[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 76 (Thursday, June 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3767-H3773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
30-SOMETHING DEMOCRATS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to address
the House of Representatives and also the American people on issues of
importance. A part of our democracy is being able to provide
information to the American people so that they can make the right
decisions at the right time when they are given the opportunity. Also,
to hopefully have an opportunity to speak to our colleagues about some
of the issues that are facing this Congress and the American people,
that they can also make the right decision at the right opportunity and
at the right time.
We have more opportunities, the American people do, to make major
decisions. They get an opportunity every couple of years as it relates
to the House of Representatives, and in many cases every 6 years as it
relates to the other body. But every 4 years they get an opportunity to
vote for the leader of the free world, the President of the United
States; and it is important that we understand exactly what is going on
in our country, what is going on in the world.
This is an hour, Mr. Speaker, that the minority leader, the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), has put together for our 30-
something Caucus that we have on the Democratic side on the aisle. The
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is my co-chair as it relates to our
working group.
We have a number of members, some 14 Members of this House, that take
time out every week to come to the floor. We have an opportunity to
talk about issues that are facing young Americans and also middle-aged
Americans and older Americans, because when we start talking about
education, we start talking about health care, we start talking about
jobs.
I think it is important we talk about Iraq. It is also important to
all Americans, but we try to make sure that we be able to give voice to
those individuals that are young parents and those individuals that are
going into college and even young people that are looking to go to
college to make sure that they have a great opportunity to do what they
have to do.
I am so glad that my good friend from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is here with
me, who is just an outstanding gentleman. We both serve on the
Committee on Armed Services together, and we sit next to each other,
almost next to each other, but we are there on the same level on the
bottom row.
I thank the gentleman for being here.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much.
Over the past week, we had a break. We normally are doing our 30-
something event on Tuesday nights, but we are here on Thursday night
tonight, and we are going to take a little different twist here.
Normally, we talk about issues that are facing young students, young
people trying to make their way in the workforce.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Can I just, when the gentleman mentioned that,
because we need to get into what we are getting ready to discuss right
now, but I know the gentleman has a couple of e-mails. If we can just
take 5 minutes and talk about this voter suppression issue.
As you know, over the last couple of weeks we have been getting phone
calls and e-mails about students throughout the country going to
supervisor of elections offices and being told that they cannot
register to vote there. Those students that are now in summer school,
students that would like to go into the fall and be able to have the
opportunity to vote in the primary elections in many States and also in
the general election. They are being told that they can not register to
vote in that State because they are not a permanent resident. But, as
you know, in 1975 the Supreme Court said you can register. It is legal.
So we got a response back from a number of people saying this has
happened to me, and we asked them to go to rockthevote.com.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Rockthevote.com to help with voter suppression
across the country. It will inform you about whatever your situation
may be locally.
I just brought a couple of these that I wanted to read, because we
are going to, obviously, move to another topic. We received a couple of
e-mails that we pulled out here, one from a Luther Lowe from the
College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and one also
from Alleyn Harned from Columbus, Ohio, who lives in Delaware. I am
going to read a couple of paragraphs out of the e-mail we got, because
most adults will say why are kids not participating and being active in
the process? There is youth voter apathy.
I just want to read these. This is Luther Lowe from William and Mary.
``Rather than sit and watch our local representatives make laws which
are unfair to young people, I decided to participate in my local
democracy. I applied to register to vote at Williamsburg which required
I also fill out a detailed two-page questionnaire in addition to the
normal form. One week later, I received a notification of my
registration denial. The reasons? I was claimed on my parents' income
taxes. I drove a car owned by my mom who lives in Arkansas. According
to the local registrar, I should have been voting in my parents'
hometown. The problem with that is I have never voted in my parents'
hometown. I voted for Al Gore from my boarding school in high school. I
spend less than 2 months a year in Arkansas, so why should I be
participating in local elections there? With the help of a local
attorney from the ACLU, I fought back. It was only after two lawsuits
that I was able to register on a technicality that I am a member of the
Virginia National Guard and Governor Mark Warner is my primary
commander in chief.''
Give me a break. Here is a kid that wants to participate in the
system, and he has got to hire a lawyer from the ACLU to get a right to
vote from the university.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. And he is a National Guardsman.
[[Page H3768]]
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And he is a National Guardsman. The kid loves his
country, loves the State of Virginia, has not been in Arkansas all that
much, and they are trying to limit his right to vote.
I think that is the perfect example of why we are doing this, why we
want to keep doing this, and slowly, over time, allow us to at least
communicate to the young people of this country that sometimes it is a
little bit of a fight. It should not be, but let them know that there
are people here working on this for them.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. It is just amazing that you have to sue. I mean,
it is amazing that you have to sue to participate in democracy.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It would be funny if it was not so sad.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. And the level of insight that went into the
letter he received from an official office of saying not only do we
think you do not reside in this State but you have your mom's car, and
the last time you voted you were in another State. It is very, very
important that Americans understand that we have to fight day in and
day out, even within the borders of our own country, to make sure that
our voices are heard. And young people they are getting it handed to
them right now not only by the Federal Government but the State has to
do the same thing because we have cut our commitment to them.
