[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 21, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2240-H2247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PRESIDENTIAL MISTAKES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burns). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, last week during President Bush's press 
conference, he had a difficult time with a question from one reporter 
asking him whether or not he had made any mistakes as President since 
the fateful events of September 11, 2001. Today I would like to 
basically join with some of my Democratic colleagues who have already 
spoken today during their 5 minutes in trying to help out the President 
to answer the question about any mistakes he has made as President 
since 9/11.
  I think one of the President's biggest mistakes over the last year 
was signing

[[Page H2241]]

a so-called prescription drug bill into law which he knew would benefit 
the pharmaceutical companies a lot more than the millions of seniors 
who need help now with their prescription drug bills.
  Mr. Speaker, seniors have done the math. I had some opportunities 
during the district work period, during Easter and Passover, to meet 
with senior citizens, and they have done the math with regard to the 
President's so-called prescription drug plan. They realize that the 
President's law was a mistake because it will not help them with the 
ever-increasing cost of prescription drugs. I want to use an example 
because I know I have talked about this many times on the floor about 
how the so-called prescription drug bill will not really benefit most 
senior citizens.

                              {time}  1515

  If one would consider a senior who now pays about $1,000 a year on 
prescription drugs, who will pay at least $857 a year out of pocket 
under the President's law, seniors with a bill of $5,000 a year will 
still pay at least $3,920 under the President's Medicare bill, and as 
we can see, the problem with the President's bill is that they are 
going to have to pay so much money out of pocket to get any kind of a 
meager benefit that for most seniors it is simply not worth the effort.
  And I know from being back in my district in New Jersey for the 2-
week break that the seniors see the minuscule help that they would 
receive under this legislation, and they realize that it is really not 
them, but the pharmaceuticals who are benefiting from the law because 
of all the profit that the pharmaceutical companies plan to make. And 
as I have said before, one of the reasons why the pharmaceuticals were 
so involved in this prescription drug legislation was because they 
wanted to make sure that the government did not do anything to lower 
the price of prescription drugs, because if the government got involved 
in negotiating to lower prices, as does the government in almost every 
other Western nation, they would not see the same level of profit that 
they wanted under the President's bill.
  And we, as Democrats, made a point during the debate on the Medicare 
bill that we wanted the Secretary of Health and Human Services or the 
Medicare Administrator to have the power to negotiate better prices, 
essentially what we do now with the Veterans Administration, what we do 
with our military and our military retirees, but because of the support 
that the President receives and the Republicans receive from the 
prescription drug industry, that would not happen. That was not going 
to happen.
  In effect, what was written into the law was a clause that 
specifically said that the Secretary of Health and Human Services and 
the Medicare Administrator could not negotiate lower prices. That was 
prohibited by law. I would maintain that that was a mistake, a major 
mistake, on the President's part not to allow the negotiation of lower 
prices, but the bill itself was a mistake because the bill, as I said, 
does not really provide any meaningful benefit to seniors who are 
looking for their prescription drugs to be paid for in a major way by 
the Federal Government.
  But the President and his administration made a lot more mistakes 
than these, Mr. Speaker. The President made a big mistake also when he 
allowed the Medicare Administrator, Tom Scully, to negotiate the final 
prescription drug legislation on behalf of the administration here on 
Capitol Hill. At the same time that Mr. Scully was the Medicare 
Administrator negotiating the legislation, he was also negotiating a 
new job with various companies representing health care interests that 
stand to make millions from this Medicare law. Tom Scully did not do 
this, as I said, outside. He was doing this at the same time that he 
was negotiating the Medicare bill.
  And one might say to oneself, how does he do that? How does someone 
who is in charge of Medicare in the Bush administration end up 
basically negotiating a job for himself with those same interests that 
are now looking for some benefit in the Medicare bill? And the reason 
is because he received a waiver from the Bush administration that 
allowed him to participate in job negotiations while he was negotiating 
the Medicare bill. I would maintain that that is not only a conflict of 
interest, but also another mistake in the context of this Medicare 
legislation that President Bush made.
  Administration officials should not be allowed to interview and go on 
job searches with the companies at the same time that they are working 
on legislation that directly impacts these companies. That is why we 
have laws that bar that as a conflict of interest, and it should not 
have been waived. That was a mistake of the President.
  President Bush also knew that this Medicare bill he signed into law 
had passed Congress, in my opinion, under false pretenses. Members of 
this House did not know the true cost of the legislation, and the 
reality is we probably never would have known what the true costs were 
were it not for the fact that the President's own Medicare actuary 
actually came forward after the legislation was passed and detailed 
what the true costs were. But that Medicare actuary was not allowed to 
give the House Members, be they Democrat or Republican, the true costs 
of this Medicare legislation when we were voting and negotiating the 
bill because essentially this actuary was told that his job would be 
threatened, he might be fired, or he would be fired if he gave out the 
real information about the cost of the Medicare bill.
  Last year when Republicans were writing their version of the 
prescription drug bill that eventually became law, the Republican 
leadership made assurances to many of the conservative Members in the 
Republican Party that the total costs of the program over 10 years 
would not be higher than $400 billion. That is what they put in the 
budget, and that is what the Republican leadership and the President 
told the conservative Members that they would be facing, a cost of $400 
billion. When the bill finally came up for a vote, the Bush 
administration said the total cost of the program would be actually 
$395 billion, close to the 400-. But as my colleagues know, last month 
we learned that the administration's own analysts had concluded 
repeatedly that the drug benefit could cost $100 billion more than what 
they said publicly at the time, not $400 billion, but $500 billion, a 
big increase, about a 20 percent increase, but they never made that 
information public until the bill was signed into law.
  The individual who was the chief Medicare actuary, Richard Foster, at 
the time did come forward and say that the administration knew and that 
he knew at the time when the bill was being voted on that the true cost 
would be $100 billion more, that it would be 500- instead of $400 
billion, but he was warned that he would be fired if he told his 
colleagues here in the House the truth; so he never told us.
  So here we go again. What kind of mistakes did President Bush make in 
the context of this Medicare bill? Quite a few. In this case he knew, 
or at least the administration knew, that this information was 
available about the true cost, but they probably also knew that if that 
cost had come out, it would kill their chances for passing the bill. So 
essentially they kept the facts from coming out, and one could argue 
that the House made a mistake in passing the bill because it was based 
on misinformation, another mistake that the President made which 
contributed to the big mistake of this Medicare bill when it finally 
passed.

