[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 105 (Wednesday, September 8, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H6879-H6885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, on September 11, 2001, 3 years ago, I
watched in horror as America, and part of my district specifically, was
attacked and destroyed. The extreme sense of pain and loss I felt as a
New Yorker and as an American, as someone who knew many of the victims,
does not even begin to match the pains that the families of that attack
must have felt.
This attack on the United States was an attack, a deliberate attack
on civilians. It was a deliberate attempt to kill as many American
civilians as possible for the simple and great crime of being
[[Page H6880]]
Americans. This we will never forget, and we must never forgive.
We must not allow ourselves to forget how vulnerable we have become
and how we must change that vulnerability. We know that we are not as
safe as we should have been on September 11, 3 years ago, and we still
mourn the thousands who died that day.
The 9/11 Commission charged with investigating the tragic events of
September 11 released its unanimous report that should help us ensure
that this type of attack does not happen again. Democrats are fighting
to implement the Commission's recommendations, but the Republicans, by
and large, who fought the creation of the Commission and tried
prematurely to end its work are still dragging their feet.
President Bush strongly opposed any independent inquiry into the 9/11
attacks. He argued that it would duplicate a probe conducted by
Congress. In July 2002, his administration issued a statement of policy
that read, The administration would oppose an amendment that would
create a new commission to conduct a similar review. Such an amendment
is duplicative and would cause a further diversion of essential
personnel from their duty fighting the war.
House majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), opposed
the creation of the 9/11 Commission. I quote from a CNN interview on
May 22nd, 2002, by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay): We are at war,
and when you are at war, you have to worry about making public a lot of
things that should be kept private for you to fight the war. An
independent commission by its very nature is very public. Frankly, it
has only been asked for by people that are running for President.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Who is he referring to when he indicated that only
those that were running for President would support the creation of an
independent commission?
Mr. NADLER. Well, I do not know because President Bush flip-flops. So
maybe he is referring to President Bush after he decided to support it.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) flip-flops, and maybe he is
referring to himself. Maybe he is referring to the families of the 9/11
victims who were the leading proponents of an independent commission.
He may have been referring to Democrats who were, in fact, running for
President, or who a year later ran for President, such as Senator Kerry
and Howard Dean and others who did support this. Most Democrats
supported it, but the majority of the Americans supported it, and I do
not think the majority of Americans ran for President.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, well, again, I am surprised that the
Republican leader in this House made that statement, because, according
to our information, upon our return, based on the 9/11 Commission's
report, the majority leader has now announced that he hopes to have
legislation before this House dealing with the concerns that were
expressed by the 9/11 Commission. Am I confused?
Mr. NADLER. No, no, you are quite correct, and as I am going to show
in recounting the history here in a few minutes, the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. DeLay), bowing to Democratic pressure and to common sense,
flip-flopped and did change his mind and is, or at least he says he is,
supporting legislation. We still wait to see the legislation to
implement the Commission's report, after the administration first did
not want to do that.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, again, just to be clear in my mind, and I am sure
that those who might be viewing our conversation this evening want
clarity, what you are suggesting is that when the concept or the
proposal of an independent commission looking into the events and the
failures that led to our national tragedy on 9/11, it was President
Bush and Vice President Cheney that steadfastly refused to accept the
creation of that Commission; is that correct?
Mr. NADLER. That is correct. It was President Bush, Vice President
Cheney and the Republican leadership in both Houses of Congress who
steadfastly opposed the creation of that Commission and eventually
bowed to pressure coming from Democratic leaders in Congress and
Democrats in Congress, from the families of the victims, from the press
and from the American people at large, and eventually they bowed to
that pressure and they flipped-flopped, and they reluctantly allowed
the Commission to be created.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, now they
embrace, and I congratulate them with enthusiasm, the 9/11 independent
Commission's report, and hopefully before we adjourn for this year, for
this particular session, a review of their recommendations with
appropriate legislation can be passed.
Mr. NADLER. Well, that is correct. Again, they sought to delay it.
They sought to oppose it. They sought to appoint Henry Kissinger to
chair it. That did not fly when the public screamed at that because Mr.
Kissinger was hardly an objective leader, as Governor Kean and former
Congressman Hamilton have proven to be. And even after the Commission
issued its recommendations, the President said he was going to file the
recommendations and appoint an intelligence czar, but he also said that
that intelligence czar would have no real power. But yesterday he flip-
flopped on that and finally bowed to the pressure of the Commission,
and the American people, and the families of the victims, and the
Democrats who have been pushing to implement the recommendations of the
Commission and give the intelligence director that would be created by
this recommendation real power. The President flip-flopped on that
yesterday and came to the right decision finally yesterday.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman would yield once more, I believe it is
important that the American people and our colleagues be reminded that
this independent Commission that produced a document, again that has
been widely praised and embraced, now by President Bush, by the
Republican majority, by Democrats and others, and the American people,
that this independent Commission was bipartisan in nature.