We will talk about spending money and spending irresponsibly. But I
cut the gentleman off. He was about to head down a path that we are
fully prepared to talk about this afternoon. But I want to encourage
our listeners and watchers to go to rockthevote.com. I understand we
are going to do some things in the 30-something Caucus to make sure
that does not continue to happen.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We will move on a little bit to the topic that we
have been talking about a lot in the Committee on Armed Services and
also been talking about a lot in Congress; and, obviously, the
President of the United States has been talking about this a great
deal.
Notice the picture that I have next to me. The gentleman on my far
right, on the gentleman's far left, is President George Bush II. And on
my near right here is Mr. Chalabi, who was the main informant, the main
intelligence gatherer for the United States of America in leading to
the war in Iraq.
The reason why we are going to talk about this is because some people
may be asking, what are two 30-somethings that primarily have been
focused on long-term debt for the country, increase in the deficit,
annual deficits that we have in this country, student loans and college
debt for students, debt for the country, debt for students, job access,
outsourcing, we have talked about a lot of these issues, why are we
going to talk about the war?
I think, and I know the gentleman knows this, that there has been
nothing that has damaged this country fiscally or with our political
bank account more than the latest war in Iraq. I was against the war,
as I am for full disclosure for the American people, for a lot of
reasons that we are talking about today.
And I see that there are some young students that are up in the
gallery now, so we actually have a live audience here. Why should they
care about what is going on in Iraq?
Announcement By The Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair reminds Members not to make
references to visitors in the gallery.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Why should we talk about Mr. Chalabi? Why should we
talk about his relationship to President Bush? Why should we talk about
his relationship to Vice President Cheney?
This gentleman stood up in the gallery during the State of the Union
address as a friend of the President of the United States; and now we
see in the paper today, from CNN's Inside Politics, Condoleezza Rice is
now downplaying the relationship that this administration had with Mr.
Chalabi. And she says, we had a relationship with Mr. Chalabi's Iraqi
National Congress just like we have relationships with a number of
Iraqi organizations devoted to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
That is not true. It is not just like every other relationship they
had, because this gentleman was sitting in this gallery during the
President's State of the Union address which, as we know, it is an
honor to be recognized here in this Chamber, whether it is legally or
illegally acknowledged. But he was acknowledged as a friend of the
administration.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, obviously, he has represented himself as a
friend of the United States. But there is a big discussion about him
giving away the fact that we had Iran's secret codes and to be able to
get intelligence on what they are doing inside Iran. Now that is major.
That is major. That is just another investigation that is going on.
But how much did we pay him a month? Does the gentleman remember that
number? Was it like $365,000 a month? I believe that that was the
number that they had. And if I can, I pulled my credit card out last
time. I pulled it out of my wallet, and my wife said, do not pull that
credit card out. And I told her I was using it as a prop.
But with a little help from my graphics people, when we start looking
at this we are looking at really $477 billion, which is $4.7 trillion
dollars in debt right now. And this is, of course, the U.S. Treasury
that this money is coming out of.
So not only did we pay for a double spy to be able to share
information with Iran, had a relationship, a very close relationship
and family ties to Iran, which I must say that day in and day out we
are trying to do what we can to make sure that we play down the nuclear
threat in the region, but we paid him. We paid him almost $400,000 to
provide this information.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. $400,000 a month.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Almost $400,000 a month. It is between 375 and
400. But when you are dealing with a $4.7 trillion deficit, it seems
like individuals that are in control of this House or the White House,
they are not really concerned, or the Pentagon.
Now, I must say that it is important for us to remember that our
credibility is at stake and American troops' lives are at stake. Any
time we say that some folks stand behind our troops, we stand with our
troops. And I will tell you right now that it is important that this
information, that is bad information that we are getting from this
gentleman, and also he is turning around and sharing our secrets with
Iran. This is serious business, and this is nothing to play around
with.
Just because we point these issues out, some may say, they are just
being political. Let me tell you something. The lives that will be lost
because of the information that has been shared with Iran and the
information that we need to be able to fight the effort against
terrorism, when it puts our troops' lives at stake, no one stops them,
insurgents do not stop them and say, hey, let me ask you a question
before we explode this improvised bomb here. Are you a Republican,
Democrat or Independent?
{time} 1700
Are you a male or a female or are you black or are you Hispanic or
what have you? Are you partisan or Christian? Are you a Jew? They do
not ask that question. They just carry out the act.
So we have decisions that are being made in the Pentagon, and I must
say we have got to get to the whole resignation of the CIA Director,
Mr. Tenet, and also what is not happening as it relates to Mr.
