[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 61 (Wednesday, May 5, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2642-H2648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         AMERICA'S WAR HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cole). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Rohrabacher) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, just a few thoughts about the 
controversy concerning the abuse of prisoners by American contractors 
and military personnel, if accurate. Some of these charges, of course, 
must be accurate. No American should deny the truth, nor ignore this 
unacceptable and illegal behavior. In fact, the source of information 
and photos documenting wrongdoing appears to have come from an 
investigation, an investigation that was set forth and set in motion by 
the Pentagon itself. The Pentagon launched an investigation in order to 
end any abuse of prisoners that may have been taking place. Americans 
can be proud that we have standards that will not tolerate such abuse, 
and the Pentagon moved to correct it before it was publicly known.
  We Americans should not flagellate ourselves because of a tiny number 
of American personnel who humiliated or abused prisoners. Certainly, 
the vast, vast majority, if not 99.99 percent, of our troops in Iraq 
and Afghanistan have conducted themselves in a courageous and honorable 
way. But such abuses and such mishaps and wrongdoing have occurred in 
every war. From the American Revolution on, we have seen soldiers who 
perhaps lose a friend and are struck by grief and lash out with 
revenge, killing a person or killing a prisoner or mistreating a 
prisoner or, we find, in some cases, a person with sadistic tendencies 
ends up overseeing the prisoners that have been taken. This happens in 
every war and conflict. Yes, things like this may have happened in this 
war as well.
  The question, however, is what is to be done? Our government has 
declared such treatment of prisoners as wrong and illegal. We have thus 
maintained an honorable standard that we can be proud of.
  Many of those criticizing us now or jumping to criticize us have no 
such standard. They murder their own people. Saddam Hussein, for 
example, butchered hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen. We 
found the mass graves, and in those mass graves were thousands and 
thousands of children.
  Now, the world, the Arab world in particular, criticizes us over and 
over again, finding everything that they could possibly criticize us 
about, for trying to remove this sadist Saddam Hussein from power. Most 
of those Arab countries who criticize us or Arab organizations that 
criticize us, well, let us take a look at the criticism. Yes, it is 
wrong to abuse prisoners, and to the extent that they were, we were 
wrong. But we are actually trying to correct the problem. But those 
people, most of those people or many of those people who are 
criticizing us do not come anywhere close to a humanitarian standard of 
their own. They should not be pointing fingers at us or at our troops. 
This is sort of like the drunk down the street who has been arrested 
for drunk driving and had his license taken away pointing his finger at 
a neighbor because the neighbor is drinking a beer on the front porch.
  Well, this hypocrisy comes from nitpickers, naysayers, and America-
bashers. It is a bit too much. We are correcting a bad situation. We 
are admitting our failures, and we are correcting it. But we recognize 
that any noble cause, any war that has a noble cause is messy, just 
like all wars are messy and brutal undertakings. And for Americans, war 
is usually thrust upon us.
  Tonight, I rise to discuss the war on terrorism, a war that was 
thrust upon us. This great challenge to our generation is the challenge 
we must face. History records that the people of the United States rose 
up and courageously defeated the forces of evil that threatened this 
planet during the last century. First we defeated the combined might of 
the German Nazi and Imperial Japanese war machines. Without the 
strength, courage, and sacrifice of the American people, this would 
have been a far different world dominated by the likes of Tojo and 
Hitler. And, yes, in that war there were some abuses and some mistakes 
by American military personnel, but does that mean that our cause of 
eliminating Hitler and Tojo was wrong? Certainly not. And we moved to 
correct those abuses, just as we have moved in this case when we have 
found some people who were misbehaving and doing some immoral things.
  After World War II, Americans believed they had earned a better and a 
more peaceful life, only to realize that another evilism, communism, 
would destroy democracy unless America acted. The Cold War was upon us. 
Had it not been for the tenacity of the American people, for our love 
of liberty and, yes, our willingness to bear the burden for a sometimes 
ungrateful world, a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship would undoubtedly be 
dominating this planet.
  Do our Muslim friends really believe that it would have been better 
for us not to have won the Cold War? Do they believe that the Marxist-
Leninist regimes like they had in Yemen would have been better 
throughout the Muslim world? Certainly the rest of the world 
understands that communism was an evil force, and we can be proud of 
ourselves that we helped defeat that force, and it would not have 
happened without America.
  I am proud to have served in the White House during a pivotal time in 
that Cold War. For 7 years I was a speech writer and special assistant 
to President Ronald Reagan. It is clear now that it was the tough 
policies put in place by President Reagan that brought the collapse of 
the Soviet Union and brought the collapse of Soviet communism and an 
end to the Cold War, but it was not easy. It was not a historic 
inevitability, as we are being told now; and it would not have happened 
on its own.
  So please do not tell me also of the bipartisan spirit that enabled 
President Reagan to rebuild our defenses, that enabled President Reagan 
to support those fighting Communist domination, that bipartisan spirit 
that enabled President Reagan to vigorously