You and I are aware that the former ranking member on the House
Committee on International Relations, Lee Hamilton, was the vice chair.
Mr. Hamilton was a Democrat and continues to be a Democrat, and the
former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean, is a Republican, continues to
be a Republican.
Mr. NADLER. He was the Chairman.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And he was the Chairman, and that was a bipartisan
Commission.
Mr. NADLER. Yes. This was a bipartisan Commission that was appointed
by the President after the President and the Vice President and the
Republican leadership in Congress continued to oppose its creation but
eventually flip-flopped.
Now, in fact, the House Republicans bowed to White House pressure in
resisting creation of this Commission, and I quote the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Goss), who is now the President's nominee for Director of
the CIA ironically. He stated, and he was quite honest, in the
Baltimore Sun on June 14, 2002, I am very much aware that we have a
good working relationship with the White House. Access to information
is working well, he said, and I do not want anything to interfere with
that. The White House is not interested in this Commission; hence, I am
not for bringing the subject up.
Then they bowed to pressure; they supported it. Finally in late 2002,
after opposing it for a year, President Bush flip-flopped and finally
agreed to support an independent investigation into the 9/11 attacks
after the congressional committees that were looking into this
unearthed more and more examples of intelligence lapses.
But then, having been forced to accept the creation of the
Commission, a bipartisan Commission, five members of either party
headed by former Governor Kean, a Republican, and former ranking member
Hamilton, a Democrat, they tried to stop the Commission's work.
The Bush administration and Speaker Hastert fought to close down the
Commission prematurely, after delaying, after refusing to give them
information so they could get their work started. Remember that, when
the 9/11 Commission because of these delays needed to seek an extension
of this
[[Page H6881]]
deadline to complete the investigations from May, all the way to July,
a 2-month extension, and I am quoting the New York Times of January 28
of this year, White House and Republican congressional leaders have
said they see no need to extend the congressionally-mandated deadline
now set for May 27, and a spokesman for Speaker Hastert said Tuesday
that Mr. Hastert would oppose any legislation to grant the extension.
Then, in early February of this year, the White House again flip-
flopped and reversed course in support of an extension of the
investigation into government failings surrounding the September 11
terrorist attacks. The Bush administration had opposed expanding the
charter of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission beyond the May 27 expiration
date, but bowed to demands from victims' families and Democrats and to
the panel's request for more time. Speaker Hastert was reluctant to
support this extension, but he also flip-flopped. He bowed to pressure
and agreed to support an extension in late February.
Then, when the Commission finally came in with its report in July, a
few weeks ago, the Republicans in Congress sought to delay the review
of the 9/11 Commission recommendations until after recess, until after,
so that they would not have anything ready to go before Congress until
after the November 2 elections.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if I could interrupt, and if the gentleman
would yield, my memory of the press conference conducted by Chairman
Kean, the Republican from New Jersey, and by Lee Hamilton, the Democrat
from the Indiana, with the unanimity of the bipartisan Commission,
underscored and emphasized the need to move expeditiously to protect
the United States from a recurrence of the kind of attack that occurred
on 9/11. Is that an accurate statement?
Mr. NADLER. Yes, indeed. The Chairman, Governor Kean, and the vice
chairman, former ranking member Hamilton, stressed that we are in a
war; we are in a very serious war with terrorists, and speed is of the
essence, and we should do this now. We should consider these
recommendations now and enact them expeditiously and not wait till next
year or until after the November elections.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, now here we are, heading towards an
election, with obviously complex legislation to be drafted based upon
those recommendations put forth by the Commission so that our homeland,
the security of the United States, is enhanced, and yet, and maybe you
can inform me and the American people who might be viewing us this
evening, when was the concept, the idea of the 9/11 Commission first
proposed in the aftermath of the attacks on our homeland on September
11?
{time} 2115
Mr. NADLER. Well, I do not remember the exact date, but people were
talking about this commission not long after 9/11. And, in fact, in
early 2002 they were doing it. In July 2002, I quoted this before, the
administration issued a statement of policy opposed to the creation of
such a commission. In July of 2002, which meant in the spring of 2002,
people were pushing it. So 2 years ago, or 2\1/2\ years ago.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Right, Mr. Speaker, better than 2\1/2\ years at this
point in time this concept was introduced. We know from newspaper
reports, from statements made by the leaders of the Republican Party in
this House, as well as statements made by President Bush and others in
the administration that there was a reluctance to cooperate with the 9/
11 Commission.
Mr. NADLER. Well, there was a reluctance to have a 9/11 Commission,
then there was a reluctance to cooperate with the 9/11 Commission,
because, remember, they had to beg and threaten, threaten subpoenas to
get information out of the administration. Then they had to threaten
subpoenas to get witnesses before the commission. Then there had to be
heavy political pressure because, with all these delays, they could not
finish their work by the legislatively mandated time at the end of May;
and so they sought a 2-month extension, and the administration and the
Republican leadership of the House said no. So there had to be heavy
pressure from the Democrats, from the public, from the families of the
victims to get them the extension so they could finish their job.