Rumsfeld, who is kind of hard to find these days; but at the same time
some of the bad decisions are still being made at the highest levels of
the Pentagon. Everyone wants to get to the bottom of things, but no one
wants to get to the top of it.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman is passionate
about this. I think your performance on our committee has been a
passionate performance, and I think it is important for the young
people who are watching it or the C-SPAN viewers who are watching this
to understand at how much of a disadvantage the next generation is
going to be because of the acts of today, the amount of credibility
that we lost in the world, the amount of negotiating power that we have
lost in the world; and I am going to give a couple of examples and tie
this into something that we were talking about before a few weeks ago.
We were talking a lot about China stealing our manufacturing in the
[[Page H3769]]
United States of America, how we are losing the manufacturing base in
this country, and the majority of these jobs and companies are moving
to China, exploiting the labor and human rights and everything else.
How does that tie into this?
Because of the political capital that we have been expending on Iraq,
we cannot deal with a greater threat, which is North Korea, which has
increased their nuclear arsenal by 400 percent in the last 3 years. So
because we are so bogged down in the Middle East right now, we have to
ask China to deal with North Korea for us, and therefore, we cannot
play tough with China on manufacturing. So this has helped us not to be
able to deal with the erosion of the manufacturing base. It is the same
with the oil prices.
OPEC is now saying they are going to turn the spigots on. We are not
sure. We will believe it when we see it, but we have to ask Saudi
Arabia to help us with our problems in the Middle East and Iraq, and we
cannot talk tough with Saudi Arabia for the gasoline prices. So we have
put ourselves at a weak bargaining position with China, weak bargaining
position with the Saudis to deal with the oil crisis and the gas crisis
in this country.
I want the American people who work two jobs and deal with their
grandparents and their parents and people are sick and they are sending
their kids to school, who do not have time to digest all of this, and I
want them to understand that we have made bad political moves, and we
hire Presidents and hire Members of Congress to put us in good
political positions.
I heard many Members on the other side talk about Thomas Jefferson.
Well, we bought the Louisiana territory. That was a good political
position. It put the country in a good position. NASA put the country
in a good position. For us to just sit here and watch our country be
put in a weak position, a weak bargaining position, a weak negotiating
position, all in the process of pulling out the credit card and
dropping $200 billion in the Middle East, which now we have to stay and
win, no one's arguing that, we have to support our troops, and I know
we both voted for the Defense authorization bill. So this is not
pacifist. We do not want any war ever, and we are going to support the
Defense spending in this country, the Defense appropriations. We both
have voted for that.
All we are saying is bad decisions have been made and they have been
made because we have been taking advice from a con man who has conned
everybody for the last 25 or 30 years in the world, who was found
guilty of 30-some counts in Jordan, fraud, embezzlement, has been
running around the Middle East and running around Europe over the past
years. Everyone knew the reputation of this man; and he just told this
administration what they wanted to hear, and they bought it hook, line
and sinker; and now we are stuck.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, let me just say this. I saw our con
man on ``Nightline'' with Ted Koppel, and he said that he wanted to
come before the Congress and address the Congress. He was willing to
come to a congressional hearing. I am to the point that I will send him
a ticket because I really want to see this one.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We will pay for the bus fare.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, as you know, some of our troops
secured the perimeter while Iraqi police went in and raided his office.
This is the man we just cut payment off to in the last 30 days.
Also you mentioned outsourcing, and I just want, as it relates to
this war and as it relates to the fight that we have tried to put on in
the Committee on Armed Services, of making sure that our troops still
get the things that they should have gotten when they first went in,
armor, up-armoring Humvees, making sure that they have the things that
they need to have so they do not have to write home and say, Mom,
Honey, can you send me some equipment, can you send me a bulletproof
vest. I mean, all of these things that the U.S. military is supposed to
provide but did not have on hand because we went at this war in haste.
You mentioned something about outsourcing, and I want to tell you, I
think maybe at this juncture, maybe 4 years into the business of trying
to run the country, that one would understand past mistakes. Well, it
seems like the White House is at it again.
The White House announced yesterday, led by President Bush, that they
just gave the largest technology contract for passport screening, the
largest contract in the history of the Department of Homeland Security
to a Bermuda company, a company that has turned in its U.S. passport,
moved to Bermuda to skirt paying Federal corporate taxes to be able to
help this country run. Those jobs have also been encouraged and will
continue to stay offshore of the United States of America to be able to
provide the very jobs that individuals are looking for.
I must be able to share with you that unless some amazing magic trick
happens in the next 5 months, this President will be the first
President in a very, very, very long time that has not gained not one
net job, one-plus net job for U.S. citizens or individuals that are
here in the United States of America. I just want to make sure that we
understand. The American taxpayers are paying $10 billion, okay, that
is with a capital B, for the passport inspections to a company that has
turned its own U.S. passports in and their bank account is offshore.
Yes, I am a Democrat; but you know something, there has to be a
change, and when I said in the opening that the American people have to
make a decision on when they get the opportunity, it is up to us to
make sure they have good information. This is not the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) saying, hey,
what can we write to make it seem like we are right. This is straight
out of the White House, and this was yesterday. It is not last week.