[[Page H2643]]

expose the immoral underpinnings of Communist power. No, do not tell me 
that. I can testify to the Herculean effort that was needed to end the 
Cold War and that I never saw the bipartisanship the Democrats now 
remember so vividly.
  What I remember is that every time we took a stand, as when we 
opposed a freeze on nuclear weapons production, that freeze which would 
have permitted the Soviet Union to dominate Western Europe, and as when 
we supported those resisting the Communist Sandinista regime in 
Nicaragua, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, amplified by their 
friends in the media, blasted Reagan and blasted those of us on his 
team as warmongers, as if America and as if we were responsible for the 
conflict between East and West, and we were, of course, portrayed as 
the bad guys, even though we were promoting democracy.
  The dictatorial concepts that are special to Leninism were just 
shrugged off. By the way, the Sandinistas, who the American left 
heralded as the representatives of the Nicaraguan people, have lost 
every free election that has been held in that country since President 
Reagan insisted that free elections be part of any peace plan there.
  Ironically, one fight in the Cold War that did have bipartisan 
support was in Afghanistan. There we supported the Mujahidin, local 
insurgents who fought courageously for 10 years against a Soviet 
occupation army with all of its artillery, tanks, helicopter gun ships, 
and a willingness to do anything to destroy its enemies. Here was the 
greatest victory of the Cold War, which broke the will of the Communist 
Party bosses in Moscow.
  However, the Afghan people paid an enormous price for this victory: 
millions dead or wounded, families, villages, and a way of life 
destroyed; people living in abject poverty, with a million babies dying 
of dehydration and other easily curable conditions and diseases.
  The retreat of Soviet troops from the Afghan war marked the end of 
the Cold War. It was not the German people, let us note, who brought 
down the Berlin Wall; it was the bravery and sacrifice of the Afghans. 
And while we celebrated and prospered, the Afghans continued to suffer. 
Not only now are we helping remove the millions of landmines planted 
throughout their country, many of which we supplied ourselves to the 
Afghans; and these landmines, which we are only now helping to remove, 
kill and maim young Afghan children even to this day.
  The roots of our current terrorist challenge lie not in our support, 
not in our support for the Afghan people and their fight against the 
Soviet occupation, but in our unconscionable decision in 1990 to walk 
away and leave them in their rubble and suffer their misery.

                              {time}  2200

  Walking away was a policy decision. It was wrong. It was dead wrong. 
President George Bush, father of our current President, has to accept 
the lion's share of the blame for this cowardly, arrogant and selfish 
policy.
  There would be no Marshall Plan for Afghanistan or anything else from 
the United States because when we left, we left everything up to the 
Saudis and the Pakistanis. Unfortunately, the Saudis and Pakistanis had 
their own agenda.
  This was an unholy alliance doing the bidding of radical anti-western 
Muslims in their own countries, meaning Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. And 
while the majority of the Muslims even in a Saudi Arabia and Pakistan 
are wonderful people, there are large numbers of others who believe 
they have a right to commit horrendous acts of violence in the name of 
Allah, or as we would say, in the name of God.
  Instead of trying to defeat, control or subdue these elements, the 
leadership of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan has tried to buy them off, 
compromise with them and as is evident now, the leaders of Pakistan and 
Saudi Arabia, many of these leaders, sympathized and allied themselves 
with Muslim extremists who would make war on the west and were intent 
on destroying our way of life, the American way of life.
  I first became aware of these vile forces within the Muslim world 
while I was still at the Reagan White House. One of the worst of these 
blood soaked monsters was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fanatic who in college 
was known to have thrown acid into the face of women who refused to 
cover themselves. It is shameful that a disproportionate share of what 
America sent to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets went to this beast. 
Even when objections were registered, and I can assure you that 
strenuous objections and complaints were made, the CIA and the State 
Department continued to the policy of channeling our aid through 
Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, who then passed on much of it to their 
first choice, to their golden boy, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
  So we knew crazies were out there and we knew the Saudis and the 
Pakistanis supported them. Yet, we walked away and left them in charge.
  Later, I learned, after I left the White House, that the problem was 
even worse than I suspected. After I left the White House, I left the 
White House in 1988 to run for Congress and I won that election in 
early November of 1988. And while other Members of Congress took 
vacations during their 2-month break between the time they were elected 
and sworn in, I instead went to Afghanistan. I went to Afghanistan and 
joined for about a week an Afghan military unit, an infantry unit that 
marched into the battle, and it was the last major battle with Soviet 
troops in the war of Afghanistan, the Battle of Jalalabad. As I was 
hiking into that battle with this Mujahedin unit, we hiked where we 
could see a group of tents in the distance.
  Now, I was dressed as an Afghan and I was dressed as a Mujahedin 
soldier. I had a beard, et cetera. We could see these tents. They were 
luxurious tents. It was more like a modern day camping expedition by 
some rich people with SUVs than a Mujahedin camp, that was for sure.
  But I was told immediately that that was the camp of the Saudis and 
that I should keep my mouth shut and that no English would be spoken 
until we were far away from that camp because they said there was a 
crazy man in that camp who hated Americans, worse than he hated the 
Soviets, even though we Americans were there helping to defeat the 
Soviet Army.
  They said that man's name is bin Laden, and if he finds out we have 
an American with us, he would come to kill us just as he would kill the 
Soviet soldiers. So it was no surprise and it should have been no 
surprise that there was a real potential threat there in Afghanistan, 
waiting in the wings to take hold of that country. But instead of 
rebuilding Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia turned it into a mid 
evil kingdom run by psychotic, religious fanatics.
  Now, in hindsight we know the horrific role the Saudis and Pakistanis 
have played in formulating anti-western Islamic terrorism, and we 
should also note that many of them today have committed themselves, 
many of the leaders of those two countries have committed themselves in 
an opposite course. They are trying to correct what was done wrong 10 
years ago which helped create this problem. And we hope that they are 
sincere when they joined us in our effort in our war against terrorism 
and the war of the west against this terrorist threat. But, let us note 
that when this was happening and the Soviet and the Saudi leadership 
and the Pakistanis were actually helping the terrorist element or the 
anti-western element within the Muslims in Afghanistan, that part of 
the world, we should have seen it coming.
  But just as the Saudis and Pakistani leaders subsidized and even 
assisted in this type of insanity, our government stepped aside and 
permitted the Saudis and Pakistanis to have their way.
  So the Saudi and Pakistani leadership either helped or stood aside as 
these radical Muslims who hate the west and would make war on us began 
to take control, and then we stepped aside and let the Saudis and 
Pakistanis have the decision and make the decision. Yes, and we even 
helped the Saudis and the Pakistanis make that decision.
  What was U.S. policy? We need to look at what the U.S. policy was in 
the 1990s that brought about this situation that we are in today. One 
of the things that I find most disturbing about the current hearing 
into the tragedy of 9-11 is that it downplays the importance of 
American policy in the laying of the foundation of 9-11. They would 
rather