Then, when they got the extension and they made their recommendations
at the end of July, and they said, okay, now it is time to move on
this, then the Republican leadership in the House said, we cannot move
on this. We will not have time to do it before the election, maybe
until next year. Then there was heavy pressure from the Democrat
leadership, from Democrats and the families of the victims, and others,
and, finally, finally, the Republicans have now said, only in the last
couple of weeks, that they are now going to try to have legislation
enacted before the election.
And I am glad the Republican leadership has flip-flopped once again
on this, because at least I will say this, when they are pressured by
the Democrats, when they are pressured by the families of the victims,
when they are pressured by the American people, when they are pressured
by the media, at least on this subject, they flipflop in the right
direction, toward what they should have been doing earlier.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, Mr. Speaker, again, I guess my frustration, if
the gentleman will continue to yield, is that in the aftermath of our
national tragedy, if this proposal, and I presume it was put forward
sometime from September of 2001, several months thereafter, if it had
been acted on in good faith, with full cooperation from the White
House, with the support of both parties in this House and in the
Senate, we very well might have had the exact same report that we now
have, that was presented to the American people just recently, months
if not years ago so that we could have been in a position in the
distant past to have acted in a responsible, thoughtful way to adopt
those limitations that passed through the legislative process. Where
would we have been?
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would agree with the
gentleman. It is very clear that had we acted with dispatch, the
commission could have been appointed at least a year or 16 months
earlier than it was, and it could have had its report ready a year or
16 months earlier than it did, and we could have acted on that report a
year or 16 months earlier than we will, and we could have started
implementing these things.
This is part of a pattern. And the pattern is that despite these
flipflops, despite this bowing to Democratic pressure to act, this
administration, this House, the Senate still is not doing nearly enough
to make this Nation safer. Osama bin Laden is still at large. We did
not finish the job in Afghanistan. The Taliban has reemerged. The
illegal drug trade is booming in Afghanistan. The warlord disarmament
is behind schedule. Why? Because we took the resources away. In the
fall of 2002, we started taking the resources, the troops who could
have founded Osama bin Laden, the Rangers who knew how to look, and we
took them away to put them in Iraq.
Mr. Speaker, I want to read two paragraphs from an article in the
current issue of the American Prospect about the war on terrorism. It
says, ``The President, as he revealed last week, doesn't think,'' and
this is an article by Matthew Yglesias. The title is ``Surrender Monkey
in Chief.''
``The President, as he revealed last week, doesn't think he can win
the war on terrorism. That is a bit of an off-message remark for a man
whose re-election campaign is predicated on the notion that only he can
win the war on terrorism. Worse, the statement suggests the President
has only a passing familiarity with the generally accepted meaning of
the term `war on terrorism.'
``Even stranger than this, however, is what the President said he
thinks is possible. `I think you can create conditions so that those
who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.'
Total victory may indeed be setting the bar too high, but is it so
unreasonable to expect the President to promise that his policies will
reduce the incidence of terrorism, mitigating the problem if not
completely solving it? Apparently so.
``George Bush not only won't bring us total safety, he won't even
make us safer. Instead he will make those who threaten us `less
acceptable.' He won't
[[Page H6882]]
thwart their efforts to achieve their goals, the imposition of a
neofundamentalist Caliphate on the Islamic world, followed by God knows
what. He will simply discourage them from `using terror as a tool' to
advance that goal. It's a starkly pessimistic vision.''
Now, that is the paragraph from this article by Matthew Yglesias in
the American Prospect, but it is quite correct. The President, Mr.
Speaker, will not even recognize the nature of this war. He keeps
calling it a war against terrorism. But the fact is we are not fighting
against terrorism as a technique, nor, are we, in fact, fighting
against all people who use terrorism as a technique. We are not at war
with the Irish Republican Army, who do not threaten the United States.
We are not at war with the Baath terrorists who threaten Spain, but not
the United States. We are not at war with the Tamil Nadu terrorists who
want a separate Nadu state in Sri Lanka, and who use terrorism against
the Sri Lankans but not against the United States.
We are at war against Islamic terrorists, against those in the Muslim
world who think it their duty, who think it their religious mission to
carry on a Jihad, to carry on a religious war using terrorist messages
against the West in general and the United States in particular. That
is who we are at war against. And if we do not admit who we are at war
against, who have declared war on us, it is very difficult to define
the war properly and the measures necessary to wage that war properly.