I encourage Americans, if you can, I do not have any stock in Time
Warner, but please get this Time magazine that I am holding here, and I
encourage Members of the Congress to grab a copy of this Time magazine.
I get Time in my office, and of course, the issue on obesity in
America, I need to read that story, too, because I need to put down a
few things. But there are a number of issues that we have been talking
about in the Committee on Armed Services that I would like to talk
about if we would have a public hearing for a change to be able to
share with the American people about what is happening to our troops,
what is happening for our troops and to be able to share with the rest
of the world that we do care about the good, bad, and ugly that goes on
in America, and we are able to address it.
I will tell you, I will continue and with your voice and other folks'
voices, and I am so glad I was on this morning on the Washington
Journal, on C-SPAN, with one of our Republican colleagues who concurs
that we should have hearings about what is going on in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, our base where we are detaining insurgents, the al Qaeda
individuals that are providing us the very information that we need to
be able to save American troops' lives. I want to talk about the drug
issue in Afghanistan that is also putting American troops' lives at
risk.
So we cannot sit here and say, well, let us pass another resolution
supporting the troops. No, we should not pass another resolution
supporting the troops. The troops already know that we support them. We
support them. There is no question. There is no great mystery in the
Congress about who does not and who does support the troops. Everyone
does.
The 5-year-old kids that are walking around in this building, if you
ask them do they care about our military, I guarantee you nine times
out of 10 and 99.9 percent, you are doggone right, I do. I look up to
them. They are heroes and sheroes. They are in the community; they
serve. They are Reservists that have been in Afghanistan and Iraq and
other areas and the Horn of Africa where we are fighting the issue of
terrorism.
Let me share with you a few things in the Time magazine this month.
This is very interesting. It has a picture in here of children that are
playing in front of a painting of the famous picture in Abu Ghraib
prison where the individual has the wires hooked up to him, and I think
it is important for the Committee on Armed Services and this House of
Representatives, to the majority, that not only we get to the bottom of
it, I am sick and tired of looking at sergeants and privates. We are
[[Page H3770]]
going to hold them accountable. We are going to court-martial. We are
going to put them in jail, but how do we get to the culture of how the
individuals felt comfortable in doing this? By us addressing the issue
all the way up to the top, okay, and it is important that we do that.
I am talking about the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who I
did in committee thank him for his service to the country. He was a
Member of this Congress, a two-term Secretary, serving his second term
as Defense Secretary, but there becomes a point when you say, you know
something, maybe I need to allow someone else to lead at this point,
when we gave inaccurate information about weapons of mass destruction;
when we gave inaccurate information as it relates to what is going to
happen after the shock-and-awe campaign that was misleading; when we
gave information of the fact that we were ready equipment-wise to go
into Iraq for a year and 15 months, going on 2 years, all of our troops
would have what they need.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, and that
intelligence was based on information that they were getting from
Chalabi, who is a known criminal. I mean, you are taking the country to
war on intelligence, none has been true yet. We repeatedly hear:
Saddam's ties to 9/11, treated as liberators, the whole list, use the
oil revenue, whole list. All of that intelligence was wasted on
information that we were getting from this guy. That is what is
frustrating to me.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, let me just share with you a bid-
for by the Defense Department, some $360,000 on a monthly basis.
I tell you the reason why we will not have hearings here in the
House, public hearings, about what is going on in this war is that no
one has the right answers for what has actually happened today. Forget
about the argument of yesterday. Let us talk about today.
There was a point when the Secretary of Defense could not answer in a
straight way how many U.S. troops we had on the ground. Mr. Secretary,
well, we have maybe, the indicators say maybe, you know, the rotation.
We do not need to hear that. The American people need to know more
about what is going on with this war.
Also, in Time magazine, I must add, Halliburton. So after all, now
this e-mail appears because the cream will rise to the top, or the
truth will, that Vice President Dick Cheney did have something to do
with the no-bid contract and Halliburton. It is not the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Meek) report. Check out Time magazine, and here it is in
black and white, an unclassified letter that was sent to the highest
levels.
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said, one of his superiors said it is fine,
go ahead, move on it, it is being coordinated by the Vice President's
office.
Let me share something with you. This is not small stuff. It is huge.
The whole outing of the CIA agent. This is huge. We had a young lady in
harm's way, and in this White House somewhere she was outed, and then
the President goes and talks to an attorney. It is not a good sign.
So I want to say that the American people have to really pay
attention to what is going on. We are far beyond Democrat and
Republican right now. We are far beyond that. American lives are at
stake, and by the fact of us having these hearings, letting not only
the world but the American people know that we are going to address
prisoner abuse and that we are not going to allow it to happen because,
guess what, we are not them. We are not the terrorists. We are not the
insurgents. We are not individuals that are parking cars in front of
buildings waiting on those cars to explode.
{time} 1715
We do not gun down innocent people. We are the United States of
America. We have to uphold the history and the integrity that our
veterans have put forth in foreign lands and in this country of being
men and women of honor and integrity. For individuals in shirts and
ties to make decisions and then anyone that questions their decisions
is considered helping the terrorists or being on the other side is
really far beyond anything that I can remember. So I think it is
important that the American people pick up that magazine.
