[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 4, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2527-H2528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cole). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the President, as you can see from the 
poster, said at his press conference last week that he was not aware of 
any mistakes that he had made. Let me tell my colleagues and him a few 
mistakes he has made, three major mistakes:
  First, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration 
chose deliberately to mislead the people of New York about the safety 
of the air and the environment in the aftermath of that disaster. We 
now know from the Inspector General of EPA's report that the White 
House instructed the EPA to mislead the people of New York. The former 
administrator of EPA, Mrs. Whitman, said 2 days after the disaster the 
air is safe to breathe, when they had no test data to show that.
  Because of that misleading, Federal, State, and city government 
followed policies that have resulted in catastrophe. We now know from 
recent medical reports that an absolute majority, most of the first 
responders, the heroes, the fire officers, the police officers, the 
construction workers who descended on Lower Manhattan to help with the 
rescue operations, most of them now, 2\1/2\ years later, have serious 
respiratory disorders which will probably plague them for the rest of 
their lives. We know that women who live within a mile, 1.6 kilometers, 
of the World Trade Center, today are giving birth to low birth weight 
babies at twice the natural rate because the White House chose to 
mislead the American people.
  Second, the White House chose to get us into a useless, stupid war in 
Iraq to divert our attention from the war against us by the Islamic 
terrorists. We know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, 
contrary to what they told us in Iraq, no great stockpiles of weapons 
of mass destruction. We know the Iraqi people did not, as the White 
House told us they would, greet our troops as liberators. We know that 
when the President stood there before the sign and said mission 
accomplished and said that major combat was over, he was wrong. We know 
this administration did not plan adequately for an occupation. We know 
they sent too few troops there to properly secure the country. We know 
they fired General Shinseki because he had the impudence to say the 
truth in advance. We know that they disbanded the Iraqi army without 
having enough troop strength to replace it and they are now trying to 
reassemble it.
  We know, in short, they got us into a quagmire and so thoroughly 
alienated

[[Page H2528]]

the rest of the world by the arrogant attitude of this administration 
that we cannot get any significant help, we cannot internationalize the 
conflict, we cannot share the burdens or at least we cannot do these 
things as long as George Bush is President because no one trusts him 
abroad anymore.
  But perhaps the greatest mistake that this administration has made is 
that this administration has not and does not take seriously enough the 
terrorist war being waged against us by the Islamic terrorists. From 
before 9/11, when this administration ignored many warnings, to this 
very day, they refuse to spend the money necessary to protect the 
American people. Two months after 9/11, leaders in Congress proposed to 
spend $10 billion to protect our chemical and nuclear facilities and 
our transportation terminals against attacks that could kill or wound 
hundreds of thousands of people. President Bush said he would veto such 
an appropriation. It was not done. This administration refuses to spend 
the money to buy the weapons grade plutonium and uranium now in the 
former Soviet Union that can easily be smuggled to al Qaeda to make 
atomic bombs because they care more about tax cuts for the wealthy than 
about protecting the American people. It is a mistake not to prevent al 
Qaeda from going nuclear by buying that plutonium and uranium quickly.
  This administration inspects only 2 percent of the 6 million shipping 
containers that come into this country every year, any one of which 
could hide a chemical or biological or nuclear weapon. It is a mistake 
not to insist that no container is placed on a ship bound for the 
United States until that container is inspected and certified and 
sealed by an American inspection team in the foreign port.
  This administration will not spend the funds to protect our 
commercial aviation. It is a mistake not to place a missile deflection 
system on every commercial airliner as the Israelis are doing by this 
summer so that we do not have to worry about our airlines being shot 
out of the sky by shoulder-fired missiles. In short, it is a mistake 
not to place the priority where it belongs, on protecting the American 
people from terrorism instead of protecting tax cuts for the wealthy.
  Mr. Speaker, if the President wants to know about some mistakes, here 
are some mistakes. Here are some mistakes that he can correct if he is 
willing to protect the American people at the cost of the tax cuts for 
the wealthy. His major mistake is his priority. Tax cuts for the 
wealthy, yes. Protect the American people from terrorism, no. That is 
some mistake.

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