That is one of the reasons why the President badly mistakes and the
Vice President badly mistakes, and most of the speakers at the
Republican convention last week badly mistake when they conflate the
war in Iraq with the war on terrorism. The war in Iraq is a different
war. Iraq is not part of the terrorist threat.
Saddam Hussein was a standard fascist thug dictator, of whom there
are, unfortunately, 40 or 50 in the world.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman would yield on that, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. NADLER. I will yield.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I think we all agree, and there is not a single
individual in this House that would disagree with the statement that
Saddam Hussein represented the kind of a despot and the kind of thug
and the kind of dictator that we all find reprehensible. But what I
find ironic is that in our effort to undermine and to defeat Saddam
Hussein, we have now allied ourselves with similar thugs, with similar
despots, with similar reprehensible heads of state.
I find it fascinating that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld visits
Uzbekistan and praises the President of Uzbekistan, Ivan Karimov, who
to call a thug is a disservice to the term thug. He is absolutely a
replica of Saddam Hussein. There are some 6,000 political prisoners
today in Uzbekistan. And what do we hear from the White House, what do
we hear from the Department of State? Nothing. Nothing. Yet when we
read the Department of State's report on human rights abuses in
Uzbekistan, it is damning. It is damning.
What do we hear about the thug, the despot by the name of Turkman
Bashi, who resides in Turkmenistan, who is also our new friend and
ally, who by the way not only is a thug but is clearly a psychopath?
Maybe the gentleman is unaware of this, but he changed the month of
January, the name January, and named it after himself. But he has
displayed a certain filial affection for his mother, because he then
went forward and changed the name of the month of April and named it
after his mother. And these are our new friends.
Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I understand that that
is the case. I also understand that that is part of the problem. We are
engaged in a very serious war with the Islamic terrorists. We may have
to ally ourselves, and I am not going to criticize the President on
this point, we may have to ally ourselves, as we did in the Cold War,
sometimes justifiably, sometimes not, with not-too-presentable allies
against the people who really threaten us.
Winston Churchill, the great anti-Communist Winston Churchill, was a
great anti-Communist for many years; and he also, of course, warned the
world, and the British in particular, against the Nazis. And he went to
war against the Nazis. Britain finally went to war against Germany.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Churchill became Prime Minister in
1940, and he rallied the British and rallied the Free World against the
Nazis. And when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, who had been their
allies and who Churchill hated, Churchill was asked, and he offered all
aid to Stalin, who was another thug, Churchill was asked how can you
say something nice about Stalin? Churchill said, I expect that if
Hitler invaded hell I should find something nice to say about the
Devil. So I am not going to criticize.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman will yield just for a moment.
Mr. Speaker, I respect the gentleman's point. I guess what I am
underscoring, though, is the repeated claim of a certain morality, a
certain moralism, the distinction between good and evil. Yet the truth
is we are allying ourselves, for convenience purposes, to individuals
that are as evil as Saddam Hussein, who by the way we allied ourselves
with back in the 1980s.
Mr. NADLER. The fact is, that is true. We are doing that. We did that
in the 1980s and 1970s and 1960s, and there was lively debate in this
country, and it is a pragmatic debate. Sometimes you have to ally with
bad people because of the danger presented by other bad people. The
question whether you should is sometimes a question of pragmatism, is
it really necessary? Is it really necessary in order to advance the
greater cause of survival, the survival of liberty or the physical
survival of the United States?
Now here I want to get back to the main point I wanted to make.
Iraq's Saddam Hussein is a fascist thug. Terrible. But there are 30 or
40 others just as terrible. We do not seek to go to war against all of
them to change those regimes. The only justification for going to war
against another country, with the possible exception if it is
committing genocide, is self-protection: to protect the United States,
to protect our own people, to protect our friends and allies against
invasion, against attack.
{time} 2130
But because we attacked Iraq which was not a threat to the United
States, we diverted resources from the real war against the Islamic
terrorists. We did not find Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Dick
Clarke, the former National Security Director, testified we had
specialized troops in Afghanistan that could have found him, but they
were taken away and the job was given to Afghanistani warlords. Who
knows who gave them the higher pay, us or Osama bin Laden. They did not
do the jobs because our troops were taken to Iraq. Now we have now
shifted the resources back, so Dick Clarke says, well, we will find
Osama bin Laden, but in those 2 years, al Qaeda has morphed. It has
become many different organizations. It has become Hydra-headed. So
capturing Osama bin Laden will not give us the yield in increased
safety that doing so 2.5 years ago might have done.
And why did we do that, to deal with a threat that we now know, and
we should have known then, there were no weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq? There were no nuclear weapons in Iraq. We had no operational
connections with al Qaeda, to quote the 9/11 Commission findings, no
real reason to go to war with them at all except the President now
retroactively says they were nasty people. Sure, they were nasty
people; but that does not justify going to war and having 1,000
American troops killed so far, and thousands of Iraqi citizens killed
so far because we decided it would be nice to have a democratic regime
there. Sure it would. I do not know if it is going to happen. The more
likely result is prolonged quagmire and civil war in Iraq.