Also, there is an article here talking about how we are in full
retreat on our Iraq policy. But I think it is important that we
understand that outsourcing in the White House is still going on, some
of the bad decisions that are going on in the Pentagon, decisions that
are being made and putting America's troops' lives at stake so that
this Congress has to rise up. The chairman of the Committee on Armed
Services in the other body is being criticized by his colleagues,
Republican colleagues, for having open hearings about what is happening
wrong in Iraq. Something is fundamentally wrong with that. His having
those hearings may help save American lives.
So I think it is important we have this open government. No one wants
to give away secrets, but it is important to share this information
with the people and the world to protect America's interests.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I think we need to
add on to what my colleague just said, as we welcome our good friend
from the great State of Alabama here with us, is that after 9/11, and
we all have agreed that 9/11 was an intelligence failure. Everyone has
agreed on that, regardless of party. So if you are in a position of
power where you are about to go to war and you know that your
intelligence apparatus has just failed the country completely, you
would think that you would ask a million more questions. Not a hundred
thousand, a million. And you would think you would be shaking the
intelligence community left and right to try to get accurate
information. Instead, we were relying on a con man to get the
information that we wanted to hear.
So what I do not understand is why, after a major intelligence
failure, you do not try to rectify that problem by having and assuring
that you have good intelligence. Not to make a minor decision, but to
go to war and to send 140,000 troops to war. Why are you not making
sure we have good intelligence?
I think that is something that maybe in many ways Members of Congress
did not ask enough questions, the media did not ask enough questions,
that we were not confrontational enough as to what the Iraqi policy was
going to be.
We have been talking here for a while, so I would like to yield to my
colleague, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).
Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio,
and I am always glad to see my friends from Florida and Ohio with all
the promise that you all represent for this institution.
Let me just share an anecdote with you and then talk about that for a
moment. I was in rural Alabama, in my home district, about close to
exactly a year ago now. It was mid-June of 2003. And I had the honor of
being the commencement Speaker at Judson College in Perry County,
Alabama.
I remember a woman walked up to me after I had done the commencement
speech, and she had tears in her eyes. I made the reasonable assumption
that she was tearful because her child had graduated that day and they
were tears of happiness. She walked up to me and said something that
has stuck in my mind for the last year.
She said, ``Mr. Davis, I have a husband who is in Iraq right now as a
member of the Alabama National Guard, and our daughter did graduate
today. My husband, her father, could not be here because he is serving
our country.'' And then she went on to say, and she said it brokenly,
in the midst of her tears, she went on to say, ``Every morning I get up
and I turn my television on CNN and I see the little crawler at the
bottom of the screen, two Americans killed, three Americans killed.''
And she said, ``Every morning, when I see that, something just jumps up
from my stomach to my throat, and I remember that they always notify
the next of kin before they make a release of the names. And that gives
me relief for a moment. But until I see those names, I always have the
lingering sense of dread.''
That is what she said to me. Mind you, that was a year ago. That was
before what has happened in April, it was before what has happened in
May of this year, it was before Fallujah, it was before another 300
some Americans had lost their lives. That woman still gets up every
morning, and I suspect if I ran into her tomorrow it would be the same
conversation.
[[Page H3771]]
When you talk about Alabama, when you talk about one of the
conservative States in this country, there is a myth in this city that
people have made up their minds about the war. There is a myth in this
city that people who live in the Alabamas of the world have made up
their minds. Let me tell you, people in my State and I think people all
around the south are searching for some wisdom. They are searching for
some guidance. They want enough humility from this city and from the
institutions of power in this city to recognize that we are struggling
and we are trying to find our way.
These are not easy questions by any stretch of the imagination. We
know the basics. We know that we have a significant investment of
forces in a faraway land and that we are losing our men and women. We
know that we have made a commitment, and we know that we are not a
country that shirks from commitments once we make them. At the same
time, we know that there are so many uncertainties. On June 30, there
will be a transfer of power. We do not know what that transfer of power
will beget.
As I have told so many people who live in my district, there should
be no expectation on July 1 that soldiers will be drawn down, that
large numbers of soldiers will leave. We do not know what will happen
if this new government of 33 people is attacked or falls under siege in
the next 6 months. We do not know what will happen if Iraq has
elections and they elect a government that is hostile to the United
States and we are invited to leave. What would we do at that point?
What are our interests at this point in Iraq? Or to put it more
basically, under what circumstances will we stay and under what
circumstances will we begin to think about going?
Those are the questions that the people that you represent in south
Florida and the people you represent in central Ohio and the people I
represent in west and central Alabama are wondering about today. They
are searching for a little bit of humility and a little bit of
guidance.
There are two labels that get tossed around in this town a lot, pro-
war and anti-war; and it strikes me that this, of all conflicts, this,
of all foreign policy crises, may be a little too subtle for those
simple terms.
