also, thinking about the perspective of the average American out 
there, it seems to me that we have heard so much about this issue of 
weapons of mass destruction and I think we are as a nation kind of 
second-guessing, well, was it appropriate to go, did we do the right 
thing given that David Kay and the others that we sent were not able to 
document huge stockpiles of WMDs?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. The gentleman is right. There has been so much focus on 
weapons of mass destruction. Let me read a quote for you:
  ``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. We 
have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone.''
  Mr. SHADEGG. Bill Clinton?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Everybody would say, of course, that is George Bush, 
January 2002. No.
  We have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam Hussein 
gone. ``If entrusted with the presidency, my resolve will never 
waver.'' Al Gore, May 23, 2000.

[[Page H1474]]

  These people are now revealing these secrets that the President had 
this secret plan to get rid of Saddam when he came into power. Excuse 
me. This was the policy of Bill Clinton in 2000, forcefully articulated 
by then-Vice President Al Gore saying, ``We have made it clear that it 
is our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone.''
  Mr. SHADEGG. I think that is a great transition for a point I wanted 
to make about the whole issue of WMD. Some now, in hindsight, would 
say, Well, the entire rationale for going to war was WMD. They try to 
make the argument that only now are we justifying our effort in part on 
liberating Iraq from the awesome and repressive rule of Saddam Hussein. 
What they forget is that the technical, legal reason for going to war 
in Iraq was, in fact, fully satisfied. They do not want people to think 
about that anymore. Even some people on this floor do not want you to 
think about that.
  But David Kay, the weapons inspector with whom you and I met in Iraq, 
who in fact was not able to demonstrate or establish beyond a question 
of a doubt now that there are stockpiles of weapons of mass 
destruction, told me a week ago here in this Capitol building 
pointblank that there was absolutely no doubt but that Saddam Hussein 
was in violation of U.N. resolution 1441 and of the earlier U.N. 
resolution, I believe the number is 468, maybe you can recall the 
number, but, and this is David Kay, said there is absolutely no 
question but that Saddam Hussein was in clear violation as of when the 
war started of both U.N. resolutions. That was the legal premise for 
going to war in Iraq.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Going back to the speech by then-Vice President Al Gore 
in May of 2000:
  ``As Senator I voted for the use of force, as Vice President I 
supported the use of force. If entrusted with the presidency, my 
resolve will never waver.''
  And then, going on, talking about this time in the case of Iran, but 
it is also true for Iraq:
  It is still a major sponsor of terrorism, a seeker of weapons of mass 
destruction. That is a deadly and an unacceptable combination.
  There is no doubt that the Clinton administration and, at that point 
in time, Vice President Al Gore got it right. Iraq was a threat to the 
United States, Saddam Hussein had to go and that was a policy and a 
vision that was carried through under President Bush and his new 
administration with one big difference. Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda, bin 
Laden, the war on terrorism were seen through a very different lens. 
They were seen through the lens of 9/11. And so what we had to do is we 
had to take a look at the broad expanse of terrorism and the threats 
that were out there, recognizing that terrorists do not take a break. 
They do not take a vacation. 24/7 they are looking at how they are 
going to attack the United States, when, how and where.
  There is only one way you can respond to that kind of a threat with 
people who are, I believe, fully committed. If they got their hands on 
weapons of mass destruction, the technology, they would manufacture 
them, they would use them against us, they would use them against the 
West and against our allies.