The fact is that should not have been on the front burner. We should
have finished the job in Afghanistan and finished the job in going
after al Qaeda.
Equally to the point, we spent $200 billion in Iraq, a total waste of
money, and between the $200 billion that we have spent in Iraq so far
and the trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the wealthy this
administration and this country have passed, this administration is not
willing to spend the money on what they should spend the money on to
protect us. This administration does not take seriously enough the
terrorist war being waged against us by the Islamic jihaadists.
[[Page H6883]]
From before 9/11, when the Bush administration ignored many warnings,
to this day, this administration refuses to spend the money necessary
to protect the American people. Two months after 9/11, there were
proposals in this House to spend $10 billion to protect our nuclear and
chemical facilities and our transportation terminals against attacks
which could kill or wound thousands of people. The administration
opposed those proposals. Those proposals died. On ABC News tonight we
saw pictures of trains going across tracks a few blocks from here,
trains carrying chlorine gas and other lethal chemicals, unprotected;
trains that, if attacked with a rocket-propelled grenade that pierced
those cars, would loosen clouds of chlorine which could kill hundreds
of thousands of people in Washington.
This administration refuses to spend the money to buy the weapons-
grade plutonium and uranium in the former Soviet Union which could
easily be smuggled out to make atomic weapons because they care more
about tax cuts for the wealthy and this misbegotten quagmire in Iraq
than about protecting the American people from the real threats.
When I saw in real-time, and I was watching on television, I saw the
second plane go into the World Trade Center, I had two thoughts
immediately. My first thought, my God, this is a terrorist attack. And
my second thought was thank God they do not have access to nuclear
weapons. Three thousand people were killed. If that had been a 10-
kiloton nuclear bomb, which is a baby as they go these days, it would
have been half a million people, and yet we are not doing what we
should to make sure that that will not happen.
I just finished reading a rather terrifying book by Graham Allison,
``Nuclear Terrorism,'' which predicts flatly if we do not change our
policies and start showing some real urgency, that within 10 years
there will be nuclear explosions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and
Washington, and God knows where else. Millions of Americans will die,
but this administration is dragging its feet.
The 9/11 Commission and leading nonproliferation experts say the
administration has been too lax in securing nuclear weapons and
materials in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
Mr. Speaker, the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons is
widespread. When President Bush said that if given weapons-grade
material, weapons-grade plutonium and uranium, Iraq could build a
nuclear bomb within a year, he was correct; but so could 20 other
countries, if given the weapons-grade material, build a nuclear bomb
within a year. So could al Qaeda, and so could a lot of sophisticated
terrorist groups. The problem is getting that weapons-grade nuclear
material. That is what countries spend millions of dollars to do. That
is why we built Hanford and Oak Ridge in World War II. That is why Iran
and Pakistan are trying to get lots of centrifuges, but you have to get
hold of that material. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of it are lying
around, enough to build thousands of bombs, in the former Soviet Union,
guarded by a colonel who may not have been paid lately just waiting to
be sold on the black market or smuggled to al Qaeda.
We have an agreement with the Russians under the Threat Reduction
Initiative of Nunn-Lugar. Again, that is a bipartisan initiative.
Senator Nunn is a conservative Democrat; Senator Lugar, Republican
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. That bipartisan initiative
was passed in 1991 to acquire that material. We have an agreement with
the Russians to do it over a 30-year period.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, given what
happened on September 11, 2001, it just makes common sense to
accelerate the Nunn-Lugar efforts to reduce that 30 years to a
significantly shorter period of time, make it months rather than 30
years, to protect not just the homeland, but to protect the world from
a nuclear disaster.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the gentleman. The 9/
11 Commission in their final report said, ``Outside experts are deeply
worried about the U.S. Government's commitment and approach to securing
the weapons and highly dangerous materials still scattered in Russia
and other countries of the former Soviet Union.''
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I wonder out loud whether that $200
billion that we have already expended of taxpayers' dollars in Iraq, if
that had been diverted to deal with the real enemy, and I think the
gentleman makes an excellent point, it is absolutely essential that we
agree to identify the enemy that poses a threat to the United States. I
am not referring again to nation states.
Mr. NADLER. The problem is that there seems to be an obsession in the
Bush administration with nation states, Iraq being one of them. The
real enemy here is not nation states right now. The real enemy are the
Islamic terrorist groups, al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and various
others. They keep morphing and having new names and groups. They work
together. They have tremendous technical sophistication. They have a
lot of people, and they have the ability to threaten us with nuclear
weapons.
Let me say, to quote Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the
Arms Control Association, ``All of the experts I know recommend that
the most urgent task to prevent terrorist networks from getting their
hands on such materials is to secure the stockpiles of these materials
where they exist, and the prime location is Russia and the former
Soviet Union.''