[[Page H2644]]

talk, meaning those people who are conducting this investigation, would 
rather talk about flow charts and organizational structure and a lack 
of a shared data base and no central coordination than trying to fix 
responsibility.
  We keep hearing that setting the blame, they call it the blame game, 
wrong is wrong. It is a bad thing to do. Well, I am sorry, 9-11 
represented not an unavoidable tragedy but a dramatic failure of policy 
and of people. Those who put the policy in place should be held 
accountable. The individual leaders in our intelligence, the national 
security system who failed to thwart 9-11 because of their own 
incompetence and bureaucratic arrogance should be held accountable.

  Tonight I will provide a number of examples of policies that led to 
the empowerment of the hostile radical Islamic movement that we face 
today and to the policies and to the people who enabled these weird, 
feudalistic religious fanatics to become a major threat to the western 
world and especially a threat to the people of the United States.
  September 11 was the greatest massacre of American civilians in the 
history of our country. Yes, we are in the process of hunting down the 
perpetrators of this monstrous crime and destroying their terrorist 
network. And I strongly believe our President is resolved to do what is 
necessary to get the job done and secure our country and our world in 
the future. He and our military are doing a superb job under the most 
difficult and dangerous of circumstances and they are being nit picked 
and naysayed to death every time a mistake is made. People are trying 
to undermine the general effort and the noble cause in which our troops 
are fighting.
  President Bush has a long-term strategy. That is why we are in an 
Iraq, for example. We are trying to build a democratic society. Our 
success will not just be measured in the removal of this vicious and 
powerful dictator, Saddam Hussein, who hated us, who would have this 
man had an all-encompassing grudge against us that would have only been 
satisfied when he inflicted the death and destruction upon our people 
and the future whenever he had a chance to do so; but getting rid of 
him was not the only thing we accomplished.
  We not only did that but we freed the Iraqi people from their 
oppressor and we have also provided an opportunity to build in Iraq 
that will serve as a model for the rest of the Muslim world. We are 
providing Muslim people, especially the young people, an alternative a 
choice not to destroy western civilization, but to be part of it and to 
open the door of a new Renaissance of relations when Christians, Jews 
and others can live in the same world and benefit from each other. Even 
though we are distinct from each other, we can interact and trade and 
we can be friends. That is the better world President Bush is trying to 
build. But it must start in Iraq. And if we lose in Iraq, the evil 
forces that would separate the west from the east and would have us 
fighting among various religious factions, they will then dominate this 
planet and we will not be able to stop them except at much greater 
expense of blood.
  It is a strong vision that President Bush has. It is a noble vision; 
and it is the vision of a world living at peace where Muslims, 
Christians, Jews live together and this vision is stronger than what 
the radicals are advocating. They were trying to basically obliterate 
the faith and the culture of others. And our President is trying to 
make sure that the world is safe for us to live together in peace and 
harmony, no matter what our faith is. And we must succeed in Iraq. And 
I am here to today to applaud the President, and there has never been 
an action that has been perfect, but he is doing a tremendous job, as 
have our troops. As we support that, if we have succeed, we must hold 
those in our government, however, when we will hold them and we will 
make sure that they get the praise for a successful policy when and if 
we succeed, which I believe we will in Iraq.
  But we must also, when we have a failure of policies, recognize what 
that policy was, what made us vulnerable to the attack on 9-11, for 
example, and we must hold those people accountable who failed to 
protect us and failed to put the policy that would best serve the 
United States and the western world. This is not the blame game that I 
am talking about. It is holding people accountable for decisions that 
they have made while in public service and while they have held 
authority from the people. So when I speak of bad policy, what am I 
talking about? What is this bad policy that led to 9-11?
  Well, chaos and blood shed in Afghanistan, as I said, continued long 
after the Soviet Army left and America walked away. During this time in 
the early 1990s, I felt a personal debt to the Afghan people. I had 
been there when we were fighting the Soviets. I knew the sacrifices 
they made, so I felt that we owed them something, and I tried to do my 
best to find a solution but no one was listening. But it was not hard 
to find a solution. It was not hard for me to come up with an idea, 
with a plan that would have helped the Afghan people. But implementing 
that idea and finding that and making sure that solutions became policy 
was another matter.
  So what was the solution? It did not take a genius to determine the 
best way to restore order and a stable government to Afghanistan was to 
bring back the honest and beloved former king, Zaire Shah, who had been 
living in Rome, Italy since his exile began in 1973. He was an elderly 
man, but he still had a good mind and an impressive stature. He was one 
person all factions of Afghanistan knew would not seek vengeance upon 
him if he was returned to power.
  After visiting him in Rome and being beaten by him in a chess game, I 
took it upon myself to promote the exiled monarch as the logical choice 
to bring normalcy back to Afghanistan. So it is not like there was not 
an alternative to the policies that were put in place. It was the 
logical choice. Yes, it was the logical choice except for the 
opposition of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The Pakistanis knew they could 
not control Zaire Shah.
  Zaire Shah had ruled over that country for 40 years. He was 
independent and a fair and honest man. When he was in a charge of 
Afghanistan, they lived a relative peace for 40 years. But the 
Pakistanis were intent on dominating Afghanistan as many of them still 
are and they ruled out bringing back King Zaire Shah. The Saudi wanted 
to placate their own radicals. That is why they did not like Zaire 
Shah, the old exiled king. They wanted to placate the Wahabis who are 
their radical sector in Saudi Arabia. So they too, the Saudis, nixed 
the return of the king.
  But most disturbing to me is as I sojourned throughout that region on 
my own, sometimes at great personal risk, promoting the Zaire Shah 
alternative, U.S. State Department officials would follow me explaining 
that I was speaking for myself and that I was a lone junior Member of 
Congress not to be taken seriously.
  These arrogant and amoral policymakers of our State Department could 
have given Afghanistan a chance for a leader who was decent and caring 
and peace loving, who loved his people and were loved by them.