                              {time}  2245

  And the only way to stop them is not to negotiate with them, but is 
to put the pressure on them 24-7, 365 days a year.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I think the point is precisely made. I 
think it is exactly right. It shows that this administration was 
willing to take action. The kind of fine point I want to put on it was 
in addition to all of those things, the legal rationale for the war was 
their violation of the U.N. resolutions. And in point of fact, those 
resolutions said that if Saddam Hussein and Iraq did not comply with 
the U.N. resolutions, then the United Nations and the world would be 
justified in taking whatever steps were necessary, including force, to 
enforce the resolutions. And that was the legal basis for the war, and 
I think that is an important point to understand.
  But the gentleman has raised a wider issue, and that is the war on 
terror. And it seems to me that today of all days we ought to talk a 
little bit about the war on terror
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think that is a key word that we need to 
spend time on, maybe not tonight, but that the American people and our 
colleagues need to think about. Are we really at war? It was not that 
long ago that we had the opportunity to be at an event where one of the 
deputy Secretaries of the Defense Department, Steve Cambone, spoke and 
was very definitive. And he said we are a Nation at war, that we do not 
know exactly how long it will last, but it will not be short, 
recognizing that we are at war in that the situation that we face is 
very different, and we should realize it is different than how we 
treated it during the 1990s which was what my colleague and I talked 
about earlier, saying that these are just random criminal activities. 
This is much more serious.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to take the conversation 
forward to some of the events of today. We are at war, and it is a war 
against terror. And of course the news of the day is the investigative 
work of the 9-11 commission and the question of whether or not either 
the Clinton administration or the Bush administration appropriately has 
responded to the war on terror, that the kind of overarching news on 
that is the criticism which has surfaced in the last few days by this 
Richard Clarke of the Bush administration, a rather scathing book that 
he has written saying that the Bush administration did not take the war 
on terror seriously enough before 9-11. And he testified today before 
the 9-11 commission.
  I happened to be in a position to watch his testimony, at least a 
substantial part of it, and I thought it absolutely fascinating because 
it was brought out in his testimony today that while he was accusing 
and is accusing the Bush administration of not having been sufficiently 
aggressive in the war on terror before 9-11 and in his testimony he 
detailed his frustration in not being able to get the Bush 
administration to do as much as he wanted, one of the members of the 
commission brought forward the text of a briefing that he, Richard 
Clarke, had given to the press in February of 2000 and again, I 
believe, in June of 2000. And the text of this briefing by Mr. Clarke 
said the exact opposite of what he is saying today. The text said, and 
this was a briefing by Mr. Clarke to the American press on the Bush 
administration's efforts on the war on terror, and he said the Bush 
administration is going far beyond what the Clinton administration had 
done. And at one point, he said, for example, in this particular aspect 
of the war on terror, the Bush administration has increased funding 
fivefold. That is a direct quote from Richard Clarke to the American 
media in a briefing he presented at the White House to our media about 
the efforts of the Bush administration.
  In the course of the questioning, the questioner said, Mr. Clarke, 
that statement that the Bush administration was being much more 
aggressive in its efforts to go after the war on terror seems to stand 
at odds with the premise of your current book. And he went on and said, 
Specifically you told the press that there was a fivefold increase in 
the amount of money dedicated by the Bush administration to the war on 
terror than had been dedicated by the Clinton administration. Mr. 
Clarke was then asked, How do you justify that, how do you rationalize 
that, how do you explain that in the light of your book?
  And Clarke made an interesting statement. He said, Number one, with 
regard to the statement that the Bush administration was being far more 
aggressive, it turns out that I was wrong; that is just what I believed 
they were going to do, and they did not do it.
  And then the questioner said, What about this claim that they had 
increased funding by fivefold? If they increased funding by fivefold 
over what the Clinton administration had been doing, certainly that is 
inconsistent with your claim that they did not take the war on terror 
seriously.
  And I thought Mr. Clarke's response was fascinating. His response 
was, Well, I was then a spokesman for the White House and my job was to 
put the best face on it I could, and so I highlighted the strong things 
or the positive things, not the negative things.
  The questioner said, This is not a matter of opinion. This is a 
matter of fact. Did the Bush administration increase spending fivefold?

[[Page H1475]]

  Clarke said, Well, they did in authorization. They did not in actual 
spending or in actual appropriations.
  The questioner said, Wait a minute. Appropriations are done by the 
Congress.
  Clarke said, No. There is also a twofold process in the 
administration. They initially propose a number, and then they actually 
spend the number or put a number in their budget. And Clarke said, In 
point of fact, the fivefold increase that I was talking about is what 
they wanted to spend. They ultimately did not actually put that number 
in their budget.
  The questioner did not follow up with the question I would have 
followed up with, which is I think the $64,000 or in this case maybe 
the $3 million or $3 billion question, which is, Let me understand 
this, Mr. Clarke. You told the press that they had increased funding 
fivefold. You did not clarify this detail; so you were misleading the 
press back then.