  I just mentioned this because many of my colleagues on the Democratic 
side would like to point out some of the mistakes that the President 
made in the last year, and hopefully when he has his next press 
conference, he will have a little more opportunity to talk about some 
of those mistakes. If not, we can just give him more information 
ourselves along the lines of the Medicare bill, which was a huge 
mistake.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also like to bring up some other matters that 
relate to what I consider the ongoing credibility problem that 
President Bush and his administration faced, and there are many. There 
are many cases where information has been given out that is essentially 
misleading, that Congress relies upon it, as it did in the case of the 
Medicare bill, or in the case, one of the biggest that I would mention, 
is the Iraq War. We know now that much of the information that was 
given to the Congress and they used in

[[Page H2242]]

making a decision to go to war and to pass a resolution to authorize 
the war was essentially misleading, information about the threat from 
Iraq, about the weapons of mass destruction, about links that did not 
exist between Iraq and Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and those that 
bombed the World Trade Center on 9/11. And I would like to talk a 
little bit about the President's credibility gap with regard to the war 
in Iraq.
  Again, some of my colleagues mentioned earlier that 100 of our U.S. 
soldiers have died this month, and not that I want to emphasize that, 
because I certainly do not, but I do think that this credibility gap 
has cost lives, and it is not just something that we can sort of toss 
aside and say, okay, well, we had this misinformation, and what was the 
impact? It had a major impact on our decision to go to war and upon the 
people who have lost their lives or have been injured during the war.
  As concerns rise about the lack of planning for the war in Iraq, it 
is important that we determine how America got into the mess in Iraq, 
and probably even more important, because that is the past, how are we 
going to get out? Concern about the situation in Iraq crosses party 
lines. The House Republican leadership continues to block any 
congressional oversight. And, Mr. Speaker, we have heard some of my 
colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle talk earlier this day 
during the Special Orders about the need for congressional oversight.
  We have congressional oversight on everything. I am the ranking 
member on the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Conservation, Wildlife and 
Oceans. We have congressional oversight on what the agencies do with 
regard to fisheries management. If that is true, why would we not have 
it for something so important like the war in Iraq?
  The House Committee on Armed Services and the House Committee on 
International Relations are not holding hearings to ask important 
questions that must be asked about the Bush administration with regard 
to the war in Iraq. Essentially House Republicans are allowing the 
President and his administration to do anything they want in Iraq, no 
questions asked. And I just find that simply unacceptable given the 
responsibility of this House and the committees of jurisdiction to have 
oversight over any important matter that we deal with.
  Yesterday in the other Chamber, the Foreign Relations Committee held 
a hearing where Members of both parties asked the tough questions about 
Iraq. Yet here in the House, Republicans have completely abdicated 
their power to President Bush and essentially said that he as 
Commander-in-Chief can do anything he wants without any oversight.
  Mr. Speaker, the problems in Iraq, I believe, are the direct result 
of the Bush administration's failure to adequately plan for what would 
happen after the initial U.S. incursion in Iraq. We know what happened 
when the U.S. first went to war. We know that it was largely successful 
in a very short period of time. But what planning was done about the 
aftermath after the initial incursion and after essentially Saddam 
Hussein and his forces were defeated and forced to flee? President Bush 
and his national security team assured the world that Iraq would be a 
swift and easy mission where U.S. troops would be greeted as 
liberators. This assessment proved dead wrong and is now costing 
Americans greatly in terms of lives, funding, and international 
support. And I do not think there is any question when we listen to 
some of what has come out the last few weeks both before the 9/11 
Commission and other venues that the Bush administration was caught off 
guard.
  Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said last week that he was surprised by 
the recent level of violence in Iraq. Secretary Rumsfeld said, ``If you 
said to me a year ago, describe the situation you would be in today 1 
year later, I don't know many people who would have described it. I 
would not have described it the way it happens to be today.'' Those are 
Secretary Rumsfeld's very words.
  The fact is that the Bush administration was warned before the war of 
the possibility that events might not play out as well as the 
administration was telling Congress and the American people. General 
Anthony Zinni, the former CENTCOM Commander, questioned how the 
escalating war in Iraq could have caught Rumsfeld off guard, and 
General Zinni said that he was surprised that Secretary Rumsfeld was 
surprised, because General Zinni said a lot of other people were 
telling him that it was going to be similar to what we are now seeing.
  The administration's coalition of the willing is quickly unraveling, 
meaning more burdens on American troops. We had Secretary Rumsfeld 
saying that this was going to be quick, and our troops were not going 
to have to be there that long essentially. But obviously the opposite 
is the case. The coalition of the willing, of those forces from other 
countries that are willing to support us, seem to be dissipating. 
Spain, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic have announced plans to 
withdraw troops as soon as possible. Poland is also considering 
withdrawing from Iraq. Lacking troop support from other countries, 
about 20,000 American soldiers who were due to come home will now have 
their tours extended, breaking a Pentagon commitment to limit 
assignments in Iraq to 12 months. Again, the President's credibility is 
at stake.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a war that we had to fight. It comes from an 
administration that from its very first days in the White House was 
preparing to take out Saddam Hussein. And I join my colleagues here 
today to highlight the misrepresentations that the President and his 
administration included in their public comments. If the Members are 
interested in reading this comprehensive report, they can find it, and 
I will give out the information at www.reform.house.gov/min.