                              {time}  2215

  Instead, they chose to play politics; and they chose the Taliban, 
make no mistake about it.
  It is only when I spoke to the head of the Saudi Arabia's CIA, Prince 
Turki, that I was tipped off that another plan was in the works. Prince 
Turki was fired immediately after 9/11. Just keep that in mind, but 
until 9/11, he was the man who I could say was most responsible for 
Saudi policy in that region.
  He explained to me personally that instead of the former king coming 
back, that they were creating a third force, and it was being created 
specifically to go into Afghanistan, and it would be comprised of 
religious students who had spent most of the war in the Islamic schools 
in Pakistan. These Taliban, which means student by the way, using their 
religious credentials, would dominate Afghanistan; and he assured me 
that they would not be involved in anything outside of Afghanistan.
  These Taliban, by the way, with certain exceptions as I say, were not 
veterans of the war against the Soviets. They were not Mujahedin. A lot 
of people make that mistake. The Mujahedin fought the Soviets. The 
Taliban came

[[Page H2645]]

in well after the Soviets left; and in fact, when we felt, after we 
were attacked, we needed to drive the Taliban out, it was the remnants 
of the Mujahedin who joined with us and also drove the Taliban out of 
Afghanistan.
  For a long time, I blamed the Saudis and the Pakistanis for creating 
a force of religious fanatics and putting them in power. It is clear 
now, however, that it was not just the Pakistanis and the Saudis. 
Prince Turki, in Washington, when he tipped me off about the creation 
of Taliban, certainly he was there at the beginning and certainly the 
Pakistanis were there at the beginning, but other people were there as 
well.
  Last year, I found out about this. Last year, the current former 
minister of Pakistan visited Southern California; and when he was 
exasperated by my criticism of Pakistan, that they had created the 
Taliban, he was upset and he blurted out that Americans were in the 
room and part of the bargain that created the Taliban as well. There 
were three parties in that room. Well, that revelation was no surprise 
to me. I had been trying to get a confirmation of that for years.
  During the latter years of the Clinton administration, I charged that 
the administration policy was secretly supporting the Taliban. After 
making that charge at a public hearing, I was labeled as ``delusional'' 
by a senior Democratic colleague. When I insisted, with the support of 
Ben Gilman, who was then chairman of the Committee on International 
Relations, that the State Department provide the documents that would 
clarify America's real position, we were stonewalled, even though 
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright personally pledged to comply with 
this request. Here we are; that is our job to oversee American foreign 
policy. We requested the documents on the creation of the Taliban. The 
State Department thumbed its nose at us, gave us documents that were 
meaningless, that had a bunch of newspaper clippings, et cetera.
  Let us be clear and understandable on this point. I am charging that 
during the Clinton administration it was U.S. policy to create the 
Taliban, and once in power, the United States Government supported 
these Islamic fanatics. It was the policy of our government under Bill 
Clinton. This policy was fully supported and probably created by our 
State Department, and if one wants to accept the responsibilities for 
the policies that  eventually led  to 9/11, start right here, and those 
in the State Department, those who oppose the return of King Zaire Shah 
and undercut anyone who is resisting the Taliban, they have the blood 
of innocent Americans on their hands, those Americans who were  
slaughtered  on
9/11.
  Let us accept that rejecting King Zaire Shah, and that option was 
dead wrong, but let us accept also it was understandable perhaps that 
our foreign policy establishment felt that way. They longed for 
stability, and they could not imagine stability without having the 
Saudis and the Pakistanis having their way, even though it is America 
that is supposed to be providing the leadership and not the other way 
around.
  After the fighting stopped and the Taliban were in control, and this 
is after the third force was then unleashed, the Soviets had been gone 
for several years, this third force was unleashed. The Taliban swept 
across two-thirds of Afghanistan, and they took the capital city of 
Kabul.
  Well, I have been trying to fight that for many, many months and many 
years; and I took a stand back, and just like everybody else, I wished 
the people of Afghanistan the best and I laid down a marker to the 
Taliban. I remember giving an interview where basically I said I would 