Before September 11, 2001, the Bush administration intended to
eliminate funding for this program, eliminate it, but they did reverse
course after the terrorist attacks. Most critics agree that the pace is
too slow and the scope is too narrow.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, how much on a yearly basis is expended by
this White House?
Mr. NADLER. We are now spending about $400 million a year.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Four hundred million dollars annually over a 30-year
period, my math was never too good, but it clearly pales in comparison
to the $200 billion that we have already expended in Iraq.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. To quote Joseph
Cirincione, the Director for Nonproliferation of the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, the author of the book ``Deadly Arsenals &
Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction,'' we should be aiming to do all
of this in the next 4 years, and Senator Kerry must have read that book
because his proposal is to do it in 4 years.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to get into politics, but I
think the gentleman makes an excellent point with clarity by
identifying the issue, and the issue is it is important that we all
understand what enemy are we describing and talking about when we talk
about a threat to the United States.
The administration continues to suggest that somehow by invading
Iraq, we will have deterred terrorism, but the reality is it is just
the opposite. Attacks are on the rise throughout the world. An NBC News
analysis that was viewed on September 2, just last week, showed that of
the roughly 2,930 terrorism-related deaths since 9/11, 58 percent of
them have occurred this year. That is in excess of 1,700. We just
picked the paper up this past weekend and witnessed a horrific
incident.
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, 3 years after 9/11, the number of terrorist
incidents is going up. The number of recruits for these terrorist
groups are increasing far faster than we can kill or decapitate them.
They have morphed and decentralized so even if we capture the people
around bin Laden, or even bin Laden, it will not matter as much as if
we had done it 2.5 years ago because new leaders have arisen.
To finish, and this is the Director of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace talking about securing all of the nuclear materials
in the next 4 years, ``What we should be doing is implementing a very
aggressive program to go out and secure and eliminate all potential
source of nuclear weapons and materials that terrorists might obtain,
whether in the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Iran, or more than 40
countries that run research reactors.'' Would this be expensive? Yes.
But we could do it annually for the price of 1 month of operations in
Iraq, 3- to $4 billion a year for 4 years would do the trick, and yet
President Bush has tried to cut this funding repeatedly.
[[Page H6884]]
What I find baffling is why the White House has insisted on attacking
the most peripheral elements of the WMD threat, like Iraq, while
ignoring, largely ignoring, the central threat, nuclear proliferation.
The upshot, and this is a quote from a column in the New York Times by
Nicholas Kristof a month ago, in fact a month ago and 2 days, ``The
upshot is that the risk that a nuclear explosion will devastate an
American city is greater now than it was during the Cold War, and it is
growing.''
So the first thing we should be doing is spending our money, the
money that we are now wasting on a tax cut for the rich, the money that
we are wasting on the quagmire in Iraq. A far more important use of it
is to control the production cycle for nuclear materials. That is how
you shut off the risk of nuclear explosions.
The second thing, this administration inspects only 2 percent of the
6 million shipping containers that come into this country every year,
any one of which could hide a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon
inside it.
I had an amendment on the floor of this House a year ago to insist
that we inspect every container. When I say inspect every container, I
do not mean that someone has to go through it by hand. That has to be
done in some cases, but in most cases you set up a machine that
operates through neutrons or neumasons, which is probably a better
technology. It costs a couple of million dollars for the machine, and
you set it up in Singapore or Hong Kong, and it is like a car wash. You
take the container on a truck or train chassis through it, and it tells
you what is in it.
{time} 2145
It tells you the elements. It is spectroscopic. If you see uranium in
it or plutonium, then maybe you look through it. And if you see a lot
of nitrogen where it should not be, then you say maybe there are
explosives in there and you look through it. You could do this again
for a couple of billion dollars a year, inspect every container before
it gets put on a ship in a foreign port bound for the United States.
When I brought this up on the floor of the House, the distinguished
chairman of the appropriations subcommittee said, No, we don't need to
do that. We will inspect the high-risk containers. I said, Mr.
Chairman, the terrorists know that. They'll put the bombs in the low-
risk containers. If you read the book ``America the Vulnerable'' by
Steve Flynn who served under Presidents Bush and Clinton and Reagan,
you see exactly how a very innocent container with innocent stuff in it
from perfectly legitimate, reputable firms can have a bomb or a
biological weapon or a radiological bomb, a dirty bomb placed in it in
various ways while it is in transit.
We must inspect these. You can then, after inspecting them, put
certain electronic things on it that communicates with a GPS satellite
and tells you if it has been tampered with or opened or moved on board
this ship before it comes into port here. Then you can hold that ship
outside American territorial waters. Why we are not doing that is again
beyond me.
The Bush administration, if there is a nuclear attack in this
country, if there is a radiological bomb, a dirty bomb in this country
and if it comes in by container, will have a lot to explain.