                              {time}  1530

  We can go into that a little more if some of my colleagues want to. 
But the bottom line is that this misinformation that was given out 
seriously makes us question the credibility of this administration and 
what they were doing then and now in terms of the future and what we 
are doing in Iraq.
  I see that some of my colleagues have arrived. I would like to yield 
to the gentleman from Washington, who has been down on the floor on a 
regular basis talking about this issue of credibility, particularly 
with regard to the war in Iraq. I thank him for joining us this 
afternoon.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New 
Jersey for coming out here and giving us an opportunity to talk about 
the abuses of power of this administration.
  I think we have had so many that it is really hard. You sit in your 
office and say, which one should I come out here and talk about? Well, 
the most recent and striking one to me was on ``60 Minutes'' last 
Sunday night when they talked about the book by Mr. Woodward in which 
he describes the run-up to the war.
  Now, anybody who knows anything about the Congress knows it is our 
job to collect the taxes. I sit on the Committee on Ways and Means. We 
collect the taxes, and then the Committee on Appropriations says this 
is how it is going to be spent, and the President is supposed to spend 
it that way. He does not have the freedom to just spend it anywhere he 
wants. Otherwise, what do you need a Congress for? Why do you not just 
give him the money and say, Mr. President, do whatever you want? If it 
looks good to you, buy it. Do it. See if you cannot make it work.
  So with that background, the revelations that came out of this book 
on Sunday on ``60 Minutes'' were absolutely mind-boggling. The 
President secretly diverted $700 million from the war on terror in 
Afghanistan to begin building airstrips in Kuwait, starting a war that 
nobody knew anything about, that was hidden totally from view. They 
took $700 million appropriated for dealing with the war on terror.
  We just had two enormous buildings in New York knocked down and the 
Pentagon attacked, we were over there trying to find Osama bin Laden, 
and the President decided, on his own, I do not know, sitting there 
talking to I do not know whom, maybe he was praying, for all I know, 
and he came up and said, I am going to use $700 million to start a war 
in Iraq. Now, the question is whether that is not only not 
constitutional, but whether it is illegal for the President to have 
done that,

[[Page H2243]]