have a wait and see, and we expected them not to do things outside of 
their own country, and we expected them not to be a totalitarian force 
but a religious force. Of course, I tried to stop them from getting in 
power in the first place. There was nothing I could do at that point 
but hope for the best.
  After about a month, it became obvious that I had been right all 
along and that this new force, the Taliban, were Islamic Nazis; and as 
such, if they were not stopped, they would hurt our friends or they 
would even hurt us.
  So even after coming to power, our State Department, get into this, 
even after coming to power, our State Department closed its eyes to the 
increasing evidence of the nature of the Taliban; and they kept 
supporting the Taliban anyway. For several years, I was a lone voice, 
helped by Chairman Ben Gilman, then chairman of the Committee on 
International Relations, warning of the potential consequences of 
leaving such a fanatical, religious sect in power.
  I even went to Afghanistan during this time and met with leaders 
resisting the Taliban, men like General Dostum, Commander Masood, Abdul 
Haq, and Ismail Khan. Masood, of course, is the most impressive of the 
lot, but of course, none of them are pure. Everybody makes mistakes; 
everybody has made bad judgments; everybody has done things wrong after 
they have been fighting for as long as these people have been fighting. 
They all made a certain number of terrible decisions; but unlike the 
Taliban, they were not totalitarian psychos who believed that God was 
talking to them and justifying the wholesale slaughter and control of 
other peoples.

  Unfortunately, all of them and the rest of the Afghan people, when I 
say all of them I mean the leaders who were opposed to the Taliban, and 
the rest of the Afghan people, believed America was supporting the 
Taliban. So let us make this straight. Even after the Taliban took 
power, when it was no longer theoretical, it appeared to everyone, and 
I suggest that it was the case, America was still supporting the 
Taliban.
  Why should these people not, these Afghans, think that? Was not our 
aid going to the Taliban-controlled areas? I myself had been thwarted 
by the State Department under leadership of Clinton appointee Rick 
Enderfurth in getting humanitarian aid to parts of Afghanistan not 
under Taliban control. So it is okay for the aid to go to Taliban 
areas, American aid; but when I tried to get some aid to some of the 
other areas, that aid was thwarted.
  If there were any doubts, my suspicions about U.S. policy were 
confirmed in 1997 when the Taliban was saved from total defeat by high-
level executives from the Clinton administration. What happened was in 
April of 1997, the Taliban launched a major offensive aimed at taking 
control over the northern third of Afghanistan. So they had already 
controlled two-thirds of Afghanistan; but up until that point, one-
third of Afghanistan, the northern part, the northern alliance, were 
free from Taliban control, and yes, they were under the control, you 
might say, of regional leaders who were called and are called today 
warlords, but they are regional leaders. We can debate about the title.
  An Afghan general named Malik was one of those regional leaders; and 
when the Taliban attacked northern Afghanistan, General Malik tricked 
the Taliban and managed to capture almost all of their front line 
troops, along with all of their heavy weaponry. It was an utter 
disaster for the Taliban. The road to the capital, Kabul, was wide 
open. The Taliban were totally vulnerable and could have been wiped 
out.
  We are talking about early in April of 1997. I sent a message to my 
friends in northern Afghanistan that Kabul should be taken and that 
King Zaire Shah should be brought back to oversee a transition 
government that would eventually evolve and inevitably evolve as well 
into a democratically elected government, perhaps like what they did in 
Spain when the King went back and Spain, after the Franco dictatorship, 
evolved into a democracy; but before the anti-Taliban forces could 
strike, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Enderfurth and United 
Nations Ambassador Bill Richardson, both Clinton appointees, flew to 
northern Afghanistan and convinced the anti-Taliban forces this was not 
the time for an offensive. This, they said, was the time for a cease-
fire and an arms embargo. This was the United States policy. When the 
Taliban were vulnerable, it became time for a cease-fire.
  These two top foreign policy leaders of the Clinton administration 
were there to convince the anti-Taliban forces not to take advantage of 
the one opportunity they had to defeat their enemy, this Frankenstein 
monster that provided a base of operations to kill thousands of 
Americans. These Clinton

