[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 21, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H2231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              A GROSS EXAMPLE OF STATE-SPONSORED DECEPTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, our great country has sustained itself for 
more than 2\1/4\ centuries because of the brilliant construct of our 
government, and the essential ingredient in that construct is the 
separation of powers.
  Ultimate power does not reside in any one place. You have the 
executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch, each 
with equal powers. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch 
to make the laws and then to oversee execution of those laws by the 
executive branch. The question that ought to be on the mind of every 
American today is to what extent is the legislative branch of this 
government, the Senate and the House of Representatives, carrying out 
its responsibilities under those separation of powers. I think when you 
begin to look at that question, you find that we are not doing a very 
good job at all.
  The most recent example of that, of course, is the revelation that we 
have had in a recent book that the administration spent $700 million, 
apparently illegally, that was allocated for Afghanistan, took that 
money and spent it in preparation for the war in Iraq, when they said 
they were not engaging in any such preparation. That is a grave deceit. 
It ought to be investigated by this Congress thoroughly and completely. 
But it is not the only deceit with regard to the war in Iraq.
  We were told when the administration sent their resolution here to 
the Congress that we had to go to war in Iraq because of weapons of 
mass destruction. We have found no weapons of mass destruction more 
than a year later; no stockpile of chemical weapons have been found 
more than a year later; no mobile weapons laboratories have been found 
more than a year later. There is no uranium from Niger in Iraq.
  Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat, nor was he a grave and 
gathering threat. He was not in league with Osama bin Laden. The two 
were hostile to each other and antagonistic to each other.
  What we have here is a gross example of state-sponsored deception. 
The Founding Fathers realized that this kind of condition could express 
itself at one time or another during the history of our administration; 
and, in fact, there have been times when it has, perhaps never as 
gravely as it has under the present set of circumstances. But they set 
up a procedure to deal with it, and that procedure is in the hands of 
the leadership of this House of Representatives.
  But, unfortunately, the separation of powers that has served this 
country so well for more than 2\1/4\ centuries has now morphed itself 
into a monolithic government, where the leadership of this House takes 
its orders almost on a daily basis from the White House and there is no 
oversight of executive actions. There apparently is little or no 
oversight of executive spending.
  So we go on, stumbling forward, blindly. Now more than 700 American 
servicemen and -women killed in Iraq in this illegal, unjust and 
unnecessary war; thousands of Americans maimed, injuries they will 
carry for the rest of their lives, if indeed their lives are not 
shortened thereby; tens of thousands of Iraqis, perhaps hundreds of 
thousands, including innocent women and children, killed.
  Where is the oversight? Where is the action that is supposed to come 
from this House of Representatives in examining these illegal, 
unnecessary actions on the part of the executive branch? Have we not 
seen enough? When are we going to go into action? When are we going to 
live up to our obligations under the Constitution? When are we going to 
do what is necessary to sustain this great democratic Republic?
  We need action now. We need an end to the monolithic government and a 
return to the historic separation of powers which has served this 
country so well.

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