whether he has broken the law, and we hear nothing of it.
  Ask yourself just for a minute, what would $700 million have bought 
in Afghanistan? It is fascinating. Just today the Pentagon came out and 
said it needs another $700 million to keep 20,000 troops in Iraq for 
another 90 days. So effectively what the President of the United States 
did was, in the middle of this war on terrorism in Afghanistan, he 
said, I am taking $700 million, I am taking 20,000 troops for 90 days 
out of the country. I am reducing our ability to deal with the war in 
Afghanistan, because I want to start this war over in Iraq.
  It was not inconsequential what he did. Remember, this is when the 
Secretary of War, Mr. Rumsfeld, was quick to point out that they knew, 
it was not even close, that we suspect or anything else, we knew that 
bin Laden was hiding in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan. Right in the 
middle of our dealing with Tora Bora, the President says, hey, 
Rumsfeld, out of my way. I want that money, and I want to put it over 
here.
  Now, we were still in the shock of the attacks of 9/11, and all 
America watched and waited for the word that bin Laden would harm us no 
longer. The President still has not found bin Laden. He still is out 
there, still organizing, still sending out tapes, still having impact 
on us. And the President decided, I am tired of this, I do not want to 
chase bin Laden anymore. Because when this was happening, right in the 
middle of having him located in Tora Bora, the President said, I have 
lost interest in this, and I am going somewhere else.
  Now, he acted unilaterally and without the Congress or the people of 
the United States understanding what he is doing. The President reduced 
America's resources in the hunt at the very moment when we had the best 
information about where bin Laden was.
  Now we are talking about maybe he is in the border areas with 
Pakistan, or maybe he is here, maybe he is there. We knew apparently 
where he was at that point, but the President was not interested in 
getting him, I guess. I do not know.
  He must have a short attention span to just say I am going to walk 
away from this. My belief is that unilaterally reducing American 
resources in the hunt for bin Laden really raises questions the 
President must face with the families of every 9/11 victim and with the 
Congress and with the American people and the mothers and fathers and 
brothers and sisters and husbands and wives of the 700 Americans who 
have died in Iraq.
  What was he thinking about? Now, none of us think that the President 
was stupid, none of us think that Rumsfeld is dumb. But the question 
is, why were they so intent on going to Iraq? It clearly was not about 
weapons of mass destruction. It clearly was not about al Qaeda. There 
is no connection.
  Yet we are now mired down in the war, and the question is, how do we 
get out of it? The fact was that the State Department predicted all of 
this in a big study, and the War Department just ignored it.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, if my colleague would yield for a minute, 
you talk about the misappropriated or misallocated $700 million. One of 
the issues that I have repeatedly talked about, and I think has come to 
affect all Americans, is larger than the $700 million, although that is 
an adequate question, and it is we passed a budget here for $2.3 
trillion that had a $500 billion deficit here at home; and in that 
budget, there were some priorities set for America. But it is very 
interesting how you contrast those priorities for Iraq, which I think 
raises a lot of questions about the misappropriated values by this 
administration.
  I will give you an example. In the area of health care, in Iraq there 
are 150 clinics that have been rebuilt, serving 3 million Iraqis that 
provide 100 percent prenatal care and infant coverage in Iraq. In 
America, there are 43 million uninsured Americans, of which 10 million 
are uninsured American children of parents who work full-time. In the 
President's budget, we have cut the dollars for health care training 
for doctors and nurses and professionals.
  If you expand that, in the area of veterans, we have provided Iraqi 
veterans $60 million for job training. Yet in the United States, the 
President's budget cuts $257 million for medical care for American 
veterans.
  In the area of education, we built 2,300 schools in Iraq, rebuilt and 
refurbished the schools. Yet in America, under the President's budget, 
$8 billion for Leave No Child Behind has been underfunded by this year 
alone.
  Iraqi universities are receiving $20 million for higher education job 
training, yet Pell grants here in the United States, the biggest 
assistance for Americans to go to college, have been frozen for 3 years 
in a row while college costs have risen by 10 percent on average.
  In the area of law enforcement, the President has dedicated $500 
million for training of law enforcement and the police in Iraq. As you 
know, they did not perform too well the last 2 weeks. Yet the 
President's own budget for the United States cut $657 million for the 
police program to train our police on community policing on America's 
streets.
  In the area of housing, $470 million has been allocated for Iraq's 
housing program, yet we have cut $700 million out of section 8 here at 
home for our housing.
  It is true about the environment, one last area. We are rebuilding 
all of Iraq's water and sewage for drinking water to the tune of $3.6 
billion, yet the revolving fund in the United States for water 
treatment and drinking water has been cut by $500 million.
  When the President said in 2000, not said, he declared he was opposed 
to nation-building, who knew it was America he was talking about? So as 
we talk about the $700 million of allocated money, where it went from 
Afghanistan to Iraq and the theater of war, we have allocated well over 
$150 billion to that mission, of which $20 billion is for rebuilding 
Iraq's society, and we have made a commitment.
  What worries me, because the American people have been very generous 
and have been very committed, what worries me is when you start to talk 
about a future for Iraq and their children that is better than the one 
we are providing here at home for our own families and our own 
children. We will continue to be generous, we will continue to provide, 
but we have misallocated, in my view, billions of dollars. The $700 
million on the war front in building an airport in Kuwait is only the 
tip of the iceberg, in my view, of the misallocated dollars that raises 
real questions about the commitment.
  When you look at the two budgets, the one here at home for America 
and America's future and the one in Iraq, you realize this 
administration is not only running two sets of books but they have two 
principles and two value systems. We need to have the same values at 
home that we are talking about for Iraq, the same type of investments 
we are talking about, law enforcement, education, health care, the 
environment, policing; and we need to make that commitment here so the 
American people maintain that the future for their families and their 
children is one for a good tomorrow, a better tomorrow, not one that is 
less than the one we are talking about overseas.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if I could reclaim my time, I just want to 
stress, if I can briefly, that this did not have to be. I do not want 
to keep talking about the past, because I believe the President made a 
huge mistake in going to war. But it was not only that he made the 
mistake. It is also the way he went about it, and, even more so, the 
way he continues to go about it.
  Not only would we have saved tremendous resources if we had not gone 
to war, as well as the lives of those who have been lost, but also if 
this had been done in an effort to try to internationalize the war, so 
that we had our allies not only fighting the burden in terms of their 
own soldiers, but also the burden of the cost of the war, which was 
what was done in the case of Bosnia and the Persian Gulf War before. I 
was here, so I remember. But not only did the President not want to do 
that, but he continues along the same path.
  I know he is saying he is going to go to the United Nations; but the 
attitude, and, in my opinion, the arrogance of the President and the 
administration in wanting to go it alone, even when they talk about 
going to the U.N., it does not seem real. I think that is why countries 
like Spain and some of these others are pulling out.
  In other words, instead of seeing countries get more involved, not 
only