And another question. Why are we spending $100 billion on an
antiballistic missile system? We are told, assuming it worked, which it
does not yet, but eventually it will, we are told that the ABM is
necessary in case some rogue state, North Korea, Iran, whoever, should
get three or four atomic bombs and wished to attack the United States.
But a rogue state that got three or four atomic bombs and wished to
attack the United States would not put the atomic bomb on a missile.
Aside from the fact that it is harder to design an atomic bomb to put
on a missile than in a shipping container, a missile has a return
address. If, God forbid, a nuclear explosion occurred in an American
city or cities, our radar would tell us where that missile came from
and that regime would know, that dictator would know that if they did
that, they would cease to exist, their country would cease to exist and
they would cease to exist half an hour later. It is called deterrence.
It works against nation states who are rational.
What they would do would be to take that bomb, put it in a shipping
container, ship comes into the United States, New York or Los Angeles
or wherever, explodes and we do not know who to retaliate against. That
is the real danger. That is how the danger will occur to this country
and that we are doing virtually nothing against, certainly not spending
$100 billion.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Yet meanwhile, and these are very valid points that you
are making, the United States is bogged down in Iraq. Reports from
media outlets just this week, the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld,
and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Myers, now admit
that we have lost control of parts of Iraq. The number of cities not
under U.S. or central government control is growing. Pause and think of
that for a moment. First Fallujah, then Ramadi, Baqubah and Samarra,
now Najaf and Karbala, perhaps soon part of Baghdad City itself, Sadr
City. This is reported by the New York Times. The reality is that
security is so bad that a U.S. general says it may be necessary to
delay or skip over voting in violent areas in order to hold elections
in January. But clearly what would that do to the legitimacy of the
interim government? What would that do to the future of democracy in
Iraq?
Mr. NADLER. Clearly, to answer your question, there will be no
legitimacy. There is no legitimacy for that government there now. There
will be no legitimacy for any government that is a result of elections
in which large parts of the country do not participate, and I think it
is probably illusory at this point to hope that there is going to be a
democratic regime in Iraq any time soon.
But what this really points out, what these facts really point out is
that this administration through very ill-advised policies, through not
doing what Senator Kerry and others urged a year and a half ago, to
internationalize it, to say to other countries, we will surrender to
you the monopoly, we will share it with you, we will share with you the
decision-making power, we will share with your companies the business
contracts for reconstruction if you send in your troops to help
reconstruct and if you help do this. They are not going to do it now.
But if this had been done, then it might have been possible to have the
Iraqi people see what is going on there as an international
reconstruction of their country, rather than an American occupation,
because an occupation will bring forth as it now has a nationalist
insurgency resulting in a real quagmire. I do not know how to get out
of it. The worst problem is we are now deeply engaged in a quagmire
that no one has a good idea how to get out at this point.
Mr. DELAHUNT. The gentleman's point is corroborated by an American
military officer. Let me read what a U.S. officer in Sadr City, which
is that restive part, a slum area, if you will, in Baghdad, what he
said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, but this was reported in
Jane's Weekly, a highly respected defense journal published in Britain.
I am quoting him now:
``We're supposed to turn our zones over to the Iraqi National Guard
by October. They are not ready for that. So unless it is coincidence,
it seems politically driven bearing in mind the Presidential election
in November. I know how it must have felt in Vietnam. Everything we do
is driven by political considerations. We don't have enough forces to
stay here. We move into Sadr City and then we leave and each time the
Mahdi Army, that is the army of the Mullah Saddah, comes straight back
in.''
That is the reality of Iraq at this moment in time, and it is only
worsening and it is underscored by what happened this week. Tragically,
tragically, the 1,000th U.S. hero was killed in Iraq.
Mr. NADLER. And tragically that is going to continue. But Iraq is
essentially, despite the fact that we are spending $200 billion so far,
despite the fact that 1,000 Americans so far have been killed and 6 or
7,000 wounded, Iraq is a side show in the war of terrorism that is
being waged against us by the Islamic jihadists and we are not
directing our attention and our resources toward where they are really
needed because we are diverted by Iraq.
As I said before, Saddam Hussein was not a real threat to this
country. He
[[Page H6885]]
had terrible will, he had terrible intentions; but we had him
contained. He did not have the weapons. He did not have the capability.
We had him contained with the no-fly zones, and we had him deterred.
The real threat to the United States in the Middle East is Iran,
because Iran is not a fascist dictatorship. Iran is a religious fanatic
dictatorship. Religious fanatics cannot be deterred. You cannot deter a
suicide bomber. If Saddam Hussein had gotten nuclear weapons, which he
was nowhere near getting, the CIA said 7 to 10 years, and we knew that
before we attacked them. But had he gotten nuclear weapons, deterrence
would have stopped him from using them, because he was a fascist
dictator, not a religious fanatic, and he did not want to just kill
himself and his whole country.