[[Page H2646]]

appointees saved the Taliban. Right after the cease-fire and release of 
prisoners that was brokered by Mr. Enderfurth and Mr. Richardson, the 
Pakistanis began a Berlin-like air lift to resupply and re-equip the 
Taliban. So much for the arms embargo, which just happened as it always 
does, worked as an embargo against the good guys, but the bad guys, we 
just turned the other way.
  If I knew, which I did, of this massive resupply effort that was 
going on for the Taliban, the Clinton administration had to know about 
this. So they just let the scenario happen while still enforcing the 
arms embargo against the Taliban's adversaries.
  Let us note here that Richard Clarke, the man who testified on the 
hearings on 9/11, who cast aspersions on our President, who is now 
trying to take care of business, Richard Clarke was then a high-level 
official in the Clinton administration's foreign policy establishment. 
He undoubtedly knew about this effort to save the Taliban, was probably 
involved in all of these things that I am talking about, and probably 
approved it. So when you consider his self-serving testimony in which 
Mr. Clarke besmirched President Bush before the 9/11 investigation 
panel, keep in mind the role that he played in creating and supporting 
the Taliban.
  Dick Clarke has no credibility. By the way, after this episode had 
run its course, the newly equipped Taliban army launched another 
offensive. This time they took almost all of what was left of 
Afghanistan, except the Panjshir Valley, which was dominated and 
remained the domain of my friend Commander Masood, the only hold-out 
against the Taliban, and America did nothing to help them, even as a 
new gang of radical cutthroats moved in and made Afghanistan its base 
of operations.
  What am I talking about? Al Qaeda. What about al Qaeda? What about 
bin Laden? Where does he come from? So the reemergence of bin Laden.
  Nowadays Osama bin Laden is a household name. Yes, he fought in 
Afghanistan against the Soviets. I saw his tents and his luxurious 
living conditions. No, United States money did not train him or supply 
him. The Saudis had plenty of money to take care of that. So the United 
States Government did not train and supply bin Laden, but he was there; 
and after the Soviets left, this is an important point, bin Laden left. 
Not only did America leave but bin Laden himself left. He could have 
financed the reconstruction of Afghanistan. He came from one of the 
wealthiest Saudi families. He had contacts all over the gulf region 
where they were swimming in petrol dollars.

                              {time}  2230

  He had all of the money and contacts needed for this noble deed of 
rebuilding Afghanistan. Instead he left, and it was during this time 
when he was making even more billions of dollars for his family that he 
began to focus on the United States as the prime enemy of his faith and 
he committed himself not to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, but to 
the destruction of America. So this is how God talks to bin Laden. Do 
not help people, do not help rebuild, just kill innocent women and 
children and try to terrorize a Nation. Bin Laden is from an enormously 
wealthy Saudi family. And while our petroleum dollars flowed into Saudi 
Arabia by the hundreds of billions, the Saudi establishment not only 
turned a blind eye, but attempted to buy off this and other Islam 
radicals in their country.
  Bin Laden's hatred for us grew during Gulf War I. Our presence in 
Saudi Arabia was an insult to his faith. The slaughter of unarmed 
people is consistent with his faith? In the late 1990s, bin Laden began 
to set up his terrorist underground army for a war that he intended to 
wage on America. In the mid-1990s he operated not out of Afghanistan, 
but out of Sudan. America's official position was that bin Laden was a 
terrorist and was on the most wanted list. In fact, CIA director George 
Tenet had declared bin Laden as America's number one target. While 
designated as such, this self-aggrandizing monster organized, financed 
and implemented attacks that cost tens of billions of dollars and the 
death of thousands of innocent people, and not just in the United 
States, but worldwide we have seen these attacks.
  Yet the same CIA that declared bin Laden their number one target with 
all of the power and assets that the CIA has, they could not thwart 9/
11 and they did not warn us about 9/11? If this is not incompetence, 
what is incompetence? But this everybody knows. Unfortunately, this is 
mind-boggling evidence. The fact is, the very basis is they did not 
warn us, and 9/11 happened and he was their number one target. What 
more evidence do we need of incompetence on the part of our government 
and CIA in particular.
  Vanity Fair has an interesting report about bin Laden and perhaps 
America's policy toward bin Laden and why he succeeded. Vanity Fair 
suggested that when bin Laden was in the Sudan, the Sudanese government 
cataloged all of the people he spoke to on the phone and in person. 
Here was a listing of all of the members of the bin Laden network, and 
the Sudanese government was abruptly turned down when they offered to 
give the United States the entire catalog. According to Vanity Fair, 
Madeleine Albright made the decision to turn down the offer and 
instructed no one to look at or copy the material.
  The Sudanese former ambassador personally told me that he tried to 
hand this list to a representative of the United States Government. It 
would have permitted us to apprehend bin Laden's entire network, but we 
threw it back in his face. By the way, Dick Clarke had to know about 
this decision, too. This is the man who cast aspersions on our 
President. That was back during the Clinton administration, of course.
  Then, an even more personal incident happened when we want to talk 
about our government's ability to protect us and what was going on 
during the Clinton administration that led to 9/11. In April and May of 
1999, America had an incredible opportunity to capture bin Laden. I was 
involved, and I am here to report yet another example of the 
incompetence of those we trusted to protect us from an attack like what 
occurred on 9/11.
  In April 1999, I was contacted by a long-time friend who had been 
deeply involved in the Afghan fight against the Soviet occupation 
troops. My friend, an American, had impeccable credentials. He had been 
in Afghanistan, and was widely known and admired by the Afghan people. 
My friend called me to tip me off that bin Laden was outside of 
Afghanistan and could be easily captured. I told him I would pass on 
his name and phone number and that he would be contacted as soon as 
possible by the CIA.
  The very next day I briefed the CIA and I passed on my friend's phone 
number and name, and briefed them on his credentials, and told them he 
could hand them bin Laden on a platter. I called my friend after a 
week. The CIA had not called him yet. I went back to the Agency, and 
this time they were adamant they would contact my friend. There was 
still a chance to get bin Laden. Another week passed. The CIA did not 
call my friend. This time I went to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Goss) who is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. When the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) heard my story, he arranged a meeting 
for me the next day.
  So the next day at the appointed time I went to a secure room in a 
secret and heavily guarded part of the Capitol where I went to meet 
with the representatives from the CIA. When I got there, there was a 
CIA representative and National Security Agency and the FBI. That was 
the bin Laden task force. They were all there, and they apologized for 
the dunderheads at the CIA who had not called my friend to get the 
information, and they were going to fall up on it immediately.