[[Page H2244]]

in terms of men but also resources, we see less. I think that 
continues. I really question, as much as I would like to see and I 
think this needs to be, that the U.N. needs to get into Iraq and the 
situation needs to be internationalized. This whole idea of other 
countries sharing the burden is very much, I think, something that the 
President opposes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I know we want to get back to our friend 
from Washington State, but people remember in the first Gulf War, which 
cost $60 billion, the United States paid $5 billion of that $60 billion 
and we were part of a larger international effort that included members 
of the armed services of Syria, Egypt, and other Arab-Muslim countries. 
Today we are bearing 95 percent of the cost and well over 90 percent of 
the, shall we say, the blood and the force presence in Iraq. So the 
contrast is stark.
  What is also stark is if you look at both the war in Kuwait, the 
first time, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, all have been very successful 
strategies in the post-Cold War era, where America with its allies 
fought the war, but America was a partner in the rebuilding of the 
society. And it worked successfully, especially in Bosnia, Kosovo and 
East Timor.
  Why you would take a successful playbook like that, throw it out, 
when everybody, regardless of what their position was on the war prior 
to the war, everybody said the war would be easy, the peace would be 
hard, you need a plan. How you commit 150,000 to 175,000 American 
troops, $180 billion worth of our resources, and not have had a plan on 
the peace, this was not Monday morning coaching. Everybody knew that 
peace would be hard and that you went to war with no plan, when 
Democrats and some Republicans, but all Democrats, regardless of what 
their position was, said the war will not be hard, it will be the peace 
and rebuilding once you own it that will be hard. And you did it 
without that, when the President has an obligation to have asked 
questions. Not to have asked questions and not have a plan was a 
miscarriage of responsibility, in my view.

                              {time}  1545

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) raised was the issue of arrogance. And 
certainly it takes a certain amount of self-confidence to be a national 
leader. I mean, a President has to be a confident person and act 
confident and so forth. But there are times when one needs to ask 
forgiveness for making mistakes.
  This administration has absolutely blanket not asked for a bit of 
forgiveness on anything. The dismantling of the entire Army they now 
say was a terrible mistake. The dismantling of the police was a 
terrible mistake. The dismantling and driving out everybody who was a 
Ba'ath Party member, university professors, doctors, lawyers, 
everybody, they threw them out of work. They threw the whole country 
out of work. And then they are surprised by the chaos.
  Now, it would be bad enough, as that was a long time ago, but the 
viceroy we put in there, Mr. Bremer continues to do these stupid things 
on his own. I was talking to some people who are in Iraq at the moment 
who said it is absolutely inconceivable that he shut down a newspaper.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, he did not do 
these things on his own.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Bremer?
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, he is in constant contact with both the 
State Department, the White House, and Defense.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, he never talked to the Iraqi Governing 
Council. No Iraqi would have given him that advice. I mean, it is the 
President's mistake for putting a guy like that there.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, my colleague is obviously referring to the 
mistakes the President was asked at his press conference, and he could 
not think of a mistake.
  The first lesson in life your parents teach you and your first grade 
teacher teaches is one learns from their mistakes. That is the first 
lesson in life. Usually by 8 in the morning my wife has identified four 
of them for me. By 5 when I am heading home, I come to the conclusion 
she may have something there.
  But to not have known, as my colleague identified four in literally a 
minute, the first lesson is you learn from your mistakes. Saying that 
he cannot think of one is why we got the situation we got both in the 
war and on terror. In 3 years 3 wars, and he cannot think of one thing 
he would do different, even if he did not want to call it a mistake.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. This most recent one I spoke about, this closing this 
newspaper, now, we are bringing them democracy, right? Free speech. 
Newspapers should be able to say whatever they want to say. Well, we do 
not like somebody, so we go over and shut it down. These Iraqis say, 
hey, what is this about? I thought we had free speech now that we had 
democracy.
  Now, clearly we want them to have free speech as long as they say 
what we want them to say. The conflagration that has come out of the 
Shia community was provoked by Mr. Bremer. That did not come from the 
outside. It did not come from foreigners. It came from the United 
States Government going in and saying, you shut your mouth.
  We put gasoline on the fire of a guy who was a nobody. He had been 
talking 6 months before, and he lost all of his oomph. So we go down 
and throw some gasoline on the embers, and now we have a flame.
  We have the worst month we have had in the entire war. More people 
have died this month. They have not learned anything from their 
mistakes. They continue to make them because they are arrogant. They 
think because they are from the United States, and they come over with 
all this knowledge in their head, that they could not possibly know 
anything about what was exactly the right thing to do.
  We are doomed as long as the President of the United States and Mr. 
Bremer and Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz who cannot ever reexamine 
what they have done are in control. We have no chance if they do not go 
to the United Nations and get the United Nations actively involved and 
in control so that the United States is not the sole occupying force.
  There is a wonderful article in the Atlantic Monthly by James Fallows 
that I think everybody ought to read from almost 6 months ago that lays 
it all out. It is called ``Blind into Baghdad.'' It is a statement 
about every mistake we have made. And we still continue to make them, 
and our kids are dying. That is the worst part.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his 
comments and certainly join in them, because I think you have it right 
on point that this administration simply is not capable of conducting 
this war. Whether you are for the war, which I voted against it, or you 
are against it, it does not matter. Bottom line is the administration 
is just not capable of carrying it out.
  I now yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), who has 
been one of the most vocal persons on the Iraq war from the very 
beginning. I appreciate what she has been saying for the last few 
years.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone) for his continuing leadership and his quest to pursue the 
truth. Our democracy is standing at a crossroads, and he is helping us 
move in the correct direction. Hopefully we are not too late.
  I also want to thank the distinguished chair of the Congressional 
Black Caucus, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), for being a 
leader on this issue and on so many issues that we are confronted with 
here in our country and for continuing to try and every week now 
attempt to wake up America.
  And at this moment in time, our Nation is confronting a growing 
credibility gap from the highest reaches of power. So I am glad that my 
colleague continues to keep on this because there is no way we should 
rest until the gap between the administration's rhetoric and reality 
become closer together. I think people deserve to know the truth.
  Let me just first start by talking about the ongoing tragedy in Iraq. 
I would also like to talk about how this pattern of distortion about 
the most fundamental issues of war and peace is