But the mullahs in charge, the ayatollahs in charge in Iran are
religious fanatics and unless that regime is changed, and there is a
lot of domestic opposition to it and maybe we will be saved by regime
change, by domestic insurrection, but if that does not happen, they are
trying to get nuclear weapons; and if Iran gets nuclear weapons, if a
religious dictatorship, religious fanatic dictatorship gets nuclear
weapons, they may very well use them. They say they would. You read the
speeches of Mr. Rafsanjani, the former president, the current chairman
of the council of expediency. He says they would use it. They say they
want to destroy American civilization, and you have to take them at
their word. We cannot permit this regime if it survives to have nuclear
weapons, even if that should mean a few years down the road the
necessity for military action because they might use those nuclear
weapons simply for the greater glory of Allah. They say they would. You
have to believe them. If it became necessary, if President Bush or
President Kerry or their successor 5 years from now or 8 years from now
came before this House and said, based on our intelligence, we know
that the Iranians are about to get nuclear weapons, and we know that
they would use them and we must stop them now, and therefore I ask
authorization for action, who would believe that President?
We cried wolf in Iraq. Like the fabled shepherd boy who cried wolf,
we have no credibility, not this administration certainly and even
another administration will have a long way to go to regain the
credibility of the United States and of our intelligence agencies. To
deal with a nonexistent phantom threat in Iraq, we have made the
problem of dealing with a very possibly real mortal threat in Iran in
years to come 40 or 50 times more difficult because that is where the
threat might really be.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I just want to read into the Record a quote by a former
distinguished Member of this body that commanded respect on both sides
of the aisle. I refer to a good Republican from Nebraska, Doug
Bereuter, who was the vice chair of the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence and, as you well know, one of the most respected Members
of this House. In a farewell letter to his constituents, this is what
he had to say:
``It was a mistake to launch the invasion of Iraq.'' And to
underscore the point that the gentleman from New York was making, ``Our
country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our
alliances are weakened. Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess
and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq
without creating bigger future problems in the region and in general in
the Muslim world.''
I daresay what he is saying is our credibility is at its lowest point
probably in modern American history. That does present a threat to our
national security as we go forward.
Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman and I thank Representative Bereuter
for being honest and being right. Unfortunately, he is right. We are in
a quagmire in Iraq. We must extricate ourselves. I do not know how,
frankly. We must extricate ourselves, and we must get our priorities
straight. We have a war being waged against us by the Muslim
terrorists, not by all Muslims, but by the Muslim terrorists. There is
a civil war going on in the Muslim world. We must have Radio Free
Islam. We must try to help the moderates against the jihadists.
But we must also protect ourselves. We must fight the terrorists, but
we must lead a worldwide civilized effort against the Islamic
terrorists. To do that we have to have credibility around the world. We
have to have alliances around the world. It is not wrong to have
alliances. When Vice President Cheney said, shamefully, that if Senator
Kerry is elected President, our country would not be safe, I think it
more accurately could be said the other way around, because this
administration does not have its priorities straight. It is not
protecting us against the threat of Islamic jihadists having nuclear
weapons, as they will if we do not get control of those nuclear
materials as fast as possible, if we do not spend $3 billion or $4
billion a year for the next 4 years and get them the heck out of Russia
and Uzbekistan and Pakistan and the 40 countries around the world.
We are at risk if we do not protect our ports by having every
container inspected electronically or by hand before it is put on a
ship bound to the United States. We are at risk if we do not protect
our nuclear facilities and our chemical facilities and our
transportation facilities in this country, if we do not harden this
country.
We have been talking about this, but we will not spend the money.
This administration talks a great game about national security, but it
will not spend the money. It will spend it in Iraq, it will spend it on
an ABM system against a nonexistent threat, but against the real
threats of nuclear terrorism, of nuclear explosions in this country,
against the real threats of bombs coming in in a container, of the real
threat of missiles, of shoulder-fired missiles being launched on
American airliners, against the real threat of our nuclear facilities,
our chemical facilities, our transportation facilities being targeted,
we are not spending the money because they care about Iraq, they care
about the ABM, they care about the tax cuts for the rich, but they do
not seem to really care about the safety and security of the American
people; or if they do care, they do not seem to understand where the
real dangers are coming from.
{time} 2200
We must secure the nuclear materials. We must protect the containers
and other shipping facilities abroad. We must protect the ships coming
here. We must harden our nuclear and chemical and transportation
facilities, and this will cost a lot of money. And we must ally with
other countries in a worldwide alliance against the Muslim terrorists
so that when a cell is broken up in Hamburg by German intelligence, by
German police work, that helps us. We must have a worldwide effort
here, and we must spend the money on the real threats and not on these
phantom threats that this administration is preoccupied with.
____________________