Like you two gentlemen, and almost all of our colleagues, I spent
Monday attending Memorial Day events. And on Monday morning in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I had a chance to stand as close as I am to you
right now in proximity to the widow of a gentleman who died in Iraq.
His whole family was there. And something occurred to me. What do you
say to a woman in that circumstance?
She really did not want to hear from me about politics. She really
did not want to hear about Bush or Rumsfeld or Tenet. I do not know if
she wanted to hear anything about policy or matters of state at all.
But I do know that she wanted a little bit of comfort, a little bit of
solace, a little bit of understanding.
There are so many families like that. That is what they want from us.
They want some sense that we empathize with their pain.
And we do. There is not a one of us who sits in this institution who
does not 100 percent support the men and women who are fighting there.
Because at this point they are not fighting for a policy. They are
fighting for survival. They do not pick up The New York Times to see if
Bush is up or Kerry is up. They are simply trying to stay alive for a
few more hours. And a lot of them, by the way, are younger than we are.
We are three of the youngest people in this institution. A lot of these
people are far younger than we are.
So the terms pro-war and anti-war, what do they mean? We have
questions in this country, and what we need right now is a little bit
of candor, and what we need is a little bit of direction. We have to
get past this obsessive focus on personalities.
I, like most of you this afternoon, watched the news reports on
George Tenet. I do not know the outgoing CIA Director. I do not know if
you all do or not, but I do not know him. This does not seem to me to
be about George Tenet. It did not seem to me to be about Condoleeza
Rice when my fellow Alabaman testified before the 9/11 Commission. It
did not seem to me to be about even Don Rumsfeld when we saw the
excesses that happened at those prison camps. It is about something
larger: What kind of country are we? What kind of values do we have?
And how do we operate our institutions to reflect those values? Those
are questions that are deeper and more abiding than anything that we
are debating from day to day in the halls of public opinion and in the
halls of this Congress.
So I would just say that what the people need from the President of
the United States is enough humility to acknowledge that even the
President does not know all the answers.
We are close to the 60th anniversary of Normandy, and I do not know
how many of my colleagues know the story of the letter General
Eisenhower wrote. General Eisenhower, as he was contemplating sending
thousands of young men to their fate, wrote a letter that was meant to
address a failure, a failure that he personally might not have
survived. And the letter said something to the effect that this is my
responsibility alone. If there is an error that has been made, it is my
error.
That seems like more than 60 years ago. It seems like light years
ago, sometimes, in this town. Because as you two know very well,
sometimes we occupy a town where ``I am sorry'' is the last thing
people will say. ``I am responsible'' is the last thing people will
say. Or, at best, ``I take responsibility'' is what you say and not
what you do.
So I think as we move deeper into this election year, as we
contemplate the loss of life in Iraq, we all need to find some way to
appeal to the better angels in our nature and some way to be true to
our spirit and our values. And if we do that, we will find our way
home, literally and figuratively. We will find our way to a policy that
works for our country, a policy that is oriented in the best of our
instincts.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my
colleague.
The gentleman brought up General Eisenhower and spurred thoughts in
my mind of the gentlemen of that day, of the Churchills and the
Roosevelts and the Eisenhowers and the larger-than-life figures that
participated in the greatest conflict. You just cannot help but to
compare them to what the behavior is today. However, it just cannot be
compared.
If we look at how Roosevelt handled himself and when we look at how
Churchill not only stood up and gave his great Nation an enormous
amount of confidence at a time when no one thought England would be
able to stand tall, the big contrast I can recognize with Churchill and
President Bush is in the preparation that Churchill gave and the
leadership that London gave their people before anything was happening.
This is going to be a long struggle, but in the end it will be our
finest hour. We are not going to surrender. Churchill just kept saying,
we are not going to surrender. If you take it, you are going to take it
by us being knocked senseless onto the ground, was one of the great
Churchill quotes. The preparation.
In this country, I think it was the exact opposite. We are going to
be greeted as liberators. It is going to be great. Do not worry. It
will be a drive-by war. We will use their oil. They are going to love
us and hand us roses.
Yet when you look at the monumental figures of that era, who, like
the gentleman said, kind of raised everybody's eyes up and tried to put
the institutions in line with the values of the country, I really did
not see that during this.
Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And the difference is, if the gentleman will
continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, it strikes me that in the 1930s and the
1940s the leaders of the world had a fair amount of confidence in the
people that they served. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt had a
certain belief that the people they served were capable of rising to
the occasion and that they would respond to candor and common sense.
{time} 1730
Sometimes in this television sound-bite era that we live in, we do
not have enough confidence in the people of our country. We have a
mind-set that we cannot tell the people in our country full
information, and that we cannot let them know a commitment may be a
[[Page H3772]]
long one because they may not have faith. We cannot let them know the
money is going to be three times what we say it is because they may not
have faith. We cannot let them know all of these uncertainties because
we fear they may not have faith.