[[Page H2245]]

really reflected in other foreign and domestic policies also. This is a 
very consistent kind of trend that we are seeing.
  In Iraq, first of all, we have to begin by recognizing that the 
latest and ongoing tragedies really, once again, cause us to pause in 
terms of the terrible loss of life and in a conflict that is escalating 
every day out of control. So our thoughts and our prayers go out to all 
of those who have lost loved ones or who really anxiously now watch the 
news each night, each terrified night, actually, and worry about what 
they might hear.
  The chaos in Iraq today is a direct contradiction to the picture 
painted by the administration before and during this war. When it comes 
to Iraq, we see an enormous gap between the truth and the 
administration's message to the American people, the Congress, and the 
world. As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also our 
ranking member of the House Committee on Government Reform, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and many others have found, this 
credibility gap on Iraq emerges especially in terms of claims about 
weapons of mass destruction, claims about Iraqi connections to al 
Qaeda, and claims about how much the war would cost and how long it 
would take.
  For instance, on the weapons of mass destruction before the war, Vice 
President Cheney stated that we believe Saddam Hussein has, in fact, 
reconstituted nuclear weapons. Before the war President Bush said that 
Iraq was buying aluminum tubes and African uranium for nuclear weapons. 
Secretary of State Colin Powell said, and these are quotes mind you, 
that by conservative estimates, he said, Iraq today has a stockpile of 
between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. Secretary of 
Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that Saddam Hussein has another, quote, 
``large unaccounted for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons 
and an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons.''
  Now, all of these statements are frightening, and they present a 
portrait of an Iraqi Government that possessed enormous stockpiles of 
chemical and biological weapons and even nuclear weapons. Well, even 
the administration's chief weapons inspector David Kay said, ``We were 
almost all wrong.''
  Well, the fact is there were many people who were not wrong, many 
countries who were not wrong, from Members of Congress who voted for my 
amendment that would have rejected the war and would have said the U.N. 
inspections process should move forward, that is the way we find and 
destroy weapons of mass destruction, to IAEA Director Mohammed el-
Baradei who challenged the administration's interpretation.
  In fact, it has really become increasingly clear that there were 
voices inside the United States Intelligence Community who also raised 
questions. But their questions and voices were silenced, which, again, 
is a pattern that we have noticed with this administration. Their 
shades of gray were repainted in stark black and white. So it is not 
just that mistakes were made, I believe the choices, deliberate choices 
were made.
  Secondly, we have the issue of alleged Iraqi connections to al Qaeda. 
Nothing could frighten Americans more than this combination of Iraq 
with its supposed nuclear weapons and al Qaeda with its proven 
terrorist agenda.
  President Bush said that Iraq was the central front on the war on 
terror. The President also said ``You cannot distinguish between al 
Qaeda and Saddam.'' The administration could and should have been able 
to distinguish between al Qaeda and Iraq.
  And many argue that the war in Iraq has seriously, seriously 
undermined our efforts to bring al Qaeda to justice and to make our 
people and our country safe. In fact, it appears that because of the 
Bush administration's policies, terrorists are now consolidating 
forces. That is now. That did not happen 4 years ago.
  Finally, regarding credibility in Iraq, there is the question of how 
long the war would take and how much it would cost in terms of blood 
and our treasure. Before the war, Vice President Cheney predicted that 
the conflict would be measured in weeks, this is what he said, rather 
than months. Well, it has been over 56 weeks since the fighting 
started. Our casualties are still rising, and our troops are 
continually being told to expect longer and longer tours of duty.
  White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels predicted in April of 2003 
that Iraq would be an affordable, he said, an affordable endeavor that 
will not require sustained aid. This is coming from the administration, 
the White House.
  When White House Economic Advisor Larry Lindsey dared to speak the 
truth and estimated that the war would cost between $100 and $200 
billion a year. Remember, he got fired.
  If you downplay the cost of war in dollars and lives, then you 
deceive the American people, and that is what has happened. If we 
refuse to plan for postwar chaos, then you will be poorly prepared to 
deal with it, and our young men and women and other Iraqis and other 
international workers will die.
  In May of 2003, President Bush landed on that aircraft carrier under 
the banner of ``Mission Accomplished.'' Well, then, I ask why are 
American soldiers still dying, and why is it Iraq is still in chaos?
  Why does the Washington Post, I believe it was this morning, why does 
the Washington Post predict that the administration will come back 
right here, must come back to Congress, and will come back for money 
for the escalating war on top of the $166 billion already authorized, 
and also that is on top of the $420 billion defense budget?
  We see here there is really a growing and very clear credibility gap. 
Also this extends far beyond Iraq. Let us look at Haiti, for example, 
where the administration claimed it was defending democracy while, in 
fact, it was undermining that democracy and engaging in regime change 
by other means. That is why we need an independent mission to 
investigate just what was the role of the United States Government in 
the overthrow of the democratically elected Government of Haiti. That 
is also why we still need a truly independent commission to investigate 
the use and misuse of intelligence in the war in Iraq.
  And this same pattern of saying one thing and doing another really 
permeates the domestic agenda of this administration. The President 
said his tax cuts for the rich would create jobs, yet we have seen 
around 3 million jobs disappear in our country. He said the majority of 
those tax cuts would go to those at the bottom end of the spectrum. 
Instead the top 1 percent of earners reap over a third of tax benefits 
all by themselves.