  And I think that begs the question of if he was willing to mislead 
the press back then, is he willing to mislead the press today.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I was not prepared to talk about Clarke 
because I am not sure that the whole debate can be dignified by a 
debate or discussion on the floor of the House. It, from my point of 
view, is one of the more disappointing things that I have seen. People 
who are coming out of positions where they have been entrusted by more 
than one administration with the security of the United States, the 
lives of American citizens, the lives of American service people, the 
lives in the CIA, and they very well know that they can go out and they 
can make whatever claims they want because the information that could 
thoroughly embarrass them and discredit them, and I believe it exists, 
is classified.
  I can tell the gentleman there are few documents that I would just 
kind of like to take and put in Richard's face or give to the media and 
say, Now, just like this memo. It is not a memo. Here is what you 
briefed, not to the Bush administration in an internal memo, here is 
what you briefed to the press a year ago. Here is the letter of 
resignation that you sent, I believe, into the White House that praises 
this President for some of the work that he has done; and now that it 
comes to be an election time and it is time to sell a book, all of a 
sudden you are rewriting history. You can go out and make whatever 
accusations you want, knowing that most of the information that would 
rebut what you are saying is classified and so, hey, you are basically 
entitled to a free shot to do whatever you want.
  And 2 years ago this person was holding the secrets and the strategy 
of the United States in place to some of the most dangerous elements 
that were challenging us. It is disappointing to see this kind of 
behavior. We deserve better.
  I yield to my colleague.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence, I am sure the gentleman has a fascinating 
perspective on these issues which many of us do not, and I think he 
makes an excellent point with regard to the ability of someone who has 
had access to that information and knows what can and cannot be used to 
refute or rebut any arguments they make now. And I certainly empathize 
with and would share the gentleman from Michigan's concern about 
somebody who speaks out under those circumstances knowing that the 
information that might set the record straight is classified and cannot 
be brought out.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, we have had a wide variety of people come 
in and testify, and I can tell the Members that one of the things that 
I really appreciate on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 
is the seriousness with which individuals on both sides of the aisle 
take the job that they have got on the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence. We do not find the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence members participating in this gotcha type of game. We 
recognize that the responsibilities of the committee are too serious. 
We also recognize that we have had Richard Clarke testify in front of 
us, we have had a lot of folks who were in various capacities testify 
in front of us in secret session, and not everybody agrees. There is a 
variety of opinions, and it is our job on the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence to put the package together that tries to 
make sure that something like this never happens again.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I do want to conclude with this point, and 
I want to get it across. As a nonmember of the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence, as someone not privy to that information, I 
certainly would agree with the gentleman that perhaps this whole 
episode does not merit acknowledgment and debate here on the floor of 
the House except that I have long believed and indeed kind of grew up 
with the notion that the unrefuted lie becomes the truth. And in this 
case, I want to make this point very clear. Today in sworn testimony 
before the 9-11 Committee, Richard Clarke said, ``The briefing I gave 
actively misled the press because I told the press there was a fivefold 
increase in funding, and now I am telling you some 2 years later that 
that was not correct.''
  If Mr. Clarke was willing to actively mislead the press 2 years ago 
and lead the press to believe that there had been a fivefold increase 
in funding when he knew darn good and well that no such fivefold 
increase existed, then I would suggest that his willingness to mislead 
the press then and admit it today, acknowledge ``I made this claim, I 
was trying to explain the Bush administration's position,'' it 
absolutely was not true because it was only in discussion or in, as he 
called it, authorization, not spending, an acknowledgment that he was 
willing to actively and aggressively mislead the American press and the 
American people 2 years ago, and what does that say about the validity 
of the claims he is making today? And I think that is a question that 
the American people unfortunately in this kind of tawdry discussion 
that is going on deserves to know about, be aware of. And unfortunately 
buried in that hearing today, not many people might have picked up the 
fact that what Richard Clarke said was, yes, I said to the press and 
the American people we had increased funding fivefold, but technically 
I was really lying because I needed to to keep my job. And I think that 
is shocking conduct on his part. I hope the press will comment on it in 
tomorrow's papers, and I certainly think the American people need to be 
aware that Mr. Clarke made a pretty startling admission today when he 
acknowledged, if his claim today is in fact true, that what he was 
saying 2 years ago or in February of 2000, now 4 years ago, was 
misleading the American people about what was going on.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Shadegg) for bringing this important subject up because I have asked 
the President because many people asked me, Why does the President not 
fight back? Why does he not explain? And his simple answer to me was he 
cannot take the Presidency down into those baseless claims of people 
that are coming from everywhere. He stays focused on the job of 
fighting the war on terror. He has made tremendous accomplishments in 
the war on terror as we look across the history of the changes in just 
the last 3 years and even the recent incident along the Pakistani-
Afghanistan border where U.S. troops are on the Afghanistan side and 
Pakistani troops were pinching in together al Qaeda troops in the 
middle. I think that indicates some of the most dramatic changes going 
on in the region, and this President, in spurning a policy of 
appeasement but choosing instead to respond in strength and remaining 
dignified and not dipping the Presidency into the baseless accusations 
that have been hurled from every direction during the last 8 or 9 
months, indicates a steadfastness, a commitment to duty that this 
President brings that makes me proud.
  I thank both of the gentlemen for bringing these conversations in 
front of the American people.

                              {time}  2300

  I think this is the right place to refute the lies that are being 
thrown about.
  I thank both gentlemen for allowing me to participate this evening.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank both my colleagues for joining me 
tonight. As we began, there is no

[[Page H1476]]

doubt that we are making progress. There is no doubt that there is 
still a tremendous amount of work to do, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, 
but there is also no doubt that these countries have a long way to go, 
whether it was 12 years under the Russians and Taliban government in 
Afghanistan, those governments and those regimes which destroyed what 
little that country had, or whether it was 30 years of a brutal regime 
in Iraq. These countries both now are experiencing for the first time 
in a long time the taste of freedom, of building a civil society, of 
building a country that is based on a Constitution, that is providing 
opportunities to all of their citizens.
  There are potholes on the way to success, but there is no doubt in my 
mind that we need to keep moving forward; that these countries have a 
tremendous potential to set an example for that part of the world, 
especially Iraq, to set an example for the rest of the world as to the 
types of things that can happen. They are good people, they are moving 
in the right direction, and they are taking ownership for their 
country, the future of their country. What we need to do is we need to 
stand alongside them and to help guide them in the right direction.

                          ____________________