  A week later I called my friend and he still had not been contacted. 
I mentioned it to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) who was 
appalled. The next day a representative from an intelligence agency 
finally called my friend. The caller's tone of voice suggested that the 
inquiry was obligatory. It did not make any difference because the 
trail was already cold.
  This incident is bad enough, but then there is the episode of Julie 
Sears. At the same time I watched the CIA stiff my friend who wanted to 
tip them off about the whereabouts of bin Laden, there was a young 
woman who came to my office seeking help. Her name is Julie Sears. She 
was an analyst at the

[[Page H2647]]

Defense Intelligence Agency. She knew I was the only one who understood 
what was going on in Afghanistan, and was seeking my help because she 
had been fired from the Defense Intelligence Agency.
  Julie Sears has an interesting story. She had worked at the Defense 
Intelligence Agency for 3 years. She was an Afghanistan analyst. That 
was her specialty. She went to Afghanistan and was permitted to go to 
the Taliban areas only. When she returned, she did her study and 
realized there was information in Northern Afghanistan that was vital 
for the Pentagon to know if they were to understand the threat that 
might be taking place and building in Afghanistan. Julie Sears was 
forbidden to go to the non-Taliban areas of Afghanistan, so she decided 
to go on her own.
  She told her boss she was taking leave, then reported where she was 
going, officially to the Agency's office that approves that. It was 
approved that she could go, and she went to Northern Afghanistan on her 
own and met with Commander Masood and others and came back with some 
information that was vital. That information was that Commander Masood 
was telling her that he was capturing troops from the Taliban who were 
from all over the world and that apparently bin Laden was bringing in 
huge numbers of people into Afghanistan, training them for terrorist 
activity, and then letting them fight Masood's forces to get wet behind 
the ears in battle. And when he captured these people, they were from 
all over the world. He was talking about the creation of al Qaeda.
  Julie Sears came back with that information and she was fired on the 
spot, and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency even refused 
to let her brief other members of the government and refused to have 
her report be officially put forward, and no one got that information.
  I called in the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I called him 
to my office and he came there. He was a general, and we will not go 
any further than that. He had been in charge of the DIA for several 
years during the Clinton administration. I told him General, this woman 
risked her life in order to get this information. She is a hero.
  His answer was, She is insubordinate.
  I said General, I think she risked her life and spent her own money 
to try to get information for the safety of our country, let us 
compromise at the very least. Give her back her job, I will not call 
her a hero, you will not call her insubordinate, we will leave it the 
way it is.
  He said, No, I cannot do that.
  I said General, do it and if you blame somebody, blame me. Blame this 
politician who is politically interfering with the way you manage your 
operation.
  He went back to his office and fired Julie Sears. That is the type of 
arrogant, bureaucratic attitude that ended up with 9/11.
  Finally, there are two other instances that have colored my view of 
how we ended up with this war in terrorism which could have been 
avoided, but we were ill-served.
  A few days before September 11, my friend anti-Taliban leader 
Commander Masood was murdered by al Qaeda. After the shock of seeing 
that my friend had been murdered, I figured it out. Bin Laden had sent 
his people to kill Masood because he knew the United States would rally 
behind Masood if there was a major terrorist attack against our people. 
Bin Laden's terrorist army planned to attack us. It was not hard for me 
to figure out. They killed Masood so we could not counterattack against 
them by supporting Masood. Bin Laden's terrorist army was going to 
attack us. Perhaps Masood's death was a signal to move the plan that 
was already put in place forward.
  The day before 9/11, I called the White House and asked to see 
National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice, it was an emergency. The 
purpose was to warn her of an imminent terrorist attack on the United 
States. One of her assistants came on the line and apologized, she was 
really busy that day but she made an appointment to see me the next 
day. Yes, on 9/11 I had an appointment to see Condoleezza Rice in the 
early afternoon to warn her of a major terrorist attack that was about 
to happen.
  The question that needs to be asked was how was I able to figure this 
out. I have one staff member who is my foreign policy military staff 
member who helps me with foreign policy issues, why I was able to 
figure it out but the CIA was not able to figure it out. We know why 
the DIA was not, but why would the CIA, with billions of dollars at its 
disposal, hundreds of analysts and bin Laden the number one target, 