                              {time}  1600

  Of course, we know the President said we would have greater resources 
for education. What has happened to Leave No Child Behind: 9.4 billion-
plus underfunded. Leave No Child Behind has been a shame and disgrace.
  I will conclude by saying that we need to also look at the 
credibility gap as it relates to another life-and-death issue and that 
is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In 1998, the Congressional Black Caucus and 
the Clinton administration worked together to establish the Minority 
AIDS Initiative, but of course since President Bush came in, despite 
the growing trends of infection in the African American rate, which 
today accounts for 39 percent of AIDS cases, despite the fact that only 
12 percent of our population is African American, once again he talks 
about increasing funding, but we cannot even seem to get the additional 
money not only for domestic AIDS programs but also for our 
international programs. It continues to be 600 million-plus 
underfunded.
  Let me conclude by saying that I believe this country is deeply 
divided today. Actually, it is more divided than when President Bush 
came in even though he said he would be a uniter, not a divider. I 
think we must once again communicate directly to the American people 
what we know and that is the fact that their tax dollars are going from 
misplaced priorities of waging war rather than securing peace, waging a 
PR campaign to try to instill in the American people these notions of 
facts that they want us to believe, they want people to believe, when 
really they are not fact. They are really distortions put mildly and, 
in fact, a way to boost the foundation and the debate and the rationale 
for waging war which, unfortunately, has cost the

[[Page H2246]]