I have spent a fair amount of time in my life trying cases before
juries, and I have won them and I have lost them; but I can confidently
tell Members that every jury that I have ever appeared in front of I
felt did the right thing in terms of what the facts were, whether it
was what I advocated or not. I have that same kind of faith in the
American people, that if we tell the American people the facts, I have
confidence in our ability to apply those facts to policy and to apply
our values to those policies; and maybe we need more of a sense of
confidence. Maybe if the administration had had more confidence in the
quality of our people, we would have had a clearer, more accurate path
painted on where we are going in Iraq.
We all know from the work both of you do, we know there is a reason
why certain facts were not emphasized. What was the old saying from the
movie, you cannot handle the truth, a movie back in the 1990s, there
was a feeling and fear that maybe the people just could not handle the
truth. I do not know about other Members, but I think they can.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure hearing the
gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) and what the gentleman brings to the
table as it relates to philosophy and history. Part of our democracy is
making sure we level with the American people, the good, bad and ugly.
They need to know because they need to be able to prepare themselves.
The President recently asked Americans to make the sacrifice that
they made in World War II, make the sacrifice that they made in World
War I and other conflicts, some of the great wars that have taken
place; but it was a different approach to those wars. We planned; we
made sure that individuals had equipment. We made sure that we had a
strategy going in and coming out.
There was a Senator from Missouri, a junior Senator during World War
II. His name was Harry S Truman. He had a select committee that was
dealing with contracting, dealing with the needs of World War II at
that particular time; and he did what he had to do during a time of
war. During the time of World War II, they had a number of hearings to
make sure that the troops had what they needed and they were able to
respond real-time to issues that were coming up during that war.
For us to say, well, we do not have time to do that, we should not
question the Pentagon about things that they are doing, we are muzzled
as a Congress. Not to clear my conscience, not to say this needs to be
said, but when the annals of history are reflected upon, I want to make
sure that those of us on this side of the aisle, that we did everything
that we could to give the facts as we see them printed in documents.
A Pentagon report recently released said 25 percent-plus lives could
have been saved if we had the right equipment at the right time.
Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, that sparks another thought I had
which I think is worth noting. There was another principle that those
leaders had, and it was the principle of sacrifice. They had the moral
authority and the willingness to say to this country this cause is so
mighty, we have to sacrifice.
Contrast that with about a year ago. We were here when all three of
us very strongly felt if we were going to continue to have to pay the
cost of the war in Iraq and have to bear that burden, maybe it was time
to suspend the tax cut for just the top 1 percent of Americans, or
maybe just for people earning more than $1 million, and pay for the war
and occupation with that money. Now that is sacrifice. It is
proportionate sacrifice. It is going to those most able to bear it
instead of those least able to bear it, and you are saying that our
cause is so strong and righteous we are going to come to the American
people and ask them to forgo something. It would have meant something a
year ago if the President had done that. If the President had come to
the body and said, I care so deeply about this cause, I am willing to
abandon one of my own programs, I am willing to walk away from this tax
cut for people earning a million dollars a year or more, not because I
want to, but because this is a time of sacrifice.
That kind of inspiration I think would have moved this country and
would have produced an overwhelming response from people on both sides
of the aisle. But somehow we have entered a zone where we talk the
language of sacrifice at Memorial Day events and events around the
country, and we will talk the language again on the Normandy
anniversary on June 6; we talk the language of sacrifice, but we run
from the substance of sacrifice.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure, because I
was on the floor last night with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Cummings) and the Congressional Black Caucus, and I shared that I was
at the World War II memorial with my mother and uncle, who is a Korean
War veteran. They asked for all of the veterans to stand up. A number
of them stood up. Those individuals that could not stand up, they put
their hands up. I could not help but think ``America the Beautiful''
playing in the background, planes flying over, what was going to be
their reality on Tuesday, when they go to the VA to try to receive
services, the reality of calling for help and having to wait 6 months
to see an eye doctor.
When we start looking at how we treat our veterans and how we respond
to them, the gentleman mentioned the deficit, and I am going to say we
had this credit card made up. This is the U.S. Treasury credit card,
Republican Congress. That is a big number, $477 billion. That is a lot
of money. That is an awful lot of money. And we look at, hopefully, the
expiration date is good through 11/04 so we can get a new majority in
here to be able to do something truly about the deficit. I appreciate
the gentleman's work on that committee and on the Committee on the
Budget to talk about true fiscal responsibility. And I will say it is
important on the Committee on Armed Services, on behalf of troops and
what the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) has just shared with us,
families, we watch the news without even worrying about a family
member, will their name scroll across the screen. Will they become a
picture in the wall in the backdrop of a newscast. We have that
privilege of not worrying, but we have individuals not based on the
troop decisions, and many of the individuals on the ground, but the
decisions that are made right here in Washington, D.C. that are
endangering the lives of American troops.
We are going to support them, and we want to make sure that they have
the equipment that they need to have; but if we do not do our job here
in this Congress in giving voice to the voices, giving voice to that
Reservist and that family that the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis)
talked about where the father could not see the graduation of his own
daughter, but he is fighting for the very freedom she is celebrating
right now.