that they could not figure it out.
  Incompetence. We need to blame people for their failures, and we need 
to blame the policies that brought about the problem. Finally on 9/11, 
once the planes started slamming into buildings, I knew right away what 
was going on. It did not take a genius at that point, but what also 
dawned on me, without Masood, there was only one person left on this 
planet who the Taliban and al Qaeda knew threatened their base, and 
that was the old king of Afghanistan in Rome. The exiled king, they 
knew without Masood, he was the only man the Afghan people could rally 
behind in order to launch a counterattack.
  I called the king. I was dumbfounded to hear there was no one there 
to protect him. This is hours and hours after the planes slammed into 
the buildings. He was totally exposed. Our number one asset in a war 
that we were just entering was totally exposed.
  I called the American Embassy in Rome and then I called one of the 
top leaders of the CIA who concurred with me that the king was a 
primary target of the band of terrorists with whom we were now at war. 
Yes, he needed to take care of that, and the king would be protected. 
Five hours later, by chance, I had the opportunity to speak with this 
very top CIA official again, one of the top leaders of the CIA. And 
when I asked him if the king was now protected, he said, ``You do not 
expect us to act that fast?''
  So there you have it. We are at war. Thousands of Americans were 
being slaughtered and the CIA official in charge of protecting us does 
not take the initiative to try to protect our number one asset that we 
needed to thwart the Taliban and thwart the people who were murdering 
our people.
  Why did we have 9/11? There you go. Let us remember George Tenet was 
appointed by Bill Clinton, and he is still the director of the CIA. 
People tell me that since 9/11, he has been doing a better job, and 
that some people who were not doing a good job over at the Agency are 
doing a superb job now. Let me note that.
  But when we talk about why 9/11 happened and who was responsible, 
especially when we have a committee who is trying to besmirch our 
President who is now taking care of business, let us look at the 
policies that people who created this.

                              {time}  2245

  The committee now investigating 9-11 can tell us about lack of 
information sharing; but we know that within the FBI itself, there were 
agents who were begging higher-ups to pay more attention to the 
possible threat of suspected terrorists who were receiving pilot 
training. No, there was not an obstruction there. There was not lack of 
communication or agencies did not talk to each other. That was right 
within the FBI. But, no, someone in that line of command was arrogant 
and told them to forget it. There was no absolute proof that this was 
going to happen. This is called bureaucratic arrogance and bureaucratic 
inertia or perhaps maybe the arrogance of officialdom or just plain 
incompetence. Couple that with the policies of the Clinton years that 
created and nurtured the Taliban and turned Afghanistan into a 
terrorist training base and a staging area for terrorism, take those 
things together, that is what brought us into this situation that we 
find ourselves in today.
  Those who run our government should be held accountable for the 
policies that they advocated that created this Frankenstein monster, 
and they must have the commitment and be held responsible and 
accountable for their lack of commitment of getting their job done if 
their job was to thwart attacks on the United States. 9-11 happened 
because of the actions or lack of actions of certain people with 
authority and because of fundamentally bad policy.
  Today we have a fundamentally good policy at hand when our President 
is taking care of business in Iraq. He is

[[Page H2648]]

not kicking the can down the road like they did during the last 
administration. He is going to see that the people of Iraq develop an 
alternative to radical Islam, and by doing that he has a strategic 
vision that will build a better tomorrow rather than ignoring any 
potential threats and permitting the Frankenstein monsters that 
appeared in the late 1990s to reappear.
  If America is to be secure, we must do our job, and that is our job 
in Congress, and that is to hold people who fail accountable, and we 
should quit whining about it and quit playing politics. That is our job 
in Congress, to hold people accountable, to oversee what is happening 
in the other branches of government and to pass rules and regulations 
and to make sure that our military is equipped and doing the right job.
  We too have to be held accountable perhaps in the 1990s for not 
stepping forward but instead being focused on other things. The United 
States Congress was not focused on Afghanistan. It was not focused on 
these problems as well. And today I think we have a chance to make up 
for that. We have a chance to work with our President and, instead of 
playing politics, make sure we win this battle in Iraq and help create 
a better world.
  I am very proud of our President, and I am very confident that our 
children will not have to suffer another 9-11 because we are doing what 
is right today.

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