lives of hundreds of our young men and women.
  I thank the gentleman for once again giving us this opportunity to 
try to convey what we know to the American people. I want to thank the 
Congressional Black Caucus for continuing to be the conscience of the 
Congress and for pushing this information forward so hopefully we will 
be able to save our democracy and save our young men and women from 
more injuries and more deaths abroad.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman, and I want 
to thank the members of the Congressional Black Caucus for this ongoing 
debate that they have been putting forth about the President's 
credibility gap, whether it relates to the war in Iraq or other issues 
that have been raised.
  I just want to mention I think there are about 11 minutes left, and I 
do not know how many other speakers there are. I think there are maybe 
three. Please keep that in mind, we have 11 or 12 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington, D.C.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone), and I thank the Chair of our own Black Caucus for his 
leadership in coming forward.
  I will try to be as brief as possible so everyone can speak. I do 
want to say that as we reach more than 700 Americans now killed in 
Iraq, more than were killed in the taking of Iraq itself, we have the 
obligation to come to the floor as we have, even if the President did 
not fulfill his obligation to tell us what we need to know, because we 
have an obligation to ask the hard questions and to pose those 
questions for the American people.
  The largest question in my mind has to do with money. This President 
has said he will not come to the Congress for more money until January. 
Does something not seem strange about that date to you? As we are about 
to send more troops to Iraq, as we were told when the $87 billion was 
before us that this was all they would need, is it credible to say that 
we can go until January without any sense that there may be more money 
needed? Particularly since Members have gone to Iraq and told us that 
members in the service are wanting for equipment, the very equipment 
that could mean the difference between life and death.
  This is the question we should pose over and over again. Is there 
enough money? Are there enough troops? And this without saying, I told 
you so, because, indeed, we did tell him so; but it looks as though if 
these troops do not have what they need that we are going to be 
sacrificing the lives of troops that could have been spared had they 
been given what they were entitled to there. This is not a question 
that the Members on the floor are raising.
  No one who heard Mr. Lugar yesterday, a member of the President's own 
party, the Chair of the Foreign Relations committee, has ever heard 
sterner words from a member of his own party. The Congress is no better 
informed than the general public about where we are going and how we 
will get there because this President has refused to come forward.
  Mr. Wolfowitz came forward yesterday and his half-hour speech was 
about demonizing the demon, the demon that has a hundred percent 
demonization from all the American people without giving us any sense 
of what the President's plans were for stabilizing Iraq, for getting 
out of Iraq, for turning over power to somebody in Iraq.
  I have been asked recently by the press about these coffins that no 
one can see at Dover, Delaware. I think that is a matter for the 
family. If the family wants to be in Dover, the family should be in 
Dover. If the family wants the hometown newspaper to be in Dover, they 
should be in Dover. No one should be telling the people that you cannot 
come to Dover to get your own folks. What is happening is that the 
administration believes it can hide the policy by hiding coffins. It 
will not work.
  This administration was willing to embed photographers and reporters 
in the scenes of battle because they wanted the American people to be 
with them in battle. But they are not willing to let us see folks who 
want to be with their folks when they come home. They want us to see 
the mission, but they do not want to let us see the cost of the 
mission.
  It is very scary to hear these folks act as though this is a bunch of 
thugs. There have got to be thugs about them, but this is an uprising. 
When you see it here and everywhere, them fighting back the way you saw 
them fighting back in Vietnam and World War II, this is a battle. This 
means we do not have this place under control. We wake up each morning, 
and there is some new coordinated attack. This time, bomb attacks in 
three different places on no less than police stations.
  Ultimately, I am going to continue to look for ways that we can help 
our country, but if I were to be absolutely truthful, I would have to 
say that I do not think the United States is going to get back its 
credibility, is going to draw allies to us from NATO or anyplace else 
until we start with a new President of the United States.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentlewoman. I was 
thinking about this whole idea of getting our allies involved, and what 
immediately comes to mind is after the initial incursion the U.S. had 
essentially routed the Iraqi Army and Saddam Hussein had fled. If you 
remember, both France and Germany offered at that point to get involved 
in the rebuilding of Iraq, and the President said absolutely not. He 
did not want them involved in any way. That is the kind of arrogance we 
face. I think if we do not have a change of leadership at the top, 
there is no way to conduct this war.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon in solemn 
recognition of all the soldiers who have lost their lives or who have 
been injured in the war on Iraq. I want to thank the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and the Congressional Black Caucus who stood up 
for our soldiers in this war.
  As I am sure you are aware, Mr. Speaker, April has been one of the 
deadliest months in the war in Iraq. Approximately 100 troops have lost 
their lives and countless others have been injured in the escalating 
violence. I continue to pray for the families of the deceased and 
wounded and for the safe return of those fighting in the Iraqi desert.
  Mr. Speaker, as Members of Congress we must ask the crucial questions 
that go to the heart of our mission in Iraq, namely, Mr. Speaker, we 
have the responsibility to our constituents and to our American 
servicemen and -women to ask what is the strategy for returning Iraqi 
governance to the Iraqi people. How long are our troops expected to be 
in Iraq and at what cost in American tax dollars and human loss of life 
must we expend?
  Just last week, the President held a prime-time press conference to 
address the concerns of the American people regarding the United States 
occupation of Iraq and the resulting loss of life. President Bush told 
the American people that we must unequivocally stay the course. But I 
must ask, Mr. Speaker, is this really a course worth staying? And most 
courses have an end. On our current course, Iraq Shiites have now 
joined forces with the Sunnis to fight against the United States 
occupation of their country.
  Mr. Speaker, the irony of this situation is that the United States 
expected the Iraqi Shiite majority to be the most grateful to the 
United States for liberating them from years of oppression. But now 
they are literally united with their former oppressors against the 
United States.
  Mr. Speaker, on our current course, our servicemen and -women do not 
have the necessary equipment and support necessary to succeed in their 
mission and furthermore to protect their own lives. Week after week I 
hear from my constituents and others in the military that are lacking 
the proper resources despite the fact that they face real and present 
dangers every day. When I hear these stories I am completely baffled. 
This Congress recently appropriated $87 billion in addition to the $79 
billion in an original funding request for the war efforts in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. And we were assured that these monies were being used to 
supply the troops with equipment and other needs.
  At that time, I came to the House floor to request a full and 
complete accounting of what the funds would be used for and received no 
such reporting. And now, Mr. Speaker, we see a

[[Page H2247]]

story in today's Washington Post which reads, ``The Army has publicly 
identified nearly $6 billion in funding requests that did not make 
Bush's $402 billion defense budget for 2005, including $132 million for 
bolt-on vehicle armor; $879 million for combat helmets, silk-weight 
underwear, boots and other clothing; $21.5 million for M249 squad 
automatic weapons; and $27 million for ammunition magazines, nights 
sights and ammo packs. Also unfunded: $956 million for repairing 
desert-damaged equipment and $102 million to replace equipment lost in 
combat.''
  Mr. Speaker, the article goes on to further say, ``The Marine Corps 
unfunded budget request includes $40 million for body armor, light 
weight helmets and other equipment for `Marines engaged in the global 
war on terrorism.' ''
  Mr. Speaker, this is simply outrageous. While the President tells the 
Nation that we need to stay the course, his own budget did not include 
the funds necessary to accomplish that goal.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman. We started 
this Special Order today talking about the lack of planning and the 
cost of the war and how we are getting all kinds of misinformation in 
that regard, and it continues. This is the problem. We are hearing now 
the President saying that he wants to go to the U.N. and 
internationalize the war, but we are still not getting any adequate 
information about what the strategy is, what the cost is going to be. 
And I think those are answers that the American people want.
  I think, again, whether you supported the war in the beginning or you 
did not, I did not, I know most of us who spoke today did not, but that 
is not the issue any more. The issue is where are we going from here. 
We are still being given inaccurate information about where we are 
going.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Certainly the issue is accountability. We simply want 
accountability. We are asked to appropriate large sums of money, but 
the question is, where does the money go?
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of our speakers that 
joined us today.

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