Do Members know why the President would not say, I am going to
sacrifice one of my own programs? Because, guess what, he is never
wrong. I am sorry to say it, he is never wrong. He never says, hey, I
am wrong. The only thing he says, and we need to watch this word, and I
need the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) to share some of the things we
discussed earlier, but when we hear that somebody is doing a superb
job, watch out.
The President today said, George Tenet, and I must say after the
President stood up here in the well and said we believe that Iraq has
received the necessary materials they need to make a nuclear weapon,
and then once we found out that was inaccurate information, he was
prepared to throw George Tenet under the bus, and now he said he has
done a superb job. That sounds like the same thing he said about his
Secretary of Defense. It is not a personal thing, but it is an issue of
decisions. Especially when you are appointed and not elected, you have
to make the decision if the leader does not take the prerogative to
make the right decision and say, you know something, thank you for your
service. In an honorable way, we will give you a gold watch and we
appreciate your service. But he is saying nothing at all. That is what
inflames insurgence on American troops.
[[Page H3773]]
I will leave it at that.
Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, there is another historical point
worth making. None of us were here, we were all too young, but we have
all read about the Bay of Pigs in 1961 in Cuba. For some of the younger
people listening that do not know what the Bay of Pigs was, it was a
failed effort to invade Cuba back in 1961. Lives were lost, and it was
seen as a dismal policy mistake. John Kennedy had every reason
politically to say this was a plan conceived by the previous President.
He had every reason to say that this was something my CIA director
foisted on me, this was something I did not want to do, and the
military pushed it down my throat. He could have fired a number of
people.
President Kennedy said something that is worth repeating. He said,
``I am the responsible officer of the government. Defeat is an orphan,
victory has a thousand fathers.'' That rings across the last 43 years.
Defeat is always an orphan. It is something that happened. I did not do
it; it happened. It is always something that no one wants to claim.
Whereas victory, everyone wants to share in that and say, I did my
part, you did your part.
We come back again to the same place. What I think so many of our
people want is enough humility from up high, enough humility from the
throne that we can conceive the possibility of error.
World War II is a wonderful analogy. We got some things wrong in
World War II. The greatest President of all time, in my opinion,
Franklin Roosevelt, signed the order that led to the internment of
Japanese Americans. A Supreme Court that consisted of some of the
finest jurists we have ever had approved that internment of Japanese
Americans. We all know that was perfectly wrong now.
If men as great as Franklin Roosevelt and Robert Jackson and Hugo
Black could be that wrong, maybe it should occur to us today that some
of the individuals who sit in circles in power today could be wrong.
Again, there is a lesson about humility to be learned there.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I was just enjoying listening to the
gentlemen talk. I want to clean up a couple of things that were
mentioned. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) mentioned that now we
want to make sure that our soldiers have the equipment that they need,
we want to make sure that the vehicles are up-armored and they have the
vests and the plates to go into the vests and everything else.
We have gotten so caught up in the fact that we want to get it to
them, we forget to ask, you are telling me we went to war and we did
not have our troops properly equipped? Lack of preparation.
In the Defense appropriations bill that we just passed out of the
House, we reimbursed parents or whoever for people, parents who paid
for vests for their kids. I mean, you have to be kidding me. We had to
reimburse parents that paid for their protective vests for soldiers in
Iraq.
The general that testified about the prison abuse said that there
were a couple of problems, major problems. One, lack of training. One,
lack of supervision. To me, after almost 2 years on the Committee on
Armed Services and a layman, civilian, lack of training and lack of
supervision to me means we do not have enough troops there. If you are
not training them properly, you do not have enough people to train; and
if you are not supervising them properly, you do not have enough people
to supervise. I think that is basic common sense to say this group has
not prepared us for this war.
One other thing I would like to say because some young people are
probably sitting at home listening to this, remember as soon as
President Clinton got in office, there were always investigations,
investigating this, Travelgate, Nannygate, this gate and that gate.
They were always investigating the man. Why? The House and the Senate
were Republican. The White House was Democrat. We are now in a one-
party rule system. The House is controlled by the Republicans, the
Senate is controlled by the Republicans, the White House is controlled
by Republicans. I am not saying that they are always wrong, and I am
not saying that we are always right. All I am saying is when there is
one-party rule, we cannot subpoena people out of this House because the
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) from the Committee on Government
Reform is not the chairman of the committee.
{time} 1745
If he was the Chair of the committee, we could subpoena some of these
people who wear the suits and bring them before committees in the House
and have them sit and tell us what happened and why and make sure we
are starting to hold people responsible for their actions.
That is just what I want to say to the American people, is you cannot
have one party rule the whole government. It is unhealthy for the
institutions; it is unhealthy for the country.
There is no balance right now. There is no one overseeing what is
going on. We get fed a line from somebody like this, and no one can
stand up and question it. That is not a good way to run your country.
This country was founded on all the different aspects, the branches and
everything else, in order to bring some balance to these institutions
we have.
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